The Razorclaw's Edge

Bueller...Bueller...Bueller...

2012-01-28T09:48:00.000-08:00

No need for alarm, folks. This isn't Hollywood being a complete dick and giving us an unnecessary sequel to a beloved 80s film. Nope, just a teaser for a Honda ad for the Super Bowl.

Looks like I may not attend SDCC either

2012-01-24T09:29:00.000-08:00

This has not been a good week for me. First, someone close I know lost his job, and now I have surgery for the right foot scheduled for April 23rd. "But good sir," you're probably asking. "What does the date of your surgery have anything to do with Comic-Con?" I'm glad you asked that. Well, SDCC will be held in July from the 12th to the 15th. Since it takes a good 12 weeks for my foot to heal up through the numerous casts, the date in which I'm fully healed will be cutting it really close with the date of the convention. Since I was in a recovery cast for one week, a standing cast for three weeks, a walking cast for four weeks, and a boot for four weeks, chances are if that sort of time table happens again, I'll miss the convention. Technically, I was originally supposed to be in the walking cast for three weeks, along with the boot, which means I could have shaved off two weeks in the whole recuperation process. But you know how hectic scheduling can get, and these kinds of things can happen. I MAY be able to go to SDCC if I'm only in a walking cast and a boot for three weeks each. By the time I'm out of the boot, I SHOULD be ready to go a few days before the convention begins. At least, in theory anyway. I don't know, I may have to assume the worst and just stay home. It all really depends on luck regarding scheduling. We'll just have to wait and see.

Derpy Hooves is now canon in My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic

2012-01-22T07:48:00.000-08:00

OH GOD YES.

Botcon 2012...eh, I shouldn't bother

2012-01-13T10:01:00.000-08:00

While some of you may find this shocking (and everyone else probably not giving a crap, and few of you probably breathing a sigh of relief), I've decided not to go to Botcon 2012 this year. I've said before that I have the means to go to Botcon, I just can't afford registering for it. Well, now I can add a new reason why I won't go: the exclusives for this year. Every Botcon has had a set of exclusives that had a theme to them; this year being called "Invasion", where the Shattered Glass universe and the "Wings of Honor" universe (which is TFCC's version of the G1 cartoon) collide. There are six toys sold in one box, and the toys themselves...look lackluster.

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there are people out there who'll love these sets and still buy them anyway. But as someone who's started to lose interest in collecting (sans Beast Wars), this set barely makes me want to shell out a couple hundred dollars for it. The only one out of the six that I really want is Shattered Glass Treadshot, and that's only because of the neat headsculpt he has, and somehow reminds me of Mic Sounders the 13th from GaoGaiGar. I might as well end up just getting him off of someone sometime after Botcon ends. Honestly, I think I'm a lot better off not going. Besides, there are plenty of sites out there that cover Botcon in great detail every year, so technically, it'd be like being at Botcon, but without having to get out of the comfy new computer chair I got for Christmas. To be honest, if there's one convention that I want to go to this year, it's obviously the San Diego Comic Con. Sorry to anyone who wanted to see me in person at Botcon this year, but if you're going to San Diego in July for Comic-Con, and if you have good eyes, you might just find me there.

Holy shit, Toei's making exclusive footage just for Power Rangers again!

2012-01-10T09:58:00.000-08:00

There's been a lot of talk for what's going to happen for the 20th anniversary of Power Rangers next year (I feel old already). Many have speculated that the next Power Rangers season will either adapt Goseiger and skip Gokaiger, or vice versa. Well now the crazy speculation can begin again, as there has been recent news of Toei making a Legend War with just the Power Ranger teams. That's right, us Power Ranger fans will get our own Legend War like Gokaiger did in the first few minutes of its first episode! While we won't have the luxury of the 15 pre-Zyuranger Sentai teams (nor the Dairangers, for that matter) aiding the Power Rangers in fighting off...whoever's the antagonist, it will probably still look awesome. The last time Toei made exclusive footage for Power Rangers was way back during the last third of Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers season 1 and the first few episodes of season 2, called "Zyu2" footage by the fans. I'm excited as hell, and now waiting for the anniversary is going to be all the more difficult.

New Year, new things to expect - 2012 Edition

2012-01-02T09:49:00.000-08:00

It's that time again, folks! Since I made something like this last year, I figured, "what the hell," and decided to do it again this year. However, instead of compiling one list of what happened in 2011 and then compiling one list of what will happen in 2012, I've decided to go the lazy route and just compile the latter list. Why? Because that's how I roll. It's a brand new year, so let's see what I give a crap about in 2012.

