Fast Five Review

Review: In "Fast Five", Director Justin Lin and a cast spanning the last five Fast and Furious movies combine to bring us the best film in the series.

In the very first sequence of Fast Five, former federal officer Brian O’Conner (Paul Walker) slams on the brakes of his muscle car, and a bus slams into it at an angle. If you are a fan of physics — or just happen to live on this planet — you can guess what should happen. If you guessed that the muscle car would be obliterated, welcome to the human race. If you guessed that the car would cause the much, much heavier bus to flip over spectacularly, then welcome to the world of Fast Five.
It is with this intro that you are given the rules to the universe of the film you are about to watch. At every bend, there is a casual disregard to the laws of nature; almost a “take that, physics” approach to life. And that is fine. The Fast and Furious series is an escapist fantasy. We watch the $100,000 cars driven by beautiful women and tough men, then we jump in our beat up Civics and station wagons and drive home, probably a little faster than we should. You don’t want to put too much thought into the logic of it, and honestly, reality would only get in the way of enjoying this series.
But a bigger issue for the franchise than just its propensity for flipping off science: How do you keep a series fresh after five outings? There are only so many ways to race, and explosions can only get so big (although don’t tell that to Michael Bay). The answer is that you take what works about the series and shift it subtly into a new direction that is original, but doesn’t feel alien to the franchise. That is what director Justin Lin has done by making Fast Five into something of a traditional “heist” movie. And it not only helps to breathe life into the franchise, it helps to deliver the best movie of the series to date.
The fifth Fast and Furious installment picks up exactly where the last movie ended, with Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) on his way to prison while O’Conner and Dom’s sister Mia (Jordana Brewster) lead an assault to free him. After the rescue, O’Conner and Mia, both very much in love, head to Rio to rendezvous with Dom, and end up staying with Vince (Matt Schulze), the stereotypical “angry guy” from the first film. He has a job for them, and when Dom shows up, they all head off to steal cars. Off a train.
Things go bad quickly, and after a physics-be-damned style escape, the group is being hunted by the resident kingpin of Rio, Herman Reyes (Joaquin de Almeida), because of something they accidently took with them. Mia soon admits that she is preggers, which inspires Dom and O’Conner to eschew running from the forces closing in on them, and instead pull off one massive job that will set them all up for life and cripple Reyes’ operation. But to pull it off, they need a team.
The team is a collection of the Fast and Furious all-stars throughout the years. From the second film 2 Fast 2 Furious, Roman Pearce (Tyrese Gibson) and Tej Parker (Chris “Ludacris” Bridges) return. From the third film The Fast And the Furious: Tokyo Drift, Han Lue (Sung Kang) appears. From the previous film, Fast & Furious, Tego Leo (Tego Calderon), Rico Santos (Don Omar) and Gisele Harabo (Gal Gadot) fill out the crew.
Unbeknownst to the super friends, an elite DSS agent, Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) is on their trail, and with the help of local Rio officer Elena Neves (Elsa Pataky) and a group of highly trained agents, he sees it as his duty to bring them all to justice.


