tkioz the rabid bunyip

Things I hate about the Games Industry

2011-10-15T11:37:00.006+11:00

Just a list of random thoughts I hate about the games industry, though some apply to other industries as well.

Exclusives
I get why they do it, I really do, if a developer and publisher signs a deal to only release their game on the XBox 360 with Microsoft, chances are Microsoft is throwing them some pretty hardcore scratch, which helps cut down the risk inherent in making games. So I do understand why it's done.

It still pisses me the hell off.

It might be good for the companies involved, but it dicks over the consumer. Quick question, what has been shown to be the one thing all consumers want? Book Buyers, Gamers, Coffee Lovers? What is the one thing they all want? Choice.

Choice is the backbone, give people choice and they'll love you for it, take away that choice and they might still buy your product but they'll be pissed off. You want to know my favourite eBook store? Amazon has the best range, and some of the cheapest prices, but it's not Amazon. It's Baen Books. They might not have the best range, but when it comes time to check out I get to decide what format I want it in. HTML? Got that. Lit? Got that. ePub? Got that? etc. Amazon gives me one choice, a shitty format that they control. It's annoying because it removes my choice. If I want to view in my browser with all my custom settings I can't when I buy from Amazon unless I break the law and hack the book.

The same is true of the games industry, if a game is only released on the 360 and you've got a PS3, well tough shit you're screwed unless you want to buy another console. If EA is only releasing the Digital Distribution version of a game you want using it's download service but you prefer Steam? Tough shit.

As I said above I understand why they do it, but that doesn't matter, it's not good for the customer so it sucks, and in the long run it hurts the companies too. I'd totally buy some of the games that are exclusive to the PS3, but I wont because I've got a 360, and leaving aside the merits of each console since both are fine machines, and I simply can't afford to buy a whole other console just for a handful of games.

It's different for online services without a cost, but it's also bad because it stifles competition, the reason people are going to use Origin isn't because it's better then Steam (though it might be), it's because you wont be able to buy EA games you want through Steam. So it means neither side has an incentive to improve their services, because people are locked in. Which is bad.

All that being said, there are non-harmful exclusives, which are called short-time exclusives, remember when we use to buy magazines? If you subscribed you'd get the mag a week before it hit the news stands, so you had an incentive to buy a subscription. Unfortunately no-one has realised doing the same thing in the Games Industry would be a good idea. Give a game a month headstart on the 360, or a month of only for sale on Steam.
MMO Boxes
As above I understand why MMO developers need to put out hardcover boxes of their games and expansions, the publishers and retailers want it in order to cash in, and I would be fine with that if they also offered a simple digital version, but they can't because said publishers and retailers would go apeship. Why should I need to go into a store to upgrade my MMO account to the latest expansion? It's not like I actually need the CD or DVD, everyone is going to come down via the patcher. Anarchy Online did it. It worked fine, it was great for the gamer, and for the company because people can simply upgrade when they see something they want in-game, without having time to cool off and think "nahh I don't really need that".

I've got to make an account with the game anyway, so why shouldn't I be able to simply pay them the same way as I pay my subscription. Hell some games don't even offer a standard upgrade for their trial accounts, which is the height of stupidity, because you really don't want to make a prospective customer work harder then needs be in order to buy your product.
Currency Points
I think this one is going to be pretty damn common. Microsoft points, Cryptic Points, Bioware Points, Buggery Points!

It's just plain stupid, you find what you want, but instead of being able to buy it, you've got to buy the points for your account, then buy the product, needlessly complicated.

Again I know why they do it, and in this case it's unethical to a large degree, you know how you can only buy points in blocks? 500? 1000? 2000? You also know how products are never those nice round numbers, but rather 1200, 320, etc? It's so that you're overpaying without thinking your overpaying, we've all grabbed something like that and got loose points floating around doing nothing.
Always Online Single Player
It's part of the "treat paying customers like criminals" DRM trend. Don't get me wrong I don't hate DRM, Steam is basically DRM with a store interface after all, but I hate DRM that gives the customer no advantage while taking away choice. It doesn't do shit to the pirates, because they've got a cracked version that they can play offline, it only screws with the paying customer and the trend needs to die a horrible death. I'm always online, my 'net connection is very good, so it's the pure principal of the thing, and of course the times when the god-damn servers they've got crash and you can't play what you paid for because you're being treated like a pirate.
In Game Pre-Order Bonus'
Pre-Order and collectors editions are great, they help the publishers and developers make some extra bank, they allow the retailers to bring in more stock and lower the risk of sales.

But I freaking hate pre-orders that give stuff in game, that stuff should be default. Pre-Order and Collectors editions should be things like books, making-of DVDs, posters, hell even the Night Vision Goggles that came with MW2 made me think about buying a game I had zero interest.

But an extra level? A different costume? That's bullshit and insulting.

That's all for now, look for part two coming soon!

RIFT: Response to Criticism

2011-09-04T01:10:00.004+10:00

I've been playing RIFT for a little while now, and you know I've been kind of enjoying it. I wont claim it's a perfect game, but for such a recent MMO (launched about 6 months ago) it is very polished and there is a stream of new content coming fairly quickly.

But recently I've been hearing a lot of criticism, some of it fair, no game is perfect, but some of it is just plain stupid, and I'd like to take a moment to get these thoughts down.

It's a WoW Clone!
This is an easy one... I'd just like to say... Well Duh! Copying is rampant in the games industry, everyone does it, RIFT copies from WoW, WoW copied from EQ, EQ copied from UO, UO copied from MUDS, MUDS copied from D&D, etc. But you know what, that's not a bad thing.

WoW is a very good game, yeah I don't play it anymore, haven't since Lich King, but I will freely admit it is a very good game. So of course if you want to make a good game you'll take notes from other good games, it's obvious.

It's how we get new games, gradual increases rather then staggering innovations. Just look at WoW itself, when it first came out everyone was so impressed with an MMO you didn't need to grind for days to gain a single level, you could quest and enjoy yourself, but they didn't get hit by a strike of lightening telling that to do that, no, they looked at the MMOs of the time and as players of those games knew what annoyed them to the most, so they set about fixing it.

And hey, you could call the latest Call of Duty game a Doom Clone (God showing my age there, I remember when that was a common term), never mind the FPS genre has evolved a staggering lot since (in some areas, such as level design, devolved. at least IMO).
The Quests are dull!
Well okay, look at any MMO on the market, of course there are going to be tons of boring samey quests, kill 7 of these, collect 9 of those. It's nothing new. Granted some games have broken the mould (I personally LOVED the quests in DCU:O even though they were still kill X collect Y, the voice acting added a lot) or are going to do such as SW:TOR.

But you're not looking deep enough, there are quests that are actually fun and engaging (without the gimmicy crap some MMOs throw at you... looking at you WoW Vehicles), along with quest lines that span the entire level range, start at level 15 and finish up at level 50 with you doing instances and raids.
There are too many / too confusing abilities!
Personally I love the soul system that lets you build the perfect character for you, and I love the idea that all your spells come from your talent trees, because it doesn't end up with you being forced to do X just because your class has that skill, because if you're Y you don't have it. So no being forced into roles you hate just because your class can do it.

And frankly I love having dozens of abilities to chose from, even if some of them are only used rarely, it's still cool have a big tool box to chose from.

Though I will admit some of the tooltips need cleaning up badly (Warriors especially)

Well that's about it for now, I know I had more things in mind, but I've lost track, so I'll end here.

Media Retractions - WTF?

2011-04-10T10:56:00.001+10:00

So here I am sitting and watching old episodes of Media Watch, and there is a bit about how a news paper ran a retraction, on page 11, about a story they had run on the front fucking page the day before trashing someone.

So I'm thinking how the hell do they get away with that? If you trash someone and need to issue a retraction they should be forced to place it in the same location. Trash someone in the first 5mins of the 6 o'clock news, retraction in the same place, not after the weather when most people are switching to another show. Trash someone on the front page, front page retraction.

Bloody bullshit if you ask me.

The First Avenger - Trailer

2011-04-01T23:36:00.001+11:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JerVrbLldXw&feature=feedlik

I'm not really a fan of Marvel Comics, I much prefer DC, but I will say their movies freaking rock, and I never thought I'd say I was looking forward to seeing a Captain America movie.

The Wii Didn't Start the Fire

2011-03-25T01:38:00.001+11:00

http://www.youtube.com/
Seriously awesome brief history of video games to an awesome song.

Halo Nights

2011-03-25T01:37:00.002+11:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch...

I'm not even a big Halo fan, but this is pretty cool.

Microsoft Security Essentials

2011-01-23T19:39:00.003+11:00

So for the last month or so I've been running Microsoft Security Essentials and I must say I'm impressed, I was very sceptical at first about a Microsoft anti-virus/malware program, however they got it right.

It's lightweight, unlike a lot of AV programs, even the old much beloved AVG feels like a 10 ton brick compared to MS SE, which for me is very important, I freaking hate programs like Nortons which drain more out of my system then any virus could.

It's easy to use, which isn't much of a factor for me, but at least it means it was easy to setup.

And best of all it just plain works, and doesn't bug me.

So I give it a 4/5, if you need a new AV product grab this, it's free (if you've got a legit version of Windows), and very easy to install and use.

Jobs Australians Wont Do?

2010-09-25T15:57:00.002+10:00

Okay so I'm watching the Colbert Report, very funny as always, but something came up, the often repeated phrase "they do the jobs Americans wont" and it reminded me of something that is said in Australia a fair bit as well, the problem is it's total bullshit.

It's not that Australians (and Americans) wont do the jobs commonly done by illegal immigrants, backpackers, and new immigrants, it's that they can't do those jobs, it's just not possible. Now let me explain, speaking from experience from where I live backpackers often come in and pick up seasonal work that use to go to local workers, they work for cheaper as they don't have to worry about paying the rent, putting food on the table, making sure their kids have something to wear, no, they just want some extra spending money on their holiday, so farms employee these workers at less then what it would cost for an Australian worker, great for the farm in the short term, horrible for the local economy.

The same can be said of other types of migrant workers all over the world, they are paid less then what the local people would expect for the same job, because they have lower over-heads, often times working for cash in hand ($100 cash in hand is worth more then $150 paid correctly, after tax, super, etc is taken out), this in turn drives down what farms are willing to pay, why should they pay local workers what they need in order to live if they can get workers for cheaper? This leads to the expression "they do the jobs XYZ wont do", which is patently false.

Now I'm not against migrants picking up work (well I am against backpackers, fuck off you cunts, you're either here working, in which case you should be paying tax, or here on holiday, stop trying to have it both), I just think that in order for it to be fair for local workers, and migrants the governments of the world need to pull their thumbs out and sort out this problem, by enforcing minimum wage, by enforcing fair treatment, by stopping the exploitation of migrant workers; doing that will not only help the migrant workers, but the local workers as well, because pay rates will go back to where they were, allowing them to take jobs they currently can't because the pay isn't enough to live on.

The Burqa is insulting to Men!

2010-09-20T23:26:00.003+10:00

Recently there has been some debate, sparked mainly by that idiot in Sydney, about banning the Burqa (the Muslim full head covering worn by women). There have been many comments on both sides, very few worth the air used to voice them, but one thing that stands out is the woman who said that women who wear them are "liberated", it was that that incensed me.

It harkens back to the comments made a few years ago by the moron who said that women who go around uncovered are asking to be raped, both statements are very insulting not just to women, not just to Australians, but to men, the male gender, as well.

It implies that we are slaves to our sexual organs, that we can not control ourselves, that we do not know right from wrong, that we are one step above animals looking for a place, if you'll forgive my vulgarity, to stick our dicks, regardless of the willingness of our partner; and that it is up to woman, the smarter, fairer, gender to hide themselves lest we loose control of ourselves.

To that, I say Bullshit, yes there are men who can not control themselves, yes there are men who murder, yes there are men who rape, but you know what, for every single man who acts like that there are a thousand, or more, who do not, who could not imagine doing such a thing.

For every man that strikes his spouse there are hundreds and thousands who find the very thought of doing so repugnant; for every sexual deviant who can only get aroused by violence there are uncounted men who would rather cut of their own sex organs then even contemplate doing something so hideous, for every criminal there are many more who live their lives in peace.

So, stop using us as an excuse, any man who claims that women should be forced to be covered lest he be overcome with lust is not a man, and needs to seek medical help; stop using your own inadequacy as an excuse for this repressive "tradition", and women on the side of this debate, if you want to wear it, fine, but don't place the blame on the millions of good men around you.

Microsoft can fuck off.

2010-06-22T16:37:00.002+10:00

So I'm doing my online study and I'm starting to get really fucking pissed off. I signed up for IT Applications and Software Development, I did not sign up for Microsoft Applications and Microsoft Development.

SO STOP FUCKING REQUIRING ME TO HAVE MICROSOFT FUCKING OFFICE.

I use Google Docs for everything, mainly because I do not use pirate software (anymore) and I'm not dropping hundreds of fucking dollars on something I do not fucking need.

Just today I had to muddle through some stupid fucking spreadsheet bullshit that was written for people exclusively using MS Excel, it was a fucking nightmare, rather then explaining how to do the formulas they simply gave them and said use these menus... fucking wonderful. Then they wanted a macro.... GAH. FUCK IT.

Seriously sick of this shit.

Laws We Need (Part 1)

2010-06-21T23:58:00.002+10:00

I've been thinking a lot lately about things that are fucked up in our (western) society.

You often hear people bitching about "fine print" with the reply "we'll it's your own fault you didn't read it before signing it"

Have those people tried reading some of the fucking "simple" contracts out there? They are about as easy to read as War and Peace, even signing up for a $2 a month service can have a 20 page long contract.

It's stupid and needs changing, I propose the following law.

All consumer contracts must have a correspondence plain text version written in such a way an average adult can comprehend what they are agreeing with, with a limit on the amount of text that can be used. I suggest the limit be imposed based on the value of the service, for example a mobile telephone service of $30 a month can have a plain text contract of at most 700 words.

