Destiny: A Static Adventure

There I was, standing at the edge of a martian canyon, peering down on the rocky red wasteland. Surrounded by a ruined city, and enemies of all types that had one thing in common. They all wanted the Guardians like me dead. With wonderful vistas, landscapes and brilliantly detailed enemies, NPCs and player characters, Destiny appears to have it all. Appearances can be deceiving however.

Bungie really went out of their way to make this game and it shows, at least in some respects. In other aspects of the title though, the player is left wanting or wondering why certain things were done they way they were. A perfect example of this is the beautiful, yet seemingly sterile environments. Outside of the Tower, the place where our Guardians call home, is a very empty and sad galaxy. Places like Venus and Mars have abandon and collapsing dead cities that only seem to be populated by your enemies. No humans or even other races out there, it's just a large expanse that has so much potential that seems to be wasted with nothing in it. Even the player's side-quests are called in via some intergalactic intercom that dishes out a slew of similarly themed missions. For a protector of the light, and one of the most powerful warriors in the known universe you may not be able to shake the feeling that you're simply a paw, someone sent to do the shitty jobs that others are too busy for.

While there are plenty of games that have come out with sterile, cold and soulless environments, this strikes a particularly rough chord with Destiny. For a game whose ad campaign spoke of exploring and saving the galaxy from Darkness and protecting life everywhere, you will find that there really isn't any life worth protecting, except for one, massive city on Earth. For all the wonderful design choices that were made for this game, it seems Bungie missed a few key things that could have easily made this title one to go down in the history of First Person Shooters. The players can't really help but scratch their collect head and wonder "Why?"

To the credit of Bungie and Destiny, the title does a whole lot of things correctly. Combat feels good, really good. The weapons all have a different balance and function, especially in the campaign and cooperative portions of the game. Having a few teammates that are rolling with different firearms than you really helps to add a feeling of tactical control on the battlefield. Whether you're wielding a shotgun and Auto-Rifle with a rocket launcher or a Pulse Rifle, Sniper Rifle and Heavy Machine gun there are plenty of choices for load outs. The Hand Cannons are a nice touch, these revolvers pack quite the punch and add a nice gunslinger from the wild west feel to the game, while still maintaining it's strong connection the science fiction. All these weapon options are also available in PVP, however the choices you make may affect your score more then it would in the story or cooperative portions of the game.
The competitive side to to Destiny's multiplayer side of the game is also pretty fun. The learning curve is pretty shallow and there's really not much to the simple game-types that are available. The types of PVP missions available in Destiny's Crucible are modes like "Control," which is exactly like it sounds, simply a capture point-style game. "Rumble," which is the everyone for themselves, classic death match we're all used to seeing. "Clash" is the team death match option. There is a mode called "Skirmish." Which is a smaller team-sized twist on your standard team death match and finally "Combined Arm." That's the vehicle based team death match. All these modes are pretty strong and fun to play. The PVP aspects of Destiny feel very competitive and exciting. While the modes may be simple, they are certainly done right and have a good balance to them. A higher level player does have a bit of an advantage to lower level players in the realm of gear, but ultimately it's experience that sets these players apart. It provides a good challenge and some nail-biting close fights. What seemed like something that could have been tacked on or an after thought to keep players happy who enjoy the PVP arena of MMO titles and online play turned out to be one of the most attractive and riveting options for players.

Unfortunately the story mode does not hold up to the same quality and guidelines Bungie seems to have put forth with the PVP parts of the game. There just doesn't seem to be any meat to it. The story is forgettable, the characters are sparse and lack any sort of definitive personality. There are characters that seem to pop up in the game that do have a stronger screen presences but are never revisited or are expanded upon in any meaningful way for the players. Most gamers can recall playing games with stories like this. The real travesty here is that it seemed to be a development choice and there is honestly no good reason for a choice like this to be made when considering the good of the game. The player collects Grimoires throughout the game. Progress for these are achieved by defeating various enemies or collecting certain, sparse items through the games world. These Grimoires manifest themselves as collectable cards the player can go and examine at Bungie.com when they log-in to check out their character. Not a poor idea by an stretch of the imagination, the problem with this is there is a lot of backstory and explanation given on the backs of these digital cards that is not in the game. If Bungie is trying to build an in-depth, immersive universe for our Guardians to exist in and the players to fight through, this was a decidedly poor choice to say the least. To willingly cut so much substance from the game, making it only accessible through a player's web browser breaks the connection to the game and the world that the player has. This decision, arguably more than any of the other poor choices made during the development of Destiny, hurts it the most.

