So, I signed up for Gamefly last week because there are a lot of games out there that I want to try out but few that seem solid buys. I don't get a lot of money to spend on gaming, so I want to make adding something to my permenant collection count. The first game that has arrived for me is Bioshock for the 360.

And I like it. I've just finished off my first "mini-boss", a wonderfully disturbing plastic surgeon, and have gotten a taste of the gameplay elements like plasmids, tonics, weapons, and hacking. So far, while I enjoy the capabilities of hacking a security bot, turrent, or camera to watch my back... the hacking mini-game itself has become annoying, having lost its novelty after only a handful of hacks. Much like Mass Effect's own hacking mini-game, I enjoy the detachment from the primary gameplay but unlike Bioware's offering, this relies heavily on chance and no matter how good or fast you are, you can still be screwed by random placement. It is more of a time-sink than a game of skill and the rewards aren't always worth the investment. Even more, again like Mass Effect, you have the option of avoiding the mini-game if you wish by spending cash... but just like playing the game, the investment is larger than the return.

So hacking is a buzzkill.

Thankfully, the graphics and sound are superb, creating a beautifully rich environment that is really hypnotic. More than once I have found myself wandering around taking it all in only to stumble into an enemy unaware or get myself momentarily lost. With the lights turned down and the room quiet, it was a great experience. I look forward to putting in a few more hours tonight.

Whose mental diarhea was this?

I am a child of comic books, so I am no stranger to ridiculous excuses for characters to meet and fight as well as outlandish reasons for crossover. Batman vs Superman? Okay... I suppose... Daredevil vs Predator? Hmm... interesting, if kinda senseless...Wonder Woman vs Hello Kitty... wait... what?

But give me a freakin break.

"a cataclysmic event causes the DCU and MK universe to start merging"

Oh, how convenient. Haven't seen the whole merging of universes explanation be... wait... no... nevermind. DC and Marvel did that one already...

"The cataclysm in the story is driven by magic, which is a handy device that is tapped for the gameplay."

Handy. That's a good word. It's almost as good as convenient. Next you're going to tell me that this magic is your excuse as to why Superman will be on the same level as the rest of the characters.

"The mystic elements that run through the story help keep the fighting balanced as it helps make a conflict between Superman, whose only vulnerability is magic, and characters like Sub-Zero and Scorpion, actually make some sense."

Yeah... I saw that one coming. Make some sense? You're kidding, right? Ed? Um... Ed?? Why aren't you laughing, Ed?

Oh... hell. It's not a joke.

Damn.

.....

Thought maybe if I waited a minute...

Nope.

Damn.

*sigh*

Okay, I have to admit it, the limited teasers of Sub-Zero and Batman tossing each other around were kinda nice. But I didn't see nor read about ANYTHING that makes me want to rush out to play a fighting game. And the story sounds like a lame rehash of the same old "let's find at least a thin excuse to explain why we are doing something so stupid". As if the MK franchise NEEDS such a gimmick to make its introduction to the next gen consoles a success. Fresh gameplay, beautiful new graphics, passable storytelling... these were all fine for the past decade and a half, why throw in a silly DC tie-in now?

Scorpion is SO going to kick the Green Lantern's ass...

...and why they never fail to get me rolling my eyes in disbelief.

We watched The Mist last night and while I was initially intrigued by it, I quickly was mind-boggled by the illogic of the situation.

It should be forewarned, if you don't want spoilers... go away now...

I won't even talk about the scene selection, pacing, and general direction, all of which I found quite lacking, but will instead just focus on the actions of the people in the story.

Our protagonist lives in a remote, scenic lakeside town. The morning after a nasty storm, he takes his son and surly next door neighbor into town to visit the store for necessary supplies. They notice a heavy mist coming down out of the mountains and across the lake, which is a bit odd but not initially frightening. As they drive in, they see a convoy of military vehicles speeding away. When they reach the store, they understandably find it packed with people stocking up. We are introduced to a handful of prominent supporting characters like the crazy uber-religious lady, the transient badass biker, the kindly seeming old mountain man, the cute checkout girl, and the townie who joined the military. That done, someone screams and a bloody man comes running across the parking lot yelling about something in the mist dragging poor Billybob away. Sure enough, there is the mist closing in, hot on his heels. One guy runs for his car but doesn't get in before the mist overtakes him. We hear bloody, squelchy, teary noises and a lot of screaming.