The Amazing Spider-Man. I never really had much respect for the Sam Raimi Spider-Man trilogy, what with the Green Goblin looking like a rejected Power Rangers villain (and there's a new clip showing what could have been a better Green Goblin suit, WTF Sam), and the mess that was Spider-Man 3 in general. However, it's been five years, so hopefully the reboot should do good. I really don't mind the new Spider-Man costume (nor do I mind the actor playing Spider-Man to have a silly hairdo), but the Lizard's design...his head reminds me of the Goombas from the god-awful Super Mario Bros. movie. Well, it may be a half-way transformation, so who knows.
The Dark Knight Rises. This is probably the superhero movie to get the most attention, seeing as though The Dark Knight is considered by many to be the best Batman movie ever made (and me and my brother agree). With Christopher Nolan in the director's chair one more time, I'm sure we can expect a damn good ending to a damn good movie trilogy.
The Avengers. Oh. Hell. YES. The first ever superhero team-up movie and it looks AMAZING. You've got Thor, Iron Man, Hulk, Nick Fury, Black Widow, Captain America, and Hawkeye, assembling together to fight off...whoever's the antagonist (judging by the trailers, Loki's in it, but there's been rumors of Skrulls being the big bads of the movie). I cannot wait to see this movie, along with the other two I posted. The Avengers is the movie I want to see the most this year, and hopefully all the characters get a decent amount of screen-time.
Wii U. After E3 last year, I was disappointed with what we got overall. And then Nintendo shows up, gives us a little Zelda music concert, shows off some 3DS games, and then the big reveal of the next Nintendo console. As I had said in my E3 2011 post, I did not like the controller. It still looks like an iPad got eaten by a Wii Classic controller, but I digress. Since then, we've had not a lot of new info regarding Nintendo's next-gen console. Hopefully in a week, when the 2012 CES takes place, maybe Nintendo could shed some more light on what the Wii U will do. If it offers Gamecube games as part of the Virtual Console service, then I may be interested, just as long as I have somewhere to plug a Gamecube controller into (though I highly doubt it).
Power Rangers Super Samurai. Yes, it seems Saban has decided to have Power Rangers Samurai run for two seasons instead of one, somewhat taking a cue from Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers. Unlike MMPR (and subsequently every season after that up to RPM) where they used footage from one Super Sentai show per season, Super Samurai is basically just the second half of Samurai Sentai Shinkenger. I guess it makes sense, since Saban still needs to reestablish Power Rangers as a name brand, what with Disney holding it for eight years and all. Nothing much I can expect from "Super Samurai", other than the Samurai series ending.
Halo 4. To be honest, I wasn't expecting this to ever happen. But then again, Microsoft fucked up their E3 conference by showing off the Kinect for an hour, so I guess this is their way of saying sorry for wasting everyone's time. From what info we know so far, it's the first in a new "Reclaimer Trilogy", so I'm assuming that there's more doomsday weapons built by the Forerunner for Master Chief to deal with (seriously, what is it with aliens and ancient doomsday weapons). The only thing I want to know is if Halo 4's multiplayer won't suck like Reach's did. I could care less about the campaign, or the story, or anything else. As long as the multiplayer is fun, and there's no armor abilities to put up with, I'll buy the game on day one.
Transformers Prime season 2. SPOILER ALERT! After the end of season 1, where both Optimus Prime and Megatron defeat Unicron, Optimus Prime (for some reason after using the Matrix) loses his memories and thinks he's still Orion Pax. Megatron, seizing the opportunity, takes Optimus Prime away, and makes him a Decepticon. This is what worries me for season 2: we don't know if Optimus Prime regaining his memories will be solved in a few episodes, or if it will be the overall story-arc for the season. I honestly want to believe it's the former, but something tells me it may be the latter. If it is the latter, then I'm not prepared to have the Autobots yell at Optimus Prime, telling him to remember who he is for the next 26 episodes. Maybe I'm wrong, and this plot point may be something that will be solved in a short time. Nevertheless, we can only wait until next month when season 2 premieres.
The 2012 Mayan doomsday apocalypse bullshit. It's Y2K all over again; stupid people freaking out over something that won't even happen. We've been wrong about doomsday dates before, and chances are we'll be wrong again. You wanna know what's really gonna happen, come December 21st of this year?

NOTHING!

Nothing will happen at all! If anything, some people will probably commit suicide for wasting their time and money on fallout shelters, and even quitting their jobs because of this stupid false prophecy. It's just going to be another day in December. You want real doomsday theories that could spell the end of the world? Here's mine:

-Michael Bay making a GOOD movie.
-A live-action film adaptation of a cartoon or anything from our childhood that DOESN'T SUCK.
-Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft joining forces and making a super video game console.
-Carlos Mencia admitting that he steals jokes.
-Dave Chappelle coming back to do a proper third season of Chappelle's Show.
-George Lucas releasing the original, unaltered Star Wars trilogy on Blu-Ray.

That's all my thoughts for what the new year entails. Hope everyone has a Happy New Year.

Every Nintendo 64 game ever released in North America...in 25 Minutes

2011-12-29T10:32:00.000-08:00

Here's something really cool I found. Someone who has all 296 N64 games made a little clip show showcasing every single one of them within 25 minutes.

I'm now jealous of this person. :(

How the whole left foot surgery ordeal went...in pictures! NSFW!

2011-12-29T10:22:00.000-08:00

Just thought I'd show off some interesting, if somewhat disgusting, pictures of my left foot after the reconstructive surgery, since it's just about healed up (well, it's still in the boot for another three weeks, but whatever).

WARNING! THESE IMAGES ARE NSFW! THEY ARE NOT FOR THE SQUEAMISH! TURN BACK NOW IF THIS GROSSES YOU OUT! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

This is the foot in the dressing/recovery cast. Not fun having to lay on my bed all day with an ice pack underneath my leg. But I'll say this: it gets nastier from here. Don't believe me? You will after this next pic:

Hah, told ya! This is when I got the recovery cast taken off (along with the stitches). Notice the big ugly stitch on the foot. You can probably tell it wasn't fun either when I had that taken out. It hurt, but nothing a few painkillers wouldn't fix.

