The game I have been anticipating for a good six months arrived a little over four days ago.
I'll be honest about where I'm at. I've only completed three or four missions from the campaign, and I haven't touched the Spec Ops missions, nor multiplayer.
What I have done though, is achieved the rank of level 49 in survival. For those that don't know, there are 50 all up.
The game's Spec Ops survival mode is, of course, what I bought it for. I mean, I bought Treyarch's World at War, and then Black Ops, because of their zombie survival mode, so it seemed to make sense. I get a lot out of these sorts of game modes.
At first I was chuffed that survival was playable on all 16 of the game's multiplayer maps. It seemed like great value. I'll admit though, that I'd have preferred to have been able to choose the level of survival difficulty on each map, rather than them having difficulty levels already assigned.
I can live with that though, but what I'm really not keen on, are the maps themselves.
They may be quite good as multiplayer maps, but in survival for me it's all about making use of a map's choke points, and many of them don't really seem to have any. Everything seems to be setup so that there are always a number of ways to get to any one location.
Survival has three resource crates available in each map; weapons, equipment, and air support. Unfortunately, they've chosen to position them in each map as far away as possible from each other. I've figured out that the best thing to typically do is pick a spot that's reasonably close to one or two; the flipside being, of course, that the third will be fucking miles away.
Granted, I think survival is really meant for two players, and while I've dabbled in coop play, my teammate's shaky internet connection all but ruined the experience. Considering just about everyone else on my Steam friends list seems to just want to play Skyrim all the time, it looks like solo is all I've got.
It's a great mode though, and there are several maps where I just know I can better my current best, so I'm often tempted to have "just another go". There's been quite a lot of tasty stuff to unlock, and the variety of different mobs types do spice things up in there.
If there's one thing I'd like to see though, it's a map or two designed specifically for the survival experience. Plenty of choke points, crates not deliberately placed as far apart as possible, and the ability to choose your own difficulty on it.
Now that would be something.
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Battlefield 3 vs Zombieville USA 2
We've had a long weekend here in Perth, Australia, and I haven't spent my free time playing the $90 Battlefield 3 game, no...
I have spent it playing a $0.99 App Store game for the Ipod Touch and iPhone called Zombieville USA 2.
Over the last couple of days, I've hardly touched Battlefield 3. I was close to having finished the campaign, but came up against a showstopper bug that literally would not let me proceed.
The train sequence at the start of the game is something you will actually go through again later on, and like many of the sequences in the game, it's full of annoying quicktime events. Something happens, usually a melee struggle with a terrorist, and at the prompt, you have to press the right key at the right time. If you're not on time, or you accidentally let loose with another key, you die, and have to start the section over.
Anyway, this event required my pressing the space bar (as prompted), at which point my character would then die. This happened over... and over... and over again. When I think about it, my own personal Groundhog Day.
I couldn't even figure it out by googling it, and the last time it happened, I was so frustrated with the game, I forced it down with Alt+Ctrl+Del.
That's when you know I'm not happy.
It's ironic sometimes, though, how things happen, because I ended up browsing the Ipod App Store once again, and noticed the sequel to one of my old favs, Zombieville USA, had been released.
$0.99 later, I was ready to rock and roll, and I'll be damned, but it has occupied my time so much more than Battlefield 3 was. It's got a number of different levels to fight in, zombie types to slay, and weapons and skills to both unlock, and level up.
Great, great game, and at the price, an absolute steal. Battlefield 3 at $90? Not so much.
As it turns out, however, I once again googled the problem preventing my ability to continue in the Battlefield 3 campaign, and this time, actually found the solution. Yes, apparently if you have rebound your jump key to something other than the space bar, you have to press both that key AND the space bar.
Once again, some great game testing going on over there at DICE.
It's academic really, because like most of the campaign, the bit that I had left to do was utter rubbish.
I have spent it playing a $0.99 App Store game for the Ipod Touch and iPhone called Zombieville USA 2.
Over the last couple of days, I've hardly touched Battlefield 3. I was close to having finished the campaign, but came up against a showstopper bug that literally would not let me proceed.
The train sequence at the start of the game is something you will actually go through again later on, and like many of the sequences in the game, it's full of annoying quicktime events. Something happens, usually a melee struggle with a terrorist, and at the prompt, you have to press the right key at the right time. If you're not on time, or you accidentally let loose with another key, you die, and have to start the section over.
Anyway, this event required my pressing the space bar (as prompted), at which point my character would then die. This happened over... and over... and over again. When I think about it, my own personal Groundhog Day.
I couldn't even figure it out by googling it, and the last time it happened, I was so frustrated with the game, I forced it down with Alt+Ctrl+Del.
That's when you know I'm not happy.
It's ironic sometimes, though, how things happen, because I ended up browsing the Ipod App Store once again, and noticed the sequel to one of my old favs, Zombieville USA, had been released.
$0.99 later, I was ready to rock and roll, and I'll be damned, but it has occupied my time so much more than Battlefield 3 was. It's got a number of different levels to fight in, zombie types to slay, and weapons and skills to both unlock, and level up.
Great, great game, and at the price, an absolute steal. Battlefield 3 at $90? Not so much.
As it turns out, however, I once again googled the problem preventing my ability to continue in the Battlefield 3 campaign, and this time, actually found the solution. Yes, apparently if you have rebound your jump key to something other than the space bar, you have to press both that key AND the space bar.
Once again, some great game testing going on over there at DICE.
It's academic really, because like most of the campaign, the bit that I had left to do was utter rubbish.
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Battlefield 3
Yeah I know, I said I wasn't going to get it.
What can I say, I've been so very bored. Waiting for MW3 has been driving me positively insane, and there are only so many times you can play the MW2 campaign over and over.
Granted, thanks to a nice trade-in at EB, Battlefield 3 didn't actually cost me anything. As it turns out, that's just as well, because if I'm being honest, I'm not really having the time of my life with it.
That's partly my fault though, because as you know I'm not really a multiplayer gamer these days, so it was arguably pretty stupid of me to invest in what is primarily a multiplayer game.
They have gone to the trouble of creating a single player campaign this time around, along with a couple of missions that you can actually coop with a friend, so you could argue there's now something for everyone.
I must be about 2/3rds of the way through the campaign, but I'll admit that I'm really not enjoying myself all that much with it.
I'd have to say the biggest problem I have with it is that the game's AI completely sucks. For both the bad guys, and also my teammates.
Teammates have not been programmed to adjust to what you're doing atall. A number of times I've actually been pushed out of a cover location by an AI teammate who has just decided that it's a spot he will be occupying instead.
This complete indifference also includes running out in front of you while you're busy shooting at bad guys.
Speaking of which, most of the bad guys will pretty much only ever shoot at the player. I've completed a number of escort quests during the game, and I've lost count the number of times they've focused just on me.
Basically, each and every play is a setup, and a rather obvious one at that. We advance to a certain area. Bad guys show up. They take cover, my teammates take cover.
At this point, they could all shoot at each other until the cows come home for the difference that it will make, because advancement is only ever made when the player caps all of the bad guys. A number of times, it's actually been obvious that my teammates aren't even really actively trying to kill anyone in particular. The job's always up to me.
And that's pretty much how it is. That ever constant reminder that you're just playing a videogame, it breaks the immersion every time. Takes you right out of it.
I don't know how else to describe it, and it's such a pity, because it's a great, great engine. Nothing else looks or sounds quite like it, and I should be having the time of my life.
Something went terribly wrong.
What can I say, I've been so very bored. Waiting for MW3 has been driving me positively insane, and there are only so many times you can play the MW2 campaign over and over.
Granted, thanks to a nice trade-in at EB, Battlefield 3 didn't actually cost me anything. As it turns out, that's just as well, because if I'm being honest, I'm not really having the time of my life with it.
That's partly my fault though, because as you know I'm not really a multiplayer gamer these days, so it was arguably pretty stupid of me to invest in what is primarily a multiplayer game.
They have gone to the trouble of creating a single player campaign this time around, along with a couple of missions that you can actually coop with a friend, so you could argue there's now something for everyone.
I must be about 2/3rds of the way through the campaign, but I'll admit that I'm really not enjoying myself all that much with it.
I'd have to say the biggest problem I have with it is that the game's AI completely sucks. For both the bad guys, and also my teammates.
Teammates have not been programmed to adjust to what you're doing atall. A number of times I've actually been pushed out of a cover location by an AI teammate who has just decided that it's a spot he will be occupying instead.
This complete indifference also includes running out in front of you while you're busy shooting at bad guys.
Speaking of which, most of the bad guys will pretty much only ever shoot at the player. I've completed a number of escort quests during the game, and I've lost count the number of times they've focused just on me.
Basically, each and every play is a setup, and a rather obvious one at that. We advance to a certain area. Bad guys show up. They take cover, my teammates take cover.
At this point, they could all shoot at each other until the cows come home for the difference that it will make, because advancement is only ever made when the player caps all of the bad guys. A number of times, it's actually been obvious that my teammates aren't even really actively trying to kill anyone in particular. The job's always up to me.
