I had Lasik surgery to correct my eyesight on August 6, 2003, and I want to give an honest opinion about it. I also want to talk about the procedure as I remember it. I'd first gotten glasses when I was fourteen years old. I hated them right away, and got contact lenses soon after. I had one serious problem with contacts, though, and that is that I would never take them out. I'd usually wear a pair of lenses for about two weeks straight. I told my eye doctor about this. He then switched me to a brand that was approved for long term wear, but he still recommended that I stopped wearing them overnight. After years and years of these lenses, I finally gave up on them altogether, and started wearing glasses. That was only a reminder of how much I hated glasses. Finally, I went to my eye doctor and said, "I want to get Lasik surgery." That would be the best decision concerning my eyesight that I ever made.

My doctor told me that since I hadn't been wearing contacts for over six months I could get the surgery right away. He performed an eye exam, both to make sure that my eyes were okay, and also to make sure my vision wasn't getting worse. I suppose if your vision is getting worse, you are not a candidate for Lasik. Well, he was satisfied, and so he set up an appointment with the local laser center. This is the first piece of advice I want to share if you decide to get Lasik. Go through your eye doctor. Do not go directly to a clinic, and do not look for cheap sales. It's your eyesight, it is very important. You want the best for it. I'm not saying that cheap Lasik is necessarily bad, but it is my understanding that low rates usually mean that there will be more costs later down the line. You'll be charged for follow-up examinations, and usually most people aren't qualified for the low rates. When I went through my doctor, the cost of the treatment, included one years worth of follow up visits. I paid only one time, up front, for the whole treatment.

My appointment was about two weeks later. Since I wasn't going to be able to see after the surgery, I had my mom drive me to the clinic. When I first got to the clinic, they checked my eyes again, and when they were satisfied that I was good to go, I wrote them a check right there, and I was off to the surgery.

For the surgery itself, you are laying on your back. The first thing they do is numb your eyes, then they cut off the front part of the cornea, and sort of fold it aside. You are awake for the whole procedure. You see them coming at you with a scalpel. They tighten a lot of braces around your eyes and head to prevent it from moving. When the cornea is out of the way, they start up the laser. The instructions are simple. They tell you to look at the colored dot, and don't move your eyes. You are worried that you are going to move your eyes. They tell you to keep focusing on the colored dot. I believe it was red or green, but I can't remember for sure. The laser fires up. It is very loud, it sounds like Rice Krispies on overdrive, it is very nerve wracking. It feels warm. It fires for a few seconds each time. They tell you to keep focusing on the colored dot. Everything is black, except for the colored dot, and it looks pretty blurry, so you're not sure exactly where to focus your eyes. The laser is all computer controlled, so you aren't really too worried. The laser fires for the last time.

They move the laser away. Then they replace your corneas. After a minute or two they take all the braces off from around your head, and off your eyeballs. They tell you that you can get up. You walk out into the hall. You can tell right away that you can see a hell of a lot better. Then after a few minutes the sensitivity sets in.

By the time you are being driven home, you can't open your eyes at all. Your eyes cannot stand any light whatsoever. Sunglasses will not help that first day. The best thing you can do is put your head under a thick blanket. That way if you open your eyes by accident, the light won't burn your eyes. You can listen to the radio, you can listen to the TV, but whatever you do, just don't look at any light. Not that it's bad to, it just doesn't feel very good. That's how it was for me, anyway.

After the second day, I was okay. They said I should wear sunglasses for a week, and they gave me a pair covered my entire range of vision, they weren't very flattering. To be honest though, I stopped wearing sunglasses after three days. I was fine. I went for my follow up visits. A week later, my vision was 20/15. It had been something close to 20/200. I was very happy to be able to wake up in the morning and see. Later follow up visits revealed no problems. Now, I was told that some people may need a second treatment. They do charge you more for this, but it is much less than the original treatment. I did not need a second treatment, and it is my understanding that most people do not.

I would like to talk about cost. Like I said I got the treatment in 2003, and the cost was right around $2000.00 for both eyes. That is probably more than you would ever spend on glasses or contact lenses for your whole life, but it is worth it. The surgery may be cheaper now, I don't really know, but I had no problems paying that much money, and I would gladly pay three times as much as I did, if that's what it cost. It is so worth it. They did say say if I needed a follow up treatment it would be about another $600.00, but I did not need this, and I wouldn't have had a problem paying it.