In terms of continuity, here is the strangest part of the film. Fast Five is the fifth movie in the series, but like its predecessor Fast & Furious, it takes place before the events of The Fast And The Furious: Tokyo Drift which is last film in terms of continuity. The only reason to do this is to include Sung Kang’s character of Han, who died in the third film. Now, Han is a good character, and Kang is undeniably a charismatic actor, but it feels a bit like buyers’ remorse than anything else — the producers obviously regret having killed him. It doesn’t make any difference to the story to have Tokyo Drift set in the future, but it might confuse some.
For this series, the change to the heist theme feels natural and right. Fast Five is in many ways closer in tone to movies like The Italian Job, or even Ocean’s 11 than it is to the previous films in the series. In fact, there is very little racing at all in the movie, and only one extended driving sequence at the end. It was a fairly bold move at that. There is one scene where a car race is about to happen, but it skips the actual racing to further the plot. While it is somewhat counterintuitive to say about a franchise based around fast cars, impossibly beautiful women and the like, the series has actually matured. At least a bit. While there is still a ton of ridiculous action, it is not thrown in just to look good, it all serves a purpose.
Each of the characters has a part to play, and while it is always hard to stand out in an ensemble cast, the actors all compliment each other and mesh surprisingly well. In fact, it is something of an accomplishment in itself to have so many big name stars work together, and that is a testament to Lin.
You can almost feel the growth of Justin Lin into a solid action director over the course of the last three Fast and Furious movies. Lin has always had an eye for action, even when he was just starting out and filming on next to no budget with films like Better Luck Tomorrow. As he has learned and grown as a filmmaker, the way he frames scenes has drastically improved, as has his eye for color and aesthetics — something that was at times an issue in the previous film. It’ll be interesting to see where Lin goes from here. Hollywood is currently in love with him, and he is attached to direct the next Terminator starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, so his name may be one that you hear for years to come.
The rest of the crew turns in solid preformances as well, and you can almost feel that they had a good time making this movie. Despite the intense action, this is a movie you are meant to have fun with, and having actors enjoying themselves is important in selling it. Perhaps the most difficult role to play in the film was also perhaps the best cast—that of DSS Agent Hobbs, played by Dwayne Johnson. On paper, the role is fairly bland. You have a dogged federal agent that isn’t particularly funny or likeable, trying to stop the antiheroes that you have become invested in after four previous movies. Johnson is, and always has been undeniably charismatic, and few can convey as much without saying a word as he can. It was an inspired casting choice, and further proof that Johnson deserves the success he has earned. A less actor in this role could have killed this movie dead and made an interesting plot line cringe-worthy. In fact, with so many moving parts in this film, any one of a handful of badly cast actors could have derailed the entire film, but it all works well.
Diesel again plays Vin Diesel, while Walker has nearly perfected the art of acting while looking perpetually stoned. Whether you love or hate them, your opinion probably won’t change much based on this film. But of the two, Diesel is unquestionably the focus, and so he should be. While Fast Five isn’t going to make AFI’s top 100 movies of all-time list, it is an entertaining film thanks partly to the performances that most will enjoy, as long as you don’t think too much about the details.


Fast Five isn’t high art, nor is it trying to be. There is so much testosterone in this movie that even women in the audience may leave with a mustache. It fulfills the traditional summer movie pre-requisites and has a ton of explosions, gun battles and fistfights, just like you would expect. In that sense, it is a very, very traditional film. If you are looking for that one unique snowflake in the snow storm of summer movies, this aint it.
It is, however, the best film in a series bred for its visual extravaganzas. Films like this can go three ways. They can veers towards the ridiculous, as they did with 2 Fast 2 Furious, they can repeat the same formula over and over as they did with the third and fourth films, or they can do something a bit ballsier and take the franchise in a different direction altogether. It doesn’t have to be a wholly original direction, just original for the series. In this case it worked, and likely saved the franchise. A sixth movie has already been greenlit, and while it might at first glance seem over saturation to film six movies based on an action franchise like this, the fifth movie has proved that there is enough life left in the series to justify it. It helps that Fast Five was already released internationally, and in eight days has made back over $30 million of its $125 million budget, so odds are it is going to do alright at the box office.
By the way, make sure to stay through the first block of credits to see a scene with a few surprises that set up the sequel.
While Fast Five isn’t the type of movie that will appeal to the art house crowd in even the smallest way, it is what it intends to be — a summer popcorn movie that is beating the other big name summer films to the theaters by a few weeks (or a week, counting Thor). If you enjoyed the previous films, then you will leave pleasantly surprised at how they have managed to resuscitate the franchise. The action is unbelievable — literally unbelievable — and physics take a punch in the nose, but the film does so with a wink and a nod to the audience, so you accept it. If you can’t, then you are in trouble.
For a fifth film in a franchise, Fast Five offers a slightly mindless, but fully enjoyable heist movie starring a cast of up-and-comers, borderline A-list stars, and directed by a guy who will likely be a household name in the future. Although it isn’t quite summer yet, Fast Five has begun the summer movie season on a good note.
(Fast Five is rated PG-13, with a running time of 130 minutes)
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Portal 2 Review

Review: Valve Corporation returns to the broken corridors and testing rooms of Aperture Science in Portal 2, which improves on its predecessor in just about every way possible.

