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My Reviews

2011-07-15T20:55:00.000-07:00

So, Since I wrote my last post, I have been thinking about how would I write a review. There are lots of people who write reviews for all kinds of things on the Internet. I read lots of reviews on different sites, some do a rating, others just say if they like it or not. I have looked over some of the web sites I read, and I have come to decide that I prefer the non rating reviews over the rated ones. However, I think I do need some kind of classification, to sum up my feelings about a game, book or movie. And I think I have something, a 3 tier system. Since I am a gamer above all else, I will use the game version as my example.

I Fucking Love This Game.

Best of the best, bad ass, no holds barred games here. Batman: Arkham Asylum, Mass Effect 2, The Bioshock series, the Dead Space series, The Half-Life games, this is where these games belong. These games have evolved beyond similar games, taken action, story telling, and adventure to the next level. They provide experiences that can be found in no other game, and at the same time elevated the developers to AAA status, if they were not there already. I would consider these must play, unless you hate the subject matter. Buy them on day one if you love the subject matter, or rent them for an awesome gaming weekend.

This Game is Pretty Fucking Good.

If I do this right, this is where most of the games that come out should fall. Good, solid experiences, but have some flaws that keep them from excellence. Examples would include Mafia II, Fallout: New Vegas, Prince of Persia, among others. These games provide a solid gaming experience to anyone who is willing to give them a shot, but they will find issues while playing. Bugs, iffy controls, whatever the case may be, there will be something that the player will complain about, something that will take them out of the action. I would still advise that someone play these games, but perhaps wait on buying them until they have been patched, or are cheaper, so the flaws are easier to forgive. These are prime games to rent and finish in a weekend, if possible.

Fuck This Game.

This category should only be used very rarely, and only in the most extreme circumstances. Game breaking bugs, controls that make it impossible to play, graphics that burn a hole in ones soul, or just bad ideas that all came together to make a bad game. I am hard pressed to think of some examples for this category off the top of my head. My brain screams Dragon Age II, but my heart hurts, and wants it to be a good game. Another one that comes to mind is Duke Nukem Forever, but I have not played it all the way through yet, so I don't want to prejudge it. When this category is used, it means that I ran into a wall while playing, I did not have a good time, have no desire to ever play the game again, and will be bias towards the developer in the future because of my experiences.

So that is how I initially plan on doing reviews. I may change it up a little, or add a 4th category, but I think that might make it too easy on myself. That basically would turn it into a 4 star system, which is what I am trying to avoid. With the gaming season due to launch in a little over a month with Deus Ex: Human Revolution, I am going to try to work out some reviews in the next few weeks as practice, try to hone my skills. Thanks for reading, and please let me know what you think in the comments.

Vacation, and other stuff

2011-07-12T14:00:00.000-07:00

So, I posted a few months ago about doing regular posts on the state of the gaming industry. I fully planned on doing regular columns on my views of the gaming industry as a whole, plus talking about specific games, what I thought of them, and any other stuff that came to mind. Then I got promoted at work, and it all went to hell. Getting paid more money is nice, but the level of crap I have to deal with to get that money....eh. It has allowed me to make some upgrades to the ol' computer, extending its life by another 1-2 years. It has also forced me to consider what I want to do with my life. And it is not what I am doing now.

For the past 2 weeks I have been on vacation. I have played a lot of games, read some books, watched a lot of movies, and just hung out, fucked about, and not done much of anything at all. I have also done a lot of thinking. I am now, more than ever, sure that I need to go back to school. But go back to school for what? Well, I have thought about that for a while, long before I went on vacation. When I went back in 2003, for some reason, I chose the school of Management. I soldiered on, and got my degree 4 years later. 4 years after that, I live in a small town, work at a local call center sweat shop, making 15 an hour fixing bullshit problems for people who I am only willing to talk to because I am paid to do so. Clearly, there was a error in judgement somewhere.

Now, in 2011, I am a few months away from turning 30. It is time to ask myself, what do I want to do? Well, I don't really know dammit. So, I asked myself what do I like? Well, I like books. I like games. I like movies. I like computers. I like Economics. I like Finance. Well, I thought, what could I study, and get a degree in, then talk/write about these things, from anywhere, thanks to the interwebs. That's right boys and vagina gate-keepers, I am considering getting a degree in Mass Communication, AKA Journalism.