And that's pretty much how it is. That ever constant reminder that you're just playing a videogame, it breaks the immersion every time. Takes you right out of it.
I don't know how else to describe it, and it's such a pity, because it's a great, great engine. Nothing else looks or sounds quite like it, and I should be having the time of my life.
Something went terribly wrong.
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Modern Warfare 3, hurry up!
I am chomping at the bits, so to speak, for Modern Warfare 3.
Call of Duty, you ask? What are you, a 'console kiddy'? No, I'm a married 37yo gamer, and I do the vast, vast majority of my gaming on the pc.
Check this out. It's the trailer showing off Modern Warfare 3's new survival mode. That might be me you can hear in the corner, drooling.
It's pretty popular these days to hate on Call of Duty. I've been seeing a lot of that. Either it's got something to do with the fact that it keeps smashing its own sales records, or that it's made by Activision, and people just love to rain shit on Bobby Kotick.
I kept an open mind though, I promise you that. You may remember that, back at E3 time, it was all about MW3 vs BF3 for me.
I tried, really, but following E3, it all went to shit. Every news item that has come out about Battlefield3 since then has sucked. Firstly, no bots. Well, I knew that already. What with not being a multiplayer gamer, there goes any kind of longevity I was hoping for. What am I going to do, play the campaign over and over?
Then they announced it wouldn't be on Steam.
I remember first installing Steam back when I bought Half Life 2 on release day. It was a necessary evil, granted, but in all fairness, it was worth it to play that game.
Since then, Steam has just gotten better... and better... and better. I now have over 30 available games for it, and it's great being able to uninstall games knowing that they're always available again, if I ever want to play.
Battlefield 3 not being on Steam is a pretty big hit for me, and the game requiring EA's Origin service, well, that shit certainly ain't helping.
By about the time they announced that Battlefield 3's co-op campaign was only going to support two players, I had long since stopped caring.
No, it's all about Modern Warfare 3. It doesn't help that survival gameplay footage has just been absolutely rocking my socks.
No, I even preordered the fucker.
*gasp*
Do you have any idea how long it's been for me since I did that? It's been at least a couple of years.
And I'm not talking the preorder where you pay a $20 deposit or some shit, I'm talking about having paid in full.
I'm making a commitment to myself, with this. My wife and I may be buying a house, and our funds may be stretched to the limit, but nomatter how tight my funds are, every year come holiday time, I'm buying a game.
This year it's Modern Warfare 3, and it'd better not suck.
Call of Duty, you ask? What are you, a 'console kiddy'? No, I'm a married 37yo gamer, and I do the vast, vast majority of my gaming on the pc.
Check this out. It's the trailer showing off Modern Warfare 3's new survival mode. That might be me you can hear in the corner, drooling.
It's pretty popular these days to hate on Call of Duty. I've been seeing a lot of that. Either it's got something to do with the fact that it keeps smashing its own sales records, or that it's made by Activision, and people just love to rain shit on Bobby Kotick.
I kept an open mind though, I promise you that. You may remember that, back at E3 time, it was all about MW3 vs BF3 for me.
I tried, really, but following E3, it all went to shit. Every news item that has come out about Battlefield3 since then has sucked. Firstly, no bots. Well, I knew that already. What with not being a multiplayer gamer, there goes any kind of longevity I was hoping for. What am I going to do, play the campaign over and over?
Then they announced it wouldn't be on Steam.
I remember first installing Steam back when I bought Half Life 2 on release day. It was a necessary evil, granted, but in all fairness, it was worth it to play that game.
Since then, Steam has just gotten better... and better... and better. I now have over 30 available games for it, and it's great being able to uninstall games knowing that they're always available again, if I ever want to play.
Battlefield 3 not being on Steam is a pretty big hit for me, and the game requiring EA's Origin service, well, that shit certainly ain't helping.
By about the time they announced that Battlefield 3's co-op campaign was only going to support two players, I had long since stopped caring.
No, it's all about Modern Warfare 3. It doesn't help that survival gameplay footage has just been absolutely rocking my socks.
No, I even preordered the fucker.
*gasp*
Do you have any idea how long it's been for me since I did that? It's been at least a couple of years.
And I'm not talking the preorder where you pay a $20 deposit or some shit, I'm talking about having paid in full.
I'm making a commitment to myself, with this. My wife and I may be buying a house, and our funds may be stretched to the limit, but nomatter how tight my funds are, every year come holiday time, I'm buying a game.
This year it's Modern Warfare 3, and it'd better not suck.
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon #2
I had to do this.
The truth is, there's a pattern emerging here. With every Michael Bay movie I watch, my IMDB rating of it starts off high, and then drops over time.
I'm now at 7/10 for Dark of the Moon, where after my first showing, I was at a full 10/10.
I think I'm going to stay at 7/10 here, but even though ordinarily 7 is a great rating for me, if it's all I'm giving the latest and greatest Transformers, you know that means I'm bitterly disappointed with it.
Yeah, I raved about the movie in my previous post which was just after I'd just seen it, but you know what, I did the same thing with Revenge of the Fallen after I'd first seen that too, and that's now at 7/10 aswell.
So why the change? Well, when you have a deep interest in something, it's really easy to get caught up in that first (or even second) showing. My hunger for Transformers, hunger to see more of Optimus Prime, boosts my enjoyment of a show.
Time passes though, you watch it a couple more times, feel like you're able to look at it more objectively... and that's where it all falls apart.
There's so much that just doesn't make sense. I really liked the character of Sentinel Prime, but would someone who had evidently been leader of the Autobots for so long have been able to betray them so easily? To shoot Ironhide in the back?
Speaking of which, why wasn't Ironhide's death mourned? Hell, why wasn't it even mentioned? I realise they didn't have a whole lot of time to think, but would it have killed Bay to have included something like Prime kneeling over the remains? He wouldn't've even had to have said much, perhaps a line about revenge, or at the least, goodbye, old friend.
While I'm at it, what were all the Decepticons doing on the moon? How'd they get there? Correct me if I'm wrong, but considering it was a long lost Autobot ship that crashed there, if anything, shouldn't it have been Autobots out there? That or, I think I figured out exactly why the Decepticons keep losing the war, because one of them apparently summised that the best way to stage an attack on Earth was to hide underground on the moon and wait for a portal to be opened.
As far as Bumblebee being captured later on, there really needed to be a scene showing exactly how that happened, if just because of how that was used to inject so much emotional content into the proceedings. How many of the ladies weren't at the edge of their seats when it was looking like they were actually going to assassinate him?
Which of course, leads me to another point. Every time the Autobots get a chance they'll kill a Decepticon, but the Decepticons take prisoners? It felt like the Shanghai op from Revenge of the Fallen all over again, as we have the bad guys basically keeping to themselves, while being systematically slaughtered by the good guys.
Now, I love Optimus Prime as much as the next guy, but Bay's Optimus, I'm fucking glad he's on our side, because truth be told, he'd make one hell of a Decepticon. Some of the things he was doing, don't tell me he wasn't enjoying it. It's a CGI treat, of course, but does it always have to be at the expense of the character?
A lot of people have raved about the building sequence, but I hate it. I hate it because it only exists because of Bay's idea to have a building cut in half. There's no point to it. They go up because they've only got one rocket and they have to get higher to be able to use it, but then they get shot at, escape in spectacular fashion, and then... I don't know. They don't try again, or anything like that. No, Sam and Carly get separated from the rest, and then...
Sam kills Starscream. This sequence was like, the epitome of what Bay's movies are all about. So long as it looks great, to hell with common sense. It's just so fucking implausible.
And then there's the humour.
If it was a step up from that found in Revenge of the Fallen, it was only just. The whole thing with the Asian guy in the bathroom stall, I could do without, as I could also do without the parents lecturing Sam about how he's not gonna land another hotty like Carly unless he's got a big dick.
Urghh.
I still do like Michael Bay, and Dark of the Moon's very impressive CGI guarantees my purchase of that Blu Ray on day one, but a 10 out of 10 movie, it ain't. If I'm being brutally honest, I wouldn't rate it a whole lot better than Revenge of the Fallen, and as it stands now, I would more than welcome another director taking a shot at reviving this franchise.
The truth is, there's a pattern emerging here. With every Michael Bay movie I watch, my IMDB rating of it starts off high, and then drops over time.
I'm now at 7/10 for Dark of the Moon, where after my first showing, I was at a full 10/10.
I think I'm going to stay at 7/10 here, but even though ordinarily 7 is a great rating for me, if it's all I'm giving the latest and greatest Transformers, you know that means I'm bitterly disappointed with it.
Yeah, I raved about the movie in my previous post which was just after I'd just seen it, but you know what, I did the same thing with Revenge of the Fallen after I'd first seen that too, and that's now at 7/10 aswell.
So why the change? Well, when you have a deep interest in something, it's really easy to get caught up in that first (or even second) showing. My hunger for Transformers, hunger to see more of Optimus Prime, boosts my enjoyment of a show.
