Too tired to write anything earth-shaking. In fact, too tired to write anything even mildly amusing. So today, I pinch hit.
What I'm reading:
Buddhism Plain and Simple by Steve Hagen
Man, this is it. I've followed the Buddha-dharma for some thirteen years now, and that has included extensive study and reading. I don't know that I've ever encountered another book that presents it all, removed from most of the cultural bells and whistles, so simply. I've given away and worn out more copies of this book than I can remember.
If you're into Buddhism, or just want a clear head, this is one of the greats.
What I'm watching:
Ronin directed by John Frankenheimer
This is one of those really good movies that no one knows about. When it comes to spy movies, I think Frankenheimer was one of the best. This film has got really nice cinematography, a well-unraveled plot, and of course, De Niro. While it isn't the best role he has ever played, I think he does a great job injecting a lot of depth and texture into material that is fairly stark. As opposed to the tidal-wave of testosterone rolling off of most of the protagonists in modern action cinema, De Niro's portrayal here has this deep sense of practicality that you just can't help but appreciate.
Clue directed by Jonathan Lynn
I cannot tell you how much I love this movie. It has been one of my all-time favorites since I saw it as a kid. I love the campy setting and very play-like dialogue. It has the feel of a well-rehearsed live production, and the chemistry between the actors is phenomenal. I think Wadsworth is arguably Tim Curry's best role, but it is a stiff competition, because Madeline Kahn, Michael Keenan, Eileen Brennan, and Chris Lloyd all steal the freaking show. If nothing else, you should watch this movie just so you can memorize the quotes and use them at opportune times.
What I'm listening to:
The Idler Wheel is Wiser... by Fiona Apple
I love me some Fiona Apple. She's just so nuts, and so totally unashamed about it. Her lyrical stylings are a bizarre mix of emotional vulnerability and the lilting progressions of ee cummings at his avant-garde best. It has been a delight to see her sound grow from something more mainstream (Tidal) into the realms of acid jazz, soul, and folk (this). This album is definitely some exploration on her part, but I think it works well. As weird and off-key as it gets, it always has that dark honesty that defines her work. That said, I'm not sure how this would strike someone that hadn't already been listening to her for a decade, so listener beware on that one.
Act II - The Father of Death by The Protomen
If you grew up in the eighties and love video games, you are pretty much doomed on this one. These guys have taken the basic plot of the Mega Man games for the NES and composed two acts (so far) of a rock opera. When I first discovered it, I thought it was going to be a kind of fun, tongue-in-cheek sort of thing, but imagine my surprise when I actually discovered a lot of soul in both acts. The material is well-composed, and the plot (you'll have to look up the "bridging" bits of action on the net, unless you happen to see it live) is actually thought-provoking. Act I is harsh, fun, yowling, off-key punk rock punctuated by eight-bit chiptunes.
The sounds in Act II are a bizarre and delightful mix, which is much more polished. All of the Dr. Light pieces are done in the tone of Johnny Cash in his middle period. This is directly juxtaposed the Joe numbers, which are driving synth pop that sounds like a hybrid between The Darkness, Cheap Trick, and Meat Loaf on their best respective days. And to complete the mix, Wily's number almost sounds like something from the Stray Cats. It is shamelessly melodramatic, and if you're prone to that 1980's musical excess (or just musicals, really), it will suck you in like a tornado.
Showing posts with label Reviews. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Reviews. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
Book Review: Wayne of Gotham
I just finished reading Wayne of Gotham by Tracy Hickman, and I figured I would get my thoughts down while they were fresh.
Short version: fun read, interesting story, and thought-provoking without providing a full emotional or intellectual lobotomy. Worth a read, but you may want to wait until it is available in paperback or at the library... it isn't life-altering. Just good.
Long version:
I like it. I haven't seen anyone challenge Batman "canon" like this since the Frank Miller era (The Killing Joke, Batman Year One, the Dark Knight Returns). There was a time in my life when I would join in the squalls of outrage when anyone had the nerve to change the way the story was "supposed to be" for one of my comic book idols. As I've gotten older, I find that I actually respect anyone with the salt and creativity to turn a comfortable feature on its head. I don't get any stimulation out of the same thing over and over again.
Time has passed, and I've re-examined my comic book heroes, just as I have everything else in my life. Adulthood and parenthood have piled new layers of meaning to the heroes that I have been watching my whole life. Hickman's story brings a lot of those adult questions into the four-color comics of my youth.
