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Will Brutal Legend rock your world?

We've written before about Brutal Legend, the just-released video game starring big-screen funnyman Jack Black. Produced by Tim Schafer, who has several cult classics (from Grim Fandango to Psychonauts) under his belt, the game has built up a lot of positive industry buzz, but is also in danger of being overshadowed by a flood of fall 2009 blockbusters, from Uncharted 2 to The Beatles: Rock Band.

Does Brutal Legend--a wide-ranging action/adventure about a foul-mouthed heavy metal band roadie who gets smacked on the head and wakes up in a D&D-style fantasy land--have what it takes to rock gamers this holiday season?

Dan: Having seen and played a few segments of the game at different times over the past eight months, I was eager to have a chance to spend a weekend playing through a bigger chunk of the main campaign. Several hours in, Brutal Legend has done an overall excellent job of treading the very fine line between comedy and gameplay--but not without some serious stumbles along the way.

I'd be the first to say I'm not a Jack Black "fan," but this is clearly a role he was born to play. He's apparently into it as well, and shows up as himself for a clever live-action intro video. The game's writing is sharp, even if much of it is clearly constructed from contextual one-liners that Black's character, Eddie Rigg, spouts off in a semi-random fashion.

But we ended up having more fun listening to the dialog than playing the game itself. Brutal Legend doesn't seem to know if it wants to be a hack-and-slash action game, an open-world exploration RPG, or a squad strategy game--as Eddie picks up small armies of head-banging locals to order around with basic follow/stay/attack D-pad commands.

Perhaps trying to mash all these genres together caused a few of the rough, unfinished edges we saw. Cut scenes and in-game dialog crashed awkwardly into each other, cutting off characters mid-sentence. Transitions between dialog and action scenes were abrupt and sometimes disorienting.

But despite some muddled ideas, we kept going back for more, drawn in by the Frank Frazetta-style art (think '70s metal album covers) and inside baseball music biz jokes--and as someone who has spent some time in a self-parodying heavy metal band, that's high praise.

Jeff: It's tough to name a game that has as much hype this. It's probably because of the talent involved in the game; Jack Black has sported a Brutal Legend T-shirt everywhere he's gone for the last year and voice work comes from rock legends like Lemmy Kilmister (Motorhead) and Ozzy Osbourne.

Brutal Legend is unique, in that you'll experience a variety of gameplay genres mashed up together inside. The game incorporates open-world driving, action/adventure, real-time strategy, and elements of role-playing.

If there's one thing the game does right, it's establishing the metal atmosphere.… Read more

Hands on: Lexar total security thumbdrive

Thumbdrives offer arguably one of the most convenient ways to carry data around. However, because they are so small, they have been frequent culprits of data breaches. Enter the JumpDrive from Lexar.

The company announced Thursday its new JumpDrive Safe S3000 FIPS, which it claims is the world's first smart-card-based FITS 140-2 Level 3 validated flash drive.

Lengthy name aside, this is the most secure and easy-to-use thumbdrive I've ever gotten my hands on.

(FIPS 140-2, by the way, stands for Federal Information Processing Standard and is a U.S. government computer security standard used to accredit cryptographic modules. Level 3 of this standard is the second highest level of data security, which prevents the intruder from gaining access and requires a physical security mechanism to protect the data inside.)

Physically, the new JumpDrive looks very much like most standard thumbdrives on the market with a detachable lid that reveals the USB head. However, it is noticeably heavier due to its thick metal housing and a presumably sophisticated mix of high-security components inside. Its lid also has a thick layer of rubber insulation to keep the moisture out. According to Lexar, the drive exceeds military waterproof standards.

Lexar said the JumpDrive Safe S3000 FIPS is certified by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and features hardware encryption and is the first of its kind to have atemper-resistant smart card to manage all security critical computations. The drive uses the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) 256-bit technology and utilizes an onboard hardware cryptographic controller to encrypt and decrypt data.

From the user's perspective, however, the drive is almost as easy to use as any thumbdrive. I tried it with a few computers and it worked very well. … Read more

Draw your way to safety

iDork Lite is a free, 15-level preview for iDork, a path-tracing game similar to other arcade/puzzle games for the iPhone and iPod Touch in which you use your touch screen to draw a path to help a stick figure avoid various obstacles--in this case, animated pencils, protractors, erasers, and other deadly school supplies, since your "iDork" is "lost in a world of school paperwork."

Once you trace a line for your iDork to walk on, you move him by placing a virtual thumbtack where you want him to go, and pressing a jump button for … Read more

The Great American Redneck Truck Jump

This week, my blog has been dedicated to redneck vehicles, drivers and racing. For my final installment in this series, I found this hilarious web video featuring a group of hilljacks racing their pickup truck over railroad tracks at increasingly accelerated speeds. After realizing the truck was thrashed after numerous jumps (and probably after several beers), the redneck buddies gang up on the truck and tip it over into a ditch. Check it out at 3:00 mark. Totally ridiculous.

LongJump to foster private clouds for corporate IT

As cloud computing edges forward in fits and starts, one recurring question is whether more companies will opt to put their IT services on so-called public clouds or private ones.

The former are available to any individual or business, which essentially rent out a menu of scalable resources. That's a popular option for startups and fledgling outfits, which can't afford to sink much money into paying for an extensive hardware infrastructure. Private clouds, on the other hand, typically offer stronger security and reliability and are thought to have special appeal to IT managers keen on keeping their use … Read more

Racing on the waves

Aqua Moto Racing is an attractive, addictive, and highly replayable 3D Jet Ski racing game--and one of the best games of its kind available on the iPhone and iPod Touch. You control your Jet Ski with simple, intuitive controls: you tilt your device right or left to turn (the farther you tilt, the tighter the turn), and you touch the left side of the screen to brake and the right side to "boost." This temporary speed increase uses the "boost" meter, which you recharge by passing buoys closely and performing stunts off of ramps. Performing tricks … Read more

They're not thumbdrives, they're handdrives (or something)

I'm really not sure who these hand-gesture thumbdrives are supposed to impress, but I kind of want one. But only kind of. I, being a rocker, would take the devil horns first. The other one's got a weird Dan Brown thing going on, and it kind of creeps me out.

The main reservation I have is how these would feel in my pocket. The drive I carry in my back pocket now is fairly small and unobtrusive. Something like this would definitely be noticed were I to have a seat on a hard surface. At least it would … Read more