PlayStation Home Overhaul / Relaunch

So, by now you've probably heard that Sony is relaunching their PlayStation Home service this fall<http://blog.us.playstation.com/2011/08/23/the-next-evolution-for-playstation-home-coming-fall-2011/>, and from what I've read, it looks like it'll be at least worth checking out.  They're going to be adding quests and more activities that may even make Home a decent way to waste some time.  Even though I'm not a frequent visitor, I've jumped in a few times this year to browse around.  I think the best application of the space so far was the streamed E3 keynote that was broadcast in Home earlier this year, and the replica of Sony's E3 space that you could explore.  For those of us who couldn't go to E3, this was a pretty cool thing.  I don't know why Sony doesn't do something similar for TGS and Gamescom, as I firmly believe this would draw more people into Home.

At any rate, I'll definitely check out the new PlayStation Home when it launches later this year.  I just hope it'll hold my attention for longer than it has in the past.

I am the Internet: Quora

I love the internet. In fact - according to Smitty D. I AM the internet.

So today I am going to start a weekly installment series where I share something amazing that happened to me on the internet. With any luck I will point our intrepid readers at something new and exciting or perhaps so incredibly low brow that you simply say "Ew".

Today the hotness is Quora - I had never ever heard of Quora before today. I found it reading an article on TechCrunch about how they just got done releasing their brand new IOS app to bring all the Quora goodness right to the palm of your hand. So what does this have to do with you?!

Well if you are a blog reader like me you cannot get enough of interesting commentary about subjects that are interesting to you. Quora makes it possible for you to track Topics - and inside of those topics people like us are posting questions and anyone in the community is able to answer those questions. That all sounds a little bit too much like the silly yahoo tool that you get anytime you type a question into google - but bear with me a second. What you get are some of the most thoughtful/thought provoking responses to questions that matter to you (since you subscribed to the topics). I spent time today reading responses to why Gymnasts are shorter than non-gymnasts. How to blend God with Science (amazing answer tbh) and trying to understand the problem with geometry rules as they exist today with time measurements smaller than Planck units (or something like that). The startup topic was so active I had to remove it :P

The only downfall to it is that it looks like credibility can cause your answers to go up in popularity even if you dont have the best answer. This happened a bit more frequently in the business topics where someone with a CEO title would put some opinion in there and the answer might get voted up. Largely though I saw much more interesting information that I would have if I didn't visit Quora today.

Check it out - I do not think you will be disappointed and you can follow me over there. Although I am still searching for the right question to answer!

Source: TechCrunch

I Wasn't Going To Buy This Game, But Then I Saw This

Awesome.

A Special Project Bleven Introduction: Smitty D

I've been abducted by happy white people.  Send help.

A Special Project Bleven Introduction: Telkiney(Josh C.)

That Chick is wearing a wig!! I swear

A Special Project Bleven Introduction: Kris D (Staypuft)

That's right - Project Bleven is PHILANTHROPIC SON!!

Also - that is all the images of me you are gonna get internet ;)

Up Next - Similar intro's for DDSMITTY and Telkiney - the Project Bleven Team!


DO EEET

X-Men: Destiny.. shoulda, woulda, coulda

The Universe has decided to gift us with a new X-Men game. I had been hoping and praying for this day since I finished up X-Men Legends II in 05 and uttered the words "Whats next". And no, mediocre movie tie in games like X-Men: The Official Game or Wolverine's revenge do not count, while the latter was not a bad game. It was not a game encompassing the X-Men as a group of diverse mutants.

X-Men Destiny is published by Activation who have published most of the awesome marvel comics video games to have came out since 2000 like Spider-man 2. They have also been responsible for some of the worst.... i.e. X-Men: The Official Game. Now obviously it is more up to the development studio then the publisher to make the game good. In this case unfortunately Raven Software nor Treyarch had a hand in developing this X-men Destiny. Instead the studio responsible for X-Men: Destiny is Silicon Knights whom brought us such titles as Too Human(which had a Metacritic of 65/100)...eh.

X-Men Destiny is based in a Semi-alternate time line with the current X-Men comic continuity. I say Semi because in the comics Bastion was defeated by the "Mutant Messiah" Hope Summers not Magneto and Professor X was not a part of that battle, is still alive just kinda ostracized by his own X-Men, particularly Cyclops. Hope Summers is not in this alternate time line, and there is no talk about M day.