As long as I can remember, Bruce Wayne's parents have been set-pieces. They are a necessary foundation for the more interesting story of Batman. Hickman's preliminary question is a simple one: Just who the hell are these people? Clearly they are the motivation behind the whole Batman story, but they are often just idealized shells of real human beings.
Or perhaps, more accurately, they are people who retain the giant stature that parents occupy in the minds of their young children. An interesting piece in the Batman puzzle is how early he loses them. I can tell you about the unsettling journey I took in my twenties, when I started seeing my parents as real, flawed human beings instead of the giants I perceived them to be in my youth. I remember that time in my life as a series of painful revelations, which made the world seem a lot less simple than it had previously been. I remember questioning who I was and where I came from.
In my late teens and early twenties, I was very idealistic and set out to pursue a life that would honor the heroes, both real and imagined, in my life. As I got into the actual process of doing so, I realized that it wasn't so simple. Not all the heroes were heroes. And I didn't always get to be the "good guy", and the person I opposed wasn't always the "bad guy". In fact, most of the people I dealt with were just... guys. Or girls. Gender irregardless, most people tended to exist somewhere in the middle of the moral spectrum, as did I. It made life a lot more difficult to understand and pursue. I had to come to a much deeper understanding of who I was, and why I did what I did.
I imagine what it would be like if that journey didn't happen until my fifties. I imagine what it might be like if I built my entire life, my entire world-view on an inaccurate illusion of people who did not really exist.
I don't have to imagine too hard, because Hickman pulls it off pretty damn well in the book. The psychological conflict is often portrayed in terms of symbols and images, instead of out-and-out narrative, but I think that works fairly well in the course of his work. Some might opine that there are too many dark and decaying buildings in Hickman's landscape, but remember that the landscape is ultimately just a reflection of the mindscape of the creature who is definitely Batman and, at times, Bruce Wayne.
The apex of the book resonates pretty strongly with me, and I think it goes something like this: you come from a complex, difficult, and to some extent (greater or lesser) fucked up system (read: your family), and like it or not, their baggage is yours. Ultimately, though, you choose who and what you are, and no one else is responsible for that choice. And at times, that might mean putting to rest pieces of your identity from childhood that no longer matter.
Short version: fun read, interesting story, and thought-provoking without providing a full emotional or intellectual lobotomy. Worth a read, but you may want to wait until it is available in paperback or at the library... it isn't life-altering. Just good.
Long version:
I like it. I haven't seen anyone challenge Batman "canon" like this since the Frank Miller era (The Killing Joke, Batman Year One, the Dark Knight Returns). There was a time in my life when I would join in the squalls of outrage when anyone had the nerve to change the way the story was "supposed to be" for one of my comic book idols. As I've gotten older, I find that I actually respect anyone with the salt and creativity to turn a comfortable feature on its head. I don't get any stimulation out of the same thing over and over again.
Time has passed, and I've re-examined my comic book heroes, just as I have everything else in my life. Adulthood and parenthood have piled new layers of meaning to the heroes that I have been watching my whole life. Hickman's story brings a lot of those adult questions into the four-color comics of my youth.
As long as I can remember, Bruce Wayne's parents have been set-pieces. They are a necessary foundation for the more interesting story of Batman. Hickman's preliminary question is a simple one: Just who the hell are these people? Clearly they are the motivation behind the whole Batman story, but they are often just idealized shells of real human beings.
Or perhaps, more accurately, they are people who retain the giant stature that parents occupy in the minds of their young children. An interesting piece in the Batman puzzle is how early he loses them. I can tell you about the unsettling journey I took in my twenties, when I started seeing my parents as real, flawed human beings instead of the giants I perceived them to be in my youth. I remember that time in my life as a series of painful revelations, which made the world seem a lot less simple than it had previously been. I remember questioning who I was and where I came from.
In my late teens and early twenties, I was very idealistic and set out to pursue a life that would honor the heroes, both real and imagined, in my life. As I got into the actual process of doing so, I realized that it wasn't so simple. Not all the heroes were heroes. And I didn't always get to be the "good guy", and the person I opposed wasn't always the "bad guy". In fact, most of the people I dealt with were just... guys. Or girls. Gender irregardless, most people tended to exist somewhere in the middle of the moral spectrum, as did I. It made life a lot more difficult to understand and pursue. I had to come to a much deeper understanding of who I was, and why I did what I did.
I imagine what it would be like if that journey didn't happen until my fifties. I imagine what it might be like if I built my entire life, my entire world-view on an inaccurate illusion of people who did not really exist.