The standing cast, about to be cut off. Don't be alarmed by the small, buzz-saw-like instrument there! It doesn't really cut through skin. In fact, it doesn't move in a circular motion like a regular buzz-saw, but rather vibrates so fast that it can cut through the material the cast is made of, without hurting the skin. Ain't medical science awesome? But yeah, the standing cast, while a teensy bit more tolerable than the recovery cast, still didn't make my daily life any better.

More gross images. Don't be alarmed by the remnants of the stitch on my foot and the bloody part of my heel. I'll explain why later.

The walking cast, or as I like to call it, "standing cast with a slipper velcro'ed on it." If anything, this is probably the most tolerable of all the casts.

My foot, after I got the cast taken off. As I said earlier, the remnants of the stitch on my foot, along with the other stitches and the bloody part of my heel, were something I didn't have to worry about. And here's the really disgusting explanation: turns out they were really pieces of dead skin (and band-aids). Yes, when you go through surgery on your foot, your foot will dry up from the lack of bathing it (and it will STINK like hell, too). Let's just say I spent a good chunk of my day cleaning my foot and leave it at that; I don't want to go into any more explicit detail.

The boot, and subsequently the final product: two scars (one on the top of my foot, and the other on my heel). And yes, I wear Xbox 360 pajama bottoms, quit laughing (it was a Christmas gift, okay?). Yeah, this has been a crazy two months, but after all that, it better be worth getting me to walk normally. Unfortunately, I'll have to go through the same ordeal again with the right foot; I only hope that I heal fast enough for Botcon 2012 (that is, if I can afford it). I'm not gonna show up in Texas wearing crutches.

Obligatory Belated Christmas Post

2011-12-26T12:02:00.000-08:00

Happy Holidays everyone! Hope some of you had a very Merry Christmas yesterday, because I sure as hell did! So here's my CHRISTMAS HAUL!

-Flame Red 3DS with Super Mario 3D Land Bundle (I was really only expecting the 3DS, but the game is awesome, too!)
-Red Vs Blue Season 9
-GoldenEye 007 Reloaded for Xbox 360
-New slippers
-$20 from lottery tickets
-$20 from one of my uncles
-$100 from my parents
-$50 gift card to Best Buy
-Beast Wars Complete Series on DVD
-4000 Microsoft Points
-giant Reese's peanut butter cup (already eaten)
-One pound bar of Hershey's chocolate (about half of it eaten)
-A Lindt Excellence chocolate bar (already eaten)
-An electronic coin counting jar
-A new computer chair
-A new cable box and...

A BRAND NEW 42" HDTV!

I have to say, this has been quite the haul. I may have not had a good year, but I'll be damned if my family didn't love me enough that they'd go through all the trouble of getting me this stuff. Here's to a Happy New Year!

Speaking of new year, I should probably get cracking on my crazy speculations/predictions for 2012.

Also a Christmas gift from Hasbro

2011-12-23T09:52:00.000-08:00

Kind of odd how I'm showing off two videos that I found within a few minutes, but this also has to be shared.

Hasbro, if you keep this up with the Kreons being funny, I think I may have to get a Kre-O set.

A Christmas gift from Beast Wars Megatron

2011-12-23T09:50:00.001-08:00

David Kaye, you are awesome.

Ohio Department of Transportation makes Optimus Prime rap about speeding. What?

2011-12-15T10:54:00.000-08:00

When it comes to living in Ohio, things are usually okay for the most part. But when it comes to ODOT making a shitty vid using clips of G1 Optimus Prime and having him rap about driving safety...it makes me shake my head in disappointment and makes me question why I still live here. Just...just watch.

Autobots act like total jerks towards Decepticons during the Holidays

2011-12-15T08:46:00.000-08:00

If there's one thing Hasbro's been doing right recently, it's these really funny commercials promoting their Kre-O construction sets. And if the title is any indication, this commercial should at least get a chuckle out of you.

I have to give Hasbro credit, they're really going all out with Kre-O; this commercial almost makes me want to buy a set. And I may, if they ever get around to making NEW TF Kre-O sets next year.

George Takei unites Star Trek fans and Star Wars fans against Twilight

2011-12-14T14:32:00.000-08:00

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2011/dec/13/george-takei-star-wars-star-trek-twilight?intcmp=239

George Takei, who played lieutenant Sulu in Star Trek, has called on sci-fi fans to unite against the Twilight franchise. Photograph: Allstar Picture Library

