Yo!
Holy s---, p---, f---, c---, c---s----'n m----f---'n t---, George Carlin died Sunday! I really enjoyed his stand-up routines when and where I could catch them, but somehow I'll always remember him just a little bit more the way I first met him: As the vertically-challenged Shining Time Station conductor who'd introduce Thomas the Tank Engine shorts every day when I was younger. I'm starting to hate saying this about such awesome people once they're not with us, but I meant it last post and I mean it now. He will be missed.
Should've got around to posting this Monday or Tuesday. Topic's fresher.
This title was a loose fit by the way, but this opening transition paragraph made it work well enough.
I was listening to a video game news podcast earlier today and they were talking about how PlayStation 3's Metal Gear Solid 4 so perfectly ties up such a severely complicated and often confusing storyline spanning twenty years of games and fifty years of in overall-game-universe story, or canon. Which got me thinking about how rare consistency is in video games in general. Not in the sense of TOTAL surface consistency of the game itself (better known as a sequel), but in terms of play style consistency.
For example, if you know me on Xbox Live, you know I play LOTS of Gears of War. That game has you hit the right shoulder button to reload your weapon. Whereas, in Frontlines: Fuel of War, you reload with the LEFT shoulder button. Neither game has modifiable button mapping. So my question is, since it is 2008, computers and games are pretty advanced these days. Why can't all games control the same? Or at the very least all games let you customize how you want them to control? Sure, Xbox 360 lets you set basic stuff from the dashboard, such as which joystick controls character movement, Automatic or Manual transmission and Easy, Normal or Hard difficulty. But why can't games, in the generation of customization and community, let you use the Back/Select/2 button (X360, PS3 & Wii respectively) as the main weapon trigger if you wanted?
I'm sorry developers, but Legacy and Southpaw controller configurations were once impressive and a welcome option, but a lot's changed since 2001. Think about how much better we'd all be if we could just jump into a completely different driving game knowing we wouldn't have to remember different controller configurations anymore! No more waiting to get "in a groove," no more accidentally reflexively hitting B button in Call of Duty 4, expecting to Mêlée* attack someone because you just got done with Halo 3 (GOD I HATE WHEN THAT HAPPENS!).
Bottom Line: If we have to endure one more generation of consoles--- heck, another year of complicated learning curves and combination memorizing... Well, I won't be doing anything about it myself directly, but I'll be angrily trying to put up with whatever crazy controls Pandemic Studios will force on us when Mercenaries 2 comes out in August.
Oh by the way! The next film by Nickelodeon Movies, the guys behind Spiderwick Chronicles, is called Hotel for Dogs. The first trailer came out this week, and-- I have to show you guys this trailer, especially the ending. The amount of clever mechanical automation in the trailer alone almost puts the opening sequence of Back to the Future 1 to shame! ...Almost. I defy you to spot plutonium under ANYONE's bed in this movie!!!!
I know, I know, cheesy trailer for a family film #5,637,128. I just thought that ending vending machine bit was sorta funny.
Anyway, later!
-D.
*(correct spelling... I checked. Wikipedia. I was way off with the one acute accent.)
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Friday, June 20, 2008
Entry 79: "When Legends Fall"
Yo!
As you all know by now, Meet the Press host Tim Russert passed away over Father's Day weekend. On Friday the 13th, of all days. I never watched a whole lot of MTP except for the split-second I'd catch while surfing through channels since MSNBC and CNBC are right between FX and Comedy Central. This reminds me of when Peter Jennings died, the internet news sites and message boards were in total disbelief and ABC was racing to do their own American Anchor-ish competition behind the scenes to see who would take over World News Tonight before settling for Charles Gibson, dawg. That last frame of MSNBC's MTP retrospective/memorial special Brokaw hosted Sunday night says it all. The set lights were dimmed down and Russert's empty chair was in center frame... Truly then we all knew that chair would never quite be filled the same way again. Mr. Tim Russert, you wil-- are missed.
As slightly less of you may know (since Russert obviously got all the mainstream media attention), special effects master Stan Winston also passed away this past weekend. The man who gave believability to Aliens, Predators and Terminators left us Sunday, leaving a legacy of unreality for us to share for generations to come. I read one message board post Monday claiming Winston faked his death somehow. Yes, I'm sure he's off playing shuffleboard with Steve Irwin, Tupac Shakur, Elvis Presley and all the other celebrities who "aren't really dead" until he decides to quit his self-imposed identity abandoning and get back to work. Mr. Winston's work made cinema fun, and CG almost unnecessary. In today's world, that's indispensable; knowing the actors are interacting with something extraordinary on-set, instead of noticing barely miscued glances and eye paths toward a CG character that's added in post-production. Mr. Stan Winston, you are missed.
Hmm. I've never eulogized two people at once before...
