The Darksiders PS3 game promises to quench your thirst for blood, yet doesn’t neglect the mental aspect of gameplaying as it delivers both bloody executions and puzzles galore for the PS3 gamer. The game is set somewhere during or at the start of the Apocalypse, which is fitting, since your character is one of the Four Horsemen. As a Horseman, it is one of your jobs to help maintain the balance between the forces of heaven and hell. The word is that the Darksiders PS3 game plays like a mashup of the “God of War” and “The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time”.

So here are the meaty parts of the game as I see it. What I like about this game, as I suspect most gamers will, is the selection of weapons, special items, and gear that are available for you to choose and use in slaughtering your enemies and accomplishing your missions. Aside from the numerous combos which you can learn and employ to slay your foes, there are also lots of complicated dungeons and areas that you need to get across in order to reach certain goals. It’s certainly obvious that the game developers made an effort to create a demanding yet hugely enjoyable world of brutal violence and head-scratching predicaments.

With those strong points about the game, it is a little bit unfortunate that I have to tell you about the controls. Tight controls that are easy to remember and perform are necessary in an action game like this, and that is where Darksiders PS3 ultimately fails. Action games are somewhat expected to be button mashers most of the time, but this game takes it a bit too far with its complicated scheme. The story is nothing to write home about, but it does the job it was designed for and does it well. Even with my problems about the controls, I still recommend Darksiders PS3 as a good buy and a great game to own.

Wikipedia makes an attempt to describe American Chinese food in relation to where it originally came from.  It is not hard to understand that American Chinese cuisine often uses ingredients not native to China.   One example is the use of western broccoli instead of Chinese broccoli in American Chinese cuisine.   The same also applies to carrots, turnips and onions.  The Chinese and American version of these types of vegetable taste somewhat different and even have different names.  The differences in names for the generally same type of vegetable reinforces the idea that American broccoli, carrot, and onion are not indigenous to China and are less common in the cuisines of China.  Another example is the tomato, which is fairly new to native Chinese cuisine.  Tomatoes can be found in some American Chinese dishes such as the beef and tomato dish.  As a result, if a dish contains significant amounts of any of these ingredients, it generally would not be found in China.  Even more divergent are American stir-fry dishes inspired by Chinese food, that may feature brown rice instead of white, or those with any type of cheese as milk products almost never found in any type of traditional Chinese food.

Most American Chinese restaurants, out of economic necessity, have to cater to non-Chinese customers, with menus written in English.  If separate Chinese-language menus are available, they typically feature delicacies like liver, chicken feet or other meat dishes that most Americans would be reluctant to try.  Plus, in some places in the US, menus written in Chinese may have prices lower than the same item written in English.  Funny, but true.

And for some of the best and most authentic Chinese food to be found in the US, you are highly recommended to try the Beijing Restaurant in the Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center in Waikiki.  For more information, see www.beijinghawaii.com.

My wife food and cooking recipes I made a deal 27 years ago that has served us well to this day: I cook, she cleans. We have these roles because (a) I’m a much better cook and like to do it and (b) she’s better at cleaning and doesn’t mind doing it. That does not mean I never do the dishes. But I certainly do the dishes far more often than she cooks!