Back in 2007, Valve Corporation released a value-packed collection called The Orange Box. While Half-Life 2 and its two episodic expansions were in the spotlight, the real highlight for most gamers was a short (2-3 hours) physics-based first-person puzzle game called Portal. Using a Portal Gun to create two-way travel points on many of the game environment’s walls, ceilings and floors, players solved a series of spatial orientation puzzles while a condescendingly maniacal A.I. named GLaDOS — think HAL with a female voice and a dry wit — guided them along. It was a hit–so much so that Valve went ahead and gave the game a full disc treatment for its sequel, Portal 2, which is now available in stores.
Before we proceed, note that those who haven’t played through the first game and want to should stop reading here, as spoilers will be discussed. If you are one of those people, the short version of this review is: play the original and, if you like it, definitely get the sequel.
Portal 2 picks up the story of the previous game’s female protagonist, Chell, after some significant amount of time has passed. The game begins with Chell waking up in what appears to be a bright and cheery motel room. A friendly voice guides players through the game’s basic movement controls in an amusing sequence which may or may not involve being told to appreciate a piece of artwork hanging on the wall. Chell then goes back to sleep and wakes up in a rundown version of the same room. There, she meets an A.I. named Wheatley (voiced by Stephen Merchant), who explains that she’s been asleep for a long time and offers to help her escape from the Aperture Science labs.
The story unfolds from there, and the less you know about the specifics, the better. The Aperture Science facility fell apart in the days following GLaDOS’ defeat, and there are signs of decay everywhere as you make your way through a series of old testing rooms… and other areas. While some of this informs the gameplay, it mostly serves to establish a scene for the story, which is much more the focus of things in this sequel than it was in Portal. GLaDOS may have been taken down at the end of the first game, but, spoiler or not, you’re crazy if you think that such a notable character won’t be making a return in some form.

Portal 2 is broken into two main play modes: the story-driven single-player campaign and the slightly less story-driven co-op campaign. On the solo play side, the basic rules are just as you remember them. There’s a Portal Gun that you can use to create a linked pair of holes that can be passed through. Not every surface can hold a portal, however, so a large part of solving each puzzle — all of which task players with making their way to and/or opening an exit door — involves figuring out the proper places to put these holes.
It wouldn’t be a Portal game without Companion Cubes; they are back for the sequel, and they now come in multiple flavors to accommodate the new quirks introduced for the game’s puzzles. One Cube, for example, contains a spherical crystal which can be used to redirect the path of laser beams. You’ll also be using portals to redirect a few other new elements, such as gravity tunnels which carry you through the air in one direction, like a conveyor belt, and light bridges, which you can do more with than simply walk on.
There is also a set of “gels” which can be applied to many of the game’s surfaces. You won’t carry gels in your inventory; they are puzzle-specific and often require proper portal placement in order to “paint” different parts of the environment. One gel works like a trampoline, another functions as a speed boost and yet another allows portals to be shot onto surfaces that wouldn’t otherwise accommodate them.
What all of this amounts to is a very similar gameplay experience — you’re still running through a series of spatial puzzles — that fills your toolbox with a larger number of tools. On the whole, the puzzles demonstrate the same smart level design that characterized the previous game. They get progressively tougher as more new features are introduced, of course, but the overall challenge remains pretty consistent throughout. The game slows down a bit after the first hour or so, settling into the same rhythm introduced in the first game.

