Friday, December 31, 2010

Random Thoughts–Revisiting The A-Team

So I got The A-Team movie for Christmas. Now  saw it in the theaters (review here), but watching it again made me ponder something. Hannibal is full colonel, in charge of three guys. Now I’m not in the military but I’m pretty sure colonels are in charge of more than three people (See also: Colonel Jack O’Neil on Stargate SG-1). Colonel Potter on M*A*S*H - ran an entire base. Colonel Tigh - XO of a Battlestar. Colonel Sanders - oversees a chicken empire.

Also consider, Captain ‘Howling Mad’ Murdock, outranks Lieutenant ‘Faceman’ Peck. Everone outranks Corporal Baracus. One enlisted man in the entire unit. Seems weird.

Also – Jessica Biel has fantastic legs. 

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Steam Holiday Sale

Defense Grid is on sale today for $2.00. Get it.

So it is written, so it shall be done!

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Cataclysm Impressions

Cataclysm’s been out for a week now, it’s time for random rambling and a list of impressions! yay!

  • Blizzard has officially endorsed gearscore – yay?
  • My dwarf warlock was a bust when I remembered I hated warlocks
  • I’m pondering a dwarf shaman to get the Dun Morogh experience
  • I’ve still yet to roll a goblin
  • Archeology is the suck

Spacepally, my prot pally, has been my main since maybe the last 3rd of Burning Crusade and  I had initially intended to keep it that way. I’ve been in an awesome is slacker guild that always accepted and worked around my short comings as MT, namely a spotty connection for nearly a year before I got a new ISP and a change in work times. However as I logged into to start questing I started thinking about what the goals were. Raiding? 5 mans? Questing? With raiding, I figured it was unfair to rest of the guild to have them waiting on me to start a raid, or boot someone so I could step in as tank. Hondarr has stepped up as a great tank so I figured we’re covered there. I figure it’ll be easier to jump in as DPS if a slot’s open. As far as 5-mans, I really hate random groups and their gogogo attitude, healers with 30% telling me they’re good. I’m sick of them and I really don’t feel like jumping back into the fray as tank. Healing is out for many of the same reasons. So I figured DPS is the way to go. I ended up selecting my shaman. So congrats Leita, you’re back in the bigtime! Level faster!

Leita’s now about halfway through 82, she just finished Vashj'ir so I feel I can comment on Cataclysm quest design. Honestly I feel like Blizzard grabbed me by the dick and dragged me around the last two levels. Linear to the extreme. While it hasn’t happened to me yet, I’ve been told if you stray to far you can get out of phase and have uncompletable quests. I still prefer the BC era of questing, grab a crap load of quests, do them in pretty much any order, go back and grab a crap more. I understand Blizz is trying to concentrate on storytelling, but there has to be a middle ground. If Blizzard really wants us to just watch this stuff, I say kick the movie into high gear. Also, the end of Vashj'ir is simply jarring. After being dragged around for 2 levels I was dropped into an instance with no direction to go from there. As I’d been resetting my hearth every new quest hub I even had no way of getting back to civilization. Eventually I figured out (google’d ‘stuck in vashj'ir’) that the boats from 4 quest hubs ago had a flight path back to Eastern Kingdoms.

I rolled 2 worgen characters, a male warrior and a female rogue. I really like the rogue’s combat animations, but she’s got a weird looking head so she had to go. I really like the warrior’s animations and he’s up to 27. I really feel as though Blizzard could have tuned quest XP better. Nasaug (cookies if you gete the reference) is currently in Ashenvale and several levels high than the mobs. Now I haven’t done any random dungeon grinding, I’ve run 2 total –Deadmines and Shadowfang Keep. I actually went to the XP Stopper to stop XP gains. I’ll turn it back on once quests catch up to mob levels. I’m actually a little glad I’d server transferred my warrior heirlooms awhile ago – the XP boost is definitely not needed and now I have upgrades every once in awhile.

I’ll be back later with more musings on Guild XP and… stuff.

Stupid Headache

I got contacts on Monday. After three days of poking myself in the eye every morning and night I almost feel as though it’s not worth it. I assume I’ll get used to it, but eh. Stupid poking. And I have a headache.

Monday, December 13, 2010

Yogi Bear Movie is Going to Rule!

I found this at WWTDD.com. I guess it’s a new trailer for Yogi Bear. This movie is going to rock.

Beware though: Totally NSFK (Not Safe For Kids).

Sunday, December 12, 2010

Creating Batman

I was looking for the Batman: Arkham City trailer showed at VGA’s last night and I came across this, courtesy GameInformer.com.

Update: The embed doesn’t appear to be working, the direct link is HERE.

Friday, December 10, 2010

The Jukebox – Discombobulate, Sherlock Holmes Soundtrack

I saw Sherlock Holmes Christmas day and the soundtrack stuck in my head. How often does a violin (I think that’s a violin) riff sound that catchy.

Friday, December 3, 2010

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

WoW Art

I was scanning some art at mmochampion’s fan art forum and saw a few standouts.

Possibly the most badass pally ever.
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Sylvanus, before the undead thing.
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Monday, November 29, 2010

Sunday, November 28, 2010

Pass the Pipe

A few days ago I proposed a new faction, The Good Guys. Well, invite the Trolls. I rolled a troll shaman to go through their new starting zone and wow. ‘m fairly impressed. The Echo Islands has been completely transformed. It’s not a proper racial captial city, but it’s the beginning of one and that’s fine by me. They only reclaimed a few months ago game time. Let them build!

Vol’jin also runs things down there. Sent to him with the 3rd quest you catch sight of a flashback event when Vol’jin had a chat with Garrosh. Wow, Vol’jin hates his guts and flat out said Garrosh is an idiot, he’s going to fail, but he’s going to LET him fail so the rest of the Horde can see how big a loser he is, then he’ll take great pleasure in killing Garrosh himself. For some reason Garrosh took this badly and threw the trolls out of his throne room.

I don’t really like the trolls, their feet freak me out and they’re all hunched over. But it is cool getting another look into Horde politics. Let’s recap a few:

  • ORCS: Under Garrosh’s rule they’ve become warmongers with conservative ‘Thrall-lovers’ opening mocked
  • TAUREN: Don’t like Garrosh or the new direction of the Horde, but committed to guiding it back to the right path
  • TROLLS: Also don’t like Garrosh’s plan, but seem to be stepping back trying to minimize damage while waiting for Garrosh’s inevitable fail so they can clean up the mess
  • BLOOD ELVES: Unfortunately the belf starting zone is that same as BC, 4 years ago (that I hear anyway, maybe small changes). One must assume however with the Sunwell restored the blood elves are looking at their closest neighbors (the Forsaken) a bit warily
  • FORSAKEN: Note to self: roll a new undead!

Saturday, November 27, 2010

Not as Black Saturday

This may be the first time ever I got up early for Black Friday. Setting my alarm for the crack of 9am, after a few snoozes I got out of here around 10ish. I visited Hastings and Wal-Mart. I didn’t actually get any gifts, but I got some stuff I wanted. As far as the gifts go, no one’s told me what they want yet. What, am I supposed to guess? Pbht.

Hastings had every used 40% off, including Blu-Ray which they usually exclude from their used sales. I picked up several titles – notably Sherlock Holmes and Nightmare on Elm Street (the new one) for $7 and How to Train Your Dragon for $12. Hrm, that’s a weird mix isn’t it.

Heading to Wal-Mart I was saddened to find the wireless router I’d intended to get my Grandmother was sold out. Something about a sale starting at 5am. Picked up a few more titles there, including a replacement Smallville season 1 (shut up), my original copy’s box was damaged from a water heater leak. I also scored on Red Dead Redemption for $29. Amusingly, I ran into a friend from work there, he looked tired… something about 5 day old twins.

The best deal of the day though was probably Mad Men at Amazon. They had season’s 1-3 blu-ray for $9.99. Yay!

So what did you get? Any fights with competitive shoppers?

The Jukebox–Everybody Knows by Leonard Cohen

Enjoy.

Friday, November 26, 2010

Things That Creep Me Out

So it was Thanksgiving and as the law, I spent half the day with family. As opportunity arose I made my escape and started playing Portal. Little bit later my mother bust out laughing at GLaDOS’s antics. Creepy.

Thursday, November 25, 2010

@#$% the Horde!! Or at least the orcs… Maybe the Forsaken too

When World of Warcraft came out Blizzard consciously decided to not have bad guys. Yes the Horde were full of ‘monsters’, but really they were either repressed minorities or straight up victims just barely surviving. Let’s look at the horde races:

  • The orcs, as an entire civilization, were cursed by the Burning Legion and goaded into attacking Azeroth. Granted they ravaged Azeroth and killed a shitload of people. But I’m inclined to cut them some slack considering the whole ‘Cursed by the Big Bad of the Known Universe’ thing. It’s what they did AFTER that I’m looking at. Under Thrall’s leadership they helped fight off the Burning Legion at Hyjal. They then settled in the second worst plot of land in the game (1st being Plaguelands) and said ‘Leave us alone’.
  • Lore-wise the Tauren are simply the most noble, peaceful and should be respected race in the entire game. They pledged loyalty to Thrall after he saved them from rampaging centaurs that had driven the Tauren out of their homeland.
  • I’m honestly not fully up to speed on Trolls, but my understanding is this: all the evil troll mobs we fight in game, they’re the guys the player trolls, the Darkspear, left because they were assholes. Again, saved they Thrall they pledged loyalty to the Horde. Thrall made them stop cannibalism, but aside from that… they’re slacker potheads – harmless.
  • OK, the Forsaken literally are undead monsters. However, they didn’t ask to die. They were slaughtered by the Undead Scourge and made minions. When the Lich King was weakened they regained their sense of self and saw that yeah, they were undead monsters. They joined the horde because they were alone on a continent full of humans, dwarves and gnomes that wanted to kill them. For his part, Thrall needed a pair eyes to the East.
  • Later Blood Elves joined the Horde. Like the undead the Blood Elves were slaughtered by the Scourge to the brink of extinction. They also lost the Sunwell the source of their arcane power. To the elves this was like losing air, they simply couldn’t cope. They were then sold out by their own king into delving into fel energies, not exactly like the orcs but fairly close. Bear in mind the vast majority of the elves had no idea Kel’Thas had gone to the Dark Side, when they found out they stormed Tempest Keep and beat the snot out of their king, then did it again at Sunwell Plateau.With the aid of Valen and the Naaru the blood elves were able to restore the Sunwell. The fel addiction is a non-issue at this point. Granted their still addicted to arcane energy, but think of it like being hooked on caffeine instead of crack.