So what of the horror stories? I honestly don't know. The surgery went fine for me, and as best as I can tell, it goes fine for most people. I really went into it not knowing much about it. I didn't want to hear any horror stories. I did not experience a horror story. I can't say that you won't have problems, but I think the probability of having a problem is pretty low.

Lasik is the best unessential surgery you can get if you don't have 20/20 vision. The shear joy of being able to see without the need of corrective lenses is worth any price. If you are contemplating getting the surgery, don't hesitate, do it. If you don't have the money for it, save up. If your spouse wants the surgery, get it for them. Your quality of life goes up when you have 20/20 vision. Do, however, go through the correct channels. Talk with an eye doctor, do not look for discounts or sales. No matter what you end up paying, it's worth it. The bottom line, is that I have been a lot happier since I had Lasik corrective surgery. I highly recommend it.

Batman: Arkham Asylum puts you in shoes of the Dark Knight. The Joker has been captured, and he's being booked into insane asylum on Arkham Island. Of course, Batman wants to see this through to the end, so he's along with the escort. However, getting captured was simply part of a devious scheme by the Joker to wreak havoc on all of Gotham. Soon after arriving, Arkham's security is overridden by Harley Quinn, and all hell breaks lose. Members of Joker's gang that have been captured are set free, as well as a host of insane inmates. The game itself is a 3rd person beat-em up. Batman's primary weapons are his fists, but other equipment is available as well, such as bat-a-rangs and a grapple. Though these are used more for navigating the environment than they are for combat.

Batman dishes out a violent maelstrom of hand-to-hand combat.

Beat-em up type games have a history of being very repetitive with bosses that are extremely difficult compared to the rest of the game. Arkham Asylum fails to be repetitive. First of all, combat is infrequent. Other games in this genre simply put the hero up against too many bad guys at once. This game will only pit you against a few opponents at a time, and the combat mechanic is very well executed. Rather than simply being attacked from all sides, by multiple enemies, only one opponent will attack Batman at a time. This gives the player to opportunity to defend themselves, retaliate, perform combo moves, and take down the enemies.

Combat is different in this regard. Simply hitting an enemy over and over will not defeat that enemy. It will knock them down, but they will get back up again. To permanently disable a foe, Batman must perform a take-down move. There are two ways to do a take-down. One is to knock the enemy down, then a key combination will execute the take-down move, however, this method leaves Batman open to attacks from other enemies. The other way to perform a take-down is to build up enough combo moves to enable an instant take-down move. This take-down will leave Batman free from assault until the move is complete. At the beginning of the game it takes ten combo moves to perform an instant take-down, but later in the game this can be reduced to five.

The general strategy, then, is to perform combos, including defending and retaliating, until an instant take-down is ready, then perform the take-down. This type of strategy can be difficult at first, and part of the fun of game is learning to time your button smashing just right. When you master this, Batman will be able to take down an entire hoard without so much as a scratch. Well, that is an exaggeration. You never have to face an entire hoard at once.

As stated though, encounters with the enemy aren't too frequent, just enough of them to keep you interested. The rest of the game is more of an adventure, you'll spend plenty of time exploring the various buildings of Arkham Island, seeking out various secrets, and otherwise figuring out how to reach your goals. You'll often use what is called "Detective Mode", which changes Batman's vision. It allows the player to see through walls, identify exactly where enemies and other clues are, and locate secrets. Truth be told, you'll probably spend most of your playtime in detective mode, because there is no benefit to turning it off, except that you'll be missing out on the beautifully rendered, yet dark, environment.

The game also features a good collection of Batman enemies. You'll face the sexy but deadly Poison Ivy, the even sexier Harley Quinn, the not-so-sexy Bane, and of course the Joker, the least sexy of them all. To be honest, though, the boss battles are pretty generic, most involve fighting off enemies while simultaneously throwing a bat-a-rang at the boss character. They are somewhat frustrating, but satisfying to get through. Ultimately they are not the best feature of this game.