It is a decades-long feud that has divided sci-fi fans for as long as the Millenium Falcon first fired up its thrusters and flashed across cinema screens, providing an alternative lure to the attractions of the USS Enterprise and its bold crew.
But after simmering tensions between the Star Trek and Star Wars communities broke into open hostilities involving two of the franchises' most iconic stars, an appeal has been made by George Takei (aka Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu from the helm of the Enterprise) for a ceasefire in the face of a mutual foe: The Twilight franchise.
"Fellow star folks. Cool it down, and shut your big worm holes," said Takei in a video message posted online following the outbreak of a war of words between William Shatner, who played Captain James T Kirk in the original Star Trek Series, and Carrie Fisher, who played Princess Leia in the original Star Wars trilogy.
"Each is wonderful in its own special way so if you don't knock it off you will soon start seeing images like this one on the net," said Takei, referring to an image of Fisher in the grasp of Shatner, who was mocked up to look like the Star Wars character, Jabba the Hutt.
The initial salvo had been fired last month by Shatner, who claimed that Star Wars was derivative of Star Trek, prompting Fisher to challenge him to a "costume-off", with her appearing in the metal bikini she wore in Return of the Jedi.
"And my space buns - they're so much better than [Leonard] Nimoy's ears," she added.
Stepping into galactic peace broker mode, Takei warned : "What is needed today now more than ever is star peace, for there is an ominous mutual threat to all science fiction."
"It's called Twilight, and it is really really bad."
The actor, who provided the voice of Lok Durd in Star Wars: The Clone Wars, making him the sole cast member from the original Star Trek series to also have a role in the Star Wars franchise, went on: "Gone is any sense of heroism, camaraderie, or epic battle. In its place, we have vampires that sparkle, and moan, and go to high school".
"Now I am not above mixing in a little sex appeal to spice up the fantasy," he added, his words accompanied by the appearance of images of a topless young Mr Sulu and Robert Pattinson, the star of Twilight.
"But sci-fi fans be warned. There are no great stories, characters or profound life lessons to be had in Twilight. No, in Twilight, the only message that rings through loud and clear is 'Does my boyfriend like me?'"
"Let us band together to combat this mutual threat. On my part, I have written to some friends hoping they can help us rid the world of this vampire menace. Buffy, Blade, it's up to you now," said Takei, as images flashed up showing the two named fictional vampire killers.
"So Starfriends, let us live and let live, long and prosperously, and may the force be with you always."

Now how's that for badassery? Mr. Sulu himself has gotten together two of the most well-known sci-fi fandoms together, told them to put aside their differences, and unite to stop a common foe: The Twilight saga.

Sometimes it amazes me just how awesome some people who were in old-school science fiction shows and movies really are.

Trailer for Three Stooges movie released

2011-12-07T14:41:00.000-08:00

http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/fox/thethreestooges/

Looks like there's going to be a Three Stooges movie coming out next year, and judging by the trailer...I hate to say it, but it actually looks good. The actors are spot-on, and while the idea of Larry, Curly, and Moe interacting with the present day irks me, if they can get away with pranking that creature from New Jersey (I think it's called a Snookie or something, I'll have to do some research), I'm all for it. Bravo, Hollywood! Your head is now one inch farther out of your ass. Now if you can be so kind as to stop production on the live-action Woody Woodpecker movie and stop Michael Bay from doing Transformers 4, there may be hope for you yet.

Not really.

Oh look, Michael Bay is "denying" his decision on Transformers 4

2011-12-07T08:09:00.000-08:00

With all the recent news of the very questionable, problematic, mentally-retarded, intelligence-insulting, bullshit of an idea that is Transformers 4, Michael Bay has "responded" to the alleged news about him wanting to do another shitty live-action Transformers film.

And by "responded", I mean lied. http://www.shootfortheedit.com/forum/showthread.php?10184-Right-now-I-m-not-decided-on-Transformers-4

Studio's are passing rumors but I'm not sure what I'm doing? I know I'm going to do Pain and Gain early spring but that's it for right now. I'm leaving all my options on the table. I've got several Studio meetings in the next two weeks.

Bay, April Fool's day isn't for another few months. If you plan on doing a Transformers 4, just tell us the truth instead of doing your usual asinine routine of bullshitting.

Transformers 4 may happen, even...oh, COME ON!

2011-12-06T20:58:00.000-08:00

This is bad, folks. It seems as though Michael Bay is close to a deal with Steven Spielberg regarding Transformers 4.

http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2011/12/michael-bay-will-direct-fourth-transformers-film.html

Since I already used the "NO!" compilation, I'll have Rarity here from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic sum up my thoughts:

Transformers 4 may happen, even...wait, haven't I already said this twice?

2011-12-03T08:10:00.000-08:00

Steven Spielberg, the executive producer behind the live-action trilogy of bullshit that was the Transformers movies, wants to make Transformers 4 happen, and he's getting Bay to consider doing it.

http://www.slashfilm.com/steven-spielberg-michael-bay-transformers-genre-locked-indy-5-expands-crystal-skull-criticism/

Mr. Spielberg, for the next eleven minutes and thirty-five seconds, I want you to pay attention to this video I have. It sums up my feelings (along with everybody else's) about the idea for a fourth live-action Transformers movie:

Hopefully this gets through your and every other big-wig directors' thick skulls. I doubt it, but fuck, I tried.

Angry rant about the new Tim and he-who-does-not-deserve-to-share-the-same-name-as-me movie coming out soon

2011-12-02T08:40:00.000-08:00

If you've read the previous post, you can already tell that...well, I'm not a fan of Tim and...

Tim and...

TIM AND...

Eric.

Yes, while I'm proud to bear that name (and since Power Rangers Time Force has a sixth Ranger that shares the same name as me, it gives me nerdy bragging rights too), I can't help but notice that this live-action comedy on a programming block on Cartoon Network just...it just pisses me off. The show makes NO sense at all, the special effects are low-tech (come to think of it, I think some of this stuff can easily be done in Sony Vegas), the budget's shorter than a leprechaun, and the humor downright insults your intelligence! And to hear that they're going to make a feature-length movie based on this fucking piece of bullshit just burns me up. To the people who actually like this...show, who think this movie will do well, I have this to say:

GET HELP! YOU'RE NOT WELL! THESE TWO JACKASSES AREN'T FUNNY! SAVE YOUR MONEY FOR SOMETHING FAR MORE IMPORTANT THAN TICKETS TO THIS MOVIE-SIZED ACID FEST! BUYING TICKETS ONLY PROVES THAT HUMANITY IS BECOMING MORE DEFORMED THAN IT NEEDS TO BE! TIM AND ERIC ARE FUCKING SCUM!!!