The plain text contracts themselves must conform a set template and may not "friendly" up wording, if they can change the terms of the contract at anytime it must say that, not something about "in order to be serve bleh bleh bleh".

So what do you think?

Moral Inflexibility in Games

2010-02-16T11:49:00.000+11:00

So games with moral choice systems have been getting better, no longer is the choice to either save the orphan or burn him alive, but it's still got a long way to go.

Take for example the Tenpenny Tower's quest in Fallout 3, where the "good" action is basically acting like a retard, or in the same game the Vampire quest line where you are basically acting like an enforcer running a protection racket. Then there are a number of quests in Mass Effect 2, a game that generally gets the moral choice system pretty right, for example one of the first "found" missions you do via scanning has you finding data that could harm your partners if released to the public.

Of course the good action is to send it to the authorities, the neutral to send it back to them, and the "evil" to keep it for yourself, seems pretty straight forward right? send it to the public to be a good guy, wrong, moral choices very rarely exist in a vacuum, you never forget in the game that you're working with them because it's the only choice, so antagonising them is plain stupid, the good choice should be to keep the data, and the evil choice should be to send it back to them. After all there is nothing stopping you releasing it once you're done with them? Now some people might say that fits the definition of Mass Effect 2's morality system, which defines the actions as moral and ruthless, and keeping the data back is pretty ruthless (I'd personally say intelligent).

But the problem is, in most games with a moral choice system, it's one or the other, you can't be an angel and a demon, and there is no reward for being a well rounded character, and you're punished for taking different actions, for every "evil" action you take, even in games that don't take away from your "good" score like Mass Effect 2, you're punished because you've lost access to those "good" points which can drastically effect the plot, forcing you to make decisions you'd never make in the same situation if it was reality.

You often hear players say "this playthrough I'll be evil" or similar, but is that something we want as gamers? or would it be better to let us play the game as we want? making decisions based on the situation as if we were there, rather then forcing us to conform to a pre-established moral system.

Raise the legal drinking age to 21?

2010-02-10T21:04:00.004+11:00

So the other night I was watching Q&A on the ABC where they had the PM Kevin Rudd being asked questions by a bunch of 16-25 year olds (I think that was the age group), and one of the questions was "should the legal drinking age be raised to 21" now he waffled a bit, saying there needed to be studies to see if it would have an impact on the road toll, good answer, but when asked his personal opinion if he wants it, he said "of course".

Now this yeah I'll be 30, so it has no impact on me, I don't have kids, don't plan on having kids, so again no impact on me, but one thing I would like to point out, is the double standard.

In Australia 18 is the age when you are considered an adult in all things, you can drink, you can drive (not at the same time you morons), you can enlist, or join the police forces, etc, etc. My issue with the idea of raising the drinking age, which for all I know might actually make an impact, is that it splits that, either you're an adult with all the rights and responsibilities that come with it at 18, or your not.

If you're not careful you'll end up with situations like they have in America where kids are fighting wars before their legally allowed to buy a beer, and frankly, that disgusts me.

Damn American Dates!

2010-02-05T14:00:00.002+11:00

Okay this might sound kind of petty, but it's an annoyance and we all know how well I deal with those don't we? So I'm watching the Fallout New Vegas trailer (see below) and at the very end it says "Fall 2010"... and I just want to /facepalm because I have no fucking clue when that is, for starters Australia doesn't have "fall", we have Summer, Spring, Winter, Autumn, so is "fall" Spring or Autumn? And then there is the fact that the seasons are reversed down here, Summer is around the new year... Winter is the middle of the year...

Why can't they realise that the Internet is a global thing and just say "Q3" 2010? Everyone can work out what quarter 3 means, it means July to September... anyway looks pretty nice, even if it confuses the fuck out of me on when it's coming out.

Limitations of English

2010-02-02T19:42:00.002+11:00

So last night I was doing a bit of day dreaming while I was suppose to be fixing something, I had made a note to someone online that I was a little bit sad now that I've finished Dragon Age and Mass Effect 2, very good games, as it means that there aren't any games coming out anytime soon that I'm really excited about.

At this point he told me "get a life!"... which put my back up as I replied this sadness wasn't "a family member died" or even "my pet died", it was a tiny sadness on par with "oh, my favourite TV show is finished for good". He apologised and empathised, understanding what I meant.

But that got me thinking, English is so wonderfully precise about something, with dozens of different words with slightly different meanings for some things, but so horrible imprecise about emotions.

Take for example the word Love, in English the word can mean so many different things, all depending on context, yet other languages such as Ancient Greek they had 5 different words for love, each depending on context, the two most famous were Agápe (family / friend love) and Éros (romantic love).

It makes me wonder why English with it's complex grammar and wide range of words for the simplest concepts doesn't have different words to convey different levels of the most complex thing humans can experience, emotions, hell we don't even have our own word for "person I'm going to marry" having to borrow it from the French (fiancée).

It's odd, really.

Vatican popes slippers in mouth...

2010-01-12T22:23:00.003+11:00

So the Vatican has opened it's big gaping maw yet again and done more to hurt Christian progress then any number of Muslim extremists... by commenting on a fucking movie.

The Vatican has described the science fiction film 'Avatar', which has taken $1 billion (£600m) at the box office, as bland, cliched and overly-sentimental.
Telegraph.co.uk

I mean seriously, I didn't really care for the plot that much, or the acting (by humans at least), but the effects were exceptional, and the 3D interesting if not a little annoying after a while (fucking 3d glasses suck)... but honestly, it's not like Dogma which everyone knew was going to hank them off majorly, as far I can remember it doesn't even reference human religions, just the one it made up, and damn near all Fantasy and Sci-Fi fiction (book, games, movies, etc) does that, so what the fuck are they doing?

It's either a ploy to get attention by bagging something "popular" (I'm at least happy it beat that Twilight shit into the ground money wise, if they want to beat up on a movie, try that dribble, unlike Avatar it at least has it coming) or they are honestly stupid enough to think people want them to do movie reviews rather then you know... doing shit that actually matters... sort of like the various governments around the world.

I'm not a huge fan of the catholic church, that's not for any faith based reasons, which I wont get into, but rather their lack of doing anything, they have massive amounts of money and real-estate, constantly open their traps, and totally fail to live up to Christ's legacy.

You know Christ the dude who went around not only preaching and saving souls, but doing a lot of practical earthly good at the same time.

So yea... they need to shut their pie holes and start acting like Christians... you know doing good works rather then sitting around in their palace drinking expensive wine and eating 5 star meals.

3D: Time Is Circular.

2010-01-11T20:17:00.004+11:00

So what's with the obsession about 3d all of a sudden? Sure Avatar was an awesome movie effects wise and the 3d was pretty cool (apart from the fact my bladder was about to explode after a 3 hour movie without an intermission... and my nose hurt from two sets of glasses sitting on my face)... but really why all the 3D rage?

Are people really that into it? 3D movies (can sort of see the attraction if it suits the movies, but most movies would be ruined in 3D), but 3D home TVs and 3D video games? pfft it's a novelty I guess...

But really I'm not that interested in it, I doubt I'll ever buy a 3D TV unless it's one of those things that can bog standard with the model I want, and I know I'll never bother with 3d games, it's just something else to give me a damn headache, I already can't read what's on my TV without my glasses, so wearing two sets all the time to get the details and the effect would just ruin it for me.

Also frankly I play games for the game play, not the graphics, the graphics are icing, the game play is the cake.

I guess it's all James Cameron's fault... Avatar was great... but it's like being back in the 80s with everyone (companies) pushing 3D on us... What's next? Shoulder Padding?

"Racist" Australian KFC Ad - An Australian Rant

2010-01-08T19:44:00.000+11:00

So here is my rant back at the fucking septic tanks.

KFC Ad: Americans need to pull their heads in.

2010-01-07T09:18:00.002+11:00

A KFC advertisement that shows an Australian cricket supporter giving fried chicken to West Indies fans has caused outrage in the US, where it has been interpreted as racist.
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/990933/racist-kfc-cricket-ad-causes-uproar-in-us

So the yanks are being stupid asses again. I could sort of understand the buzz over the Jackson Jive skit, but this... it's just beyond pathetic. It's an ad focused on Australians... who at the time are playing Cricket against the West Indies... it has nothing to fucking do with the fucking yanks. So fucking pull your heads in you cocks.

Dragon Age Expansion!!!

2010-01-06T14:25:00.001+11:00

Woot. Seriously fucking awesome, 15+ more hours of Dragon Age!!!
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/97247-Updated-Dragon-Age-Origins-Awakening-Wakes-Up-On-March-16

http://dragonage.bioware.com/awakening

Word Ban List of 2010

2010-01-02T04:44:00.004+11:00

Using an app to tweet about sexting? One university wants you to watch your language.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/12/purging-the-queens-english-of-tweet-app-and-sexting.ars

I seriously fucking agree, take your time and use the Queen's English you fucking twits, there are tons of words, you don't need to invent new ones.

Studs and Sluts

2010-01-01T21:17:00.003+11:00

I was half asleep last night when a thought came to me, you see I had been reading a forum and one poster made a rather heartfelt rant about the double standard regarding promiscuity in our society, in that while men who sleep around are considered studs, woman who do the same are considered sluts. It's hard a new thing, been around for thousands of years, no matter how unfair people might feel it is, and I doubt it will go away any-time soon, I personally think it's rather unfair myself, but the question came to me, where did the double standard come from?

So I pondered and wondered, no doubt many feminists (and why is that word no long brings to mind Women's Sufferage but instead brings to mind an image of a high healed foot stamping on a male throat?) blame it squarely on "patriarchal" intuitions of the past, and they may have a point, but personally I think it goes back farther then that.

When you think about early, very early, human society you need to understand we were closer to our instincts, and woman held a great deal of power, every man wanted to pass on his genetic legacy, while the women only wanted the best of the best, just look at any group dynamic of animals for an example, the strongest and most powerful males breed with as many females as they can, the weak don't.

So from that prospective it makes sense, early human men had this inbuilt need to spread their genetics around as much as possible, while the females wanted only the best, thus limiting themselves to one partner.

And today this is still with us, man who sleep around are considered virile, while women who do the same are considered aberrant.

Of course this pondering doesn't absolve people from not overcoming their prejudices, far from it, many instincts we have need to be overcome, take for example the desire to strangle someone really fucking annoying, but it makes me wonder, what other societal behaviours we have that come from such roots?

Any thoughts?

Sequel Needed: The Day The Earth Stood Still (Remake)

2009-12-26T07:47:00.006+11:00

So here I am thinking about a movie I watched months ago, wondering if anyone else got the ending... I decided then and there I was going to make this post, you see the remake of the classic Sci-Fi movie The Day the Earth Stood Still was not only crap it had one of the stupidest endings ever, if you look at it from a "what would really happen after this" point of view.

I'm thinking of making this a series of posts called "Sequel Needed", anyway on with the show.

You see Expressionless Man (Keanu Reeves) comes to Earth to talk over what we are doing to our planet, something about there only being so many life supporting worlds out there and watching us kill one is kind of a downer, so he shows up, the yanks being yanks shoot him, hold him against his will, and refuse to allow him to speak to the UN (though what he thinks the UN can do is anyone's guess, it's a toothless tiger).

Anyway skipping over the stupid, the movie ends with him being convinced by a young black kid and his white step mother to spare the human race, you see he was going to kills us all with a swarm of nano-machines or some shit, only he changes his mind and instead stops all our current technology from working... that's right boys and girls, no cars, no planes, no power stations, no Ipods, even fucking wrist watches stop working...

And this is him showing mercy I'd hate to be on his bad side... I'd personally rather of being obliterated by WMD in one step rather then deal with the fall out of his "mercy". No I'm not showing my geeky roots, I'm not talking about life without internet... I'm talking about starving to fucking death.

Let's check the death tool from his "mercy", first off no power, okay everyone on life support in hospitals everywhere just died, mothers, brothers, sisters, fathers, old people, new born babies, just died. Millions dead. Everyone in an aeroplane, dead. Millions dead in car accidents, dead, dead.

Now we get to the real fun, no cars/planes/boats? How are we going to harvest our food and then transport it? Oh what? we can't? That's BILLIONS dead over the next few months, in one of the worst ways imaginable. Yea look up what a horrible way that is to go, and this is him showing fucking mercy? Jesus.

At a guess I'd say something like 90% of the Human Race would be dead within a year of the end of that movie, maybe more given what happens when you put a ton of dead bodies in one spot (pandemic time!), and then guess what? The survivors are going to be pissed the fuck off, this is where the sequel is needed, let's call it The Day The Earth Stood Still: Humanity's Revenge.

Knowing that there is alien life out there and they royally fucked us over would do what thousands of years of war, kings, queens, emperors, prime-ministers, fuhrers, and presidents have failed to do, unite humanity in a common cause, getting revenge.

As a race we're not a nice group of people, I personally think if Aliens ever show up above our planet they'll take one look at the shit we're capable of and run like hell.

I could see our race spending centuries rebuilding, making technology that works around whatever this dick did, building interstellar vessels, weapons of incredible destruction, and breeding, all the while teaching our children to hate this guy, and then one day, we'd go to war. And that's where I want the movie to be based, us fucking up this "Federation of Races" that decided it was allowed to murder our people.

The remake makes the following assumptions, technology is evil, we'd be better off living in caves, and people as a group are capable of forgiveness... err big fucking no on both counts. We do need to treat our planet better, but Christ, the death of billions is not a fucking a fucking answer. Fucking Hollywood bullshit.

Is it time for new laws concerning journalists?

2009-12-19T22:17:00.004+11:00

Over the last few weeks I've been considering a question, the question is is it time for new laws concerning journalists?

Journalists in most western nations have unparalleled freedoms when it comes to what they print, but increasing they are abusing those freedoms.

I'm not talking about journalists who publish exposes about war crimes, or dirty corporations, those journalists need those freedoms.

The journalists I'm talking about are the ones bombarding us with information about so-called "celebrities" private lives.

