You have failed me

The gaming industry has reached the ultimate low recently with publication of this beautiful little piece, Left Behind. It is so low that it makes the Marianas Trench look like Mount Everest. I know that my mom has read the entire Left Behind series, but I know she's no radical idealist pushing for this game to be the "ultimate Christian game." A Christian game that is setup GTA-style, but in New York City and instead of killing anyone without discrimination in GTA, this game only allows you to kill all non-Christians (Jews, gays, Muslims, Buddhists, Athiests, Catholics, and everyone else who advocates the seperation of Church and State). Sounds to be very Christian to me. I didn't realize I was living in NAZI FUCKING GERMANY. You've got to know that something's wrong with this game when fucking Jack Thompson, the epitome of all that is evil and represents everything that I hate, finds this game to be absurd.

They think a Christian game, copying the idea of GTA gameplay, is going to actually sell? No. It isn't. Anyone who buys this game should be stricken with the AIDS virus while a pack of wild and rabie-stricken ferrets begin to eat out some of their organs to stay alive long enough to be air-lifted and then dropped several stories up into a building housing a nuclear reactor leak, on par with the K-19, only to have his skin start peeling off while a crate of salt, capsicum, and army ants are dumped on all over his body focusing mainly on his lower extremities only to open his eyes and see two gay guys getting married, a Muslim praising to Allah during his daily ritual prayer, and a Jewish family giving their new-born son a circumcision. Then... the bastard finally dies.

I think that's enough out of me, for now.

Far beyond the sun light

To my surprise, I earned an 87 on my math midterm that was passed back today. A whopping 27 point difference from the last midterm; talk about turning things around in that class. The future is looking a little brighter as the quarter finishes up (all two weeks of it). Now to hoping I don't royally fuck up any of the finals.

I'll be out of this damned place for the summer come June 8, immediately following my last physics exam EVER! What a glorious day that'll be. Now here's to finishing the calculus series in math next quarter... *holds up wine glass*

From my cold, dead hands

If a politician or government tries taking away your second right, the right to bear arms, you cannot give into to their demands. After watching a video today in my rifle shooting class, it showed what happened to countries all around the world when its people were disarmed. I can tell you that it was not a pretty sight.

You're Winner!

Talk about a picture of the worst fucking game known to man... and I found it at a Meijer. By worst fucking game known to man, I mean: opponents who have no AI whatsoever and sit at the start/finish line the entire race, infinite acceleration when going into reverse until your computer probably crashes, no collision detection whatsoever with anything on the map other than the ground itself, no physics whatsoever, and the list goes on. I have this game if you ever feel the need to entertain yourself for about 5 minutes before wanting to punch a baby. 

Savor the flavor

Today my second midterm was passed back in physics. I was very reluctant at first, thinking I did a dreadful job and was going to bomb, yet, another midterm in college. Yet this one turned out quite the opposite. Sure it was a 78/100 (18 points higher than my previous exam), but I felt a little more accomplished in my life. I'm glad staying up all night studying appeared to pay off in some respects of not completely crapping out on a test I would have else had no idea what to do on. I don't know how these grades compare to anyone elses, but to me they are low; at least for the first one. I can now look forward to the final and know my efforts in physics to maintain at least a C average were there. But that's the future, 2.5 weeks away. This is now and I still need to focus on the task at hand of completing the homework and doing well on the quizzes this week and next.

It goes the same way with math, but I don't have the results of the midterm from yesterday right now. Maybe by tomorrow or Friday I will and hopefully it won't be as bad this time around either. God I hate discrete math right now. At first I thought it was going to be a breeze, but now getting into crap like recursion and growth rates... ugghh. Don't even want to talk about it.

CSE right now is always a bitch because they have different rules than other classes. This rule is, if you fail the final you fail the course no matter how good your other grades might be. You could be an A student all the way through the course getting As on the midterm, homeworks, and labs, but come the day of the final, you had better make sure that A effort is not misplaced otherwise you're in a load of shit. Seeing that I scored relatively low compared to my midterm in the previous class, I can only hope the final goes over well this time. I hope to at least have enough time to think things through just for a minute to come up with the needed algorithms or tracing the steps to see what's missing. That was my problem on the midterm. Writing computer code with pencil and paper is the dumbest concept ever. It should all be computer-based god dammit. I hate writing twenty lines of code only to have forgotten to add a variable declaration or a command call and not having enough room to shimmy it in there to make any fucking sense.

