Great package, nagging problems that keep it from being perfect...
938153
I picked up 'The Last Express' without high expectations. That was due mainly to the sheer lack of 'hype' about this game in the adventure community. It isn't on the 'classics' list, it had no follow up to its storyline. Yet after finishing it, I felt the all too familiar sensation of 'more' that only the best adventure plotlines are able to cause.

The game takes place in the last Orient Express train to set out from Paris before the beginning of World War I, and the early twentieth century atmosphere is present at every corner of the train. From the clothing to the manners, every detail in 'The Last Express' seems to come from extensive research and production. Your character, Robert Cath, an American running away from the British police, comes on board the famous train after an invitation by an old friend, only to find him murdered and involved in a political scheme. From there follows an intricate storyline involving Austrian spies, Russian revolutionaries and Ottoman noblemen.

Graphically, the game is - copying the Gamespot official review for lack of a better word - stylized in stop-motion techniques and almost photographic environments. The characters, filmed in action for later animation, are immensely detailed and highly memorable. Each has a peculiar feeling that stands out from the rest.

The sounds are amongst the best ever found within an adventure game, from classical music interludes to absolutely fantastic voice acting, you truly feel as if travelling in the world famous train. Every actor's voice feels natural, from the fluent French speaking of high society ladies - fully subtitled - to the rough English of a German businessman.

Amazing plot, detailed graphics and fantastic sound work. Could you ask for more? Yes. The creativity present in the graphics extend to the gameplay in the aspect that the action within game is done in real time, which, while it amounts for a nice re-play factor - you want to go back to see what you missed - makes it easier to miss important events to the main plotline. And while you may miss certain things for being to slow, sometimes you'll have to wait for a long time for a determined event to happen. While seconds can make the difference of life or death for Ms. Anna Wolf, you will - depending on how fast you play - be stuck in a rear cart listening to a violin\piano duet for almost half an hour.

Just the same, the game's puzzles, while beautifully detailed, are rare and more often than not depend on trial and error rather than a logical solution.

'The Last Express' has all the marks of an instant classic, unfortunately while it does immerse you in a fantastic plot, the progress of the game depends more on your presence at certain location than any particular action you take. Still, it is far above the average game, and it's well deserving of your playing time. Don't be afraid to buy it, if you truly are an adventure fan you'll thoroughly enjoy this one.
2630878
after owning this for a week I am still very happy and excited about it.  It's defenitely worth the amazon price, not so much the suggested retail... The one problem I am having is multitasking, I had to train dragon six times because the profile set up kept being interupted by something else, once interupted it would simply stay on "not responding" for hours,  I litterally had to close everything else and turn off wifi in order for the task to complete.  Secondly while transffering large portions of data, 30 gigs or so, the data transfer would get interupted if I tried surfing the net at the same time, but that might be because I bought a cheap sd card.  Also, keep in mind that you'll only have about 27 gigs of free space to start with, so one or two 64gb sd cards are a must to keep the main hard drive available for software installations.
4157726
In general, the software quality seems to be top notch.  The animations are bright, friendly, and smooth.  We have experienced no crashes or problems.  However, we have a few issues with the program, which is why we only gave it a 3 out of 5 stars:

I was a bit disappointed with the installer.  However, these problems may be minor to most customers.  By default, it installs into a cryptic folder called "sz80xx", rather than something descriptive, like "School Zone\Math 1", like you would expect.  You can override this, of course.  The complete installation actually takes place in two steps, the second of which happens when you run the program for the first time.  This is a problem for people who have correctly set up the security on their machine to disallow non-Administrative users to perform software installations.  To overcome this problem, answer "Yes" when asked to run the software during setup.

Also, there are no written instructions to copy the data off of the CD and onto the machine's hard drive.  Without this capability, your son/daughter -- or you -- will always have to handle the CD's, popping them in and out of the machine.

My daughters seem to be 1-2 years ahead of the prescribed lesson plans in this series.  For instance, in kindergarten, they are doing Grade 1 Math.  Therefore, the games (which are rewarded to the child after finishing every two lessons) are too fast-paced for them.  As a result, they get frustrated by them.

Conversely, the drag and drop method employed by the software is consistent with novices, requiring a click to "pick up" an object and a click to "drop" it.  Any child who has been using a computer for more than a few months (like my daughters) will find this counter-intuitive and frustrating.

Finally, the "workbook style" methodology of this program was unexpected.  We're accustomed to "game style" learning programs in which you:

  a) choose a game, and

  b) play it repeatedly until you've mastered it.