It doesn’t last though; a break in the story eventually occurs. While the puzzle-solving remains fundamentally the same, the range of environments and your reason for being in them changes dramatically, and it all has a fresher feel as a result. Helping matters considerably is the same stellar writing that made the first game such a hit. Portal 2 is funny, no two ways about it. This game will make you laugh, frequently out loud and at length, even as it confounds you with hair-pulling puzzles to solve.
That’s literally only half the game, however. Portal 2‘s single player campaigns runs for roughly 6-8 hours, and it’s co-op campaign runs for… 6-8 hours. The two narratives don’t run parallel to one another — frankly, the less said about how they link together, the better — but suffice to say, they are complementary. In the co-op campaign, two players take control of a pair of mobile A.I. units, P-Body and Atlas. GLaDOS guides the duo through a series of tests, though the story also moves them out of the testing rooms at certain points to other areas of the Aperture Science facility.
While the entire game is excellent, the co-op portion of Portal 2 has an edge over the single player mode, if only because the nature of the puzzles is so very different. These are all designed to be completed by two people, and there is a significant spike in difficulty as you progress through the five testing areas, each of which features eight testing rooms… plus a little more. The final set of testing courses is a standout, demanding that players call on everything they’ve learned in increasingly inventive ways.
The only real downside to Portal 2 is how self-contained it is. With the exception of Achievements/Trophies, there is really no reason to go back and play again once you’ve completed everything. The puzzles never change and there’s typically only one, specific way to complete each one. That said, those 10-12 hours — assuming you have a friend to play through the co-op with — are well worth the $60 you’ll spend. There’s a Developer Commentary mode which allows players to access snippets of behind-the-scenes audio in various sections of the game, but it’s more of an interactive documentary — albeit an informative one — than a proper play mode.
Any complaints are minor and are the result of reaching to find fault where there is in fact very little. Portal was an amazing title, and ground-breaking in many ways for expanding the idea of what is possible in a game played from the first-person perspective. Portal 2 sheds a little bit of that freshness — it is a sequel after all — but more than makes up for it with new twists to the established gameplay, a smarter set of puzzles and some of the best video game writing that we’re likely to see this year.
(This review is based on the Xbox 360 version of the game)
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Sony Cyber-shot DSC-TX5 Review

Review: The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-TX5 uses a rugged design to go where few digital cameras will, and looks good doing it.
All tough cams are not made equally – or similarly for that matter. Sony offers up the world’s slimmest rugged point and shoot, along with a very capable touchscreen responsible for most of the camera’s operations. Its most notable elements will either win users over (tiny size, touchscreen dependence) or be the reason they opt for a competitor’s camera like the Olympus TG-610.
First off, we’ll start with what the TX5 has going for it. It’s an incredibly light and slim device, with a sliding panel to protect the lens. Touch pocket cams don’t always have the luxury of being quite as convenient to carry as Sony’s – it weighs a mere 5.1 ounces and its backside is all screen. The 3-inch LCD touchscreen packs approximately 230,000 pixels in resolution. It registers touch surprisingly well and doesn’t require tap after tap after tap to get where you want to go – but always expect this to get a little more difficult underwater, or while wearing gloves.
But back to what it does well. The sliding panel not only protects the camera lens but functions as a power switch, yet another convenience in a tough cam. And it’s virtually buttonless: There is a designated power button, zoom, playback, and shutter control, but that’s it. If you’re planning to exploit everything this camera can do in the great outdoors, you’ll be happy with the lack of tiny bells and whistles you need to manipulate. Of course, if you’re unfamiliar with touchscreen controls or have an affinity for messing with the smallest details of your photo setup, it might be frustrating to have it confined to the screen. That said, the learning curve with the touchscreen controls is anything but steep.
The TX5 comes equipped with a slew of scene selectors, included “snow,” “beach,” and of course “underwater.” To get more specific, users also various white balance options and of course, more experienced photographers can alter ISO sensitivity themselves. But the camera’s real selling points are its simplicity and durability.
The TX5 comes with the camera, a startup and help guide CD, wristband, multi-connector cable, NP-BN1 battery, and battery charger.
The most impressive feature the TX5 is arguably its speed. Consumers should be able to use tough cams to their fullest abilities, and sometimes it seems like their indestructibility takes precedence over their speed. But the TX5 comes packaged with an incredibly capable sensor and processor – the Exmor R CMOS sensor and the BIONZ processor – that allow it to take 10 frames in one second at its full 10.2-megapixel resolution.