Just look at all the news coverage Tiger Woods has gotten in recent weeks, I'm not saying what he did was right, I'm also not saying what he did was wrong, it's not my place to judge a man whose claim to fame is the ability to play a really good game of golf.

For the most part defamation and libel laws only protect people from false hoods (and poorly at that), they don't protect people from having their private lives dragged out in front of the world. If he was a world leader or some other major figure whose ethics are vital to his job I could see it being in the public's interest to know, but he's not, he's a golf player, and he's just one example of the media dragging private lives of people into the public domain.

In my considered opinion the public doesn't have the right to know shit about him other then his latest score. It has been argued that they put themselves in the spot light so they're fair game... To that I say bull-fucking-shit. That's a watered down version of "she dressed in a mini-skirt so she deserves to get raped".

There is also the argument that they're "role-models" for children. Now as I've made myself known on a number of occasions I could give two shits about children or the catch-cry of "oh wont someone think of the children" but in this case it does have some merit, yes they are role-models, for how to sign or play a damn sport, not to be a perfect human being, these is no such beast, any more then Unicorns exist. Parents should be teaching their children how to live, how to make moral and ethical choices, not expecting sports players and artists to do it for them.

So with that in my mind, I think a new form of law needs to be introduced regarding journalists and the media in general, one that allows people to sue not just on the grounds of the truth of an article, but on one of the public's right to know.

The public has a right to know if some company is dumping toxins into their drinking water, undisputed.

Does the public have a right to know that celebrity a likes to have sex in a coffin? fuck no. And he/she should be able to sue a publication for making it known.

Now I know what you're asking, how would that help anything? the information would still be out there, well the first few times it wouldn't help, but after the first multi-million dollar judgement news papers and other media would start to think twice before publishing an article about someone's private life.

Well that's my 2 cents.

What do you think?

Daybreakers

2009-12-18T11:50:00.002+11:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayYiMygqlfo

mmmmmmmmmmm now this is a vampire a movie, no fucking sparkles in sight, just blood, death, sex, and gore! Vampires are back baby!

Oh and "We're the folks with the crossbows" is a fucking awesome line. Die Twilight, Long Live True Vampires!

Iron Man 2

2009-12-18T11:40:00.001+11:00

http://www.firstshowing.net/2009/12/17/must-watch-first-official-trailer-for-jon-favreaus-iron-man-2/

I think I need to change my pants...

The word "super"

2009-12-16T11:32:00.003+11:00

So here I am reading an article about Guantanamo bay inmates being sent to "supermax" when I got to thinking... why the fuck do people feel the need to add the word "super" to everything?

Let's think about it, "supermax" means super maximum security in this context... so maximum by definition means the most... super maximum doesn't make any fucking sense, you can't make maximum more fucking maximum it's already maximum.

And while I'm here, why do they need to call the US aircraft carriers "super carriers" I mean FFS ships already have classes, and one class might be bigger then another of the same type, why the fuck do they need to add super to the front...

Fuck. I swear people hate English. I blame Superman, without that degenerate interplanetary refuge we wouldn't have this obsession with adding super to every-fucking-thing.

What's next? Super ATM Machines (Yes I know, it's suppose to be there)?

Super Car washes?

Grrr fucking people shit me.

Star Trek TNG Rap

2009-12-15T06:10:00.002+11:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClP8n6asn3w

And just to cheer myself up after that massive rant below, I thought I'd share this very awesome Star Trek parody. Yes it's rap, but give it a chance, it's good and actually funny.

Damn the children. Damn them to hell

2009-12-15T05:48:00.003+11:00

Damn the children. Damn them to hell.

I'm so fucking sick to death of the "oh wont someone think of the children" crowd. Screw the damn children, look after your own stinking kids you fat headed morons.

In case your wondering what brought this on, it was hearing from someone how his legally purchased copy of Left 4 Dead 2 was stopped by Australian customs.

If you've been living in a cave you might not of heard about how the game was "refused classification" or "banned" in Australia due to the fact that the fuckwits running the country have no fucking clue actually plays games... you know adults.

But oh no, games are for kids, so we don't need an 18+ rating, so anything that exceeds the M15+ rating is "banned". For the record from what I've seen of the game, it's not a kiddy game and does need an "adult's only" rating, you know if we had one in this country.

I'm not even interested in this game, hell I haven't played any of the "banned" games over the last few years, not because I respect the law in this case, or because I'm afraid of getting caught, but because I'm not interested in those types of games.

But even still, seeing stuff banned for "the sake of the children" just makes my blood boil, we have X rated movies, kids are allowed to read crap like twilight which is basically a how-to guide for setting up an abusive relationship...

Speaking of books, is there even a ratings system for books? I've got some stuff in my collection that has some fairly detailed bloodshed/sex in them and no sign of any kind of rating, all purchased in stores. The John Ringo Kildar (good story, horrible politics not even subtly hinted at) series for example has descriptions of people getting their limbs blown off, graphic depictions of sex, and that's just the fucking TAME stuff in them. If it was a movie it would be R18, easy.

But oh no, we can't shoot zombies in a video game. And everytime the hint of boobies comes out in a game (see Mass Effect) it's like someone set fire to their bibles.

The same rational is use to defend the idea of a national internet censor... how about parents actually freaking take responsibility for their spawn and look after them and stop infringing on the rights of adults.

I'm so fucking sick of this crap. I don't have kids, I don't want kids ever and all I hear about is how we need to screw over the adults for the sake of the children, but there is an easier cheaper way to deal with this shit, make parents actually parent their kids... rather then plomping them down in front of the computer, TV, or X-Box.

It's time like this I want out of this damn country, fucking moralistic hypocrites ruining things for everyone else, fuck you, fuck your god, fuck your holybook, fuck your moralising, I'm sick of you twats, live and fucking let live you cunts, leave us alone.

Come to think of it, all the name calling, swearing, and just plain ranting isn't like helping my case... oh well. Fuck 'em, they'll just blame it on all the video games I played growing up and ignore my argument anyway.

WoW is a seductive beast.

2009-12-11T00:59:00.003+11:00

World of Warcraft is evil. I'd just like to get that out there. I played for a good four years almost non-stop, with only small week or two breaks here and there, and finally about 6/7 months ago quit.

I've been doing good. Now I'm not bashing anyone who likes WoW, each their own and all that, it is after all a fairly good game if you can get passed it's community of retards.

It's just I found it was the only game I was playing, I'd hardly play anything else, instead of reading a book, I'd play WoW, instead of watching a movie, I'd play WoW, instead of writing I'd play WoW, instead of working on a coding project or video or any other hobby I use to have, I'd play WoW.

I think you've got the point, it was taking over my leisure actives, which before WoW (and to a degree AO) were veried and while geeky, much more rounded.

Funny thing is, I didn't notice any of that until after I quit the soul-sucker, I quit because I was bored with all the existing content, the headaches (literal and figurative) that would come after long frustrating raid sessions, and then after I'd done a few bits here and there that I was actually interested in... that would be it for the week, nothing else to do. But I'd still log in, and sit there... for hours... doing nothing in-game or out.

I mentioned the community above... well if you've played WoW you know it's about one step above non-stop 24/7 riot without the police showing, and I don't mean the fun kinds of riots, I mean the burn down everything in sight while hurling hideous memes at everyone kind of riots.

And the forums were worse.

Err... this isn't going how I intended... anyway my point when I started this post was to related that today I was watching the IGN daily fix and they mentioned a new WoW patch, and then I got an email from blizzard about free game time if I wanted... then I noticed a video for the WoW patch on IGN in the other content box at the end of the video...

I've watched and looked at WoW content since I quit, but damn Blizzard knows how to make a good cinematic, always has, I've often said that if they went into CGI movies with their current staff of writers and artists they could put Dreamworks and Fixar would of the game in months.

So I was sitting here tonight, feeling slightly bored, unable to go play Dragon Age or AC2 due to the sleeping child in the lounge room (her mum's sick and we're baby sitting for a few days while she's in the hospital), and there sitting in my inbox is the WoW invite... taunting me... seducing me with it's tight lines and free epics...

But no! I've 6 months clean! I can enjoy other games! I've seen more movies in 6 months then I have in the last 5 years, and I'm finally making head way through the stack of books I brought over that time that I'd "been meaning to read".

So no WoW, you wont seduce me again! I'm not falling for your lies again!

Now if only cigarettes would as easy to quit I'd be free of my most self-destructive vices.

Victoria's Secret Commercial By Michael Bay HD

2009-12-09T10:24:00.000+11:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNScRM_NzLI

Okay, this is what the guy should stick too, rather then raping my childhood with movies like Transformers.

The Irony of The ABC

2009-12-04T22:33:00.006+11:00

Last night as I was laying in bed about to drift off to sleep, a copy of a Honor Harrington book on my bedside table, I had just finished rereading one of the chapters on Haven and it's dictatorial rule, and state owned and controlled media when a thought occurred to me.

"State owned media is almost always portrayed as 'evil' yet I trust the ABC far more then any commercial media outlet"

It struck me so hard I laughed. The ABC (Australian Broadcasting Company) is state owned and regulated, but not directly controlled, with many many people in Australia choosing it over commercial outlets due to it's reputation as serious and honest. Sure the government make a big stink now and then about "bias", but I've seen conservatives and liberals both make the same claims over the years, and other news outlets just plain hate them, so I ignore it.

Isn't an irony that people have started to trust state owned media more then the so-called "free" press to deliver real unbiased news about real world issues? I don't trust Newscorp or any other local Australian media, and I definitely don't trust places like Fox or CNN with their blatant bias, one on either side of the political fence.

When did this happen? It should never of happened, but really it was bound to happen when the media companies got so big they started to be able to impact the news they were suppose to be reporting.

Then there is the issue of profit, the search for the almighty dollar, I'm far from a communist, but when you start putting profit as the main motivator of a news organisation it's naturally going to lead to pandering to your audience, and that's when you start being news and start being entertainment.

The ABC is tax-payer funded, it doesn't have to worry about making a profit or ratings or any of that other dribble, so it actually reports the news as it happens, rather then slapping their own opinions on it or slanting the story to appeal to their subscribers.

There is also the factor of the ABC does less "cute" and "cleb" stories then their commercial competitors. If I'm watching the news I want news, not a story about some cleb I don't care about screwing around, or some dog down a drain.

I realise this is starting to sound like a love letter to the ABC, and that wasn't my intent, as a media outlet it's far from perfect, but in today's world it's vitally important that we fight to keep it, otherwise all we'll be left with is people like NewsCorp, and noone (apart from Murdoc, who recently said he wants the ABC out of news because it's "unfair") wants that.

And don't get me started on NewsCorps opinion of Blogs, for a company that blantently rips them off all the time on their sites, without even fact checking the stories, calling Blogs plagiarism and theft to be the hight of bullshit.

Anyway I'm done for now, I still think it's funny that I've come to trust a state-owned media outlet far more then any other source.

Whatever happened to the spacesim?

2009-11-27T19:29:00.005+11:00

So I went looking for a Space Sim on the 360... only to find nothing. And only maybe 3 Flight Sims, 3 amid the masses of unwashed unplayable FPS cash-ins. I then went and looked on the PC... only to find nothing since Freespace 2 (not counting the upgrades and mods for it)...

My friend Ashleigh got me a copy of Freespace 2 over half a fucking decade ago, and by the time I got it it had already been out for a good while.

So where have all the Space Sims gone? And don't fucking tell me that those 360 Arcade games for Star Trek and Battlestar are space sims, you can only fucking move in 2d.

The space sim use to be huge, the X-Wing games, the Wing Commander games (don't get me started on the 2d movement bullshit crapfest that is the newest version, fuck you devs) and of course Freespace, so what happened?

Did the infestation of retarded Halo/CoD/MoD FPS fucktards who think anything that doesn't fit into their grey/brown shoot 'em up world is "ghay" kill them off? Their are already less and less RPGs, with only a handful of really good ones coming out each year due to the same thing.

Seriously if I can browse a store and find over a dozen new release FPS games that are all the same fucking thing when it comes down to it, but only one decent new RPG (Dragon Age), a few pre-owned Flight Sims, and not a single Space Sim, there is something seriously wrong with things.

Yea there are other genres to enjoy, but some many other gamers are only into FPS games that it's starting to ruin it for those of us who enjoy more then yet another WWII "reenactment" (because apparently only US troops took part in WWII).

I mean I enjoy some FPS games, I also enjoy RTS, RPG, etc, etc. But really less and less of those games are coming out as well, while more and more sports and FPS games are coming out. I mean seriously, are we loosing our hobby to the very people who use to deride it? The same we lost most of the Internet to the idiots!

So what happened? I really wanted to go frag some aliens in my fighter and drop some torpedos down a battle-station.

Oh btw Ace Combat 6 on the 360, the only Flight Sim I could find that looked decent (I refuse to purchase anything with Tom "I've got a US flag up my arse" Clancy's name on it), really really sucks.

When Eyecandy is too much

2009-11-27T13:53:00.004+11:00

So I was bored out of my mind last night and was re-watching some old stuff I had laying around, and I got to thinking about some of the "eye-candy" we see in popular media.

I'm talking about the Seven of Nines, or the babes in chain-mail bikinis in video games, and why they annoy the holy shit out of me.

Don't get me wrong, hot is hot, and I'm a fan of a hot chick as much as the next guy, but having a hot chick dressed in almost nothing just to have a hot chick dressed in almost nothing is ... dum da da da! immersion breaking.

One thing that always got me was for example Troy on Star Trek TNG, she's a Commander on the federation flag ship... walking around in a skin tight body suit... Yea I know that in Trek Starfleet isn't really a military organisation, however, Uniforms serve several purposes, and there is a reason beyond the military utility as to why they exist.

They espouse uniformity (hence uniforms), a sense of belonging to something larger then yourself, they encourage a group or unit identity, be that a charity group like the Salvation Army, or the real Army. By being out of uniform she sends the implicit message that she isn't part of the group, that she is somehow above the group, not something you'd think a shrink would want to do.