 With all this said it is hard for a lot of gamers, myself included to put it down. After logging somewhere around 40 hours into Destiny, it feels like the title has hours more of good gameplay to offer, especially as you approach the end-game content like raids. With the core mechanics of the game being as close to perfect as they can get, combat is satisfying, whether in the PVP arena or you're just cruising around a few of the planets in our solar system. Once you've tackled a mob of enemies, blasting your way through every one of them with extreme prejudice, it's hard to shake that. While it is certainly a bit of a grind, similar to many other MMO titles, the level of twitch play and fast-thinking in the moment really makes this game something special. Unfortunately, it's not as special as it could have been. Populating planets like Venus and Mars with remnants of  advanced life, desperately hanging on to their homes or including much more back story directly into the game and it's plot would have dramatically improved the game, but for some odd and completely misunderstood reason Bungie left these sorts of things out of the game. What could have been a ground-breaking, online shooter experience falls short, ultimately landing amongst the droves of competent, but short-sighted shooters. If you're looking for a game that's going to beat-out their previous Halo series, this isn't it. If you're looking for a good reason to get together with your friends and kill a bunch of NPC aliens and robots, or maybe even a few other players then I'd recommend it, but  "Game of the Year," is just not fainted for Bungie's Destiny.

    

What to Make of the Oculus Book, or the Face Rift?

Hello gaming friends of the internet, now that the smoke has cleared and the rage-gauges have dialed themselves down to normal and functionally communicative levels, I'd like to take a look at Facebook's absorption of the famed Oculus Rift and it's development team

After Oculus Rift's purchase by Facebook, the soul sucking corporation whose one and only goal is to know and control all your information and eventually the world as we know it! Gamer's were up in arms, taking to the streets, burning cars and murdering puppies, punching old ladies and stealing families mail! Alright, so that may be a bit of an exaggeration to say the least, but the amount of explosive rage and irrational anger that came from this particular purchase announcement burned like white-hot plasma for approximately two whole days, then cooled off into a non-existent footnote in the year that is 2014's game development season. Just as quickly as it started, it seemed to be over. I thought that it would be a very interesting topic to explore, however I wanted to wait on this subject for a bit, with strong opinions of both sides of the fence, it would have been very easy for my message to be misconstrued.

Now, I don't have facebook. In fact I fucking hate facebook. It's a waste of time and largely full of idiotic, under researched opinions from the four corners of the internet. You don't have to share my opinion. I understand 100 percent that there are indeed some useful features in Facebook, just not features I think useful enough to subject myself to so much trash information. With that opinion forever out there, galvanized for everyone to see, Zuckerberg revolutionized internet communication and gave everyone their own little space to call their own a "Home Page" that, for many actually felt like home. A place where your friends contact you and also pushed a unified (be it clunky as all holy fuck sometimes,) system that everyone could easily learn use. What Facebook and Zuckerberg did for social networking that their competition couldn't do for this medium, and still can't do (I'm looking at you, Google,) was no less than amazing.

All of that is all but irrelevant when we discuss the topic of the Oculus Rift. People should maybe, be slightly weary of the Oculus purchase. Not necessarily because backers should feel betrayed, or because the hardware was purchased by some giant, frightening Corporate strongman. What people should be wary about is this one very simple fact. Facebook has not once yet dabbled in consumer grade electronics. We should be taking a "wait and see" attitude towards the Rift now simply because the company that bought-out the Rift for a bargain at what now amounts to less than 2 Billion dollars has just jumped in the hardware market without so much as even testing the waters, specifically the gaming hardware market. Mr. Zuckerberg has vision, I'll give him that, but the O.R. team may not have actually made a smart move here, sure they got stock options, and a boatload of cash in relative terms, but the connection that Facebook has to gaming at this point is tenuous at best. Facebook "games" have been a time sink and the laughing stock of the internet since they came out, hardcore and casual gamers alike both agreed that facebook gaming was not in fact gaming at all, which you may agree with or not, depending on how much time you've sunk into things like farmville.

