Continued on (kind of) from here

While the subject was on The Raven, I just share a theory I had on it. In most public schools your forced to read The Raven at one point or another. For me it was during Middle School, when I was in a small class of about 10 or so students for English (it was an AG class, where AG is North Carolina's version of a gifted class. I'd take this chance to make fun of North Carolina and there schools here, but the school system I was in was actually good.) The small size was nice for the age level we were at, it let the class have a little more relaxed feel. So we read The Raven, and began talking about it and people were giving their idea's for what they thought it's purpose was. When it the discussion came around to me, I proposed my idea.

The guy is with his lover, Lenore, pretty happy couple, inseparable and in love. Guy somehow gets enraged and murders Lenore, probably with a giant axe to chop off her head. After murdering Lenore, he was pretty unstable (well he had to be to murder her) and was like OH SHI- and had to get rid of the body. Well the head was disposed of in the only head shaped object we know of in the room, the Bust of Athena. The raven comes in, he doesn't talk. The raven lands on the Pallas Athena. What is Athena the goddess of? Wisdom. So now Lenore, who's head is inside Athena's head, is answering the guy's questions, through the raven (of course she's only answering with nevermore, the guy just brutally murdered her, I'd try to make him go crazy too). The guy then goes crazy and pretty much gives up on life, unable to forgiven himself and forever condemned to be with Lenore, nevermore.

Anyway, just another pointless thought, in the same category of being bored enough to rewrite The Raven or thinking about numbers and the personalities they have.

I used to play World of Warcraft. The game has it's flaws, but honestly it was pretty damn fun for a while. It was one of the only mmo's that allowed me to feel like I wasn't grinding away in a joblike fashion while I was playing a game......at least while leveling and the first bit of raiding. Being a 40 man raid healer in MC was no different than 40 man raid healing AQ 40 or NAXX (if you've never played wow and don't know what those acronyms mean, basically picture a screen with an action bar of green looking spells across the bottom, a druid who looks pretty bad ass while wearing bullwinkle style antlers in the middle of the screen, and 40 health bars covering everything else), it pretty much turned into a glorified game of whack-a-mole with those aforementioned 40 health bars (not mana bars, fucking priests learn to conserve mana, I only innervate the main tanks, OH NOES THE MAIN TANK HAS NO MANA! *clicks innervate macro* /w Annalis You have been innervated, you can thank your mana battery later.).

Anyways I've rambled off-topic, I'm sure you all know the expansion wrath of the lich king has been out for a while. It's made me think about WoW, now that I may have free time coming up, but it also reminded me of something that happened. One of the mages in my old guild, had posted a WoW version of the St Crispin's Day Speech, from Henry the V (I don't know if it was original or a copy pasted thing). I thought it was pretty interesting, so I decided to do something similar myself, only with Edgar Allen Poe's The Raven. After remembering about it, I wondered if I still had it saved, which I did, so I decided to share it with which ever poor saps come across this blog expecting to read something good:

Once upon a midnight dreary, as I raided, weak and weary,
Killing many a malign and arduous mob upon this floor,
While I tanked, quickly taunting, a mob came a jaunting,
As if it were simply flaunting, flaunting through the hall door.
" 'Tis a npc," I muttered, "jaunting upon this instance floor;
Only this, and nothing more."

Ah, clearly I recall it was in the dreaded Kharazhan,
And each seperate dying fiend wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished progression; -vainly I had sought to borrow
From this instance farmed with sorrow - sorrow for the lack of tier 4 -
For the rare and feral gear whom the angles named tier 4 -
Nameless here for evermore.

And the frightful mob's hp falling, the dropping of each purple loot
Thrilled me - filled me with fantasic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating
" 'Tis some NPC patrolling this instance floor -
Some non-elite NPC patrolling this instance floor; -
This it is, and nothing more,"

Quickly I cast enrage, waiting for the mana of no mage,
"Demon," said I,"or undead, truly your forgiveness I implore;
For I was engaged in combat, and so quickly you came patrolling,
And so faintly you came strolling, strolling through this instance hall
I was unsure I was in line of sight" - here I stepped into the instance hall
Curator there, and nothing more.

Long at the Curator peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no feral druid ever dared to dream before
Curator stood staring, towering above in the darkness just glaring,
And the only text typed, as it appeared in guild chat, "tier 4!"
This I typed, and the chat logs recorded this word, "tier 4!"
Merely this and nothing more.

Back into the room turning, all the mana was returning,
Soon again I saw a flaunting, somewhat clearer than before.
"Surely," said I,"surely that is by the stair case:
Let me check what mob may be alive, after clearing this floor -
Let my healers drink a moment, after clearing this floor; -
'Tis a glitch and nothing more!"

I'll have a link right here, just when my future self gets around to making a post to link to, since this is getting to reach the point of OH GOD MY EYES THEY BURN, WHY IS THIS POST SO LONG WHYYYYYYY

Well not really, but if they had, I would have been able to test out this method to find it.

A student from Missouri State University awoke one morning, to find that his xbox 360 had been stolen while he was sleeping. Luckily, the thief had left behind the controller, and it was still linked wirelessly to the console, which meant that the console was still in the same building. Using knowledge of the controller's range (about 30 yards), the student was able to conclude which floor the 360 was on, and narrow down which rooms it could be in. With the help of the floor RA, the xbox was then found, and proven that it was the stolen xbox (since the controller was still linked, it could turn on and off the stolen xbox, proving that it was stolen).

I take everything I ever said about "THE BUTTON" back. I remember watching E3 05 (when E3 still mattered to developers, thank you media for ruining this year's E3, we love it when you get involved in things!) during the Microsoft conference, and just laughing at the concept of a button on the controller to turn on the console. How lazy do you have to get to not be able to push the on button on your console (That and it was easy to bash microsoft, did you see that killzone 2 demo! Those graphics were fucking amazing! And that duck, just look at that duck!). Even after owning a 360, I still mocked THE BUTTON, and occasionally hit it (to the frustration of those I played with) instead of the start button. But now, THE BUTTON has proven it's worth.

So not only must we congratulate the 360's wireless controller and button (FUCK YA BUTTON!), but we must commend the student from Missouri State University. Not only does he have the endurance to live in the state of Misery.....err Missouri (I'm beginning to think that's why so many people who've lived there too long call it MIZZURAH, because they are afraid to admit how much it sounds like misery), but he also used logic to get his stuff back in a pretty bad ass (read hard boiled) way. The only thing that could have been more bad ass, would be to pop out of nowhere as the thief exists the room, Oblivion style. STOP RIGHT THERE CRIMINAL SCUM!

One of the great things about computers is that they can really do just about anything you want them to, even play games not for computers (that’s right I’m talking about emulation). Of course, a lot of emulators out there are by no means practical for really playing the games (too slow, only works half the time, etc.) and even a great emulator will only run smoothly on a computer with considerably faster hardware than what is being emulated. But if you want to play some old school console games (or newer ones if you have a really badass rig that can compensate for slow emulation), there are emulators out there for everything (in multiple emulators for many things). So I thought I would do you all a favor and tell you about my personal favorite emulators.