Anyways, I'll be glad to finally be back in Amelia for a while knowing for certain three things:
1) I have my old job of working at West Clermont all summer with at least Nathan and Emily, if not anyone else.
2) My comfortable and hugantic room in the basement where nobody can bother me.
3) A comfortable and hugantic room waiting for me here in Columbus next year with no ResNet and no annoying ass little quirks like our dorm has (showers from hell, DJs next store with $1500 speaker setups to blow women's clothing off).

It'll be grand.

Ciao

P.S. I love Italians.

BAMF

The fuckin' baddest motherfucker on the planet, Ted Nugent!!! 

Newsflash...

Last week, I bought a PS2. The very, very tiny PS2. It was cheap and there are games I want to play on that system (older PSX games included). Thus far I have began my journey in the Metal Gear series, starting with the first one even if the third one is a prequel. Let me tell you, it's hard to adjust to, err, the not-so-good graphics that the original PS had to offer. The story from Hideo Kojima is always excellent though. Just makes me angry that those games are mostly exclusive to Sony and nobody else. Third-party exclusives are stupid.

My 2 cents on E3

I'll simply break it into three parts here... Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony. I'll tell you right now before you read on about each company... I hate Sony and am a Nintendo fan at heart. As for Microsoft, I like their style and how they appeal to the masses and present themselves as the alpha male.

Microsoft
They've already proved they can do online with possibly the best online service known to many as Xbox Live. Millions and millions of users and that number only goes higher with time... and since the 360 has already been out for over 6 months now, time is on their side. With talks about wireless accessories being available during the holiday season, getting the next GTA game on the 360 the day it comes out (including episodic content that's going to be available on Live), a trailer already for the final (and what appears to be the biggest and best) Halo game, not to mention other hot titles like Gears of War, Hitman: Bloody Money, Lost Planet, Huxley, Dead Rising, Splinter Cell Double Agent, Madden '07, Smackdown vs. Raw 2007, and a shitload of other games that appeared at E3.

It's safe to say Microsoft is pretty well set with its plans for the future of the "next-gen" wars.

One thing I am not looking forward to however are the "format" wars. Fucking HD-DVD and fuck Blu-Ray. I take my DVD any day of the week. This just looks like a money scheme developed by the different corporations to make more money off their shitty-ass movies. Whether they're in HD or not, the movie won't get any better. How about you make better movies instead of feeling the need to spend more money on the effects than the actors. Oh yeah, fuck Uwe Boll too. He must die. Didn't mean to go on a rant there, but I felt it was necessary to show my feeling towards HD.

Nintendo
These guys practically stole the show with their debut of the Wee... I mean Oui... I mean Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii. Anyways, the Wii had everyone wanting a piece of it at E3. The lines were said to be up to 6 hours long at times to get a chance to play a Wii for a few minutes (that's even worse than a roller-coaster), but I'm sure it was worth it to those who had the patience to stand in that line.

What had everyone going crazy for the Wii was no doubt the Wiimote-nunchuck. It really has you interact with the games like nothing else before. I definitely enjoy Nintendo's strategy on being innovative, just as they have in years past. Sword-fighting, playing sports, shooting arrows, driving cars, and the list goes on for what is and/or can be possible with the Wii controller.

The virtual console also made a lot of heads turn to the Wii knowing that they'd be able to play GoldenEye or Super Mario 64 or Bubble Bobble on their brand-new Nintendo console. They've announced all games from the NES, SNES, N64, Genesis, and TurboGfx will all be available to play (at a fee, most likely) on the Wii. Not to mention compatibility with GameCube games AND being able to use GameCube controllers with the Wii. Aside from having their little virtual console, some games coming out for the Wii sure look like a big hit like a new Zelda game, Mario game, Super Smash Bros. game (which looks really awesome with the addition of Solid Snake), and Red Steel.