Story: The story starts out with the X-Men having just moved to San Fransisco . Cyclops is on stage at a Pro-Mutant/Human relations rally with the Mayor and the Director of the MRD(Mutant.Response.Division which is a task force of the U.S. Government whom in the past has always been lead by a very clique mutant hating, wanting to commit genocide madmen). The MRD Director gives a speech welcoming the X-Men to San Fransisco and how they hope to show the world that Mutants and Humans can live together in harmony. Then Cyclops gives a speech, and then The MRD Director returns to the stand, in the middle of the director's speech a giant metal statue that has just been unveiled in the spirit of the rally. Different cheers and boos are heard from the crowd during the rally. Some as mutants them selves, others supporting mutants, and others obviously against mutants either due to fear or because they are different. A vocal group in the crowd is a Purifiers which is basically a new cult that has cropped up with a religious zealot like view on mutation and that it should be "purified"(i.e. kill all mutants) to keep humanity pure. When suddenly the statue comes crashing down with some purple special effects as if a certain master of magnetism is controlling it. Its at this put the proverbial all hell breaks loose as fire erupts which some identify as Pyro's power. At this point we have not seen any of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. The X-men jump into action with crowd control and you are not faced with the choice of picking your character.

Now in this game its the first X-men game where you are not playing an X-men, instead you are given the choice between 3 characters that has been created for the game. These are brand new characters to the X-men franchise and you will be the one to decided their choices and way in the world... in a limited way. The game gives you a little back story to read of each character as you scroll through them.

Its from this point forward that I will let you know I've so far only played the game through as Aimi joining the X-men.



Your choices are:

Aimi Yoshida (who is voice by Jamie Chung Soooo hotttt): Aimi is basically a japanese illegal whose mutant father sent her to America on a shadie cargo ship in order for her to escape from mutant imprisonment that is occurring in japan. Shes pretty young, wears pretty dark clothes and a scarf over her lower face like the main character in Soul Reaver. She is literally just getting off the boat when she sees this rally and checks it out. Her fathers is never named, but you see a cut scene of him as hes paying the boat guy to let her on and tricks her into leaving with out him. As her father is walking away he bursts into flames like the human torch. Its at this time that I'd like to remind or inform everyone that Yoshida is the last name of the X-men character Sunfire whos mutant power to make flames and can even surround himself with an aura of heat intense enough to melt steel. So its a good bet this very short cut scene is of Sunfire. The in game description of Aimi is: Born in Fuji City, Japan, Aimi was smuggled out of Japan by her mutant parents before their family could be incarcerated in the new mutant camps. She arrived in San Francisco hidden on a tanker ship. She is too young and frightened to appreciate her parents’ motivations for sending her away, instead feeling only the bitterness and anger of abandonment

Grant Alexander: Grant seems to be a football jock. The small quotes he says while in the selection screen play to the most stereotypical football jock, showing low intelligence, culture and class only caring for two things, chicks and football. Grants in game description is: Born in Sandersville, Georgia, Grant is a college freshman who dreams of becoming a professional football player. He hopes to land a spot this year on the University of California, Berkeley, varsity squad. Grant has no interest in politics and knows little about the ongoing mutant/human conflict.
Adrian Luca: Adrian is presented as an average looking young man with a bright red and black purifier tattoo on his arm. In the character select screen Adrian is heard spouting the purifier company line about keeping the line pure. The game has this to say about Adrian: Born in Los Angeles, California, Adrian is the son of an anti-mutant extremist who was killed in battle. His father’s associates called themselves “Purifiers,” and under their care Adrian was educated to hate all mutants and conditioned to seek revenge for his father’s murder. The Purifiers have trained Adrian to be a soldier in their army of “pure-blooded” Homo-sapiens


Now if you were wondering above why I picked the little asian girl over the two male characters let me break down those long winded descriptions for you. Your choice is between, a football jock of who I can't understand why the devs choose to make a character for a game that mostly is only going to be bought by comic book nerds most of whom will have no connection to this moronic pigskin playing playboy, a member of a group of bigots that the closest real world comparison I can come up with would be the ku klux klan or the nazis, or a japanese girl that dresses like a ninja(there by making her a Kunoichi). They made the choice really easy for me. Moron, Nazi, or Ninja, its ok to pick the girl in these situations. You don't have to turn in the man card you just got back because your wife "made" you watch all of the seasons of Grey's Anatomy

After you have chosen the characters and another cut scene occurs you choose your power set, you have 3 to choose from.

Density Control: This power manipulates a mutant’s body mass, often manifesting as a rocky outer coating. It can be focused on a fist for a devastating punch, or evenly distributed to render the mutant indestructible. The super human durability granted by Density Control is perfect for enduring attacks from large groups of enemies at once.

Energy Projection: This mutation allows grants a variety of energy-based attacks. Rapid-fire bursts take out crowds of weak opponents, while focused beams cut through the toughest armored foes. Energy can be contained and detonated far from the body, enemies can be stunned with disabling blasts to the nervous system, and the wielder can protect themselves with an envelope of raw, crackling power.