It's just as bad, if not worse, in video games, take for example the ever present chain-mail bikinis you see in every fantasy game, they offer no protection, use it's a game, yes it's fantasy set in a world of magic and elfs and unicorns, but ffs that just means we're already working hard to keep our heads in the game, no need to needlessly break immersion just to have some T&A around.

As I said earlier, I'm not very PC, so I don't really care about any of the "it's offensive to women" bullshit (when those coke ads with the shirtless guy gets pulled off TV then they can talk, until then STFU) that gets thrown around, I'm against it on a more practice ground, it doesn't suit the story, if you've got a hooker in the game, by all means have her in next to nothing, but some tough warrior lugging around a sword bigger then my leg, she knows better.

Oh and what's up with the boobs on aliens, you've got reptiles with fucking tits... Jesus. You know what purpose breaths serve right? the feeding of young, the only reason men have them is we're a genetic modification of the female form, that's it, sure we may like to look at them, but the only real reason we have them is to feed kids. Reptiles don't do it that way, birds don't do it that way, or fish, or anything other then mammals (hence why breasts are called mammary glands).

So when I see a sci-fi series with a hot chick painted green with scales with huge freaking knockers I just want to go "ugg...". If they evolved from reptiles chances are they'd feed their young via other means, if they don't just go out and eat someone else's kids a few hours after hatching.... yea that hot reptile chick wont have the same parts as you either, sorry to say.

Okay now I'm just ranting... where was I...

Oh yea, I really wish more shows would have women dressed similarly to how they would dress in a real world situational analogue. It doesn't mean dress them in a burlap sack, after all a woman can be hot in conventional clothing or uniforms, after all if all we wanted to see was titties we've got the internet for that, it's the allure of what's under the clothes that gets us, show a little make us think about the rest.

Anyway I find chicks in uniforms mega hot.

Actors runing movies ... that they've already done

2009-11-26T19:48:00.003+11:00

So I was thinking last night, am I the only one who can't watch movies that use to be favourites of mine because of the giant dicks the stars in them have turned into?

I mean, I use to love movies like Top Gun and Days of Thunder, good popcorn stuff, but the second Tom "Thetans" Cruise walks on screen I groan and want to turn the movie off.

I mean seriously the guy is a giant dick these days, and he's not the only one, Sly Stallone's stuff has been ruined for me, since he's turned into a creepy old man.

Have douchbag actors ruined your classic movie collection?

About the only actor that I detest that I can still watch is The Goveninator, yep, sure he became can a politician (I hate them all, doesn't matter which side they are on), that's one step below "puppy killing halocaust denying jay walker" on the douchbag scale.

I guess it says something about his movies, or it could be that if you sat through Twins, Kindergarten Cop, and Junior and still enjoyed the gore ridden early action stuff before he started "acting" you can put up with anything short of trying to personally kill you and molest your pets.

So any you'd care to share?

Sports... /sigh

2009-11-22T14:09:00.003+11:00

Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) chief John Coates has taken a swipe at Federal Sports Minister Kate Ellis, saying she has gone missing on the issue of sports funding.

This week the Government received the Crawford Report, its long-awaited review of sports funding in Australia, which did not recommend the $100 million in extra funding being sought by the AOC.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/11/22/2749861.htm

Jesus Christ on a pop-sickle stick. What the fuck is wrong with these people? The world's economy is falling apart and then want a hundred million dollars extra to fund people who play sports for a living?

Fuck them, and fuck their little athletes as well. People are suffering all over the world and the nation, people are loosing their jobs left right and centre and they want us to piss away money that could be used to help them for fucking sports.

They already get too much fucking money in this country, fuck them, use it to fix the roads around here, or build more hospitals, or I don't know fix the education system.

Fuck Sports.

Dragon Age - A Love Letter

2009-11-15T17:56:00.003+11:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4OruGI5gRw

This game is perhaps the best game I've played in the last 2 or 3 years, including Mass Effect and Fallout 3, it beats the ever loving Christ out of Fable 2.

I'll do a more detailed review on it later, but for now, watch the video, buy the game, and love it. It is simply awesome.

Everquest, A Perfect Storm or Zeitgeist?

2009-11-13T11:09:00.003+11:00

Video at IGN.com

IGN is running a series on 10 years of Everquest (yes I know UO was first) and it got me thinking, was it a perfect storm of talent, creativity, technology, and passion that created the MMO phenomenon or was it just Zeitgeist?

If you don't know what Zeitgeist means, it's a German phrase meaning "the spirit of the age", meaning that if it wasn't Everquest and UO that started it, it would of been something else, but it still would of happened.

Not to diminish the work of the amazing people who made those games, they played their part and poured their blood into their work for sure, but it makes one wonder, if not Everquest and UO, what would of been born in their place?

V (2009) First Episode Review

2009-11-07T06:21:00.001+11:00

Second Review

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gbe5GQi3VFo

Why I'm Proud To Be Australian

2009-11-07T02:42:00.001+11:00

Okay so I was clicking around and found this.

"There is a dark and foreboding place where few men dare tread, and where those who do tread speak with indecipherable accents. A place that will rape your Christian soul and be left unquenched, sitting there silently... taunting your soul's now-swollen asshole with its maddening silence - where is your God now?! There's no way that such a hellish, fiendish nexus of putrid rot and agony could exist! Well, it does, and that place is none other than the continent of Australia."

http://www.badassoftheweek.com/australia.html

Check it out and be proud of our homeland.

V (2009) A first look review.

2009-11-04T18:58:00.001+11:00

A mini-review of the new series V.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgt4h6tWu7c

TOTD TV Advertisements

2009-11-04T01:47:00.000+11:00

Another rant video :D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJXfS8jA_DE

ToTD: Why Do People Use Twitter?

2009-11-01T03:16:00.001+11:00

A Thought of the Day video, I'm trying something new, and having fun with movie editing :D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9miQEklARJs

Early Retirement

2009-10-31T11:03:00.003+11:00

A Maryland woman lost her accounting job after a background check performed through the FBI’s criminal database indicated, erroneously, that she was unsuitable for the job, according to the Baltimore Sun.

Eschol Amelia “Amy” Studnitz had been working for Corporate Mailing Services since August 2008 as a senior accountant.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/10/ncic

Well congratulations Amy, looks like you've just won an early retirement, I'm betting you've got lawyers lined up around the block begging you to hire them and from what I'm reading you've got a rock solid case against the FBI and you're old employer.

Personally I wouldn't of sued myself if I'd of got my job back, but since they screwed you, SUE THEM TO HELL AND BACK!

I feel bad for her, really I do, but I also find it kind of funny really in a "hah some big company / government agency is going to get owned" kind of way, though given the way the legal system works she'll either have to take an out of court settlement or live hard for a year or two while it's worked out in the courts.

It's yet another example of why the legal system needs an overhaul, limits placed on the number of lawyers/assistants/etc each side can have, and limits on the time they can take. Cases should take weeks at most, not years.

5 simple rules when choosing a victim as a Socially Responsible Sociopath

2009-10-29T16:35:00.001+11:00

Well this one of my own videos, let me know what you think!

85 per cent support voluntary euthanasia

2009-10-27T11:13:00.003+11:00

A new survey shows support for voluntary euthanasia is on the rise in Australia.

The Newspoll of 1,200 people indicated 87 per cent support in New South Wales, which is up 12 per cent on 2007 results.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/10/27/2725076.htm

I'm a bit of a contradiction on this issue, I'm a huge fan of personal choice, but I don't know if I could make that choice myself, I think so long as there is life there is hope, I'd like to think I would keep fighting until the very end, kicking Death in the nads with my last breath.

So as far as the law goes I'm in favour of it, personal choice is king.

Incidentally that's also my view on abortion, I stay out of the debate because I'm male and thus it's not really my choice, as it's not my body, and until such time as they make it possible for another option, I'll stay out of it.

Though I will say I fucking hate how men are portrayed in popular media (TV/Movies/Etc) regarding it, some bint drops a huge bomb shell on the guy and then gets pissed he doesn't know what they should do after 30 seconds, when she's had days/weeks to get use to the idea. Then he's the bad guy for not wanting to make a choice, because the smart guy knows he's fucked either way, suggest abortion/adoption he's a heartless bastard, suggest marriage and he's a clingy twat, walk away and he's a deadbeat. There is no way the poor guy can win.

Ladies you've got our support, but Jesus don't put it all on us, it takes two to tango, if you want our input fine, if you don't also fine, but don't give us the... oh fucking wow I'm really off-topic here.

Okay in closing, personal choice is king, just because the law says it's okay to do something doesn't mean you have too do it if it's against your personal lifeview.

Michael Jackson is dead... get over it.

2009-10-22T19:32:00.003+11:00

Okay let me start off by saying yes I laughed at jokes about him over the years, but if you claim not too have done the same you're either a saint or (far more likely) a liar.

I liked some of his music, the early stuff, I feel vaguely (I didn't know him personally so I'm not going to claim some deep sadness like some dicks out there) sorry for his kids and family, just like any decent person does when someone dies, but honestly, do we need to see yet another news report about him?

He was a big name in the entertainment world, so I put up with the first few days of coverage, but after they buried him I expected them to calm the fuck down about it. But months have dragged on with them still bleeting on about it.

I even know some people who at the news thought "damn that's sad" who got angry about it all after a few days of non-stop wall to wall coverage, they were just plain pissed off about it and couldn't stand hearing any more about him. They turned off the TV in disgust, closed the browser window in anger, etc. That's when you know you've gone too far.

Come-on people... It's not news any more. It's gone far beyond tribute and reporting into exploitation. Just let it go.

Blacklists don't work, try a whitelist

2009-10-22T17:12:00.002+11:00

Every now and then you hear about some dude with a bee in his bonnet screaming "Wont somebody think of the children!!oneoneone!!!" and wanting to ban different websites using blacklists.

Okay cool, I personally have no problems with blacklists so long as they are opt-in, but you know what? They don't fucking work. Getting around a blacklist is piss easy, and new websites pop up all the time, so maintaining a blacklist is a horrible time and money sink.

Here's the fix, something a bunch of us came up with on Whirlpool years ago, and it was hardly original, it was just spit balling a way to offer a good service to schools and parents, sit down 30 representative members of whatever group you want to make the list for, and tell them to go wild on the internet, every time they find a website they don't object too, it gets added to a list.

Now take that list, write some software that prevents visiting anything outside that list, or hell just use the function built into browsers (easy as piss to get around, but most people are fuckwits), and bingo, you've got a reasonably safe internet for your kiddies.

Well until they work out how to get around it.

The government could even take it a step farther and make a central repository of these lists for parents, Muslim friend content only, Christian friendly only, etc personally I think anyone using one of those lists is a twit, but hey personal freedom is great, do what you will.

Trying to regulate the internet is like pissing into the wind, messy and very ineffective. Better to go with regulating people who want to be regulated.

Random Irks

2009-10-21T00:29:00.002+11:00

You know what irks me today? Reading someone seriously write "male stewardesses" in a sentence...

The word is steward you fucking dip-shits, and while we're on the subject, why the move to "flight attendant", sure it's accurate, but what was wrong with steward and stewardess? We don't call women "men without testicles" we call them women! What's wrong with gender pronouns?

I don't get it, it's not like when you read about "flight attendants" in the news or wherever they don't tack on male or female in front of it... so they might as well just stuck with steward and stewardess.

And that's my irk of the day.

British PM tweets bickie of choice...

2009-10-19T01:39:00.001+11:00

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has finally crumbled and revealed his answer to one of the nation's most pressing questions – what is his favourite biscuit.

The PM was repeatedly asked to name his favourite bickie during a live online question and answer session with hundreds of mothers on the Mumsnet website last week.

Conservative leader David Cameron and Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg had both answered the same question first time, with oatcakes and Rich Tea biscuits top of their lists.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/10/19/2717312.htm

And this is why the internet is perhaps the stupidest way to communicate with "ordinary" people.

They asked him that retarded question 8 freaking times. After the third time I personally would have told them to bog off and come back when they thought up something relevant to ask.

And then he obviously got smacked around by his PR team and was forced to go back and post an answer.

Of all the questions you could think to ask the leader of your nation... you ask him what his favourite biscuit is? What utter stupidity.

That would be like going back in time, having exactly one question to ask of Einstein and asking him "so dude what's with the hair?"

(Most) Prostitution is RAPE

2009-10-12T13:00:00.002+11:00

Okay so last night unable to sleep due to a massive fit of coughing up my lungs I logged onto the cesspit that is IRC, I jumped into a random channel, in this case #politics on fuck... I forget the server.

Anyway there was a debate in progress about the legalising prostitution and after a rip roaring debate lasting a few hours I gave up in a fit of rage and logged off.

You see I just couldn't get a lot of the people claiming prostitution is a "victimless crime" to understand prostitution is basically rape in a lot, and I'd personally the majority, of cases (not that I can back up the majority part, I don't have numbers).

Okay here's a question, man attacks, holds down, and has sex with a woman against her will, clear cut rape right? (If you said no you're a dirty scumbag that I hope meets his end shortly)

Now, take the same man, same women, only now the man has a gun, unless the woman has sex with him he'll shoot her, is it rape? Yes!

The same thing is done a lot in prostitution, the woman (or man, it does happen to men, but I'll just keep using the female pronoun rather then he/she) in question has a choice between a) having sex with a stranger or b) getting the crap kicked out of her by her pimp or c) going hungry or having her family go hungry.

It's still a form of coercion, just not as overt as the gun metaphor. And that's not even taking into account the women sold into mother-fucking slavery in some countries out there.

Having sex with a prostitute is more then likely (I'd say something like 99 times out of 100) rape in today's world.

Oh don't get me wrong, I'm sure there are prostitutes out there that are willing and not forced into it, by either a 3rd party or economic problems, and more power too them, their body do with it what they will. But those men and women are the vast vast vast minority.

