Too Busy

There's a been a lot of news and happenings lately, but the rapidly approaching end of this semester is pretty much killing my free time. This weekend alone I have to watch six fucking movies for a sociology of cinema class. It could in fact be a good thing if this continues through May, since actively monitoring E3 news and the rampant retardation at gaming forums during such a time can only kill many brain cells. The number of unplayed games remains insane, but I'm not buying any new hardware for at least another 18 months, so if hell freezes over, I may in fact get around to playing some of them. In the mean time, Hell remains a moderate to warm with the possibility of rain.

Random Hilarity

I started college as a Computer Science major. I dropped it in favor of something more practical, because I was told that there would be no jobs available after the artificial internet bubble of the 90s finally burst (which has already occured). Now there's not enough people enrolled in Computer Science, and many predict a shortfall of qualified workers in the coming decade.

"Hey I've got an idea! Let's tell everyone who takes computer science that they won't be able to get a job! And then after they all shift gears and start to study something else, we'll complain about there not being enough people enrolled in CS degree programs! And then we'll say the solution for all the males who could have been working in the field of Computer Science is to have more females enrolled! That will straighten things out for them!"

FUCKING MORONS. A lot fuss is made about how we could be heading towards economic disaster. With fucking meathead, cocksucking douchebags telling people not to go into a field and then complaining about not enough people being enrolled, the worst that can happen is that we get hit with exactly what we deserve. Enrolling more females is going to do a lot for all the males graduating this year without Computer Science degrees! Some type of asteroid needs to collide with the earth so humanity can reboot.

This is the Xbox 360. Looks better than the horribly designed Xbox, but is also a step back in many ways. No bundled hard drive (although that honestly does make sense considering it should be able to network to much larger PC hard drives), launching with DVD-ROM instead of a next-gen optical format, using memory cards after so many people trumpeted the Xbox for not needing them, probably the dumbest name for a system ever (360 what? You know some focus group tester decided 360 sounds "extreme" and is a higher number than "3" which has to be the dumbest reason for naming a console ever), and it's launching a year too early. Normally I have to convince myself that I don't need the latest piece of kit, but with the juice still left in this generation (there's a lot of great games coming out on PS2 this fall), the games I still have wrapped in plastic, the lack of a Halo game to launch the system (which probably wouldn't matter after the shitfest of Halo 2 anyway), and the fact that it's still too fucking early for the next gen to start, and I won't have a hard time at all passing on this. They're sacrificing the hardware advantage so they can try to jump the gun and release the system early, thereby screwing the consumer out of a year's worth of technological advancements. No thanks.

This is the more fitting image:

Hello Dave.

Prey Scans

Scans of the new issue of PC Gamer are floating around, with an exclusive look at the second most delayed game ever (take a wild guess which one is first). 3D Realms has handed off development duties to Human Head studios, and it will be be running on the Doom III engine. So they're not actually developing it themselves... and they're using id's engine... what the fuck have these assholes been doing for the past nine years again?

Using the Doom III engine is a great choice, since it's so cutting edge. The only problem is that if you looked at the screenshots without any accompanying text, you'd swear it was leaked screens from a yet to be announced Doom III expansion pack. It's that devoid of originality. Not that 90% of FPS aren't complete rehashes to begin with (and unfortunately Doom III couldn't even managed to rehash the fun of the previous two installments), but I'd figure you'd some type of selling point to bring this thing back from the dead after so many years. Then again, it's not like 3D Realms operates on any kind of human logic.

At the end of the article, it is stated that Duke Nukem Forever has been seen in motion, but will not be shown to anyone else again, until it is released. It is supposedly 60 - 65 % complete. I guess we can expect to be playing it around 2012.

3D Realms remaining in business - a mystery to all.

War Averted

Good news for a change: Sony and Toshiba have agreed to settle on a unified next-generation DVD format.

Sony, Toshiba join forces for next-generation DVD standard

Two groups led by Toshiba Corp. and Sony Corp. that have been at odds over the standard for next-generation DVDs have reached an agreement and are in the final stages of deciding on a third standard, it has been learned.