The only way to go back and repeat a lesson (i.e. to improve your skills) is to "erase" your entire workbook (all lessons) and start over.  My daughters quickly moved from exercises that were too easy to ones that were too hard since in the "workbook style" you would typically only do one or two lessons in a day int he software and a few in the paper workbook (included).  The idea of starting over was not desirable, either.  The result was, again, frustration.

My recommendation is to purchase this software if you plan to work with your child and help them plan out a schedule in which you use the paper workbook and the software in conjunction, limiting the lessons to two a day.  If this is your plan, then I highly recommend this software.

Purchasing this software and letting your child work with it on her/his own won't work.
226998
Coming from MFT and after a week with this camera I have to say I am impressed, it's SO close to perfect, if only SONY would fix a few bugs/annoyances..

First off with cons (a firmware update could fix all these):

- The separate folder views for videos/stills has to go (or become an option) it's just silly and inconvenient
- Some options are selected by turning the wheel in one direction, others in the opposite, this doesn't make any sense.
- The camera tends to select a fairly slow shutter speed in aperture priority mode (unless you manually bump up the ISO), would be great to have a way to set a min shutter speed
- The menus are not as confusing as I expected from most reviews, but they could definitely be simplified
- I read everywhere that the 4 way controller buttons could be customized, but so far I have only managed to customize the left/right ones, can't find if customizing the up/down ones is possible
- The special shooting filters (Picture Effects: high contrast b&w, old film, etc.) are clunky to use since you cannot disable some of them, so if you just want to use a couple you have to toggle through a whole bunch of useless ones. Maybe something I could configure through memorized settings but haven't explored this yet.
- When viewing photos (playback mode), if you hit the zoom lever in front of the camera it zooms in at 100% (useless since with a 20Mb photo zoomed in at 100% on a tiny screen you are way too close up), it should instead zoom in smoothly.
- Manual mode doesn't have an auto-iso option (so you could set aperture and shutter speed with the ring + wheel and let the camera pick iso) that would be really useful.
- PlayMemories wifi sync to smartphone is really nice but (a) would be nice to have even faster connection if possible and (b) have an option to download all photos not already downloaded (or since last download)
- SONY is apparently notorious for never releasing firmware updates (according to forums on dpreview) which is a shame, a lot of things could be improved with one.

Pros:

- Amazing image quality for a compact
- Pretty good at handling low light for a compact
- Image stabilization, especially when shooting movies, is amazing
- Very fast focus/shooting
- The wifi/nfc is surprisingly useful and easy (not exactly apple easy, but close), transferring to a smartphone is really easy.
- The control ring around the lens can be assigned any function, it's a really nice feature, since the multi function wheel can also control another setting.
- It's a true compact camera, with the lens closed it fits very easily in almost any pocket
- I actually like that you don't need a separate charger, usb charging makes perfect sense. The battery life is good enough to last through a whole day of shooting casually. If you need a second battery then you'll need an external charger.

It's the kind of camera that makes shooting fun again, I just always have it with me. If SONY would just fix the issues above (most of which I've also seen in other reviews) it would be the perfect compact camera hands down.

Review updated after a couple of weeks of use and to note PlayMemories sony app crash on Android KitKat/4.4 is now fixed, SONY released a kitkat/4.4 version (so maybe we could hope for a firmware update??)
4271260
Great kit, but keep in mind that all of the small details make it rather challenging
2221301
Don't get me wrong, Commandos Ammo Pack is an excellent package. That is if you can get the add-on pack to work. I had no problems with the original, but when I installed and got into the expansion, it wouldn't play. It said it couldn't find the CD. But that's alright. I am looking forward to the new sequel, "Commandos 2: Men of Courage" to be an excellent follow-up to its predecessor.
2479252
The performance is killer and there are a gazillion other reviews here that attest to it so I'm not delving into it any further. What I want to do instead is bring attention upon some flaws that almost ruined this DVD for me :

1- For a 2005 video, this does not seem to have been mastered from a great def source. First off and oddly enough, the aspect ratio is 4:3. I personally love the vintage format and maybe it was shot that way on purpose but I know most people said WTF when their flatscreens exhibited black sidebars. The variable pic bitrate hovers closely around 7 Mbps; not bad for standard resolution but I have seen 2-hour dvds with 9-11 Mbps. Again, maybe the source did not call for a better mastering because it was limited by original quality. I watched it on a big CRT TV and still could spot minor artifacting here and there.