What gamers should be worried about is the lost potential of the Rift now that it's own by a large company that simply doesn't fit the hardware they've purchased, not now at least. Zuckerberg's vision, stated that he saw people getting together through VR headsets and communicating in a virtual world with one another. Now, this idea is hardly revolutionary for starters. We've had things like "Second Life" for years, and "Playstation Home," yeah Sony basically updated the idea of "Second Life," already as well. You build an avatar, could buy trade and sell objects, communicate with friends and even party up to game together. The only thing "new" about Mr. Zuckerberg's vision that we know of is that it's introducing the Oculus Rift into the mix. It's nothing but Facebook coupled with digital worlds, worlds that, at the very least already exist in some fashion somewhere else; and a new piece of hardware that, frankly at the moment is nothing more than a gimmicky pipe-dream that hasn't even remotely realized a faction of it's own potential.

Now, please don't take this the wrong way. I am not bashing on the Rift because I think that it is going to be a repeat of the mid-90's VR crash. Any of you old enough to remember the promises that Virtual Reality developers made will know that they fell hard and flat on their faces. What I am worried about is the development team and owners of the project's own short-sighted vision may have accidently handicapped their own product. Not on purpose, mind you. The fact still very much remains that Facebook has not made a play in ANY hardware market, let alone the competitive market that exists in gaming. Facebook also has sort of a bad habit of implementing changes that users don't want, or have not been fleshed out enough to make users happy. This is a problem with Facebook's digital environment that cannot make it's way over to the hardware side of things. People deal with this on the facebook website since the site is "free," but if you've paid $250.00 or more for the Oculus for a buggy, virtualized Facebook client you're most likely going to be pretty pissed off. This won't spell the end for consumer accessible Virtual Reality, but it will mean the end of the Oculus Rift as a piece of hardware that people take seriously.

Is it fair for us to discount the Rift after it's been purchased by Facebook? No, without a doubt that would just be short-sighted and ignorant of anyone who is at all curious about this renewed hardware landscape. What it should do though is make you a little bit more wary of what will become of the project now that Oculus Rift has been moved into a major corporate playground where ideas can change drastically, promises are forgotten and products themselves can completely evolve into something else altogether more amazing, or abysmal.

Oculus Rift does have some competition to in being the first to market though as well. Sony has jumped right on board with their own headset that will supposedly work with the PS4 and maybe even PC's. Sony's design is admittedly much more sleek looking than the Rift, as many Sony products do a wonderful job of combining form and function. WIth this in mind though, Sony is still behind the 8-ball though. The Oculus team has well over a year's head start on Sony in development, but maybe selling to a large corporate entity was the only way they thought they could compete.

While their logic is arguably flawed, staring down a giant like Sony who is knocking on your door is more intimidating that myself, or most of us can even imagine. It is hard to completely fault the team for selling themselves off to someone who they think could compete more easily. What I am not convinced about though and still remains to be seen is that if Facebook is the right choice and if they can actually compete with The Gaming Giant, Sony. If Zuckerberg's opening plan is to sell a $250.00 virtual reality social networking headset, without other third party, major developer support on release day one, then I think the sad fact is they won't be able to match up. Still, I'd like to be cautiously optimistic that Facebook's entry into the hardware market will be marked with the success of a well-polished, fun, exciting and experience-changing peripheral. Only time will tell, I suppose.

Tomodachi Snow Ball

"What is up with everyone being so touchy these days?" That's the question I keep finding myself asking, especially in the realm of gaming. People seem to be more than willing to get worked up over just about anything recently. The Social Justice Warriors and Professionally offended seem to be taking to the streets over the most asinine things. To a degree it's always been kind of like this, and gaming seems to have a lot of hot-button issues for some reason. The last couple of weeks, Nintendo found themselves at the wrong end of the internet for their choices in "Tomodachi Life," and as usual with things like these, it's for really stupid reasons.

 Nintendo's "Tomodachi Life." Seemed to have really got people worked up. To a degree I can kind of see where they are coming from. There was a bug in the game that allowed for same sex companionship, the problem was that this bug was a bug. It was not ever intended to be included in the game to begin with. From what I have read this bug was also game breaking; which if you're not up to snuff on the terminology, basically means that it corrupts the save, or otherwise stops the player from continuing "correctly." In this case, the player's save file was corrupted and could not be recovered.

I've also seen unconfirmed statements in forums on the web that this was not the case, only that it was mistranslated and that the bug was fixed quite a long time ago. Now, I've not see any of that information from an official source, so I am going to stick with the facts that I understand to be true for now.