Shadow Matter: Masters of Shadow Matter can craft indestructible blades out of thin air or use matter displacement to move faster than the eye can see. The Shadow Matter mutation also heightens one’s reflexes, making it easy to take on multiple opponents or deal severe damage to a single target.

I took Shadow Matter which turns out to be mostly melee. So for the basis of when I speak of the powers I got and such this is what I am referring to, the two other sets might be completely different for the powers you get, although the base stuff remains the same.

The game play is the real let down here. It feels as though they only put about 65% of the elements they could for combat. The combo system is unimaginative, There is literally only 2 combos for your normal attacks, that's to just mash the "light" attack button over and over till the chain ends, or to mash "light" attack a number of times then end with "heavy" attack. The "heavy" attack ends your combo, there is no heavy heavy combo basically. There is a lot of jumping in the game with platforms and obstacles yet there is only one "jump attack", that being just a slam where it stops you mid air what ever your momentum was and you slam straight down into the ground. This slam attack is used in a few stages to break the floor to proceed in the linear level. The "powers" you get are also such a let down(sorry let down is the word of the day for this review.. I don't pick the word... the devs did this for me). You are given 4 powers in the progression of the game besides the starting normal attacks. Here is one huge slab of beef I have. is that the characters could actually have 7, but instead of giving you these powers, at certain boss fights in the story you are given the choice between 2 powers, either of these powers would be taken up but the same button combo which is trigger button(which is used for each power) + face button on controller. So with the way they decided to have the control scheme they really only allowed for 4 powers with the one trigger. Now the d-pad is completely unused, the manual says it changes the view but I can't tell the difference really. There is about 10 ideas I can think of off the top of my head they could have done with it, including adding different power modes, or adding buffs or auras and using the d-pad to trigger them, but really that would not have changed the dull and repetitiveness of the combo system. I don't now how a game 7 years older then Spider-man 2 can't come up with anything close to what was accomplished in that game for a combo system.

As you progress through the game you collect X-genes and Suits. X-genes are a way to upgrade your character in different ways. There are 3 types of X-genes which are Offensive, Defensive, and Utility.

Offensive X-genes enhance your attacks obviously, they also change the color of your attacks to represent the color of the mutant that gene came from. For example if you have Icemans Offensive X-gene it turns your powers blue/white... like their ice. The graphics for these changes are just color based, it would have been awesome had this been a textural change as well seeing as this is on a "next" gen console. Certain X-genes increase damage of certain attacks or add an effect like stun to them, but again do not add new attacks to your roster of powers.

Defensive are some of the better X-genes in terms of thought or variety compared to the Offensive. Some change the way your "dodge" move works and looks either by animations or particle effects for instance Surge's X-gene turns your dodge move into this sweet electrical particle effect and stuns the enemies you dodge through. Where as Colossus's X-gene not only changes your dodge into a shoulder slamming knock back, but also has an upgrade to to health and then a third upgrade that every time you get hit your skin literally turns to the organic steel we love for our favorite Russian and you take a ton less damage. You see different X-gene's have different levels awesome. Colossus's defensive upgrade has 3 levels where his utility only has 1. Emma Frost had maybe the best defensive X-gene where level 1 was diamond skin, which in her case once your M(that's what the call it, its like your mana bar) -bar reaches about half your character's entire model is turned to diamond and reduces damage (this did not seem to be as much damage as Colossus's but I could be wrong), level 2 cases flames and the like not to hurt you as much, and level 3 out right deflects projectile attacks back at the target.

Utility X-genes seem to do mainly 2 things, give you a sprint ability, and/or effect your M-bar in some way either by increasing the gain, or increasing the storage of the M-bar. Some were pretty redundant, for instance Northstar's utility had 3 levels, but level 1 and 3 were both a sprint ability which you press the same keys just apparently the level 3 was faster(I really could not tell the difference in speed) and gave the animation(but not the actual ability) of flying 3 feet from the ground. Where as Toad and Pryo's utilities both gave a small dot, Toad's in the form of a plague type green cloud when you past through enemies sprinting, and Pryo left a trail of fire in the wake of his sprint that damaged enemies that crossed it.

In X-gene system it seems every character has an offensive, defensive, and utility you have a chance to collect, along with a suit that changes your outfits color but does nothing in the way of game play. When you combine the 3 x-genes and the suit you enable X-mode which when triggered drains your M-bar rather quickly and does not allow for M-bar regen through combat while its active. Different X-modes do different things depending on the character. Through my game play(and let me tell you I looked good and hard) I was only able to complete 4 complete sets that being Wolverine, Colossus, Northstar, and Iceman. The X-genes are completely random, I had picked up an Iceman X-gene one time, died fighting a boss, the checkpoint put me before the X-gene I had picked up and then I received a Psylocke X-gene from the same location.