2- The PCM audio mix : Weak; little bottom end (and I have a big sub I had to crank A LOT to get punch from the drums). Also the guitar on the right channel is HALF as loud as the one on the left one, which forced me to switch to mono for an even soundscape. This was effective but the twin-axe attack was weakened in the process. At times, esp when both guitarrists were riffing without their volume pedals engaged, the guitars were a faint drone at the back of the mix. Same with Rob's voice; pity, coz he's still reaching those impossible highs after all these years. All in all, this can be made to sound pretty good despite the flaws, and it's the Priest FFS !!! They managed to put out a MASSIVE wall of sound anyways !!

Well I'm glad I was given this as a present or I would be very angry. It is a piece of history and a keeper anyway. Buy at your own risk or get it very cheap.
4935216
The device is sleek, well designed, and the UI of the software is fantastic.  This device works extremely well with Xbox 360, PC, and classic gaming devices (even allowing the user to play Composite/RCA based consoles through HDMI as long as the software is running).  However, I attempted to record game play from my PS3 and PS4, respectively, and the HDCP kicked in immediately, even disabling the pass through to my TV.  Likewise the PS3 adapter failed to work with my device.

I don't know if other users are having this issue without the need of an HDMI splitter, but I feel the need to purchase another peripheral just to record gameplay is quite the redundancy.
4725035
I just wanted to add my 2 and point out the two flaws I've found with this router. Overall, it's great. It's fast, uptime is great (which is the reason the old one got replaced), it handles gigabit, it does everything I need. Now the flaws

1) The big one: DHCP
This router is wonky when it comes to DHCP. For anyone who doesn't know what that is...it's the act of assigning an address to each of your devices as they connect to the network. Sometimes if a bunch of things are on at once, or even if just a few are but their leases (the length of time they get to keep the same address without interruption) expire, things can go haywire. Typically this just means that it takes longer for a device to connect...and it has to try a bunch of times. Eventually the router will give it an address and all will be ok. This tends to happen at the least convenient times, however.

Luckily, the router makes it *really* easy to preempt this. In the web interface (192.168.0.1 by default), the first tab (Setup) has a section called Network Settings. Way down at the bottom you see dynamic clients and reservations. Just above that is "Add a DHCP Reservation". While your device is connected, use the "Computer Name" dropdown to select it, then "<<" to yank all the necessary info over. BAM...once you save, you've got a permanent reservation and will never again have to worry about address conflicts. This DHCP interface is really slick, so much so that it almost seems like D-Link knew that there would be problems with the default settings setup. Hmm...

(Settings static IPs works as well...and flashing the router and installing alternative firmware might too)

2) When there's lots of cables plugged in, it doesn't stay upright. Really small annoyance...just a weird design choice
4172226
I am pleased with the box not so much the interface though but there are a few Unofficial firmwares which fix this, other than that the unit works great.

The Unit:
Clean looking unit the LCD could have been put to better use but it is ok, Red standby button needs to be amber color so it doesn't look so bright.

Remote:
A few buttons are unused but you get used to it after a few days.

Playback:
Plays any video I throw at it AVI MP4 Divx etc etc from internal, USB, or NAS shares. No problems with stutter or freezing like some stated here, may be a badly encoded file as well.

Gigabit:
The transfer speeds are a bit slow but that is a Realtek problem not a Pivos that use this chipset, just pointing the blame in the right direction.

Web Browser:
Yes is it limited with the lack of Flash support, so is any Iphone, Ipad, Ipod Touch. Get over it HTML 5 is coming and here to stay.

App:
Specifically Youtube works fine, for those that cant get video to play update the firmware. Google likes to change the API which breaks these apps.

It works! many of the complaints about the unit are usually fall on the end user either lack of following directions or improper setup.
3270970
Long time user and advocate. Does a great job except on updating and correcting update problems.
188673
Let me preface by saying the sound and capabilities of this receiver are best of the bunch for this price point. Not only are there multiple inputs and outputs for every video source, but excellent quality conversions as well. The sound definition and reproduction is fabulous as well. Read the tech specs and brag sheets from Denon for all the info...it's all true.