Contrary to what you might think after what you've read above, I'm actually in favour of legalising prostitution, after all criminalising it hasn't been effective at shutting it down, there is a demand so a black market has risen to fill the demand, however in order for legalisation to be an effective solution you need to regulate the hell out of it, placing protection for the prostitutes as the highest priority and cracking down unmercifully on pimps (one of the lowest forms of scum around, just above paedophiles on my personal ladder of people who need to die a horrible death).

Incidentally the same approach would work well on illicit narcotics. Let's face it, there is a reason they call prostitution the "World's oldest profession", it's been around forever and not going anywhere, the only way to make things better is to regulate it.

Think it over people.

Scale Matters

2009-10-10T20:00:00.003+11:00

So I was watching the new season of Sanctuary (pretty good show btw) tonight and it got me thinking about why I like the show's look even when the production values aren't that high, for me I think it comes down to my catch phrase of immersion.

Sanctuary uses a lot of file footage and artist renderings for outdoor shots to give the feeling they are in a huge city or an exotic local, even when the set is obviously on a lot some where. It just helps me keep into the show.

Also I think it helps when they use realistic travel times when they aren't zapping around via teleport.

Then you've got shows like last year's Legend of the Seeker, I really really wanted to like the show, it had a pretty decent story, so-so acting, but the fact that it kept shattering immersion just broke it for me.

I call it the Hercules / Xena problem, yea okay we know one town in whateverland 200 BC looked the same as another, but it's hard to imagine a town with a dozen wood huts is actually a town worth defending/attacking.

But here's the thing, you could have those same shots, same wood huts, spend a few hundred dollars on an artists time and do an over-view of the same town, only expanded so that it actually looked like a fucking town.

It doesn't have be ground breaking CGI, just a plain old painting works perfectly to give the world a sense of scale, then fade in to the actors on the wood hut street.

Massive GM: advertising makes games better, when done right

2009-10-10T02:23:00.003+11:00

Whenever there is a story written about ads in video games, gamers come out in droves to condemn the practice. They won't buy games with ads in them, they say. It's a terrible practice, we hear. Ars Technica caught up with the JJ Richards, GM of Massive, Microsoft's in-game advertising firm. His message: ads in games can enhance the experience, not hurt it
http://arstechnica.com/

I'd have to say I agree with him, oh sure there have been games with advertisements in them that I'd totally detested, such as Anarchy Online, where it ruined the immersion totally for me, it's 20 thousand plus years in the future and I'm seeing an ad for a movie due out in a few months? Come off it.

But there have been games that have done it perfectly, my best example would be Saints Row 2, it has in-game ads on billboards that are actually based on real ads, and if anything they add to the game environment much more then any fake ad could, especially since they are region specific with ads that people in Australia/Victoria will recognise instantly such as the "If you drink and drive you're a bloody idiot" and other TAC slogans.

On the whole the whole in-game advertisements in that game were very suited to the environment where they were placed. I think it's a good sign that people like this guy recognise that gamers and tech users in general are fickle bastards (speaking for myself here as well) and that they, the advertisers, need to run the fine line between good ads and annoying ads that we take note of just so we can avoid the product out of spite.

I know I've done that in the past, purposely avoided a product because the ad campaign was so fucking annoying and intrusive.

I don't have any moral objection to ads in game I purchased if it fits in with the overall feel of the game, but heaven help you if you break my immersion with some shitty jeans ad, I'll cut your balls off and feed them too you.

Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize

2009-10-09T22:06:00.005+11:00

US President Barack Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize for giving the world 'hope for a better future' with his work for peace and calls to reduce the global stockpile of nuclear weapons.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee praised Mr Obama for "his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples".

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/10/09/2710141.htm

Okay before anyone starts calling me Anti-American or racist I'd just like to say to those people, fuck off and die a slow death you morons, you can disagree with someone without hating them.

Onto the rant, it was my understanding that the Nobel prizes were given for accomplishments and not to hate on the guy, but he hasn't accomplished anything yet, he's made some pretty major promises that I personally think are awesome-sauce and made some moves towards things that make the future look less like the shit-hole it was even a year ago, but he hasn't actually done anything yet.

It seems to me like they are jumping on the "Whoa first black American president, better kiss up or we'll be called racist" bandwagon.

Oh and before anyone jumps on the "he's getting rid of nukes! it even passed the UN!" thing, let me be clear, nukes aren't that big of a deal anymore, they've been slowly getting rid of them for decades now, disposing of those evil things is a lot harder then making the damn things.

Frankly the fact the US/France/England/Russia have them doesn't worry me too much... okay Russia's internal security based on my limited understanding scares the fuck out of me, but the major powers having nukes over-all isn't that much of a worry, they've had them for decades and not used them, it's the nutjobs like India and Pakistan (fine countries and peoples) having them that worry me, and the really nutso fuckwits like North Korea and Iran looking at making them scares the shit out of me.

And I don't see NK/Iran coming to the table, they don't see the danger in nukes, only "ohh big boy toys!" appeal.

I'm trying to remember who said "I don't loose sleep over the man who wants a hundred nuclear weapons, I worry about the man who only wants one" I think it was in a movie, and it sums up the problem perfectly.

Anyway I've gotten way the fuck off topic here, back to the point, I think Obama is doing good and has the promise to do a lot more good, but honestly he's not really ready to be given such a high honour, maybe in a few years, but not right now.

Edit: Seems I'm not the only one, but the Wall Street Journal are a bunch of smary pricks who need to tone it the fuck down.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/10/10/2710482.htm

TV is TV

2009-10-09T21:54:00.007+11:00

You know what I hate? The line "This isn't a TV show" or it's variants on a fucking TV show or Movie. It's just retarded.

I'm sure the first time someone wrote it down it was mildly funny, but you know what? In jokes aren't funny to those of us that aren't in on it and memes are even less funny.

Besides not being funny, they break immersion.

You know immersion that thing that's suppose to keep us from questioning why the dude in the funny hat is kicking the ass of the super-powered bad guy or why there is sound in a fucking space battle (other then it makes it cooler) or the fact that super model chick is married to a guy that makes me look like Fabio by comparison.

It's gotta be like at least one of the top 3 rules of writing, "Thou Shalt Not Fucking Break the Fourth Wall"

Okay felling better now.

PWNT: Somali pirates attack military flagship

2009-10-08T02:54:00.001+11:00

Somali pirates attempted to storm the French navy's 18,000 tonne Indian Ocean fleet flagship after mistaking it for a cargo vessel, the military have said.

The crew of La Somme, a 160-metre command vessel and fuel tanker, easily saw off the brazen night-time assault by lightly armed fighters on two open-topped motorboats and captured five pirates, a spokesman said.

"The pirates, who because of the darkness took the French ship for a commercial vessel, were on board two vessels and opened fire with Kalashnikovs," Admiral Christophe Prazuck said.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/10/08/2707877.htm

I don't think I have really anything to add other then the words of the great Nelson Muntz "Ha

Evolution is a theory

2009-10-06T07:57:00.002+11:00

Okay so I'm fucking sick to death of you fucking wack jobs, both lots of you, the intelligent design fucktards and the evolution is science so it's inconvertible moronic donkey fuckers.

Okay so I personally think evolution is the closest we've got to a real answer about how life came about (I also believe in god, shocking I know, but science by definition should be challenged and examined otherwise it's just fucking dogma. You know that shit you hate on religious folks for?

Evolution is a theory, it says right there in the fucking name, The Theory of Evolution you morons.

Now as I said above it makes sense and there is some proof that it takes place, that doesn't mean you should accept it as pure gospel truth (and the funny at using that phrase here is obvious to me thank you), science is about expanding the limits of our knowledge, until such time as there is incontrovertible proof one way or the other, or a better theory, I'm going to tell you morons to shut the fuck up, you're getting as bad as the bible bashers who think God put dinosaur bones in the ground to confuse us.

We're like small children as a race, we've just hit that point where we know just enough to understand just how much we don't know, so stop being so dogmatic and use the squishy pink stuff between your ears.

If God Had...

2009-10-04T17:34:00.002+11:00

Okay so every now and then I'll be reading about something new and exciting in the world of science or medicine and when I get to the comments section of the article there is always some douche bag saying "if god had meant us...".

Okay just clear up a point I believe in god, but I'm not overly religious, my faith in god doesn't need a book or a dude in a funny robe to exist, I can see why some people take comfort in it, but personally I think too many people take the dogma and leave the message, but that's a rant for another day.

Back onto topic, God doesn't want us living in mud fucking huts you morons. God gave us our minds, our curiosity, to explode his wonderful world and universe.

My personal opinion is that everything we discover and learn about was put there by god, science is the way we can understand this wonderful creation of God's will. Yes there is more to the world then just what we can see, but that's the whole point, for everything we learn we still only grasp a fraction of the truly majestic wonder that is this universe.

If God made it so chemicals made in a certain way cure cancer, he wants us to find it and use it.

I view God as a loving parent that wants us as people and a race to grow, to understand, to embrace the majesty of his creation.

Oh and also I believe in evolution, I think it makes sense that God the all knowing and all powerful simply touched over the proverbial pebble that started the avalanche. After all if you know all the variables you can know exactly what will happen if you set off an event.

So in short, stop being so fucking dogmatic you morons and try and us that mind God gave you.

Breaking News: Space is Fucking Big

2009-10-01T19:12:00.003+10:00

So I've been thinking about this for a while, you know how one of the more common themes in sci-fi is a big fucking asteroid or comet slamming into earth killing everyone? It's fucking bullshit.

Not that shit doesn't hit the earth all the time, and really really big shit has hit the earth in the past, and well big shit going really fast does a lot of damage (kinetic impact is the fancy way of saying it), no that's not my issue, my issue is how they always "solve" the problem of something really fucking big flying at the earth.

Rock the size of a small country coming at us like a rabid monkey and the first reaction is "err lets blow that shit up with nukes!" it never works, of course fucking not, you can't vaporise something that fucking big and even if you did break it up, you'd go from having one huge ass rock to having lots of fairly big rocks. Even if most of them burn up in the atmosphere you've still got things the size of houses falling on cities with an explosive impact measured in fucking megatons.

So they always move onto some cop-out bullshit sci-fi Dues-Ex plot twist, when in actual fact, nukes would work just fine.

Now you're thinking "Hang on Bunyip you just said it's patently stupid", and I did, but vaporising isn't my goal, you see space is fucking huge, so huge in fact that the human mind (apart from a few really fucking smart people) can't comprehend it, kind of like Will Shatner's ego, and our solar system is full of rocks and shit, and big stuff rarely hits us.

The reason for this is the earth is always moving, so it's two lines having to intersect at the same time in order to do any damage, now as anyone with any grasp of reality will tell you, the farther away the two objects are the less change they need to make in order to avoid hitting each other.

Example, two cars coming at each other head on, now if they see each over 200-300 meters away, they only have to make a slight correction to avoid running into each other, at 20 meters they need to swerve like a mother fucker.

The same can be said for things in space, only more so, a few nukes aimed at the right spot using math worked out by people much smarter then me at a rock far enough away can nudge the big ass thing far enough off course that it will miss us by millions of kilometres.

So in short, Hollywood sci-fi is stupid, I'm cranky and tired and wanted to rant about something.

PSA: Don't Masturbate in Public

2009-10-01T06:50:00.004+10:00

So I'm not talking about the actual act of masturbation, you know the thing everyone does, I'm talking about the act of mental masturbation, you know what I mean, the wanker going on about his latest project, that's basically public masturbation.

Here's why I'm sick of it, I was reading reviews about the movie Inglorious Bastards, pretty good movie apart from the fact like all Tarantino movies it's basically a feature length jerk off fest about other movies he considers classic.

It's just limited to the man whose name is really hard to spell either, it comes in many forms, just as the Twilight novels which are another form of masturbation material, only rather then keeping it private like normal decent people, it was published.

Oh and then there are games like the 50 cent (and who the fuck names rappers?) Blood on the Sands games, but don't even get me started on them.

Now that I think about it, lumping Tarantino in with "Fiffy" and the Sparklepire is pretty fucking harsh, so Tarantino I'm sorry man, really, you at least have talent, just keep it in your pants, now back to the topic at hand.

Every review I'd read about Inglorious Bastards goes on about the references and nods to other films, but none of them see it as a bad thing, why the fuck not?

It's not part of the narrative, it detracts from the story, personally I don't give a shit about film history, I don't hate it, or people who care it, I'm interested in a lot of weird shit other people don't get (such as spending three hours reading up on Damascus steel based on a throw away line in a trashy war novel), but when you're making something for mass consumption keep the fan-boy geekyness toned the fuck down.

I'm not saying dumb down the product, but few people will even notice the little "wink wink nudge nudge" jokes in there, and those that aren't fan-boys themselves will just get pissed off, the same way we do when someone mentions the cake is a lie in a non sarcastic manner.

And that's that for my sleep deprived rant of the day.

Youtube, Finding Gold in Elephant Shit

2009-10-01T03:54:00.004+10:00

So, I was bored and couldn't sleep, so what did I do? I went on the Internet looking for something to laugh at. Big mistake.

Why was it a mistake? I looked on Youtube.

For every Yahtzee, Spill.com, MovieBob, and their ilk you have close to a million retarded monkeys talking softly into crackly mics while looking intently into their WebCams.

Seriously, there is nothing said in those videos that couldn't be better said in writing, I don't need to see your face or hear your voice to empathise with your opinions and frustrations, in fact the opposite is true, chances are I'll find you so annoying that I'll disagree with you on general principle.

If you're going to label something a humorous rant against something or other, at least make it funny and put some fucking effort into it you turd gobblers.

If you're "reviewing" something, how about instead of staring into your web cam for 5 god-damn painful minutes you try actually showing some footage of it, it's not like you can't find any-fucking-thing online and there is freeware video editing software out there by the bucket full.

Before you say the words "they'll sue me", they can't, it's called fair use a clause in most copy right laws the world over, or if you're plain just shitting on something, the parody protection, and hey generally unless you're one of the big named guys no-one gives a shit about you anyway.

Oh and also? Saying something sucks, even if I agree it does, just because you don't like it is patently fucking stupid, if you think something sucks at least try and articulate why you don't like it.

