Update on my Ubuntu Intel Pro Wireless Woes

So, this is a few days since the switch to that bad news ipw3945 driver to the "new" iwl4965 driver on my Acer laptop and I am ecstatic to write this post to say that the iwl4965 driver works like a charm. Ubuntu has been running for a while now and I can switch to my wireless at any time. It has also been wonderful to see that the list of wireless spots detected by my network manager constantly get updated. I am very much relieved to see this finally get squared away.

Ubuntu and my Intel Pro Wireless LAN Card

Okay, I have been wondering why my wireless network card refuses to function after a few days and I cannot fix it by rebooting. I've always had to reboot to Vista to sort of give the hardware a little kick. Maybe there is some residue in the hardware buffer of the wireless card, but for whatever reason, it has been testing my patience.

I also happen to remember when I got this laptop new, that Ubuntu did give me frequent problems with the wireless card unable to find my private access point.

This time, I really got pissed because it was again acting up when I really needed the wireless access to be working. So I decided to dig a little bit about the problem.

The laptop I bought is an Acer Aspire 5920g, and apart from the abysmal wireless performance, Ubuntu has been handling this baby pretty well. I even got the Crystal Eye camera to work.

Back to this problem. I did some reading and thankfully, there is a lot of resources from Ubuntu's very own forum. I discovered that my laptop has been running on Intel Pro 4965 AGN wireless card and that the driver Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon (7.10) had been using was the obsolete ipw3945.

I knew then from past experience with this sucker that I had to discard it and find a new one. Thankfully, the kernel already comes packed with the new (Well, relatively...) iwl4965 driver from Intel.

Ubuntu has a great documentation that I followed to switch over to iwl4965 from that dubious ipw3945 driver. Click here for the online documentation. I just changed it to modprobe iwl4965 instead of iwl3945 and of course, load iwl4965 on /etc/modules.

After the reboot, it seems to be working fine, but so did the last one. I am going to observe how this one operates, and hopefully, this one works better than the last one. If all else fails, I may have to use ndiswrapper, and I do not like using Windows network drivers on Linux.

Anyway, that is all for now and I will report back if this one takes care of the issue.

Thoughts: 428 〜封鎖された渋谷で〜

I have always been opened (or close-minded) as a gamer to odd and quirky genres. It is always interesting to see a fresh or unique take on familiar formula on the different game genre. So when I first came upon this strange 'Sound Novel' of a game, it was not surprising to see myself drawn on such a unique visual presentation.

428 ~Fuusa Sareta Shibuya de~ (note: 428 - In a Blockaded Shibuya, aka 428 - The World Does Not Change Even So) is a game that takes the typical visual novel formula that Japanese developers often produce and takes that idea for a unique spin.

Normally, visual novels tend to make for very bland products. Apart from a nice picture backdrop and heaps of heaps of Japanese to go through, they are not particularly very interactive. Some of these kind of games give you certain decisions and in essence provides a bit of a Choose Your Own Adventure style of play. That is not a bad idea as Choose Your Own Adventure books tend to be pretty cool assuming the narrative is right. Unfortunately, once you translate it into video game format, you are expected to have that little extra. Granted that my Japanese is severely limited, the visual/audio presentation as well as the content I come away with has been particularly boring.

If you are expecting 428 to miraculously make reading Japanese on backdrop stills to be exciting, you are definitely on the wrong mindset. 428 takes that format and instead provides the player with something that other visual novels seem to miss, total control.

In 428, you take the role of five character perspectives in a timeline that spans ten hours of a single day in city of Shibuya, a business district of Japan. Multiple characters are nothing new in this genre nor in regular adventure games. 428 also employs decision making for each character to progress the story. That also is nothing new either. But two distinct differences sets this game apart. The first is that the character decisions do have subtle changes on other characters. This allows one character to inadvertently assist or interfere with the progress of another character. The second feature, which I think is the real key to making this entire project work so well is that you can view a time chart of events that have transpired and change the decisions for all of the characters. Hence, while you may arrive at a poor decision causing the demise of another character, you have every chance to go back and rectify it.

Does that make for an easy game? Not necessarily either. Logic plays a huge part in this title, and we are not talking about the 'challenged' logic adventure game developers try to peddle into their products. When you start playing other characters, you will notice details and realize when and how something may have altered the events of another character. And managing five characters while remember key details is not always a straightforward affair. Of course, for non-Japanese players, the language barrier plays another role in adding to that difficulty. Having limited Japanese takes me longer to figure out how events are and sometimes even how the events are supposed to transpire, but it has gotten me pretty far yet. You will inevitably stumble on bad endings, but the game encourages you to take a step back in time and rectify these issues. It is the point of the entire game.