There way of balance in the X-gene system is that for each character, they only have one x-gene that has 3 levels to it, another will have 2 levels and the last one will have 1. For example in the case of Colossus his offensive had 2, defensive had 3, and utility had 1. Each character is different as an example Wolverine's level 3 was his offensive, 2 in defensive, and 1 for utility. The dev's did play to the character's strengths when picking which character had the larger bonus in which X-gene type. So in this you can load up each slot with a lvl 3 of different characters or use one character and have X-mode. I in particular didn't find x-mode that handy since I could not regen the M-bar while in it, even hitting a Blue container which are scattered around levels and give you a chunk of M-bar back. I rather chose to have lvl 3's in each slot and used the M-bar for my own activated mutant abilities.

Now in terms of game play I want to discuss flight or the lack there of. As mentioned earlier in the example with Northstar's utility I gained the movement speed that simulated flight. Why could I not get normal flight I ask. I know it could have been possible in the system they built as the final Shadow Matter ability gives you wings where you hover about 20 feet in the air and then every time you attack you swoop down like a hawk and knock enemies back for lots of damage and then go back into the air and can move around 20 feet up in this mode. Would it have been game breaking? Could I have explored area's I was not intended to? They seemed to be fine using invisible walls so that you could not go back and review past check points after a fight to see if you missed any collectibles or X-genes so why not use invisiable walls to cover the areas you don't want fliers to go and add a whole new level of game play to a game sorely lacking it. I'll be honest, the X-men Legends/Marvel Ultimate Alliance combat system had more combo's and abilities in it then this game. and when consitering there were about 10x the amount of playable characters in those games, I don't think it would have been that hard.


Graphics:
I don't think this game is being given a fair shake by a lot of people. I'm looking at screens of Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 which released 2 years ago on the same hardware as X-Men Destiny and the character models don't look to be that must less or more detailed. Does it have the best, prettiest, or most polygon count of any game? No, but I don't believe calling it play station 2 graphics is very accurate either. Take a look at a High Res image of Kratos from God of War 2 one of the PS2's best developed games for that system. Where the models huge for the enemies? ya but really look at the details, the shadows were hard and blocky, Krato's skirt was 1 dimensional, there was no textures just images on polygons. Then take a look at a high res of X-men: Destiny

Sound/Music:
There is not a lot of Music in X-men Destiny, in fact there is plenty of time in the game where there is no music at all. So no epic tunes to get stuck in your head like the Halo theme or Zelda's. The sound is passable, however there were points that actually made the speakers on my television get literally a static or humming sound.... I waited for a check point, popped out the game and put in the blu ray of Independence Day.. no static, turned up the volume 10 points.. still no static.. can only say its the game. The Voice acting was a B, not bad at all, but not the best. Probably the best voice acting the the game was at the beginning cut scene and character select. And of course Steven Blum can do no wrong as the voice of Wolverine.

All in all I'd give the game a 7 out of 10. I'm giving a free point for the fan service. X-Men fans may be a little disappointed that Juggernaut shouldn't have an X-gene, or that in one cut scene Emma Frost is using telepathy while in her diamond skin. But all in all the characters looked how they should look and talked as they should talk. I liked that they did a game with Bastion in it. I will be rewriting an editorial on the direction I believe the game should have gone for the story. The Graphics were ok but not great, but the game play was the real let down here. And that's a problem. The game didn't have any bugs besides one ledge grab problem I faced in the first wolverine level but other then that it was a short but sweet game for X-men fans. If you are not a fan, you didn't know about this game anyway, so go ahead and take a pass on it and get God of War 3 or Infamous 2 if you hadn't already.

Dawntide, Skill Based MMOing and YOU

After reading an article on Massively about a game called Dawntide which I had never heard of. I decided to take a look. Looking up in Massively's game registry I found it is not even listed. I came to the early conclusion that this is a B title game at best being its in open beta yet no support from an MMO community giant like Massively.

This does not mean I write a game off at this point. It just puts it in prospective. So I start doing some digging in the search field of Massively. There has been quite a few articles on Massively about the game, mainly about delays which is usually expected from an indie company. But I found one article that basically spells out the game for me. And then two words stopped me in my tracks... "Skill Based". You see this is my kryptonite. My first mmorpg was Ultima Online and I don't know if anyone else but that virginal, first time nostalgic feeling for that first mmo they ever played, But I sure do. The way you always think back about that beautiful game when she and you were still young and innocent. Not corrupted by anything but pure enjoyment and all you wanted to do was explore a new world. Never knowing the words of DPS meters, Raids, or Min/Maxing. Oh how I wish I could get that feeling back. And to me that feeling has always nested its self in the word Skill Based.