...Okay, I'm better now. Just um...take my words for it and...don't see this movie.

Have a nice day.

Tim and he-who-does-not-deserve-to-share-the-same-name-as-me to make a movie based on their shitty Adult Swim show.

2011-12-01T18:50:00.000-08:00

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/a8250afb53/t-e?playlist=featured_videos

Expect a full rant about this tomorrow, I'm too tired.

How Halo Reach's multiplayer could be improved

2011-11-30T11:26:00.000-08:00

Just the title alone is enough for some of you to assume that I dislike Halo Reach's multiplayer. And to be honest, you're right...but you're also wrong at the same time. Let me explain (or rather, expand on what I said in my review of Halo Reach):

I don't hate Halo Reach outright, I'm just still disappointed over what Bungie gave us as their "swan song" to the Halo fans. As many of you know, the Anniversary Map pack came out recently, and being the sucker I was, I snatched it up for 15 clams and played some of the maps. I have to say, I really like these updated renditions of these classic maps, and they all would make great areas for anyone wanting to do short machinima films (especially Timberland/Ridgeline, it's just beautiful). I'm enjoying them, but one thing keeps popping into my mind.

These maps are in Reach's multiplayer only.

This is perhaps my biggest disappointment, as maps like these could work well in Halo 3's multiplayer (including the original, Noble, and Defiant maps as well). However, since this is Reach, the multiplayer just doesn't have that spark Halo 3 did. Before anyone comments, yes, I admit that Halo 3's multiplayer is dated (especially with a very clunky Forge mode), but it's still fun to play. At least in 3 (and in CE and 2), being invisible meant you could stay cloaked even in movement, unlike Reach where even if you move so much as a millimeter, you become semi-visible. Also, the health bar in Halo 3 was simple; once it flashed red, one more hit will kill you. In Reach, health packs made their return because the armor and health bars are separated (because Reach is a prequel to Halo CE, that's why). I understand that when you want to play Reach's multiplayer, you expect a few elements of the campaign mode to be put in so the two can feel similar, but that doesn't mean it has to have the same rules as campaign! Multiplayer doesn't have to do anything with the campaign; it's its own little world, let it have its own rules, it doesn't have to perfectly match its single-player counterpart. This is why I believe Halo Reach's multiplayer should have simply been similar to Halo 3's multiplayer, and I have a list of things that could improve upon it...if I were in charge of designing the multiplayer, that is. This list is simply just one gamer's thoughts, ramblings, and opinions on how he could make Reach's multiplayer more comfortable to him. Feel free to give me constructive criticism if there are any hiccups or mistakes that I may make.

Map the armor abilities to the D-Pad - This is perhaps my biggest gripe with Reach, in all modes. When you play Reach's multiplayer or Firefight, you are given at most five loadouts, each with one armor ability and at most two weapons. This is fine, but if you want to change armor abilities, the only way to do so is if you either commit suicide, or have an enemy kill you. I've noticed that the D-Pad is never used, except in Firefight or Campaign where hitting left on the D-Pad activates night vision. Wouldn't it be great if you could switch armor abilities on the fly by simply tapping one of the directional buttons? That'd make for some really good tactics. Don't have enough energy to make a bubble shield to stop that rocket from hitting you? Use the jetpack and fly away! WARNING: Jetpack may not stop you from eating a rocket sandwich. Om nom nom. :P
Get rid of Armor Lock - Many gamers, including myself, HATE this armor ability. All it does is make you invincible for five seconds, but what it really does is just delay your death. Sure, if used wisely, you can get deflect grenades and even shots from a tank, but most of the time, some people (including me, sadly) just use it to piss people off. Well, 343 Industries did listen to our pleas...and more or less nerfed it with the title update. Now, when you get hit by a regular grenade or a rocket, the armor lock stops, which fucks up the entire premise of being INVULNERABLE FOR A SHORT PERIOD OF TIME. Oh, and it gets worse with sticky grenades; if you go into armor lock, and you're hit by one, you get killed now. Again, this fucks up the entire premise of the armor lock in general, so why even include it in multiplayer to begin with if it already has flaws?
Bring back ALL weapons AND vehicles from previous Halo games - If anyone were to ask me what my favorite weapon is (if I ever became a gun nut), my answer would simply be a sub-machine gun. Adorably small, but packs a lot of heat. The Halo equivalent of this is the SMG (which I now just realized is the acronym for it, derp), and I was rather...*ahem* turbulent when I found out it wasn't in the game, as that weapon just so happens to be my guilty pleasure. Other weapons that were excluded were the Carbine, the Battle Rifle, Particle Beam Rifle (a.k.a. the Covenant version of the Sniper Rifle in Halo 3, I think), the Flamethrower, the Sentinel Beam, the Missile Pod, the Spike Grenade, the Brute Shot, the Mauler, and the Flame Grenade. Same goes for the vehicles as well; the Hornet, the Brute Chopper, and the Bruter Prowler are absent as well. The only logical reason why these eleven weapons and three vehicles weren't put in was because, well, Reach was a prequel, and therefore, some weapons and vehicles that were introduced in the main trilogy couldn't be put in. Again, multiplayer is its own world; rules for campaign should not apply. At least the Golf Club made it in.
Modify Invisibility/Cloak - As I said before, the Invisibility/Cloaking equipment used in the Halo trilogy was flawless. In Reach...flawed, and has Halo 3's radar jammer fused with it (because again, prequel, that's why). Just have it so that it doesn't decloak on you when you MOVE.
Have health be similar to that of Halo 2 and Halo 3 - The one thing I'm sure a few of you liked about Halo 2 and Halo 3 was that the MJOLNIR Mark VI armor did away with combining both the health and armor bars into one bar, which made finding those health packs in Halo CE a thing of the past (though you still needed them in ODST, but that's beside the point). And to be honest, I had hoped Halo Reach's multiplayer would at least keep that. Hopefully 343 Industries won't make the same mistake Bungie did when Halo 4 comes out next year.
Make maps from Halo 3 compatible with Reach (or vice versa) - This part is admittedly just something that I'd wish could happen, but ultimately never did. While I'm aware that having a map pack from one game be compatible with another, more recent game is by no means an easy task, it'd give some players a reason to play Reach. After all, with every new Halo game comes at least one remake of a map from the previous game. But wouldn't it be awesome if you could play on Longshore with Jetpacks? Or maybe use Revenants on Valhalla? Same thing could work with the Firefight maps from ODST; bring those over, and then you could have your Spartan fight off waves of aliens in Last Exit or Windward.
Get rid of fall damage - Fall damage, for a lack of a better definition, is basically self-explanatory; if you fall, you take damage, determined by how long you fall. While this was present in Halo: Combat Evolved, it was eventually removed in Halo 2 and 3. But again, the reason why fall damage is present in Reach is, of course, because the game is a prequel, and it has to share some similarities with Combat Evolved. In the campaign, I'm actually okay with. In multiplayer? Not okay with. Why? If you haven't read the reason why in #3, you need help with reading.