The camera’s wide-angle 4x zoom gives photographers some room to work with: It offers some variety and makes landscape shooting a possibility, which can’t be said for every pocket cam out there. The camera’s built-in scene selectors also work well, and can further simplify using the TX5 for novices. Better yet, the touchscreen interface is extremely intuitive when it comes to using and finding these presets. Just like any good outdoor-use camera should, it comes with a panorama option. It’s a different take on the feature, however: You simply select the mode and then follow the easier than easy instructions which include an arrow telling you to sweep the camera across your desired landscape. It then processes the image for you; push it to the limits and it can capture an image with a 258 degree field of view. Of course, the quality can’t be compared to costly DSLRs like the A55, but it shouldn’t have to be. The TX5 performs admirably in low light, thanks to its sensor, but be ready for some lag with the auto focus.

While the diminutive size is convenient for packing and pocket purposes, that doesn’t always mean it’s easier to use. The zoom toggle is absolutely miniature; using it with gloves or underwater could prove difficult. And sure, no one wants a weight secured to their wrist – but the TX5 feels like it could blow away. The child-sized camera might just be too small for some, and while a 3-inch display is impressive for a device so small, it’s a relatively small space to work entirely within.
If you’re specifically on the hunt for a dustproof, waterproof, shockproof, freezeproof point-and-shoot that you can really subject to the elements and push to the weather limits, the TX5 will do, but it can easily be bested by cameras without rugged specs. A slightly heavier device that doesn’t entirely rely on a touchscreen will also be easier to manipulate in your more extreme photography sessions.
That said, if you’re looking for a quality point and shoot that can double as your rugged cam, the TX5 is a great option. The touchscreen isn’t anything to be afraid of, even for those unfamiliar with it. And for general use, its size is definitely a plus, not to mention its iAuto and built-in scene options. However, for its price we’d expect some artsy filters or expanded editing capabilities.
Responsive touchscreenImpressive in low lightPanorama sweep is a nice bonus featureSliding on/off panel is convenientToo smallTouchscreen only operation might scare some offCompetitors have more built-in features to offerTouchscreen can be difficult to manipulate in some “tough cam” scenarios
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Shift 2: Unleashed Review

Review: The Need for Speed series has left behind its arcade roots, but its influence can still be felt in the spiritual successor to the series in the best racing game of the year so far, Shift 2: Unleashed.