For those unfamiliar with a skill based game system, I am not referring to "L2P" or "I have better Skillz then you" kind of skill. I'm referring to the character stats of skills rather then the players ability to play their character.

A skill based system is one that has no Levels or Classes. It is a system just built on what skills you have picked. And you can combine them in any way you like. You want to cast Fireballs but still swing a sword? you can do that. Now in the more advanced skill based systems they usually have secondary skills that aid you primary skills.

In Ultima Online for instance you have a Sword skill, but then there is a skill called Tactics which helps you miss less and be missed more in weapon combat. If player A took up full sword skill and then other none weapon based skills like magery(casts spells) and player B took up full sword skill along with full tactic skill, A would not hit B as often but could still cast fireballs to the face. Yet B would hit A every time with his sword. And there were tons more ways which you could pick what you wanted to do.

Each skill is on a scale of 0 - 100, where 0 means you have no skill, and 100 means you are "Grand Master"GM* of that skill. The limit to the system is that only 700 points could be used. So you could GM* 7 skills or you could say GM*5 skills then split the remaining 200 points and be just so so in 4 other skills at 50 points each for them.

It all really was how you wanted to build your character. And there really were so many secondary skills that there was not the best ever. There were certainly popular ones of course. But I think I've talked enough about Skill Based to give you the idea, if you need more info on the system check out the UO Stratics website. The shame of it all is there is not many skill based games out there. After UO with its skill based system came along Everquest with its class based system and it seems the world of MMO's really have never looked back as its more of a take on DnD then a skill based system.

So now I have established what a skill based system is and that I love them because of Ultima Online. Lets get back on topic about Dawntide. They said the magic words so now I'm looking into it. As mentioned they are in open beta. So I click on the download game link thinking, I'll download it while I research the game. And what pops up but my AVG alert that there is a trojan trying to eat my computer. I vault it log into safemode and start a sweep. After finishing I try one more time.. and bam no sooner then I click on save file do I get another alert.

So I go to their forums to see what the excuse is for this and find Nothing on their tech support forum matching the search for AVG, virus, or trojan. Which starts me on a downward spiral because I know I'm not the only person in the free world that uses AVG and this certainly had to have came up before. But given my desire for Skill Based goodness can not be matched I decide to register for their forums to make a post about it to see if a dev or someone can reassure me that perhaps its just a system that have in place to determine my computer specs or something for their beta testing... but my registering for the forums is in vain as I get the following message

***
"There are some issues with our account mangement system and user authentication. Users are still able to create accounts via this link, however new accounts will not be able to login to the forums, or the other parts of the update website immediately after creation.

New accounts will be updated periodically over the next few days to allow login to the forums. Game logins should will still work."

***

Two red flags in the span of half an hour... I'm going to pass on this one, a shame, I love UO and always looking for a new skill based game. Should I ever find an answer to the trojan I'll post in the comments below, other wise this game is a pass. Also its worth mentioning all the comments in the current Dawntide article today on massively state the game is highly buggy right now, hence a push back in their release... and I fear Rift's dev team may have jaded me forever on how a dev team should respond to bugs. I.E. almost instantly.
Reply

Planetside 2 art info coming out this week

Today Sony announced they will be having some info come out this week mainly focused on the art direction of SOE's next MMOFPS Planetside 2(check out the incredibly short trailer)
The latest news on PlanetSide 2 art will be given by Senior Art Director Tramell Isaac, who was also the art director for the original Planetside.

What was Planetside?
I'll have to refer you to the two videos below as words will fail me at how fun and awesome the game was. Remember planetside has No NPCs, every name on the screen is a live person playing in the battle, every tank, plane, and big freaking robot are all people, some with multi people (pilot and gunners, or transport)

**Keep in mind when looking at the graphics the game came out in 2003!** But game play knows know age.

Video one: The fan made we are awesome kinda video

Video two: A time lapse of a single base among hundreds in a persistent open world.


Anyway back to Planetside 2 news. Here is this weeks scheduled forthcoming info.

Tuesday, September 27, 2011:
"Review the Comm-Link from Tramell “T-Ray” Isaac. He’ll into detail about his past experience, the original PlanetSide’s legacy and influence on PlanetSide 2’s art style, and how SOE’s powerful ForgeLight engine will carry this vision forward.

Thursday, September 29, 2011:
"Tune in for the second PlanetSide 2 webcast on our Stickam channel. Join host Linda “Brasse” Carlson for interviews with Art Director Matt Broome and Senior Art Director Tramell Isaac, including discussion of images showing the evolution of the art style.