Time passes though, you watch it a couple more times, feel like you're able to look at it more objectively... and that's where it all falls apart.
There's so much that just doesn't make sense. I really liked the character of Sentinel Prime, but would someone who had evidently been leader of the Autobots for so long have been able to betray them so easily? To shoot Ironhide in the back?
Speaking of which, why wasn't Ironhide's death mourned? Hell, why wasn't it even mentioned? I realise they didn't have a whole lot of time to think, but would it have killed Bay to have included something like Prime kneeling over the remains? He wouldn't've even had to have said much, perhaps a line about revenge, or at the least, goodbye, old friend.
While I'm at it, what were all the Decepticons doing on the moon? How'd they get there? Correct me if I'm wrong, but considering it was a long lost Autobot ship that crashed there, if anything, shouldn't it have been Autobots out there? That or, I think I figured out exactly why the Decepticons keep losing the war, because one of them apparently summised that the best way to stage an attack on Earth was to hide underground on the moon and wait for a portal to be opened.
As far as Bumblebee being captured later on, there really needed to be a scene showing exactly how that happened, if just because of how that was used to inject so much emotional content into the proceedings. How many of the ladies weren't at the edge of their seats when it was looking like they were actually going to assassinate him?
Which of course, leads me to another point. Every time the Autobots get a chance they'll kill a Decepticon, but the Decepticons take prisoners? It felt like the Shanghai op from Revenge of the Fallen all over again, as we have the bad guys basically keeping to themselves, while being systematically slaughtered by the good guys.
Now, I love Optimus Prime as much as the next guy, but Bay's Optimus, I'm fucking glad he's on our side, because truth be told, he'd make one hell of a Decepticon. Some of the things he was doing, don't tell me he wasn't enjoying it. It's a CGI treat, of course, but does it always have to be at the expense of the character?
A lot of people have raved about the building sequence, but I hate it. I hate it because it only exists because of Bay's idea to have a building cut in half. There's no point to it. They go up because they've only got one rocket and they have to get higher to be able to use it, but then they get shot at, escape in spectacular fashion, and then... I don't know. They don't try again, or anything like that. No, Sam and Carly get separated from the rest, and then...
Sam kills Starscream. This sequence was like, the epitome of what Bay's movies are all about. So long as it looks great, to hell with common sense. It's just so fucking implausible.
And then there's the humour.
If it was a step up from that found in Revenge of the Fallen, it was only just. The whole thing with the Asian guy in the bathroom stall, I could do without, as I could also do without the parents lecturing Sam about how he's not gonna land another hotty like Carly unless he's got a big dick.
Urghh.
I still do like Michael Bay, and Dark of the Moon's very impressive CGI guarantees my purchase of that Blu Ray on day one, but a 10 out of 10 movie, it ain't. If I'm being brutally honest, I wouldn't rate it a whole lot better than Revenge of the Fallen, and as it stands now, I would more than welcome another director taking a shot at reviving this franchise.
Friday, July 1, 2011
Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon
Fucking awesome!
What can I say, definitely my cup of tea. CGI action for the win, baby!
It ain't perfect, mind you, but no movie has been. That said, it's closer - for me - than anything I've seen thus far, and it will definitely be my number one Blu Ray when it arrives.
Sentinel Prime, voiced by Leonard Nimoy, rocked. So damn good. Awesome character, and an absolutely shocking betrayal about halfway through on his part. Anyone who says they saw that one coming is a fucking liar :)
Pretty cool really too, because Michael Bay had us all thinking Shockwave was going to be the main badass in this one. Nicely done, Mike.
That said, 'ole Shockwave could've used more screen time though, I'll admit to that one. Like Megatron basically sitting on the sidelines during much of the show, he was a bit underutilised.
I didn't think much of Sam's new girlfriend (outside of having a great set of legs and an arse to die for, of course). While I wasn't a big fan of Megan Fox back in the day, this new chick actually has me missing her. I'll admit that I think the chemistry between Shia and Megan was better than with Shia and Rosie.
That's not necessarily fair, mind you, because Sam started with Megan and was with her for two movies, compared to Rosie being the newcomer in just this one movie.
There have been a couple of long threads over at IMDB about the death of Ironhide. I always really liked Ironhide in the cartoons, tough nut that he was, and up until this third movie, it's fair to say he hadn't gotten anywhere near his fair share of screen time. Most of the combat that took place in the first movie showed him getting his arse kicked, and in the second he did absolutely nothing.
He redeemed himself though, and I felt good for Ironhide fans, because he was involved in a huge fight just prior to his demise, and we did get to see him finally kick some arse. He went out like a boss, and it's not my favourite expression, but it is fitting.
At the end of the day though, I'm always rooting for Optimus Prime. At first I didn't like how Bay made him so different from G1 Prime, but now, I fucking love him. And I've come to fucking love that truck.
Part of the reason I'm still so fond of Prime is that he continues to be voiced by the great Peter Cullen. He captured my imagination 23 years ago in the animated cartoon, and the son-of-a-bitch is still doing it now. There's a reason why Peter Cullen has made a living out of voice acting, and his game is as good as ever in Dark of the Moon.
I just fucking love him, too. If Peter Cullen knocked on my front door right now, there's nothing I wouldn't do for him. He wouldn't even have to speak like Prime.
Like I said though, there are things I didn't like about the movie. I don't care for Sam Witwicky and his personal life. You have a new girlfriend? Don't care. Trying to get a job? Don't care. Don't like your girlfriend's boss? Don't care.
Overall though, great. Pretty much exactly what I wanted.
Which brings me to my next point...
I got home after the first showing, and logged straight into IMDB. And the movie's rating was at a rather abysmal 6.9 out of 10. What the fuck?
People love to hate Michael Bay. As I've said before, I don't think it would matter what the man could put out.
I see IMDB ratings for movies typically start high when they're released, and then lower, and my guess would be that it's because the more passionate fans are among the first to register their (typically higher) votes.
Bay movies don't follow this trend though, and I think that's because there's always a legion of haters just ready to swarm. If anything, they see the viewing of the movie as a formality, because they've already decided they don't like it.
Just because it's Michael Bay.
So the quicker they can get the actual viewing out of the way and get that 1/10 vote registered, the better. Some even have more than one account ready to go, so that they can make their opinion weigh more than yours or mine.
I don't really care about their opinions. I mean, it's all subjective anyway, and just because I like Dark of the Moon, that doesn't mean I expect anyone else to.
The difference between us though, it would seem, is that I don't feel threatened by their opinion.
What can I say, definitely my cup of tea. CGI action for the win, baby!
It ain't perfect, mind you, but no movie has been. That said, it's closer - for me - than anything I've seen thus far, and it will definitely be my number one Blu Ray when it arrives.
Sentinel Prime, voiced by Leonard Nimoy, rocked. So damn good. Awesome character, and an absolutely shocking betrayal about halfway through on his part. Anyone who says they saw that one coming is a fucking liar :)
Pretty cool really too, because Michael Bay had us all thinking Shockwave was going to be the main badass in this one. Nicely done, Mike.
That said, 'ole Shockwave could've used more screen time though, I'll admit to that one. Like Megatron basically sitting on the sidelines during much of the show, he was a bit underutilised.
I didn't think much of Sam's new girlfriend (outside of having a great set of legs and an arse to die for, of course). While I wasn't a big fan of Megan Fox back in the day, this new chick actually has me missing her. I'll admit that I think the chemistry between Shia and Megan was better than with Shia and Rosie.
That's not necessarily fair, mind you, because Sam started with Megan and was with her for two movies, compared to Rosie being the newcomer in just this one movie.
There have been a couple of long threads over at IMDB about the death of Ironhide. I always really liked Ironhide in the cartoons, tough nut that he was, and up until this third movie, it's fair to say he hadn't gotten anywhere near his fair share of screen time. Most of the combat that took place in the first movie showed him getting his arse kicked, and in the second he did absolutely nothing.
He redeemed himself though, and I felt good for Ironhide fans, because he was involved in a huge fight just prior to his demise, and we did get to see him finally kick some arse. He went out like a boss, and it's not my favourite expression, but it is fitting.
At the end of the day though, I'm always rooting for Optimus Prime. At first I didn't like how Bay made him so different from G1 Prime, but now, I fucking love him. And I've come to fucking love that truck.
Part of the reason I'm still so fond of Prime is that he continues to be voiced by the great Peter Cullen. He captured my imagination 23 years ago in the animated cartoon, and the son-of-a-bitch is still doing it now. There's a reason why Peter Cullen has made a living out of voice acting, and his game is as good as ever in Dark of the Moon.
I just fucking love him, too. If Peter Cullen knocked on my front door right now, there's nothing I wouldn't do for him. He wouldn't even have to speak like Prime.
Like I said though, there are things I didn't like about the movie. I don't care for Sam Witwicky and his personal life. You have a new girlfriend? Don't care. Trying to get a job? Don't care. Don't like your girlfriend's boss? Don't care.
Overall though, great. Pretty much exactly what I wanted.
Which brings me to my next point...