Also, if you don't believe the part about Steve Irwin faking his death, you clearly didn't see this grossly overlooked clip from the E! Network's The Soup a couple months ago:
Bottom Line: Understandably, a heck of a lot of people have taken these deaths pretty hard. Not to mention the fact that this couldn't possibly have been a worse time for these guys to move on up to that deluxe apartment in the sky. The November Obama vs. McCain election coverage begs to have some of that polygraph-ish talking point dissolving style of Russert's interviews and analysis. Winston was still doing work on McG's Terminator 4 movie but not until after Favreau's Iron Man suit was made EXTRA crimson-ey, which is something only Stan the Man could've done right. What if it was the other way around, and Winston passed during production of Iron Man, but after his legendary work on the Terminator franchise successfully lived on through the whole production? A man can dream...
...But that's just me.
God, Winston was gonna do Jurassic Park 4 too.....
BY THE WAY! Some of you readers may remember that top-secret television project I've been working on and hinting at all this time. Now you get to see a small sampling of what's in store. I'm personally hosting and producing an internet talk show on YouTube, MySpace & Facebook called The Rant, where I go around Virginia asking random people what's on their minds. New episodes will be released all summer through September, 1-2 shows a month, on top of the established 3-4 blog posts a month. Phew! So what are you doing for summer vacation?
Here's what to bookmark:
YouTube: http://youtube.com/therantonline
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/therantonline (I know, it's not visually stunning; it's a work-in-progress.)
Facebook, you have to search for it right now, but I'm working on a decent standalone site just like the other two.
More soon.
-D.
As you all know by now, Meet the Press host Tim Russert passed away over Father's Day weekend. On Friday the 13th, of all days. I never watched a whole lot of MTP except for the split-second I'd catch while surfing through channels since MSNBC and CNBC are right between FX and Comedy Central. This reminds me of when Peter Jennings died, the internet news sites and message boards were in total disbelief and ABC was racing to do their own American Anchor-ish competition behind the scenes to see who would take over World News Tonight before settling for Charles Gibson, dawg. That last frame of MSNBC's MTP retrospective/memorial special Brokaw hosted Sunday night says it all. The set lights were dimmed down and Russert's empty chair was in center frame... Truly then we all knew that chair would never quite be filled the same way again. Mr. Tim Russert, you wil-- are missed.
As slightly less of you may know (since Russert obviously got all the mainstream media attention), special effects master Stan Winston also passed away this past weekend. The man who gave believability to Aliens, Predators and Terminators left us Sunday, leaving a legacy of unreality for us to share for generations to come. I read one message board post Monday claiming Winston faked his death somehow. Yes, I'm sure he's off playing shuffleboard with Steve Irwin, Tupac Shakur, Elvis Presley and all the other celebrities who "aren't really dead" until he decides to quit his self-imposed identity abandoning and get back to work. Mr. Winston's work made cinema fun, and CG almost unnecessary. In today's world, that's indispensable; knowing the actors are interacting with something extraordinary on-set, instead of noticing barely miscued glances and eye paths toward a CG character that's added in post-production. Mr. Stan Winston, you are missed.
Hmm. I've never eulogized two people at once before...
Also, if you don't believe the part about Steve Irwin faking his death, you clearly didn't see this grossly overlooked clip from the E! Network's The Soup a couple months ago:
Bottom Line: Understandably, a heck of a lot of people have taken these deaths pretty hard. Not to mention the fact that this couldn't possibly have been a worse time for these guys to move on up to that deluxe apartment in the sky. The November Obama vs. McCain election coverage begs to have some of that polygraph-ish talking point dissolving style of Russert's interviews and analysis. Winston was still doing work on McG's Terminator 4 movie but not until after Favreau's Iron Man suit was made EXTRA crimson-ey, which is something only Stan the Man could've done right. What if it was the other way around, and Winston passed during production of Iron Man, but after his legendary work on the Terminator franchise successfully lived on through the whole production? A man can dream...
...But that's just me.
God, Winston was gonna do Jurassic Park 4 too.....
BY THE WAY! Some of you readers may remember that top-secret television project I've been working on and hinting at all this time. Now you get to see a small sampling of what's in store. I'm personally hosting and producing an internet talk show on YouTube, MySpace & Facebook called The Rant, where I go around Virginia asking random people what's on their minds. New episodes will be released all summer through September, 1-2 shows a month, on top of the established 3-4 blog posts a month. Phew! So what are you doing for summer vacation?
Here's what to bookmark:
YouTube: http://youtube.com/therantonline
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/therantonline (I know, it's not visually stunning; it's a work-in-progress.)
Facebook, you have to search for it right now, but I'm working on a decent standalone site just like the other two.
More soon.
-D.
Monday, June 2, 2008
Entry 78: "Don't Walk Into the Three Red Lights!"
Yo!
Well, it was a long time coming, but my beloved Xbox 360, after nearly eighteen months of faithful service, got slapped with a three-red-lights hardware failure last Wednesday night.
For the uninitiated, "three-red-lights" refers to the green "ring of light" surrounding the power on/off button on the front of all Xbox 360 consoles. In this case, the ring changes to three-quarters red...
...instead of a full circle of green...