1. Project64 is in the best emulator I have ever found. It emulates the Nintendo 64, and is the only program I recommend you ever do that with. Every other N64 emulator I have tried has been absolutely terrible. The engine runs smoothly for me, and should on any decent set of hardware. In fact, it even does a great job of improving the game rendering (that’s right, they actually look better). I have run it at 1680 x 1020 (and the images were actually rendered to that man pixels, not just stretch), with no problem. Also, it has features for smoothing shapes and filtering the bitmaps. Project64 is great all around, and has worked with every ROM I have tried it on.
   
   
2. Visual Boy Advance is an extremely close second (it mostly lost because it emulates older technology). It does a wonderful job of emulating any Game Boy, up to the Advance. It runs very smoothly (without the throttle it easily jumps to 2000% speed on a cheap desktop). I like that it too has filters to improve the picture quality. There are some ten or so different ones to choose from (though they cannot do as much as the Project 64 one does because the games are only two-dimensional). It is supposed to work with any ROM you can get, and automatically detects what kind of Game Boy it is for. There is a built in GameShark type feature which works great (but is really confusing unless you know nerdy stuff like me). Recently a version with the added ability to “link” with other instances of itself for multiplayer was released, but it is not officially supported and still in need of serious refinement (but I think it’s really cool and will keep an eye on it).
   
   
3. Dolphin is the last of the emulators I have found that is exceptional. It is a GameCube and Wii emulator (because they actually are the same thing in terms of emulation). The GameCube aspect of it works much better than the Wii one though. It is not nearly as refined as the other two I talked about. It runs smoothly most of the time with GameCube games without too much hardware. Playing Wii games takes a bit faster computer than people may have, and is not always that smooth. The main thing is that emulating a Wii for the purpose of playing games is rather pointless right now in my opinion, because you cannot use a Wiimote (which is the whole point of the Wii’s existence basically). People have tried to come up with a Bluetooth hack to couple a Wiimote with a computer (which would make things better, but still not great without the sensor bar), but there has not been any success yet. But if you want a GameCube emulator, Dolphin is the way to go. The only downside with that is you have to use ROMs with it (I couldn’t get it to work with an actual game disc which is annoying cause discs can actually work with computer emulation, obviously).

In case you are wondering, there are emulators for things besides Nintendo products. I just never really use them. Some of them are fast enough for actual gaming like these are, and there are other uses for emulation besides just playing games which don’t require as much speed (but they aren’t of much interest to the average gamer). So yeah, emulation is great and any of you who are interested now should definitely look further into the subject.

I was updating all the junk on my computer in my basement last night because I slipped into my house after a concert in Kentucky (it’s a long irrelevant story that I won’t get into). Anyways, when I got to the drivers I was on the Nvidia site and I found this nifty little widget for people to put on their websites (though it struck me and quite strange that they didn’t actually have it up anywhere on their own site). The widget is for finding the latest releases of the drivers for your system.


As you can see, it has both an automatic detection option and fields to fill in what you have (as usual the automatic option does not work nearly as well, but whatever). I put in the info for my computer in the manual section, and it opened up a window right to the page with the correct drivers (much faster than drudging my way through all the sections of the Nvidia website).

Overall, I think this is a great little widget (it would be even better if it did more than just the Nvidia drivers, but oh well). I wish they would make it into a sidebar gadget or an actual program or something (I know, I am just never pleased). Still it is very useful and at least a good start with the idea. I am one of those people who obsesses over keeping my computer up to date and whatnot (again, I am a serious computer nerd), so this is right up my alley.

If you have a website or something of that sort, be sure to consider adding this great widget to it. In fact, if you’re motivated maybe you could even take a look at it to make some improvement or use it as a basis for your own thing (possibly implementing some of the fantastic changes I proposed in this here post).

I was wandering the internet aimless (one of my not so many hobbies) when I came upon this entertaining little tidbit of Sims 3 machinima. What really makes it interesting is that it is made with a game that is not actually out yet, which you don't see all that often.

Now I have no interest in politics (they just annoy me), but I just barely know enough about what going on to know this video is pretty funny (especially the disclaimer at the end of it. "I can see Russia from my house!"). More importantly (at least as far as this blog is concerned) is that the things in the video look quite good and the movements are very smooth which at least means this game will be an improvement over the previous Sims games in the visuals department (unless those bitches enhanced the video or used custom stuff in some way to make it look better than the raw game, in which case they're well... bitches).

I have yet to hear much about the specifics of how the newest Sims game will be different than the others and what sort of innovations it has. Obviously, it is supposed to make an improvement to the visuals again, and using this video as proof, it appears it has (like I was saying earlier). There is something about the choices they make throughout their life having importance and a lasting effect, which was sort of introduced in the second game. However, I do not know how much they are increasing that aspect of the game, or how it is being done. To be honest, I have not been following this game all the closely anyways. I don't expect it to be that much better or different than the last two (besides these games don't actually get good until the put out the expansions in my opinion. You gotta have pets and traveling and shit), and I end up burning way too much money on them.

Anyways, this game looks pretty good (just like all the others), but I have no idea when it is supposed to be finished. If you are more interested (or one of those people who obsesses over the Sims and goes totally overboard with this crap), I'm sure there is a ton more info out there. So just gts man, you'll find it (by the way peeps, gts means "Google that shit". Spread the word people cause I am tired of people staring at me when I say it).

I wanted to add another horrifying moment to the other list, but it wasn't a video game scary moment, I can't go breaking the laws laid down by the title "Top 5 Scariest Moments In Video Games". But while reminiscing on what I found scary in games, and finding a lot of the things came from my childhood, I also began to think back to Little Nemo (very different from "Finding Nemo"). There was a NES game made based on the movie which I also played, if you can find an emulator and a rom for it I'd recommend playing it (pshh you expect me to go out and find it for you? Lazy bum.).

Anyway onto the point, Little Nemo was a Japanese anime from the late 80's, that was dubbed and brought over to the US in the early 90's, and also happens to be a favorite childhood film of mine. Thinking about the other list made me think of this movie, and how much I enjoyed it, at the same time out much it scared the hell out of me. While it's not a video game, so I did not include it in the "official" list (by official I mean some random loser on the internet's list), but it certainly deserves a mention as nightmare fuel in the same standing as the angry sun and phantos. Actually, it literally is nightmare fuel, seeing how its about a little boys dreams that turn into a nightmare. I don't think I could live with myself if I was going to mention scary things, include nostalgic moments for me, and not include Little Nemo. Actually I wish I still had my NES and a copy of the Little Nemo game right now, or the VHS of Little Nemo to watch, oh well I guess I'll just have to deal with 10 minute segments in youtube (if you want to watch it just follow the youtube video at the top).

I came across the picture of this list's number one spot while I was browsing the cold dark depths of the internet, and began to wonder what my top 5 scariest moments in video games were. So I popped on my nostalgia goggles and looked back at what possibly could be the defining moments of horror in the countless number of video games that I have played, and decided to share the list I came up with.

5. The angry sun-Super Mario Bros. 3 (NES)

Let's start out with one of the most memorable “OH SHI-” moments in video game history, the desert level in Super Mario Bros. 3. Remembering this just sends me back to a childhood of simpler games, no fancy control schemes, realism =/= brown and bloom, and scary didn't mean something was bleeding to death while it jumped out of dark corridors. I'm just strolling along (drinking a blue mondo to add nostalgia), jumping over quick sand, dodging the fire ball shooting plants, normal mario stuff. Hmm that's a weird looking sun up in the corner, it wasn't in any of the other levels, it's kind of creeping me out up there. I better watch out theres some bricks, I sure hope theres none of those fake ones from the first lev-THE SUN IS TRYING TO KILL ME FUCK!