Now, without going into a synopsis of the movie, we have people piled into a store which is like a cross between a good-sized supermarket and a hardware store. As the camera is panning over this place, we were counting off the useful chemicals and implements that we could use in such a situation... even WITHOUT knowing there were monsters outside. The crazy lady, who it is worth noting is set up from the beginning as being the town's complete nutcase that nobody likes dealing with, begins preaching about the end of days and how everyone will die as God is demanding their blood for the sins of humanity. In short order, a few people head off to the loading bay for supplies and one of them gets dragged away by nasty, monstrous tentacles. This just intensifies crazy lady's outrageous preaching.

It is at this point that the movie begins going downhill for me. Crazy lady is freaking people out and there are children in tears. And, despite being told this, she insists on upsetting people. They do nothing.

No. Not me. Panic is not an option in survival mode. Knock the crazy heffer out. When she wakes up, if she hasn't learned her lesson, out the door with her. Take no chances with so many other people's safety on the line, let alone people that I love, like my own child. Everyone is expendible in that situation, even me.

But the movie progresses and crazy lady starts slowly gathering believers, spreading her crazy. Now, the message here is that society and civilized behavior will break down very quickly in a crisis. I get that. But people will fight FAR harder for their survival what The Mist lets on. It may just be me, but I'm not going to let a potential threat linger within striking distance for longer than it takes me to line up an overwhelming attack against it. And take no chances still applies... there is no compromise. Threat is gone, permantently, and if that means killing people, I'm fine with that.

Eventually the crazy mob becomes the vast majority of the people in the store and the ideals they are upholding are that blood has to be paid until God is satisfied. Guess who the first "volunteers" are going to be? But our protagonist and friends STILL don't do anything proactive and instead come up with a not-so-sneaky plan to get the hell out of crazy-mart. In typical movie fashion, the mob catches on a bit too soon and there is a confrontation. Right there, again, I would be ruthless in defending myself and those I cared about. People in the mob would die and, zealous or not, seeing their number thinned a little without hesitation would make the rest pause to decide who was going to take their chances next. But it goes a step further and not until crazy lady demands the protagonist's son as the first sacrifice do we FINALLY see some real behavior.

What's worse, the movie also makes people out to be stupid. Despite a hardware store full of useful stuff, the best defense they come up with is piling dog food and fertilizer bags against the windows like sandbags and soaking mops in buckets of kerosene to make torches. This, of course, doesn't work too good and only ends up in someone knocking the wheeled mop-bucket over and setting himself on fire. They know there are monsters roaming outside, so they turn a bunch of lanterns on... that won't attract attention...:? And, its mist. If you want it to go away, turn up the heat. Instead of wasting that kerosene setting Jethro on fire, why not fill up some containers and toss a couple of nice, big firepots out into the parking lot to both light the outside a bit and, maybe, burn away some of the mist from the front of the building? If some of you are going to go next door and try to fetch medicine from the pharmacy, why scatter and spread out once you get inside the building instead of watching each other's backs?

Maybe it's just me and the friends I keep, but our version of a survival movie would NOT play out so lame and victimized as what we see on the big screen. That could be a side effect of having seen so many such stories play out in games and movies, learning from those mistakes... but also think that writers don't understand or like to admit just how base and ruthless a person will get when everything important to them is on the line.

Everyone but my daughter is expendible. Remember that if the zombies come while you're at my house. Because I don't have to be faster than the zombies... I just have to be faster than you. And with my knife sticking out of the side of your knee... you aren't going to be THAT fast. ;)

I've been working on getting my collection accurately entered into Gamespot for a while now. I don't think I'll ever be done. I went through a period a couple of years back where I moved four or five times in as many years. I still have things packed up from that very first move, including games. So, while I have tried to build my lists from memory, sometimes I still see a game mentioned and a light bulb goes off, "Doh! I HAVE that one!" and I scamper over to get it added. I keep meaning to sit down one quiet day and make myself a list that I can sit down to enter, but it doesn't happen. Too much to do and I'm too easily distracted, odds are that I'd notice an old game and get caught up in nostalgia over it... and then rush to plug in whatever console it needs to play a bit.

Which begs another point... should I count the games that I had and spent a great deal of time with, but may not possess any longer? I have enough Atari 2600 time under my belt, even if it ISN'T still packed away in my parent's attic somewhere, I should get to list it. Come to think of it... what IS left up there in the dust? Damn... that's going to bug me.