Friday, September 30, 2011:
"The PlanetSide 2 Development Team will host another Twitter chat to answer your questions, live! Be sure to follow @PlanetSide2 on Twitter and get your questions ready!"

LoL: Dominion is out of beta

Joystiq has just released an article saying that League of Legends's latest update "Dominion" is out of beta and ready for prime-time.

I recently decided to relent and check out the LoL phenomenon and I have to say that there is definitely something to it. I am not much on microtransactions myself (something internal has not yet aligned itself for me to pay for small tidbits of things I want instead of purchasing the game outright) but the game is forgiving to folks like me not ready to adapt into the new models.

I have gotten into 5 or 6 games myself and the learning curve is not too steep - the real challenge you learn is staying ahead of the curve for levels and finding team mates who are willing/able to play with a common goal. Community is the real challenge in a game like this and I found one game where one of the two other team mates on my squad was content to type incessantly about what n00bs everyone else was rather than play the game and try to advance the cause...

Dominion brings in a new game mode that changes the standard capture the flag model into a capture and hold type of setup. I am interested to check it out this week and will report back!

Source: Joystiq

Rage Will Be 3 Disks On Xbox 360!

I just read over at Kotaku that the upcoming id title Rage will require 3 disks for the Xbox 360 version. Now, I'm sure that some Xbox fanboys will try to say that the mandatory 8 GB install on PS3 is just as bad if not worse...but come on.  If Microsoft wants to be taken seriously next generation, they're going to have to sack up and install a Blu Ray drive.

What Dead Island has taught me

Recently Kris D., Smitty D, Kris D's wife, and I have been playing some Co-op Dead Island and have been chopping off and jumping on some zombie heads.

1. Stomp the yard.. and the head. One of the fastest and most cost effective killing in Dead Island is stomping the head of a knocked down zombie. Its hard to keep 4+ zombies down yourself while trying to stomp there heads in. This is where grouping with a friend comes in handy When with friends try to dedicate someone to fly kick your zombies down with another to stomp them down.

2. Energy drinks are healthier then apples. Simply put, energy drinks give you a bar and half of life, apples(fruit) only give 1 bar if lucky. So just remember an apple a day may keep the doctor away, but an energy drink an hour will give you more power.

3. Smothering something on your blade that can make even a zombie puke is a good thing. I don't know exactly what is in the Toxic mod, but it can make even the toughest of zombies bend over and put their hair up like a college freshman after a night of intense beer pong. P.s. college freshman, if you want a real game? Try taking a shot/swig whatever, every time the F word is used while watching Boon Dock Saints. The winner is the one not suffering from alcohol poisoning at the end of the movie.

4. Hell hath no Fury like a woman's scorn... especially if she is Yakuza. Fury is perhaps the most forgotten tool while playing Dead Island. Be responsible, use it wisely, but for the love of saint peter at least use it!

5. Diamonds are Not a woman's best friend, that would be Brand Champagne. If you get Brand Champagne, it goes to the women at the end of the docks... your welcome.

Marvel, why I love thee, let me count the ways

I had recently begun thinking about just why I love Marvel so much due to a co-workers jest at why I'm always dogging batman and other DC characters *cough* Aquaman.

I have come up with a few factors.

1. X-men Cartoon
I believe I was exposed to Marvel first. Watching the X-Men cartoons when I was ... 8 in 92 when they were on Fox I want to say. Now the Batman cartoon also aired pretty much at the same time, but lets face it.. he is one guy with no powers, To my 8 year old mind he could not hold a candle to the X-Men. And this show could not have came out any sooner. Because then I discovered that this show was based off comic books when I was at the grocery store with my mom and recognized the characters on the cover. I had always seen these comics in the magazine racks while looking for the latest issue of Nintendo power but had no interest in them. While they had colorful pictures and such, they seemed to be in the middle of a story they I had no time to read about or catch up on cuz I needed the cheat codes out of the Nintendo power before my mom came to get me. But after the tv show I knew who these guys were and was interested. In 93 the Fatal Attraction event started in the X-men comics and I had to get the correlating crossover comics of X-factor, X-force and the like. Man I was hooked.

2. Spider-man cartoon
This is much the same reason as above. Spider-man along with the Marvel Power Hour of F4 and Ironman came out in 94.... DC didn't stand a chance =) The Superman series did not come out until 96. By this time I was firmly in the Marvel corner with only Batman representing DC for my Saturday cartoon viewing. I became deeper and deeper involved in the marvel universe. I even starting to read comics that did not have a cartoon show featuring them. Mainly the Silver Surfer comics whom I was introduced to by the F4 cartoon.

