Review: The Unfinished Swan will make you paint the world back in black

I went into The Unfinished Swan knowing absolutely nothing about it. That doesn’t happen very often these days, especially with a downloadable game as unique as The Unfinished Swan. It is unlike any other game I’ve played before; it doesn’t hold the players hand or instruct you what to do and where to explore, but rather trusts your instincts to lead you in the right direction. That’s a huge pressure to put on a player, but The Unfinished Swan does so with such grace and subtlety that I didn’t fully recognize what I'd done until the game was over.

The Unfinished Swan starts in a rather odd way. After you download it from the Playstation Network Store ($15), you load the game and all you see is a targeting reticle in the middle of a blank white screen. It seems odd until you press one of the triggers and fire a ball of black paint that splatters across a blank white object somewhere in this blank white virtual space, defining a portion of the world. Once I discovered this mechanic of exploration it wasn’t long before I was shooting as many paint balls as I could, trying to make the space more defined and more comfortable to me.

It was a weird and unfamiliar feeling to be walking through a space that I couldn’t fully see. Though in a world where gamers are often concerned about draw distances in games as much as the games themselves, it was somewhat refreshing to know that visual acuity didn't really matter.

I found myself painting a basic path on the ground when entering a new area before spinning in a circle, firing paint in all directions hoping to hit a wall of some kind and understand where I was. It was disconcerting, not immediately knowing if I was in a room or outside in a garden; playing The Unfinished Swan makes you acutely aware of how dependent humans are on a sense of place. Locational awareness is often overlooked in games since you can immediately see and understand the virtual space you're exploring; when that sense is taken away, things become disconcertingly foreign.

The blank canvas worlds of The Unfinished Swan become a huge mystery, one that I felt compelled to unearth. It was almost as if I was actually painting these environments from scratch, though they existed invisibly all along and I was only making them visible the the eye. The Unfinished Swan is fantastic because it inspires feelings of both creation and exploration, allowing you to form worlds from nothing and then explore them at your leisure. It felt almost as if I was playing two roles simultaneously, the scientist opening up parts of the maze for the lab rat to explore.

As I progressed through the areas, the story began to unfold, bringing new mechanics with it that were just as simple and relatable as the last. After the first area (which is all stark black and white) shadows are drawn in grey, making it easier to pick out details of the invisible world before you lay paint to canvas. These highlights lessen the thrill of discovery, but they don't kill it entirely.

A later area introduced the use of vines to navigate the world, trading your paint for water to grow the vines. Even though you aren’t directly controlling the vines, they grow wherever you spray water and thus you have the illusion of control over life (despite the vines being pre-programmed on a pretty set path). It's a little depressing that you don't have complete control over this surreal blank canvas of a virtual world, but the illusion of complete control is something that The Unfinished Swan sells perfectly.

There’s balloons scattered throughout the world, but I couldn’t really figure out why. They’re still an interesting collectable that challenges you to explore the world more than you might otherwise, so they’re worth going for when you see them. There’s a few dozen in each chapter too, so you’ll have to go off the beaten path to find them all.

I experienced The Unfinished Swan using a DualShock, but you can play through the entire game using the PlayStation Move, which is a nice option to have if you’re looking for a more immersive experience. The Unfinished Swan isn’t a long game by any means, either; I think my total playthrough clocked in at less two hours, and that's perfect. If it was any longer, it might not have resonated with me as much as I did. 

It may be short and a bit surreal, but The Unfinished Swan is one of the most enjoyable games that I’ve played all year. I didn’t need to think about anything technical or worry about solving any puzzles, I could just play and soak in all the beauty of a strange new world. It's the sort of game you can come back to again and again every few years, and I recommend it to anyone with a PlayStation 3.

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Canon Pixma MG4120 Review: All the Basics, Expensive Black Ink

The $130 (as of March 19, 2012) Canon Pixma MG4120 color inkjet multifunction (print/copy/scan) is one of the cheaper MFPs on the market to feature paper-saving automatic duplexing. It also produces nice-looking output at a reasonable pace. Color-ink costs are lower than average for a low-price MFP, too, so photos and Web pages are relatively cheap to print. The black ink is pricey, however, so printing out everyday letters and term papers costs more than the norm.

You can attach the Pixma MG4120 directly to your PC via USB, or network it using the integrated Wi-Fi. The unit's flip-up 2.4-inch LCD screen is easy to read, and makes using the printer a breeze for the most part. Canon needs to ditch the three "function" buttons for making selections, though. Having to move your fingers to those buttons is a waste of time and effort; the OK button and four-way cursor control would suffice. The Pixma MG4120 also features SD Card and Memory Stick slots for printing photos or offloading scans.

Paper-handling features on the Pixma MG4120 are modest, though adequate for home use. You get a single 100-sheet letter/legal input tray at the front of the unit, and a 50-sheet output tray directly above it. The unit doesn't have an automatic document feeder for the A4/letter-size scanner, but it does offer an automatic duplexer for hassle-free two-sided printing. The lid for the scanner telescopes to accommodate thicker material.