I got home after the first showing, and logged straight into IMDB. And the movie's rating was at a rather abysmal 6.9 out of 10. What the fuck?
People love to hate Michael Bay. As I've said before, I don't think it would matter what the man could put out.
I see IMDB ratings for movies typically start high when they're released, and then lower, and my guess would be that it's because the more passionate fans are among the first to register their (typically higher) votes.
Bay movies don't follow this trend though, and I think that's because there's always a legion of haters just ready to swarm. If anything, they see the viewing of the movie as a formality, because they've already decided they don't like it.
Just because it's Michael Bay.
So the quicker they can get the actual viewing out of the way and get that 1/10 vote registered, the better. Some even have more than one account ready to go, so that they can make their opinion weigh more than yours or mine.
I don't really care about their opinions. I mean, it's all subjective anyway, and just because I like Dark of the Moon, that doesn't mean I expect anyone else to.
The difference between us though, it would seem, is that I don't feel threatened by their opinion.
Friday, June 24, 2011
Transformers and Michael Bay
We have Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon movie tickets purchased for Wednesday evening, and we also have another set for Thursday lunchtime.
'Thursday lunchtime?', you ask. Don't you work fulltime? Of course, but I took the day off in anticipation of its release. It's just how I roll.
As a home theatre enthusiast, I fucking love Michael Bay. Really, I do. I've seen the shit people say about him, all the no-plot gags about his movies, but I've gotta tell ya; I've spent as much time watching his movies on my theatre's big screen as I have any other director's movies. Without a doubt. Or do you think I dropped a little under $3000AU on a subwoofer to watch dramas?
Hell no.
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is a movie I often enjoy discussing. It has an average IMDB rating of a low 5.9 from over 114,000 voters. Ouch. It's also absolutely dripping with special effects, and sports one of the most intense, jaw-dropping fight scenes, that I've ever seen in my life.
In other words, you may argue that as brilliant as it is, it is also as flawed.
I won't sugar coat the issue, I've criticised the movie in the past. Some of the things that were added to it demonstrate nothing short of an adolescent sense of humour. Autonomous robots from another planet shouldn't be talking like those twins, they certainly should never be sporting a pair of testicles, and they shouldn't ever hump an attractive human female's leg.
I'll be honest, part of what made the first Transformers great for me, particularly when I saw it for the first time, was the mystery surrounding them. The Decepticons, particularly, used their own language, which was translated for us on-screen and everything. The secret and covert can be very cool like that, and it's something that was sadly lost with the sequel.
I didn't start this blog with the intention of bashing Revenge of the Fallen though; if anything, quite the contrary. It's a movie I was able to watch straight through from start to finish on my big screen barely a couple of months ago, which is saying something. Yes, I know, I mentioned there's a lot of crap in it, and a plot that just about falls apart, but sometimes I just want to be wowed with dazzling special effects and plenty of explosions. And for that, it does not disappoint.
I don't know why, too, but I find them a lot more re-watchable than most other action flicks released at around this time. Avatar, 2012, Terminator Salvation, Inception, The A-Team, I've got Blu Rays of them all, and yet... I so often find myself coming back to the Transformers franchise.
I will watch both of them again on the big screen in anticipation of Dark of the Moon's release next week, and then when it hits and I've seen it twice, I will no doubt show back up here to post my impressions.
'Thursday lunchtime?', you ask. Don't you work fulltime? Of course, but I took the day off in anticipation of its release. It's just how I roll.
As a home theatre enthusiast, I fucking love Michael Bay. Really, I do. I've seen the shit people say about him, all the no-plot gags about his movies, but I've gotta tell ya; I've spent as much time watching his movies on my theatre's big screen as I have any other director's movies. Without a doubt. Or do you think I dropped a little under $3000AU on a subwoofer to watch dramas?
Hell no.
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is a movie I often enjoy discussing. It has an average IMDB rating of a low 5.9 from over 114,000 voters. Ouch. It's also absolutely dripping with special effects, and sports one of the most intense, jaw-dropping fight scenes, that I've ever seen in my life.
In other words, you may argue that as brilliant as it is, it is also as flawed.
I won't sugar coat the issue, I've criticised the movie in the past. Some of the things that were added to it demonstrate nothing short of an adolescent sense of humour. Autonomous robots from another planet shouldn't be talking like those twins, they certainly should never be sporting a pair of testicles, and they shouldn't ever hump an attractive human female's leg.
I'll be honest, part of what made the first Transformers great for me, particularly when I saw it for the first time, was the mystery surrounding them. The Decepticons, particularly, used their own language, which was translated for us on-screen and everything. The secret and covert can be very cool like that, and it's something that was sadly lost with the sequel.
I didn't start this blog with the intention of bashing Revenge of the Fallen though; if anything, quite the contrary. It's a movie I was able to watch straight through from start to finish on my big screen barely a couple of months ago, which is saying something. Yes, I know, I mentioned there's a lot of crap in it, and a plot that just about falls apart, but sometimes I just want to be wowed with dazzling special effects and plenty of explosions. And for that, it does not disappoint.
I don't know why, too, but I find them a lot more re-watchable than most other action flicks released at around this time. Avatar, 2012, Terminator Salvation, Inception, The A-Team, I've got Blu Rays of them all, and yet... I so often find myself coming back to the Transformers franchise.
I will watch both of them again on the big screen in anticipation of Dark of the Moon's release next week, and then when it hits and I've seen it twice, I will no doubt show back up here to post my impressions.
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Bad Company 2 and Frostbite 1.5
Ok.
I'm now definitely leaning towards Battlefield 3 over Modern Warfare 3, when they hit at the end of the year. A week ago and you'd have had a very different answer.
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 was a lot of fun, and Frostbite is indeed a very capable engine. Destructable terrain can make for very interesting gameplay, especially when you're going up against tanks or even just a lot of soldiers with RPGs. I took shelter in a house against a tank mid way through the campaign, and by the time I'd gotten the tank taken care of, there was very little of that house left. I'd like to see all shooters end up going this way, because it's realistic but doesn't negatively impact the gameplay.
I'll admit that there were a couple of sections in which frustration set in, because for one or two areas, the difficulty really ramped up. When I got to the ninth mission, Sangre Del Toro, a couple of the passages proved very hard to get past. Not that challenging can't be fun, but when I breeze to an area just to get repeatedly spanked, the thought occurs it could've been balanced a little better.
While it's nice that Frostbite can do cutscenes well, there were way too many of them. They break up the gameplay too much. If I want to watch a movie, I'll watch a movie, and if I want to play a game, I'll play a game. Bad Company 2 is a bit like trying to do both at the same time, and I hope they go easy on them for Battlefield 3.
All in all however, I've had a great time with all of these first-person shooters. If there's anything I've missed that deserves to be included with these greats, someone please, let me know. What can I say, after 8 hours a day where I work, I always come home in the mood to shoot somebody!
I'm now definitely leaning towards Battlefield 3 over Modern Warfare 3, when they hit at the end of the year. A week ago and you'd have had a very different answer.
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 was a lot of fun, and Frostbite is indeed a very capable engine. Destructable terrain can make for very interesting gameplay, especially when you're going up against tanks or even just a lot of soldiers with RPGs. I took shelter in a house against a tank mid way through the campaign, and by the time I'd gotten the tank taken care of, there was very little of that house left. I'd like to see all shooters end up going this way, because it's realistic but doesn't negatively impact the gameplay.
I'll admit that there were a couple of sections in which frustration set in, because for one or two areas, the difficulty really ramped up. When I got to the ninth mission, Sangre Del Toro, a couple of the passages proved very hard to get past. Not that challenging can't be fun, but when I breeze to an area just to get repeatedly spanked, the thought occurs it could've been balanced a little better.
While it's nice that Frostbite can do cutscenes well, there were way too many of them. They break up the gameplay too much. If I want to watch a movie, I'll watch a movie, and if I want to play a game, I'll play a game. Bad Company 2 is a bit like trying to do both at the same time, and I hope they go easy on them for Battlefield 3.
All in all however, I've had a great time with all of these first-person shooters. If there's anything I've missed that deserves to be included with these greats, someone please, let me know. What can I say, after 8 hours a day where I work, I always come home in the mood to shoot somebody!
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Australian Aborigines
I don't consider myself an overly racist person. That is, I'll give everyone a fair go, regardless of appearance.
Still, I'll be honest, I've lived in Australia for about 23 years now, and during that time, I'll admit to one or two things having become apparent.
It didn't take long to realise that Australian Aborigines can be a nasty bunch. No shit, the level of hostility that they can rain on you, unprovoked or otherwise, is absolutely second to none.
You can be just driving down the road, for all intent purposes, minding your own business, and there'll be a group on the street hurling abuse at motorists passing by. And what abuse. They are loud, and filthy. You don't even have to be looking at them.
Now, I'm not saying they all behave like this. No way. But if you were to add up the percentage of crimes commited by an Aborigine in this country, and marry that up against the percentage of the Australian population being of Aboriginal descent, well... I'm betting those numbers wouldn't add up.