The two sides are reportedly aiming to come to an agreement on the new high-capacity standard this month. If a single standard is adopted, it will avoid incompatibility such as that which occurred between VHS and Beta video players and tapes.

Japanese firms have been aiming to launch a next-generation DVD standard at the end of this year. Toshiba Corp. and NEC Corp. have been promoting the low-cost HD DVD format. Sony Corp. and Matsushita Electronic Industrial Co. (Panasonic), on the other hand, have favored the higher-capacity Blu-ray Disc standard. The two standards are incompatible, and both sides have been at odds over them for the past three years.

In the entertainment industry, Warner Bros. and Universal have remained in the HD DVD camp, while others such as Walt Disney and 20th Century Fox have supported Blu-ray. Under such opposition, digital content such as movies would be viewable only with the corresponding player, and this conflict has threatened to hinder software sales.

In a bid to reach a compromise, Sony Corp. and Toshiba Corp., which have led the two opposing groups, have come together and are reportedly in the final stages of reaching an agreement. They are reportedly looking to produce a "third standard" that incorporates the benefits of both formats. (Mainichi Shimbun, Japan, April 21, 2005)

This avoids all sorts of chaos, and should certainly mean that PlayStation 3 will launch with a storage medium superior to DVD-ROM. Say "Fuck No!" to multi-disc games!

PlayboyStation Portable

PSP's uses just keep multiplying:

NEW YORK, April 20 /PRNewswire/ -- Playboy.com today has announced itsnext step in delivering digital and downloadable beauties with the launch of its newest feature "PlayboyStation Portable." Given the tremendous popularity of the new Sony PlayStation Portable(R), Playboy.com has created a sci-fithemed pictorial of the Cyber Girl of the Year 2005 Amy Sue Cooper that wasphotographed and formatted specifically for viewing on this device.

Playboy.com first harnessed the burgeoning handheld digital photo revolution last December by offering some of its sexiest girls next door in an exclusive "iBod" editorial feature for Apple's iPod Photo(R). That feature was an international sensation, and thousands of tech-savvy customers visitedPlayboy.com to download the customized galleries.

"We know that many Playboy fans are also gaming enthusiasts who are likelyto buy this type of device so it was a natural progression for us to designthis sexy, action-themed feature," said John D. Thomas, editor of Playboy.com."We always strive to stay ahead of the high-tech curve so as technology continues to change, we will continue to create features that will deliverPlayboy content to customers on any media platform they wish to use.

"The "PlayboyStation Portable" editorial feature on Playboy.com consists of two free non-nude galleries and one free video feature. Additional nude digital content is available exclusively for Playboy Cyber Club members in Playboy's subscription site: http://cyber.playboy.com .

**Note: Age verification with credit card information is required toaccess any nude content.

Playboy, Playboy.com, Cyber Club, and the Rabbit Head Design aretrademarks of Playboy Enterprises International, Inc. All other marks are theproperty of their respective owners and do not constitute or imply theendorsement or sponsorship thereof.

Hilarious.

Crap Stop

Another great piece of news: GameStop and Electronics Boutique Merge. Don't be confused by the word "merge" because this is basically GameStop taking over to create a video game retailer monopoly. I generally don't care about these sorts of things but EB has gotten better over the years, and GAMESTOP FUCKING SUCKS.

Here's what we can look forward to: less shelf space for games that don't light up the sales charts. Less shelf space for PC games in favor of the watered down Xbox/360 (god that is a fucking horrible name for a system) ports, more assholes trying to sell Game Informer subscriptions. What's really bad is that GI, the worst game magazine ever, will now further claim supremecy since the subscriptions will be shoveled on people who wouldn't have gone near the thing otherwise. It's a shame because "GMR" was a great magazine for the short period of time that it existed. Their special feature on fighting games was some of the most spot-on gaming journalism since the last truly great gaming magazine, Next Gen(eration), went under. Now we can look forward to GI running up the gamerankings average on pieces of shit like Mortal Kombat, buying more "exclusive cover stories" due to their artificially inflated circulation rate, and hounding websites that don't even originate in the United States about a couple of fucking image scans (as was the case with their recent coverage of Rockstar's "The Warriors"). Consumers, publishers who release innovative titles, and fans of intelligent gaming journalism just got kicked in the head today.