When it comes to the racing genre you have two options. You can go with the racing simulators— the Forza and Gran Turismo series games— where you can lose hours of your life fiddling with gear differentials, weight distribution and thousands of other things that most of us will never truly understand. Most importantly though is a realistic sense of physics in the actual driving. On the flip side of the coin are the arcade style racers, which drop you in places like Burnout’s Paradise City, or Midnight Club’s Los Angeles and command you to go forth and race while trying not to hit a building at 200 mph. Both are racing games, but there is a massive gap between the two genres. Shift 2: Unleashed is a game that tries to fill this gap, and does a fairly decent job of it.
Shift 2: Unleashed is the heir to the Need for Speed series that has reinvented itself, and changed from the arcade style that had you running form cops through all environments, to a more simulated racer; but the vestigial traces of the original series remain, and in doing so they offer something that is a bit unique.
Shift 2 is a racing simulator in the sense that it is all track based and where the cars are unbelievably customizable; but the racing is what sets it apart. While there is a sense of realistic physics at work, the game has an arcade feel to it that bends those physics. You can hit a corner at high speed and drift around the bend, when in reality you would probably hit the wall and explode. It may not be absolutely realistic in that sense, but it works, and makes a racing game that combines the simulator and arcade style with an exceptional balance that makes it just plain fun to play.
Shift 2 features exactly what you might expect a racing sim to offer. You have a career mode which unlocks features as you earn experience with cash to buy new cars. Also, as you progress, you earn the right to race with different classes of cars-like muscle cars and eventually F1 supercars. As you progress through the 36 different maps, you can also tune your car via an incredible amount of options.
An online mode is also available, and “lobbies” offer races of all classes and styles. You can race in ranked and unranked matches, as well as head-to-head in a “Driver Duel” against another person with a similar rank. In these races you race a best of three series, and the winner receives cash, experience and a crown. The more crowns you earn the better your rank.
One interesting feature that fans of the series will love is that if you have played the previous games in the Need for Speed series, your game will recognize that and award you with additional experience, cash, and a few other perks. It isn’t anything that you can’t unlock on your own so new fans aren’t missing anything, but it is a nice touch to reward fan loyalty. If you haven’t played the series before, and if you don’t have the patience to unlock your cars through progression, there is also the option to buy cars using Microsoft points. Some people might call this a cash grab, but it really is an interesting option for people. It adds to the game, and while most purists will sneer at it, it won’t affect their game in any way. Alternatively, it might make casual fans more into the game.
While Shift 2 does play very well, there are a few things that prevent it from stealing the crown from the Forza or Gran Turismo series. There is nothing that makes this game anything less than awesome, but there are a few things that hold the series back.
First is the limited number of cars. The selection of the cars is fairly robust, with 145 cars from 37 manufacturers. From a Ford Focus to a Bugati Veyron, the selections are fairly impressive. Shift 2 doesn’t have the sheer number of choices that some of the other games, like Gran Turismo 5’s 1000+ cars, but honestly will anyone miss a VW Jetta or a Kia Spectra when you can use a BMW or an Audi from the start? There are plenty of options.
While the car selection is solid albeit unimpressive, the customization options for the cars run so deep that you can use every car thousands of times and it would be slightly different each time. While the number of options is incredible, it can also be incredibly overwhelming. Unless you are a gearhead—and not just a “Hey, I watch Top Gear” gearhead, but a gearhead in the sense that you can read on the screen that you are adding a new gear box and you will instantly understand what that will do to the car without the benefit of pages of stats—then you might have some troubles.
The customization menu is huge, but it offers little to no help. Granted, in the real world when you customize a car, adding new suspension or tires makes a notable difference, but in a video game it is harder to tell. This makes it tough to know exactly what you are doing—unless you actually know exactly what you are doing. Most gamers have the tendency to just go for more of everything, which isn’t always the best option. It is about balance, a rule Gran Turismo taught us years ago, but Shifted 2 makes it oddly tough to find that balance. Average gamers—especially ones used to the more arcade like upgrades of the old Need for Speed series—are going to face a ton of trial and error, and most are likely to do only the most obvious changes to their rides.
The graphics are also good, but not amazing, and that is something of a theme for this title. The lighting effects in particular are exceptional, and the interior view is well rendered, but some of the cars look cartoonish, and there is an inconsistency that stands out.  There is also a series of videos to introduce segments, and they can quickly become annoying.
What Shift 2 has is well done, but it doesn’t offer anything surprising or impressive, with the possible exception of the gameplay (which granted, is a good thing to excel at). You get exactly what you would expect, and no more. There are no neat channels to watch racing videos on, nor are there go-kart challenges. You won’t find a personalized racing calendar, or off track events. You have tracks, you race them, you buy new cars—that’s it. Even the online—while fun—is somewhat barebones and there is a distinct sense that building a community was a low priority. That may all sound like nitpicking, but when you are trying to break into a field dominated by giants like Gran Turismo and Forza, you have to at least try to offer something that the other don’t. Everything in Shift 2 can be found in other games, and while the limits of the options won’t hurt the actual playability, which is great, it will likely stunt the game’s lifespan.
Most of us were raised with the idea that “rubbin’ is racin’”. While this quote comes from the film Days of Thunder, the idea comes from the more primal idea that if a car is in your way, and there are no consequences to annihilating him, then it is fine to introduce him to a wall at high speeds. Shift 2 disagrees.
To encourage you to race properly, and to give the game a bit more value during the races, if you slam into a car, it will remember. More than that, it will swear a vendetta against you, and make it its primary purpose in life to utterly destroy you. A nudge here and there might get you an aggressive bump in return, but a reckless slide into the side of a rival will have them seeing red, and you will spend the rest of the race nervously watching your rear view mirror for an angry blur that wants your (digital) blood.
In this, the AI in Shift 2 is amazing. They are not an easy set of racers to crush, they are responsive and adaptive, and you need to bring you’re A-game to finish in first. One of the more clever ideas in the game is that when you first begin, you race a few challenges, and the results determine your level of difficulty and car settings. As you progress so does the difficulty, and it is a nice touch to have the game adapt to you.
But regardless of whether or not you are in the easy or hard difficulties, the races are not going to be handed to you—you need to beat your opponents. They will test you, and force you to drive almost perfect races—not perfect in the sense that you have to hit every corner perfectly, just in the sense that if you hit a wall–even if you don’t wreck–you may as well start over if you are determined to win. Sometimes this is logical. If you are in a tough race and mess up, you will naturally be overtaken. But other times you can have a big lead and not even see the next car in your rear view, then you take a turn too harshly and slow down off the track, and you will almost magically find yourself in last place.
The AI has moments where it is brilliant, but it also has moments where it is very, very bad. You might be in a dogfight with the top 2 cars, while the others are 5-10 seconds behind—then suddenly they will all have made up an improbable gap, regardless of how well you are driving, and you will be surrounded. It doesn’t usually make a difference to how you race, but it is noticeable.
Still, the pros of the AI outweigh the cons, and they make the races challenging and fun.
Shift 2 does exactly what it sets out to do. Developer Slightly Mad Studios has created a racing game that takes the customization options of a true racing sim, and combines it with a touch of arcade style racing to give us something that falls between the two. The results are a game that is just plain fun.
The AI is a bit unbalanced at times, but when it works it works brilliantly. The graphics aren’t the best, but they are better than many, and while the career mode is relatively short—at least compared to other games of the genre–it is varied enough to keep the races feeling fresh. The biggest issue though is that there isn’t anything new. What there is, is great, but there isn’t anything that will surprise you.
Still, faults and all, racing fans won’t regret giving this game a try, and the arcade pedigree should offer a bit of appeal to gamers everywhere. It may not have the depth to satisfy hardcore fans for too long, but Shift 2 has the gameplay to have them smiling while they try.
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Logitech K750 Wireless Solar Keyboard Review