The other thing that makes the masses happy about the Wii? The price tag... or at least the possible price tag. Many have rumored ~$200, but maybe lower? We can only wait and see what Nintendo comes up with. Since their console isn't so much as hardware driven as the other two and is relying more on innovativeness and "fun", it obviously will be much more affordable. The question is will the "fun" of the console hold out over their competitors or will they be back at phase one like they partially were with the financial failure of the GameCube and horrible third-party support.

Sony
Let me just say now, Sony has taken it's last breath in the video game industry. When the 360 has more of a fanbase than the PS3 in Japan now, you know something has gone horribly wrong.

Just to start off, the price of a PS3 will be $499 for a 20 GB version and $599 for a 60 GB version. Not to mention the cheaper version is lacking HDMI, wireless, and memory card ports. This is where they really went wrong. The price is almost laughable when compared to the other consoles. Peter Moore even said "Why would you buy a PS3 when you can buy both a 360 and a Wii?" It's obvious that Nintendo and Microsoft are teaming up to take down the current leader in consoles (thanks to the PS2).

The revised controller of theirs was a fucking joke. First it was a banana/boomerang. Now, it's the DualShock, to be blunt. This DualShock, however, has motion-sensing like the Wii controller (blatantly stolen from Nintendo), a guide button in the middle copying that of the 360, and no rumble feature? When I play games, I prefer to feel them. It's almost a requirement anymore. Not to mention the DualShock design and analog sticks are fucking shit when you compare it to any Xbox controller (yes, even the bigger one). PS3 controller = big ass skanky pile of shit.

Third... Blu-Ray. Like I said with Microsoft, fuck new formats.

Fourth, Sony actually had the balls to claim they were the online leaders and their online service would "revolutionize" our lives. I don't even know what to say about that.

The games were crap and not to mention the controversy behind running a "PS3 demo" of Assassin's Creed off of an Xbox 360. That has got to be the lowest hit below the belt I've seen. My god that's just despicable.

I guess we'll find out the real winner come this holiday season, but man if it's not their last, it'll be a very rough and tumble ride for Sony.

As for now, I'm a little sick of writing about video games and I'd rather be off playing them right now. So that's exactly what I'll be doing.

Peace out fanboys

Review for Oblivion

As I said, I'd post some kind of review about Oblivion since it did take up so much of my life the last month and a half. This game was also being played on the 360, as well so some things I say may not apply to the PC version since there are so many variables with a PC.

*Warning: May contain some spoilers*
To be honest, I was getting goosebumps when Emperor Uriel Septim first appeared on-screen and began his monologue. Right after the fairly brief monologue, the character generator comes up and after careful consideration I went with a Khajiit as my race. It's basically a human-like pussycat in lamens. I figured my core character would be sneaky and dandy with a blade. My journey begins inside of a jail cell awaiting my fate when none other than Uriel Septim himself comes to me and says I'm the one he's been seeing in his dreams. He assures the guards that I'm someone to be trusted and eventually make my way out of this dungeon, with or without Septim.

After 45 minutes through this dreadful place, I finally make it to the end. I finally am able to step outside into this beautiful and lush environment that is what makes a lot of what Oblivion is. Do I have to immediately go to the next mission in order from what I have in my logbook? Nope, in fact I do the complete opposite and save it for dead last. I travel off to the different cities seeing what they all have to offer. I join some of the guilds that are available, I help out some people who run up to me asking for help, I run into some trouble with the law, and just diong what I damn well please.

I'm going to cut my little review here short and just go list some things I found to be good and bad about the game.

The Good...

• The game is one of the most open ended games I've played next to the GTA games.


• The graphics and environments are very believeable and realistic looking... imagine something from Lord of the Rings.


• Full speech for everything that someone has to say and not to mention, the lip-syncing is really well done too.


• Tons and tons of things to do from buying a house and decorating it like your Christopher Lowell or some shit to becoming some evil sorcerer and destroying the population of an entire city.


• The map is absolutely gigantic. Assuming you don't use the quick travel option all the time and actually feel like "role-playing" since that's what this game is... a "role-playing" game then this game would take you an eternity to finish.