The main criticism I have is the Owner's Manual and System Setup. I am a tech geek. I love this stuff. But I have never found a manual so poorly written or organized. Instructions on setup are incomplete. Directions concerning how to access certain menus don't work if one switch on the remote is in the wrong position (this switch is never referenced in the directions, by the way...happy hunting). Seemingly simple actions, such as selecting Zone 2 speakers On, are convuluted. There is a Zone 2 button on the front of the actual unit. Seems easy, yes? Just press it. But pressing it does nothing unless you navigate (without much help from the manual) to section 2 of System Setup and scroll to the Preamp section. From there, choose between Zone 2, Surround, Speaker Set A or B. Apparently the Zone 2 Preamp (a separate preamp from the main) also powers a second set of surround speakers used in a 7.1 configuration OR a set of Zone 2 speakers for use in a secondary location. That's great...that's fine. But why would you put a Zone 2 button on the face of the unit AND a Preamp setup in the 4th level of a System Setup Menu? It's redundant. Worse yet, the button on the face of the unit doesn't even work properly if the System Setup Menu isn't configured properly. Clearly, if I want that set of speakers to be used as Zone 2, shouldn't I just press "Zone 2." If I want them as Surround, couldn't I just press it again to de-select? Why not make the button on the face "Zone 2/Surround" and be done with it?

This is just one example of an overly complicated receiver. Here's another seemingly simple item. The volume control increases in increments of 0.5 db per volume touch on the remote. This is pratically imperceptible and with a range of -80db to 16db, you can quickly get frustrated hammering away at your remote like a video game controller. Alternatively, if you press and hold the volume button on a remote, the volume increases too fast and overshoots. Why not make this control interval adjustable? If you're going to preset a volume control at 0.5 db per touch (which is ridiculous), why not allow the user to customize the interval?

Bottom line: The hardware and performance of this unit is great. But the engineers that designed it are not. And the individuals who wrote the owner's manual and designed the remote must have been playing a practical joke. Did they not product test these items? For ease of use alone, I would seriously consider an Onkyo or Harmon Kardon before buying this unit.
893984
First and foremost, I am very pleased with my Squeezebox Duet. I have listened to it every day since I've gotten it. Second, I have not tried any of the competition, so the minor annoyances I have with this unit could be even worse in competitive products.

My first problem was regarding the "bridging" feature. I had recently purchases a Blu-Ray player that was Ethernet-ready but I have a wireless network. I saw several reviews of this product that mentioned it's ability to act as a bridge between a wireless home network and another Ethernet device such as an XBox 360. When you get the Squeezebox, there is no mention of bridging or setting up bridging in the provided or online documentation. I went to the Slimdevices forums and found a third-party tool that I could install and configure bridging using a command-line tool.

The second problem I have is probably also related to my particular network topology. I suffer from occasional power outages during the spring and fall storm seasons, and my network is set up with DHCP. When the wireless router resets, the SB Receiver and/or Controller sometimes become "lost" and have to be power-cycled. For the Controller, this means removing the rechargeable battery. I could probably set up static IPs for the units but haven't done so.

The third has to do with the randomness of the library. I am terribly lazy and have never set up a playlist. I just tell the unit to play random selections from my entire library (less than 100 CDs). Perhaps it is just the nature of randomness or my own perceptions but it seems like some songs will play frequently, even two or three times in an evening, while some entire CDs seem to have never gone into rotation.

I am sure that I could find additional help with all of these by visiting the forums again. There are many extremely helpful people on there, regularl users as well as the developers from Slimdevices/Logitech. I am just one of those people that has gotten tired of having to figure out and tweak my technology; I want it to work the way I expect right out of the box. In the end, that's probably too much to hope for from anything more complicated than an electric toaster.

I would highly recommend the Logitech Squeezebox Duet; I have been extremely pleased with the quality of sound reproduction; with the steadiness of the wireless signal regardless of what else I'm doing on the network, and the simplicity of the SB Controller. Also, my favorite NPR station (WAMU) is preset in the "Internet Radio Favorites" and sounds better over the SB than my FM Tuner.
2694747
First off i would like to say i absolutely loved all three of the games included in this package, they were a lot of fun and are very much replayable games. That said i have a few qualms with it.

1.
I, personally played all of the games on my 80gb ps3 that has backward-compatibility. The only complaint / warning to other buyers is that occasionally during MGS3:Subsistence, the game will slow down significantly, making it seem like you're playing in slow motion, however this only happens on three occasions that come to mind. The worst point of it is when battling The Fury boss, when the lag was so intense it took awhile to beat him. However this problem is easily resolved if you are playing on the ps2 where there are no issues whatsoever.

2.
The games are loooooong. The first game is not immensely long, its just that the cutscenes are very long and in depth for the story and people who are impatient may get annoyed at them. I, myself loved them and this is just a warning to those who may consider a purchase.

3.
If you have only played MGS4 on ps3 and are used to using those controls, they are almost completely different on these games. MGS4 was a lot more organized in my opinion and worked better than these games,  but they still are easy to master if you play enough and practice.