There's a reason I'm blogging about this, and it's not because I feel the sudden urge to blog about these people. No, the reason I'm blogging about them is because yesterday...
...we had a visitor.
It was all very atypical really, we had the landlord over to do a bit of maintenance. Some of the washers needed replacing in the bathroom, and the basin needed new tap fittings. The usual stuff.
So the landlord was coming in and out a lot, and it wasn't an unpleasant day outside, so we just left the front door wide open.
Myself and my fiancee were in the main living area, immediately to the right of the front door, just talking. The house has a pair of nice elegant internal doors separating that room from the entry area, and even though I couldn't see the entrance from the front door directly, thanks to the doors being made of mostly glass, the reflection cast actually allowed me to see the area completely.
At one point, I look up... and the reflection presents an image of this face at the front door, peeking in. Just... looking. I remember thinking how strange it was, because I assumed it was our landlord, except for the fact that I could still hear him working away in the bathroom.
So I walk over, and there's this guy standing there, staring in to the house. He was Aboriginal, in his late teens/early 20s, and as is often the case with them, hadn't quite gotten around to having had his monthly shower just yet.
"Can I help you?"
"Err yeah, I need a taxi".
Clearly, that's my problem.
"You want me to call you a taxi?"
"Yeah could ya? I need to get to Burswood"
At this point, I don't know why I didn't just point him down the road to the local gas station, or the shopping centre, but I just thought... yeah, ok. So I go for my phone.
"What's the number?"
"13 13 30"
"What's your name?"
"Steveo"
So while I'm on the phone with the taxi company, he starts to walk away. He points to his left, mumbles something about "just being over here", and then disappears from view.
Of course, by the time the taxi showed up, he was long gone. I went out to explain the situation to the driver, who just sort of nodded, and took off. Steveo was nowhere to be seen.
While Australian Aborigines have complained over the years that they've been treated unfairly, and that they should be respected, something tell me that getting a taxi was the last thing that Steveo actually wanted.
Still, I'll be honest, I've lived in Australia for about 23 years now, and during that time, I'll admit to one or two things having become apparent.
It didn't take long to realise that Australian Aborigines can be a nasty bunch. No shit, the level of hostility that they can rain on you, unprovoked or otherwise, is absolutely second to none.
You can be just driving down the road, for all intent purposes, minding your own business, and there'll be a group on the street hurling abuse at motorists passing by. And what abuse. They are loud, and filthy. You don't even have to be looking at them.
Now, I'm not saying they all behave like this. No way. But if you were to add up the percentage of crimes commited by an Aborigine in this country, and marry that up against the percentage of the Australian population being of Aboriginal descent, well... I'm betting those numbers wouldn't add up.
There's a reason I'm blogging about this, and it's not because I feel the sudden urge to blog about these people. No, the reason I'm blogging about them is because yesterday...
...we had a visitor.
It was all very atypical really, we had the landlord over to do a bit of maintenance. Some of the washers needed replacing in the bathroom, and the basin needed new tap fittings. The usual stuff.
So the landlord was coming in and out a lot, and it wasn't an unpleasant day outside, so we just left the front door wide open.
Myself and my fiancee were in the main living area, immediately to the right of the front door, just talking. The house has a pair of nice elegant internal doors separating that room from the entry area, and even though I couldn't see the entrance from the front door directly, thanks to the doors being made of mostly glass, the reflection cast actually allowed me to see the area completely.
At one point, I look up... and the reflection presents an image of this face at the front door, peeking in. Just... looking. I remember thinking how strange it was, because I assumed it was our landlord, except for the fact that I could still hear him working away in the bathroom.
So I walk over, and there's this guy standing there, staring in to the house. He was Aboriginal, in his late teens/early 20s, and as is often the case with them, hadn't quite gotten around to having had his monthly shower just yet.
"Can I help you?"
"Err yeah, I need a taxi".
Clearly, that's my problem.
"You want me to call you a taxi?"
"Yeah could ya? I need to get to Burswood"
At this point, I don't know why I didn't just point him down the road to the local gas station, or the shopping centre, but I just thought... yeah, ok. So I go for my phone.
"What's the number?"
"13 13 30"
"What's your name?"
"Steveo"
So while I'm on the phone with the taxi company, he starts to walk away. He points to his left, mumbles something about "just being over here", and then disappears from view.
Of course, by the time the taxi showed up, he was long gone. I went out to explain the situation to the driver, who just sort of nodded, and took off. Steveo was nowhere to be seen.
While Australian Aborigines have complained over the years that they've been treated unfairly, and that they should be respected, something tell me that getting a taxi was the last thing that Steveo actually wanted.
First-person shooter roundup
Thanks, in part, to my having gotten all E3 hyped about Battlefield 3 vs Modern Warfare 3, I have played through the campaigns of three of the more popular real world FPS games that are out there over this past week or so.
This is quite unusual for me, as it's rare these days that I finish any game, but that's getting besides the point.
The Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 campaign was fun as hell. The engine may be showing signs of being a little dated these days, but bear in mind, this is a game that's actually about a year and a half old now. I think it's fair to say that, as was said about them during E3, these Modern Warfare games are akin to being in the middle of a Hollywood blockbuster. Everything is designed to be going on around you, and whether or not that makes for a truly accurate depiction of warfare is largely irrelevant, as the goal is to entertain the player. This is something it pulls off very, very well.
I will say, however, that if you choose to play the game on the hardened difficulty setting (as I did), you may experience some frustration. I fully completed the campaign in hardened mode, but there were many areas in which I died repeatedly before being able to progress, and they felt somewhat cheap. Of course, in real warfare where it would take pretty much one bullet to incapacitate you, there may very well be times where your demise is unavoidable nomatter what you do, if just because of how much the odds can be so stacked against you.
The Call of Duty: Black Ops campaign I did not enjoy nearly as much. While there will be others that disagree, Black Ops having one of the lowest metacritic ratings of any of the Call of Duty games on pc would certainly seem to suggest that many others feel the same way. It's not a bad game, I mean, it's still 80+, but there were times, for example, where the interactivity really wasn't well done. It will have cinematic moments that require you to be at precisely a certain point, so if you get there early, the game places an invisible wall up to prevent further movement until the moment is ready to start. That sort of thing comes across as being positively amateurish.
I would also have to admit that Black Ops didn't visually impress as much as Modern Warfare 2, despite being released a year later. That and, I really wasn't the least bit interested in the story. What do the numbers mean? Who cares! I'll be honest, I wasn't playing through out of enjoyment, but just because I wanted to see him finally get out of that damned chair.
This isn't a rant against Black Ops though, and I want to make it clear that this game is so much more than just the quality of its campaign. It also has the zombie mode and full multiplayer practice with bots, something I've always been very fond of. Single player gamers have so much more they can do outside of the Black Ops campaign, which of course, is really my only criticism of Battlefield 3 right now.
Anyway, that's getting a bit off-topic, so...
Medal of Honor was the most surprising of the three. At first I thought the engine was DICE's Frostbite, but then, actually learned that it's Unreal 3 technology. That said, it came as a pleasant change from what I'm so used to with the Call of Duty titles. Among other improvements, I really, really like the hit recognition, like when you're shooting, you can see where the bullets are landing. Awesome stuff. You're also made well aware of when bullets are striking the area around you (including different sounds for them striking different types of surfaces), and I've always been really big on that one.
As has been noted, the Medal of Honor campaign is a little short. I finished it in about a day or so, which is saying a lot because I typically only play for a couple of hours at a time. I'll admit that I thought the voice acting was a bit of a letdown; it was satisfactory, you might say, but there were times where I felt there should have been more emotion in the lines.
I did like the setting though, I mean, Afghanistan, bring it. The story was, for me, tenfold better than that with Black Ops. I didn't get into it hugely, or anything like that, but it didn't bore me either.
I am redownloading my copy of Battlefield: Bad Company 2 via Steam, and I'm going to force myself right through the campaign this time, whether I like it or not. I've tried a couple of times over the months following its release, having actually bought the game back around the time it was first released (which is unusual for me), but I couldn't bring myself to do it both times.
This time I will though, and I will be paying a lot of attention to the quality of the engine, which of course, is Frostbite 1.5. For EA's sake, I would hope that it compares very favourably to the abovementioned titles, because Frostbite 2.0 is the only incentive for me to buy Battlefield 3 over Modern Warfare 3 at the end of the year.
This is quite unusual for me, as it's rare these days that I finish any game, but that's getting besides the point.
The Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 campaign was fun as hell. The engine may be showing signs of being a little dated these days, but bear in mind, this is a game that's actually about a year and a half old now. I think it's fair to say that, as was said about them during E3, these Modern Warfare games are akin to being in the middle of a Hollywood blockbuster. Everything is designed to be going on around you, and whether or not that makes for a truly accurate depiction of warfare is largely irrelevant, as the goal is to entertain the player. This is something it pulls off very, very well.