I don't have to imagine too hard, because Hickman pulls it off pretty damn well in the book. The psychological conflict is often portrayed in terms of symbols and images, instead of out-and-out narrative, but I think that works fairly well in the course of his work. Some might opine that there are too many dark and decaying buildings in Hickman's landscape, but remember that the landscape is ultimately just a reflection of the mindscape of the creature who is definitely Batman and, at times, Bruce Wayne.
The apex of the book resonates pretty strongly with me, and I think it goes something like this: you come from a complex, difficult, and to some extent (greater or lesser) fucked up system (read: your family), and like it or not, their baggage is yours. Ultimately, though, you choose who and what you are, and no one else is responsible for that choice. And at times, that might mean putting to rest pieces of your identity from childhood that no longer matter.
Friday, March 16, 2012
Review: Legend of Zelda - Skyward Sword
And in the beginning, there was Zelda...
The Legend of Zelda was not the first game I played as a child, but it was pretty damn close. It was certainly the first game that totally sucked me into an alternate universe. To this day, I have extremely fond memories of that shiny gold cartridge... I remember hours spent slogging from screen to screen, trying to acquire every item possible in a seemingly never-ending quest to destroy Gannon and save Zelda. The game just rung all the Jungian archetype bells in my head.
Suffice to say, I have played damn near every Legend of Zelda game from the beginning onward. Here's my take on Skyward Sword.
Story
As far as Zelda games go, the story is good. That isn't to say that the story is good. It remains formulaic, and doesn't really have any twists or turns that put your jaw on the floor. There are none of those profound moments where you get glimpses into the true human condition. That said, it does its job well. I stayed interested and engaged for the entire game, and felt triumphant and accomplished at all the appropriate times. The developers have recognized how the original game hit all those resounding archetypes in the minds of players, and with that in mind, they have kept the main elements in the story extremely consistent from game to game. Why? Because... well, it works. You're really never going to go wrong with the story of the young boy who sets out to save the princess and discovers the importance of courage, wisdom, and strength along the way.
I find myself craving more depth than is present in the story, but I have to remind myself that a thirty year-old attorney with a degree in literature is not Nintendo's target audience. The developers there have intentionally kept their story-telling very broad to appeal to the widest range of cultures and ages. That's fine by me. If I need a deep, nuanced, absorbing story, I'll read a book.
While the story is certainly accessible to younger players, the developers won a lot of points with me using clever dialogue. It's their compromise with older players, I think. The many inhabitants of Link's world are quite funny. A wry sense of humor permeates the game.
Of course, as is true with all Zelda games, the dialogue fell totally flat with Link. Nintendo has continued in their choice to make Link a mute that only communicates in situationally appropriate grunts. I have to tell you, there are quite a few times in the story where I wanted Link to say something. Anything. Please. When an evil sorcerer kidnaps the love of your life and belittles the entirety of the human race, I feel like you really should have some kind of snappy come-back, other than just sticking a sword down his gullet.
Visuals
Art often emerges from times where the medium limits the artist, and the artist cleverly gets around that limitation with good choices.
That is my best description of the visuals in this game. They are truly excellent. When I first started playing, the 3D world bothered me a bit because it wasn't the ultra-rendered, super-detailed environment you see on the more graphics-focused systems like the Playstation 3.
Gradually, though, I came to realize that the developers compensated for the system's technical limitations by using a style of visuals that was had a watercolor look to it. The soft, blurry edges happened on purpose. By the end of the game, I found myself quite fond of it. Paired with the extremely strong concept art, it made for an immersive visual experience that stayed with me. Even though there aren't beautifully rendered textures, the various locations are just so intriguing and enjoyable in their designs that you can't get the images out of your head. More than once, I found myself stopping gameplay just to look at something they'd come up with and think, "Damn, that's cool!"
I can think of any number of games for the more sophisticated systems where this was not the case.
Gameplay
This is where the people at Nintendo shine. After the extremely positive reception of the previous Zelda game for Wii, people were more than a little miffed that the new game took so long. Once you have played Skyward Sword for a bit, it becomes readily apparent why.
Everything about the game play is beautifully fine-tuned. I can't imagine how many hours went into playtesting and perfecting the mechanics of this game. I can say with some confidence that this game exemplifies everything they developers at Nintendo hoped the Wii would embody.
The use of the sword and shield is just about as intuitive as it could get, absent giving you an actual sword and shield to use. There is a lot of nuance to the timing and directing of your cuts and blocks, though the more casual gamer can still swing the remote around like a madman and get by.