3. Continuity
Basically Marvel has it DC does not. I'm a creature of habit and I hate change. I can pick up a Marvel comic and with just a few exceptions its going to be from the same universe as the last one I read from 10 years ago. DC seems to like to reboot their universe every decade or so. Now Marvel does have an alternate universe but its not like you can mistake one for the other. One says ULTIMATE (insert name of comic) on the cover, the other does not. DC on the other hand doesn't really have this feature. If I'm at a comic book store and I pick up a comic I don't wanna have to research which universe or time period the comic I'm reading is from. I want to be able to just know. With Marvel I know, with DC its up in the air.

4. Real world setting
Can you ever visit Metropolis? No? So how can you relate to that.. But can you visit New York? Yes! Basically, I like that Marvel uses real work locations in their stories, It has more affect on me when the f4 save New York then when Superman saves Metropolis.

In conclusion, I prefer Marvel, this does not mean DC sucks even if I'm over heard saying so at work. Hell; of all the similarities one can draw between certain Marvel and DC characters (best example perhaps Aquaman and Namor, or Deathstroke and Deadpool) I think the Green Lantern corps is way cooler then the Nova corps... (sorry Mr. Rider I wants me a Power Ring, orange if available, but will settle for Quantum Bands). Oh but batman does suck..and he's not a superhero... but that rant is for another day.

SWTOR ANNOUNCED!!1ONE

Just got the word in my email - SWTOR has an official release date:

It's great news and now let the preparations begin!!

Source: Link

Games As Work

As Kris D. mentioned in a previous post, games can be hard.  Hard to the point where all the joy of playing them is sucked out.  And sometimes that extends to games that are not even MMORPGs -- I'm talking about the games that hold such promise, and then they completely suck.  I'm talking about the game you spent your hard earned cash on that turned out to be the worst thing you've ever played up to that point.  I'm talking about the games that got good enough reviews, but for some reason or another it just didn't resonate with you.  For me, that game was Ghostbusters.  And Resistance 2.  And Tekken Tag.   And Halo 3.  And several others collected in my 31 years of gaming.  Sure, those games got positive reviews, but they just didn't resonate; and with the exception of Ghostbusters, I played the hell out of them.  Why?  Because I put down good money for those games, and they owed it to me to be enjoyable.

This is when games become work for me -- when the fun stops, and I have to force myself to keep playing and searching for that nugget of a decent game in the $60 pile of crap.  I'm told that our viewership is up to somewhere around 4 people right now, and I'd like each of you to leave a comment, and tell me about a game that you should've loved, but ended up being work.

Raiding is hard - No malarky

So I just got done reading an editorial over on Massively.com that I thought I would bring over here and share. The article is from their "Soapbox" feature and it is discussing Eliot Lefebvre's perspective on how it came to be that he and his wife were elitist jerks.

I can say that I have had nearly exactly the same experience; I applied to a guild that was already clearing BT and was ramping for their foray into the Sunwell. I had just rolled a fresh and fantastic Elemental shaman and I was 70 for a hot minute. The rationale for me to have the ele shammy was really free lightning bolts. I was just completely enamored with the idea of free damage just happening because of the precise amount of awesome I was...

BEHOLD! the "Majesty" of Shammy T6 kids!

The guild I joined was looking for dedication and not gear which was lucky for me because I had the time to be dedicated and the will to be a great raider.

Now it helps that I am an above average video game player and I knew my class in and out. What my skill lacked elitistjerks (Binkenstein rules) cleared up for me along with a little help from my old friend Autohotkey.

So I started raiding and in the beginning the addiction to upgrades is blinding. When you are wearing gear that is holding you back and you get an upgrade and get the instant gratification of the graphical change along with the increased numerical representation in Recount it is a real buzz.

The challenge is that over the years you end up in these repetitive wipe festivals trying to progress on content that would simply break the will of lesser organizations. You feel buffered by your friends in the guild in these situations; but the reality is that it is painful, long, tedious hours staring down fight mechanics that feel like or are borderline impossible; hundreds and hundreds of wipes later you get into the rage of missed upgrades that massively.com refers to and feed off of that energy within your raiding organization.

What is more is that it is likely that you become "competitive" - that is to say that perhaps it turns out that your guild is competing to be in the top 100 guilds in the US or something to that effect. This meta-achievement is what continues to compel you to compete even though the joy in it is long gone...

It starts off fun and exciting but it quickly turns on you and before you know it you are compelled to do something you dont actually want to do.