If there are two fringe (and I really mean FRINGE) benefits, they are: Ziff Davis being further assfucked. They lost out big time when GMR, as good as it was, failed to gain traction. Having the mag only available at EB when it should have also been at print retailers like Barnes & Nobel was a mistake. EGM will have even more worthless cover stories now, thanks to GI's defacto coup of readers who get subscriptions tacked onto their purchases. The second interesting thing is that this further validates Valve's decision to forge ahead with Steam. As mentioned, GameStop is not friendly in terms of PC game shelf space. If there is one developer that will save us from succumbing to a world of shitty "consolized" PC games, it is Valve. I can't wait to buy HL2 Aftermath on Steam, not only because it will fucking rock, but as a sign of support for what Valve is doing. They're the last hope for a future where content creators are rewarded according to their accomplishments, and where consumers can still get some multiplayer levels without paying fucking $20 for it. Rock on you crazy motherfuckers.

Last two points: I used to buy about 75% of my games at Best Buy, with the remaining quarter going to EB Games. Looks like I'll be getting everything at Best Buy now. And finally, if the console manufacturers start acting like Jews and only use DVD-ROM rather than pushing technology forward with a medium like Blu-Ray, piracy is going to skyrocket. Everybody has DVD burner these days, the blank discs have hit the commodification point just like CD-R discs did, and broandband will only become more prevelant, even at it's horribly slow growth rate (thanks to shitty companies like Comcast). I don't advocate piracy, but any of the three console manufacturers that try to shovel off a generation-old storage medium on consumers is going to get assfucked, and I can't say they won't deserve. Fuck not, lest ye be fucked.

With Teeth

I haven't paid much attention to music in the past five years since the RIAA started acting like dicks and since good music pretty much started to evaporate. I had always been familiar with Nine Inch Nails since a remixed version of "Closer" was used as the opening audio loop for the my all time favorite movie, "Seven." I wouldn't really say I'm a "fan" (and by the connotation of the word, I'm not much of a "fan" of any particular category, band, or musician) but I thought "The Fragile" was one of the last great albums, along with Dr. Dre's "Chronic 2001," to be released before music became exceptionally boring. Granted, there's nothing in particular these days that grates on my nerves the way that lilith fair bull dyke feminazi shit did back in 1997, but there's nothing really spectacular either.

So "[With_Teeth]" got leaked and I figured I might as well use the bandwith I'm paying for. I had already heard "The Line Begins To Blur" and "The Hand That Feeds" last month. I thought "The Line Begins To Blur" was a great song, and "The Hand That Feeds" was shitty. I still like the former, and the latter has grown on me. There's just a bit too much repetition in the lyrics. While this album is not as good as "The Fragile" or "The Downward Spiral" there are a few more great tracks that make it worth checking out: Love is Not Enough, Every Day is Exactly the Same, Only, and my personal favorite, Sunspots.

I'm not sure there's enough notable material on here to justify what is almost a six year gap between albums, but with the rancid state of music these days, beggars can't be choosers. Hopefully the next album goes for a sort of highs and lows approach, mixing stuff similar to the heavy tracks of "Broken" with the more vacant sounds of "Still" in one big clusterfuck of awesomeness. I still can't stand gothballs, trech coat rejects, and what likely constitutes 99% (no pun intended) of the fanbase, but I respect the fact that Reznor hits the hill and turns forty next month, but continues to do things his own way. It's unfortunate that I develop a liking for musicians, game developers, and movie directors who take a fucking eternity with each project. Oh well, you get what you wait for.