The biggest complaint is the story. The entire game is limited to one island, and except for psychopaths running around not much is happening there. On occasion, Batman will receive radio transmissions from someone known as Oracle, and these are the most annoying part of the game. During a transmission, Batman puts his hand up to his ear and he can only walk while talking on the radio. Very annoying, because you can barely get Batman to move, and the transmissions aren't that interesting, and seem to last forever. They seem to be less and less later in the game, however.

The final word is that this is a game that is worth playing. It's fun, which is the most important thing about video games. It also stands out as one of the best beat-em ups ever designed, a good balance of combat and exploration, with only minimal frustrations. You'll easily be able to put hours into this game, just running around the island trying to figure out the secrets.

Rating: 8/10

One question I have been frequently asked is what anti-virus software I recommend. I usually don't bother answering this question, because most people expect to hear something like McAfee or Norton, or something else that they've heard of, or they want something free. I will, however, give my recommendation here, take it for what you will. I use Trend Micro Internet Security, and I recommend it.

Previously called PC-Cillin (get it, like penicillin for the PC) Trend Micro has vastly improved over the years. Today is is a fully equipped internet security package with firewall, anti-virus, anti-spyware, anti-malware, and anti-pretty-much-all-internet-threats.

It actually comes in three varieties. There is Trend Micro Anti-Virus which features only the anti-virus software, I suppose you would just be using Windows Firewall and Windows Defender for other internet threats. Then there is Trend Micro Internet Security, which is what I recommend. And finally Trend Micro Internet Security Pro, which has all the features of the standard edition, plus some anti-fishing protection, but to be honest most of the features in PRO are really necessary, they don't work well, and are meant for people who are easily scammed, it does feature a few gigabytes of online storage for backing up your files, but not really worth the higher price.

So what makes Trend Micro so great? Well, the first big deal when it comes to internet security software is whether or not it is seriously going to slow down your system. Trend Micro has always gotten this right. It is the least invasive to memory, processor power, and bandwidth of all the software I've used. In my experience Norton is the worst for hogging system resources, which throws it out of the water right away. McAfee isn't as bad as Norton, but it doesn't compare to Trend Micro. The simple fact that Trend Micro runs smoothly in the background, updating itself, and performing periodic scans without feeling your computer slow down when these things are occurring is the reason I recommend Trend Micro.

The software interface itself is a good selling point as well. It's simple, on the main screen it tells you if you have any serious threats, it lets you know when your subscription is going to expire. It is easy to figure out how to force the software to scan immediately or to update itself, which you never have to do anyway as this all happens automatically. It even lets you take a look at your home network, so that you can see what computers or other devices are connected to the network, so you can easily see if someone is stealing your internet.

Now the firewall controls are fairly strait forward, there are four basic settings: maximum, medium, low, and minimum. Medium is the recommended setting, and I have had now problems working with this setting. Maximum isn't recommended, because it blocks everything except what you approve, but when necessary that option is available. Now, the advanced settings are a little more complicated, and really unless you know how the internet works you shouldn't even mess with them, but it does feature full port and application control. For the most part however, if you run a program, and it tries to do something suspicious the software will come up with a warning and you can select "allow" if you think the software is save. With newer versions of Trend Micro these warnings are very infrequent as the software, in general, knows what kind of internet communication is safe. For the most part installing Trend Micro with the default settings work well for the average user.

Now, about the protection itself, I'm not really an expert, and I doubt that my computer is a big target for internet attacks, and I'm not really doing anything suspicious on the internet that I might get a virus, but I have never had any viruses or other problems, so by my best guess, and by other reviews I've read the protection itself is very satisfactory. Now, no internet security software is going to be perfect, it is computationally impossible for internet security to be perfect, but as far as internet security goes Trend Micro is generally ranked in the top ten by experts.

I do want to talk about pricing as well. When you buy the software you get a one year subscription to the service. Now I know there will be complaints right there, a lot of people will simply want free software. Well in my experience the free software is the worst software. Windows includes a basic firewall and basic malware and spyware protection, but this software is very crude, other software that you can find for free is very crude as well. A crude firewall isn't necessarily bad, but it usually doesn't have the options of something that you would pay for, and basic malware and spyware protection doesn't really matter either because these types of software are usually pretty much the same, and so it isn't hard to identify them. Virus protection, however, is where you really need to pay for the software. Viruses are constantly be developed and deployed, and when you pay a company to provide you with the latest protection they are going to do a better job than a company that puts something out for free. This is why Microsoft doesn't include anti-virus free with Windows, they know it is a lot of work to protect against the latest viruses, and that is work that people need to get paid to do. So I'll tell you right away, forget about any kind of free software. Now, sometimes a company or university will offer virus protection to their employees, customers, or students for free. This doesn't mean the software is free, the company or university is paying for it, and so if you get offers through your school, company, or internet service provider you'll probably be getting the kind of protection you need.

