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