I can give you a fifty point list on why most main stream "musicians" should be shot into the sun, the most people on youtube can come up with for the most part is "ghay"

JK Rolling Snubbed By Bush

2009-10-01T02:24:00.003+10:00

LONDON - Former US President George Bush’s advisers believed that JK Rowling’s books “encouraged witchcraft” and thus deprived the author from a top US honour, reveals a new book.

The book, titled ‘Speechless: Tales of a White House Survivor’-written by Matt Latimer, an ex-speechwriter for Bush-has revealed that the Scots-based Harry Potter author was nominated for a Presidential Medal of Freedom.

But White House officials raised an objection against the move, saying that she promoted sorcery in her boy wizard series, which has been made into smash-hit movies starring Daniel Radcliffe.

Thus they stopped Rowling from receiving the US’s top gong for civilians who contribute to America, world peace or culture, reports The Sun.

http://blog.taragana.com/n/bush-advisers-denied-rowling-top-us-honour-over-witchcraft-promotion-180733/

So was bush the president of America or of some back water Affraican nation that changes it name every other week? Becuase honestly looking at his years in office it's kind of hard to tell.

Best Video -EVER-

2009-09-25T02:59:00.002+10:00

DIE TWILIGHT SPARKLEPIRE DIE

facebook users... you know the drill, click the link

Settlers 7

2009-09-24T12:51:00.005+10:00

Jesus Beeping Christ, have I been in a coma or something? Last I heard about this series it was like Settlers 4 or something like that.

Oh well at least they haven't been bitten by the "must not number things so people can actually work out where it falls" bug.

Oh and looks pretty cool. But honestly I'd rather the board game version they show there, then I might actually play board games :D

Facebook viewers, click on the Original Post link below to see video

Logos: Fuck Off NOW!

2009-09-18T21:41:00.002+10:00

Seriously I already paid for the game, take your corporate logo and powered by bullshit and shove it up your ass.

I detest games when every time I load them up for a bit of fun I've got between 20 and 40 seconds of bullshit logos I've already seen with no fucking skip button. You want to advertise to me about how good you are? Give me the fucking game for free otherwise a 2 second splash logo is enough, I already gave you my money.

Defence Grid, a really awesome game on the XBLA, is really bad at it, 3 logo screens each lasting 20 seconds before you get another loading screen lasting 20 seconds before you finally get to press start. It's a good game, I thanked you for making it by GIVING YOU MONEY so stop fucking annoying me.

I wouldn't mind it so much if it only did it the first time you loaded the game, you know like PC games have been doing for OH I DON'T KNOW 20 FUCKING YEARS but every time I load a game?

At the risk of loosing my nerd card, I really don't give a shit what company made the tech you're using to power the game I'm about to play, yes it looks pretty, it's fun to play, but fuck off with the damn logos all over my screen, Batman AA is pretty bad at this, but at least its all the logos at once not in sequence.

Oh and what's up with DVDs I PAID for doing the same thing? That stupid fucking anti-theft ad at the front? FUCK OFF I GAVE YOU MONEY for this movie slapping an unskippable bullshit ad on the front is akin to punching another guy in the nuts, just not cricket.

So in short, if I give you money FUCK OFF AND STOP PUTTING UNSKIPPABLE LOGOS AND ADVERTISEMENTS IN MY FACE.

Wow, I feel better now.

If Video Games Were Realistic

2009-09-18T18:31:00.002+10:00

The funny people over at CRACKED.com have a nice series of images detailing what would happen If Video Games Were Realistic

Check it out

Batman Rules

2009-09-14T17:34:00.003+10:00

If you've been wondering why I haven't been online or talking to people recently, this is it, best game of the year, fucking awesome, fucking addictive, and just plain a lot of fun.

How to make Linux 90% less annoying!

2009-09-14T16:45:00.003+10:00

So all the fucking time I hear, read, or smell about how great Linux is and how everyone not using it is an idiot, how Microsoft is evil, Apple is eviler, and the FOSS movement will save your soul...

It's bullshit.

Not even getting into the whole retail vs. free debate, or even a debate about OS stability, or even techinical mertit I would like to say 90% of the fucking annoyence I've had with working on Linux system is this...

There is no fucking installer format

If you're a windows user and have only ever used Windows you might not know what I mean, an EXE file you download off a website to install that new flashy game (which is likely full of spyware) is an installer.

Linux doesn't have that, you look around the web searching for a program to suit a need, find something that might suit and ... then you have to fuck around with downloading source files and command lines... or opening up an application to search an online repository of programs and then finding it.

I tell you right now, it might get easier to use, it might even just as good as installers, but you know what? People know how to install shit, even if they don't know what installing is (I use to work in IT retail, I had people call it everything from copying to downloading to uploading).

I know when I was trying to get a media player installed onto a Linux Netbook for a friend that I got incredibly frustrated trying to do it, on Windows ita a matter of one click on a website and a double click on the installer and I was off. That's it.

No CLI, No fucking around with mirrors and file services... It just fucking worked.

So until you can sort out a way to do that on Linux, SHUT THE FUCK UP about how good it is.

09/09/09

2009-09-09T09:11:00.001+10:00

Woot. I love days like this, could be I'm weird but I wish I'd be alive for the 22nd of the 2nd 2222 or 22/2/2222 just for the number love.

Assassin's Creed II Gameplay Video

2009-09-07T12:04:00.004+10:00

I think "Fucking Sweet" just about covers it.

As always Facebook people click Original Link if video doesn't load

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm Debut Trailer

2009-09-03T16:18:00.001+10:00

I think "meh" just about covers it.

facebook users click the link below if video doesn't load

Taking Back English

2009-08-30T06:21:00.002+10:00

Over the last few decades English as a language has been degraded by various factors to the point where it's becoming almost as convoluted as the plot of a Tom Clancy novel.

Homosexuality is an abnormal sexual orientation.

That sentence is a perfect example of what I am talking about the ultra left nutjobs would scream about hate speech and descrimination, and the ultra right nutjobs would nod their heads along sagely.

However, they are both fucking wrong. Lets look at the word abnormal, it means not normal, and normal means something common to the majority of a group, that's all it means, it makes no moral judgement about the validity of the practice or circumstances, just that it is common to the majority, the same can be said about the word abnormal, simply that it is part of a minority of a group.

It was once normal to own slaves, to beat ones wife, and to go out killing, raping, and pillaging neighbouring villages.

It was also once abnormal to think that all people are equal, that violence should be the last resort, and that we should try to get along.

Without proper context the sentence above is truly neutral, it doesn't pass judgement either way, the words are simple and factually accurate. Now I chose a sentence that would provoke strong feelings in those that read it, my own feelings on the matter are irrelevant but well known, here's a hint I'm for any-one doing anything so long as everyone involved is willing and above the age of consent.

What does matter in this instance is that people can't recognise context any-more, they instead try to invent new phrases and words to avoid offending people, rather then use a perfectly good word such as abnormal they come up with crap like non-standard, which is just plain dumb.

And it's not just the left wing PC wackadoodles that are to blame either, it's also the right wing fuckwits who assign their own flawed moral values to neutral words. Words matter, they can make you cry, make you happy, or make you angry, I don't think anyone could dispute that, but without context they are fucking neutral.

So in closing I'd just like to say, stop fucking with my language you god-damn twits, use your damn brains and recognise context.

Windows 7: The Triumph over mediocrity

2009-08-25T22:39:00.006+10:00

Over the last decade or so Microsoft has had an interesting series of Operating System releases, and established a trend of hits and misses.

Don't believe me? Well tell any techie you know you've got a problem with your computer running Windows Me and watch their face, that look of pure unadulterated horror will explain everything. Windows Me is widely considered in tech circles to be the bastard child of Satan and a pit viper and is regarded with about as much warmth as Bill Gates at a Linux convention.

Windows Me took everything about Windows 98, a decent enough O/S in its own right, and tried to marry it with Windows 2000, the resulting horror was just ugg. Don't get me wrong, every now and then you'll come across someone running Windows Me that just loves it, they some how managed to get the "just right" combination of luck and hardware to let the beast run smoothly, but that's about as rare as an honest politician.

After Windows Me came Windows XP, XP was a quantum leap in O/S', it was fast, elegant, and stable, that isn't to say it didn't come with problems, it did; the disaster of the first time activation was there.

It did away with the legacy of Windows 9x and moved onto Windows 2000 solid server style base and made itself the desktop of choice for a hell of a lot of people. Windows XP is still one of the best O/S' out there, powerful and stable, pretty much everything anyone wants.

Now lets jump forward to Windows Vista, now personally I think it gets a slightly over hyped rep for being crappy, but it did throw away a lot of things Windows XP worked hard to overcome, XP removed the stigma of the BSOD (Blue Screen of Death), since it became very rare, and the need to reboot every 30 god-damn seconds that was common in Windows 9x machines. Vista took that hard won ground and did a Olympic level sprint back over it to lay a turd.

Oh sure Vista's stablity wasn't as bad as say Windows Me, but damn, it was a step down from XP, and it was a resource hog, actually saying that is unfair to hogs, Vista sucked every available resource it could, from hard drive space to RAM to CPU time, it was all your resources are belong to us Microsoft style, over time a lot of the issues in Windows Vista were fixed by patches and service packs, but Vista never recovered from the opening rounds of "oh my god this sucks"

Now we get to the meat, Windows 7 RC (that is not the final version ffs) is a better O/S then Vista after three years of extra work from launch, a machine running Vista that struggles and chugs will run Windows 7 without blinking, its got all the stability of XP, all the pretties of Vista, and its still not the final version!

I've heard it called "What Vista should've been" and I agree totally, while I only made the jump after my Vista install died a horrible death and I wasn't willing to head down to Portland to find my DVD, I don't regret it at all, it's an exceptional operating system. I recommend to anyone running XP or Vista to upgrade to Windows 7 as soon as the final release hits stores soon.

Fable 3

2009-08-20T13:25:00.003+10:00

Here's hoping it has a decent story this time.

(FaceBook users click the link "Original Post" to see the video)

News Flash: Australia gets screwed... again.

2009-08-16T08:42:00.002+10:00

A few months ago I spoke about Games on Demand for the Xbox 360 and I was fairly excited, well, not so much anymore, I held out hope the leaked prices were just place holders for a few weeks until the whole thing went live on the 11th of August.

Australia has a long tradition of getting boned with gaming pricing, Yahtzee calls it the nicest beaches tax, and hey, we're a realitively small market and shipping costs, so I could sort of understand it, even if I did hate the fact I was paying over double of what people in other nations were.

Then comes the stupidity of the Xbox live Games on Demand service, here is the most glaring example, the prices of games aren't set by a single office, which would make sense since its an Internet service, but by the local arm of Microsoft's xbox live division, who in Australia (link) think 24/7 access is worth $50 over RRP for a 2/3 year old game!

Mass Effect is an admittedly awesome game, I've played it through 2/3 times now on both the PC and Xbox, but it is not worth $99 in download form when it can be picked up new at any major chain store for $49.95, or even cheaper at some other stores, or cheaper still preowned, an option you don't get with downloads.

Now I was all sorts of keen when it came to downloadable games, after all my ISP offers free traffic to the Xbox live service, and its hellishly fast, but come-on, no disc, and no chance of resale later if you decide the game sucks the donkey.

Not only that, but its only $20 USD for US Xbox owners... that's about $25AUD, if I didn't already own Mass Effect, I'd of been willing to pay that for it, its a good price, hell I'd of even been willing to pay $30-$35 for it, but come the fuck on, $99 you have got to be fucking kidding me Microsoft!

Yes data server space costs more in Australia then the US, but not that much more! Stop fucking ripping us off!

G.I. Joe - The Rise of Cobra

2009-08-09T20:13:00.002+10:00

Want to hear a shocker? I actually enjoyed this movie, I went expecting another movie to rape my childhood memories... just like Transformers... however...

It's actually good!

Sure some of the plot is a bit twisted, the CGI is about normal for a big Hollywood movie, but god-damn, it's actually a fun movie.

Some of the actors phoned it in, but some were just dynamite, like Chris Eccleston who is plain awesome in anything he does.

It doesn't pretend to be anything other then it is, a movie for geeks, action fans, and kids, that's it.

One thing I don't like however is Scarlet having no Southern accent... *cry*

Other then that I'm looking forward to the next movie, I expect they'll make one now.

This just in EA is Stupid with a capital S

2009-07-27T12:12:00.007+10:00

EA has a new way to annoy its own models: give out prizes for Comic Con attendees who commit acts of lust with their booth babes. Also, if you win, you get to take the lady out to dinner!
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2009/07/ea-puts-sexual-bounty-on-the-heads-of-its-own-booth-babes.ars

Okay... okay... I don't know how anyone can think this is a good idea at all... Honestly it's the kind of stupid that's up there with Darwin Award winners for plain dumb-assery.

99% of people that go to these things, male or female, are decent human beings who just want to have a bit of fun, but there is always that guy... you know that guy who everyone is afraid of because he's batshit insane who will ruin it for everyone. You know the guy who you don't even joke around with because you're afraid he'll take your suggestion of eating live chicken heads seriously.

I just know this can't end well. In other news, water is wet.

Leverage is Back!

2009-07-24T00:20:00.003+10:00

Woot is the only word I can think of right now to describe how I feel about Leverage being back, smart, funny, and exceptionally well acted.

It's TV show's like Leverage that prove you don't need to dumb things down to the lowest common denominator or rely on dick and bum jokes to be funny.

I've heard it described as a "US Hustle" and I just think that's unfair, totally different beasts, Leverage is more modern day Robin Hood, not that both shows aren't great, but Leverage is a little less in love with itself and has more action.

Plus Beth Riesgraf who plays Parker is freaking hot.

Linux Is Evil.

2009-07-22T16:10:00.004+10:00

So its been a good two or three years since I last used a Linux system, and god almighty I remember why I use to have migraines afterwards now.

They say you forget pain after a time, otherwise we'd have negative population growth, after all what woman would of had more then one kid before the advent of narcotic pain killers? I believe it now.