Couple this very neat idea with a very striking presentation style and you have a very engaging adventure title in your hands. Real actors are used in filming and screenshot backdrops of the story and they are adequate to deliver the events of the game. The soundtrack of this title is also amazingly solid. It really does give you a cinematic sense of the entire game.

If there is one complaint over this title, it would be that I would have preferred Chunsoft go a little extra and provide more in terms of visual delivery. For a genre that hinges on story for suspense and substance, it would not hurt to provide video cutscenes alongside the textual narrative to aid in delivering the atmosphere and story.

Albeit, this genre is for a niche audience, 428 manages to deliver a unique experience in spades. It can be slow at times, but it never takes too long to get back to the action and the time chart feature really makes up for it.

Adventure game developers should take some time and look at what other developers in other regions are doing. Sometimes, coming from two different regions provides two different perspectives on how something is done. 428 deserves a look for Western developers. It is a fresh take on a genre that no developer seems to be interested in pushing forward beyond the 1990s formula.

Multiple running instances of nm-applet! OH NOES!!!

I've always had the notion that wifi support on Linux just plain sucks. And perhaps that's because the few times I have tried to make it work has turned into a tedious exercise of setting SSIDs, whatever keys and what not, not to mention the multitude of security options from WEP to WPA. I've also never particularly bothered with trying to improve my wifi solution on Xubuntu Gutsy install in my Acer Aspire 5920g laptop. That was until yesterday...

The weather yesterday was extremely terrible and with power failures and intermittent internet connectivity issues, I had a chat with a co-worker on how his experience was with wifi and Ubuntu. And he was being straight serious that it was a very painless affair. That perhaps got me thinking of what the bloody hell I was doing with my Xubuntu. I thought it was worth a try to dive in and see what was happening.

I remember having installed wifi-radar a while back as it was, I made a mental note of, the only way I could check for existing wifi hot spots. My friend never had a look at what his Ubuntu was using but after a short inspection he said I should be using NetworkManager.

What's strange is that I already have that running and wifi has always been a nightmare. Checking a bit further, I had noticed from Ubuntu documentation that my wireless setting did not have roaming enabled. And while this was happening, I had tried to manually run NetworkManager from commandline (Mental note: a BIG no-no! That's why this article is entitled like that).

After a reboot, I had found out that I had managed to get the wifi to spot nearby hot spots and connect to my brother's WEP-secured hot spot. I also remembered at that point I had foolishly disabled roaming when I freshly installed Xubuntu. That was real sweet to know, except I had two instances of nm-applet running (you know, the network icon on your system tray!).

After much trouble, I had realized two things. Apart from Gnome having its own startup sequence, XFCE storing my desktop sessions played a part in duplicating nm-applet. Second was that when I ran NetworkManager, it inadvertently let XFCE make a note that I needed to have it running. So, while Gnome would launch the nm-applet as planned, XFCE would start its own. Sweet to know how these problems happen.

In case anyone wonders how to fix that, check your ~/.cache/sessions/xfce4-session-* files. Open them and remove nm-applet entries inside. Save and log out without saving your session.
When you login, you should have only one running nm-applet instance (the one gnome starts).

Alright, that's all for now.

Notice on Gutsy Gibbon Users on Apt-Get Repositories

This is a short note. As we all know, Ubuntu has dropped support for Gutsy Gibbon. As we all know, at that point, your Synaptic will also stop operating. Open your /etc/apt/sources.list and update the Ubuntu URLs to point to: http://old-releases.ubuntu.com.

Here's a sample:
deb http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ gutsy main restricted

This works for all other older, no longer supported releases of Ubuntu. Bear in mind though, if you want to upgrade distributions, you may have to change the url back to the URLs Ubuntu uses for their support distributions.

Just thought I'd just put that reminder out there.

Apple eMac and Ubuntu: The Journey into the New World

The Journey into the New World

For many years, Linux has been a part of my computing world and it has been almost impossible to part with it. It is one of the most versatile and customizable operating systems I have ever had the pleasure of using. For sure the Linux user base is not as dominant as other operating systems, but the one thing I have learned through years is that we Linux users have been strong as an online community. This community allows us to roll up our sleeves and solve the challenges in Linux as we encounter them, but never are we alone, nor are we without the knowledge to undertake that challenge.