The Pixma MG4120's output is about the same quality as what you see from other Canon Pixma MG-series printers--that is, quite good. Text is sharp, if not laserlike. Color graphics have an orange skew that can make faces look spray-tanned, but the tint also makes for warm-feeling landscapes and still-lifes. Photo details are nicely rendered.

Speed is good for everyday tasks and the odd photo. In our tests the Pixma MG4120 printed text pages at 6.5 pages per minute on the PC and 7.1 ppm on the Mac. Snapshot-size photos printed at 2.6 ppm on plain paper, and at 1.2 ppm on photo paper. Color PDF pages and full-page photos printed on the Mac took twice as long as the average. Scans and copies at normal and higher resolutions were decently fast. And, in case you were wondering, the Pixma MG4120's performance falls right in line with the numbering convention of the MG series--it's faster than the MG2120 and MG3120, and slower than the MG6120 and the newer MG5220.

Similar to its brethren, the Pixma MG4120 has higher-than-average black-ink costs. The PG-240XL Extra Large black cartridge costs $21 and lasts for 300 pages, or 7 cents per page. The $38, 600-page PG-240XXL black cartridge reduces costs only slightly to 6.3 cents per page. Color, on the other hand, is relatively cheap. The unified-color CL-241XL costs $30 and lasts for 400 pages, or 7.5 cents per page. A four-color page using the PG-240XXL and the CL-241XL would be 13.8 cents, about average in cost for an inkjet MFP. Note that with a tricolor cartridge (containing cyan, magenta, and yellow), when one color runs out, you have to replace the entire cartridge even if ink remains for the other colors.

If you're looking for alternatives with lower black-ink costs, both the HP Photosmart 6510 e-All-in-One ($150) and the Brother MFC-J625DW ($130) are worth considering. However, the Pixma MG4120 is otherwise every bit as competent, and it's decently inexpensive for mixed-color pages and photos.

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Canon Pixma MG2120 Color Inkjet MFP: Basic With Pricey Black Ink and a Short Warranty

Depending on how much and what you print, the $70 (as of 03/07/2012), USB-attached Canon Pixma MG2120 color inkjet multifunction printer may be adequate for a home user. But its black ink is hardly a bargain, so if you print mostly text, you won't like the ongoing costs. On the other hand, if you normally print mixed text and color graphics, this MFP costs about the same to operate as most of the competition.

The Pixma MG2120 will handle low volumes of printing, copying, and scanning easily. Not surprisingly, given the price, it has no amenities such as an automatic duplexer, or an automatic document feeder (ADF) for the scanner. On the plus side, the lid for the letter/A4-size scanner telescopes to accommodate thicker material, and you can even push-scan by changing a setting in the scanner dialog. The single input tray handles about 100 sheets, and the output tray directly above it handles 50.

The control panel is rudimentary. The single-digit LED and array of flashing-light indicators can be hard to decipher, despite some good labeling. There are no media-card slots, nor is there a display for navigating menus or previewing photos.

Canon, unlike HP with its Photosmart 5010, offers a full-featured PC printer driver. The unit has the regular panoply of layout options such as booklet and "n-up," or tiled, pages (multiple pages reduced in size and printed on a single sheet of paper).

Mac users, however, will be disappointed: You'll find no manual duplexing support for the Mac, and Canon's solution for supporting Lion (OS X 10.7) was to send me to a website where I could find no download specifically for the Pixma MG2120, only those for more expensive models. Fortunately, Apple's own Add Printer installation found, downloaded, and installed a suitable driver for the unit.

The output from the Pixma MG2120 is decently fast considering the price and its intended low-volume usage. Text prints at about 5.8 pages per minute on the PC, and 5.7 ppm on the Mac; 4-by-6-inch photos print at 2.4 ppm on plain paper and at about half that rate on glossy photo paper. The full-page photo we print from the Mac takes a little less than 4 minutes, or 0.3 ppm--a bit slower than the norm. Scans and copies on the other hand, are a on par with, or quicker than, those of most MFPs.

The quality of the Pixma MG2120's output is about the same as that produced by other Canon Pixma MG-series printers. Text is not laserlike, but certainly serviceable, even for business correspondence. Color graphics have a warm, friendly vibe. They’re not terribly accurate in terms of their color palette, skewing orangeish even on Canon’s own photo paper. They do, however, show nice detail.

The Pixma MG2120's black ink is expensive no matter which size of cartridge you purchase. The PG-240XL Extra Large black cartridge costs $21 and lasts for 300 pages, which is a pricey 7 cents per page (cpp). The $38, 600-page PG-240XXL black cartridge is only slightly cheaper at 6.3 cpp. The tri-color CL-241XL cost $30 and lasts for 400 pages, or 7.5 cpp. That makes a four-color page 13.8 cpp at best, which is about average for an inkjet MFP.

Canon offers only a 90-day warranty on the Pixma MG2120. Before discovering that, I would've estimated that the construction of the unit would have it lasting far longer than three months. However, Canon's brief commitment to the unit should be noted.

If you print in low volume--a few pages a few times a week, or an occasional photo--then the economics of the Pixma MG2120 might work for you. For more frequent use, opt for something a tad pricier with better black-ink costs, such as the Brother MFC-J430W or the Epson Stylus NX430. Both of these units also carry a more reassuring one-year warranty.

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