Aside from the undead not a bad lot really. Recently things have begun to change. Thrall left to investigate the elemental upheaval we now know to be caused by Deathwing, (Prediction: Final battle of Cataclysm Thrall arrives to help lay the smackdown on Deathwing and takes over as Earth Aspect) leaving a certain tiny-headed orc in charge. Originally a regent in Thrall’s absence, with the latest patch Garrosh is officially Warchief.

What’s he do? Have you been outside Orgrimmar lately? He starts a massive arms race. He kills Cairne. An early quest has a conservative orc label ‘Thrall-lover’. Since when the fuck did ‘Thrall-lover’ become an insult.

At this point I wonder why the Tauren are still part of the Horde. The man they originally pledged loyalty to is deposed, and his replacement killed their leader. Cairne’s son Baine commented in a quest that ‘the new Horde as lost it’s way. We must guide them back into the Light.’

Screw that. I propose a new faction called ‘The Good Guys’. We’ll include Tauren, Blood Elves, Draenei, Night Elves and Gnomes. I personally don’t like gnomes very much, but honestly I don’t think there is a malicious bones in the entire race’s collective body (all 3 feet, teehee). Even the warlocks seem to think being a rebel is just awesome.

I don’t know the lore on Worgen yet, but left’s hope they’re not jerks.

The Shattering: First Impressions

So Deathwing’s thrown his temper tantrum and The Shattering is upon us. Gnomergan reclaimed, brand new Azeroth from 1-60, dwarf warlocks! How’s it all adding up? Well, it’s been two days so I haven’t had a chance to run through all the starting zones. Just two so far and I popped in on the undead.  A few ramblings:

  • Gnomes Were Robbed: We were promised Gnomergan reclaimed, we got New Tinkertown. I hope the Trolls weren’t shafted too
  • Dwarf shaman… Everywhere!
  • Behold! Holyheifer the Tauren Sunwalker
  • I kinda wish they’d use the racial class names more, at least in quest text. Everyone calls me a Paladin. I’m a Sunwalker biatch! And my belf is a Blood Knight.
  • I fully intend to roll a belf warrior and an undead… something, must go through undead questlines
  • The starting zones aren’t as packed as I thought they’d be. Is it just that I work late? Jim mentioned trouble finding groups
  • Many changes are subtle and not as… cataclysmic as I expected
  • That said: Check out Brill – my first ‘Holy Crap!’ moment. I totally dig the new buildings with the undead architecture an check out the monument to Sylvanus
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One final thing, purely from a gameplay perspective. Traditionally before a expansion they released the core changes a few weeks in advance. With both Burning Crusade and Wrath , these changes were huge buffs allowing you to steamroll through the old content. This time, not so much. Interesting.

Sunday, November 21, 2010

WoW: The Wrynns

I’ve been reading the WoW comic lately and while Varian isn’t quite the jerk he comes across as in the game, he still has anger issues and claims the credit for a bunch of stuff I know for a fact a nelf druid named Feralmedic did. Saving the Thandal Span, rescuing Marshal Windsor, defeating Onyxia. I call shenanigans.

What is catching my eye in the comics though is Anduin Wrynn. The Prince, former King until daddy returned. This kid is level headed, has a brain and knows how to use it. Come Cataclysm he’ll finally age. How old is he in-game? 17? What’s the creepiness factor of him and Jaina hooking up?

Saturday, November 20, 2010

The Cost of World of Warcraft

Cataclysm is coming out in just under three weeks. Likely everyone reading this will be getting it. I do feel however Blizzard should have made Cataclysm an All-in-One pack. When Mines of Moria came out it included both the expansion and the base game. When Age of Conan: Rise of the Godslayer came out it included both expansion and base game. Same for the Aion expansion, whatever it was called. Everquest II, which originally came out at very nearly the same time as vanilla WoW but has a much faster turnaround time for expansions, has been issuing complete sets for the last couple expansions.

Now as an established player it doesn’t really affect me, I’m gonna get the expansion. However six years in, Blizzard it seems to me is possibly hurting it’s chances of picking up new players. Consider a player possibly looking to jump into the game for the first time:

19.99  World of Warcraft
29.99 Burning Crusade
39.99 Wrath of the Lich King
39.99 Cataclysm
129.96 = Total Investment

Brand new players are looking to drop $130 (current Gamestop prices) to get to current content. Consider also Cataclysm is redoing most aspects of the base game – to a brand new player buying the 19.99 base game is essentially getting half of Cataclysm, by the time they do get up to level cap they may feel irritated buying 5 levels.

Granted deals are to be found, Amazon is a bit cheaper. The battlechest is out (WoW and BC, Wrath not included) for $10 saving. However, the game’s been out 6 years. The game interested in MMOs has already bought it and is still player or stopped. New sales are (I would think anyway) existing players trying to get they signifigant other interested, parents playing with kids or perhaps returning players getting caught up. $40 is a much better prospect than $130 to anyone on the fence.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Japan Wins Again

Behold, holographic superstars straight from Japan!

Seriously, wtf. Is the rest of the world not even trying anymore? Japan has fake people! Granted we have fake people too, but nothing like this. Our fake people look like wax sculptures.

Here’s what I want. I want the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles rock band to make a comeback using this tech instead of the rubber suits. No wait, @#$%ing Jem!! Yes, I want Jem back using this tech. Is that to much to ask for?

*Awesomeness once again thanks to http://unrealitymag.com/

I’ve Been a Bad Boy

Ok, so it’s been over 2 weeks since I posted. I swear I’ll make it up to you with awesomeness from Japan.

Monday, November 1, 2010

@#$%ing ATI

When a hardcore game is released I expect it to drive my video card to it’s knees and make it scream for mercy. This is partially why I’m usually far behind on the latest and greatest in PC gaming. I have no intention spending $500+ for the latest video card, let alone x2 and messing with SLI or Crossfire. So, I’ll never play Crysis as it’s meant to be played. I’m ok with that.

On a more casual end, I do expect my midrange card to handle things without problem. Well, thanks to Steam’s Halloween sale I added to games to my collection. Bioshock I’ll get to at some point. However the second game, this lil’ bastard crashed my system 3 times… Plants vs Zombies. That’s right, the Popcap zombiefest brought my system to a screeching halt until I updated drivers to Catalyst 10.10. Seriously, you’re glitching on Popcap titles now? I protest.

Sunday, October 31, 2010

Feral’s 80!

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OMG! The Cataclysm truly is upon us. Feralmedic dinged 80 oh… about 20 minutes ago. Less than 100g at the AH (and stealing some boots from the Guild Bank, thanks Mal!) later and she’s not an embarrassment. She was still rocking a cloth belt from Heroic Shadow Labs. I’m ashamed.

Saturday, October 30, 2010

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Hollywood: The Next Generation, pt 2

As I review pt1, I realize this is more than a wish list than a prediction. Michael Jai White is not the next Stallone, though he should be.

Anyway, let’s take a look behind the camera. Aside from Spielberg, who in the old guard is really producing quality work these days? As I thought about it though, I realized that the new crop of directors is already here with several hits under their belt.

Christopher Nolan – Batman Begins. The Prestige. The Dark Knight. Inception. Ok, I haven’t seen Inception yet, but word has it the movie doesn’t suck. Nolan’s going to get the Oscars in this list of mine.

Robert Rodriguez – From Dusk till Dawn. Desperado. Sin City. Planet Terror. Who doesn’t lover Robert Rodriguez movies. C’mon. It’s almost enough to make me add Spy Kids tot he Netflix que. Almost.

Zack Snyder – I know a lot of people get irritated with Snyder’s slo-mo fetish, get over it. This guy’s got the goods. His first feature was the remake of Dawn of the Dead, and he followed up with 300. While upon repeat viewings I’ve found Watchmen a bit to slow, I understand Legend of the Guardians is great and Sucker Punk promises asskicking babes. Snyder’s eventually going to supplant Michael Bay as event action king, trading explosions for slo-mo.

Peter Jackson – Eh… possibly. Jackson’s still a bit of a wildcard in my book. Yes, LotR ruled, but I think of it as one big movie rather 3 seperate sucesses. Given a blank check, he fumbled his next project. King Kong was to long and to boring. More Kong vs T-Rexes please.

Other possibilities - Alexandre Aja (Hills Have Eyes ‘06, Mirrors), Antoine Fuqua (Training Day, The Replacement Killers, King Arthur – hey I liked it), Jay Chandrasekhar (Beerfest, Super Troopers – I love Broken Lizard)

Notable Exclusions – Uwe Boll

Horde Politics

I happened to be running my Horde pally into Thrall’s throne room to train just as that event I posted about yesterday was starting. Kinda cool to see it in person. I do think it’s a little weird Sylvanus, Cairne and… whoever’s in charge of the Blood Elves wasn’t there, but ok.