I think that's about all the things I'd do to fix Halo Reach's multiplayer. But alas, none of these changes will ever happen; we can only look forward to Halo 4 and pray that 343 Industries makes the multiplayer more enjoyable in the near future than Reach's multiplayer in the present.

Annoying Orange meme to get annoying Cartoon Network show

2011-11-29T11:19:00.000-08:00

Cartoon Network, like SciFi (now unfortunately titled SyFy), MTV, G4, and countless other TV channels, has gone the way of network decay. How can a channel that was once loved become even more hated, even after having live-action diarrhea splashed on it? Why pick up an Internet meme and make it a show, of course!

http://popwatch.ew.com/2011/11/18/annoying-orange-cartoon-network/

If my left leg wasn't in a cast, I'd use it to kick the ass of the idiot who thought of the idea.

UPDATE THOUGHT: But then again, if Annoying Orange does get turned into a show and if it bombs, then it'd be the end of Annoying Orange altogether. Hmm.

On second thought, Cartoon Network, go ahead with the idea! Forget what I just said about me kicking someone's ass.

Mein Fuhrer! I CAN WALK!...AGAIN!

2011-11-25T09:47:00.000-08:00

God, I love saying that line. So yeah, four days ago I got into a new walking cast, and now I'm getting my left foot back up to full strength. It was sore for the first two days, but now it doesn't really hurt, just feels like I'm wearing...well, a cast. Nothing else I can say, other than happy belated Thanksgiving everyone!

...And we need to have SyFy destroyed as well.

2011-11-23T09:09:00.000-08:00

SciFi-sorry, SYFY (dear God, why would they change their name), the channel that used to be about, you know, SCIENCE FICTION, that became nothing more than yet another Spike TV ripoff with wrestling and cooking shows, is now ordering a Booster Gold pilot.

This won't end well. I need to go drink some gin.

Live-Action Woody Woodpecker to happen. God DAMMIT, Hollywood.

2011-11-18T13:53:00.000-08:00

http://www.cartoonbrew.com/feature-film/illumination-developing-cg-woody-woodpecker.html

Okay, it's official: We need this place bombed to hell. Can't Hollywood get it through their thick skulls that live-action film adaptations of cartoon characters CAN NOT FUCKING MIX?

Seriously, if we ever go to war with another superpower, let them blow up Hollywood. At this point, that should be considered karmic justice for what they're doing to our childhood icons.

Internet meme immortalized in Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary. U mad Halo fans?

2011-11-16T16:29:00.000-08:00

O__________o

One week left until remobilization.

2011-11-14T09:34:00.000-08:00

Seven days left. 168 hours, 10,080 minutes, 604,800 seconds, blah blah blah, you get the idea.

Just a small update on what's been up with me regarding the cast. Everything's going okay, and once next week rolls around, I'll be back up to my normal efficiency (well, at least then I'll walk, but probably not as much).

Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary's...err, "Anniversary" map pack will be released seperately as DLC!

2011-11-12T08:46:00.000-08:00

Now ain't this a good day for me. 1up.com has posted that 343 Industries will be releasing the Anniversary maps from Halo CEA separately as DLC for Reach the same day the game comes out this Tuesday. If I didn't have a reason not to get Halo CEA, now I have one. And it'll only set me back...*re-reads article*

$15!? Well, beggars can't be choosers. Still getting the map pack, but I'm passing on the game. Again, already have Halo CE digitally downloaded on my Xbox, no need to get the remake.