Tomodachi Life had a bug that caused the save to be corrupted. It needed to be fixed, period. That is something that cannot even be argued at this point and anyone saying otherwise is just a fool who either wants thing done their way, or just wants something to be upset about.

Was it short-sighted that Nintendo didn't include this into the game? Yeah, probably. Nintendo also was not expecting this backlash from the American public either, which is clear from the statement they made about the game. They weren't expecting a silly, Mii-based game to generate the controversy that it did, over here in the states. Nintendo was absolutely not making a statement about same-sex partnerships. Omitting something is not the same thing as making a condemning it, which some sites like Kotaku and Polygon seemed to think. Simply because you refuse to comment on something does not mean that you're inadvertently making a statement about anything. In this case, Nintendo leaving out same-sex couples is not the same is Nintendo coming out and saying they are against same-sex couples. Anyone who said or thinks this should probably be pretty damned ashamed of themselves. Simply thinking that is ludicrous, but actually coming out and saying it is a special kind of dumb that seems to collect in droves on the internet.

This game is targeted towards children, or at least it seems to be based on what I've seen about it. There is going to be a time when a kid asks questions like "Why does Uncle Steve always bring his roommate, Greg to Thanksgiving?" That's fine, that's a part of life, it's a part of growing up and it's definitely part of being a good parent. What people shouldn't expect is a video game to expose this to people! Why folks think that it is, is totally beyond me and frankly, any rationally thinking human being. There is a time and place for those conversations. They should be discussed by from parent to child, around real-world people with real-world connections and emotions. They shouldn't be getting some half-assed, character representative from a video game as the starting point.

Nintendo did try to address this like rational adults, who did actually apologize. Some company representatives even made statements in agreement with those who were upset, yet the Internet Hate Train had already left the station and was barreling down the tracks at breakneck speeds. Nintendo's public statements to quell people's anger only seemed to make it worse and for what? Because one Mii couldn't marry another? Folks, seriously get a grip on yourselves. We've got real problems in the world, with people's rights and lives being ruined by others and THIS is what you're getting worked up about?

It's not about people liking or even hating homosexuals. This issue is much more simple than that. Stop trying to inject your own social views and goals into other's lives. It's not okay to be pushy, it's not okay to piss and moan because you didn't get what you want, (from a game that was incredibly close to being finished at that,) and it's not okay to completely turn on of the greatest, fan driven companies in our modern society because you didn't get what you wanted. It's childish and it's counter-productive. Nintendo has never been known for making social or political statements either in their games or to the press. They've done all they can to avoid that kind of shit. There is a really good reason for it too, that kind of social and political commentary simply does not fit Nintendo as a company, it never has and it most likely never will. If you don't like what they've done with Tomodachi Life, then please don't buy the game. That is an infinitely more powerful statement that bitching on some websites. Do what any other rational thinking human being would do and don't support something you find to be tasteless or lacking in depth; it really is that simple! No one is going to force you to buy Tomodachi Life.

This next point is very important, so please pay attention. It may actually be the most important point of all! When someone concedes and has admitted that they had a lapse in judgement, that something should have been done differently, or that they are simply wrong; STOP! You've made your point and in this case, moving forward Nintendo seems to agree with you. Once you continue to argue and knit-pick, all you're doing is hurting the cause you are supposedly championing.

Stop the madness. No person or company is perfect. They never have or will be. Every company, Nintendo included is bound to make a misstep here and there. Demanding that they go back and fix every little mistake with a seemingly unending well of intolerance turns you into the exact same thing that you're supposedly fighting against. Have some patients, some understanding and for fuck sake, calm down. In the end its only a Video Game, that is something a lot of people seem to forget. As it stands, 17 out of 50 States in the U.S. have legalized same sex marriage. So ask yourself, what's more important? Getting pissed at a Japanese company who has no control over the taboos or laws that exist in America, or actually doing something about it within your own country. If you think for a second that having the ability to marry to same-sex Mii's is a world-stopping problem, then my friends, you've got some serious re-prioritization to do.

100 Hours After the Fact

Let me first start by apologizing to my readers for being absent over the last few weeks. I ran into some technical issues over the last 14 or so days with my computer, she hasn't been really up to gaming much since my secondary video card's Graphics Processing Unit burned up and I recently moved to a Solid State Disk, so I've got to take the good with the bad.