As I was watching, something occured to me… Garrosh has a really small head. Like, freakishly small. The model they used is just tiny. Like all the other orcs have softballs for their head, Garrosh has a golfball. Garrosh, hated by all, has apparently had a run in with a voodoo head shrinker.

Wait… Vol’jin??

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Deathwing Arrives!

Blizz released the intro to Cataclysm. I noticed the other day while fishing (shutup) there was an Earthquake in Western Plaguelands, it took a few minutes for me to realize it was Deathwing having a temper tantrum. Of course, as the video shows Deathwing’s Tantrum causes… well, watch.

Thrall makes Garrosh Regent

This is apparently Live if anyone has a Horde character and wants to hang around Thrall’s throne room for awhile. Essentially Thrall decides something's up, with nature acting all funky (incoming Cataclysm!). Thrall leaves for Nagrand to consult the spirits there, they saw the same events happen in Outland and may help here. Thrall leaves Garrosh in charge with instructions to listen to his advisers, Cairne and Vol’jin. Garrosh is not actually made Warchief, it’s clear Thrall is still in charge and will be returning. If that last AFTER Deathwing arrives…

Hollywood: The Next Generation

I saw Red this weekend and along with The Expendables this summer Hollywood seems to be acknowledging that it’s biggest stars are getting up there in years. Don’t get me wrong, several while old aren’t geriatric and still have a few good films in them. Some though (Morgan Freeman I’m looking at you) are pushing 70 or beyond. So, who’s gonna step up and be the next generation of stars? No, I’m not talking about Shia Labeouf.

Timothy Olyphant – I’ve been a fan of Olyphant since his role as the drug dealer that seduced Katie Holmes in Go. Since then he’s had an impressive B-list run while never quite making to the A-list. Staring in Deadwood, Hitman, Live Free or Die Hard, he’s currently staring in FX’s Justified. I can’t complain about his work and I kinda hope nothing changes.

Michael Jai White – I’m not sure what it is about this guy. His work so far has been all over the place in quality. He just oozes charisma and potential to me, and I want to see him in more mainstream work. Give him Arnold and Stallone’s job, The Rock obviously isn’t eager to take it.

Natalie Portman – Ok, so this is a gimme, but she’s only 29 so she definitely fits as the new generation, next.

Maggie Grace – You may remember me remember me referring to her as ‘Leggy Blonde Bitch’ from Lost. Grace seems to be going through the paying dues phase of her career with several small roles under her belt and quite a few projects in the works. Plus, her legs go up to HERE.

Paula Patton – She co-stared with Denzel in the underrated Deja Vu and recently stared in Precious. She reminds me of Halle Berry both in looks and with her ability/willingness to tackle different genres.

Chris Evans – Scheduled arrival  July 22, 2011. Unless Captain America fails Chris is here to stay.

Other possibilities include - Joseph Gordon-Levitt (great buzz though I haven’t seem him to comment), Gemma Arterton (nothing negative per se, but I almost feel she’s being groomed to much like Shia Labeouf), Chris Pine (only seen as Kirk, but good fun, let’s see him in a few action comedies),  Zoe Saldana

Notable exclusions – Megan Fox, Shia Lebeouf, Michael Cera

Tune in later for a look behind the camera!

A Gift from Nintendo

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If you happen to have Pokemon HeartGold or SoulSilver and a Wi-Fi connection, you’ll definitely want to access the  Mystery Gift function by the end of the month. You’ll get your very own MEW! That’s right, Nintendo is giving away the cute little bastard to anyone with Wi-Fi, don’t miss out.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

WoW 4.0.1 is here! Impressions…

I got the patch installed pretty late so I didn’t get a lot of play time. Still, I setup a new talent tree and hopped in a random to how things go. Got dropped in a Uk. Then WoW crashed. After logging back in some asshat in the random was spamming ‘go go go’. So uh, we go’d.

First pull went ok, you know the two guys? No problem. Second pull, the one with the 8 guys? Yeah, that didn’t go so well. It’s at that point I realized consecrate is now on a 30s cooldown and still last 10 seconds. SO instead of being up 100% of the time, it’s up 33% of the time. I also no longer have Seal of Command and Seal of Truth (Vengeance) only affects primary target now. Holy Shield no longer exist, nor does Blessing of Sanctuary – both contributors to AOE threat. Hammer of the Righteous DOES still affect multiple targets, and now without a 3 target limit, but it does less damage and shares a cooldown with Crusader Strike. Overall I feel nerfed and there’s a distinct lack of… something missing from the rotation. Holy shield is gone and consecrate had it’s CD tripled.

A couple specific notes:

  • Imp Judgement increases range by 10 yards, 2 points. 30 yard judgment is sick.
  • Holy Shield still exist, but it’s a proc from a couple abilities adding 15% block, it used to be 30% (I think) and dealt holy damage to attack
  • Shield of the Righteous used to be my hardest hitting attack. And it still is, if I rarely use it. It’s based off Holy Power now dealing 20%, 60% and 120% of AP pending on how much Holy Power you have. Obviously 120% is better than 20%. But in order to get that I have to use Crusader Strike or Hammer three times, both on a 3s cooldown. So 10 seconds into a fight I can hit a guy hard.
  • Spiritual Attunement apparently no longer exist. Nor does the talent that refreshes Divine Plea. We gained Judgment of the Wise: 30% base mana over 10s – we’ll see
  • Ardent Defender is now an activated ability lasting 10s, 3m cooldown healing for 15% health upon death, instead of a passive ability also reducing damage when at low health. Major nerf.
  • Sanctuary is now a passive buff reducing chance to be crit by 6% (weird since no crit is now built into Righteous Fury, perhaps a tooltip mistake), reduces damage by 10% and regens mana by 3% after a dodge or parry. It used to have a holy damage backlash (aiding in aoe threat, now nerfed)

Ok, enough bitching. I’ll check out more tomorrow.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Things That Piss Me Off

I keep seeing articles recently about Avatar Collector’s Edition. And I keep thinking of Avatar: The Last Airbender, not the space smurfs. Pisses me off.

Monday, October 11, 2010

Force Unleashed II – Where to Buy, (Or) The Pre-order Rant

The Force Unleashed II is coming out the end of the month and I’m trying to decide where to get it. Now, I’m gonna get it. I liked 1, and all the little annoying things in 1 are supposed to be  fixed. So, yeah.

If I get it at gamestop preorder gets me a Maulkiller skin (Darth Maul/Starkiller hybrid) and a silver lightsaber crystal (reduce Force power used and looks f#$%ing badass).
Amazon has a preorder bonus of 2 bonus levels and $10 my next game purchase. I also already have $20 off from preordering Halo Reach, so it’ll be quite a bit cheaper there, and making the next game cheap and theoretically the next game etc… Nasty loop there Amazon has, isn’t it.

I’m leaning towards Amazon due to the cost factor. In all likelihood the ‘exclusive’ Maulkiller skin and saber crystal (silver! What’s more badass than a silver saber?) will be DLC, and prolly for less than the saved $20 from Amazon.

Preorder bonuses really piss me off. I shouldn’t have to put this much though into where I’m going to get something. War for Cybertron made you chose which extra character you wanted – Shockwave, Jazz or.. some other dude. Things got really stupid when Star Trek Online came out. Now I didn’t get STO, but if I did, some of those looked pretty damn good. I’d be pissed missing out on the other options.

I think preorder bonuses should have no effect on the game itself. Give me a soundtrack, a mini hint book, a comic or a t-shirt or something. These options all cost more than a code to redeem DLC, but oh well. If you want to stand out from the other guy, stand out.

**** Full disclosure  **** Free Juggernaut for Ultimate Alliance 2 was badass. Also while I didn’t pre-order Batman: Arkham Asylum, Gamestop did have extra codes laying around I got all available DLC for free. But you know, I did go into Gamestop to buy Batman not Walmart. Maybe they don’t have to bribe people after all.

Saturday, October 9, 2010

The Jukebox: Fly Me to the Moon

One thing that always amazes me is how the exact same song can be completely different depending on who’s singing and mixing the tempo up a bit. One of the best examples of this phenomena is probably Fly Me to the Moon, a song I’m familiar with from Neon Genesis Evangelion and most people think Frank Sinatra wrote.

The Sinatra Mix

The Eva Mix

My favorite and most recent – The Climax Mix from Bayonetta

Monday, October 4, 2010

The Superman Movie

File this under ‘This is going to be awesome if they don’t fuck it up!’. Announced today, Zack Snyder (300, Dawn of the Dead) will be directing the new Superman movie. Writing credits go to David Goyer (Batman Begins, Dark Knight) and Christopher Nolan (think he did something, don’t remember though). Nolan is also producing.

I figure we got story covered with the Batman people, but Snyder directly? This makes me excited. Snyder definitely knows action, something for some reason Superman movies don’t have. I want to see Darkseid or Zod or Brainiac or a mental Captain Marvel. Damnit, I want to see Superman go toe to toe with someone and feel pain, from POWER not from a Kryptonite shiv (though I’ll forgive a shiv if Lobo’s wielding).

Also, Snyder gets flak for using slomo to much, but I propose this. The entire Superman movie will be in slomo, Superman just moves so fast it looks normal speed most of the time.

The Jukebox: Somebody Save Me by Krypteria

I found Krypteria from an iTunes reccomendation after liking Nightwish. I liked it. However, it was months later playing around on YouTube before I realized the lead singer is absolutely gorgeous. I somehow feel iTunes should’ve disclosed this information.

Random Thoughts

Seven Samurai (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray] Pre-order is 36.49

Seven Samurai (The Criterion Collection) [DVD] is 38.49

Prices at Amazon for Seven Samurai. Something screwy is goin’ on.