Review: The Logitech K750 wireless keyboard kills the hassle of cords and batteries in one blow with a clever solar-powered design.
When you have companies slapping solar cells on everything from cell phones to backpacks so they can tie on recycled-cardboard tags with hemp cord, call them green, and charge twice the price, it’s easy to get jaded and dismiss solar gadgets as gimmicks. Until about the third time you have to replace or recharge the batteries in your wireless keyboard, and realize a solar panel would eliminate that need forever. Like calculators and watches, Logitech’s K750 proves that wireless keyboards make ideal candidates for solar-panel transplants, giving users both convenience and a clear conscience.
At first glace, some users might not even give second thought to the inch tall strips of solar cells above the keys on the K750. Surrounded by black and situated under a seamless, glossy layer of plastic, they stand out less than you might imagine, but provide all the power the keyboard needs.

The bigger news here, from a design standpoint, is Logitech’s transition to the Chiclet style of keys, formerly a space-saving style reserved for notebooks (think MacBooks and Sony Vaios). Rather than being arranged in a “tray,” the keys pop out of a flush piece of plastic that runs all around them, with squared-off edges like Scrabble tiles instead of the traditional taper. The look is largely a matter of taste, but as we’ll get to below, the feel can be quite different.
As for the rest of the keyboard, anyone acquainted with Logitech’s Revue (the Google TV set-top box) will immediately recognize the K750. The glossy black top and white trim around the edges make it an obvious relative of the humble Revue keyboard. We weren’t huge fans of the Revue’s keyboard, but fortunately, the K750 is more like a cousin than a brother. The tightly packed keys of the 10-inch Revue keyboard spread out to fill 16 inches on the K750 including a number pad, the keys take on a more angular look, and instead of an oversized Playskool font, the K750 uses a clean, corporate-looking sans serif. Long story short: It looks more mature.