I used Linux as a server system, I'd access it via a CLI (command-line interface) from my nice and cosy WindowsXP work space, and as a server O/S it was pretty good even then, the late 90s when I first got stuck into it.

I tried Red Hat and err some CD only version I can't remember as well for a bit, but I never really got into them, as I needed Windows at work and at home I really just wanted to game and do web stuff without cocking around, so I went back to Windows full time after a while.

Now before you start flaming me and telling me I suck Bill Gate's cock, I'm not a rabid fanboy of any sort, I don't give a shit who uses what and I'm not on an evangelical crusade to convert the great unwashed, unlike some.

My issue comes when things get pushed onto people, and that's what happened today.

My grandmother went into town with a friend to get a new cheap EeePC (you know one of those tiny laptops with solid state memory) for just browsing the web, after getting my advice, so I gave it and told them to swing back later for setup.

I'd already set up a number of them without issue, but those were all XP versions, and foolish me after telling them explicitly to ask for a Window's version they came back with a damn linux version.

Let me just say I didn't actually mind the interface it had, it was fairly easy to get online, about the same as any late version Windows or Mac machine, but the problem came in when I tried to install something... Have you tried typing on those little things when you can crush a football with one hand? And Linux is all about the typing, but I muddled onwards, but not after ringing and asking if they could swap for an XP version, no they couldn't since the closest XP version was $200 more... lasigh.

After a bit of back and forth with the guy to get to that point he said "Linux is better then Windows" and he was lucky my Nana was in the room and I wasn't near him in person... so he got away without me swearing a blue streak or giving him a broke nose. Linux isn't better then Windows, and Windows isn't better then Linux, they are different systems for different people, my Nana can install software on Windows, its point and fucking click, you tried installing shit on linux if its not in the distro installed? IT’S A FUCKING NIGHTMARE

Anyway I pointed out to him calmly that he should of warned her she was buying a linux machine and he said "Well she was in the computer section looking at laptops so I assumed she knew what she wanted"... he works at Harvy Fucking Norman. I sent her there because its got decent after-sales support so I wouldn't have to deal with it, people who work at Harvy Norman shouldn't assume anything about their customers, never mind my Nana is pushing 76…

I rightly pointed out to him that most people don’t even know there are other O/S’ then Windows and those few normal customers who do only know of Windows and the Mac O/S… Linux is virtually unknown to normal customers, and people working at fucking Harvy Norman should know this shit, I never sold machine with Linux on it unless I made totally sure they understood it wasn’t Windows and didn’t have most of the stuff they were use to and was going to take a lot of effort to understand, Christ…

Anyway back to the topic at hand, which isn’t ranting at the idiocy of Harvy Norman “Techies”, Linux is fine for people who enjoy playing around with their O/S and having a lot of choices, but for the love of god, normal people would be totally lost, it took me 30mins to work out how to get the system to full desktop, never mind installing a decent media player capable of playing content off my server…

That reminds me I still need to work out a way to do that without it copying the entire file over first… which is a massive pain, Windows streams media files from a share, why can’t Linux? I’ve done it the other way around, files on a linux server streamed to a Windows PC, but Linux just wont stream content. But yea, Linux is very unfun and I’ve got a headache, but at least it's done and the person who purchased the laptop is happy enough, at least it came with Mozilla rather then the browse I remember as default from my Red Hat days... I shudder just remembering that... thing

But I suppose my main point is, don't sell computer systems that run Linux to people without clearly explaining to them what the fuck Linux is PLEASE, it just makes the geeks around them suffer.

WoW Player Threatens to Hijack Plane

2009-07-20T14:14:00.005+10:00

The 18-year-old from Johnson County, Indiana, said that he "was going to board a plane at 7:30 to Chicago and that (he) was going to try and kill as many Americans as possible," ...... Predictably, Blizzard employees saw the announcements and notified the proper authorities. The teen quickly backpedaled, claiming that someone had hacked his account, but that didn't stop the FBI from seizing his computer to investigate the incident further.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/93184-WoW-Player-Threatens-to-Hijack-Plane

Jesus Christ on a freaking pogo stick are some people just born without the brain power of a flea or what? I mean honestly what posseses someone to think saying crap like that is a good freaking idea even if the Post Bush USA?

Metroid Prime Trilogy Trailer

2009-07-19T09:00:00.003+10:00

This is about the only reason I wish I could get over my disinterest in the Wii controller, I love Metroid games, and I feel that they play better with a proper controller, the Wii thing is okay for some games, but the majority of the titles I'm interested in are just too fiddly.

(FaceBook users click the link "Original Post" to see the video)

Censorship Online: Think of the Children

2009-07-18T20:41:00.005+10:00

With things like the Great Firewall of Australia on the horizon are things online getting out of hand?

The catch cry of the day is "Think of the children!!!!1!oneoneone", and frankly, I'm sick of thinking of the children, I'm not a parent, I am an uncle though, and its the parents responsibility to raise the child, not the states, the whole idea that the internet is a safe spot to let children wander unattended is ludicrous.

You don't let your kids out alone at 2am if you've got half a freaking brain, so why are you letting them on-line without supervising them? I know parental responsibility is out of fashion these days, but come-on, why should adults be punished because some idiot parents want another TV like babysitter for their spawn.

I've got an idea, how about if you Mr Rudd are really serious about protecting children you take the massive amount of money you're pissing down the drain on this firewall and just hand it over to the AFP (Australian Federal Police) to chase down the real threats to children, child molesters. I can tell you know it will do a hell of a lot more good, because from what I see of your "firewall" it will take anyone with half a brain 10mins to get around.

There are real threats out there on the Internet, but the only way to protect children online is to educate their parents, not throw up artificial barriers that punish everyone, or hey if you are totally committed to going ahead with this stupid idea, how about you make it opt-in and mandate that ISPs ask when people sign up for an account?

I don't want any government, even one I voted for, telling me what I can or can not read online! Where will it end?

TMNT: Turtles in Time

2009-07-15T10:04:00.003+10:00

IGN does a pretty mean preview of the upcoming TMNT rehash, I remember playing this game on the SNES and loving it, and I'm glad they are just updating the graphics and leaving the game play alone :)

(FaceBook users click the link "Original Post" to see the video)

Mech Warrior Reboot: Freaking sweet!

2009-07-10T08:57:00.002+10:00

Well I loved the old MechWarrior games and the BattleTech universe in general, so damn am I looking forward to this or what! I just hope a decent joystick will be out for the 360 by then.

Hot Damn: Bugatti Veyron

2009-07-05T16:59:00.005+10:00

Now as anyone who knows me will tell you I'm not a big car person, hell for a guy who's father is a mechanic I'm a shocker, I can't tell a Ford from a Holden most days, basically all I care about a car is if it works and how much it costs.

Oh I can do basic maintenance, change the oil, etc but anything more and I'm smarter then the average joe here, I take it to someone with skills to get the damn thing fixed.

Yes you're saying I'm an egotistical jerk, but frankly the ability to recognise you don't have the skill to do a job is rare as Hen's teeth nowadays, I learnt that working in a computer store for 4 years, people are always biting off more then they can chew.

Anyway back to the topic at hand, the Bugatti Veyron is one freaking hot bit of gear, click the link for more info, but for the price it would want to be.

Insanely expensive and damn sexy are the two best words I can think of for it, something to dream about buying when you hit the lotto.

Late Night Gaming: Just Don't

2009-07-02T14:00:00.003+10:00

So, if you've ever had trouble sleeping and thought to yourself "I'll go play a video game for an hour or so until I get sleepy" you have an idea what this is about.

Last night I had a tooth ache, don't know why, its been good lately, but I couldn't sleep and the pain killers just weren't kicking in, so I said to myself, I'd go play some Fallout 3 to take my mind off it, and get sleepy.

4 Hours later, at almost 5am! I finally climbed into bed, that would of been fine if I had actually been playing... you see because I was half asleep when I was playing I played for almost two hours without doing any saves other then auto save, a major noob mistake, and some where along the line I vendored my damn Gause Rifle by mistake.

Now I love my little cannon of hot kinetic death so I frantically scrambled around back to vendors seeing if I could buy it back, after half an hour of fruitless searching I gave up and loaded up my last real save, dropping 3 side quests and about 4,000 bottle caps worth of vendoring, which was still in my damn inventory.

Moral of the story, don't play while tired >.< well at least its not as bad as the time I spent 4000 gold on crap on wow and respecced all my characters at 4am.

Share if you've got some funny ones!

Star Craft II: Here's Hoping

2009-06-30T06:27:00.004+10:00

Blizzard is on full publicity mode today, with a number of sites posting preview stories and interviews with the people behind the game.
More over at Ars Technica.

So I'm looking at Star Craft II and thinking to myself "damn I've been waiting a long time for this" quickly followed by "oh crap, please let it be more like Star Craft and Warcraft II then Warcraft III"

You see I'm a rare bird, I didn't think Warcraft III was all that good, oh the story was okay and some of the missions were interesting, but I thought it was more an RPG then an RTS, it focused too much on the hero units then the strategy, and frankly that's not what I play an RTS for. Dawn of War is an example of what I want in an RPG, Warcraft III isn't.

But that's in the future, I'm sure I'll buy a copy of this game even if its a dog turd in a cardboard box.

Anyway onto the other things I've been thinking about, the single player looks cool, three games rather then just one, at first I thought it was a shameless money grab, not something blizzard is above, but I've got hope, it looks as though those games are going to have some pretty cool storyline elements and that's something that is seriously lacking in todays games.

The noob friendly stuff in the article I linked just makes me go "MEH", I've been the kicker and the kickee in the ass kicking and frankly you learn by doing, if you're too much of a wimp to try again after getting your metaphorical teeth knocked down your throat you shouldn't be playing online.

That may some just a touch elitist of me, so I'll explain, I have no issue with ranking systems or different game zones for different player levels, but the whole idea of dumbing down a game to the lowest common denominator just rankles, it would be like chess where all the pieces move the same, so I hope they do it better then they did in WoW.

Now onto the real rant, no lan-play??? WTF? Wait sorry... W-T-F? Sorry that's just plain freaking rude, LAN play and Internet play are the same fucking thing, TCP/IP, there is bugger all extra work in putting it in, the only reason not to put it in is to force people to use their battlenet service, which I'm better is going to have a subscription fee now... if so... suck me blizzard.

Yea, you heard me, blow me you over-paid monkeys.

Transformers 2: Humans are Boring

2009-06-27T09:49:00.002+10:00

Okay let me just say there were parts of the new transformers movie that I loved with a passion, and there were parts that I wanted to carve my eyes out over.

<--- is one of the bits I loved, especially when its on a huge ass screen.

But other then Megan Fox hawting it up, most of the bits with the humans were plain fucking dull. I'll try to keep the spoilers down, but there will be a few.

The movie could of been a lot better had they cut maybe 30-40mins out of it, frankly cut every screen with the parents from the first movie out and it would of been a much better movie, they served no purpose and were plain fucking annoying, the pot brownie bit especially.

And what the fuck was up with the new Autobots? The twins? GRRRRRRRRR Jar-Jar Binks is at risk of loosing his spot as the most annoying CGI character of all time. Christ.

Now don't get me wrong, I did like some of the humans, the soldiers made my day, just as they did in the first movie, one of the things I didn't like about the old show was that the only humans doing anything were an old dude and his kid, at least in this series humans are fighting along side the Autobots!

All in all the movie was too long and could of been made much better with more focus on the Transformers... you know the title characters... They set up some cool stuff with Arcee in the opening but she got one fucking line in the entire movie... There were times in the movie where they had me interested and I sat forward expecting some plot information about the big ass robots from space... only to have the screen flash to some dumb ass human bit and never be picked up again.

Well worth going to see, but do yourself a favour, if you like me have a bum leg and have a hard time sitting for 3 hours, wait for it to come out on DVD and watch it at home.

Motion Sensors: Why?

2009-06-24T15:21:00.002+10:00

First let me just say this to all you people out there thinking that the Wii, Project Natal, and the PS3 thing are innovative and exciting; you're all morons!

Its been around for decades, and that's just in video games, who could forgot The Glove of Childhood Arthritis?

That isn't to say that these devices don't have some appeal or use, but frankly, I don't want to play a fighting game where I'm actually kicking and punching, I want the fantasy where I'm a ninja bad ass capable for kicking ass.

The Wii sports games are fun to play with friends, and I can see the appeal of games like Guitar Hero and what's its name golf on the Wii, but after trying to play Zelda on the Wii, a game series I love, I was begging for a controller.

I want to sit in my comfy chair and get drawn into the action, challange and storyline, what I don't want is the most challanging thing about the game to be the damn controls. I know its not a popular opinion, but I enjoy games for the fantasy, and its hard to get immersed in them if your arms are aching and your bum leg is acting up.

All that being said the non-game parts of Project Natal actually look pretty cool and I'll likely grab it for the voice commands and menu system, not to mention the video phone.

Leave the 80s Alone!

2009-06-23T12:34:00.002+10:00

Between remakes of classic 80s video games and shameless profiteering off my childhood memories in movie form my rose coloured glasses of nostalgia are starting to chip and get all scratched up!

The most recent game is Bionic Commando, a remake of a classic game I first played on the C64 back before I hit double digits, its an okay game really, but because of the memories I have of the original game I, and I guess others, are expecting it to be a lot more fun then it is.

Don't get me wrong, its a fun enjoyable game, but the memories of the other game are dulled by 20+ years, and we only remember the hours of enjoyment me had, not the mind numbing joystick crushing frustration moments.

That's the problem with remakes, the old expression things get better with time is true, we remember the good things and forget the bad things about something we liked, if they had called Bionic Commando something else and not tied it in, I expect it would of been more enjoyable for me, but once again the rose coloured glasses ruined it.

Its a lot like the outcry from Transformers fans about the movie a few years ago, they didn't see it as its own thing, they saw it from the romanticized view of 20 year old memories.