I will say, however, that if you choose to play the game on the hardened difficulty setting (as I did), you may experience some frustration. I fully completed the campaign in hardened mode, but there were many areas in which I died repeatedly before being able to progress, and they felt somewhat cheap. Of course, in real warfare where it would take pretty much one bullet to incapacitate you, there may very well be times where your demise is unavoidable nomatter what you do, if just because of how much the odds can be so stacked against you.
The Call of Duty: Black Ops campaign I did not enjoy nearly as much. While there will be others that disagree, Black Ops having one of the lowest metacritic ratings of any of the Call of Duty games on pc would certainly seem to suggest that many others feel the same way. It's not a bad game, I mean, it's still 80+, but there were times, for example, where the interactivity really wasn't well done. It will have cinematic moments that require you to be at precisely a certain point, so if you get there early, the game places an invisible wall up to prevent further movement until the moment is ready to start. That sort of thing comes across as being positively amateurish.
I would also have to admit that Black Ops didn't visually impress as much as Modern Warfare 2, despite being released a year later. That and, I really wasn't the least bit interested in the story. What do the numbers mean? Who cares! I'll be honest, I wasn't playing through out of enjoyment, but just because I wanted to see him finally get out of that damned chair.
This isn't a rant against Black Ops though, and I want to make it clear that this game is so much more than just the quality of its campaign. It also has the zombie mode and full multiplayer practice with bots, something I've always been very fond of. Single player gamers have so much more they can do outside of the Black Ops campaign, which of course, is really my only criticism of Battlefield 3 right now.
Anyway, that's getting a bit off-topic, so...
Medal of Honor was the most surprising of the three. At first I thought the engine was DICE's Frostbite, but then, actually learned that it's Unreal 3 technology. That said, it came as a pleasant change from what I'm so used to with the Call of Duty titles. Among other improvements, I really, really like the hit recognition, like when you're shooting, you can see where the bullets are landing. Awesome stuff. You're also made well aware of when bullets are striking the area around you (including different sounds for them striking different types of surfaces), and I've always been really big on that one.
As has been noted, the Medal of Honor campaign is a little short. I finished it in about a day or so, which is saying a lot because I typically only play for a couple of hours at a time. I'll admit that I thought the voice acting was a bit of a letdown; it was satisfactory, you might say, but there were times where I felt there should have been more emotion in the lines.
I did like the setting though, I mean, Afghanistan, bring it. The story was, for me, tenfold better than that with Black Ops. I didn't get into it hugely, or anything like that, but it didn't bore me either.
I am redownloading my copy of Battlefield: Bad Company 2 via Steam, and I'm going to force myself right through the campaign this time, whether I like it or not. I've tried a couple of times over the months following its release, having actually bought the game back around the time it was first released (which is unusual for me), but I couldn't bring myself to do it both times.
This time I will though, and I will be paying a lot of attention to the quality of the engine, which of course, is Frostbite 1.5. For EA's sake, I would hope that it compares very favourably to the abovementioned titles, because Frostbite 2.0 is the only incentive for me to buy Battlefield 3 over Modern Warfare 3 at the end of the year.
Friday, June 10, 2011
e3 2011
I'll start by going over the press conferences from the big three, in the order in which they happened:
Microsoft
Well, they've gotten a lot of flack over their conference, and I do think a lot of it is justified. That Star Wars Kinect game was actually generating a bit of hype; that is, until everyone realised the fucking thing's just rubbish.
I'll be honest, I don't think Kinect has much of a future. The idea is great, but it's just too damn laggy, and I think it's a waste of time and resources to try and improve the software lineup given its current state. It's a great first step however, and I'm all for evolving gaming off of the couch and away from the gamepad, but this isn't the answer. Not yet, anyway.
That all said, there's one more thing about what was shown in Microsoft's conference, which I will discuss at the end of this blog.
Sony
I'll be honest, I like Jack Tretton. Really, I think he's a natural on stage, I like listening to him, and I think he's very much down to Earth. I might not always agree with what he has to say, but when watching him at e3 at any rate, I can't help but like the guy.
Poor Sony had some apologising to do this year, and Jack did it about as well as anyone could. Despite it all, I came away feeling sorry for them. I couldn't have cared less about the network's downtime, because I'll go months at a time without firing up my ps3, but the perpetrators having potentially gotten away with our credit card details also, well, that's very serious business indeed. For a company that was just about humiliated, they rebounded extremely well.
Outside of buying the odd app for my Ipod Touch, I don't care for handheld, portable gaming, so I have no interest in their new PSVita portable device. I will probably see one at some point, and be impressed in it's processing capability no doubt, but there's no way I'd ever buy one.
I'd have liked to have seen more Playstation Move demos, particularly that Sorcery game they demoed last year (that almost seems to have dropped off of the face of the Earth). It wasn't to be seen though, and while Medieval Moves looked alright but not particularly impressive, NBA 2k12 was just much too gimmicky for my liking.
Thanks but no thanks.
Sony really impressed in one way though, and that's with their new Playstation-branded 24" 3d screen. Two players, each with a pair of glasses for 3d, will be able to both watch that screen but both also see completely individual unique images. Brilliant.
Nintendo
The Wii-U is a huge gamble. It's an about-face on their strategy with the Wii; going from a great small controller shaped like a racquet handle, to a huge controller with a 6.2" screen slapped in the middle.
If you think about it, the Wii-U is just an evolved Wii. It can use Wii remotes, and it will play all the Wii games, but it does 1080p over hdmi and has a controller with a big screen built in.
There's some potential there for some clever shit, but as per the usual, it will only really be Nintendo themselves bringing out the goods. All Activision, Ubisoft and EA seem to know what to do these days is make one title and port it across. Unfortunately, that's a practice that doesn't exactly allow for much in the way of innovation.
Time will tell on the Wii-U, but I think it's a pretty good bet that it's not going to sell anywhere near as well as the Wii has done. I'd like to see it be a big hit though, because I do love how Nintendo are so often thinking outside the box, but I do imagine them losing a lot of money on this one.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 vs Battlefield 3
Assuming I have the money to buy just one of these at the end of the year, I'm pretty much 50/50 at the moment on which of these it will be.
Battlefield 3 was looking good heading into e3 (thanks largely to the faultline footage), but then Modern Warfare 3 hit with some very tasty footage, both at the start of Microsoft's press conference, and also while watching the stage demo being played.
It was a bit surprising, to be honest, considering the mass exodus that took place a while back at Infinity Ward, but it looks like they're putting together a damn fine game all the same. Kudos to them.
That said, Battlefield 3's new Frostbite 2 engine is sexy. I didn't think much of their tank run demonstration at the end of EA's press conference, but it's arguably an extremely capable engine.
The Battlefield franchise has lost me of late however. It all started going downhill from Battlefield 2 onwards, when it was becoming apparent that bot support wasn't nearly as important to them as it used to be. I even bought Bad Company 2, despite the removal of bot support, not to mention the ability to create your own servers altogether.
While I don't really regret that purchase, I can't stand it when features that are once considered staples of a franchise are completely removed down the track. Many will not care, but I did, and it felt like they were giving me the finger. This is how you reward me for my loyalty all these years?
The excellent Call of Duty Black Ops, by comparison, is the first Call of Duty that I'm aware of in which they actually added in bot support. Not to mention, the full campaign and the awesome zombie mode. Talk about fully featured.
So yeah. 50/50.
Microsoft
Well, they've gotten a lot of flack over their conference, and I do think a lot of it is justified. That Star Wars Kinect game was actually generating a bit of hype; that is, until everyone realised the fucking thing's just rubbish.
I'll be honest, I don't think Kinect has much of a future. The idea is great, but it's just too damn laggy, and I think it's a waste of time and resources to try and improve the software lineup given its current state. It's a great first step however, and I'm all for evolving gaming off of the couch and away from the gamepad, but this isn't the answer. Not yet, anyway.
That all said, there's one more thing about what was shown in Microsoft's conference, which I will discuss at the end of this blog.
Sony
I'll be honest, I like Jack Tretton. Really, I think he's a natural on stage, I like listening to him, and I think he's very much down to Earth. I might not always agree with what he has to say, but when watching him at e3 at any rate, I can't help but like the guy.
Poor Sony had some apologising to do this year, and Jack did it about as well as anyone could. Despite it all, I came away feeling sorry for them. I couldn't have cared less about the network's downtime, because I'll go months at a time without firing up my ps3, but the perpetrators having potentially gotten away with our credit card details also, well, that's very serious business indeed. For a company that was just about humiliated, they rebounded extremely well.
Outside of buying the odd app for my Ipod Touch, I don't care for handheld, portable gaming, so I have no interest in their new PSVita portable device. I will probably see one at some point, and be impressed in it's processing capability no doubt, but there's no way I'd ever buy one.
I'd have liked to have seen more Playstation Move demos, particularly that Sorcery game they demoed last year (that almost seems to have dropped off of the face of the Earth). It wasn't to be seen though, and while Medieval Moves looked alright but not particularly impressive, NBA 2k12 was just much too gimmicky for my liking.
Thanks but no thanks.