At only ? of an inch thick, the K750 makes even previously slim keyboards like the DiNovo Edge look, well, a little plump. Two folding legs in the back boost the keyboard about an inch off the desk to give it a more comfortable slope. Though they look flimsy, the K750 actually feels very firm and “planted” on a desk, without the rattle that cheap keyboards sometimes have as they bounce away beneath your fingers.
Logitech keeps the key arrangement on the K750 pretty typical. A function key below the question mark key in the lower right provides access to an array of shortcuts on the upper F keys, including search, calculator, media controls, volume, and power off.
The most unusual addition is a “Check Light” above the number pad. Pressing a lamp button lights up an LED indicator next either a smiling or frowning face to indicate whether battery life is good or on its way out. A power switch on the same panel makes it easy enough to turn off if you’re not using it, but in our experience, there was never any need to.
Unlike a Bluetooth keyboard, the K750 requires no dabbling with Windows settings, PIN codes or any other tomfoolery. It uses Logitech’s Unifying 2.4GHz platform, which basically means you just plug in a nano-sized USB receiver and it works — with Windows, anyway.
Tapping the sun as you tap keys turns out to be, well, not that different from typing on a battery-powered keyboard. Unlike your typical solar calculator, which turns useless the moment the lights go down, the K750 has a robust internal battery that will keep it plugging away for up to three months after the last sun exposure. Unless you’re living in a basement, cave, or Portland, the K750 should never leave you hanging. (Kidding, we actually got full power about three feet from a window with fluorescent overhead lights at our Portland office.)
Logitech includes a tiny Solar App that you can install in a matter seconds after plugging in the Unifying receiver. Although you don’t need it to use the keyboard, it provides some fun extras like a speedometer-style gauge to tell you how much sun you’re soaking up, in real time, and a battery meter. Our battery never dipped below 100 percent, but that’s with mostly daytime computing next to a window. Fluorescent overhead lamps alone typically got it between 180 and 280 LUX (out of 500). Even below our desk (simulating a sliding keyboard tray) or in a room we would consider too dim for even reading a book, it read 10 LUX or better.
We’ve never been a fan of the stubby key press you get with a Chiclet keyboard, but as far as the style goes, Logitech offers one of the better ones. The keys may not travel far, but there’s firm, affirmative pressure under each one and solid click when you get one all the way down — you’ll never be uncertain whether you pressed a key enough to get a letter on the screen. For an office environment, the K750 also has the advantage of being exceptionally quiet.
Despite the lightweight design seemingly catered to text entry, we had no problems taking up residence on the WASD keys and pressing the K750 into gaming service in Call of Duty, though the lack of “definition” between keys made it a bit easier to confuse one for another with a wandering ring finger. On the plus side, the red glow from 50 watts worth of lights in your gaming rig can power the thing. And your friends called your CCFL setup frivolous.
Using gloss black on a keyboard is a questionable choice. It’s not as bad at collecting fingerprints as you may suspect, but after just a few days of use, we saw noticeable dust building up on the panels above the keys. Nothing a quick shot of air duster or a wipe with the included microfiber cloth won’t fix, but we’ve never had to dust down good old “office beige” so frequently.
The biggest annoyance we ran into with the K750 came from the conspicuous lack of an indicator light for caps lock or num lock. Sure, you can just type a letter and find out whether it’s engaged or not, but when you’re entering in a password where every letter is shrouded with an asterisk, it can be a bummer.
Forget any notion of “going green” or saving the planet with a solar-powered keyboard, the K750 sells itself with convenience alone. Never have to replace a battery or recharge a keyboard again? Sign us up. Steep prices often kill the appeal of products like these, but Logitech’s letting these go for a reasonable $79.99, which strikes us as a small premium for the convenience of never changing a battery again (the company’s cheapest wireless keyboard goes for $49.99 and doesn’t have quite the style of the K750). Unless you disdain laptop-style keys and scoff at the idea of swabbing down your keyboard for dust now and then, Logitech’s K750 makes a sleek and practical addition to any desk.
Conveniently solar poweredSolid wireless connectivityDead simple setupUseful solar appQuiet and solid feelingSurprisingly affordableShallow Chiclet designGlossy chassis shows smudges, dustNo indicator lights for caps lock, etc.
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