• Though there are a ton of missions to do, there aren't many that seem to be too repetitive from the others. They each have their own little objective with different circumstances, people, enemies, location, etc.


• Although a little too short if played by itself, the main story is quite epic and the end makes you feel very accomplished with your deeds.


• The entire game is done fromt he first-person. Just like something out of Half-Life, there are no pre-rendered CG movies that tell the story and take you out of the game. Everything is done as you're moving around and controlling your character.


• Definitely plenty of replay value.

The Bad...

• Leveling up in this game means absolutely jack shit when everything else around you stays at your level. So yes, as I experienced, leveling up in this game does more harm than good. It makes the enemies rediculously more difficult than if you were to stay at level 1. This definitely doesn't make it worth your while when you make it to level 35 like I did and then start to do the main story. There's also other things that having a higher level at really does nothing like if you're good at lockpicking, your Security skill doesn't really mean shit.


• Lots and lots and lots and lots of loading. The game somewhat takes advantage of the the 360's harddrive by using it to cache certain things, but my god I was starting to become rather irritated with it near the end of the game.


• The "Loading Area..." thing makes things laggy at times and can take away from some of the immersion in the game.


• As high as of a level as I got, you start to see the same kinds of enemies over and over again and it just ruined all my fun.


• Nearly all the Gates of Oblivion were the same thing. I killed most of the enemies in the first few gates, but after those first few, I literally ran through killing maybe one or two who stood in my way and reached the Sigil stone at the end to close the gate.


• Recycled voices used throughout the game. It's weird listening to someone who ordered you around to kill people for about 20 hours of the game and then hearing the same voice coming from some beggar asking you to spare some change.


• Scrolling through the inventory with as much stuff as I had was a real hassle and made me cry... not really, but god damn I had too many potions and magic scrolls.


• Guards can fucking hear everything... you'd try killing someone in their house and they'd make one little yell and the guard would be there within 10 seconds.


• The fact that other merchants know whether you have stolen something or not. This basically forces you to join the Thieves Guild if you plan on selling any of your stolen goods.


• The diagonals on the D-Pad sometimes made it hard to pick exactly the right thing without having to press it a couple times.


• Music was good, but played the same damn song over and over.


• Also, combat music would engage the second you came within sight of an enemy. Even if the enemy wasn't in range to attack you yet or you already rode off into the sunset, leaving them in the dust... it sometimes just forced me to stay far away from an enemy so I wouldn't always have to hear the damn combat music. Just like Star Wars Galaxies, for everyone who's played that catastrophe of a game.

The Ugly

• The second game made by 2K games that I've experienced bad locking up issues with on the 360. Maybe it doesn't do this much, if at all, on computers, but I can assure you it did more than enough on my system. At one point, the locking up issue became such a problem that there was a certain mission I couldn't pass because everytime I would cast this spell I was given to cast on multiple people, the 360 would lock up immediately. It was the Sanguine Shrine mission for all of you reading at home.

Now I may have left out some things that were good, bad, or ugly about the game, but these are all that I could think of at the time. The game overall is very good and highly recommended to anyone who remotely enjoys playing RPGs... or hell, even FPS-shooters. It gets a lot of what it does right, that's for sure, but there are some bugs here and there in the game from making it a flawless game. Not even "funny" bugs like Halo may have, but just things that usually annoy you and interfere with gameplay and that's mostly what makes this game lower than what it would have been had these not been a big deal.

I give this game an 8.8 out of 10.

I need a new picture

The title says it all. I need to take a new picture with me being all that is man. It's been a while since I've done something like that. Just a random thought after seeing my current picture and knowing it's from over a year ago.

The jaws of Oblivion... have been shut

I have finally finished playing through the main quest for this almost splendid game. I am, of course, talking about The Elders Scrolls IV: Oblivion. I have just a couple more quests to go within the Fighter's Guild and I'll be ready to send it back to GameFly. When I get the time, I'll finally be able to post a full review about it too. Note this has practically been the only game I've played since I've been back in Columbus, which is why the last review I wrote was for Burnout: Revenge and Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter. This is a game that I've logged just around 140 hours for in the past month and a half. So possibly a review posted here by the weekend? Guess we'll find out muahahahaha.