Branching off from that, I have slowly pieced together icons and banners and other assorted images that I am fairly happy with, feeding that urge to be creative (and play with Photoshop). But while looking over my Contacts, which hadn't properly displayed AT ALL until today, and deciding to track a couple of the interesting folks who have decided to track me... I came across this month-old blog entry that reminded me of my urge to spruce up my own plain, white 360. Except I want to get truly retarded, I think, and break out the Dremel and maybe even some LEDs. I am talking Re Tard Ed.

But I don't know what I want it to look like... just that I want it to look like something else.

So I am slightly despondant.

I shall contemplate this on the Tree of Woe... James Earl Jones may enlighten me. Either that or I'll have to bite a vulture on the neck to prevent it from eating me... and then laugh like a moron when my Mongolian archer-friend comes a-running over the sand dunes to save me. Silly Mongolians.

This Conan reference brought to you by Sunkist and Twizzlers. Sunkist and Twizzlers, the IT guy's choice for inciting sugar-induced hallucinations.

Why do so many people pit games against each other when reviewing them? And why do as many expect others to faithfully adopt their opinions?

It is becoming more and more common to run across a game review where its implied value gets built up by proclaiming it better than some other, perhaps similar, game or torn down by ranting about how it is worse. Can some Gamespot users only convey their feelings about a game by pointing at some other, likely successful, game and then saying good or bad things about it. Why can't they just say good or bad things about the game they are reviewing? If I wanted to know about Call of Duty 4, I wouldn't be reading Rainbow Six Vegas 2 reviews. I wonder what percentage of reviews here manage to provide a fair amount of information and opinion without measuring against another game somehow.

And, for clarity, I'm not saying that comparing games is always necessarily a bad thing. It is perfectly fine to mention that a sequel has carried certain aspects from its predecessor while changing others or adding new. It is to be expected in that regard as such information is important to fans. It is even acceptable to mention how some features may be like another game in hopes that a reader has played that other game and will be able to draw from that experience in understanding what you are talking about in this one. It can even be okay to say that you preferred how another game handled some gameplay mechanic or control feature, again because it is possible that the reader will be able to draw some conclusions if they too have played that game. I traditionally suck at shooters, so if a review of a new one says that it plays much like another game that I have had a lot of frustration with, I can guess that the same will be true of this new one.

But more and more often I read a review that only boils down to how some person thinks this game is SO much better or worse than one or two others. If I am lucky there is at least a little about the game's story and the part you play in it or what features it has and how the controls handle. But with increasing frequency all I end up getting is how much Rainbow Six Vegas 2 is crap compared to Call of Duty 4, with worse graphics, horrible sound, and less realistic gameplay*. And there is little to back these statements up. No explanation as to what about the graphics is different and makes them describe it as worse or what gameplay features they didn't like.

(* I find it funny, given the likely demographic of Gamespot users, that they should think they know what realism is in terms of how military weapons and equipment operate... let alone what getting shot feels like. But that's a whole other topic about how everyone seems to be an expert... )

The majority of any review is going to be based upon opinion and preference. And people are going to have different tastes. It shouldn't be the accepted norm for users to just spout off their worship or hatred of a game along with an arbitrary rating. Reviewers should put some effort into sharing specific details as to why they feel as they do or they should just quietly rate the game and move on. If I can read that a particular person doesn't care for cell-shading, then I am going to know why he didn't enjoy the graphics on Robotech: Battlecry. Even if I disagree, I can understand how they could think what they claim to.

Or I can see through their thin beliefs and know not to put much weight behind their opinions.

I'm fond of the innovation argument too, where being the first game to do something a certain way apparently makes any other game that follows worse. If it was a good thing in one game then why complain that it gets reused? Since when is innovation something that is to be ignored after its unveiling? Even worse, sometimes the credit is misplaced in favor of lathering a new game with hype, which they receive FAR too much of anyway. I have to wonder if some games are standing solely on their marketing or public relations rather on their true quality. No matter how much you may have liked Gears of War, it was not the first game to ever let you sprint, take cover, vault over obstacles, or otherwise interact with your environment and any other game since its release that has such features is not a "lame Gears of War knock-off".