Sony really impressed in one way though, and that's with their new Playstation-branded 24" 3d screen. Two players, each with a pair of glasses for 3d, will be able to both watch that screen but both also see completely individual unique images. Brilliant.
Nintendo
The Wii-U is a huge gamble. It's an about-face on their strategy with the Wii; going from a great small controller shaped like a racquet handle, to a huge controller with a 6.2" screen slapped in the middle.
If you think about it, the Wii-U is just an evolved Wii. It can use Wii remotes, and it will play all the Wii games, but it does 1080p over hdmi and has a controller with a big screen built in.
There's some potential there for some clever shit, but as per the usual, it will only really be Nintendo themselves bringing out the goods. All Activision, Ubisoft and EA seem to know what to do these days is make one title and port it across. Unfortunately, that's a practice that doesn't exactly allow for much in the way of innovation.
Time will tell on the Wii-U, but I think it's a pretty good bet that it's not going to sell anywhere near as well as the Wii has done. I'd like to see it be a big hit though, because I do love how Nintendo are so often thinking outside the box, but I do imagine them losing a lot of money on this one.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 vs Battlefield 3
Assuming I have the money to buy just one of these at the end of the year, I'm pretty much 50/50 at the moment on which of these it will be.
Battlefield 3 was looking good heading into e3 (thanks largely to the faultline footage), but then Modern Warfare 3 hit with some very tasty footage, both at the start of Microsoft's press conference, and also while watching the stage demo being played.
It was a bit surprising, to be honest, considering the mass exodus that took place a while back at Infinity Ward, but it looks like they're putting together a damn fine game all the same. Kudos to them.
That said, Battlefield 3's new Frostbite 2 engine is sexy. I didn't think much of their tank run demonstration at the end of EA's press conference, but it's arguably an extremely capable engine.
The Battlefield franchise has lost me of late however. It all started going downhill from Battlefield 2 onwards, when it was becoming apparent that bot support wasn't nearly as important to them as it used to be. I even bought Bad Company 2, despite the removal of bot support, not to mention the ability to create your own servers altogether.
While I don't really regret that purchase, I can't stand it when features that are once considered staples of a franchise are completely removed down the track. Many will not care, but I did, and it felt like they were giving me the finger. This is how you reward me for my loyalty all these years?
The excellent Call of Duty Black Ops, by comparison, is the first Call of Duty that I'm aware of in which they actually added in bot support. Not to mention, the full campaign and the awesome zombie mode. Talk about fully featured.
So yeah. 50/50.
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
But... shit happens?
Oh yeah, and I don't have a fucking clue what to call this blog.
I mean, it's not like I just ever talk about the one thing. Gaming, home theatre, life, it all gets a look in.
It's unlikely I'll settle on the name "Shit happens" for this blog. Not that it doesn't, but for now, consider it a temporary name until I can come up with one better.
I'd ask for recommendations, but I know nobody's reading anyway :)
I mean, it's not like I just ever talk about the one thing. Gaming, home theatre, life, it all gets a look in.
It's unlikely I'll settle on the name "Shit happens" for this blog. Not that it doesn't, but for now, consider it a temporary name until I can come up with one better.
I'd ask for recommendations, but I know nobody's reading anyway :)
A second welcome
Welcome to my blog. This is day one...
...except that it's not.
You see, I ran a blog up on my personal website, venturai.com, for about a year now. I didn't mean to buy a website, at least not at first, but my VQuest modification for Warcraft 3 needed a home following IGN discontinuing their hosting services, and even though it's a mod just about nobody was still playing, I figured I couldn't just let the website die without it having a replacement.
Those times are long since gone though, and when the contract for venturai.com runs out, there's no way I'm going to pay to extend it.
I've quite enjoyed blogging though, off and on, and I didn't want to just let it all vanish when the website does, so I've copied quite a lot of it across. That's why it looks like I've actually been blogging here for a year or so, when in actuality...
...this is day one.
So yeah. Welcome :)
This is an exciting time, anyway. It's E3 time next week, and I will be blogging the hell out of that one. Nintendo's conference should certainly prove to be more interesting than it was last year, on account of them apparently demonstrating the successor to the Wii.
Bring it on!
...except that it's not.
You see, I ran a blog up on my personal website, venturai.com, for about a year now. I didn't mean to buy a website, at least not at first, but my VQuest modification for Warcraft 3 needed a home following IGN discontinuing their hosting services, and even though it's a mod just about nobody was still playing, I figured I couldn't just let the website die without it having a replacement.
Those times are long since gone though, and when the contract for venturai.com runs out, there's no way I'm going to pay to extend it.
I've quite enjoyed blogging though, off and on, and I didn't want to just let it all vanish when the website does, so I've copied quite a lot of it across. That's why it looks like I've actually been blogging here for a year or so, when in actuality...
...this is day one.
So yeah. Welcome :)
This is an exciting time, anyway. It's E3 time next week, and I will be blogging the hell out of that one. Nintendo's conference should certainly prove to be more interesting than it was last year, on account of them apparently demonstrating the successor to the Wii.
Bring it on!
Friday, March 4, 2011
Absorb
I always love the use of the word 'absorb' when it's thrown in while discussing matters of a financial nature.
Our landlord wrote us a letter a couple of months back - just before Christmas, incidentally - and he used it to justify another rent increase with "Unfortunately we are no longer able to absorb the rising costs associated with the property".
Brilliant. I love that word.
It reads like he's been doing it tough letting us have the rent at the price we've been having it, but now he's losing money, and it's just got to stop.
Unfortunately, it's all bullshit.
You see, we had a great meeting with that Homebuyers Centre rep, and as it turns out, as far as they're concerned we can afford to buy. Ok, so we're borrowing about $400,000, and it's going to take about 25 years to pay it off, but it's doable.
The interesting thing is that we're going to be looking at repayments of around $550 a week, but that shouldn't be a problem considering we're already paying $350 a week in rent.
This is what leads me to believe our landlord is full of crap. We've been here since 2005, and we've received letters from tenants he's had before us too, so it's a good bet he's owned this property for at least a decade. Back when he bought it, he probably dropped half what our loan's gonna be, which occurs to me his repayment for this property is going to be in the neighborhood of, ooh I don't know, about $350.
He ain't absorbing crap, he's using us to pay this place's mortgage for him. Nobody absorbs anything these days, they just filter it down to the poor bastard at the bottom.
Same old, same old.
Does it scare anyone else working out just how much you may have dropped in rent over the years? We started here at $180 a week, shifted to $250 in 2008, and are now on $350. Assuming two and a half years at $180, the same at $250, and a couple of months at $350, it's pushing a whopping $60,000.
Never mind that though, by the time our house is built and we move out in a year's time, we'll have surpassed $70,000.
Holy shit.
Monday, February 21, 2011
Australia, the lucky country... not!
Owning our own home never seemed quite so far away as it did today.
About a week ago we had a call from a nice fella working for the Homebuyers Centre. We'd entered a competition of theirs online to win our own house, and he was calling to find out all about our financial situation.
After I told him how much debt we have, along with the pittance I get paid, he tells me that they might be able to help us out, and we set up an information session for tomorrow night.
Exciting stuff.
Exciting enough to have us enquire today at the National Australia Bank about what it would take for us to be able to get a home loan from them. The NAB are, for the most part, Australia's best bank (IMO). I realise that's a bit like having four piles of shit in front of you and claiming one of them smells a little less than the others, but I digress.
So we sit down, and their home loan chick hits us with it. Typically a home loan from them is for 80% of the property and requires a 20% deposit, so for a standard $400,000 house, we'd have to cough up around $80,000.
It's lucky I was sitting down, because if I hadn't been, I'd have hit my head pretty hard en route to the floor.
We laughed, and then figured out that, if we started saving now and really behaved ourselves, we could get started around the time I turn 44. As a point of interest, I just turned 37.
Pretty much never going to happen. Seriously, who has that kind of money in savings?
One option that's apparently quite popular these days (no doubt because so few people actually have EIGHTY FUCKING GRAND in the bank) is to have your folks set their home up as security for the loan. I'm not quite sure how that one works, but I think the idea is that the value of their home is used to help secure the financing.
Yeah... nah. I don't think so. Those without morals or values of their own (of which there are many) would no doubt be more than willing to have their folks put their own home on the line, but not me. My testicles work just fine, thank you very much.
I mean, really, if something bad happened and our place had to be sold but the sale didn't cover the loan amount, our folks' place would have to be sold to cover the difference.
Not in this lifetime, Jack.
I couldn't believe it, but the lady actually finished up with a line about doing the lotto, which is like admitting that their archaic way of doing business isn't really designed to help the everyday people out. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer, and if everyone could afford their own home, who would rent from the rich?
Welcome to Australia.
I don't know what this guy is going to say when he shows up tomorrow night, but he's going to have to pull a rabbit out of a hat.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
The airline off-loaded packages.
So I came away after my post last night feeling really good about myself. I'd given credit to some of the finest shipping companies on the planet, and my current item had just arrived in Singapore, giving it plenty of time to make it here to Perth ahead of its scheduled delivery date on Friday.