4. Wall Masters-Legend of Zelda (Pretty much anything nintendo)

The whole part of the original legend of zelda games was that it was pretty much the polar opposite of mario. In mario, you knew what to do. You walk forward, and jump on things, no mystery here. Legend of Zelda (especially the NES one, as the series has advanced the worlds have become more detailed and you have a better idea whats going on, but theres still the element of puzzles and the “wtf am I supposed to be doing” feeling) just throws you out in the open without a weapon and tells you nothing. So you go through the world, solving puzzles and searching dungeons. You get pretty deep into a dungeon, walk into a room and this weird hand thing comes out at you. You've been trained at this point, you get touched by a monster, you get hurt, but you have plenty of hearts, so your a little careless. The wall master grabs you, oh but you aren't hurt it sends you back to the beginning of the dungeon. As you sit there shocked and in despair that you now must go through half the dungeon again, a trained fear begins to build in your mind, like a trained instinct that says, “wall masters/hands = OH SHIT RUN.”



3. Going insane-Eternal Darkness (Gamecube)

A survival horror style game inspired by the Cthulu Mythos and other Lovecraft stories, Eternal Darkness introduced something to the genre, a sanity meter. Everything you might expect will happen when you go insane, you know hearing things, seeing things, bleeding walls, things start happe........OH SHIT THE GAME JUST RESET NO I DIDN'T SAVE.......oh its back. The game likes to break the fourth wall a bit just to mess with you. You'll find th...........WHOS MESSING WITH THE TV'S VOLUME DAMN IT.



2. Uboa-Yume Nikki (Freeware)

The whole game is pretty freaky, so its not surprising to something from the game appear in this list. It's a random event in the game, contained in a certain house, involving flipping a switch. I hate to give everything about a game like this (one in that the ENTIRE game is about little secrets like this), especially since I already talked about it here, so I won't say much more. Honestly I think knowing that it's going to happen is worse than coming across it unexpectedly. The anticipation just builds more and more as you do one simple action, leave the house, then repeat. There's an Einstein quote “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”, that is Uboa. It's not OH NOES SOMETHING BLOODY JUMPED OUT AT ME, it's being driven insane, anticipating something different, sitting on the edge of you seat each time you flip the switch. Soon you may forget what exactly it is you seeking, maybe your not given enough time to forget. The first time, 20 repeats, 80 repeats? Who knows exactly how long it will take.

The video gives away uboa as a warning for those who wish not to know.


1. Phantos-Super Mario Bros. 2 (NES)

Phantos is easily the scariest thing in a video game, winning out over the somewhat similar angry sun. Oh look there's the key I need to open the door, up there by those creepy looking masks. OH GOD THE MASKS ARE CHASING ME, GET AWAY ITS MY KEY. Here's the door I'll make it out with the key yay! Ok outside of that room and safe.......OH GOD IT'S STILL FOLLOWING ME NOOO GET YOUR OWN KEY CREEPY MASK THING. Forget Silent Hill, Doom, or Resident Evil, this is the defining scary moment in a video game. Phantos made me afraid to pick up keys, I mean I'm sure whatever is behind the door isn't THAT important, I'll just stay out here and high jump with luigi a bit.......you suck phantos, I want your key ;_;

The Christmas Season is the best part of the year for gamers (Yes I realize it basically is for everyone, but I sort of have a point I'm getting to). It seems like a shit-ton of great new things always come out now, and many of them are things people like me have been anticipating for a long time.

Companies love to hold things off until the next big season for buying things or whatever. Obviously, Christmas is the biggest season like that so the companies hold off for then even more than any other time. Also when games get delayed (Which all the ones I want to hurry up and come out do, dammit), they seem to end up either being finally finished around Christmas or they just hold it off until then since it is already late. So for these reasons (and I believe just to be bastards on some occasions), most publishers put their games out just in time for Christmas (or “The Holidays” for you politically correct folks).

So yeah, I am REALLY excited for all the new video games and other fancy-shmancy stuff (not so much the family crap and the decorating the goddamn tree ordeal though). I don’t really know what else to say about it but… yeah… it’s pretty sweet. Of course, life in general would be much sweeter if I could just go buy the games I want as soon as they are done, and not when those assholes decided it is time for me to buy it.

I am not saying that I buy every game as soon as it comes out, many games I buy after they have been out for a long time. It is just that every so often there will be a game I get massively excited about for one reason or another, and I just have to play it as soon as possible. But anyways, people will buy a game as a Christmas present even if it didn’t just come out. If the game is good, gamers will want it for Christmas (unless they already have it by then, in which case that is still a sale just the same).

As I have made obvious before (like in one of my Dead Space posts), when business decide to use techniques or strategies like these with the intent of saving more or making more sales or whatever, it annoys me to no end. They should all realize something that would help them out immensely (and which I believe is extremely intuitive), if you worry about making a game actually good (or even great) people will WANT to buy it. Once that happens, they will no longer have to waste time or money on tricking people into buying something they don’t really want or strategizing to get more people to buy something that might want a little.

Secondly, they should also realize that when you annoy us loyal gamers it is very very bad and dumb. Even a small reason to not buy a game can outweigh several reason to buy it (especially now that freaking everyone cranks out video games like none-other and there are countless other options). If companies would be nice to us, we might even feel a desire to be loyal to them and do wonderful things like maybe give them the benefit of the doubt on later releases of new products.

But I repeat, it’s Christmas (and Hanukah or however you want to spell it) so it’s a time to be happy and whatnot. Things do bug me, but right now all the great stuff is becoming available so right now I am very happy and excited. I’ll go back to being my annoyed and whiny self at a later date.

The red ring of death. It has been brought up all across the internet. The red ring of death is an Xbox 360 owner’s worst fears. I own a defunct 360, I don’t even play that often, and one day it decided to eat my disc and give me a red ring of death. I would probably rank this ring more evil than the One Ring and more sinister than The Ring. One might wonder why the Xbox 360 is plagued with so many issues. The general consensus is that Microsoft rushed the Xbox 360 to the production stage, and did not give enough time in the development and testing phases, all in an attempt to get a head start on other next generation consoles. The Xbox 360 was released in 2005, while the Wii and Playstation 3 were released in 2006.

So the next question is, “what exactly is wrong with the 360?” and the next question to be asked, “what is Microsoft doing to fix this problem?” The Xbox 360 is known for its notorious heating issue, specifically, the loud large fan, and the over sized power brick, but it all comes down to heat. Theories floating around suggest that the Graphics Processing Unit or GPU fails due to overheating, or the heat sinks and fans are not enough to cool the 360, or the soldering cracks at high temperatures. I think it’s safe to say that the Xbox 360 has numerous problems on numerous levels. They sacrificed quality (at their own expense and the expense of the consumer) for a head start in the console market.

Lately, Microsoft has extended the warranty on all 360’s as a short term solution to appease customers, but recently news has surfaced on an attempt by Microsoft to reduce the failure rate by introducing a motherboard configuration called “Jasper”.