And why does it matter if there are similarities in games? I read some of the comments on the Fallout 3 feature this morning and found myself shaking my head at people making comments that the ghouls, emaciated and radiated as they are, were "just zombies" or that the look of the Brotherhood of Steel was influenced by Master Chief or Starcraft's Terran Marines. It's mind-boggling how completely ignorant some people insist on being. And for what? Just so that they can say something negative about a game? What is the benefit in that? And it doesn't matter how much proof you can raise to the contrary, such statements are nearly intractable. As a long-time Games Workshop fan, I never cease to be amazed by Starcraft fans going on lengthy tirades on how the Tyranid from Warhammer 40,000 are rip-offs of the Zerg... despite the fact that Rogue Trader was in print before Starcraft was a Blizzard brain-fart. If anything, the conceptual current flows in the opposite direction.

I think, at the end of the day, too many people are more concerned with being right than with being honest. They either see that everyone else is giving high ratings, so they do too, regardless of what the impression that they describe in their review actually says. Or they want to be the cool voice of dissent, keeping it real... or some junk... and think trash-talking a game or what others think of it proves they are witty or interesting. I don't know if they are the vocal minority, spewing their nonsense so fast and loud that more reasonable people just throw up their hands in resignation rather than endure such ignorance or if the trend of hype-fueled marketing just propels an idea, regardless of its accuracy, with so much momentum that trying to jump in front of it and slow it down just becomes futile.

I know that it is disappointing to have to wade through the garbage in hopes, not guarantees, of finding something nice.

Browsing forums, I noticed a link in someone's signature that claimed they had "left for greener pastures" and invited others to join him. Always interested in seeing what people think, I popped it open in a new tab and got to checking it out after finishing the rest of the topic.

Wow. I don't think I have ever seen anything quite as lame as Gamer's Perspective. The layout is atrocious with positioning mistakes everywhere that stagger objects obviously intended to line up neatly and push text off the side without a scroll-bar to go look if you wanted to. Even with the positioning cleaned up, it is a bland, white and orange (my most hated of colors) palette and they expect everyone to download a font pack instead of using more common fonts for ease of viewing. Already, at this point, I am thinking that these folk are ignorant.

Then I skimmed some reviews.

Now, I'm not saying that Gamespot has the market cornered on innovative ratings of games, but at least one of the "reviewers" uses the GS system verbatim and the rest may as well be, only changing the term that they use for "Tilt". And while I regularly disagree vehemently with the Gamespot reviewers, at least they go to some length in reviewing the game and expressing the reasons why they formed the opinions that they have of a game. The quality of what I saw, instead, was on par with many of the user reviews, including the lack of objective criticism and infestation of poor spelling/grammar. I have to wonder if these guys just didn't get fed up with having their reviews de-recommended (or maybe just not recommended) and decided that they could do better.

Man, this one definitely counts as a FAIL.

I shudder to think about how these guys may be talking up how awesome they are or strutting around feeling some sense of pride at plastering orange crap and ignorance onto the internet. Self-delusion can be scary.

Or maybe just stupid?

Stemming from the observations I made after my Dynasty Warriors review and being further influenced by reading the assorted sorry excuses for reviews in games since... I have to wonder about the competency of the vast majority of Gamespot users.

Browsing reviews, I am deluged by scores of 8+ across the board. Apparently every game out there is Great or even Superb. Perhaps in response to this discrepancy, though likely just the same problem in reverse without any recognition as to why, the scores that don't fall into this seeming default are ridiculously low. So, evidently, everyone that visits Gamespot is only capable of feeling drastic extremes of opinion without any middle ground or shades of grey. Why do we almost never see scores of 4, 5, or 6? Even 3 and 7 are uncommon enough as to be near-mythological.

And it gets worse if you actually read the reviews. They rarely make sense. That is to say that they rarely describe an opinion of the game in question that matches up with the score the reviewer gave. How can you give a game a Great or Superb score but then have most of your review detail all of the things about it that you didn't like? NEWSFLASH: When a game has more qualities that you dislike than you like, it is not, in fact, a Great game. It is probably not even a Good game. It's like people are afraid to say that a game is just okay or it is only slightly lacking. No, it either has to be a divine gift to gamers or it is the worst piece of trash in creation. No in between, no bell curve, no damn sense. At all.

I've actually been going through my ratings and making sure that the benchmarks I have set in my own opinion are most accurately reflected by the scores that I give. If you are one of those rare, likely insane, souls that pays attention to me... expect a massive change in my list of ratings.

