A Star-Crossed Wasteland

A few years ago I heard a song by an unknown band called In This Moment.  That song was Daddy's Fallen Angel.  Try as I may, I could not find any albums or much information on this band.  Later, in 2008, In This Moment released a new album, The Dream.  It was amazing!  It is one of only a few albums each year that I can listen to beginning to end.  As an added bonus, the lead singer, Maria Brink is HOT!  In This Moment quickly earned a spot as one of my favorite bands.  In 2010, In This Moment gave us a new album.

A Star-Crossed Wasteland is In This Moments third album.  Unlike The Dream, it is a much heavier work.  On their previous album, The Dream, they showed a more mainstream side.  I would guess that the demographic of that album was the same as Evanescence.  In comparison, A Star-Crossed Wasteland is more like listening to Kittie. Maria Brink is a tremendously talented vocalist.  What many listeners might not appreciate is how well she can scream.  And she screams for us on this album.  Unfortunately many fans of The Dream will not like this new album.  I do hope that at least a few will listen with an open mind, they just might find out they like something new.

It took a few times through for me, but I love this album too.  The sound is aggressive and dynamic.  With this album Maria has proven her voice is a force to be reckoned with.  The album starts out strong with Gunshow,  from there it never lets up.  Track after track could be their next single, my money is on Iron Army. Tacks like the title track, A Star-Crossed Wasteland, and World In Flames will appeal to fans of The Dream.  While  Tracks like Gunshow and Iron Army will appeal to fans of Beautiful Tragedy, their first album.  Overall, this album is an evolution for the band.  While not being unlike their previous works, it is a completely new experience for the listener.

A Comparison of their works:


A popular single from The Dream.


Their latest single form A Star-Crossed Wasteland.

Update:  I just found out The Promise is the second single off A Star-Crossed Wasteland.  A very good song that should appeal to all fans.

"Reach"ing to new heights.

I've had a little over a week to spend with Halo Reach.  I can honestly say I am impressed.  The campaign was much deeper and rich than I could have ever expected.  While there were many core changes to the gameplay, it has all been positive.  As I expected, the campaign was a bit short, but fun.  Visually, Reach is something to behold.  Unlike the typical FPS today, the bold use of vibrant colors added to the immersion.

The multiplayer is still very much Halo, just better.  New maps and a ranking system that will appeal to less "hard-core" players expand on what was a great online experience.  The Daily and Weekly challenges have the desired effect of pulling you in for "just one more."  Time and again, even for less talented gamers such as myself, I kept starting a new round.  While I would not expect Reach to convert non-fans, any "fan" owes it to themselves to own this game.

PSGroove and Teensy++ Review.

If you are not already aware, an exploit for the PS3 has been released for public consumption.  It is based on a reverse engineering of the PSjailbreak that was announced prior to this.  PSGroove, unlike PSjailbreak, is an open source project.  The project can be found here.  It is designed to run on ATMEL based USB development boards.  Two of the more popular boards are the teensy and teensy++.  A great source for these is PJRC.  Myself, due to better specs, purchased a teensy++.  (There is no evidence that the added storage/memory will ever be needed for this project.)

Teensy++:
The most striking thing about the teensy++ is how teensy it really is.  At 2.0 by 0.7 inches, it is smaller than a stick of gum.  The procedure for flashing PSGroove to the teensy++ was incredibly simple.  After finding the appropriate .hex file, a button push and a few mouse clicks later the process was done.  Upgrades are just as simple.  At a price of $24 it makes for a very low priced option for those wanting to exploit their PS3.

PSGroove:
At the moment there are few different revisions of PSGroove.  As this is an open source project, expect many more to come.  For the most part they all function the same and for the purpose of this review an overall generalization will do.  The main function of PSGroove is to allow the installation and execution of unsigned packages (homebrew) on the PS3.  While PS3 homebrew is in its infancy, even it this short amount of time numerous projects have come about.  Among those are a Backup Manager, FTP server, and SNES emulator.  All these projects work well with PSGroove, as designed.

It would be impossible to review PSGroove without a quick review of the Backup Manager.  Backup Manager is by no means a feature rich piece of homebrew.  It does, however, perform well.  Currently compatibility is high, over 90%.  A growing compatibility list can be found here.  While it could be argued that there are no legitimate reasons for using the Backup Manager, it is very possible that using the Backup Manager could extend the life of the Blu-Ray drive in the PS3.  For those with original consoles with Backwards Compatibility, potentially keeping these original consoles working as long a possible is important.  Getting a replacement for these is next to impossible.  On the other hand, the ability to backup games they do not own will, unfortunately, appeal to a large group of people.

Other Thoughts:
For the price, a Teensy/Teensy++ with PSGroove is a worthy investment.  It does, however, come with other costs.  It currently can only be used on firmware 3.41.  If your firmware is higher than this, you are out of luck.  This means, at least for the short term, you will have to sacrifice online play and future features.  Ultimately, it is up to each user to decide if the pros outweigh the cons.

While this is a brief overview, for those who would like more information please spend some time on the psx-scene forum.