1/29/2006

Google, the browser that can do no wrong it seems, appears to be talking out of both sides of it's face.  Why, for example, will it readily agree to any censorship rules set forth by China but when the EU wants to try and regulate the Internet they go on the defensive.  They also refuse to answer questions put forth by Congress regarding their actions in China.

What is with these gaming websites trying to point out the fault of gaming journalism?  Are they trying to show that they are above such things? Well guess what FiringSquad, you all suck too so don't try to be all hip by pointing out those faults. In fact, you're reasons suck.

• It's easier to get jaded.  Aww, do you get to play games all day every day and get paid for it? Gee that sucks!
 

• Pressure to rush through the game. So you don't get the review the day out of the game, big deal.


• Less time to reflect before you write. Work on your review as you play the game, maybe? Y'know, an outline, maybe some notes.


• Selection bias. This one seems to break down to his argument that game reviewers are better at games than the average Joe.


• Distorted sense of value. Don't bitch about getting free games, jerk.  

1/26/2006

This editorial isn't really an editorial so much as it's a whiner fest.  Choice quotes ahoy!

"As for Blizzcon...there was far less cosplay than I had hoped for."  Let that one sink in for a little bit. 

"I’ve devoted hundreds of hours of my life, maybe even days, to building up Diablo and D2 characters, and so have millions of others. And then at Blizzcon, you fail to acknowledge we exist."

Yes, think about it some more you idiot.  Games represent a distraction or escape from reality.  The difference between gamers like this and gamers like me (and hopefully you) is that we are rational enough to realize this and not let it consume our lives.  See that hinged object on your wall. It's a door to the outside world. Open it up and experience life, even if it's small doses. 

"Sure, there’s the ladder seasons -- oh wait! Someone reached level 99 this season weeks ago and I have yet to hear an acknowledgement of this achievement."

This means, "Justify my beard and Cheetos stains, please!!"  Hah, Blizzard sure won't why should they. They're giving you a free service. You should feel lucky they even let you into Blizzcon with your D2 gear on instead of getting pummeled for playing a game whose graphics rate below those of an Xbox or Playstation.

"A game company that refuses to show their thanks for playing is a disgrace to the industry, because without fans, Blizzard would make no money."

Yeah right, he'll be back to playing in a week. 

1/24/2006

Kinda went digging for a fight on Bluesnews regarding my Serious Sam 2 review.  Didn't get a outright scuffle but it is still a good discussion and rebuttal.  Let me feel good about myself and post this thing I wrote here:

It's an enthusiastic review, but it lacks profesionalism; you mock people who like games like Painkiller, calling them "stupid"; you tell people who don't like titles like SSII to "go back to Barbie dolls" and openly wonder why people would want to play this in singleplayer.

Newsflash: just because you don't like singleplayer games, that doesn't mean other people don't.

There's also barely any description of the environments, weapons, or enemies, and nothing about the technical aspects of the game. That sort of thing is important, even if you don't think it is.

You can still keep the 'off-the-wall' style and be informative and entertaining. The review wasn't boring to read, I'll give it that.

A few screenshots wouldn't hurt either.

But if you're comfortable with that style of review, don't let me dissuade you.

I don't agree with the assumption that technical aspects are important. I don't want to drive down that road like so many sites where they rattle off so many things about the bloom effects, anisiotropic and AA filtering, and all that rot. It makes a review sound like it's written by Data and not a person. I won't do it. Unless there's just something eye explodingly awesome in the game (for example the textures in Doom 3 are the best in any game to date due to their depth) then I won't nitpick about pixelation, v-syncs or trilinear filtering.

I *do* however go down the server administration side since I like hosting games for friends. More importantly, a game like Serious Sam 2, in my opinion, DEMANDS you play it in multiplayer co-operative. Other sites like Gamespy simply state, "Well single player is okay but multiplayer helps you ignore all the problems."