Saturday, October 2, 2010

Movie Review: Postal

I don’t know why I decided to watch this. I mean, it’s a video game adaptation (sorta) directed by Uwe Boll. This shittiest director ever. Least that’s the rep, I’ve ever actually seen one of his movies before.

Postal is surprisingly watchable however. It’s one of those movies that so stupid it’s good, if you’re in the right mood. Or high. I highly recommend being high. It’s entertaining in a Troma Films kinda way. Noone would ever say The Toxic Avenger is high art, but in the right mood it is entertaining.

Postal has several scenes that are just laugh out loud funny, and most of them are also offensive as hell. If you’re insulted easily do not watch this. Subject matter includes 9/11 highjackers in flight discussing how many virgins they’ll get afterwards, Verne Troyer getting raped by 1,000 monkeys (yes, you read that right) and Osama bin Laden attending a motivational speaker to learn how to better motivate his people. Frankly once the gunfire starts (you know, the part from the game) the films drags for another 30 minutes. First hour though has sporadic  moments of hilarity.

3 Stars – My Review
2 Stars – Netflix Prediction

Thursday, September 30, 2010

Why? Just… why?

Ever watch a show or a movie and a character does something so stupid it jerked you out of the experience and makes you turn the damn thing off. These instances make me roll my eyes in disgust and abandon whatever it was I was watching.

I was watching Spartacus: Blood and Sand. Spartacus spent an episode plotting an escape. I kept thinking, really? Escape from the Roman salvers, with your wife in tow. You realize that’s certain death right? Right? Don’t be an idiot. Hey dumbass, don’t do it. Bah. So end of episode 6 I turned the show off. I’ll get back to it eventually.
*On a side note: Lucy Lawless freakishly gets hotter with age. When Xena was on I really didn’t get what all the fuss was about. Now… mrowll!

I also ran into this problem with Lost. Jack, you know, the doctor, wanted to gather up the medical supplies to keep track of them as they were on a tropical island a few thousand miles away from the nearest Walgreens. Sawyer decides to be a dick and stick it to ‘the man’. ‘The man’, again being the doctor trying to keep everyone alive. Including Sawyer after he had a knife shoved through his arm. Granted, jack had something to do with that, but why was that? Oh yes, Leggy Blond Bitch couldn’t fucking breathe and Sawyer (being a dick) led them to believe he had refills for her inhaler instead of saying ‘all out’. Where was I, ah yes. Sawyer’s a dick. This incident also caused me to roll my eyes and turn off the series for awhile. I’ll eventually get back to it. Wait, last time I got back into Lost I stopped after Sawyer stole all the weapons...

Jim says Sawyer’s a dick, I should move on and finish they damn thing. Well, what does he know. He’s Canadian. Damn Commie.

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

GOG.com

I had never bought anything from GOG.com, and then they went bust. The idea itself is pretty cool. Take old PC games studios don’t care about anymore, apply a few minor tweaks so they run on modern systems and sell them cheaply. Sounds good. Problem is their library is a little ‘too’ old school. The only thing jumping out at me in their catalogue was Fallout, and I’ve got that laying around here somewhere. I’d jump on a few older games, I used to love the two Dark Sun games, and if they could get X-Wing or TIE Fighter to work I’d buy them and a flightstick. No, I’d never bought anything. Then they died.

Or did they? Turns out the dying was death was free publicity when they shutdown servers for a few days to do some upgrades. Reading forums, they pissed off a few people, but that wont matter if the games are there. What’s this I see? Baldur’s Gate? Planescape: Torment?? With soundtracks?! Yay! Go for the eyes, Boo! Go for the eyes!

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

I Have a Dark and Terrible Secret

I don’t like Diablo II. Loved Diablo. Can’t stand Diablo II. Tried it, a few times, just can’t get into it. Sometimes I wonder, what does this say about me, you know, as a person.

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Movie Review: Shutter Island

I never thought I’d place Leonardo Dicaprio and Martin Scorsese in the same company as Borat, but… there’s an hour of my life I’ll never get back.

Leo plays a WW2 vet turned US Marshal. He’s sent to Shutter Island, a fortress asylum for the criminally insane. Think Arkham with the celebrities. Seems some crazy chick has escaped and they call in Leo to track her down. There’s a few subplots, a few flashbacks to WW2. About a 30 minutes in I came up with the theory that Leo was fucked in the head from the war and was actually a patient at Shutter Island, the whole movie being a delusion. An hour in, I didn’t care and started playing Civ5.

Turned Off in Boredom – My Rating
3 1/2 Stars – Netflix Fail

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Civilization V

Somehow I forgot to preorder Civ V. I think I was somehow protesting pre-order bonuses (future rant). The end result is I have to wait for it to download overnight (through Steam).

On a related note, I’m totally sold on Steam. I think Blizzard’ll be the only PC games I don’t buy on Steam from now on. CD/DVDs are so such a pain in the ass.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Who the hell is that??

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Well, I know who the dude on the left is. It's Dante. Half-demon ass-kicker extraordinaire.

The dude on the right? Um… not sure if those are bruises or makeup. I’m gonna go with bruises since there is a split lip and I don’t really see Dante with the mascara.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Ninjas Are Cooler Than You

I ran across this countdown – Top 10 GIJoe Ninjas. Three guesses who #1 is.

Linked though, is this clip of Snake-Eyes vs Storm Shadow from GIJoe Resolute.

They should put Snake-Eyes vs Batman on pay-per-view.

Saturday, September 11, 2010

BlizzCon 2010

See you there, biatches!

Virtually…

Friday, September 10, 2010

LOTRO Review, or drunken ramblings from a Lazy Basterd

Friggin’ warlocks making me review 6 year old games…

Ahem, LOTRO is essentially a inferior WoW with a Middle-Earth design. When I first started playing, my initial thoughts were usually ‘they copied that from wow’, ‘WoW does that too’, ‘hey look, the WoW gold !? for quests is a gold Ring’.’ Two things really stuck out at me as being different from WoW when it came out. One was it included built in chat (WoW has since added, but really who cares?) and… well, I don’t remember the other thing, but I remember there were 2 things.

The engine itself is quite pretty going for a more realistic look (you know, realistic with the elves, goblins and undead). System requirements are a bit beefier than WoW’s cartoony appearance (and for god sakes turn shadows off).

Current level cap is 65 and my highest level is 23 (I think) so obviously there’s a lot I haven’t seen. Questing though is the MMO norm. See a Gold ring, get a quest, see a silver ring – level then get a quest. For races you get Elves, hobbits, Men and dwarves (interestingly, there are no female dwarves as no one can tell the difference).

For classes you get burglars, captains, champions, guardians, minstrels, wardens, hunters, lore-masters and rune keepers. The classes are very ‘fighting’ heavy with little magic. Minstrels, lore-masters and rune keepers handling the majority of the magic. This is supposed to fit the lore where in Middle-Earth very, very few had real ‘power’. Remember for every 10,000 Riders of Rohan and entire army of Gondor, there was ONE Gandalf, and he still drew a sword.

Combat and abilities is also typical MMO fare. Ding, train a new ability or two (though once learned abilities scale automatically with level, you don’t need to train multiple ranks), and assign said ability to an action bar. Combat does feel a little… loose.

Deeds and traits are an innovation LOTRO brought to the table. Deeds are essentially achievements. There’s a variety to earn ranging from ‘explore the shire’, ‘kill XX goblins’ and ‘use XX ability XX times’. Completing deeds though isn’t just bragging rights, they also open up traits and other perks. For example, killing a bunch of wolves earns you the title ‘Wolfbane’. Traits gained through deeds and quest also you to customize your character, acting as talents points basically. Completing a deed requiring you to hit something with shield slam 500 times earns you trait that makes shield slam cause more threat. There are basic traits, racial traits, legendary traits and so on. Being just a bit below mid-level I haven’t seen the uber stuff.

I’ll also comment just a bit on the community. I don’t recall ever seeing an Anal *** conversation.

As I read over this I realize it’s not exactly a glowing recommendation. And I suppose that’s true. It’s good game, but no great. I haven’t met the friends I have in WoW that makes me keep logging in after what, 6 years now? Still, I’ve given a lot of MMOs a shot (WoW, Age of Conan, EQ2, City of Heroes, LOTRO, Aion, Guild Wars) and WoW and LOTRO are the only ones I currently have installed. I guess that says… something.
I don’t think I’ve ever actively pushed LOTRO but with it now free-2-play and WoW is stasis until Cataclysm, LOTRO can be a diversion. At least until The Old Republic.

Two quick links I found:
8 Tips for LOTRO Noobs
Player Versus Developer – A blog I often visit, this particular post deals with how to maximize the freeness (is that a word, spell-check says it is)

Finally, Lasciel a level 23 champion (fury warrior) is my main, server is Windfola.

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

So that’s what that does…

I don’t know why I never played around with this stuff before, but I was fiddling around with the video settings in WoW and noticed a few things.

Apparently, ‘multisampling’ is the same as ‘anti aliasing’. So yeah, ‘x4’ looks a bit better than ‘off’.

Also, ‘triple buffering’ apparently means ‘rock solid frame rate’. I’m now hovering somewhere between 59.9 and 60 fps.

I’m an idiot, bite me.

Lord of the Rings Online – Free 2 Play

So LOTRO is now free. If interested hop on over, I'm on Windola server.

Sunday, September 5, 2010

TV Review: Being Human S1

Being Human is a BBC import about three roommates, sorry, flatmates, living in Bristol, England. There’s Mitchell (a vampire)the moody pretty boy, George (a werewolf) is a big wimp with a smattering of dork and Annie (a ghost) is a peppy gal obsessed with her old fiancé. Mitchell and George both work at the local hospital and share a flat together. The flat was being haunted by Annie when they moved in. Annie had fallen down the stairs to her death approximately 6 months earlier and apparently, has unfinished business. Together the three try to stay out of local vampire politics and lead a ‘normal’ life.