Music Video Medley of Many Internet Memes

2011-11-10T11:46:00.001-08:00

Me gusta this music video. (ಠ > ಠ)

Gonna walk sooner than I expected.

2011-11-08T07:04:00.000-08:00

A bit of a correction from yesterday's post. It seems as though my foot doctor can't get me into the walking cast on the 22nd, so he called earlier this morning and now I'm going to be able to walk again a day early! November 21st is the date now. I'm a little happier now because of this. It's not that being in a standing cast sucks, per say, it just makes getting around a little difficult. But hey, this is still good news, because now I only have 13 days left! 312 hours, 18,720 minutes, 1,123,200 seconds-DAMMIT!

I'm gonna die a virgin at this rate. A lonely, nerdy as all hell, mathematically talented virgin. :P

15 Days Left until Remobilization. In other news, I'm starting to have second thoughts about the PS3.

2011-11-07T08:52:00.000-08:00

November 22nd; that is the date in which I'll finally be able to walk again. Well, in a walking cast, at least. But hey, at least then I won't need a walker to get around on the second floor of my house and this scooter thing for the first floor called a "Roll-about". But then I need to remember that I'll have to go through the entire surgery/post-surgery ordeal a THIRD TIME, since the right foot needs fixing up as well. The good news is that probably won't happen until early next year; my guess is sometime in March...hopefully after my birthday, that is. So yeah, fifteen days to go, 360 hours, 21,600 minutes, 1,296,000 seconds-dammit, my mathematical prowess won't leave me alone.

Anywho, onto the next order of business: PlayStation 3.

It seems as though whenever I buy or sell something, there's a 50/50 chance of me either regretting it, or not regretting it at all. Most of the time, it's about even. I've been doing a lot of business on Craigslist lately; basically selling toys that I bought that I now regret. But I'm not here to talk about what toys I regret buying the most, but rather answer my own question, "do I regret selling the PlayStation 3, simply because of Sony's incompetence of handling the PSN blackout earlier this year?"

In hindsight, it WAS kind of a risky move. I'll admit, the PS3 is still an amazing game console, and its ability to play Blu-Ray movies is unparalleled. The advertising, Kevin Butler, some of the games, Kevin Butler, Blu-Ray applications, and Kevin Butler were the reasons why I got the thing for Christmas two years ago in the first place. Did I mention Kevin Butler? I don't think I have. But Sony's inept ability to have some sort of security on PSN was the deciding factor in ultimately selling off my PS3. But I might as well explain the whole story and reevaluate my thoughts on the console.

While I'm still not a big fan of the PlayStation consoles, I got the PS3 out of curiosity. Back when it came out in 2006...it got a lot of guff. Sony didn't have enough consoles to meet demand, and in some parts of the country where it was sold that cold November night, fights broke out over it. The good news? I got a Wii instead for Christmas, because even I knew back then that Sony would have a lot of hurdles to overcome if they wanted the PS3 to sell. And since then, the console has proved to be quite formidable (with the inevitable slim redesign like with other PlayStation consoles and handhelds). It's funny, really. Looking back at the first few years, the PS3 would often be the butt of a joke in the gaming community, and now a lot of people really enjoy it, myself included. So when I got my PS3, I was pleasantly surprised by how much this monster of a console could do...but I did have my fair share of doubts.

The first hint that I found were the games. Back in 2009, Sony did have an impressive library of games, but it was a small library. Most of the games for the console were also available for the Xbox 360 (and in some cases, the Wii as well), while only a fraction of the library consisted of exclusives (such as Resistance, Metal Gear Solid, God of War, Uncharted, etc.). Sadly, I would only come to own at most four games while I had a PS3, which has to say a lot about how little I cared about the console. One of those games was also available for the 360. But I needed to remember that even if the retail games weren't up to my personal standards, there were still the downloadable games I could get off of the PlayStation Store. However, even some of the downloadable games had me thinking otherwise (sans Tetris, but only because it's so addictive), and about two-thirds of the downloadable games I had were PS One Classics (justified, since the prices for some of them are outrageous).

The other hint that I found was PlayStation Home. While a lot of people say it's a rip-off of Second Life (and I have to agree there), it was the part of the PS3 that I actually enjoyed the most. Having your own little virtual house and playing the mini-games found around the various areas of Home was kind of fun, especially when playing as the opposite gender just to troll other male players. I still laugh at how glorious it was to pretend to be a girl at the mall area of Home, and some guys would gather around and then I'd announce that I was just messing with them. Good times. But then I find out that I wasted a crap-ton of money simply on clothing, furniture, and other items. Suddenly I feel cheated and my wallet is metaphorically violated. Then again, I was still new to Home, so I should have just been content with the stuff I had to begin with instead of throwing my money away at everything else in the short time I had my PS3. It did teach me an important lesson: save your money, no matter how much you want to buy an item. There's always something that's far more worth it.