So in short, stop remaking stuff from the 80s, as much as we love it, it really wasn't that good, come up with new shit already!

Star Wars: The Old Republic MMO Trailer

2009-06-18T11:33:00.004+10:00

Sweet Merciful Yogi if the ingame action is half as cool I think we've got a wow contender... and its by freaking Bioware! You know the makers of Baldur's Gate, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, and Mass Effect amoung others!

Karma Meters are Bullshit

2009-06-18T05:54:00.007+10:00

I've touched (bitched) about this before, but I just can't stop! Karma Meters in games are bullshit, it always comes down to black and white moral choices, either help the <insert poor group here> or eat their livers while they are still alive.

What brought this on was last night another session of Fallout 3(there will be spoilers), you see I was playing through some side quests for shits and giggles when I got frustrated with not being able to find the stupid "Family" and I goggled the wiki entry on them and printed it off without reading it.

So I stomp on in to their super secret hide out, and yes I will admit to drooling a little bit at all the weapons, ammo, and armour laying all over the place, but that wasn't my main motive for what happened next.

You see this group of wankers had been raiding a settlement for a while, all part of life in post-apocaliptica, but what really set the settlers off was the fact that on the last raid they killed a family, kidnapped a kid, and killed off all their cows. Now personally that would tank me off as well, but not out of any moral indignation, but out of pure stupidity! When your livelihood depends on "harvesting" settlements destroying their ability to feed themselves is a very stupid thing to do.

Anyway enough back-story, so I trump on in, and talk to the head honcho and find out that they aren't just a normal band of raider dickheads, they are a band of vampire/canible raider dickheads. Wow didn't see that coming... what with the bodies drained of blood, the dark underground lair, the sledgehammer sized hints that they only come out at night, oh and the pale skin along with the trench coats... nope not at all!

So after listening to this guy blabber on for a few minutes about how persecuted they are, how normal "humans" will never understand them, how they don't need to reform as they are doing nothing wrong, I just took out my shotgun and blew his head off, killed the rest of his "family" and looted the place to the bedrock.

I hear a ding and low and behold I take a freaking karma hit (I'm trying to play as a good guy for a change) and quest failed! A WTF moment followed and I grab up the wiki sheet I printed off and read it, turns out to get a good karma score you're suppose to talk the settlement into bleeding themselves for these wankers so that they'll provide protection.

I know vampires are hip and all these days, I love vampire movies, books, and tv shows, but WTF is up with this twilight bullshit infecting my damn games.

Vampires are parasites (in fiction, I know they aren't real), these guys even worse then the normal versions, they don't have any supernatural excuse (not even going into the whole living off just drinking human blood...), they just like eating people, they are freaking sick, they refuse to change, so the only thing for them is a 12 gauge to the face!

I don't see how not setting up a protection racket for a bunch of cannibals should in anyway negativity effect my karma and this kiddies is why karma meters are bullshit. They impose moral choices based on arbitrary rules the programmers and writers make up without any regard to the true measure of a moral choice, intent, intent is king in moral choices, is the medic who givers the soldier with his guts falling out a fatal dose of morphine a bad person? No! His intent is to stop the pain, even if his actions result in the ending of a life.

That isn't even covering what I'd really do in a sand box game with a real moral choice system, I'd take every good choice in public and build up enough of a support base that I could get away with murder behind closed doors... you know like anyone who subscribes to the The Top 100 Things I'd Do If I Ever Became An Evil Overlord list.

Until such times as they can actively measure intent (and wont that be a hoot) in a game, karma meters are conceptually flawed and shouldn't be given such a huge impact.

At least in Fallout 3 you don't grew horns or a halo like in some games I could mention....

"Games On Demand" for Xbox 360

2009-06-15T19:43:00.004+10:00

Whitten announced "Games On Demand" for Xbox 360, a feature launching this August that will allow users to download full retail games to the console's hard drive. Whitten called the the feature a "natural progression" of Xbox Live's current offerings. The service will launch initially with 30 games, including titles such as Mass Effect, BioShock, Assassin's Creed, Crackdown, Oblivion and Call of Duty 2. Prices will be in line with physical retail, and new games will be added regularly.
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=23865

Okay so impressive and cool and all, especially since a number of Australian ISPs offer free traffic to XBox live (go Westnet!), but what will happen when gamers who are fed up with gaming stores start downloading games rather then going out to buy them and drive the traffic up?

There are already full games on the xbox live system, not just arcade fun ones but 4/5gb monsters. "Classic" games from the first xbox, I've got a few like Max Payne and Halo 1, but I doubt they'd even come close to the amount of traffic a new game like Assassins Creed 2 would generate release day.

Will we see ISPs drop Xbox live traffic from the free list? I know if I had to download an 8gb game and effectively pay for it twice I'd think twice, that's the reason I bit the bullet and went into town to buy my copy of warhammer online (bad investment, I played for a month before uninstalling it) rather then just download it like I wanted to as I hate my local game store and only go there when forced, like in that case.

I doubt the ISPs will drop it, free content like the xbox live stuff actually costs them less then a lot of stuff we download as its mirrored locally, I wont get into the details as its a pain in the ass to explain and frankly I can't be bothered, but by steering users to free traffic ISPs save money.

The price of the downloads is another thing to consider, currently we Australian's are royally ass raped (I don't like to use that term, but it really applies here) by game prices, check out the difference of Fallout 3 in AU $109AUD and US $56.99US (roughly $70AUD) so we pay a whopping $40 more then people in the US, yes you could argue we are a smaller market and there are fright costs, but when you start talking about online content those arguments drop away very very quickly, so if we pay even the difference you're going to see a lot of very happy Australians.

Another issue I see with this is the insane prices of xbox hard drives, you can buy a 1TB drive for less then an official Microsoft 120gb drive, that's just pathetic, there is no difference at all between them, and games now days take up a lot of space, I've got an 80gb hard drive in mine and I've already burnt 50gb of that on installs and downloads without even trying, so unless they drop the prices to a reasonable level, they are going to have a hard time selling this in some markets.

Though personally if the game price drops I'll likely just delete games as I'm done with them and redownload them later, if the system is like the xbox live current system which remembers what you've paid for and lets you grab as many times as you want. After all my xbox downloads content off the Microsoft servers at my full 8mb connection and 10gb at that speed takes only a few hours.

That's not even taking into account the game stores reactions... but frankly I don't give a shit about them, smelly dicks conning people into buying shit they don't need.

All in all, interesting news but not enough details to really go into it.

W-T-F Is the point of Twitter?

2009-06-15T11:00:00.004+10:00

So I was poking around the xbox live video marketplace last night and came across a video featuring Felicia Day at E3 (you know that gaming thing that use to have relevance), now since I think she's hot and funny I grabbed it not giving two shits what its about, yes I know this makes me sad, but at least I'm not oggling Paris Hilton like 99% of you dipshits online.

But back to the point, I was actually interested in the first part of the video about integrating Facebook into the Xbox 360, I can get behind that, Facebook and to a lesser extent Myspace are actually valid social gathering places online, but the second part just tweaked me off...

W-T-F Is the point of twitter? You post a 120 character description of what you are doing, okay wonderful, except for the face 99.9% of the shit each of us do each day is boring as sin and we ourselves don't even want to think about it, let make others read about it.

And that's not even taking into account what some people I know would post... there are just somethings I don't need to know about people.

So I ask you again, w-t-f is the point of this shit? Its all over the place and everyone is doing it, but it seems to serve no other purpose then telling people when you are taking a shit. And I use to get yelled at for doing that on IRC and later WoW, and now people are falling all over themselves to do it.

Out of Game Content

2009-06-13T14:35:00.003+10:00

Well I don't play WoW any more, but there will be a fair few WoW references in here, so fair warning, but out of game content purchased for real money in games where Character customization is king is getting to be a real problem.

This rant first came to mind when I was playing Fable 2 the other day and noticed this guy I was playing with had a sweet coat, called a High Roller Coat, its freaking awesome, but when I asked how he got it, I was crushed.

To get it, I have to go buy a different game on X-Box Live, called Fable 2 Pub Games... which is basically like the little gambling mini-games in Fable 2... you know the games I can't stand.

Or I can trade ridiculous amounts of in game items and cash for it.

Now I don't begrudge people who like the Pub Games in Fable 2, or even want to buy the X-Box live version, more power to them, but its just one step away from the WoW Collectable Card Game bullshit that's been around for the last few years... you know the one where to get the cool mounts, pets, and other items you have to shell out tons of real world mount either on ebay, or by buying the stupid card game.

I call it a stupid card game as if it was good enough to stand on its own, they wouldn't need the "loot cards" or as I prefer to call them, "bribe cards" to get people to buy the damn thing.

The problem is, games like WoW take a, rightful, hardline stance on RMT (Real Money Trading) or Gold Selling as its more commonly known, but at the same time induldge in this shameless profit milking.

It just riles me up, everytime I saw a Spectral Tiger in WoW I wasn't impressed at how cool it was, all I saw was the amount of outgame money it was worth and what I could use that $400-500 on... like rent or food.

The Register: Remembering the true* first portable computer

2009-06-11T10:59:00.001+10:00

"Atomic explosions in the atmosphere can disrupt radio communications. Missiles at the time were controlled by ground-based computers, so huge amounts of radio interference made America's ability to direct a second volley of fission sandwiches unreasonably hard. And on the other side of such an exchange, not being able to control your rockets can make mutual assured destruction up to 50 per cent less mutual. What's the fun in that?"
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/05/tob_minuteman_1/

An awesomely funny article from the talented folks at the Reg, go read it in full.

Is it me or is Fallout 3 Clunky?

2009-06-09T11:19:00.002+10:00

So I'm on my second attempt to play Fallout 3, first time it was on the PC, I quit shortly after I made it to GNR and got sick of the game stuttering about like my grandmother. This time its on my Xbox 360, much smoother I must admit, but I don't know, the game is a little clunky.

First off the encumbered system... ugg... I thought we got rid of that crap years ago in games, yes its realistic, but its also highly annoying, espaically since you pick up tons of crap with no real purpose other then selling it, that brings me to my next point, shops have a limit amount of cash... annoying, realistic, but annoying!

Thirdly the time system, 120 caps at the start of the game for the ability to sleep? I don't want a hooker, I just want a damn bed, so I can get pass the stupid night time crap and go shopping in town.

More rants coming as I play.

No Honey, You're Not Special

2009-06-07T19:39:00.007+10:00

I'm getting old.

My brothers and sisters are popping out children at an alarming rate and a subject that is near and dear to my heart is once again driving me barny.

You see in schools today, and indeed when I was a child myself, kids are told "you're special, you can do anything, you can be prime minister, you can be a doctor or an astronaut!"

That message is drilled into kids all throughout their childhood, when the simple fact of it is that its not true, and unlike the other white lies we tell children, such as the stork brings babies and Santa, its harmful.

That message has lead to the current problems in society, there aren't enough people willing to work "lower class" or "trade" jobs, everyone wants to be the star, but the problem with that is, not everyone is capable of being the star, I know this, I'm never going to be a doctor or a writer of great renown, I'm happy with being a rung in the ladder. After all without the rungs, there is no place for the guy at the top to stand.

The problem is, people feel they have "failed" if they don't get a high paying skilled job working in a posh office doing "important" things, never mind cleaning the hallway out after everyone else has gone home is just as important as the guy researching cancer in the lab during the day.

Society needs everyone, not just the bright stars, the people who drive taxies and sell groceries are just as important as the guy working out a way to cure AIDs, after all without them, how is the researcher going to eat or get to work?

So next time you hear some dozy twat of a teacher tell some kid he or she is special and might end up being a doctor, do us all a favour and smack them upside the head.

Its Offical, Dan Brown Movies Suck

2009-06-07T16:13:00.006+10:00

So the other night I gave into a friend and watched Angels and Demons...

He claimed "Its not as bad as the Devinci Code, its good!"... Its not good... Its just not as totally horrible as the Devinci Code, at least they don't attempt to make the "history" in it out as anything but pure bullshit...

Now onto the real bullshit, w-t-f is up with the plot and travel times? I can't make it across town in 10mins and I live in a town of 20,000, let alone a major city of millions.

And then their is the anti-matter bullshit, I can buy the "containment" system, but the ugg... I can't even be bothered, just go to CERN FAQ on why the movie and book are full of crap.

I'm a sci-fi fan, and I can totally get behind screwing with science in order to make a story work, so long as you don't fall into the Star Trek trap of "invert the technobable and save the day", but come-on, some effort would be nice people.

Anti-Matter is produced in ATOMS, meaning really really small shit, the amount they had in the movies would take BILLIONS of years to produce at the current rate, and even then using it as a bomb makes less sense then... oh I don't know a nuke. They are a hell of a lot cheaper, but I'll give it to them as a plot device, as anti-matter is a lot more cutting edge then nuclear weapons.

If they wanted to make something up, they could of used some real science, not just some pop presudo science that everyone seems to be into these days.

For the love of god, its SCIENCE FICTION, but that doesn't mean you can throw out the laws of physics without a reasonable explanation

Also, Tom Hanks needs to find better rolls, the guy is an awesome actor who is wasting himself on this shit.

/rant off

Killing people attracts attention!

2009-06-06T17:19:00.007+10:00

So I was on IRC last night with some people and was talking excitedly about the new season of Burn Notice when a guy I don't know started complaining about how "wimpy" the main characters are... mind you you've got an ex-spy, an ex-IRA bomb maker, and an ex-Navy Seal, and he calls them wimpy for not killing people.

News flash, killing people when you're not being protected by some big powerful goverment agency attracts attention of the bad kind. Cops are busy, after a while they put a stolen car on the back burner, they forget about the report of the guy trespassing at a building, they write off some gun shots as gang activity if no one was harmed, but Murder?

That they look into, and keep looking, so killing when you don't have too in the context of the show makes no sense at all.

The main thing I like about the show (other then the actors which are great) is that they use their brains and plan things out, careful to keep things from attracting attention.

So yea. Go watch Burn Notice, its freaking awesome, and it has Bruce Campbell in it.