Now, this is not the first time I have thought about this. I have a long standing fascination with Journalism, and the people who do it, ever since I was young. Particularity how stupid they generally are, or how full of themselves they can be. Did I think I WANT THAT when I was 5 while watching Peter Jennings on ABC news? No. But every once in a while, there is a really smart, funny journalist who knows the subject that they write about, and is able to effectively communicate that information to millions of people effortlessly. At least that is the way it appears.

I honestly think I can do that for one of the subjects, or several, from the ones I mentioned earlier. And I am going to use this blog as a test bed, to see what works and what does not. Lots of movies and games come out in the next six months, so I am going to try my hand at reviewing them. I have no idea how well I am going to do at this endeavor, or how often the posts will make it up here. I think there are like 4 people who are following me now, if you read my posts please message me or post some feedback, so I know what to keep doing, and what I need to fix. If I do actually make something of this blog, and in turn, move on to a career doing something like this, a digital portfolio would not be a bad thing to have.

I'm Back Bitches!

2011-04-22T10:14:00.000-07:00

It has been a while since I have posted to my backwater blog. Things went off the hook at work, lots of games to play, and I am just generally lazy. I also found that while I was pretty good at the whole writing thing, or so I was told, posting about random things seemed kinda aimless. I could do movie, game or TV show reviews, but you can get that kind of shit anywhere. However, in the last few months several games have come out that have made me take a hard look at the industry as a whole, while at the same time look around to see what is missing in the daily gaming news and commentary. I found something to be lacking, a State of the Union for gaming, from a gamers perspective.

Several times some of the larger websites have done a State of the Union for gaming, usually during one of the big conferences. However these articles usually ask the VP of marketing for one of the big companies what they think is missing from the gaming industry, or some bullshit like that. Who Cares? Seriously, does anyone care what some suit at a company thinks that the gaming industry needs? Besides they say the same shit every time. Innovation, appealing to a wider selection of gamers, whatever they think is wrong with gaming. These responses always contain a slant on how their company is trying to fix whatever problems they say exist.

Some of the gaming blogs do a news roundup every week, and then the readers of said blog provide commentary on events, and that is all fine. But there still seems to be something missing. So, my semi-amateur gaming ass is going to attempt to find what is missing, and root it out for the gaming public to point and laugh at. I will probably fail, as someone else has tried this, and failed, because if they had succeeded then Google would have found them. So expect a new post soon, followed by a new post at least once a month. Lots of shit has gone down in the gaming industry in the last few months, and as we all know, shit rolls downhill. Us gamers are covered in it.

The Expendables Review

2010-08-14T21:22:00.000-07:00

Posted this on the online gaming forum I belong to, HDTVArcade. Thought I would post it here.

Well, I got back from the movie a little bit ago, and had time to think about it. I have decided that the movie was not really what I wanted, for several reasons. A little history though.

I am a massive Stallone fan, I have been for years. I grew up watching his stuff on Sunday afternoon, on the local broadcast channel in Houston before it got merged into UPN. He is not a great actor or a good writer, but he always cracked me up, and his movies are very often hilariously violent and good fun. However, before Rambo, the last movie I really liked him in was Cop Land, which capped off his 90s movies for me, most of which I enjoyed on some level. When he announced he was making a new Rambo movie, I was really excited. Considering how awesome it turned out, I was in turn really excited to see The Expendables. Same studio funding it, expectation of brutal violence and lots of fights, and several of my other favorite action stars of the last 20 years, I was pumped.

Initially, everything seemed fine. Stallone knows how to frame a shot, and knows what he wants in the movie. However, the script was not very solid, lots of cheesy lines, and wooden delivery. Most of the lead stars are not really good actors, which made it even worse, all their strengths lay in beating the ever living crap out of waves of bad guys. The only people in the movie who I would consider actors would be Jason Statham, and Mickey Rourke. In their own respective movies, Statham and Rourke have proven themselves to be good actors, especially if they have a good cast and a quality script. Not the case here. Now, none of this would have been a problem if the action was good. And it was....only problem is half the time you could not see anything.