Before you read on, I would like to remind you this is a real lengthy account of what mostly, I hope, transpired. If you are just looking for help, that comes at the end of this sobby and long, drawn out boring article. Check the Full Monty section.

All it takes is a little push...

Most people who hear Linux often view it as an enigma. A mysterious unknown world that will only be useful to a niche audience. Perhaps there is truth in that criticism, but if you have someone to guide you through this journey, you may find yourself discovering a new and interesting world unfold before you. Some may never see Linux as an option to their personal computing, but you will never know if you never even try. And to try and see it for yourself, sometimes all it really takes is a little push.

I often visit Mixed Martial Arts forums to read view points and get into the countless debates on who is king of the hill and who is king nothing, but what I did not expect was to find someone who wanted to try Linux. Someone who wanted to get his feet wet. For reasons only he knows, he has taken that little push towards a new experience.

I could not say no to a plea for help on embarking this sojourn. How could I ever say no to it? To share, and to give someone a chance to learn a new platform, is one of the things that gives me satisfaction. Soon I realize though, as with all things in life, that this would not be an entirely familiar and ordinary affair...

The journey begins...

Thus our correspondence began. Introducing people to Linux is never a straightforward affair, even more so when all you know about the person is a faceless alias. And unlike helping someone who knows and already has gotten his first leap into Linux, throwing a bone is often never enough.

This person, who fondly calls himself 'Simple Jack', has started to give me the details of what he wanted to achieve. As it turns out, Simple Jack had wanted to dual boot his old Apple eMac with Ubuntu. Since I have never really owned anything Apple-related I knew it was going to be an interesting journey for the both of us. But was he biting off more than he can chew? Half of me was convinced that he may not get it done, the other half, was more hopeful. One thing was certain, deep down in my gut, I was sure as hell going to bloody try and help.

For the most part, installing Linux on the normal x86 architecture has been a streamlined and mostly smooth affair, and I was completely expecting powerpc architectures. And as if I needed a hard gut shot as a reminder, it was anything but that.

I had done a few light readings and he had burnt the PowerPC release of Intrepid Ibex. There, the first obstacle had made itself known. The bloody disc would not even boot! To make matters worse, I could not see what was actually happening save for descriptions Jack had thrown through forum private messages roughly at fifteen to twenty minute intervals. If this was our means of communication, I had hopelessly thought that by the time we get the bloody disc installed, an asteroid would have hit the Earth.

The remarkable thing I realized was that while Jack was seemingly always in his self-deprecating mode, this setback did little to put him down. I was going to do my own research, but he was more than willing to go the extra mile and do his homework (Bravo Simple Jack!). As the saying goes, it does take two to tango.

Our initial setback had taken us from one Ubuntu powerpc Desktop CD to a multitude of live discs all of which turned out to be fantastic failures. As he and I quickly realized, the powerpc machines that Apple concocted had been quite the wild beast, as if Apple had devised it to run amok if it had an iota of non-Apple operating systems.

The initial success...

From readings we had pinned our hopes on Feisty Fawn, ye old Ubuntu release and first of the non-official PowerPC builds by Ubuntu, I think. Thankfully, we had upgraded our communication channels to something more instant (ahem, instant messengers). At that point in time, I had already started thinking of alternatives to Ubuntu and the only one that came to mind was Yellow Dog Linux. It was an unfamiliar release to me, but if there was a last ditch effort, it was going to be from blokes who had been building Linux releases on PowerPC platforms.

Before I delved deeper into that, Jack had reported something that was a little different from the norm I was quickly getting accustomed to. Feisty did boot. And for a disc image that was bloody hell difficult to find, it was well worth this first tiny ray of light!

I knew that there was a light at the end of the tunnel, and that it had not been a train all along. Once Feisty booted, I was back into more familiar grounds. But that machine I was beginning to think of as Apple's Little Devil had more in store for us. The next problem was the graphics display.

From early readings, I had come to note that these are known issues and as Jack's Apple folks mentioned, X and the Mac hardware have always had their share of grief and conflict. We spent at least a few days walking through Linux commandline debugging work, hoping to manually hack that xorg.conf. As usual that little devil refused to give in. I was also realizing that finding articles talking about Apple eMacs and Linux was like finding a needle in a haystack.

Houston! We have a desktop... sort of...