Many Xbox 360 enthusiasts have come up with more creative ways to solve their Xbox 360 woes… the most common is wrapping the Xbox 360 in towels and overheating it on purpose, which seems to work for a little while (I had some friends that tried this, and it fixed their 360’s for a few weeks, until they got the red ring again). According to Yahoo! Tech News, there are three things that make “jasper’’ Xbox 360’s more reliable than previous models. First, the graphics processing unit has shrunk from 90 nanometers to 65 nanometers, which means “jasper” Xbox 360’s will still perform at the same level just with less waste heat. Secondly, “jasper” models have a power supply of 150 watts, a step down from the original 175 watts. Finally, the flash memory has been upped from a meager 16 MB to 256 MB, which in theory should allow you to run the New Xbox 360 Experience faster, better, stronger.

While Microsoft hasn’t commented vocally specifically on the quality of the Xbox 360’s, they definitely sent out a huge message when they extended the warranty on Xbox 360’s, in contrast, Microsoft isn’t throwing a parade for this new “Jasper” model. They are carefully slipping in these new models to avoid embarrassing scrutiny.

The Bottom Line: I’ve been through THREE Xbox 360’s… I guess you could say I’m pissed… There shouldn’t have been a problem in the first place….

You all remember Animal Crossing, don't you? It was one of the greatest games on the GameCube (the kind of game that is the reason you buy a certain console). Well there's a new one out, Animal Crossing City Folk. If it were not so close to Christmas, I would already have bought myself a copy (but I'm hard enough to shop for as is).

I don't know a whole lot of specifics on what exactly is new about it. The one thing that the commercials make very obvious (and that I think is the best thing they could have done for the game) is that it not only utilizes the Internet, but that it also allows multiplayer. For a while there my friends and I played this game constantly, but we hated having to switch back and forth (I even went so far as to take my GameCube over to my friends house once to get around that).

As far as the rest of the game, it looks like you can do all the tons of things that were in the first game (fishing, shopping, traveling, etc.). In my opinion this follow up looks like a solid game and a great improvement over and already good game. Sorry about the lack of real information though, this post is mostly just about how excited I am (yeah so I'm feeling lazy, whatever), you can follow the links to learn real stuff if you want.

Well, I took my broken Wii in this week to get a replacement (you know my broken Wii?). I gathered up all the pieces that came with the thing and then made the drive all the way back to where I bought the damn thing, and of course the freakin the works when they hook it up at the store.

Me and the two guys who worked there spent close to half an hour trying ever possible thing we could think of to cause the Wii to not work like it did for me. I was pissed, because I had tried every position and like 10 different games on the freaking thing before concluding it woud never work again, and then IT WORKED at the worst possible time.

What was really strange though is that while it was working, the games took like 5 minutes to load (which is much longer than usual), and none of us there had heard of anything like that but after that load time the games all worked normally. We even tried one of MY games that I had tried like 4 times earlier with no success, and it worked just like all the other games did then.

Thankfully after a really really long time the manager decided to take pity on me and let me get a new one anyways. So yes I have a new Wii now, but it was quite the ordeal. Not to mention the fact that I lost 3 of my game saves, and that I no longer have the internet channel and I would have to pay to download it.

Now if you're looking at the title and going "lolwut", that pretty much sums up this game. Cooking Mama: Mama Kills Animals (The Unofficial PETA version, meaning Taito didn't give them permission to use it's intellectual property), is a game made by PETA, where you "prepare" a thanksgiving dinner, in the same style as the Cooking Mama DS games. As you play this short flash game, you will go through different cooking tasks, and read through PETA advertisements trying to get you to go vegetarian.

Let's just ignore the PETA part and just treat this as a normal flash game for now. It's god awful. The controls are just horrible, you use your mouse to complete tasks like stirring food, defeathering the turkey, chopping off its head, ect. but this game style wasn't designed for this, it was designed for the fluid controls of the DS touch screen. Each task is incredibly vague too, half the time I couldn't even tell wtf I was supposed to do, as I fiddled around trying to move things that wouldn't move while the clock ticked down. The collision detection is atrocious. One of the tasks has you cracking eggs on the side of a bowl, HALF THE TIME THE EGGS GO THROUGH THE GOD DAMN BOWL. Overall, horrible game never ever ever play it.

Ok now let's add in the PETA part. Remember what I said up there about never playing the game? Ya, disregard that. This game is so hilariously out there, every single bit of PETA's scare tactics to make you go vegetarian just completely makes up for the sad excuse for a game. I really can't explain how ridiculous the game's images are (LOL BLEEDING EGGS ridiculous), so here's some pictures to go with that.


What, meaner than mama? All I did was turn on the oven.....I must have pushed the on button really hard or something. I'm sorry on button, I didn't mean to hurt you =(.


Yum, makes me hungry.


How did they get my secret recipe! I thought I was the only one who put arteries, turkey feathers, and bones in my gravy (it adds that extra kick to your mashed potatoes).


Ahh Thanksgiving dinner is complete, perfection.


I think this is even creepier than some of those Yume Nikki images.

In the end a poor game that makes me hope Taito sues PETA, but the whole "Let's scare them vegetarian" (I think the word for that is propaganda) thing makes up for it and will give you a few laughs. You can play it here.

It appears I made a grievous error when creating my "How to get money (to waste on video games)" post. I left out one of the most ingenious and just utterly amazing ways to make money (well pay for things). I shall fix there error by adding an addendum to this list, ADDENDUM THETA. It has to be cool because it doesn't even have a real number, ITS A MOTHERFUCKING VARIABLE. That's right, it's not even some pansy variable like x, y, or those wannabe thetas (I'm looking at you epsilon). You know what's even cooler? Read ADDENDUM THETA in the Brawndo voice.

ADDENDUM THETA

θ. Use Spider Pictures as Currency

That's right, pay your debts in spiders. Are you man enough to do it? David Thorne sure as hell is. David Thorne payed his debts off with a drawing of a spider. Well he at least tried to, the employee on the receiving end of the spider picture was babbling on about not being able to except pictures or spiders as a form of currency. One would at first guess because the spider was a falsely advertised arachnid, with only 7 legs. But even after correcting this mistake by adding a leg, the employee wouldn't accept it as payment (What a bitch). The lesson here? If your going to pay in spiders, be careful the person your paying isn't a prick. Since I'm desperately in need of a good game, I intend on testing out real spiders and spider pictures, to see which is worth more.

The National Media Institute or NMT, a watchdog group, monitors the content in the media like television and movies. Recently they reviewed the content of several newly released video games and put them on either a list of recommended games for younger kids or a blacklist of games parents should avoid this coming Christmas season.

Personally I don't put much stock in parent watchdog groups and their reviews... but I'm sure parents could get something out of it. I've written about adult content in video games before. I have said it before and I'll say it here again video games are not baby sitters, playmates, or parents. Parents are responsible for raising their own kids, and for monitoring the the things they watch, the websites they visit, the video games they play, but that doesn't mean that video game developers should aid parents in that endeavor. Violent video game content isn't illegal, but video game developers do carry the responsibility of informing parents of what kind of content is in their video games, but enough of my opinion lets get to the National Media Institute's Video Game Report Card.... and see how it matches to the IGN's ratings.