Oddworld Owned

One less arrogant cocksucker in the industry: It's 'game over' for Oddworld's creator Lanning.

This guy was literally the American Psycho of game development. I've never seen someone pat themselves on the back for creating such lousy games. What's hilarious is that he took money from Microsoft to put a fading series onto Xbox, and then when Fries & co. realized that "nobody wants to play as a fish" (one of the best quotes ever from somebody in the industry) they cut the cash flow and sent them packing. Cocksucker Lanning then hightails it to EA, who couldn't be bothered to promote one of the several dozen games it releases every quarter. Watching how much of a prick this guy was on the G4 Icons episode (some icon) and then seeing Ed Fries shit all over him was great.

It is my hope that every overrated platform, fighting, and FPS game developer gets kicked out of the industry. Double Fine will be next once Psychonauts bombs, and crater faced beast Itagaki is going to get it soon. I'm not surprised that Ion Storm folded considering DX Invisible War and Thief Deadly Shadows were horrible and were both a disgrace to their namesakes. Warren Spector obviously lost his mind at some point, but he did create the original, non-sucky, absolutely brilliant Deus Ex. I will give him one more shot to redeem himself. It seems the only completely overrated developer, who as luck would have it, stains all three of my favorite genres, is Rare and won't be going anywhere since Microsoft paid about $400 million more than they're worth for them. Can't wait to see the angsty furry game bomb completely.

The industry will be better when cocksucking shitstains like these douchebags are gone for good. The interview in the link posted with Lorne Lanning is hilarious.

What a cocksucker.

Comcast Sucks

I just had a well written, perfectly coherent entry prepared and wouldn't you know it, my shitty broadband access starts to crap out. Breaking news: COMCAST SUCKS.

I can't wait for Warren Buffet to die.

Patriots Schedule

Along with Mr. Brady hosting Saturday Day Night Live this week (which will give me a reason to actually watch it for the first time in ages) the preseason and regular season NFL schedules have been released. Preseason isn't worth commenting on since it's going to be mostly second and third string players who are trying to make the cut, the regular season schedule is interesting:

Thurs., Sept. 8 Oakland Raiders
Sun., Sept. 18 at Carolina Panthers
Sun., Sept. 25 at Pittsburgh Steelers
Sun., Oct. 2 San Diego Chargers
Sun., Oct. 9 at Atlanta Falcons
Sun., Oct. 16 at Denver Broncos
Sun., Oct. 23 BYE WEEK
Sun., Oct. 30 Buffalo Bills
Mon., Nov. 7 Indianapolis Colts
Sun., Nov. 13 at Miami Dolphins
Sun., Nov. 20 New Orleans Saints
Sun., Nov. 27 at Kansas City Chiefs
Sun., Dec. 4 New York Jets
Sun., Dec. 11 at Buffalo Bills
Sat., Dec. 17 Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Mon., Dec. 26 at New York Jets
Sun., Jan. 1 Miami Dolphins

Bolded games are where the fireworks are going to be. Pats travel to Steel City for the third time in one calender year, and I'm sure Cowher & co. want to make up for how badly they performed in the playoffs. Not that winning a regular season game actually makes up for getting your ass handed to you in the playoffs, but people like to think it makes up for it anyway. Indy coming into the Razor will be the best game of the year. Peyton Manning has yet to beat Tom Brady, and the Pats lose at home less often than the 49ers win against teams that aren't the Arizona Cardinals. I think a lot of pressure is going to be on Indy to show that they can win in New England, since it's either a preview of the invevitable playoff matchup, or could help them earn home field advantage and avoid coming back here again altogether.

Throw in the fact that there have been some major personell changes this year, and the fact that the Patriots have one completely boneheaded loss to a division "rival" (as if the term even remotely applies) each year. I'm predicting a 13-3 season with the #2 seed in the playoffs again. Pittsburgh is not going to be 15-1 this year, but if the Colts can actually win here than they won't be flushing their last game of the season down the toilet like they did against the Broncos this year.