What he said

Saw this from Ctrl+Alt+Del and couldn't agree with it more. Funny I saw that post by them because I never go to that site. No particular reason, but has just never been a part of my habit of website checking. Anyways, thought this post was awesome in regards to the original uncut version of Star Wars Episodes IV, V, and VI finally coming to DVD and also how people spend more time on bitching about a game than playing it.

Lucasfilm will be releasing the original versions of the first Star Wars trilogy on DVD for a limited time later this year, despite George Lucas' adamant statements a couple of years back that the special editions would be the only versions available. The DVD's will be go on sale September 12th, at the same time the new Lego Star Wars launches. Lucasfilm will then stop distributing the original version on December 31st, similar to how Disney releases their movies on DVD for a limited time only.

The original versions will feature state of the art remastering techniques as of 1993, the last time the original trilogy was remastered. Meaning it will still be pretty fuzzy.

I'm glad they're releasing the original versions, not because I give a shit about owning them, but so the whiny fans will finally shut up about it. Now, I liked it better when Han shot first. I thought it fit with his character better. But it's not my movie. If George Lucas wants to change it, that's entirely within his right. Frankly, I liked the versions that were released on DVD last year. I was stunned at how clean the films looked. I couldn't believe that they were thirty years old. They look like they were filmed yesterday.

Personally I think too many people don't understand where their boundaries as a consumer lay. Take MMO's for example, and I've touched on this before. In a problem that has been getting worse and worse over the last five years, most MMO communities are represented by the particularly vocal whining jackasses who complain about everything under the sun.

A patch goes in, and they scream nerf. They get beat in pvp and they scream that their class is under-powered, another class is over-powered, whatever. They curse the developers, call them stupid, throw insults because things aren't how they want them. If there is downtime, they are the first morons on the message board demanding that the hosting developer refund the whole $0.50 a day that most MMO's average out to. Talking about suing and shit just because they can't play their game.

This goes beyond being a paying customer with certain rights as a consumer. If you buy a movie or a video game from a store, take it home and the disc doesn't work, you have the right to take it back to the store and ask for an exchange. We, as consumers, have the right to expect the functioning, as-advertised product that we paid for. This is true.

However there seems to be this growing mentality amongst certain people that simply paying for something somehow automatically puts you on the board of directors. That buying that DVD gives you the right to demand that the director give you something different. Or that the game developer has "broken" the game just because you don't like how it plays.

Of course everyone is enititled to discuss their opinions of anything under the sun. And there are constructive ways to do that, but that's not what I'm talking about here. I'm referring to the percentage of people who act like they're entitled, and I think most of you know the kind of people I'm talking about.

If George Lucas decides that his movies as-is don't accurately reflect his vision, and he wants to change them, that's his right. If you don't agree, just don't buy the films. Don't act like you're forced to purchase the movies, and you're pissed because they aren't the versions you want.

If an MMO developer decides to alter a class somehow, it's because that's in accordance with their overall vision for their game. Paying a monthly fee entitles you access to the play the game, not a right to have it cater to your personal wants. If a rogue in Game A doesn't play like a Rogue in Game B, don't go to Game A and start bitching that the class should be more like in Game B. Just go fucking play Game B if you've got such a hard-on for how they did things.

As I said earlier, everyone is entitled to their opinion, and here is mine. We need to be more tolerant, and less demanding. Stop acting like wanting to play a game is the same thing as being forced to play a game, and acting like victims when the game doesn't evolve how we want it to.

Instead of spending countless hours in various forums complaining and whining that things aren't going how you want them to, just stop playing. Go play a game that you DO enjoy. Or better yet, create your own game/movie/website/book/whatever.

Just my $0.02.

Jedi Master14's Xbox 360 can blog

Jedi Master14's Xbox 360 can blog

Yep, the title says it all. A site than lets your 360 "blog" whether you play it or not. It's rather creepy, but is pretty sweet at the same time. I think Microsoft should've been the ones to coin the phrase "It's thinking" instead of the Dreamcast LOLOLLOLOLOL