The use of the various items you pick up is the real genius of the game. Be it a sling-shot, a bellows, or a remote-controlled flying beetle, the developers keep coming up with new, creative ways that the player has to utilize these treasures through the game. The treasures aren't just mandatory things you have to get. They are instrumentalities that lead to whole new arrays of puzzles and devilish challenges. As an added bonus, you'll find yourself using gizmos from the beginning of the game right at the end. Everything is relevant.
Now, this isn't to say there aren't a few rough spots in the gameplay. For example, the flying mechanic used in the game has a fairly large learning curve, and even towards the end of the game, you still end up feeling awkward and clumsy. This is exacerbated by the fact that you are constantly flying.
Conclusion
All in all, this one was a triumph. While it did not have everything I could have possibly wanted, it did have everything a Zelda game ought to have. I found myself magically transported to my childhood. I fought monsters, found treasure, and saved the princess. In short, I couldn't put the damn thing down. The minor flaws are handily outweighed by the enormous positives in this game. Go buy it.
The Legend of Zelda was not the first game I played as a child, but it was pretty damn close. It was certainly the first game that totally sucked me into an alternate universe. To this day, I have extremely fond memories of that shiny gold cartridge... I remember hours spent slogging from screen to screen, trying to acquire every item possible in a seemingly never-ending quest to destroy Gannon and save Zelda. The game just rung all the Jungian archetype bells in my head.
Suffice to say, I have played damn near every Legend of Zelda game from the beginning onward. Here's my take on Skyward Sword.
Story
As far as Zelda games go, the story is good. That isn't to say that the story is good. It remains formulaic, and doesn't really have any twists or turns that put your jaw on the floor. There are none of those profound moments where you get glimpses into the true human condition. That said, it does its job well. I stayed interested and engaged for the entire game, and felt triumphant and accomplished at all the appropriate times. The developers have recognized how the original game hit all those resounding archetypes in the minds of players, and with that in mind, they have kept the main elements in the story extremely consistent from game to game. Why? Because... well, it works. You're really never going to go wrong with the story of the young boy who sets out to save the princess and discovers the importance of courage, wisdom, and strength along the way.
I find myself craving more depth than is present in the story, but I have to remind myself that a thirty year-old attorney with a degree in literature is not Nintendo's target audience. The developers there have intentionally kept their story-telling very broad to appeal to the widest range of cultures and ages. That's fine by me. If I need a deep, nuanced, absorbing story, I'll read a book.
While the story is certainly accessible to younger players, the developers won a lot of points with me using clever dialogue. It's their compromise with older players, I think. The many inhabitants of Link's world are quite funny. A wry sense of humor permeates the game.
Of course, as is true with all Zelda games, the dialogue fell totally flat with Link. Nintendo has continued in their choice to make Link a mute that only communicates in situationally appropriate grunts. I have to tell you, there are quite a few times in the story where I wanted Link to say something. Anything. Please. When an evil sorcerer kidnaps the love of your life and belittles the entirety of the human race, I feel like you really should have some kind of snappy come-back, other than just sticking a sword down his gullet.
Visuals
Art often emerges from times where the medium limits the artist, and the artist cleverly gets around that limitation with good choices.
That is my best description of the visuals in this game. They are truly excellent. When I first started playing, the 3D world bothered me a bit because it wasn't the ultra-rendered, super-detailed environment you see on the more graphics-focused systems like the Playstation 3.
Gradually, though, I came to realize that the developers compensated for the system's technical limitations by using a style of visuals that was had a watercolor look to it. The soft, blurry edges happened on purpose. By the end of the game, I found myself quite fond of it. Paired with the extremely strong concept art, it made for an immersive visual experience that stayed with me. Even though there aren't beautifully rendered textures, the various locations are just so intriguing and enjoyable in their designs that you can't get the images out of your head. More than once, I found myself stopping gameplay just to look at something they'd come up with and think, "Damn, that's cool!"
I can think of any number of games for the more sophisticated systems where this was not the case.
Gameplay
This is where the people at Nintendo shine. After the extremely positive reception of the previous Zelda game for Wii, people were more than a little miffed that the new game took so long. Once you have played Skyward Sword for a bit, it becomes readily apparent why.
Everything about the game play is beautifully fine-tuned. I can't imagine how many hours went into playtesting and perfecting the mechanics of this game. I can say with some confidence that this game exemplifies everything they developers at Nintendo hoped the Wii would embody.