Animal Crossing: City Folk- is a life simulation game much like The Sims. Players live in a virtual town filled with thousands of things to do. On the surface this game doesn't look very fun, but don't let it fool you. It's very immersive and complex. Players can basically have a second life here... you can do anything from shopping, to gardening, or improving your house. Surprisingly, this game is pretty fun, proving that you don't need violence or nudity or adult themes to have a good video game. Animal Crossing is for the Nintendo Wii.

ESRB Rating: E for Everyone

National Media Institute: "Great Game for Kids?"- Yes

IGN Rating: 7.5- Good

Spider-Man: Web of Shadows- As you might expect this follows Spider-Man as he sets off to save New York City from Venom's attempt to clone his symbiote and infect ordinary people giving them similar powers to Spider-Man. This is a very original idea, unfortunately, according to IGN, this game is pretty repetitive, with every new move you learn you have to use the move over and over again to the superhero who taught it to you, and then do it a number of times to villains. While Spider-Man: Web of Shadows garners a "safe" rating for kids... to your everyday gamer this game sucks. Spider-Man: WoS is available for all current gen consoles.

ESRB Rating: T for Teen

National Media Institute: "Great Game for Kids?"- Yes

IGN Rating: 5.7- Mediocre

LittleBigPlanet- This is probably the only game on the NMT's Parent Approved list that I would play. What makes this game so great is its simplicity. Players take control of a small character called Sackboy (on account of its appearance). Players use this avatar to interact with in environments, I guess it doesn't sound fun on paper... you just have to play it. Also note worthy is the ability to create your own levels, and share them online. Sadly, LittleBigPlanet is only available for Playstation 3.

ESRB Rating: E

NMT: Yes

IGN Rating: 9.5

Blitz The League II- If GTA IV and Madden 09 had a retard child, it would be Blitz The League II. While the game is very entertaining the first few times it gets old. The gameplay is very unrealistic. But why this game is on the NMT's Blacklist is a different story. Players can take steroids, party with hookers in an after game party. The game also allows players to target opposing players in order to injure them. This game also encourages unsportsmanlike conduct like late hits. Blitz is available for PS3 and Xbox 360.

ESRB Rating: M for Mature

NMT: Parents, avoid this game like the Plague!

IGN Rating: 5.5, Gamers, avoid this game like the Plague!

Gears of War 2- Gears is a third person shooter that follows the exploits of delta squad in the Human-Locust War. This game was a lot of fun, the campaign had an amazing story, the visuals were nothing short of stunning, and lets just face it... chainsawing Locust in half is just plain fun. What makes this game fun for older gamers is also why it is not approved by the NMT. There's an intense amount of gore in this game. whenever you go for a close up kill blood splatters on the camera, and you can also execute wounded opponents.. so yeah this game is most definite not for little kids. GoW2 is available for Xbox 360. One of my favorite lines is when you shoot an enemy and the head and your character says, "'sup bitches", yeah so probably not kid friendly

ESRB Rating: M for Mature

NMT: Definitely not approved

IGN Rating: 9.5, Who doesn't like a chainsaw on the end of their rifle?

Legendary- When I first read the basic story, I thought it sounded great... it was a new fresh idea for a relatively predictable market. Players take on the role of a thief who is tricked into opening infamous Pandora's Box (for those who don't know Greek Mythology read the wikipedia article) releasing all kinds of monstrous creatures into the earth. The Player gets to battle with dragons, werewolves, gargoyles, griffins, and all other types of mythical creatures. One of its worst faults is gameplay, unresolved story, and general boring visuals.

ESRB Rating: M for Mature

NMT: Not Approved

IGN Rating: 2.2, premise sounds great, actually gameplay boring

Some other games that made the approved list were: Guitar Hero World Tour, Rock Band 2, and Shaun White Snowboarding

Games that weren't approved were: Dead Space, Fallout 3, Left 4 Dead, and Resistance 2

The Bottom Line: So what does this tell us? This tells me that while the National Institute on Media and the Family picked out some fun games... but all in all in most popular video games among young adults, violence, gore, and language is kinda a staple.

Fans were treated to a very tasty bit of information this past week. Ubisoft announced that Altair skin would be available in the New Prince of Persia. Altair is the hero from the famous historical fiction video game, Assassin's Creed. However they are not the first ones to do this, Metal Gear Solid 4 also features the Altair Skin, but players find the Assassin's emblem within the game to unlock it.

Prince of Persia has long been one of the best examples of a action adventure games (along the same vein as God of War), and with Ubisoft as one of the best video game developers in the video game industry. Prince of Persia was revived in 2003 with the release of the Sands of Time, which received widespread praise. In more recent news the series has taken a different turn, with the upcoming release of the new Prince of Persia in December.

This new addition features a new Prince, a new story, and new characters, but still in keeping with the original formula of Prince of Persia we have come to love. This new story focuses on the destruction of the Tree of Life and the release of the god of darkness, who starts to corrupt the land. The Prince seeks to cleanse the land and defeat the god of darkness.

Bottom Line: The latest addition to the Prince of Persia franchise is not something to be missed... I don't know about you but I'll be looking for it on December 2.

Ok so I was a little bored and decided I'd finally get around to trying out Cave Story, a sidescrolling shooter freeware game. Even though freeware is usually obscure, like Yume Nikki, Cave Story is surprisingly well known, and is even getting ported to Nintendo's Wii Ware to be sold.

Basically Cave Story is like mixing gameplay elements from the early Metroid games and Megaman, needless to say, its extremely fun. It captures the addictive simplicity of these old platform/exploring/shooters, as you solve platform puzzles, shoot down enemies, fight bosses, and level up weapons. Cave story manages to prevent these elements from getting repetitive and boring, by increasing the difficulty, having non-linear style gameplayer, and mixing things up with new weapons at the right times. It can get a little hard if your not used to this style game (it made me wish I had a NES controller for some of the boss fights, its so much more natural feeling than a keyboard)

The story easily matches the same caliber as the gameplay. You start out in a cave (who would have guessed Cave Story would have caves?), without any knowledge of what's going on. Slowly as you progress through the game, you begin to learn more about yourself, the world around you, and wtf is going on. I won't really get too much into this, as it kind of ruins the point of the game. I will say there are multiple choices throughout the game that will lead to different events and different endings. You'll have to play through multiple times to see everything, and even then there's still bound to be secrets hidden around. There have even been some fans wishing for an anime style story to go along with the games, although I disagree, but I won't deny a new Cave Story sequel or prequel that once again set us in this world would be pretty ownage.

The music matches the gameplay perfectly. I had to download the sound track. My favorite was the actual theme song. I was just playing through the game, climbing up walls, shooting flying cats who were bombarding me with what appeared to be sperm-like projectiles. I walk through to the next zone, the Cave Story Theme started to play, and I just sat there listening to it (even though you can hear it on the opening screen, it was just much cooler in game). In fact I'm listening to it right now. The music was popular enough to garner fan attention, and inspire a remix project.

Some people may choose to criticize the graphics, but those people don't know what the hell they are talking about (I think Penn has something to tell them.). I can't believe people are criticizing the graphics on this one. Remaking the sprites would detract from the very soul of the game. it would be like taking the original Legend of Zelda on the NES and trying to paste the SNES Link to the Past graphics over the game.