This is a very good show just shy of greatness. It’s mainly about the 3 leads coping with being monsters and trying to be human, hence the title. Annie tries to come to terms with being dead, in the meantime it’s great having flatmates who can see and talk to her (not being exactly normal, Mitchell and George can see Annie fine). George is a huge dork and really seems the most normal to me. Mitchell was turned in WWI and used to be a bit of a hellraiser in the vampire community, recently he’s decided being bad is bad and is trying to be a good boy.

Season 1 consist of 6 episodes. Episode 5 leads directly into 6, but the rest of the episodes stand more or less on their own. There’s 2 main season long story arcs. Lesser of the two deals with Annie coming to grips with her fiance. He owns the building and is their landlord. She’s still in love with him and can’t let go, he’s shacked up with her cousin. The other arc deals with the vampire’s plot to take over.. well, everything. Mitchell is highly regarded in the vampire community and the local Master (he’s never called that, but c’mon, I know a Vampire Master when I see one) either wants Mitchell back in the club or dead.

My problems with the show, and relatively minor, have to due with the supernatural elements. various… ailments just seem a bit off. Mitchell is fine in sunlight as long as he has his sunglasses, he doesn’t NEED blood to survive. It’s treated like a drug and all vampires are junkies, Mitchell’s on the wagon. Annie’s powers as a ghost change depending on her mood. In the very first scene of the show she’s ecstatic the pizza guy can see her, an episode later she’s depressed and can’t be scene by anyone. George seems pathetically weak considering he’s a bloody werewolf, once a month he becomes a mindless killing machine. I’m not a big fan of the mindless killer werewolf, I’d like to see some bestial strength and a healing factor in George.

Good show and I’ll be getting season 2 eventually.

 

4 out of 5 Stars – my score
4.2 out of 5 – Netflix, those creepy bastards

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Saturday, August 28, 2010

ATI is Pissing Me Off

Well, I guess technically AMD is pissing me off what with the merger, buyout, whatever. Catalyst 10.8 came out sometime in the last 2 weeks, between the time I replaced my hard drive when I installed the bugged 10.7 drivers that broke Borderlands, and yesterday when the Borderlands forum indicated 10.8 fixed the issue.

First of all, why wasn’t I alerted to the fact new drivers were released? I registered my card. I installed the ‘communication opt-in’… thingy as part of Catalyst. Based on the description it’s supposed to let you know when important things happen. Personally, I’d say new drivers are important.

Second, I’m sick of bugged drivers. Here’s a brief rundown of the problems I’ve had over the last several driver iteration.

  • 10.8 No problems, so far
  • 10.7 Broke Borderlands, Fixed Plash player, may have fixed frame rate issue with WoW, though without anyone on recently I haven’t played much lately either to test (not sure when it broke, it’s been happening a long time)
  • 10.6 Fixed glitch with Command & Conquer 3, Flash Player still broke
  • 10.5 Caused glitch with Command & Conquer 3, broke Flash Player

One comment about the WoW issue, what was happening was 10-15 minutes into playing the screen would freeze for 5-10 seconds, and then work fine from that point on. Not a huge issue and I got into the habit of not jumping into anything until the freeze happened because once it did, there weren’t any problems. Annoying though. I don’t recall running into the issue since 10.7, and for all I know it could (though I don’t see how) have been an issue with the old hard drive.

So, I’ve been getting progressing more annoyed with each release that seems to cause a problem and considering getting a new card. Here’s the catch. Everything I’m reading indicates Radeon 5800 line is the way to go. Well ATI’s the one pissing me off.

The GeForce GTX 460 released last month appears to be the way to go on Nvidia’s side of things. And would even going to Nvidia fix anything? Card reviews discuss benchmarks, power usage and temp readings. They don’t let me know Nvidia drivers break CivIV or cause Varian Wrynn’s hair to turn pink.

What ever happened to…

I watched Executive Decision recently. If you’re not familiar with it, it’s a bit of an older movie staring Kurt Russell. Kurt finds himself in charge of special forces unit sneaking aboard a 747 in flight to stop a terrorist attack. Steven Segal dies, so it’s all good.

Anyway, costarring is Halle Berry as a stewardess on the flight and OMG. She must’ve been 25ish, in a stewardess outfit. Halle Berry. Let that sink in.

OK, I’m back. Left me wondering, what the hell happened to her. Last thing I remember her in was X-Men 3. Did she get pregnant? Is se doing indies? Did she turn 40? I suppose I could check IMBD.com and check what she’s been up to… but that’s like 8 keystrokes to get to that website. Plus once there I’d have to type her name, Halle Berry, to run the search. I don’t know if I can put forth that kind of effort. I’m a Lazy Basterd , you know.

Thursday, August 26, 2010

What a Dilemma

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What to do, what to do…

House MD

I got an email from Amazon today letting me know that House season 6 is out, would I like to buy it - hint, hint. Now I used to love House and 2 years ago I would’ve hit the proper links and had the order done.

However, somewhere throughout season 5, House went from being a lovable asshole, to just an asshole. I’m not sure if it was when he went off on Kutner’s parents (just after Kutner commited suicide), or when he shouted to the entire hospital that he’d slept with Cuddy (which he hallucinated). I’m leaning towards mouthing off to Kutner’s parents.

I’ll probably end up getting it eventually, during some sale. But I’m in no hurry.

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Who would’ve thought…?!

Steam recently released the results of their latest hardware/software survey. Basically they scan your system and use the results to tailor services based on what kind of hardware software people have. Two things caught my eye.

  1. Most people either have Windows XP 32-bit or  Windows 7 64-bit. There’s little in-between
  2. Apparently, 100% of Steam users have Steam installed. Who would’ve thought

Saturday, August 21, 2010

Things That Piss Me Off: That’s not a miniseries!

I recently picked up Battlestar Galactica, complete series on Blu-ray. I was watching the pilot/miniseries and I suddenly got annoyed by an old pet peeve of mine. This 3 hour movie is not a miniseries. It’s a long movie. A miniseries is an epic, week long event where you’re sure to miss an episode and be sad.

Roots (8 nights) is a miniseries, The Stand (4 nights), North and South (6 nights). The Battlestar Galactica pilot is 180 minutes. Titanic is 194 (and only 30 seconds devoted to naked Kate Winslet, Cameron’s a hack).

Also note, that while V was a 2-night affair I’m giving it credit because it had the Beastmaster, Freddy Kruger and certain female lizard this adolescent will never forget.

The Jukebox: Planescape Theme

Behold, the awesomeness that is Planescape: Torment

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Religion

I am not a religious person. I acknowledge the possible theoretical existence of ‘something’ out there, but what… who knows. I don’t see it impacting me in anyway so why bother. If I die and get brought before some… thing and told I failed in life, well… that’ll suck.

Anyway, I saw this definition of Christianity in the sig or a forum post.

Christianity: The belief that a Jewish cosmic zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat fruit from a magical tree.

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Game Review: StarCraft II

I haven’t finished the single player campaign yet, I think I’m mission 26/29, but I’m ready to give my opinion of Blizzard’s latest.

Not a lot as changed. We’ve basically got StarCraft HD. This is however in no way a bad thing. Often times I find developers ‘innovating’ for the save of a marketing bullet point rather than for anything actually added for substance. A prettier StarCraft with better controls? Sign me up.

The single player campaign follows Raynor in his quest to take out Mengsk, deserter of a certain hot psychic redhead Raynor was interested in. Very nearly each mission introduces a map gimmick and a single new unit to exploit said gimmick. For example one mission has you defending high ground while being attacked by waves of Protoss. Bring on the siege tanks! The gimmicks are at a glance neat (zerg zombies and lava flooding levels were especially nice), however most of them also have some sort of timer in place. Often it seems as though there’s no time to build up a force and develop a strategy. Essentially you can build a ton of whatever new unit was introduced that level and you’ll be fine. I wish there was more maps that gave you objectives with no gimmicks involved.

During the campaign you’ll get credits after each mission and usually get research points allowing you to develop new tech based on Protoss or Zerg observations. Each research tech tree (Zerg/Protoss) consist of 2 choices per level and once you choose you lock out the other option. Tier 1 Zerg for example lets you upgrade your bunkers, you can chose extra health or adding an automated turret, effectively a extra marine. There are a wide variety of choices and some of them I can see being almost game breaking. One option allows for instant supply depots, another allows for automatic vespene gas mining without assigning SCVs. Research isn’t hard to come by, a lot is optional but you’ll rarely have to search out a map to acquire.

Accumulated credits are spent on unit and building upgrades, and hiring mercenaries. First, I love mercenaries. The initial ‘contract’ is cheap and they allow you to summon elite versions of existing unit types. The cool thing about them is they arrive instantly via dropship, a couple clicks and you have an instant elite strike force ready to go. I often found myself training a few medics and group with merc infantry.

Credits are also spent on unit upgrades. Much more varied than the research, nearly every single has 2 upgrades. You can purchase both and some of them are exceptional. Bunker upgrades provide +1 range, and +2 capacity. A Spectre (psychotic Ghosts) upgrade makes so stealth no longer uses energy. Nearly all of them are useful though you will need to pick and chose.

In between missions you explore the Hyperion, Mengsk’s old flagship battlecruiser Rayor stole back in SC1. It’s flashing than the conference calls in SC1, though ultimately it amounts to clicking on everything then moving to the next room to click on everything there.