Whenever Stallone was doing dialogue, everything was fine. However, anytime stuff started to blow up, people were getting shot, or someone was getting punched, the movie turned into a quick cut shaky cam fest that was worse than the second and third Bourne films. Now, I actually like those two films a whole lot, and I can deal with the shaky cam in them. Here, I found to to be very frustrating. In all of Stallone's other action films, even if he was not directing, the action has been well framed on a stable camera. Go back and watch the .50 Cal sequence in Rambo again. You can see EVERYTHING. The Expendables, in a comparable sequence near the end of the film, you could tell what was happening for sure, but it was a blurry mess. This was much the case for any of the combat in the movie. You could tell what was happening, but quick cuts, and the shaky cam made it feel like they were covering for sloppy fight choreography, or for actors who could not really fight, but that makes no sense! Randy Couture is a UFC vet, I know for a fact he can fight. Jason Statham has a extensive background in martial arts, he can also handle himself. And Jet Li, well, he needs no introduction at all. I was really hoping to see him go all ninja on some bad guys, but his fight sequences were the worst. Also, whenever they used CGI for something, it was pretty bad. This was especially disappointing after the awesome effect fest that was Rambo.

The best sequence in the movie, which I will go into as little detail as possible, was near the end of the film. It is about 10 minutes long, involves all the major people doing different things, and is pretty awesome. Lots of throats get cut, people get shot, kicked in the face, and blown apart, it was all great fun. But the whole time, I got the feeling that none of the action was seamless. And I know, most action sequences are spliced together from lots of different takes, only the really good ones are shot with no cuts. However it frustrated me that I have seen all three of the people mentioned in the previous paragraph do well choreographed fights, or fight for real, and this time I felt like I did not see anything that had not already been done before, when I could see what was going on.

If you have not figured it out yet, I came away from the movie not too happy. If the action camera work had been better, I could have forgiven the terrible script and predicable plot, and just enjoyed stuff blowing up, and people killing each other. However it was not to be, and I came away very sad.

6/10 (Would have been a 8/10....stupid camera) If you can deal with the camera, I would see it, it is bloody good fun. But sit as far back as possible.

New Sound Card

2010-05-05T19:25:00.000-07:00

I have a Audigy X-Fi, I got it for several years ago when Creative was the only game in town. I have been unhappy with the quality of my sound card for the last 6 months or so, some minor static and noise. For the last 2 months the static and line noise had been getting worse, when I would boot up sometimes I would get static until I reset the card to factory defaults, it was very annoying. Whenever I would watch a Blu-Ray with a HD Audio encode, I would also get popping and noise whenever there would be a explosion or loud noise. After looking around a bit, I ended up getting a HT Omega Claro.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829271004

Several key things sold me on this card.

1. The Headphone Amp. I have a nice pair of Sennheiser 595HD cans, and while they are not super high fidelity, they are high enough where I can hear the difference in HQ audio files. I also can now justify the purchase of some very high end headphones when I can afford them, probably sometime next year.

2. The HT Omega control panel. After reading several reviews, all of them praised the control panel used for controlling the functions of the card. Being able to switch output types, speaker configs and channels on the fly is really awesome, and has a ton more functionality than the Creative software did.

3. Front Panel Support. I have a front panel on my case that I have not been able to use for the last 4 years. Stupid Creative only had support for the Dell front panel audio hookups, which are a long thin 8 prong plug, the standard 4x2 box plug was not supported. The X-Fi would not even let me use the individual plugs that are on the same cable as the 4x2 plug, for basic AC 97 sound, they would not fit. The Claro has a perfect hookup for front panel HD audio, works great. It even mutes the back speaker jack when the front panel is hooked up.

4. The optical hookup. For now I am unable to use the optical inputs, as Windows XP can not monitor the input to control the volume. Windows 7 is able to, and I am considering moving on to Win7 later this year. Once I am able to use the optical input, it will greatly simplify my cable mess, and the game systems should sound a lot better to.