Overall this is an excellent game, better and a lot more fun than some of the things people actually pay for, so check it out (here).

I have been sitting here using StumbleUpon, yet again, for like the past two hours (I know sad, isn't it?). I want to write something new because it seems like it has been forever, but I can't seem to find or think of even the dumbest idea. Anyways, I feel like I need to post SOMETHING now, or else I will never get anything done tonight.

Well peoples, the most recent thing upon which I have stumbled is some sort of Mario remake thing. It reminds me of Super Mario World the most. It has 2D side-scrolling and whatnot, nothing overly noteworthy. This game reminded me of the good ole' days when I was little and could not only waste an entire day playing games like this, but I could actually have fun doing it the entire time. However, it is only amusing for a couple minutes after that initial nostalgia wears off.

As far as crappy free online games go, it is decent quality. Surprisingly it is actually a java applet(Speaking of applets I made one once, it was Pong. Maybe I will write about that next?) and not just another crappy flash game. Flash is just great for YouTube and other video things, but the plethora of poorly made retard flash games which infest the internet(Likely outnumbered only by pornography) fucking annoy the hell out of me. There is an utter lack of creativity or originality in all but like one out of a couple thousand games.

Actually, now that I think about it that is a great topic to discuss. This game further proves it. It is nothing more than a remake of a game that is really old and has already been remade atleast a few million times. Making a Mario type game takes no skill, originality, or any real sort of ability at all (and it's the same with all the remakes of those other games that are like beating a long dead horse).

I understand that some people just like to program and things like that, but they may be unable or just too lazy to do something challenging. I admit that remaking something or having an example is one of the best ways to learn. But that's all theyre good for, learing. Just because yuou make something does not mean you need to put it on the Internet. The vast majority of what I have written is or modded or whatever is total crap. It is totally pointless and uninteresting to anyone but me, and I realize that. I do it to do it, and once it is done I just disregard it.

The Internet is basically just one big waste of time, but it is supposed to be mildly entertaining at least if not either hilarious or interesting. These countless flash games made by people who like to waste their time wasting everyone elses time annoy the hell out of me. They get nothing from putting them all over the internet, and nobody else gets anything from the games either(Yes ads are also annoying and plastered over every-other inch of the Internet, but atleast the people who make the ads benefit from them and have a reason for wasting my time).

In my humble opinion if it doesn't make money, express something, tell something, or evoke hysterical laughter, it does not deserve to exist anywhere one the Internet. Taking that into consideration, these game are free, void of creativity or expression(almost always anyways), completely pointless, and nowhere near amusing. Therefore, they should not be on the Internet, and they definitely should not be there in such freaking huge and aggravating numbers.

If you haven't noticed, I am very annoyed right now. Sorry that this post became not much more than an angry rant than is not very informative, but it is somewhat amusing(Well, sometimes maybe?). As evident in my other posts, when I get annoyed I really get annoyed and I can really go on about whatever it is that is annoying me.

Anyways back to the Mario game, if you want to reminise then check this game out. It's uh... something to do anyways. In conclusion, I like to rant and I don't stay on topic very well, there are too many flash games, and I waste all my time on the Internet.

I've mentioned Richard Garriott before. He's the video game developer that went to the International Space Station a few weeks ago. Garriott is an “old school” video game developer, and he's been developing role playing games since the early 1980's. But lately he's been in the news, when it was announced that Tabula Rasa would be free in January, only to permanently shut down in February, scant days after it was was announced that Garriott would be leaving NCsoft the publisher of Tabula Rasa.

Tabula Rasa is a sci-fi massively multiplayer online role playing game or mmorpg. Tabula Rasa is a sci-fi mmorpg that takes place in a the near feature of earth. An alien race, called the Eloh, controls power to convert matter to energy and vice versa and seeks to help lesser races with this power, unfortunately one race called the Thrax turns on them which led to a war. This leads to a division and later war within the Eloh, one side seeks to dominate other races and the original Eloh seek still to help others.

The game was released in November 2, 2007 for PC, and while it was noted for its innovative combat system, it just didn't hit that number of subscribers that it had hoped for.

Bottom Line: Its a sad day for fans of Tabula Rasa, but good thing WoW: Wrath of the Lich King is here to comfort them, and with the departure of famed gamer, Richard Gariott, what will NCsoft do?

Piracy seems to be the universal scapegoat for the industry at the moment. Well now there's something even more ridiculous. Epic Games President, Mike Capps, is blaming “lost sales” (how does Gears of War 2 selling over 2.1 million copies on its first day count as lost sales anyway?) on, not pirates, but 2nd hand game sales. That's right he's saying that renting games and buying used games is hurting the industry. Seriously where the hell do these people get their ideas? Last time I checked, when a book doesn't make a top sellers list they don't go “IT WAS THOSE USED BOOK STORES AND LIBRARIES, THEY ARE RUINING OUR SALES (Next time, Gadget, next time!)”. Come on what's next, are we going to start blaming game sales on reviews (“Well they already read the review, so now there's no point for them to buy the game, that must be the reason!”)?

Mike Capps said in an interview (found here):

“We don’t make any money when someone rents it, and we don’t make any money when someone buys it used “

Orly now, I suppose Blockbuster just pulls copies of the video game out of thin air when they sell them, they don't have to buy a copy first at all or anything. You better alert the movie industry, I'm sure they are completely unaware of the alchemists Blockbuster secretly enlists to synthesize movies and games to rent out.

Here's one of the ideas Mike Capps said that has been suggested to prevent this “atrocity”:

“If you want to fight the final boss you go online and pay USD 20, but if you bought the retail version you got it for free.”

Really? I just love paying twice for a game, that will make me buy it! All these companies are doing is making people NOT buy their game. Maybe companies have forgotten, but they don't just pull profits out of nowhere, it requires for the user to actually accept the terms and pay money for a product. If you make worthless products, no ones going to buy them, simple as that. There's no need to blame anything but yourself for making shovelware. Now if you make a good game, and start making all of these policies that inhibit the consumer, NO ONE'S GOING TO BUY IT EITHER.
It's ridiculously depressing to think there are people who don't have the logic to see they are sabotaging there own products with outrageous statements and ideas to protect said statements like what Epic Games is pulling. Well at least there is hope, there are companies that understand you can't make money without a happy customer. Stardock (a game developer, although more well known for creating windows blinds) even has it's Gamer Bill of Rights, my favorite right being:

8. Gamers shall have the right to not be treated as potential criminals by developers or publishers.

What that's from the old Gamer Bill of Rights? Oh wow it's like they are reading my mind, here's number 10 from the updated one:

10. Gamers shall have the right to sell or transfer the ownership of a physical copy of a game they own to another person.

Keep in mind these aren't just made by some random gamers, Stardock may not be a well known developing company, but they are a successful one (just look at the sales charts).


I feel like I've made this post before.......oh wait I have. This is the same concept they try to pull with DRM, only with even worst logic and reasoning. Seriously I still can't get past it, renting and reselling is ruining your sales? Come on this sounds like the "my dog ate my homework" of the business world.