No, screw that! Skip the single player entirely. Ignore it on Serious Sam II like it doesn't exist. Single player in Serious Sam II is like the Easter Bunny being real or Bill O'Reily having a rational conversation. It just doesn't exist. Single player is Serious Sam II (and any of them) only gives you about 1/10th of the experience of co-operative play and so if someone does want to play Serious Sam II in single player they're cheating themselves out of a fantastic co-operative experience.

A game like Painkiller, though? Heck yeah play that single player mostly because there's no co-operative (unless a mod was made that I'm not aware of since it came out two years ago). Also, I never directly called people who played Painkiller stupid. I loved PK when it came out.

I used a possible argument (a silly one to be sure) as an example where if someone said they'd seen everything in a shooter (for example, a stake gun that throws enemies 50 feet backwards and drives them into the wall), well, they really need to reconsider that fact when playing Serious Sam 2.

Do I lack professionalism? Hell yeah I do. Look at that 1998 HTML code. Look at all those inactive verbs. I write a review or post some news from time to time and hopefully it might give people a chuckle or make them try a game if they hadn't already.

Details on the environments? Ok, yeah I messed that one up but I'll fix it. "Imagine the most ridiculous, yet graphically amazing game world you've ever seen. That's Serious Sam II. A Chinese carnival full of suicide clowns on unicycles, an oversized backyard where you end up using twigs as cover and are threatened by massive killer bees, or a massive Inca ruin overrun by zombie stockbrokers and an army of undead football players that make Jerome Bettis look tiny. That's Serious Sam II and if such things do not even cause a mild itch in your digital gaming subconcious then perhaps you should consider a new hobby."

Conclusion: When I truly think something through, I feel I can write well.

1/23/2006

Now I had heard a slight rumble about Medieval 2: Total War but didn't think much of it.  Well, consider my attention rapt and focused.  Their site was updated and those graphics.  My god those graphics.

1/22/2006

I FINALLY got to play Serious Sam 2 with friends this weekend.  Here's the review.

1/19/2006

There's some serious bug with Serious Sam 2 in co-op play.  Or at least for me there is since as I'm playing my weapons disappear.  The SeriousZone forums don't shed a huge amount of light on it though which is too bad really because the only solution right now for me is to quit the game and come back into it. 

Now of course like most geeks I dig me some Star Wars. And the ability to try the demo of the new RTS Star Wars: Empire at War really piques my interest.  Get the file. 

Just like most corporations, Apple doesn't want to pay taxes so they might offshore their iTunes systems. 

Google's buying everything they can get their hands on it seems. Hey Google, I'm here baby.  Just give me 1,000 shares and I'm yours!

1/15/2006

Before Internet games were dominated by Blizzard and id, one of the biggest genres was flight simulators.  Now that's not the case anymore obviously because despite a growth in computer power people have realized just how technical and boring flying a plane can actually be.  Plus the fact that you might die from about a trillion different directions adds to the suck level of hardcore flight sims.  Regardless, some people don't see it that way and continue the masochistic love of flight simulators. In fact, one of the most revered and sometimes reviled simulator, Falcon 4.0, continues to get patched despite being nearly seven years old. 

So on TV today there was an add from Apple about how they will now have Intel processors in them.  Their pitch was that Intel was doing simple rudimentary things in a beige box up till now.  Well, Apple, you can really kiss my ass because if this shot I took from EQ2 is basic and rudimentary perhaps you must think waiting for a PC game for two years is "cutting edge."  When did Wolfenstein come out for the Apple. Was it year or two years after the game was actually released?  Now, Apple would love to probably make their stuff somehow compatible with Windows because then they can tell all those Apple loyalists that now they can run real applications while still being snooty about their PC choice.    

News flash Mac users, a sleek chrome computer case doesn't make your PC run faster despite it's aerodynamic look and feel.  Save a couple thousand for your iTunes and get a regular PC instead.     

1/13/2006

After reading this article regarding Quake Wars I think Battlefield 2 will be collecting quite a bit of dust when Quake Wars comes out in the future.  Just so we're all honest with one another Enemy Territory, created by Splash Damage who is behind Quake Wars, gives me a huge raging digital gaming boner and I'm guessing that Quake Wars will be no different.  Everquest 2 and Battlefield 2 will probably both disappear from my mind.  Eating and work will probably do so as well.  