Multiplayer… Well, I haven’t played any multiplayer yet. I got my ass kicked in beta and have no particular desire to do it again. Word is it’s still got the legendary StarCraft balance between races. Please note also that several units in he game are campaign exclusive and not available in multiplayer. Medics, Firebats, Vultures, Goliaths are all not going to appear on battle.net.

I wish the maps didn’t feel so gimmicky. I also wish they’d put in a freaking pause button so I can review the battle and issue orders after formulating a strategy. At times feels like a quasi-action game. Still, StarCraft in HD is @#$%ing StarCraft in HD.

4 1/2 out of 5 Stars

Movie Review: Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief

Let me first say, my mother loved this. So it has that going for it.

Percy is the half mortal son of Poseidon. After Zeus’s lightning bolt is stolen, Zeus thinks Percy stole it and tells Poseidon he better get it back in 2 weeks, or else. Two weeks also happens to be the summer solstice. I wonder if the solstice was 3 weeks away the deadline would be 3 weeks? It’s never explained how Zeus, who Poseidon specifically points out is omnipotent, is able to have a lightning bolt stolen, nor how he fails to know who the thief is.

Anyway, Percy’s best bud ends up being a Satyr charged to be his protector. I forget the character’s name, let’s him Satyrboy is a limp urban black sterotype. Once they determine the Greek community is out to kill Percy, they flee to Hogwar- er summer camp. Wait, no that’s right. They flee to summer camp. Apparently it’s some sort of neutral ground, though Hades doesn’t have any problem throwing fireballs around when it suits him. At camp Percy runs into Anabelle, daughter of Athena and ranking badass at camp. Percy defeats her in combat his second time picking up a sword. Later that night they all decide to head off the talk Hades into releasing Percy’s mom because, surely Hades is a nice guy.  Most of the movie consist of tracking down 3 pearls that will allow them to escape the Underworld once they enter. Along the way they’ll fight Medusa (didn’t Perseus kill her 2,000 years ago?), a hydra and snack crackers.

Jeez, this feels like such a cheap and shallow Harry Potter knockoff it made me roll my eyes. Percy’s ends up spending a whole day at Jr Demigod camp and suddenly feels he’s ready to take on Hades. Seriously? And the friends he runs into. Satyrboy is annoying on several levels. And I can’t think of a single thing Anabelle did that was helpful. Percy is so overpowered his friends are deadweight. Harry has Ron and Herminione. While Ron can be considered useless except for very rare instances, it’s safe to say without Herminione, Harry would be dead year one. Also there’s a scene during the credits that just left me cold where Percy gets back at his jerk of a stepdad. There’s getting back, and then there’s wondering why we’re rooting for this creep.

Only one thing saves the movie from being total wash. Rosario Dawson as Persephone, Hades’ unwilling wife. Most of the plot of the movie involves tracking down pearls she made so that once men sneak into the underworld and uh… ‘visit’ her, they can leave unmolested by Hades. See, Persephone HATES Hades. At one hilarious point Hades commands her to do something and her response is priceless, “Or WHAT?! I’m already in Hell!” To me this sequence was the highlight of the movie.

A minor nod must also go to Kevin McKidd (Lucius Verenus, Rome) wasted as Poseidon. Hollywood, give this guy a break and see what he can do.

1 1/2 Stars out of 5

Don’t Fear the… Zombie?

Cracked.com has a great article on why we shouldn’t necessarily fear the coming zombie invasion (and it is coming, oh yes…).

Once SkyNet becomes self aware though, we’re fucked.

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

It’s Alive!!

I’m back up and running with the new drive. iTunes was actually rather painless. All I needed was a portable hdd to use for a backup.

Sunday, August 8, 2010

Movie Review: The Book of Eli

The Book of Eli finally came up on my NetFlix que, yay! Denzel Washington is one of those actors that never seems to make a bad movie. They’re not always great, but they’re never bad. THis is one of those movies, firmly in the ‘good’ category.

A religious war has left the world a nuclear wasteland straight out of Fallout 3. Eli is a wanderer is a post-apocalyptic Earth set 30 years after ‘The Flash’. He’s got this very special book (The Bible, it’s not mentioned by name until 10 minutes before the movie’s over, but only an idiot doesn’t know what it is) and he’s heading West to deliver it... somewhere.

Eli’s journey bring him to a town ruled by Gary Oldman, think of any town tyrant in a western and you know the character. Oldman happens to be searching for a book, a very special book. He have teams roaming the landscape searching. None of them can read, but they have standing orders to bring back any book they find. You’d think a Bible wouldn’t be to hard to find considering it’s the most published book of all time, but it’s explained the war was religious and afterwards, every copy found was burned to prevent anything like that from happening again. Oldman’s character however is an older gent and remember back when, when people could be controlled with inspirational words. Oldman would like to do the controlling, he just doesn’t know what words to use.  Hence his quest.

Anyway, Eli being the badass that he is, attracts Oldman’s attention. Oldman realizes Eli has a copy of the book and wants it. Eli being a man on a mission decides much ass needs to be kicked and does. Mila Kunis enters the show as the daughter of Oldman’s mistress, sent to entice Eli with the promise of… well, Mila Kunis. Eli being a monk (literally?) he declines and instead protects the naive girl.

Eventually Eli completes his journey and we get a bit of a twist at the end. The twist makes sense in retrospect and isn’t a cop out in my opinion. Despite the film’s 2 hour length, I’m considering watching again to pick up more hints now that I know what I’m looking for. *********Highlight for spoilers Eli is blind.*********

One final note, I was a bit surprised to find Mila Kunis not all that annoying. The actress herself has been on That 70’s Show forever and there she’s… well, a bicthy, shallow, whiny, screeching snob. In spite of her agent’s recent attempted to make her the next big thing, I never went for her due to the annoyance factor. In the movie however, she’s not… that bad. She still seems a bit miscast though, Kunis a bit to attractive and naive for the setting. She’s a waitress at the town’s saloon and really, she has no clue about what goes on out of town.

All in all, a good movie. It’s  got a few pacing issues, a bit to slow at times to move into greatness. Also, not sure if this is the movie’s problem or a equipment issue on my end (using TV’s speakers, no special theater setup) several times I could not hear what was being said and had to turn on subtitles.

4 out of 5 Stars

Saturday, August 7, 2010

The Avengers

So there’s an Avengers teaser out. Yawn. It’s a logo with a 20 second voice over by Samuel L Jackson. I don’t remember which site I was at, but I saw an idea to shakes things up a bit – SLJ it up a bit, if you will.

“I’m tired of these motherfucking super-villains on this motherfucking planet. Motherfucking Avengers, ASSEMBLE!”

Friday, August 6, 2010

The Price of Storage

I’m in the market for a new hard drive. My 250GB drive from… I don’t even know how long ago, but I think I kept the hdd from 2 rebuilds ago, is getting uncomfortably full. Solid State Drives are supposed the bestest thing ever so I checked them out first. And… wow, are you kidding? $350 for 120GB? Sheeah right, I guess I’m just not progressive enough. I ended up getting a mechanical drive with more space than I can comprehend ever needing.

On a side note: in approximately  3 delivery days I’ll disappear while I get everything going on the new drive. Hopefully it will be painless and the bane of clean installs – iTunes, will go off without a hitch this time.

Thursday, August 5, 2010

Why can’t I? Japan has one!

Seriously, who has to blow which congressman to approve this? I envision this across the bay from Liberty Island with the water some sort of mecha no-man’s land. Gundam with his beamsaber and Ms Liberty with her… book. It’s a heavy book. And she’s green, like Yoda. I’m sure she can kick ass.

I bet the Statue of Liberty has secretly been retrofitted over the years and actually is a combat mecha just waiting for when Japan get uppity.

I Don’t Beleive in @#$%

For some reason I was thinking about the scene in Legion where Michael is laying it out that Angels, with the capital ‘A’, are out to kill them all. Most of the the characters are like ‘yeah right’. Charles S Dutton comments ‘Have you looked outside?’, and that’s that. It’s an interesting moment that every movie, tv show or book with a skeptic as a character must address. How do they believe in the unbelievable?

My current favorite book series ‘The Dresden Files’ has something of a running gag when ‘norms’ into this kind of thing. There’s a scene in Dead Beat where Butters (Polka will never die!!) tries to rationalize the situation. Harry rolls his eyes and points out they ran away from a zombie attack, rationalize that. Another character comments that the video of the werewolf attack looked totally fake, it was to dark and the camera was jittery. It’s pointed out evil things like that often happen in the dark and the camerawoman was scared shitless.

I think though my favorite scene for this moment of realization is from the movie Dusk til Dawn. A classic for several reasons, I present you with this.

This clip is cut short about 5 seconds, but everyone shrugs and lamely agrees. It’s a great scene.

So what would YOU do? I’d like to think I’d break a table and sharpen the legs into stakes and become an avenging merchant of death – but most likely I’d either be catatonic or dinner.

Monday, August 2, 2010

Inspector Gadget is a Badass

Another find courtesy of unrealitymag.com

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Go go gadget Gatling gun!!

Thursday, July 29, 2010

Random Thoughts

Two sites I frequent had a post for the Thor teaser from ComicCon, both had it pulled for copyright reasons. Um… wtf, are you scared of publicity? Isn’t that what teasers are for?

Initial Impressions: StarCraft II

It’s here, it’s here! I’m as giddy as a school girl who just got a Hello Kitty lunch box. Um… moving on. So StarCraft II is finally here, yesterday actually, but I got mine today. Stupid shipping. I got the collector’s edition else I’d have just gone to the store. I’m only a few missions in, so don’t consider this a review, just some random musing by a lunatic.