The Good: The BYE week is actually somewhat sane this season. It would be slightly better to have it on the week of October 30th to prepare for the Colts, but it's still much better than the bullshit week 3 BYE from last year. Who comes up with that shit? I'm still amazed that they could play so many consecutive games with so many injuries and still end up 14-2 with another Lombardi trophy to add to the case. I'm aware that the Red Sox breaking the curse was a historical event for the ages, but the Patriots are the best team in sports, hands down. Also good is that the Pats don't play the S-U-C-K D-I-C-K Jets until December, which gives that fag Pennington a good three months to fuck up his rotator cuff again.

The Bad: Too many games being broadcasted on FOX and ABC. God knows CBS are the biggest bunch of cocksuckers on earth, but Phil Simms somehow manages to be slightly less annoying than John Madden, and a lot less annoying than the NFC cocksuckers on FOX. I honestly get the feeling that FOX sportscasters are bitter over working for the network that gets stuck covering the toilet league, otherwise known as the NFC. Hearing them trying to rationalize two 8-8 teams being in the divisional playoff games (when not a single one had done so before in the history of the league) was fucking hilarious. Your commentators suck and you cover the septic tank games of the season, get over it.

The Strange: Makes no difference, but I could have sworn that the opening game was supposed to be the Superbowl Champions against the team they beat in their conference Championship game. The Pats hosted the Steelers for Gillette's inaugural game after upsetting them in the 2002 AFC Championship game. They hosted the Colts last fall after beating them to advance to Superbowl XXXVIII. So this year they host the... Raiders? Seems very strange, but it'll be nice to watch a bloodbath and to have that moron Randy Moss be on hand to watch a superbowl banner being raised, because that is the closest he will ever get to one. I also find it strange that the Patriots are visiting Pittsburg for the second year in a row, while hosting Indy for the second year in a row. I thought the league tried to alternate between the "same conference / different division" match ups every year. Oh well, the way it worked out should actually be a lot more interesting, for the reasons I mentioned above.

Final call: The AFC Championship game will either be here or at Indy, with the possibility of the Steelers being the guest rather than the team that isn't hosting. NFC sucks dong, always and forever.

SWAT 4

This is a very cool game. I usually do not like "fragmented" games where you are randomly shuttled from one mission and location to another. It's reason I like games such as Half-Life, GTA, and Metal Gear where you're almost always in control of where you take the characters and how you do it. But given the fact that only real alternative for a game like this would have been to create some dreadful central storyline like the movie "SWAT" I'm glad they took this approach.

There are a few very dissapointing technical issues, which is strange since Tribes Vengeance was polished and even with the enormous maps the game always ran fine. This is probably one of the choppiest games I've played that runs on the Unreal Engine. There's some strange, unexplainable frame rate drops even in small rooms or when there isn't much going on. It's pretty strange given the fact that that the minimum specs are 1.0 GHz and 256MB of RAM, which my rig surpasses more than three times over. Then again, the woefully mediocre Brothers in Arms has a ton of bugs and does not run smoothly. As great as Epic's own games run, it shows how unoptimized games are when developers use "off the shelf" game engines rather than building their own.

On the plus side, even with the game's extremely tactical nature and somewhat harsh requirements for "passing" missions (you can fail to pass a mission even when all of the required objectives are met), it's very fun the play. Blasting doors open with C2, tazering scumbags in the crotch, and using pepper spray on somebody after you've already cuffed them is fucking awesome. Some of the weird AI and clipping bugs made the nightclub mission extremely tedious, but the "oxycodone" addicts and the serial killer keeping women in his basement are the type of situations you just don't see in (m)any games. Completing the night club mission by using the paint gun, smoke grenades, and tazer to stun every shitbag into submission in order to get an 86% rating was a very entertaining relief. Also good is the fact that every mission has randomized layouts, so if you're forced to run through them again (and again... and again) it at least stays somewhat fresh.