PS3 Compatibility:
Just to let the ps3 owners know, if your ps3 is backward compatible you will have no issues playing the ps1 game (i wasn't sure if it would play correctly in my ps3). Also when fighting psycho mantis, just pause the game and press the PS button and then go to controller settings, and change the controller slot from there - took me a while to figure out how i could change slots w/out a 2nd controller.

Other than those nitpicks i thoroughly enjoyed the games and if anyone has not experienced them and wants to get a good deal for all three games, i HIGHLY suggest getting this since it is well worth the money.
3553934
We received it yesterday and werez extremely impressed with the quality of the build and thoughtfulness of the layout. The unit, for what it is, is the best of the e-ink readers currently on the market. The positive aspects of the unit are immense - aspects that I will not bore you with, since everyone here has already touched on in one form or another.

That being said, some headaches occur outside of the well-made unit. First off, I am a previous owner of a Sony 505 (that the kindle handily bests). I have several books on the damned thing that I would love to transfer over to my new kindle, but with the DRM in place...? If someone knows a way, please feel free to enlighten me. It just seems with DRM, it makes all this into a money game of one company or another - it forces you to be locked into one branding or another, otherwise you lose your entire collection. This is insane and needs to change, but with tons of money at stake, it's a long way off from releasing the full, true potential of these readers. I know DRM is here to stay, lets just make it seamless for us to move around a bit more freely on the branding.

If we want this mainstream, the price needs to lower considerably. Mr. Bezo, I know you need to make up the costs of R&D, etc. That is perfectly acceptable, but at some point when you want this to be a mega-hit (and after peddling the product on Oprah and The View), the price needs to be considerably lower. Look at another industry - the gaming industry. In particular, Valve Software - makers of fantastic hits like Half-life (1,2), Team Fortress 2, and Left4Dead. L4D was out for a few months on Steam (digital transfer) and retail outlets and over last weekend they lowered the price by 50% (digital only). Their sales rose over 1000%. That proves people out there are pinched for cash. At $300+ for a one trick pony (albeit an incredible one), it scares the majority of the population away.

Another few small irritations is the fact that I have craploads of books.. I wish there was some way to get them somehow magically transferred to my kindle for a small price. My gosh.. if there was some way, my life would be complete! LOL The other irritation is the 250,000 kindle book store. Sounds fantastic and IS the best selection out there by far (Sony, yours is WAY overpriced and, well, sucks). It would be nice if that the Kindle store had one book in a series, they would HAVE THE REST AVAILABLE..?! That's such a tease. I know you can "request" a book, but I have requested till i'm blue in the face on books that are from a popular author - still waiting.

Yes, a bit lengthy on the gripes, but this is a review on the product itself - and the complaints are more on streamlining an already improving process. It's more of a wish list of sorts. The product is solid and the very best of it's type to date. I highly recommend it to anyone that can afford the product at this price point.
3697177
The overall concept of this system is great.  When everything works, it is a great value.  I purchased this one "used-like-new" from Amazon, however I would debate the "like new" description.  But that's another issue.

My biggest complaint is the base unit.  If my internet goes down for some reason, it doesn't always come back online.  I have to play all sorts of games between unplugging the power, plugging in the power, plugging in the network cable, etc.  I still haven't figured out what combination works consistently.  If I plug it in and plug in the network cable, it will often just stay red indicating it hasn't connected to the iSmartAlarm servers.  It just seems finicky.  Perhaps I have a bad base unit.  Who knows.  I wish I would have just sent it back right away, but now I'm stuck with it, so I'll keep playing with it.  Love the concept, but reality isn't quite what I'd hoped.
3144314
I bought this set primarily because it exactly fit the 39 inch enclosure at my house. Amazon price was ~$2150 with free shipping and no tax at end of November and is already lower and dropping. The set arrived quickly and with some of the best packing I have ever seen. The picture is excellent, easily in the top level of the many I looked at in local stores. Two hdmi inputs work very well, but if you have Comcast, their Motorola set top does NOT allow hdmi first to your AV receiver and then out to this set, which is very disappointing. You will need to use various cable setups to work around this problem. The onboard audio for this set is nothing special - sounds about the same as all other TV's I have ever had, and WAY below the quality available when you use an AV receiver to process the sound. The controller offers numerous options to adjust picture - convenient when the hdtv channels seem to be all over the map in terms of format (16:9 is not necessarily always being broadcast). All that having been said, it is phenomenal to watch the individual snowflakes falling on Monday Night Football in enough detail to almost count the crystals. If you want an outstanding picture, this is a great set, and it seems to me that the only issue is timing - the longer you wait the lower the price??