The Halo series is one of the most popular and best selling video game trilogies in video game history. Halo tells the story of a super soldier named Master Chief as he and humanity wages war against the Covenant. So if you are like me, you were saddened when Halo 3 came out and finished the trilogy, for me that meant no more new games, but don't worry because you and I have something to look forward to: Halo 3: Recon.

Bungie is taking this new project in a different direction than the last few games. Instead of a continuation of Halo 3, this is more accurately described as an expansion. Unfortunately it means you don't get to play as the iconic Master Chief, no shields, no one-man army. Halo 3: Recon takes place on earth and follows the exploits of a lone Orbital Drop Shock Troopers in the war torn city of New Mombasa.

While there's been two trailers released, still there's a lot left to be said. Good thing Game Informer is doing a ten page spread on Halo 3: Recon in their December issue. Unfortunately, there won't be any screenshots from the actual game. In an article on Gamespot describing the Game Informer article, Bungie lead desgin, Joe Bertone described the game as a "three to five hour experience", that's a little depressing, since that really isn't that long. On the plus side, Joseph Staten, the cinematic director,is quoted saying, "we do not view this as a $60 title".

Bottom Line: Look for the Halo 3: Recon article in Game Informer...

Parents are lighting their torches and grabbing their pitch forks and heading over to Rockstar Studios. Ever since the first Grand Theft Auto III came out, parents have been speaking out against Rockstar, which I understand since the gameplay is pretty mature. GTA III: San Andreas even received a Adults Only rating, a step above the usual Mature rating, after the creation of the "Hot Coffee" mod. "Hot Coffee" allowed the player to have graphic sex in the game, this is in addition to the alcohol consumption, soliciting prostitutes, robbing banks, and murdering innocent people (what I like to call mindless violence).

What makes Chinatown Wars so abominable, in addition to the aforementioned violence, to parents is the addition of a drug dealing minigame, while the aspect drugs were in previous games, not to the extent that we've seen in Chinatown Wars. You can deal drugs like marijuana, heroin, and LSD.

According 1Up, Chinatown Wars features a large scale map like that of GTA IV and a map that displays the availability and the demand for drugs around Liberty City. You can make money by, buying drugs for cheap in one region and sell them for more money in another neighborhood, to make money.

There is one non violent innovation that won't anger parents, you can call a cab in Chinatown Wars by whistling into the DS's built in microphone.

Bottom Line: Although, there aren't any details on a release date, I looking forward to more news on Chinatown Wars and the controversy surrounding the gameplay.

So the industry loves to bash on pirates stealing their games right? Well this time they are right. Only its not people pirating software, it's really pirates. That's right REAL pirates, off the coast of Somalia (that's right on the Horn of Africa for the geographically impaired) are attacking shipments going into the Gulf of Suez towards the Suez Canal and Europe. These shipments include video games (hey, even pirates need a way to relax after a long day singing piratey tunes and burying treasure), many that are being shipped for the holiday season. While this doesn't effect those of us in North America, Europeans may have a hard time finding gifts for their vidya playing friends this winter.

I really don't have much to say on this, other than it's completely awesome (read awesome as FUCK YEAH PIRATES). I mean you have to love the irony that companies are having to deal with REAL pirates. And come on, who doesn't love pirates, they are the definition of fuckwin awesome. Sure we can try to feel bad for Europe knowing they will short a few copies of some games, but we know no one really cares about them anyway, Europe is like the Canada of the world. All those silly accents and Latin based languages concentrated on such a small continent, they really are just asking for it. Well there are still those Germanic language countries, I guess we can share our games with them (except England, they are totally lame, go back to your "Ahl-lue-miny-yum gae-rahges" with your tea and crumpets), LAN party in Scandinavia!

I just happened across this trailer on YouTube. I never would have thought someone would try to make a movie out of Zelda. Sure there seems to be more and more video game movies these days, but I just did not expect it at all for some reason.

Now that the possibility is out there, this is a very exciting prospect. Like I have said with Stargate Worlds, this sort of thing has great potential for failure. However, I again believe this also has potential for success too. I will not try to deny the fact that I am a total Zelda fanatic and that I would feel that I had to see just about anything related to it. But I believe that the rational part of me is also really interested in this movie. The visuals in the trailor are great and what I could get of the plot seemed deep and not too hindered by being based on a video game.

From what I can tell, this movie is based on the plot of Ocarina of Time in particalar (although not completely the same). It looks like the movie will have the focus be on going back through time, whereas in the game you started as a small child and went forward to the future(there is a fair amount of back-and-forth though). All the key characters seem to be there and I recognized all the creatures and bosses shown as derived from the game versions (though they were pretty different considering the outdated graphics of the game). Of course, I immediately recognized the song in the trailor (as ALL of you Zelda fans should have).

I am hoping this moving will not end up being nearly identical to the game, but with a bunch of slight variances that just annoy the hell out of me. I won't begin to make any promises about this as a movie, but as something Zelda I would say it is a definite must see.

After my broken Xbox rant, this post will probably make people think that I am either really bad with electronics, or just really whiny (my xbox works fine now by the way though). My Wii is now broken, and unlike Microsoft, Nintendo will not fix it for free. The disc drive cannot read any discs anymore (and a Wii is useless without the games).

I understand that things break sometimes. The fact that it broke is not the whole reason why I am upset. As far as I can tell there is no broken Wii pandemic like the Xbox RoL fiasco. I am upset because when I get a new Wii I will end up losing much of the information stored on my old one.

Some of my game saves will not let me copy them to an SD card (and of course they just happen to be the ones I care the most about losing, dammit). Things like downloaded channels will also be lost. Some of them will copy to an SD card, but they are coded so that they only work with the Wii they were originally downloaded on. Once I get my new Wii I will be sure to contact Nintendo about this issue, but as far as my research tells me there is no solution short of paying to download them on the new Wii. This kind of stupidity fits in with all that other DRM nonsense (all of which really pisses me off as a huge waste of time and effort).

So yeah, I am not pleased with Nintendo at the moment. Luckily, I thought to get the replacement plan when I bought the Wii at Fry's Electronics. So I should be able to get a new Wii for free (but it won't be the old one or have my goddamn saves on it). Hopefully this does not end up being too huge of a setback to my Wii playing and whatnot.

I was at Borders today looking at some random computer magazine while I was waiting for someone. I saw an add for something that I suddenly seem to be seeing all over the place lately, an oil cooled gaming computer.

I had heard of supercomputers and other custom application type things being submersed in mineral oil for cooling. Obviously, being submerged in a liquid tends to keep things cooled very well. Apparently a practical way of using this technique on a smaller scale has been found, and there are now at least a few places to buy ready built oil cooled computers for high-end gaming.

My computers always get hot, so I have always wanted to try this. The idea also interests me because at first it sounds so stupid. Wouldn't getting the computer all wet short it out and ruin it? The cool thing about mineral oil (no pun intended), is that it does not conduct electricity like at all. This means there it is not necessary to have tubes or other ways of trying to get the liquid close to the hot components without actually touching them, you just let it touch everything (so for those of you who were wondering about the picture, yes that is basically a computer in a fish tank of oil instead of a case).

This is something I definitely want to see in person, and I am seriously considering it for the next computer I build. Sorry but I am totally spacing on the name of the magazine I saw this in or anything that the add said, but here's a video to make it up to you.