The use of the sword and shield is just about as intuitive as it could get, absent giving you an actual sword and shield to use. There is a lot of nuance to the timing and directing of your cuts and blocks, though the more casual gamer can still swing the remote around like a madman and get by.
The use of the various items you pick up is the real genius of the game. Be it a sling-shot, a bellows, or a remote-controlled flying beetle, the developers keep coming up with new, creative ways that the player has to utilize these treasures through the game. The treasures aren't just mandatory things you have to get. They are instrumentalities that lead to whole new arrays of puzzles and devilish challenges. As an added bonus, you'll find yourself using gizmos from the beginning of the game right at the end. Everything is relevant.
Now, this isn't to say there aren't a few rough spots in the gameplay. For example, the flying mechanic used in the game has a fairly large learning curve, and even towards the end of the game, you still end up feeling awkward and clumsy. This is exacerbated by the fact that you are constantly flying.
Conclusion
All in all, this one was a triumph. While it did not have everything I could have possibly wanted, it did have everything a Zelda game ought to have. I found myself magically transported to my childhood. I fought monsters, found treasure, and saved the princess. In short, I couldn't put the damn thing down. The minor flaws are handily outweighed by the enormous positives in this game. Go buy it.
Friday, February 3, 2012
Ipod Nano 6th Gen Review
So, about half a year ago, I decided to get back into exercise. I spent the first few months on an elliptical machine, but ultimately, my labors led me back to my first true love: running. Accompanying me on this journey was my trusty, faithful, and enormous ipod classic which holds my entire music collection. Admittedly, there is something deeply re-assuring about holding my entire music collection in a device which is about the size of a deck of playing cards, but after four miles of running, it was getting a little bulky. No matter what type of fitness band I bought to hold it, it would slip and get out of place. Putting it in the minimal pocket of my running shorts always seemed like a quick way to DBSD (death by sudden drop) it. Even holding it in my hand got a little annoying with the long distances. Not to mention, as some of my tech-savvy friends explained, all that jostling and jarring wasn't good for an ipod classic, which has moving parts.
Factoring in all these things, I made the decision to get something a little smaller and more form-factored towards running. I'd like to tell you that I seriously considered all the non-Apple stuff, but that would be a bold-faced lie. It ain't that I've drank the Jobs kool-aid or anything like that. It is just that I have maintained an itunes library for over half a decade now, perfectly organized with album art and beautiful tags. I am disinclined to abandon this work of art and reorganize all my stuff for a different player. There may be a PC-based music player out there that is affordable, stylish, and can cure cancer, but my laziness has precluded me from experiencing this wonder.
I briefly considered a Shuffle, but at my core, I am a control freak. I did not like the idea of not being able to see what I was listening to at any given moment. More importantly, I did not like the inability to quickly change said music in a flight of fancy.
This brought me to the Nano. Now, I have had a wealth of friends who have purchased the ipod Nano and loved it, so I felt like this was a pretty safe bet... and then I looked on Apple's website. Gone was the little gizmo that looked like the piglet version of the ipod classic. In its place was... well, for lack of better description, an electronic postage stamp.
It had no click wheel. I repeat, it had no click wheel. Now, I love me some click wheel. I thought that as an innovation, it was one of Apple's best. The click wheel brought a certain mindlessly intuitive ease to the use of an ipod. I don't doubt that this feature, paired with some really slick marketing, is what made the ipod the juggernaut of the portable audio set.
I stared at this wheel-less aberration, and suddenly understood what the crowd at Kitty Hawk felt like when they gazed upon the first airplane. A bit of research quickly revealed that the general public shared my uneasiness. The click wheel had become our technological equivalent of Linus' security blanket.
At first glance, this new contraption seemed a bit ridiculous. After all, what the heck could you accomplish with a touch-screen interface that was less than two inches wide? It just seemed like the people at Apple had decided to try and making a quick buck by forcing their ipod touch design onto a different model. Why abandon the click wheel?
The answer hit me in a flash. It's the only damn way you could make this thing any smaller. It lives right there in the name: Nano. The whole point is for it to be small. They had made it as thin as possible. The only way to make it smaller would be to merge the display and the interface into one thing, and that is exactly what they did.
Now, there were certainly some squalls of outrage because of this choice. Unlike the 5th generation, this Nano lacks a camera (and the ability to view videos, for that matter), games, and the built-in organizer function. Some might scratch their head that a future generation of a product does less stuff, but it does make sense. Think about it. Do you know a single human being that did any serious filming on an ipod Nano? Or used it as an organizer? All of these things are done way better by other devices.