Concerning the pricing of Trend Micro as I said the software includes one year of service, then you have to renew. Now, the renewal is $40.00 to $50.00 depending on what kind of offers they have at the time. This is why I never renew. I just buy a new copy every year. This gets you the newest version of the software, and it is usually cheaper to buy it at a retail outlet. For example, right now Amazon has Trend Micro for only $27.14. Quite a bit of savings over a subscription renewal. You can usually find a digital only copy on eBay for less, though some of those sellers might be shady. The subscription to Trend Micro also includes usage on up to three computers, so if you get it for under $30.00 you're paying less than $10.00 per computer for internet security, which really isn't a bad deal at all.

The bottom line about Trend Micro is that it is one of the best performing internet security suites. It won't bog down your computer, and in general you don't even have to worry about what it's doing, and that's what we all really want on the internet, a worry free experiences.

In many ways Mirror's Edge is one of the more unique games that was released in the last few years. The main theme of the game is running. As the character Faith, you run from people, you run to people, you run all over the city. You play as a "runner", not surprisingly. This game is definitely worth a look if you want something different from the typical shooter.

Where this game really works is in the puzzles. As in games such as Tomb Raider, rather than ambiguous puzzles which involve combing things together, this game is focused on figuring out how to navigate the environment. Like Lara Croft, Faith makes death defying jumps, and performs impressive acrobatic feats in order to navigate the city. (Though, unlike Lara Croft, she has a much smaller bra size.) Certainly the idea of the environment being the puzzle is not new, but in many regards, Mirror's Edge doesn't feel like Tomb Raider or Uncharted. It is much faster paced. Rather than carefully planning out the path that you are going to take, you are just going to make a run for it and hope for the best. Naturally, you'll often cause Faith to fall to her death. This isn't particularly horrible, because the checkpoints are frequent enough that you aren't going to lose your temper too much. Though, there are a few very frustrating moments.

Death defying leaps of Faith in a pristine utopia.

In this game, Faith's ability to navigate the environment is very robust. She can run along almost any wall, grab onto most ledges, and navigate her way over fences in the snap of a finger. It's the ultimate game of parkour. Many of the more difficult jumps are somewhat forgiving when it comes to how accurate your button pressing skills are, but there are a few that do require very precise timing.

Navigating through levels is extremely fun, except for one thing. Combat. The combat is absolutely horrendous in this game. The idea was cool, but poorly executed. The idea was that Faith would be making a run for it, then glide past an enemy, disabling them and taking their weapon, then take a few shots at another bad guy, then toss the stolen weapon and continue running. It sounds really cool, and it's cool to watch in the load screens, but it just doesn't work out that well in the game. For one thing, you have to perfectly time when you push the "grab" button. Most of the time you will fail to disarm the enemy, and you'll end up just beating them down with your fists. There is a slow motion option to make disarming an opponent a little easier, but it is far too slow, and if you use that option you have to wait forever for the disarm animation to complete, before you can get back into the action. And another thing is that you almost always face too many enemies at once, so while you are trying to disarm one, another three are going to shoot you dead. Combat might actually be tolerable if encounters with the enemy occurred half as often. As it stands combat is very awkward and far to frequent.

The story should also be commented on. It's not very strong, and most players won't follow it at all. Before and after every level there is a little cut scene that is supposed to give the player an idea of what is going on, but other than Faith, and her main boss, a guy named Merc, most people won't even realize who the other characters are. There is a part of the game where it is revealed that a guy that Faith thought was bad, is actually good, and as a player you won't even realize that he was a character at all. Now if you actually do follow the story through the whole game, you'll probably notice that the story has one very disturbing element: Faith is a cop-killer.

Essentially, Faith is a cop-killer.