Some of you may remember doing things like counting on your fingers or drawing little dots on the numbers to learn how to add and subtract. I was a little different. When I saw numbers, they had personalities to them, and their sums and differences were a result of the combinations of personalities and I didn't realize it at the time, but when I had to memorize my times tables the personalities carried over matched. Ya that's right I was that kid who owned you in 3rd grade when we played around the world with math flash cards (“Oh yeah, I'm on a roll, I might make it this time! UGH THAT FREAK IS IN THE NEXT DESK, THERE GOES MY STREAK”).

8? He's a pretty cool guy, I mean 8+8 is 16, so he just has to be awesome, he's like the Fonz of numbers. 7 is kind of weird though, 7 might mess with your numbers (he's like the number bully). Sure he's only one off from being 8, but if you get your 7's and 8's together, you get 15, and no one likes a 15, he's just kind of is there, stalking all the other numbers and breathing loudly like that kid from Hey Arnold.

Now 5 is a pretty consistent guy 5+5=10 and you just can't get an easier number than 10. Even without addition, just try multiplying him with a whole number, I dare you, you aren't going to get him to change that last digit from either 0 or 5. So 5's a pretty good guy, sure he's predictable, but he's just trying to help you out. 6 is pretty good too, I mean he takes in two 3's and sets them straight (3 is just a baby, but he's a baby with a mean streak and he might go bad and hang with a 4 and become that 7 who pushes around your numbers).

So you take two good guys and mix them together, 5+6=11, WHAT HAS SCIENCE DONE! 11 isn't a good number, sure he looks innocent, I mean he's just two 1's (1 is just a harmless infant), how bad can he be? Don't let that disguise trick you, he likes to bump up your numbers a little. I mean 6 would love to go hang with 10, become the double Fonz, 16. 6 is just strolling towards 10, then BAM out comes 11, HA YOU'RE A 17 WHAT NOW BITCH! You aren't a cool number. You're just some loser prime number loser without any factors besides 1 and yourself, all because of 11. Again lets carry this over to multiplication, 11 seems harmless at first. I mean its so easy, 11, 22, 33, 44, 55....keep going then you get to 110. Oh what's that you wanted 111? Too bad sucker, enjoy your false sense of security as I start popping out these funny numbers all over the place.

Of course there's tons of numbers out there, so that's just a little bit of what I thought (and still do) about numbers. Imagine a clever, humorous sentence to end this on. Got one? Ok, now forget that you read these last three sentences and place that sentence over them.

I'm a cheap guy, I like to save money, and I like free stuff. Who doesn't? So when the Xbox 360 cut their prices right after I bought my Xbox I was pretty pissed. Playstation 3 also cut their prices. It pretty much a pattern in the video gaming industry to cut prices on their consoles after a few months or years to boost sales, but it seems that this notion does not apply to the Nintendo Wii.

With the Wii still widely popular and Nintendo still struggling to meet the demands of the populace it seems that there will not be any price cut in the near future. The 360 Premium console has been slashed by a hundred dollars. The Playstation 3 base model has also been slashed by $100. So why is Nintendo being so pretentious? Nintendo's President, Satoru Iwata, gives some insight,

"This is my personal thinking, but when the model's price-tag drops over time, manufacturers are telling consumers it's better to wait, and I've always thought that was a mistake," Iwata said. This seems to be an opinion one has the luxury of holding when their console is entering its third holiday season, and they still can't meet demand”

How disappointing from a consumer stand point, but from a business stand point, this decision is pretty savvy.

Bottom Line: As the holiday seasons approach, don't look for a price cut on the Wii, that is if you can find one.

“Alright, it's Saturday night, I have no date, a two liter bottle of shasta, and my all rush mix-tape. Let's rock.” When you get ready for a night of gaeman, you have to get the perfect music, and while I'll agree with Fry, Rush is pretty ownage to shoot down space invaders to (when you have the 20 minute rush epic, 2112, looped you know your down to business), but different circumstances require certain music to get optimum performance out. Here's how I break it down.

When you need something to pump you up, as you run around in a fast paced FPS like Unreal Tournament or Timesplitters, maybe even a TPS like S4 League, you have to listen to something equally faced paced. You need something to get the blood pumping and to get into the groove of just running on a suicide run, shooting your double SBP's, mowing down everything in the way, then just as you run out of ammo and get over run by monkey's, you go out in a fiery suicidal rocket explosion, taking anyone around you with you. I usually put some techno/trance/industrial on to get me pumped up. Timesplitters has the PERFECT soundtrack for this, I actually downloaded their cds (Free Radical has them for download free here, aren't they so nice? More companies should be like this) onto my computer to listen to in other games of similar nature. My playlist will normally include Timesplitters, some industrial (like Panic Lift), some techno (usually its from other video game soundtracks, a few DJ mixes), some techno/metal mix (Blood Stained Child), and the pokemon remixes.

Ok you're playing a shooter, but its not fast past, its something a little slower like Team Fortress 2. Here's where it can get a little tricky. Sometimes its good to take from the previous list to get you in the groove, but then again, with slower paced games “the groove” can get you killed as you try to do things that just don't work. Let's take TF2, my favorite class is the spy. Backstabbing people to metal or techno just doesn't work. Backstabbing people to silence just doesn't work. You need something with class, something with elegance. This is normally when I pop the symphonic arrangements. You time and manage your stealths perfectly, flowing with the enemies forces as not to get caught, feeling the tides of the crescendo's and decrescendo's of Karajan conducting Beethoven's Symphony No. 7. A demoman's sticky bombs explode perfectly to the timpani as a crit rocket flies past you and explodes as the woodwinds make their entrance. Then you find your target, the medic with an ubercharge ready and a heavy waiting, as the music climaxes you throw off your soldier disguise and send your knife swiftly into the medics back, dash forward to the heavy before he sees what happens and dispense of him, and then cloak back into the shadows with the resolution. When you need to find your groove for a slower paced shooter, you just need something like Holst's Planet Suite or Sibellius' Finlandia to clear up your head and calm you down as you effortlessly float across the battlefield racking up kills.

What if there's something that just has a feel to it, it's setting just requires something or you might as well not play at all. Battlefield Vietnam is like that. You just can't be in the jungles with your m16 (or ak47 depending which team your on) without some music of the era. The Doors, Jefferson Airplane, The Who, The Beatles, you just have to have them on your playlist, or you aren't playing Battlefield Vietnam, your just playing some shooting game. It really does make a difference, just play the Apocalypse Now soundtrack while sitting in the bushes waiting for your kill or flying around in a MIG and it'll double your score.

Ok so enough shooters, what if your just playing a RPG or something? Now if you're playing something with a famous, well known soundtrack, why the hell would you try to change it? If not just put something enjoyable to listen to on, RPG's tend to not have the “groove” factor that most shooters do. If I'm playing a classic like Chrono Trigger or a Final Fantasy, or anything with a soundtrack made of pure win (The World Ends With You), I'm not going to mess with it. If not, I'll just listen to good music, the style doesn't matter much on this one, some jazz (Diablo Swing Orchestra), progressive (Dream Theater, Atomic Fireballs), or just anything (apparently Saturn makes some pretty sweet music).

Now if you're writing a blog post on listening to music while playing the vidya, you listen to the Gurren Lagann soundtrack. ROW ROW FIGHT THE POWER.