I am very impressed with the sound quality of everything, even basic AVI Xvid 2 Channel audio sounds better. HD Audio sounds mind blowing. Games sound about the same, except for one. Dead Space on 5.1 sound has an amazing clarity, even better than it did before, I have never heard anything like it. If anyone needs a new sound card and has $200 to burn, this is a fantastic choice.

Iron Man 2

2010-04-30T21:14:00.001-07:00

So it has been a few weeks since I had time to post. Work piled on plus I was sick for the last 2 weeks, life was a bunch of suck. However, an event that I attended a few days ago was so awesome, I need to put it out here.

Iron Man 2. Ever since Iron Man came out a few years ago, I have been looking forward to the next chapter of the story. The movie mostly delivered on its promise of bigger action and grand ideas, trying to develop a world that The Avengers and the individual movies for each comic book series will exist in. And I would guess that is the main issue. Iron Man 2 seemed more concerned with fleshing out the Avengers universe and less with developing a short term story (as in to the end of the movie). I enjoyed the movie on a whole though, the action was fantastic, the actors did a good job all around, and the direction was solid. I would have gone a different direction on the script, focused more on his father, and how their relationship influenced Tony to do what he is doing now.

This post is more about the experience surrounding seeing the movie. On Thursday a friend of mine sent me a message telling me that Jon Favreau had just posted on his twitter page that a special screening was to take place in Austin on Tuesday, the 27th. The first 200 people to RSVP via the form supplied were to get a invite, though this RSVP would not guarantee a seat in the theater, so we would need to show up early.

After thinking about it for all of 3 seconds, I submitted the form, and waited to see if I would get a response. I later heard that it spread around the Internet quickly, and within the first 30 minutes it was way past the limit. One came very late on Monday night, around 6:30, and my friend and his girlfriend also each got one. After considering it for a few hours, I called in sick to work, and we made plans to meet up at the theater.

I left around 9AM on Tuesday, and headed up to Austin to the South Lamar Alamo Drafthouse. I got there around 10:30, read my book and listened to music for a few hours, and when my friends showed up went to get something to eat. After a visit to the comic store and getting soaked by gutter water splashed from a fucking bus, we got in line to await our Iron Man 2 destiny.

As more people showed up, we started talking to some of the people in the line. Several cool people were there, and we ended up having some quality conversation. The dude behind the three of us mentioned that there was a rumor on twitter a Tyler Stout Iron Man 2 poster was to be sold at 5pm before the show. My buddy started geeking out, and with good reason. Tyler Stout is a fucking awesome artist, and often does work commissioned by the Drafthouse.

Just before 5pm, we 3 went into the theater to check out the Mondo Tees store front, and low and behold, Iron Man 2 poster. We got in line, I got a single normal one, my buddy bought two, normal and variant, his girlfriend did the same. After packing away our purchases, we got tickets and waited in the lobby line. It was around this time that the Paramount security guys started showing up in the theater, and making announcements that people would not be allowed to bring any device that can take a picture(i.e. most cell phones), and to leave them in their car. Around 6:30 we were scanned with wands and shuffled into the theater, and with the reserved seats for the press, only about 80-100 people who waited in line got in.

We then proceeded to wait in the theater for a unknown amount of time, as no one had a cell phone, and who needs a watch?? :). At some point, the theater darkened, and well, this happened. As promised, my left ear was a bit deaf for a while. The movie then started, and while I have my issues with it, mentioned above, it was a rocking good time and I plan on seeing it again.

Dragon Age

2010-03-21T15:10:00.000-07:00

Last night I thought about what game to play after I got off work. I have a whole rack of games sitting next to my computer/entertainment center. The majority of the games are PC, then the PS3 games, and finally the Xbox. My buddies who I play multiplayer games with, one is out of town, and other one is working on a tank so he can attack his dad with. A large portion of the games I had beaten, so those were out. There was only one game though that I had put a whole lot of hours into it, and had not beaten yet, and that was Dragon Age.

Dragon Age is a interesting and strange game for me. I remember vividly when the game was announced back in 2004, there was a lot of fan fare around the fact that Bioware was developing a fantasy game that was not based on a existing IP. Once it was announced, the game fell off my radar because I thought it would be in development for a long time. Well, it ended up being worked on for well over 5 years. That's almost worse than Blizzard.