...which signifies a critical. Hardware. FAILURE.
Having bought my 360 on eBay in December of 2006, I sorta knew it was a risky move, given the average "long shelf-life" of the item in question, not to mention the money involved. Luckily I had a good idea of the type of auction to watch out for, paid attention to the fine print, etcetera... You know, all the stuff your momma told you to do on your first day of auction school. However, I knew the rewards pretty much outweighed the risks, given 360's penchant for communication and overall community structure... Something PlayStation 3 doesn't deliver nearly as efficiently, and Wii... Well, it'd get too messy keeping track of all those "friend codes." As most of you readers know (since a lot of you most likely know me on Xbox Live and get my "new post" text message notifications every week), Xbox 360's community structure makes it really easy to publicize things like blogs or internet talk shows.
...Um... More on that later.
Oh, and media playability. Man, 360s can sure play WMV video files like they were made for 'em! Not many other formats, but Windows Media Video and MPEG4 (the video podcast file type) have never let me down!
Moving on, the Bottom Line here cannot be ignored: How are there hardware failures in this generation at all?? I remember the days when seeing a game glitch at all was an awesome sight! Mainly because back then it let you get away with doing things or moving around in areas in the game you're not meant to do/see. Especially the Game Boy Pokémon games. Back in the day, if you could pony up the $20 for a GameShark cheat device, the Poké-world was your oyster! These younger kids today have no idea what REAL game glitches are (*how old am I again?), since the new sense of the phrase is synonymous with BAD things! Oh, someone's glitching and messing up our ranked multiplayer game! Oh, that guy's hacking his way to a Pokémon character he's not supposed to have unless he could afford the bus fare/extra gas money to get to some special promotional event in person!
I'm telling!!!!!
First of all, it'd be just beating a dead horse to cap this post off with yet another "Microsoft-needs-to-let-us-customers-get- our-money's-worth-with-nonfailing-products!!" rant, so I'll just say this. These days, "you get what you pay for..." seems just more true now than ever. Which having said that, says volumes about how worthless $400 retail value really is in this case, huh?
...But that's just me.
See you next week. As for my X360 readers... Hopefully I'll see you in July, since the cardboard "coffin" I'm supposed to send Microsoft my 360 in... I dunno, the hearse blew a flat tire or something? It's taking too long to get here!!
-D.
Well, it was a long time coming, but my beloved Xbox 360, after nearly eighteen months of faithful service, got slapped with a three-red-lights hardware failure last Wednesday night.
For the uninitiated, "three-red-lights" refers to the green "ring of light" surrounding the power on/off button on the front of all Xbox 360 consoles. In this case, the ring changes to three-quarters red...
...instead of a full circle of green...
...which signifies a critical. Hardware. FAILURE.
Having bought my 360 on eBay in December of 2006, I sorta knew it was a risky move, given the average "long shelf-life" of the item in question, not to mention the money involved. Luckily I had a good idea of the type of auction to watch out for, paid attention to the fine print, etcetera... You know, all the stuff your momma told you to do on your first day of auction school. However, I knew the rewards pretty much outweighed the risks, given 360's penchant for communication and overall community structure... Something PlayStation 3 doesn't deliver nearly as efficiently, and Wii... Well, it'd get too messy keeping track of all those "friend codes." As most of you readers know (since a lot of you most likely know me on Xbox Live and get my "new post" text message notifications every week), Xbox 360's community structure makes it really easy to publicize things like blogs or internet talk shows.
...Um... More on that later.
Oh, and media playability. Man, 360s can sure play WMV video files like they were made for 'em! Not many other formats, but Windows Media Video and MPEG4 (the video podcast file type) have never let me down!
Moving on, the Bottom Line here cannot be ignored: How are there hardware failures in this generation at all?? I remember the days when seeing a game glitch at all was an awesome sight! Mainly because back then it let you get away with doing things or moving around in areas in the game you're not meant to do/see. Especially the Game Boy Pokémon games. Back in the day, if you could pony up the $20 for a GameShark cheat device, the Poké-world was your oyster! These younger kids today have no idea what REAL game glitches are (*how old am I again?), since the new sense of the phrase is synonymous with BAD things! Oh, someone's glitching and messing up our ranked multiplayer game! Oh, that guy's hacking his way to a Pokémon character he's not supposed to have unless he could afford the bus fare/extra gas money to get to some special promotional event in person!
I'm telling!!!!!
First of all, it'd be just beating a dead horse to cap this post off with yet another "Microsoft-needs-to-let-us-customers-get- our-money's-worth-with-nonfailing-products!!" rant, so I'll just say this. These days, "you get what you pay for..." seems just more true now than ever. Which having said that, says volumes about how worthless $400 retail value really is in this case, huh?
...But that's just me.
See you next week. As for my X360 readers... Hopefully I'll see you in July, since the cardboard "coffin" I'm supposed to send Microsoft my 360 in... I dunno, the hearse blew a flat tire or something? It's taking too long to get here!!
-D.
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