1/12/2006

I said that my least favorite game of the year was BF2: Special Forces because it quite frankly sucked and given the number of servers that played those maps and then went back to the basic BF2 I think my conclusion is accurate. Now EA has announced two "bump packs" which add a little bit more to the game in the way of maps (three), group of soldiers (Euro Trash), and weapons for those soldiers (one for each class). There's also four new vehicles including the Eurofighter. 

HO HUM.

What's more appealing to me is the bump back that's to come out in March called "Armored Fury" which will be armor heavy. I do love the tanking quite a bit.  

I'm guessing that when these bump packs come out and they do have new items, that you can only use those new items on the maps that come with the bump packs like how Special Forces works with the RPG-7 and grapple hooks.   I would think a better way is to let server admins have some leeway in what they can use on maps.  For example, why not instead of the Gulf of Oman always having to be MEC v. USMC, put in MEC v. European or something so you can try new vehicles on your old favorite maps.  

Another reason to use Trend antivirus for your desktop protection is this rootkit thing from Symantec.  They were slimy before and this just seals the deal.   

1/8/2006

This article regarding the current state of video game reviews gets straight to the problem and I like his conclusions.  I didn't see a way to get a hold of him to applaud his efforts and visit my site but if the author's reading this, kudos sir.  I know my reviews aren't that great either but I hope he (and everyone else) feels they are a cut above the cookie cutter stuff at Gamespy. 

Yeah, yeah, Dell, we've heard this before.  Crap or get off the pot. 

1/6/2006

Leave it to the Bastard Operator from Hell to give me a New Years chuckle.

Now see, when a local company such as Ritual starts getting good buzz for their next game in the SiN series, you know I gotta put in a link.  And no, of course I'm not doing this just to get invited to some of Ritual's parties which apparently are often bartended by Hooters girls.  Ok, well maybe a little but it's mostly to see Levelord's awesome mustcahe and buy him a brew.  It's like swashbuckler style.  Dare I saw swashbucking.  Yeah, that's a good ajdective to use. 

Well woopity doo for the end users who pushed Microsoft for patching the WMF Exploit.  It's pathetic and intrinsic of a monopoly that it takes a huge outcry for them to even bat an eye at such a problem.  You would think with the umpteen billions they put into research and development they could afford a full time staff or crisis team to fix all these problems.

1/5/2006

Dear Croteam:

You know that I love you and that my affection for the Serious Sam goes well beyond any pecuilar two minute sex scene and awkward conversation afterwards like what some movies show today.  But you guys and gals have really screwed us lowly game admins when it comes to your new dedicated server patch for Serious Sam 2.

Let's review some of the problems:

1. The documentation SUCKS.  Can you honestly say someone read this, much less proofread it and said, "Hey this is completely clear and easy to follow."  

2. When you can telnet into the server for administration, the console variables are CASE SENSITIVE.  For all that's holy I haven't seen that since my naive college days when I thought I could program a computer.  And that class was ASSEMBLER language. Shit even Pascal didn't require case sensitivity and that was made in the late 70s!  What the holy shit were you guys thinking?!

3. No server configuration example so I have no idea what the syntax is, much less what any of the error messages mean in the configuration.    Sure I can look at some of the other INI files in the system folders but even then I don't seem to have it right. 

4. How do I get support? There's no email or disclaimer about how to do that either? I'm guessing I can't and I really doubt all the little Xbox fanboys over the at the SeriousZone forum will be able provide assistance.

5. Lesser quibble: you all give the command on how to load a particular map level but you do NOT give the names of those maps. 

Come on Croteam you can do better than this! I mean shit your game looks like this!

1/4/2006

I wish I could write like this.  The author of this article takes a rather deep look into the Korean gaming community and comes out the other side in both awe and confusion as to a country whose gaming culture is ingrained into the national psyche.  Fascinating read to be sure.  Of note to me: Starcraft is like the national sport there yet games like Half-Life 2 barely make ripple in terms of sales.