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Recently I rolled over to the 100 hour mark in Borderlands 2 and I am still not bored of it. There is this strange sense of zen to the game, this balance in running around simply collecting loot and doing the most basic and fundamental tasks a game can really ask of it’s players. Something that, logically should have gotten boring well before I hit 100 hours of gameplay, yet it hasn’t. I still look forward to signing into the game and playing with friends a few times a week, regardless of what character I 
have; though I much prefer my Assassin.

It’s not like the formula for BL2 changed drastically from the first game, hell you could even argue that it didn’t change at all. The scope may have; it’s definitely a much larger game than the original, but the gameplay is almost exactly the same as it’s predecessor. A real “Don’t fix it if it ain’t broke,” scenario. Yet the improvements that exist in BL2 are solid steps forward. Sure the design of the guns and the companies that make them in the game are drasticly different compared to regular old Borderlands, but you’re still just cruising around, popping open chests and robbing from the recently deceased. It’s a Hoarder’s paradise, at least until you run out of inventory space.

It’s like the developers over at 2K games have successfully hacked the human condition. Bigger, better (faster, stronger?) RPGs have been doing this sort of thing for a long time. Sure, there is a story to play through and in most cases droves of NPCs to speak with. Not to mention articles, scrolls and books to read within these worlds, but at a very base level all you’re doing is grabbing gear and leveling up your character. While Borderlands and Borderlands 2 lack the character and NPC depth of your average RPG, the game makes up for it with unique and utterly batshit crazy NPCs. Even after sitting through the cut scenes a few times each they are still entertaining and witty in their own fucked up sort of way. The characters in the Borderlands series thus far can best be described as Looney Tunes characters for adults. Take Tiny Tina for instance, she’s like Wile E. Coyote of Borderlands without the Road Runner. While a lot of these characters don’t have any real development and serve at the heart of it all  as only mouthpieces for objectives, they do it rather hysterically. It’s good to play a sequel that expands it’s depth of a world without trying to be something it is not, and I think that’s where the charm comes from; for me at least.

Admittedly, the beginning of the game can get tedious. Though, I am not sure if that’s because it is, or if it’s simply because I’ve played the beginning of the game so much. With that said, after the first 3 hours or so the game opens up and really allows you to randomly wander the previously barren wastelands of Pandora. Even after 100 hours I still find stuff to check out, looking through nooks and crannies or small shanties I haven’t explored before. The face-lift that Pandora got between the two games has also not gotten stale for me.

I think the real brilliance of the game is there really isn’t much to it. Even with clipping issues and the geometry that exist in the game the problems can be easily overlooked. There is nothing like getting hung up on... well, nothing while you’re being chased by a level 39 Bad Ass The weapons are still fresh after all the time I’ve put into it and all the DLC that has been released for it is impressive. There is also a new round of DLC coming as 2K is supposedly thinking about releasing a Season 2 pass, which would imply at least one new character class (Whom we already know a bit about,) with a few new areas to explore. We’ve already been treated to a new Mechromancer class as it is and I’ve been finding items for about two weeks that will only be usable by a new Psycho class whose name is Krieg with an officially released on May 14th. It’s good to see that the developers are continuing the tradition of a robust DLC catalog from the first game and just running with it.

Not to spoil anything, but the way the game ends opens it up to an infinite number of possibilities as this franchise seems to grow. Borderlands 2 has me continually impressed with it’s content and seemingly “worth-it” DLC extras. I am curious to see where it’s all going to go from here. Even as a simple stream-of-conciousness play-style and it’s straight forward smash and grab mechanics 2K and Gearbox have something good going here and with the increased focus on cooperative play it almost looks like they could be gearing up for a “Borderlands Universe” MMO. While I would be incredibly cautious about such a thing and certainly have my reservations about it, that does seem to be the direction things are headed. As long as I am able to group up and play with friends I really can’t complain about what’s coming next and all I can really do, like anyone else is speculate about the next game and the future of the series. It sounds like it’s going to be a ways off anyway, since the development team seems to be gearing up for even more content in the future!

When Good Tech Goes Bad

It’s been a busy few weeks for me it seems. I haven’t had all that much time to game during the last fortnight. My best friend got married last weekend, I’ve been fighting off a cold that had me sleeping during my spare time, and to top it off both computer and console hardware have literally been breaking at the worst possible times too. So my gaming platforms just have not been co-operating lately; it all started with my Android tablet that simply stopped booting now won’t turn on at all no matter how long I charge it.