On an ipod, these features sound like the sort of pointless bells-and-whistles a lazy group of designers would graft onto an already functional product in order to re-hash it and snag a sales boost.
That's the opposite of what happened with the 6th gen Nano. I think it is fair to say that the people at Apple, design wonks that they are, went back to the drawing board and asked themselves, "Why do people want this product?" And the answer is simple - it is a really small, really intuitive music-player.
And by that standard, this thing passes muster. It is ridiculously small. (In fact, the worst thing I could say about it is that you could easily lose it or accidentally toss it in the wash.) The storage is adequate to have a good range of music for your daily tasks, and the interface is pretty easy to learn and use. Battery life is decent so long as you aren't firing up the touch screen every two seconds. The fitness-related features are particularly nice, if you are into that sort of thing. The walking and running measuring/timing apparatus is surprisingly accurate, and the little post-workout "progress report" is a nice feature if you like to track your performance.
In short, it does everything I want it to do, and I feel like it was a good bargain for a little more than $100.
Factoring in all these things, I made the decision to get something a little smaller and more form-factored towards running. I'd like to tell you that I seriously considered all the non-Apple stuff, but that would be a bold-faced lie. It ain't that I've drank the Jobs kool-aid or anything like that. It is just that I have maintained an itunes library for over half a decade now, perfectly organized with album art and beautiful tags. I am disinclined to abandon this work of art and reorganize all my stuff for a different player. There may be a PC-based music player out there that is affordable, stylish, and can cure cancer, but my laziness has precluded me from experiencing this wonder.
I briefly considered a Shuffle, but at my core, I am a control freak. I did not like the idea of not being able to see what I was listening to at any given moment. More importantly, I did not like the inability to quickly change said music in a flight of fancy.
This brought me to the Nano. Now, I have had a wealth of friends who have purchased the ipod Nano and loved it, so I felt like this was a pretty safe bet... and then I looked on Apple's website. Gone was the little gizmo that looked like the piglet version of the ipod classic. In its place was... well, for lack of better description, an electronic postage stamp.
It had no click wheel. I repeat, it had no click wheel. Now, I love me some click wheel. I thought that as an innovation, it was one of Apple's best. The click wheel brought a certain mindlessly intuitive ease to the use of an ipod. I don't doubt that this feature, paired with some really slick marketing, is what made the ipod the juggernaut of the portable audio set.
I stared at this wheel-less aberration, and suddenly understood what the crowd at Kitty Hawk felt like when they gazed upon the first airplane. A bit of research quickly revealed that the general public shared my uneasiness. The click wheel had become our technological equivalent of Linus' security blanket.
At first glance, this new contraption seemed a bit ridiculous. After all, what the heck could you accomplish with a touch-screen interface that was less than two inches wide? It just seemed like the people at Apple had decided to try and making a quick buck by forcing their ipod touch design onto a different model. Why abandon the click wheel?
The answer hit me in a flash. It's the only damn way you could make this thing any smaller. It lives right there in the name: Nano. The whole point is for it to be small. They had made it as thin as possible. The only way to make it smaller would be to merge the display and the interface into one thing, and that is exactly what they did.
Now, there were certainly some squalls of outrage because of this choice. Unlike the 5th generation, this Nano lacks a camera (and the ability to view videos, for that matter), games, and the built-in organizer function. Some might scratch their head that a future generation of a product does less stuff, but it does make sense. Think about it. Do you know a single human being that did any serious filming on an ipod Nano? Or used it as an organizer? All of these things are done way better by other devices.
On an ipod, these features sound like the sort of pointless bells-and-whistles a lazy group of designers would graft onto an already functional product in order to re-hash it and snag a sales boost.
That's the opposite of what happened with the 6th gen Nano. I think it is fair to say that the people at Apple, design wonks that they are, went back to the drawing board and asked themselves, "Why do people want this product?" And the answer is simple - it is a really small, really intuitive music-player.
And by that standard, this thing passes muster. It is ridiculously small. (In fact, the worst thing I could say about it is that you could easily lose it or accidentally toss it in the wash.) The storage is adequate to have a good range of music for your daily tasks, and the interface is pretty easy to learn and use. Battery life is decent so long as you aren't firing up the touch screen every two seconds. The fitness-related features are particularly nice, if you are into that sort of thing. The walking and running measuring/timing apparatus is surprisingly accurate, and the little post-workout "progress report" is a nice feature if you like to track your performance.
In short, it does everything I want it to do, and I feel like it was a good bargain for a little more than $100.
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