The next time I remember seeing anything about the game was last summer. Kotaku ran a story on the announcement of the games release date, with the system requirements I think. I think I said "OH FUCK." Then came the E3 stage demo, all the details of the package that came with the game, etc. For the next 6 months I read a great deal about the development of the game, watched a lot of videos, and when it came out, I picked it up on street day. Brought it home, and played the hell out of it for about a month. Put 65 hours into it, and then decided to put it aside so I could play Mass Effect, to prep for Mass Effect 2.

Beat the hell out of that, and some other games, worked a lot and other shit. So last night, Saturday, after watching a movie and killing some creatures in God of War III, I decided to pick Dragon Age back up. Fuck me, that game is intense and fun as hell. I had forgotten much of that, I was nervous about playing it again after the roller coaster ride that was Mass Effect 2. Well I am pleased to say the game holds up, and then some. I love cutting Darkspawn heads off, and watch their bodies spin around spraying blood all over the place. Man, violence is cool!

I also can not wait to finish it, as the expansion just came out and you can import your party leader if they survive the end of the first time. Well, I plan on having my girl live through the battle, though we shall see.

Upcomming Post

2010-03-19T09:18:00.001-07:00

I have not posted in a while because I have been working and gaming, and sleeping. I plan on doing a post this weekend however, on the games I have been playing. Stay tuned....

God of War

2010-03-14T22:30:00.000-07:00

Approximately 24 hours from now God of War III will be released upon the masses, at least for the gamers of Central Texas. According to SCEA Santa Monica, this will be the last game of the series, and will end the plot arc that was developed for the first game. However, it has not been that long a wait for me, as I just finished the God of War games a few months ago.

I first bought God of War several years ago, and played the hell out of it. Until I stopped playing it, for whatever reason. Several years passed, I moved, went to school, got busy doing other stuff. Some friends of mine decided to come and visit me for spring break in 2007, which happened to coincide with the release of God of War II. I realized I had never finished God of War I, so I pressed into it, beat some ass and killed lots of harpies, and I ended up getting fucking stuck near the end on the conveyor belt sequence. Those of you who have played the game know what I am talking about.

God of War II came out, and due to peer pressure I picked up a copy. I brought it home, stuck it on my shelf, and fully fucking intended to finish the first one, and rock out hard with the second one. However, that never happened, because I never finished the first one. I could never get past the conveyor belt part. I don't know how many times I got crushed by rocks, killed by fucking harpies, shot by whatever the fuck, it would never happen. I finally put it away, and never did pick the game back up. Which basically meant that I would never play the second game.

The game sat on my shelf, unopened, taunting me. I guess I could have returned it, but I actually did intend on finishing the first game. Well, that never happened because that summer my god damn TV died. I came home from the movies one day, and it would not fucking work. I could have played the game in other ways, but I chose not to.

In Spring of 2008, when GTA IV came out, I picked up a 40 GB PS3. I looked around for a BC PS3, and there were some, but it was too much trouble and I really just wanted to play PS3 games at that point. Another year and a half pass, more games, work, other shit, whatever. Summer gaming season 2009 rolls around, and in the flurry of Batman, L4D2, and all the other shit, the God of War Collection was announced in late August. Note: God of War II is still unopened on my shelf.

When the Collection came out, I went into Gamestop with my unopened copy of God of War II, and traded it in for about 5 bucks. I take the collection home, and beat the ever living shit out of it, and man it was good. Fucking brilliant pair of games. However, I sure as shit hope that God of War II is the only game I will ever buy twice, but only beat once.

The Xbox, Friends, and GTA

2010-03-14T10:13:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, I was pressured into buying a Xbox 360. Well, let me back up a bit. I was under the impression that my PS3, PC and portable gaming systems were providing a full gaming experience. I was playing online games with my friends on Steam, playing single player games on the PS3, and the PC, and doing some portable gaming as well. I was pretty happy with the games I played.

I never did get an Xbox because I did not like what Microsoft was trying to do with HD-DVD, plus there were only a few games on the 360 that I wanted to play. Gears of War II and Fable II were the main ones, both of which are sequels as you can see. I thought I had experienced all that those games had to offer through the first games in the series.