I really hope a patch is released that fixes some of the extremely annoying technical issues. Either way, it's still a very well designed game that rewards people who think about what methods they are going to use, and is often very funny in the process.

Last Emperor

I just had to watch the movie "The Last Emperor" for a cinema class. It's about the life of Pu Ying, the last emperor of China. It was probably one of the most boring pieces of shit I've been subjected to yet, although it was funny to see the dumb communist prison director get paraded around by a bunch of ugly maoists after doing so much for them. Better dead than red.

While the console gaming world keeps taking turns for the worse, I was pleased to hear that "Half-Life 2 Aftermath" has been announced. The premise isn't quite what I expected, as you supposedly play as Gordon again, with Alyx being along for the journey even more prominently than she was in HL2. I would have thought an "Opposing Force" or "Red Shift" expansion would be in store, but this sounds cool as well. I'm glad Valve is handling the development on their own rather than having the douchebags at Gearbox software do it.

There is a hilarious back and forth going on between the unveiling dates of Xbox 2 and PlayStation 3. Hopefully this will further exemplify just how useless trade shows are. Why crowd around in a shithole like Los Angeles for three days when you can just reveal stuff throughout the course of the year on the web? Some people never learn.

Daylight Savings

Does it serve any purpose in the modern world other than to throw off your entire sleep pattern? No? Didn't think so.

I've gotten back into the PC games I was playing since my rig is back up to speed. I've noticed Brothers in Arms has dropped to $29.99 pretty damn fast, and I can't say I'm surprised. I'm not sure why the reviews for this had such high scores but it's pretty formulaic. The squad control is good but the actual missions, action, and level layouts at mediocre at best. It doesn't help that it's only the 2332403rd WW2 FPS to come out in the last few years. They've already overdone it with Vietnam too. "Modern" conflicts are being beaten to death too, although Battlefield 2 does in fact look amazing. I can't say making a sci-fi shooter would be much more innovative either. It seems like after Call of Duty, Unreal Tournament 2004, and Half-Life 2 there isn't much more to do in terms of FPS gameplay, but hopefully somebody can at least come up with a tone or setting that hasn't been done a million times already.

Doom 3 Ressurection of Evil, Star Wars Republic Commando, and SWAT 4 are next, whenever "next" happens to arrive. I certainly hope Ressurection of Evil is much better than Doom 3's single player campaign which was fucking dreadful. It's funny to once again see console sites giving such a poor FPS high marks. It's like "fun" doesn't even enter into the equation anymore.

Valve has done a lot of things right. Half-Life 2 was amazing. CS Source is great. HL2DM is digital crack. And Steam is great for anyone who isn't too dumb to know how to use it. But there's two things they could have done a lot better. First, Day of Defeat Source shouldn't be taking this long. I paid for the Steam Silver package six months ago, and shouldn't have to wait this long for the final component of it to be activated. Secondly, the HL2DM map contest results are dreadful. Not only are dm_underpass and dm_avalon old news, they aren't even all that good. Maps like dm_island17, dm_six, and dm_torque are much, much better. If the goal was to publicize the release of some old fan created maps in order to get CS addicts to invest time in HL2DM, I'm afraid it's probably going to fail. It's a shame too because I'd like to see some low-ping servers with a steady rotation of some of the really amazing maps that have been made. Although I have to give props to Valve for not releasing a $19.99 add-on disc with half a dozen lame ass maps and no bot support. Valve makes people wait for too long. Valve mishandles publicity and public relations at every turn. But when the game is finally there and it's time to play, you're in for nothing but the best. The map releases that have been provided so far, along with the addition of the stun stick and SLAM bombs make Bungie look pathetic.

I'm just getting started on the "Trial of Hades" in God of War. Great game, I just wish I had the time to progress in a more timely fashion. The camera positioning during the swimming sequences could be a bit better. Poseidon's Trident may keep you from drowning, but it doesn't do a damn thing against all those crushing traps.

I still want a PSP.

Computer Fixed

Hell Yeah.