  • Why the @#$% do I have to log into Battle.net to play the single player campaign? At least let me save the password
  • The tutorials are a joke ‘Select marine’, ‘Right-click beacon’, ‘Congratulations!’
  • Mensk’s voice actor is as awesome as ever. Is he famous and I don’t know it? Dude gives me chills
  • cut-scenes with the game engine have that plastic look from trying to be realistic but not quite there
  • main game engine looks as great as beta – though I saw some rumblings on forums there’s no native AA support. whiny bitches
  • SCVs have autocast Repair! I sent an SCV to repair a bunker, when he was done he moved to the next one then the damage turret
  • Now that’s how a battlecruiser should kickass!

One new feature I ran into is unit upgrades. Not the per map +1 damage upgrades, these are major upgrades you can purchase between missions that you retain during the campaign. I haven’t bought any yet for fear of gimping myself, but some of the first examples seem maybe a little game changing depending on play style. For example: One upgrade allows bunkers to hold 6 instead of 4. Shit, that’s a 50% increase to the firepower a bunker can hold. Another upgrade is StimPacks for marines. I only hole these upgrades don’t become something akin to non-refundable talent trees, I don’t wanna get screwed on early choices.

Also, as I stated I did get the collector’s edition.  A few comments..

  • While good quality cardboard, I have to wonder who designed the box. It’s designed horizontal rather than vertical so it sticks out 2-3 inches on my shelf. Ia it so hard to make these things storable
  • The Thor mini-pet for WoW is a cute little bugger. He flies around in a circle and then starts shooting. Cute + Violence = Win
  • The USB drive is sturdier than you’d really expect it to be. Doesn’t feel like cheap plastic. And yay – free copy of StarCraft and BroodWar!
  • Original StarCraft is suprisingly playable – well done sprites age much better than polygons. Play Symphony of the Night recently? Still awesome

It’s late, I’ll play more tomorrow. Hopefully the difficulty curve don’t go Easy –> easy –> easy –> Haha, fuck you noob! like the late game in the original

Saturday, July 24, 2010

DC Universe Trailer

Now of course DC Universe will be nothing like this, but damn!

Screw the game, this the Justice League movie we want.

Random Thoughts

Hrm, Lady Gaga is actually attractive when she’s not dressed like a… whatever that is.

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Then and Now

GamesRadar has a great feature featuring classic game character Then and Now. The last entry is hilarious with Mega Man, who with Mega Man 9 and 10, has gone retro and hasn’t changed a bit.

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Other highlights include Cloud, Samus Aran, Solid Snake and Batman.

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Gamestop = Tricky Bastards

So my grandmother needed to borrow some cash so I accessed my bank account online. While there I notced a charge from Gamestop. Now, I did go to Gamestop a few days ago, but this charge was for about 50% more than I paid a few days ago. I got pissed thinking they hadn’t processed the Buy2Get1 correctly. I snatched up the receipt, which for some reason I still had on my desk, and confirmed.. No, they did charge it correctly. Wait a minute… Pulling up my email confirmation from April… why, that charge is for Starcraft 2! I expected it next Monday, but all is well with the world.

Sunday, July 18, 2010

Random Thoughts

Laundry’s stupid. The very next day you have dirty clothes!
Unless you do it naked.

Movie Review: Legion

I encourage everyone to watch the trailer for Legion, it’s awesome.

The movie… well, it has a few awesome moments, they’re just all in the trailer. Such potential, sigh.
The movie spends way to long with setup – okay there’s a diner in the middle of nowhere, we get it. let’s move on. The pregnant girl that about to give birth to Jesus 2.0 (or whatever, not ever explained) just isn’t likable. If Mary was like this no wonder she was kicked to the manger. Dennis Quaid is trying to way to hard to make us under that yes, he is indeed a a white trash hick. The… I guess secondary hero, ‘Jeep’, I only remember the name because it’s stupid, is whiny and unfocused. For most of the movie he comes across as a stalker (of said pregnant chick) than a hero.

Characters aside, the plot has more than a few holes. God, it seems, is fed up with the humanity’s bullshit and wants to end it all. Michael, God’s right hand, decided God’s having a bad day and come to his senses once the kid’s born, so he’s going to protect the kid. Anyway, last time God sent a flood, this time he’s sending angels. Angels who are killed quite easily with a handful of guns. Seriously, the flood would’ve worked much better. Or an earthquake. It’s God, can’t he just say ‘Die’ and people die? These angels are like a cross between the hillbillies in ‘The Hills have Eyes’ and agents from ‘The Matrix’. One also wonders why they don’t just possess one  or all of the half dozen people in the movie instead of trying to kill them. Michael makes a comment ‘They can possess the weak-willed’ – ok fine, but the other characters aren’t exactly what comes to mind when I think ‘strong-willed’, look like fair game to me. One final complaint – I am not religious, but I have a passing familiarity with some names. I would’ve liked for someone to comment on Michael ‘Wait, angel Michael? As in Archangel Michael? Holy shit!!’.

I don’t want to sound to down on the movie, it’s not horrible, it’s just so incredibly average when compared to the potential in the trailer. There a few things that were in fact, cool. Michael’s fall and initial appearance are neat. The family trapped at the diner also seemed  oddly realistic, with the daughter doing the teenage rebel thing, mom’s embarrassed and dad’s taking it in stride. Charles S. Dutton is another bright spot, he doesn’t have a large part, but hey, it’s Charles S. Dutton. FInally, I must give props to Paul Bettany as Michael who, while I really have no idea who he is (apparently he’s the voice of Jarvis in Iron Man, thanks IMDB!), is suitably intense. Put this dude in more a role like Jason Bourne, please.

2 stars out of 5

Friday, July 16, 2010

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

The Jukebox: Bionic Commando Theme

One of gaming’s greatest accomplishments: Bionic Commando. Back when I was a wee lad one Christmas I opened up a box and socks. And below those socks were The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Bionic Commando and Contra. Holy crap! Mom accidently bought 4 of the greatest games ever. Bear in mind grandma gave me NES earlier that day so with Mario, this was the Tri-, nay, Quinfeca of Gaming Goodness. I’m babling aren’t I? Anyway, I bring this up because I’ve been listening to the Rearmed soundtrack a bit lately. it’s an awesome techno remix of the original, enjoy.

Bionic Commando – NES

Bionic Commando: Rearmed – PSN/XBOXLIVE

Memories….

The Cutest Thing You’ll See all Week

???????????????

Told ya.

Monday, July 12, 2010

Lazy TV Review: Fringe

I took a couple days off work because I felt like it and used the time to catch up on some laying around doing nothing that I’d put off for far to long. I finished a book, read 2 more, and managed to finish up season one of Fringe.

Fringe follows main character Olivia who’s an FBI agent investigating cases where high science (genetic experiments, teleportation, reanimation), or fringe science as it’s termed in the show. In the pilot Olivia runs across some ‘Weird Ass Shit’ that kills a plane full of people and puts her partner (and lover) in the hospital. Her investigation leads her to Walter (Super Genius), a scientist who dealt in ‘Weird Ass Shit’ until he had a breakdown 15 years after a lab accident killed his assistant. He’s been in a psych ward since. In order to get access to access to the mental patient she needs a relative, enter Peter – Walter’s estranged son (also a super genius), with Walter and Peter’s help Olivia manages to get some answers about the ‘Weird Ass Shit’ and save her boy toy.  The team assembled they investigate the ‘Weird Ass Shit’ eventually discovering conspiracies and other oddness.

I have mixed feelings with this show. On the hand, it starts out pretty slow and it doesn’t really pick up until maybe halfway through the season.  My major complaints are the same I have for most any show that involves law enforcement. Everything seems to easy for them. Nary a defense attorney in sight unless it’s a plot point, you’d think Olivia had never heard of a warrant and all these cases are solved in days. Also most cases start as murders and the FBI taskforce gets called in because of the ‘Weird Ass Shit’. Still, essentially they’re murders – that’d be local police not FBI. Ah well, at least we’re spared the usually obligatory jurisdiction pissing contest with the cops.

Don’t get me wrong if it sounds like I hated the show, I don’t. I’m probably going to get season 2 when it comes out. It’s just… good, not great. It’s not something when, after finishing an episode, I had to watch the next or I’d die. It is fun in a weird way, making me think of what X-Files could have been (hated X-Files, watched half of season 1 and gave up).

I think the great saving grace of Fringe is Walter. As mentioned, Walter had a breakdown and has spent over a decade in a psycho ward. While Walter is a still a super genius, he is also batshit insane. Peter’s job is basically Walter’s handler. Walter… is a character. Prior to his breakdown he gained inspiration for his experiments through generous use of LSD and other.. recreational aids. His mind wanders and where it takes us noone knows! A few quotes:

Peter: Are you sure?
Walter: Peter I’m not even sure we exist on the same plane of consciousness, must we must do it anyway!

Oliva: What are you doing here?
Walter: Trying to plug a hole in the universe, what are YOU doing here?

Ah Walter, you make me laugh.When I started typing I was going to give Fringe a 3, but writing the review I realized I remember all the main character’s names and a few of the supporting characters as well. Astrid the FBI assistant at the lab, John Scott the partner and lover, Charlie Olivia’s colleague, William Bell the… something we’ll find out in season 2.  Usually I end up commenting on character’s roles, not the character themselves. I guess memorable characters made more of an impression on me than I initially thought. I’m gonna bump the score up a bit, and hope they don’t do anything stupid in S2 like try and hook up Olivia and Peter.

3 1/2 out of 5

*****Yes, I hated X-Files. It was dark, depressing, vague without being interesting enough to be considered mysterious – worst of all it was boring.