Source: Massively.com

P.s. Yes - I realize I just revealed to you precious internet just how much of a complete and total nerd I am <3

DC Comics: The New 52

Just a few weeks ago, DC Comics did something that can be viewed as the riskiest corporate move in recent comics history: They rebooted their entire line of comics. Now, and DC reader will tell you that this is not the first time something like this has happened in this universe. But this time, they're also incorporating Jim Lee's Wildstorm Universe into the main DC universe - they're also folding the Vertigo titles back into the DCU proper.

What does this all mean? It means that the Justice League is just gathering for the first time. Superman and Batman aren't old buddies. Wonder Woman has not yet been sent to the world of Man as the Amazon ambassador. Everything is fresh and new, and the public at large in the DCU seem very apprehensive about these new super-people (and presumed super-people like Batman) flying around in costumes.

Being a Marvel guy, I have to say that it all feels a lot like the Marvel Ultimate line, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. Of the new titles, I've only read Justice League #1 so far, and I highly recommend it. I mean, it's got Jim Lee's art and Geoff Johns' words in there...do I really need to say anything else?

CoOp Avengers? Cancelled?!? WTF?

What the HELL do we have to do to get these developers to realize that we want to play video games together?!! World of Warcraft has bleventymillion subscribers people! We want to play together!

1UP.com reports a video leaked to the internet on Reddit for an unnamed game apparently from THQ tied in with the upcoming Avengers movie.

HULK SMASH

The video is amazing and shows footage of Iron Man hovering and shooting hand lasers as well as Hulk sprinting/jumping and doing AIR COMBOs against hapless foes...

So how did I make the leap to CoOp? In one part of the video Hulk clap smashes a mob and detonates an Iron Man mine! Further there is one part where Hulk and Cap are in the same shot... Now maybe it is a stretch but c'mon what is more "Avengers" than having a video game where you free roam as a superhero posse of limitless power?!

Why do these companies have such contempt for us?! If you build it I will buy two copies of it so we can play CoOp in the house!!


Source: 1UP.com

Movie Review - Contagion

I am a bit of a connoisseur of apocalypse movies, television shows, and books. I love the stories about how society/humanity gets destroyed and about how the people left behind have to begin to deal with the "restructuring" of their problems.

Warning! I might have a few spoilers here that some folks would not appreciate!

Contagion stands out as a bit of a spin on the subject; the whole movie exists in the space between Day 0 and day 200. Its the story of the decline - not just the story of the aftermath. What's more is that the movie does an amazing job of creating a reality that we all live in everyday. Which it then summarily disassembles right in front of us causing us to question the assertions we work off of everyday. The movie's virus kills in 4 days and can be transmitted in many, many ways. Making it virtually impossible to remain uninfected if you have been in contact with someone who has. All of the key reactions you can wonder about have been covered, the CDC, government, blogosphere, facebook, municipalities, local neighborhoods - the story is very thorough in leaving no stone unturned from an apocalypse geek perspective.

The real genius of Contagion is the presentation of the horror angle - it could really happen; and Contagion tells a story about what it might look like if it did, and it looks very scary. It is expertly directed and performed by an amazing cast of people who make it look effortless. Finally - I think you should see it in the theatre so that you get a real feeling for the scale of the epidemic. The small screen may take a little bit away from that...

Dead Island Shouldn't Be So Fun

Fantastic teaser trailer aside (which, by the way, has little to do with the game), Dead Island really shouldn't be as fun as it is. It's a first person hack and slash, punctuated by fetch missions and endless backtracking with a bit of weapon customization thrown in. Even the premise is gimicky: it's a zombie outbreak, but this time it happens at an island resort. On the surface, you'd even think it's an L4D wannabe. But you have to look closer to see what makes it so great.

First off, it's friggin scary. Like, SCARY. The noises the zombies make is the stuff of nightmares, especially if you have surround sound. Dead Island draws you in to the point that you actually get concerned about dying. The cast of characters ranges from those afraid of being zombified, and Euro-Trash blondes wanting only to get drunk and party.

And then there's the melee-heavy combat. Zombies are in your face constantly, and you're fighting them off with a stick. It doesn't get more up close and personal than that. And the noises that the zombies make...did I mention that?  Dear Lord, the NOISES...

Do yourself a favor while I spend a few minutes pulling myself out of the fetal position: buy Dead Island and experience it for yourself.

FragFX Shark 360

Mice are more accurate than joysticks; ask Smitty - he will tell you.

Now that we have gotten that out of the way. The new splitfish controller is out for the 360 this week and I have to say that I am kinda jealous. As an exclusively PS3 household we don't get these super PC gamer focused peripherals. I was born on the PC as a gamer and everyone is much more precise with a mouse than they are with a joystick...

Intrepid PS3 players have an option with the Piranha from splitfish - but it is riddled with wires. Perhaps a wireless version is in the works...

http://splitfish.com/index.php/en/products/fragfx-shark-360