The only enemies in the game are what are referred to as "blues", which are law enforcement officers, or cops. Further, there is nothing in the story to suggest that the police force is corrupt, there are a few corrupt city officials, but nothing particularly abnormal about the city. In fact the city is a Utopia, and not the type of Utopia where it's a paradise on the surface, but then a really horrible place underneath, no. It actually is a genuine Utopia. In fact the reason that "runners" like Faith exist is because they had grown bored with the Utopia, and thought that the city need a little excitement, and why not throw in some crime while they were at it. Indeed, you essentially play as a criminal gone cop-killer, whose only motivation is that it's fun.

In the actual plot of the game, there is something about Faith's sister being framed for murder, and so maybe that is the justification for Faith's illegal activities, but Faith was already a criminal and cop-killer before the framing occurred, and the back story confirms that the "runners" had always been criminals.

While playing a criminal is not particularly unusual, or absurd, it is strange to think that this game did get a T rating considering it's would be controversial storyline. Honestly, though, the storyline is so forgettable, that few would think to mention this, or decide it's rating based up it.

There is one "bug" that should be commented on as well. The PC version of the game allows you to activate PhysX which allows NVIDIA Graphics Card owners the ability to enjoy extra special effects such as a realistic glass shattering when a window is broken, but even on newer Geforce cards this can seriously slow down the game. If you are experiencing this problem, turning off PhysX will remedy the problem.

The combat and story aside, this is definitely a game worth playing for the unique game play alone. It's not often that games come out that are both unique and fun, but with Mirror's Edge you will be able to have that experience. Expect to jump, roll, hop, slide, and run to your heart's content.

Rating: 7/10

Alternatives: Tomb Raider: Underworld.

Heavy Rain is a cinematic adventure game, developed by Quantic Dream, that is to be released exclusively for the PS3 early next week. To get gamers excited about it, a demo has been released on the Playstation Network. Quantic Dream is same developer that produced Fahrenheit, which I reviewed in December of last year. In many ways Heavy Rain is the follow-up to that game, and it will have a dark story and cinematic game play, though this time around the game story will not involve the supernatural. However, it will take place in the future, and feature various pieces of science fiction based technology.

Heavy Rain, a very dark film noir thriller with mature themes.

Having played the demo, I wanted to express some early thoughts on the game. First of all, as in Fahrenheit, this isn't going to be a game. It's going to be a movie that you have to press buttons in order to watch. For example in the demo, the first character you play as is a private detective, and after a panic attack the player has to press various buttons for him to first, grab his inhaler, second, lift the inhaler to his moth, and third pump the inhaler. The full game is probably going to have a lot of sequences like this, not game play, and not that fun. This was the main problem with Fahrenheit, and this game won't be much different.

However, I will say this, I think that Heavy Rain is going to have a great story, and as far as I can tell this time around there are going to be more choices to make, and more ways for the game to end. I believe, that, once again, this game will be worth playing for the story alone. While very little has been released on the story, it is clear that rain is going to play a major role. Where Fahrenheit's underlying event was that the temperature continued to drop, in this game the inches of rain is going to increase, my guess is that by the end of the game the characters may be dealing with a full blown flood. This will certainly add to the suspense, and I think players are going to get a lot of emotion out of this game. I do plan on playing this game, eventually.

I do want to say that I'm not pre-ordering this game, and further I would not pay $60.00 for this game, simply because I don't think it is worth that. It is a movie, and in my mind it is worth maybe a little bit more than a movie, because it is playable. It certainly won't have the value of a game that has a lot more to offer. I would not pay more than $20.00 for this game. So, I might not be playing it for several years, then again this game might go down in value quickly simple because it won't have much re-playability and used copies might be hitting the market quickly.

I think this is the type of game that hardcore fans our going to defend to the grave, they'll be offended by any criticisms directed at it, and they won't be able to admit that it has faults. It is also the type of game that others will buy, and be utterly disappointed, not realizing what they got themselves into. For them it will be an utter waste of money. I think there may be a lot of arguments over this game. Then again, maybe it will have a weak release, and no one will buy it at all, except for a few cult followers of Quantic Dream.

UPDATE: February 19, 2010
I realize now that I can probably rent this game. I primarily play PC games and renting isn't an option on that platform, so when I originally wrote this post it didn't even occur to me. I probably will rent this game when I have some free time, which still won't be for a while.