Then I went to bed, woke up, and refreshed the UPS tracking page, only to be greeted with the following message: "The airline off-loaded packages". That and, the big bar at the top of the page, which was previously green and said "in transit", was now yellow, and said "exception".
Uh oh. Going out on a limb here, but I'm guessing my package was one of those that was off-loaded, and that your package being off-loaded is not good.
They couldn't really be any more vague if they tried, so I googled the phrase, and ended up reading forum comments from other folks who had it and didn't really know what it meant either. The best guess seemed to be that the plane was full, and that some packages had to be left behind.
I'd like to know who chooses what stays and what goes, you know what I mean? I was picturing some Singaporean guy laughing at my name as he places my package aside into the "doesn't matter when we ship this" tray.
As it turns out, it was a temporary inconvenience, because another update a couple of hours later said something about it having been released by the clearing agency and was now in-transit for delivery. I'll admit that I considered this update quite peculiar also, on account of my not actually living in Singapore.
Up until a moment ago I was still reasonably happy though, because throughout all of this, the scheduled delivery date remained Friday. Friday is the best day to get packages, of course, because if gives you the whole weekend with it.
A recent refresh, however, and my heart sank. Sure, it has finally left Singapore, but the scheduled delivery date has now been pushed back to Monday.
Thursday afternoon, and at the last minute, UPS delay delivery from Friday to Monday? Are you trying to piss me off?
Ordinarily I wouldn't care, because it will still have been delivered a lot sooner than I was originally led to believe when I placed the order. The purchase website originally said something like 8-16 business days, and I'll actually be getting it in 5.
The problem is that, for the past few days now, it's been saying the delivery date would be Friday, so I've been prepping myself for that. Isn't the idea to set the customer's expectation and then meet that expectation? If it'd said Monday all along I wouldn't be fussed, but to make me feel like it's going to be Friday until right up at the last minute, and then delay it?
Not happy, Jan.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
A thanks
Over the years, I've bought a lot of goods online, many of which have come from overseas. I've had packages sent by a vast number of shipping companies; anywhere from USPS to UPS to Fedex to DHL to the UK's Royal Mail. Even Australia Post *shudders*...
As most are likely well aware, you usually only hear about the horror stories. You could Google problems with each and every one of those, and you'd get hit after hit from customers complaining about how their packages either became lost or took ages to arrive.
You'll even read posts from those who claim they've worked for these companies, and how they recommend staying away from them.
I have a different story to tell.
For starters, if I'm being honest I'm probably one of the more anal customers one can get. When I'm expecting something, I'm refreshing that tracking website just about all the time. As it happens, I'm waiting for something at the moment, and it's getting done just about every opportunity I can get.
So if they put a step wrong, they hear about it from me. Entertainment is my life, and when my purchases don't arrive on time, it's like Doom 2 Hell on Earth all over again.
Thankfully though, the vast majority of shipping companies have never put a step wrong by me. USPS, UPS, DHL, I have nothing bad to say about any of them.
If I'm being honest, Fedex annoyed me once or twice, but an extra day here or there is nothing to really get in a knot about. All things being equal though, I can see why they're not really all that big out here in Australia. I wouldn't not recommend them, but then, I wouldn't go out of my way to use their services again either.
Australia Post have, without doubt, pissed me off the most. I have a PO box with them, and it's annoying enough that junk mail finds its way there, but what really got my knickers in a knot was when they didn't put a slip in the box to let me know the packages I was anxiously awaiting had arrived. And yes, that's packages... as in, two of them. One I could maybe understand, but two?
All in all though, I'm happy with the lot of them. They are doing marvellous, marvellous work. Yes, even the clowns over at Australia Post. Thanks!
Friday, January 28, 2011
The Australian flood levy
The Australian Federal Government has decided to impose a flood levy to help with the clean up in the wake of all of the flooding that's happened over in Queensland. Here's the news:
The Federal Government will impose a one-off flood levy of 0.5 per cent for middle-income earners, Prime Minister Julia Gillard says.
A levy of 0.5 per cent will be applied on taxable income between $50,001 and $100,000 and a levy of 1 per cent will be applied on taxable income above $100,000.
"Anyone earning under $50,000 will not pay the levy,'' Ms Gillard told the National Press Club today.
"In other words it is not like the Medicare levy, which for most taxpayers applies to all their income - it is like income tax rates which apply only above certain income levels.''
Someone who earns an income of $60,000 will pay just under $1 extra per week under the levy, Ms Gillard said.
"A person earning $100,000 per year will pay just under an extra $5 per week,'' she said.
The levy would apply only in the 2011-12 financial year and was expected to raise $1.8 billion, she said.
Ooh, I'm going to blog about this.
And for starters, I don't hate it as much as you might think.
You might argue that's because, as a low-income earner, I'm exempt. Yes, I'm on about 35k a year, so I don't have to pay a cent.
My missus does, however, but she's not far over 50k, and we're only looking at about $40 or thereabouts for the year. I can live with that.
A lot of people hate it though. When the news broke, the main story on perthnow.com.au generated more than 400 comments, most of whom were having a whinge. I spoke to a few people at work about it, too, and they said they weren't happy about it either.
If you don't live in Australia, movies and media might have you thinking of this country like we're a bunch of laid back folks, generally happy to help out a neighbour in need. G'day mate, and all that.
Yeah right. We care about our fellow person about as much as everyone else on this rock does - that is, hardly at all. Unless something is actually happening to them, most Australians don't really give a shit.
To be honest, there's a part of me that actually likes this levy. Don't get me wrong, I don't like the Australian government atall, they're as corrupt as they come. They could fork the bill themselves, it's not like they don't have the money, they just don't want to.
No, I like it because they're going after the rich. The selfish bastards at the top, those for whom people like me have worked their backsides off for, finally they've gotta cough the fuck up. Bosses like so many I've had, they're as self-centred as they come. They wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire.
The only way to get people like that to give to other people is to make it law, because the cunts wouldn't do it otherwise.
This all said, I do feel sorry for the few who have already helped out, perhaps by donating in some way. Good on you, guys, people like you who have given voluntarily make the world a better place to live. I can understand, completely, how this might dissaude those types from doing so again, and don't believe they should also have to pay this levy.
Still, some of the comments people have been making sicken me. Seriously, some guy who gets $100k a year chucks a hissy fit because he's going to have to pay about $250 towards this. What kind of a wanker are you, really? $250 is like loose change to someone like you.
People like that, I don't much enjoy having to share this world with. We'd be better off without them.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Microsoft, for fuck's sake...
I'd been meaning to make the shift from a 32-bit Windows 7 installation to 64-bit for a few weeks now, but I hadn't quite gotten around to it.
Among other reasons, I was never 100% happy with having Windows running off my solid state drive. Yeah, so solid state is probably the future, and it's certainly faster, but my experience was plagued with blue screens at random times. As far as I could tell, I'd made all the necessary adjustments, and even returned one solid state for another, but the blue screens continued to exist.
Traditional drives may be slower than solid state, but it's the drive technology that's been used for decades now, and there's something to be said for that. Maybe I'll give solid state another few years and then try again, but I've also got to be honest in that I really didn't find it a whole lot faster than my WD Velociraptor.
Another benefit is that RAM for my system is cheap as chips (get it? chips? yeah baby!), because I'm still back on DDR2 memory. I was able to get a couple of 1gig DDR2-PC6400's for $25 ea. Twice the memory for just an extra $50, I'm down for that.
Anyway, I could resist no longer, and last night, I got started on it. I cleaned up my computer's internals, put the Velociraptor back in, slotted in the new ram, and started installing Windows 7 64-bit.
That's when Microsoft showed up.
See, Vista wasn't that great an OS, let's be honest, but I gave them a go, and shortly after its initial release, bought the full Home Premium Vista. Because of that, when it came time to move on to Windows 7, I was able to buy just the upgrade version. Sweet, looking after the customer that looks after you, that's what I like to see.
Only, I shot myself in the foot.
I got almost all the way through the installation of Windows 7, and that's when it asked me for my product key.
...and then told me it was invalid. Just for kicks, and yeah, I tried, it told me my Vista key was also invalid.
I knew what it was trying to say, that it couldn't find the OS to upgrade, so it was looking for a "full version" key. Just, it would have been nice if it'd told me that right at the beginning, rather than having to make me wait for it.
So - and I can't believe that I have to do this - but every time I want to reinstall Windows 7, I have to install Vista first. Wow, that's user friendly... not.
Honestly, would it kill them to have it ask you for your full version's product key if it detects you're running the upgrade cd? Is this where we're at here in 2011? I realise we don't want people abusing the upgrade version to get the full version in it's place, but is this really the best we can do?
This all said, everything's running really sweet right now. Granted, it might've taken a couple of hours, but I'm loving it. My solid state is now the drive I install games on to, and even though I've got Wow and half a dozen games on Steam on it, it's still under half full.
It may have been at least 15 years since I bought my first desktop, but gaming on the pc is still where it's at for me. There is nothing better.
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