I had a trusty old, IBM “Quiet-Key” keyboard bite the dust on me. The space bar stopped working. I tried to fix it and was doing quite well at it in fact, but when it came time to reattach the space bar to the keyboard, instead of it cleaning clicking into place like it has so many other times before, it snapped in half. Yes, right in half. In that moment I felt slighted, betrayed by the device I saved from the scrap pile and brought back to life, nurturing it, cleaning it, readjusting the damaged pins and replacing the little rubber keypads under the keys themselves that had either torn or otherwise dry-rotted simply due to age. In that moment of blind rage I picked up the keyboard and snapped it in half, warping the aluminium tray inside the housing beyond repair and scattering keys across my room in a shower of violent joy.

What came next was a few moments of satisfaction, a calming sensation washed over me as I held the now “V” shaped peripheral in my hand. The entire time thinking “This... This is what you get for failing me. I will destroy you for your indiscretion!” Immediately following that was something a little bit less enjoyable, panic. I realized that I didn’t even have a spare keyboard laying around to use. an old Apple keyboard that quite frankly was a poor design choice 10-12 years ago when Apple went with it and wouldn’t work for gaming. The other was the Dell keyboard that I had acquired from the junk pile where I work. It was brand new,(it’s amazing what people will throw away these days,) but unfortunately hooked up to my Linux server. The server which has seen some better days as of late probably didn’t need that keyboard. I reasoned that since the server hadn’t been functioning properly and warranted a reformat I could simply pull the keyboard from the server. I will be damned, I do not like that keyboard one bit! I am still looking for a good, affordable replacement for it!

The next thing to go was my favorite PS3 controller. I picked up a copy of Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, (a game so crazy I am pretty sure they just made up a word for it.) I was kicking back and having a few cocktails while I made some spicy beef stew in a crockpot. I figured everything was set so I’d start playing Metal Gear. This idea didn’t get too far unfortunately. After starting the game on the hard difficulty (which I regret at the moment.) I played for awhile until low and behold, my shaker full of delicious booze was empty. I paused the game and head right downstairs, taking the controller with me as I go for some reason. About halfway down the stairs the controller slips from my sweating, booze-infused fingertips. The controller bounces down the stairs, flipping and churning in the air like some out-of-control missile, or drunk gymnast launching off the uneven bars. I winced with each thick cracking sound it made as the plastic crashed onto the wooden step. I watch it, expecting it to explode into a million little shards. With each bounce my fears subsided though. That is, right up until the very last step. I knew this one was different at the moment of impact, the sound of plastic bouncing off wood gave way to the sound of a low-splitting noise and instead of bouncing it just thumped onto the floor with what leftover kinetic energy it had.

I moved down to the bottom of the stairs and begrudgingly scooped up my favorite controller to find that the bottom left side of my controller had split wide open like a desperate animal trying to leap a barbed-wire fence. The thought of finding some way to repair it crossed my mind as the gyroscope inside of the controller could clearly be seen detached and flopping around freely within the controller. I took a deep breath, sighed and in my head said “I am sorry old friend, but it’s your time.” Without a moments pause, dashed the controller on the floor as hard as I could, sending plastic, buttons and analog sticks flying. Unlike the keyboard I wasn’t angry, for my controller broke out of my own clumsiness, and while the keyboard had a longer life that any dog that ever lived the controller only lasted about a year or so. I also felt the sting with the controller because it was a $50.00 investment that had not fully been realized and now never would be. While the keyboard was a disposable piece of tech that was not long for this world to begin with; the controller was still a child.

Now, I do not have anger management issues. I don’t go around a hairs width away from just knocking out old ladies and pushing children down stairs at any moment. No, if you know me at all I am a pretty laid back guy. I destroy my broken technology for a few reasons. You can’t simply throw this stuff away, it’s got to be recycled and it costs money so I usually bring it all in at once, collecting enough to make the disposal run worth it. so for starters, it’s practical. If the hardware is utterly destroyed then there is no danger that I will get it confused with working technology that I do have as well. Secondly, It’s kind of a ritual for me. The one last loud bang before it falls silent forever, like sending a fallen comrade off with a 21-gun salute. Admittedly, sometimes it’s just for the satisfaction, it’s fun breaking things, even if they are already broken. Knowing that shattering something all over the ground that is never going to work again anyway seems just fine. I might as well “give it the business,” as I say. There are no consequences to breaking something that’s already been broken, you know unless you throw it through a TV or onto your little toe, but stupid decisions of clumsy gestures aside it’s just a ritual I feel I must do when my tech has finally kicked the bucket.