No, really. It did. Well... okay... it didn't cheat, per se, but it isn't playing by the same rules that I have to play by.

And that's not really fair.

I've been playing Dawn of War: Soulstorm whenever I have time, lately. I'm probably 20 hours invested now with the majority of that in the single player campaign. And I am finding myself giving the screen the stink-eye, even growling in frustration, FAR more than I did with its predecessor, Dark Crusade. From my first hours into it, I was already let down (see my review) by the lack of innovation or even real change and now that I am getting further along things are just getting worse for me.

Taking the Space Marines as my first foray into the campaign, as is customary for me, I faced off against the Orks and Tau as my first opponents. While the Orks weren't much toughter in execution, I did notices that the AI had gotten a bit more aggressive and was more prone to intelligently avoiding a pointless assault than in DC. The Tau showed no mercy and I don't look forward to playing one of the other forces that will have to fight their way from another planet and thus allow the Tau to build up their strength. Even weak, stealth units rushing you with a commander (or two) backing them up is damned mean.

As I move on to other planets, this ruthless AI only gets worse since I am attacking entrenched positions and more honor guard. It was when bringing boot-to-ass against the forces of Chaos that I noted the "cheating". In the first territory I attacked, I thought it was odd that I was seeing so much opposition so quickly. But all of it could have been garrisoned, if Chaos had enough requisition, so I just figured that this was the case. In the next territory, one that they had just taken from the Dark Eldar, though, I elected to be more aggressive and with my faster expansion found both units and buildings that aren't available to garrison on the map FAR sooner than any human player could get to them. Two battles later, Chaos struck at that second territory I had taken from them and this is where I found out that buildings didn't remain on the map after your conquests like they did in DC. Having counted on this, I hadn't garrisoned much behind me. Now, that feature was easily abusable and could make the game far too easy, so I didn't cry a river though I did enjoy carefully planning my builds to optimize the eventual defense later. Garrisoning buildings just isn't as logical because the placement is haphazard. Furthermore, it is highly unfun to watch such a large and one-sided rush come rolling into your hopelessly undefended base while also being highly unreasonable given that the AI comes straight for you where a human player would have to come looking.

Now what I consider to be the kicker. I favor seeing the story over claiming a larger e-penis, so I'm playing on Easy. If the AI is this ruthless, efficient, and possibly even receiving handicaps to "increase the challenge" on Easy then what retarded levels of frustration can I expect on higher difficulty levels?

I think designers, and possibly the playtesters who advise them, have forgotten that some people just don't have the same skill or time to hone it as they do and, maybe, just don't care about being able to tell others how they beat this game on supercoolawesomebadassyoudaman difficulty. If I select Easy, I don't want to ever deal with frustration that doesn't stem from me doing something that I KNEW was a big risk in the first place. I should always have a fair chance at victory without having to pull something out of my ass or be a savant at the game. That is why it is called Easy.

Oh noes!!!

So, I've been writing some reviews lately and someone apparently disagrees with what I had to say about Dynasty Warriors 6. Now, I do NOT write these short, say-nothing "reviews" where I just talk about how I like or don't like a game... and I definately don't just regurgitate whatever the popular commentary is. And while I don't really care that much if anyone agrees with me or not, I find it kind of funny to consider WHY someone would disagree.

I mean, I reread that review and there's nothing, at all, untrue in there. But since users can't comment on directly on reviews, and that's probably a GOOD thing, I am left to wonder just what this particular genius disagreed with. Did he just see how much there was to read and decide that he didn't want to waste his time? Did he see I gave it a low score (5.5, though that was a mistake and my current score of 6.5 is more accurate) and even read my review before unleashing his fanboy might? Was he really a she?

The review after mine makes some ridiculous claim about "not believing the morons who gave it a bad rating" and it would surprise me if that monkey was the one who gave me the oh-so-life-impacting thumbs down. I got a finger for ya right here. ;)

It's all rather funny. But, hey, at least my Soulstorm review has been approved by all 5 of the people who chose to vote on it. I'm on the high road to popularity now.

Beat my record, 15 months this time.

Just like before, time to play games or read about games or think about games is a luxury that I didn't have. I was unemployed for a while there... a good while, actually... but now that I have a job again, and a good one, I am recovering my luxuries.

We'll see how things go from here.

Not that anyone is ACTUALLY reading these...