I advised Jack to start asking around for help on the Mac communities he knew. If we were going to resolve this, it was likely to come from someone who knows the hardware more intimately. While we had several links to sample xorg.conf files that supposedly should have worked, none have been that silver bullet I had hoped, and manually dictating what to write on the xorg.conf was in and in itself a time leech sucking away at the short number of hours we had in common from the dreadful timezone differences. At the very least he had now become accustomed to the often feared by the ignorant Linux terminal. So much for being the 'Linux for Humans'.

The response when we laid out our cards before his Mac folks had been interesting. When one of them claimed one of the files looked good, I took a thorough look back at the links and fingered the one that made the most sense.

We were going to have another go at this thing, and I was a bit confident it would work. Jack, who to this day I wonder if he ever gets enough sleep, had enthusiastically reported the second victory we garnered over Apple's little devil. But this would not be an entirely smooth one though.

In many instances, the desktop would freeze upon start up which at first boggled me. Thankfully, the two brief and at that time, not very helpful Ubuntu articles on the PowerPC releases had shown their usefulness. We had managed to pin down our issue as the Linux Enlightened Sound Daemon, which did nothing to enlighten our desktop. Worse, it made sure all we had was a very dull brown screen. To be fair, Ubuntu desktops have always been very brown!

The little devil's last stand...

Oh but the little devil for sure did not like the progress we had made through the week's toils. I thought we had been through the worst but the devil had one final trick up its sleeve.

After getting the desktop up via Live CD, we had started talking of how to go about installing Linux. Jack did not like losing the OS X install, but I did not see any other option as repartitioning the disks was not going to save his Tiger. He was adamant about keeping it and I thought maybe there was something that could be done. Boot camp certainly achieved that when Apple decided to open its gates to other popular operating systems.

As we went through a number of articles and readings the name Intel Macs were starting to irritate Jack, as they were blessed with the Boot Camp capabilities. All the Mac-centric articles on non-destructive repartitioning I have come across had been for these machines that, in my opinion, had helped in making powerpc architecture such a neglected platform on Ubuntu and most other popular Linux releases for that matter.

Finally, we had an agreement. The Tiger must die. Blowing the partitions to kingdom come has always been easy, but trying to set the partitions up for our final step into this install had, expectedly, been many times more complicated.

I was not familiar with the means of which Ubuntu needed to boot into Apple hardware. We had learned, a tad bit late if I may add, that not only was the partition editor in the Tiger Install disc a piece of garbage, but also that we had to work with it and at the same time, figure out what sort of setup Ubuntu would deem usable. It was a battle long drawn out and it was back and forth with articles and different things. So close, yet so far.

While I had learned a few things about what Ubuntu needed, the manual partitioning that I liked to use so much was not cooperative. For some reason, it kept babbling about Apple_Bootloader of which I had no clue. It put us on a merry chase and one that I did not always know where we were heading.

The finale...

I would suppose that at the end of things, Jack had to use a different approach than what I normally like doing. The benefits of thinking outside of the box and having a person not afraid to pull that trigger. Instead of doing that bloody manual install that I kept harping about, Jack had gone through Ubuntu's guided install (of course, after OS X was reinstalled with a smaller partition), which at that point I was not betting any eggs on noting the success rate we had with Ubuntu. But then like magic, the install went through and we had two OS installs on the Apple eMac. It was not the result I had expected, but this entire journey the both of us had embarked had proven to be at the very least interesting and definitely an educational experience for both of us.

From there, I knew there were going to be issues with Ubuntu, especially since it is a fairly out of date version, but it was going to be a more familiar battleground. I firmly believe we had finally mastered that wily little devil. And I think at that point it would be more straightforward to advise what to do.

For Jack, he seems to like Ubuntu. There are a few nagging things but this is just the first step into Linux. I can only hope it proves to be a viable platform for him to be productive and at the same time learn more and have fun with it.

Had I not helped, we may not have achieved this goal, but as important as having a community that helps in Linux there was another important element to this. That is having someone willing to learn.

As a side comment, for a machine noted to have been under the so-called 'New World Macs', it sure seemed to be pretty old, and pretty stubborn. Like a grumpy old man. Take that you little devil!

So why did I have to read all this?

Actually, I do not think you needed to. But if you did, a trite thank you and at the same time an apology for being such a time vampire. The article you just read was really a personal rambling of sort. One that I like to do once in a while. But the true purpose of the writing is just around the corner.