Now, I just need to figure out a creative way to send that Samsung Galaxy 10.1 Tablet up to the old scrap heap in the sky... I’m thinking maybe a shotgun... or firecrackers. Admittedly, this is a revenge kick, I babied the thing and the day I got my new phone it just stopped working, so it’s made it personal. If I could attach a rocket and fire it into the sun I would, I just don’t have the budget for that.          

I Fucking Suck at Starcaft

There’s no way around it. That is the cold-hard, painful and realistic truth. I fucking suck at starcraft, specifically Starcraft 2: Heart of the Swarm.

I know I haven’t exactly kept up on it since SCII: Wings of Liberty’s release. I played for a while online and then it just sort of petered out, but I’ve put a lot of time into the game since the new expansion was released. After playing against the computer quite regularly and became able to defeat the A.I. on hard. I said to myself, “Self, you’re now ready to go online, challenge then defeat your opponents in this arena of combat where wits and speed determine the winner, you can do this!”

Well you know what? I can’t do it! The learning curve in the multiplayer world of a game that’s been out for two years is damned near vertical! Seriously, it’s almost impossible to enter the arena with people who’ve done nothing but play SCII for the last two years. I remember playing online for awhile when it was first released and here is the thing, this may sound crazy but I was significantly more terrible at the game then, than I am now; I did however have significantly more wins under my belt then I do now. I even enjoyed about a week or so in the Gold ranked league for awhile. I felt pretty god damned proud of myself at that point.

You may think I am exaggerating about how generally terrible I am at the game, but I am not. The last game I played earlier this week was a 2 vs 2 unranked match. Basically, it’s where you go to get practice against other players without having to get ranked. 

Well, needless to say I lost the match and my partner (whom actually did next to nothing that match,) said “You suck and should not be playing any ranked matches.” That’s how bad I am. I am so bad at SCII that people are telling me to not play ranked matches... in unranked games! That doesn’t do much for one’s confidence.

So what now? I find myself torn between playing the successor of my favorite Real-Time Strategy game of all time and dreading the inevitable and very unfortunate reality of having my ass thoroughly removed cheek-by-cheek then handed back to me gift wrapped with a tag on it that says “HA!” It’s downright discouraging! I watch my replays like a good competitor, I watch and read strategy guides from the world’s top-ranking player (Seriously, these fuckin’ people make six figures a year playing Starcraft!) I’ve improved my APM (Actions Per Minute) from something like the low 40’s to 110-120 range and I still suck at Starcraft. I can’t be the only one out there who’s just pouring time into a pipe dream like this can I?

What deity do I need to sell my soul to, to become good at Starcraft? All of them maybe, because I can probably do that. I don’t even believe in the immortal soul. Maybe if I prayed to Blizzard, or the Queen of Blades things will work out? I play Terran so should I probably praise Raynor. “Commander Raynor, please grace will the power and angry of the Terran race, protect me with your Battlecruisers and may their Yamato cannon’s aim be true to smite my enemies on the field of battle... All hail the Raynor!” Lets see if that works...

I’ll let you all know how it works out...

Oh Sweet Baby Billy

What is it about Twitter that seems to get people into so much trouble? Is it because there is a limited number of characters so people can’t express themselves properly? Or is it simply that some people like making other’s angry in a public forum for no other purpose than self-satisfaction? It never fails to amaze me, people especially in the Tech or gaming industry will manage to put their foot in their own mouth so deftly that the PR division of these companies collectively facepalm so hard there is an audible and synchronized slapping sound resonating from an entire wing of an office building.

Well this month, just like every month since Twitter’s creation certainly hasn’t failed to disappoint us. The topic has swung back in the direction of DRM; specifically rumors surrounding the “Always-On” Digital Rights Management system for the next Xbox from Microsoft that is rumored to be included. These entertaining statements that come in the form of a communicative train wreck are courtesy of Microsoft's Creative Director Adam Orth, or “Orthy” as his Twitter handle would have him called. Who is now claiming that they were a “joke,” yet was responding rather rudely to people who did not understand it was joke, nor took it that way. Not that they can be blamed, since the corresponding conversations did not seem like a joke.
Now, lets just accept the fact the people are going to have different opinions than others. That’s just the pitfalls of free will, you’re going to disagree with people from time to time. 