A few years ago, I met some people through another friend. I knew this guy for a long time, and he knew these people. All of us started playing Team Fortress 2 together, and soon after Left 4 Dead. Two of the guys in particular became very good friends of mine. After playing games online with these guys, and playing some PSN games as well, I was having a blast.

About 6 months ago, one of these friends started busting on me to get a Xbox. I brushed him off, saying I did not need one, and that I could not afford it. He understood, he said, he was cool with that. A few weeks later, my other friend started busting on me as well, and I gave him the exact same reasons. Fuck that, go get one now, he responded. No, I would say. And things went on like this for a while.

About two months ago, the first friend started on me again. This time, using something I did not expect. GTA IV Online Multiplayer. What the fuck? GTA IV? I owned that on the PS3, played the hell out of it, and never did anything with it after then, and that was two years ago. While I understand that the multi was a riot, is it worth buying a system for to play a game that I had already owned, and had beaten?

Well, a few weeks later, I ended up getting a Xbox, Fable II, Gears of War II, and GTA Stories, a disc copy. I am still working on Fable II, the first friend and I played the shit out of Gears 2, and it was fucking awesome, and as for GTA Stories?

As it turned out, yes it was worth getting the Xbox to play GTA online with friends. I have four words: Swing Set Car Launching. I have never spent so much time doing so little in a multi player game as I have with GTA. What happens when we try this car? What happens when we launch this car when you are standing on it? What happens when we back the car up into the swing set while you are on the front? Can we hang from the set, and push a car into it?

And that was just one activity. Getting 3 stars, jacking a S.W.A.T. van and then doing cop chases, two guys in the back armed with uzis and sem-tex? Jesus fuck. Follow the leader, with a sports car and two racing bikes? Pure crack.

And this was just last night. While I understand I am late to the party, I never thought I would get a Xbox for this sole reason. Of course, Splinter Cell: Conviction comes out next month. Fuck.

Who the fuck am I, and why should anyone care?

2010-03-13T11:25:00.001-08:00

I am nobody really. A college educated gamer with a business degree, and a shitty tech support job that I want to quit so I can go do something worthwhile. And I guess that is what this blog is about. While the subject matter may vary from games to whatever the fuck I want, it is all about practice. I have been told I have pretty good writing skills, but I want to practice more, work on developing my own topics, not being told what to write about by some teacher, just practice.

A little bit about me I guess. I am 28 years old, live in Central Texas, life time gamer, reader and movie watcher. I have been playing games since I was a wee lad, first ones I remember playing were Lode Runner, and Dark Castle, on my dads old school Mac. After that it was a mix of Mac games, SNES, N64 and the PSX until 1999, when I built my first PC.

I have a PS3, a PS2, a Xbox 360, a custom gaming PC, a DS Lite, a PSP, and a Wii. All which I play regularly except for the Wii. Currently I am playing the new Warhammer expansion and Borderlands(General Knoxx!) on PC, Fable II on the Xbox, and very soon, God of War III on the PS3. I also just got Silver Star Harmony for the PSP.

Reading is my second major interest, if I am not gaming then I am either reading or watching something. I initially really enjoyed fantasy novels, but since I grew up and realized the cookie cutter elf, dwarf and human will not get burned alive by the generic dragon, slay the evil demon and save the day. So, I shifted to reading more science fiction, and I came to realize the same shit did or did not happen, it just involved a space ship. I have since come to a happy medium, reading a few select authors, and have since branched into horror, mystery and some action adventure. Anything can be written to be complex and fascinating if the author knows their shit.

My final major interest are those moving picture narratives we call movies and TV. The shows I enjoy are similar in nature to the books I read, which I may go into depth at a later date. One thing of note is that I am a big proponent of Blu-Ray, ever since I first saw the spec sheets back when it was announced. It was a rocky road for the first 2 years, mainly since Java sucks balls, but everything has been running smoothly, at least for the discs I purchased, for the last year or so.

Anyway, that's about it. I don't really care if anyone reads this, or if anyone comments on it, and I don't think that anyone ever will. My backwater portion of the Internet means fuck all to all those other bloggers out there, but whatever. I like my backwater blog.