Lazy Basterd’s Jukebox: Amaranth – More Nightwish

This one’s a little odd, when Nightwish released Dark Passion Play there were two different releases. Standard release is what you’d expect, then there was a deluxe edition with a second disc with all the songs – sans vocals. I swear some songs are just as good if not better.

With vocals…

Without…

I feel I should also point out – if you click through to YouTube and read comments there you’ll a LOT of derogatory comments about their singer Annette. See they’d had 5 (I think) releases with their original singer Tarja. Everyone loves Tarja. Tarja was asked to leave the band, though no one is officially saying why (gossip says she got weird after getting married). So, new singer steps in – Annette. Long time fans hate her with passion and Tarja can do no wrong.

Me, Dark Passion Play was the first Nightwish album I bought and I loved it. When I heard it I thought ‘opera rock’ in my head, I’ve come to learn the correct term is symphonic metal. Anyway, with me hearing Annette first to me she’s the band’s singer and Tarja’s the secondary – even if she does have 5 more records than Annette.

Friday, July 9, 2010

Lazy Game Review: Civilization IV: Colonization

Part of Steam’s sale last week I got the Civ IV collection, included CivIV, it’s 2 expansions and CivIV Colonization. Two games and two expansions for 9.99.

To bad Colonization sucks. Don’t get me wrong, CivIV rules, but Colonization.. This is just to damn complicated. CivIV has basically 3 resources – Food, minerals and gold. Colonization on the other hand has Wheat, Fish, ore, silver, tobacco, sugar, cotton, lumber and fur. The in order for anything except food to be useful you have to craft cigars, coats, cloth, tools, guns. There’s also horses though after 3 hours playing I never did figure out how to get them. Based on the description sables should produce horses but when I tried to build one I got a message indicating I didn’t have enough horses – to build the thing I need to produce horses.

Continuing with the theme of ‘lets get more complicated than it needs to be’, you haven’t colonist working in your town, oh no. You have free colonist, indentured servants, petty criminals, converted natives – as just the base ‘classes’. Each of those can be trained to carpenters, fishermen, farmers, preachers, blacksmiths, fur traders, tabbacoers – but that’s not all. You’ve also got expert and  master levels of said professions.

Founding fathers, Colonization’s version of World Wonders seem both overpowered and completely random. Having done specific you randomly get message asking if you’d like some famous dude to join your settlement. Sure, why not. Doesn’t appear to cost me anything and the results are a bit overpowered. Pocahontas joined my group and the tribe I was at war with sued for peace.

Not that war appears to mean anything in the little time I played. The tribe I was at war with never attacked and when Spain got pissy 2, yes 2, of my soldiers took over three settlements. It’s probably harder on high diffulty levels, but if the mechanics are broken I can’t see how making the computer cheap will improve anything.

All in all, I’m shocked at the review scores this game got (83 on Metacritic). Maybe they’re more patient, skilled,whatever. But I am not impressed. Way to much micro-management in this game. Maybe they were targets the Korean StarCraft player demographic.

1 1/2 Stars out of 5

Monday, July 5, 2010

Random Thoughts

“Everyone has a photographic memory. Not everyone has film.”

Sunday, July 4, 2010

Independence Day!

A couple videos in honor of July 4th.

And the most rousing speech – ever!

Saturday, July 3, 2010

Amazon’s Kindle

Is it just me or does Amazon seem nervous about the Kindle? First was a price drop to $189.00, coincidently the day before the new iPhone was released (though why you’d want to read a book on that small screen is beyond me) and I’ve gotten an email pushing a PC-based client.

As for me, seems like a neat idea in concept I’m just not completely sold yet, and 189.00 is a lot for an experiment. What if it sucks? That’s 23 paperbacks I could’ve gotten. What if a new version comes out and the books aren’t compatible (reading a few user reviews it was an issue with Kindle2 came out for some titles).

I need more bribes to jump on the bandwagon.

StarCraft II…

… is less than a month away!

Thursday, July 1, 2010

The Last Airbender…

Currently has 8% at RottenTometo, which is… you know, pretty rotten.

@#$%ing @#$% in a @#$% with @#$% on top and a @#$% in her @#$%.

Guess I’ll Netflix. Sniffle.

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Lazy Basterd’s Jukebox: Bye Bye Beautiful by Nightwish

Oh look, I found a quarter for the jukebox.

My music taste is all screwy. “Weird Al”, Beach Boys, Beetles, soundtrack scores and symphonic metal Nightwish.

Concern for Captain America

Seems like every other day we get a new casting announcement for Captain America. How many people are gonna be in this thing anyway? I’m beginning to sense the ‘to many characters/plots trap’ being laid.

Steam, The Devil’s Mistress – an update

So I had initially bought Borderlands (still great, lvl22) and was looking at the THQ bundle..

A week later… This feisty minx is stroking me while rifling through my wallet. Stupid ‘Perils of Summer’ sale.  I did get the THQ pack (Company of Heroes, Warhammer 40k Dawn of War, and stuff),  Shatter (2.50 impulse buy), Torchlight (lost my key with the new computer) and Zuma (PopCap is evil).

Four days left in the sale. Primus help me!

***Cookies for those you know Primus

Friday, June 25, 2010

Movie Review: Armored

Armored is the story of guard on a armored truck who’s colleagues decide to rob the truck. On the verge of losing his house and custody of his kid brother who he’s guardian of, the main character (whatever his name is, not important) decides to go along with the plan on the condition no one gets hurt.

So of course someone gets hurt and our hero decides he can’t be a part of this anymore. Said hero locks himself in the armored truck while the rest of the gang has about 50 minutes to get in and continue with the plan.

Armored is a slightly above average.. I guess you’d call it an action/thriller though there’s little action and it’s not that thrilling. The film has two failings which make it watchable but not necessarily good. First is the plan itself: basically the crew is going to stash the money and blame it on non-existent thieves. Forgive me but this ‘plan’ just seems retarded to me. Have these people never seen CSI? And the second the homeless guy wanders in and gets shot throwing the plan off track, that’s it. There’s no way these bozos can recover from this. But they spend the next hour trying to break into the truck. Yes, the armored truck. Gil Grissom and Mac Taylor would have these bozos before lunch.

The second problem is the movie’s hero. The guy’s an idiot. When a social worker stops by the house to check up on the delinquent young brother after he missed more school than attended, he proudly pipes up ‘I didn’t know he missed school’. Way to stay on top of things. Are you sure foster care is a bad thing? And not only is he an idiot, he’s a criminal idiot. This is not an innocent bystander that rises to the occasion when his former friends and colleagues make a run for the money, he’s in on it. He just chickens out when some homeless guy is in the wrong place at the wrong time. The movie’s ending completely ignores this and tries to wrap things up with a ‘lived happily ever after’ moment, and it’s total bullshit. If he told the truth about what happened he’d probably be going to jail for life – you know after the murder during the course of a felony.

Just another average action(ish) movie

***Update***
I must also point out it’s criminal this movie isn’t better considering the cast. Lawrence Fishbourne and Jean Reno, I expect better. And Fishbourne, put the Twinkie down and hit the gym. Morpheus wasn’t that long ago.

3 out of 5 Stars

Game Review: Borderlands

I know, it’s been out for how long? Bite me, I got a list and when/if I get to said list may or may not be in an acceptable timeframe for others to care about my opinion. But that’s what cool about the internet, nobody cares anyway.

Anywho, the game. Freshly downloaded off Steam (see last post for non-insightful rambling) I hopped into the game not quite knowing what to expect. It’s a shooter obviously, but with RPG elements? Well, that might be stretching things. You have skills and levels and quests but… wait, that’s an RPG.

Story progression is driven by the quests and level progression (so far level 10) have kept pace with the enemies you have to kill. Game itself is fun, I love Claptrap and the graphics are cute but slick at the same time. It reminds me of World of Warcraft in the graphics department – I’ll take a silky smooth stylized engine over ‘realistic with frame rate problems’ (looking at you Conan) any day.

The game itself is fun though I do have two complaints: in-game menus and the manual.

  1. The game is obviously designed for a console and navigating the menus with a mouse is infuriating. It’s a freakin’ mouse? Seriously, how hard would it have been to fix the menu to use a mouse intuitively.
  2. The manual offered by Steam appears to be a PDF copy of the X-Box 360 version (cleared references to Right Button, Left Trigger and such, not a mention of left-click in sight). Either Steam is retarded and didn’t realize they sell PC games or the developers didn’t bother making a manual with PC commands. Either way, I find this infuriating and unacceptable.

Overall I like it, thought the menu and manual issues keep if from a higher score.

4 out of 5 Stars

Steam… and the Shrinking Shelf

Well I’ve done it. I went and created a Steam account. I was playing Fallout 3 on 360 (I know, I’m trying to get some use out of the damn thing) and I thought, let’s  play a real shooter. What do I have… so I looked over at my PC shelf and looked over the shooters. I have Jedi Knight and Medal of Honor. Wow. I haven’t bought a new shooter in… since high school. Wow, that makes me feel old. No, not old. Not young. That’s the ticket.

Anyway, since neither will most likely even run on Windows 7 (though I’ll have to check out Jedi Knight, loved that back in the day) I pondered what were my options… Well, despite my PC shelf apparently being a decade old (MMOs notwithstanding) , it is actually full. I’m a quasi collector and like to have a box to put on my shelf so I know that stuff is mine. I’ve never been one for for the digital copies or downloads. Still, the shelf is full.

So I headed to this new fangled thing called ‘Steam’ to see what the fuss was about. Lil bit later had an act and was downloading Borderlands. Appears to be fairly painless though the download time itself is annoying, though to be expected.

Also Steam apparently started it’s summer sale today through the 4th. I’m eyeing that THQ pack (all 3 Company of Heroes and the Warhammer 40k’s) and the Call of Duty collection.

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