The Full Monty

I have always wanted to use that phrase. And now, you will be spared of the colourful words, at least I try to make it sound like. Let us go through the hardware:

Hardware Overview:

Machine Name: eMac

Machine Model: PowerMac4,4

CPU Type: PowerPC G4 (2.1)

Number Of CPUs: 1

CPU Speed: 700 MHz

L2 Cache (per CPU): 256 KB

Memory: 640 MB

Bus Speed: 100 MHz

Boot ROM Version: 4.4.0f1

eMac Display:

NVIDIA GeForce2 MX

Chipset Model: GeForce2 MX

Type: i2c

Bus: AGP

VRAM (total): 32 MB

Device ID: 0x0110

Revision ID: 0x00b2

ROM Revision: 1105.2

Display Type: CRT

Resolution: 1024 x 768 @ 89Hz

Depth: 16-bit Color

Built-in: Yes

Core Image: Not Supported

Main Display: Yes

Mirror: Off

Online: Yes

Quartz Extreme: Not Supported

Burning Device - NEC DVD RW ND-3520A

Firmware Revision: 1.04

Interconnect: FireWire

Burn Support: Yes (Vendor Supported)

NOTE: Internal Optical Drive is busted. So we had to use his Firewire Optical Drive.

Hard Disk Capacity: 38.29 GB

Feisty Fawn PowerPC Image Download:

http://mirror.linux.org.au/ubuntu-releases/7.04/?C=M;O=A

Supplemental Readings:

Booting from firewire CD drive:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=320690

Notes on the Graphics Xorg Problems:

Article on xorg.conf: http://www.linux.com/feature/58044

Apple eMac xorg.conf (From the Article Above):

http://homepage.univie.ac.at/georg.koe/XF86Config/XF86Config-4.emac700nvidia.working

NOTE: Be sure to change keyword from "de" to "en" unless you are Deutsch.

Gnome Desktop ESD Problems:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PowerPCKnownIssues#Gnome wont load

Specifically, this area:

Sound problems

There is a kernel bug that causes processes play sounds to hang. When Gnome plays its startup sound it hangs. You may hear the first fraction of a second of the sound.

Press CTRL+ALT+F1. Log in at the text terminal, if needed. Type

killall esd

and press enter. Press CTRL+ALT+F7 to return to the desktop. Go to Gnome's Sound Prefs and uncheck the 'ESD' box, this will allow stop the hang in future log ins.

Partitioning Supplemental Reading:

https://help.ubuntu.com/8.04/installation-guide/powerpc/partition-programs.html

http://penguinppc.org/bootloaders/yaboot/doc/mac-fdisk-basics.shtml

Brief walkthrough of what had transpired

I hope this gives you a good idea of what we did and hopefully this will arm you for your own adventure with the Apple eMac.

Booting the Live CD:

1. When you put in Feisty and attempt to boot, you need to do somethings to boot the Live disc using the firewire drive. Of course at that point you need to have the disc in the drive! When the computer is starting hold down command (apple key) +option+o+f and then type the following:

boot fw/node/sbp-2/disk:,\install\yaboot

2. When the LiveCD starts, you will not have a desktop but instead a black screen. To get the terminal, press (and hold) CTRL+ALT+F1

3. We need to kill the esd sound daemon. Type in: $ killall esd

4. Copy the xorg.conf file from the supplemental readings part to /etc/X11/xorg.conf. (You can use wget to download it, or you can type it in its entirety if you're a glutton for pain). $ cp xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf

5. We need to restart gdm. Do the following

   1. To stop gdm. $ sudo /etc/init.d/gdm stop

   2. To start gdm. $ sudo /etc/init.d/gdm start

6. In case there are prompts that pop up, all we want is the desktop, use that to determine any decision it asks from you. I seem to remember something like that. To forcibly go back to the desktop, press CTRL+ALT+F7.

7. The desktop should be up on Live CD.

Partitioning Notes:

We unfortunately did not take enough notes down to definitively say what had happened but we can sort of make some vague guidelines.

1. You need to wipe clean the disk. We used Ubuntu's installer to erase all the partitions.

2. On Apple's disk utility, we create three partitions, one for Apple OS X's swap and then the other partitions for Ubuntu and OS X. By my best guess, it should look like something like this:

• 2.8~ GB swap partition

• 17.7~ GB Apple HFS (for Ubuntu, I think)

• 17.7~ GB Apple HFS (for OS X, I think)

• Bear in mind that by the end of all this we will have two swap partitions, one for Apple OS X and the other for Ubuntu.