There are a few special cases though where someone’s opinion is just plain wrong. To give you an example or two, the people who believe we’ve never landed on the moon; these people are idiots, or people that believe Autism is caused by vaccinations, also a special kind of stupid that can only exist when you willfully ignore the facts. Orthy’s comments about DRM and how he doesn’t see the problem with the “Always-On” Console DRM are certainly special. Keep in mind that this is after the debacle that EA is still recovering from after the Simcity 5 release. Not only is the man’s opinion one of those rare pieces of perfectly wrong and ignorant gold for the internet masses to rage at, it couldn’t possibly have worse timing! Once that acronym is brought up, every gamer shivers by pure reflex now and with good reason.

If there is one thing I’ve learned after spending years of my life on the internet, it’s that it probably is not a good idea to post a wildly unpopular opinion, or statement on a social networking site for the world to see without context. You’re totally free to, but you’re also free to drop a hammer on your toe, it just not highly recommended. There is no other way to get gamers and technophiles worked up faster than having a mind numbingly stupid statement about the future of someone’s favorite hobby. Well, Adam you’ve certainly succeeded at garnering attention. I, like millions of other people didn’t know or care who you were until yesterday. Now Microsoft’s PR team is going to have to do damage control over what is now being shrugged off as a “personal” joke, between two friends who just happened to let millions of people watch... See? Not a very good idea. We all know what a new and strange place the internet is compared to other forms of communication and entertainment but at this point we’ve become so connected that things said in cyberspace can easily affect the real-world, as has been demonstrated time and time again.

It’s alright that our poorly informed and opinionated Creative Director of Xbox has a different point-of-view than the rest of us folks living in the real world. What isn’t alright is the way he went about explaining himself. This man, is currently talking about a product for a company that he works for and it’s generating a negative response. So to him, obviously the logical next step was to continue to say arrogant shit for the world to see. If you’re lucky to have been promoted up to a directing position for a multi-billion dollar, world-wide company you must realize that you’re a representative of that company and some tact may be in order. Or, I guess maybe you don’t because you’ve lost some humility while rising in the ranks. Even if common sense no longer happened to be a strong point of yours shouldn’t you have the grace and wisdom to maybe shut your mouth when things start to snowball? As a creative director the guy wasn’t hired to be a mouthpiece or face of the product. That’s what Marketing and PR is for, and the job Orthy certainly wasn’t hired to do.

It should go without saying that the always on DRM system is a poor idea at best with most of the developed world’s current network infrastructure. At worst it’s a comet-sized shit-missile that can single-handedly stop a company from moving thousands of units and lower it’s stock value for a month or two. If there is one thing that gets your boss to take notice it is when you start fucking with their profit. In a real horror scenario it can send a company into a nose dive. While this isn’t going to happen to Microsoft, it still doesn’t make them look good. The simple reality is that not everyone has a stable or high-speed internet connection. Everyone should at least have access to it in the United States at this point, but that’s another topic altogether. By having an always on DRM with a console you’ve effectively cut off the subset of people who like to play video games but also happen to have a shit internet connection, like anyone living in the country or college students who are stuck in dorms sharing internet with 600 other students. Hell, even the person whose internet connection went down unexpectedly can’t even play a single-player game while they wait for the connection to come back. Suddenly, you’ve got an expensive and flashy paperweight that could do something; you know, if it weren’t for a poor idea that made it too far. 

When it comes right down to it, people don’t give a company hundreds of their hard-earned dollars to be told when or how they can use a product they’ve paid for. It’s bad enough Microsoft is legitimately considering something like this for their next console, but to have your Creative Director start running his mouth over twitter telling people to “Deal with it!” just adds insult to injury. Whether it's a joke or not, he is a representative of Microsoft and people don't take these things lightly. We’ve seen people lose their jobs for less over similar issues, while I don't think he should be fired, he definitely needs to think about what he posts before putting it online. Orthy should probably quit while he’s ahead and just let the Microsoft’s PR team clean up his mess, unless they don’t care, which they may not. All this may just be one big misunderstanding, but it’s something that was avoidable, there are ways to send inside jokes back and forth to one another over the net and it’s called private messaging. Unfortunately for Adam, even if this is a misunderstanding caused by little to no context the damage has already been done.