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??

Photobucket
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 fiancĂ©. 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

Followers