3. Install OS X and be sure to select the partitions you are going to use for installing!

4. Install Ubuntu immediately after OS X (To boot from Live CD, check above)

5. Use Ubuntu's Guided Install. It does not seem to like the manual partitioning and we could not get the Apple_Bootloader partition to get recognized. So this was what worked.

6. By the end of the install our disk setup looked like this:

• /dev/hda1 - partition map (31.5 KB)

• /dev/hda2 - (28 KB) - AppleDriver

• /dev/hda3 - (28 KB) - AppleDriver

• /dev/hda4 - (28 KB) - AppleDriverATA

• /dev/hda5 - (28 KB) - AppleDriverATA

• /dev/hda6 - (256 KB) - AppleFW

• /dev/hda7 - (256 KB) - AppleDriverIO

• /dev/hda8 - (256 KB) - ApplePatches

• /dev/hda9 - Apple_Bootstrap (977 KB) --> not created by the OS X installer , maybe by Ubuntu's Guided Install. Required by Yaboot.

• /dev/hda10 - (2.8 GB) HFS --> Apple Swap partition. In OSX, Swap - diskOs10

• /dev/hda11 - Ubuntu install - (17.0 GB) Detected as Apple_UNIX_SVR2

• /dev/hda12 - OS X - (17.6 GB) --> 17.56 GB. In Mac OS X - diskOs12

• /dev/hda13 - swap (806.5 MB) --> Ubuntu's swap. Detected as Apple_UNIX_SVR2

• /dev/hda14 - (128 MB) free

• /dev/hda15 - (8 KB) free

Hopefully, this helps you install Ubuntu on the Apple eMac. If this helped you dual boot, then fantastic! And good luck! Never give up!

Some quick thoughts

I just wanted to drop a few thoughts from an interesting week...

Firstly is the new module I released.  'Nightmares to Dreams' which is in NW Vault.  The aim was to have something roughly playable to be released and that is finally out of the way.  Have not received much of any feedback but I'll let that sit for awhile there while I ponder on what to do next.  I plan to reinstall the NWN toolset into Linux.  I don't like working on Windows.

Second thing to get out of the way is the texture map task my brother keeps wrangling me about.  Hopefully by the end of the week, it'll be finally finished.

Third thing is how I have been indulging a bit on Witcher by reading short stories and watching the Polish serial.  It has been quite interesting and I fairly enjoyed the short stories.  The TV series seems to have some pretty laughable effects but I am still remotely interested in watching it.

Fourth thing is how more videos of Tatsunoko vs Capcom are finally going around and this game is looking like a winner.  One game for the holidays that is for sure.

Lastly, I had a good couple of hours with Tomb Raider Underworld on Wii.  In a word, it's a mess.

Anniversary had a very good control system and she was very agile.  The camera, while not perfect, was something I could adjust to.  The Wii exclusives also made Tomb Raider a much more enjoyable experience.  I have used the flashlight for so many times even if I do not particularly need it.  It was very nice additions and added to the immersion.  

Underworld was a straight up port sprinkled with even less Wii additions.  I am boggled why and how Underworld for the Wii got several steps behind Anniversary.  This game has an atrocious camera system, the motion capture moves makes Lara look like a clumsy lady.  The wall scaling system needs improvements and her acrobatic moves are gone.  One thing I liked about Anniversary was that Lara looked perfectly confident with the leaps she makes.  It makes for an exhilirating piece of acrobatics.  Underworld makes her seem ordinary.  That is not what it should be.  Furthermore, the control scheme seems to have been changed for the worse.  I always liked the nunchuck shake as the action for Lara to throw her grapple.  Now it's the 'B' button.  Less Wii immersion.  The swimming part is also incredibly bland and weak.  Also, there have been multitude of bugs in this game.  One puzzle had me scratching and I decided to exploit physics to solve it.  Hey Eidos/Buzz Monkey, did you playtest this game at all?

What did I like about Underworld?  The idea to use more of the Wii remote speakers.  The sound samples they used have not worked out though.  Sounds more like a broken speaker sound.  The graphics are alright even though I think Lara kind of suffered a bit.

Over all, if I were reviewing Anniversary, I would give the game a solid 8.  Underworld deservedly gets a 5 or a 6.  Granted I have only played the first few levels, that might end up being a bit higher to say, 7, if the changes dramatically make this an awesome game.  I doubt it though.  I am not sure if Buzz Monkey did Tomb Raider Anniversary but I am positive they did Tomb Raider Underworld.  If Buzz Monkey had nothing to do with Anniversary, I would suggest Eidos not to hire them again.