Finally, we come to the reason why I sold my PS3: the PSN blackout. Every gamer, be they a fan of Sony or not, will never forget this event. When I got my PS3, I had automatically assumed Sony's security on PSN was the same as Microsoft's security on Xbox Live. I would go online to either play games or download vids, and the worst thing I'd ever have to deal with would be some kid who claims that he'll hack my account and sell it, but ultimately never did (because he sits upon a throne of lies and bullshit). Then the PSN blackout occurred. When I first caught wind of this news, I like many others had assumed it was only down for maintenance, and that it would be back up in a few hours. Sadly, this would not be the case, as it turned out that PSN was hacked, and many accounts' info were compromised. Remember what I said about Sony being the butt of a joke in the gaming community the first few years the PS3 came out? Now Sony was the butt of a joke again, only now it hurt them even more. They withheld information from us until a few days after the hacking occurred. They then went on to make the same, tired note that basically said, "we fucked up, we'll get it back online within a week." Well, that week became a month, and by then, I had gotten fed up with this nonsense. Hell, Sony admitted during the blackout that PSN had no firewall or any good security. And while they did apologize for the whole ordeal, it left me bitter about Sony handling the whole situation. When PSN finally did come back up, I was unsure whether or not I should keep my PS3 and keep playing it. On one hand, I was glad that my information had stayed safe, since I didn't use any credit cards or debit cards in the numerous micro-transactions I had done online. On the other hand, it made me think that something like this could happen again if Sony doesn't get their shit together and make a stable security system for their online gaming network.

In a sense, it was paranoia and fear that may have led me to assume that I should sell my PS3. It was those two emotions that ultimately made me sell my $300 console for about half of the price. Now I realize that I may have gone too far; I let the nerd-rage inside of me spill out when clearly I should have been smart and thought long and hard about whether or not I should go through with this. To answer my question, "do I regret selling my PS3 because of the PSN blackout?"

The answer is a big fat MAYBE. It's half-and-half, so let me explain. I do regret selling it because it had so many other functions other than being just a game console, and that I shouldn't have let my emotions get the best of me. But, I don't regret selling it because the games simply just weren't right with me. Maybe I'm not used to the analog stick being below the D-Pad on the controller, maybe it's because PSN was different from Xbox Live, who knows. All I know is that if the PS3 ever gets something that completely changes my mind about it, I MAY get another one. But it will still be a while before I can trust Sony again.

Or when Family Guy ends, I'm not picky.

Why the hell didn't anyone tell me Saint's Row 3 will be fun?

2011-11-02T14:21:00.001-07:00

I am ashamed of you all for not telling me of this awesome game coming out soon. WHY DIDN'T ANYONE TELL ME BURT REYNOLDS WAS GONNA BE IN THIS GAME!? ಠ_ಠ

Dammit, Sony, quit making me feel regretful about selling my PS3!

2011-11-02T08:30:00.000-07:00

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/121/1211329p1.html

I'll be honest, Sony's really going all out in making their console the best damn thing since sliced bread, and the redesign for PlayStation Home...has me intrigued, to say the least. The time I had my PS3, the only things I would do with it would be to play Blu-Ray movies, play a little bit of God of War III, and most of all, screw around in PlayStation Home. Honestly, I kind of liked Sony's ripoff-*ahem* "incarnation" of the wildly popular Second Life game. While I would mostly play as a woman to simply troll other male players (and it was GLORIOUS), I enjoyed some of the games and environments Home had to offer, and with the redesign of Home including a FPS area...let's just say Seth MacFarlane had better end Family Guy quick if he's being sincere about his words.

My Thoughts on Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary

2011-11-01T17:11:00.000-07:00

First off, new "Launch" trailer for the game:

While the game is only two weeks away, I think I might as well speak up my thoughts on this upcoming remake and answer my own question of whether or not I should get it. SPOILER ALERT: I won't.

If you've read my review on Halo Reach, you can tell that I've become a bit...bitter with the Halo franchise. Since then, Bungie (and now 343 Industries) have made a few adjustments to the game so it's not as bad as it was when it came out...but even with the title update coming soon with Halo CEA, I feel as though Halo Reach's multiplayer will never be as good as Halo 3's. But then again, there are actually people out there that prefer Reach's multiplayer because some would say that Halo 3's multiplayer is like "watching paint dry."

ಠ_ಠ But I digress. Agree to disagree, respect one's opinions, all that stuff.

I'm not here to talk about Reach, but rather the remake of the first Halo game. To be honest, it's basically just a remake of the Campaign, with a few terminals, skulls, Kinect support (for better or worse), 3D (again, for better or worse), and achievements thrown in for good measure. The multiplayer is basically Reach's multiplayer, only adding in 7 maps (1 for Firefight, and 6 for Matchmaking), so it's kind of like ODST, only my guess is that the campaign and multiplayer are on the same disc. This is my main problem with the game: only the campaign has been redone, not that AND the multiplayer. I've done some research, and the reason why 343 Industries is using Reach as the multiplayer instead of just redoing the CE engine for multiplayer is because they don't want to make the Reach players feel isolated. My question for this action is this:

Why the hell are you even releasing the remade campaign of the game at retail and slapping the Reach multiplayer on there when clearly it would have worked better as DLC or maybe even as an XBLA game? This is the same problem I and other gamers had with ODST: short campaign, yet released for the full $60 only because they slapped the multiplayer from the main game on the second disc. I understand it's the 10th anniversary of Halo, but there were other ways to give us a remastered campaign other than modernize the graphics and shell it out for $40. Hell, the original Xbox game goes for like $10 at the local video game store, and it's also available on Xbox Live's Games On Demand Service for $15!

Simply put, if you're gonna remake the first game as part of the 10th anniversary of said game, find a better way to do it instead of just redo the campaign, release it as a retail game, and call it a day. Besides, the maps that come with the game will come out later on Xbox Live, not unless playing the remake unlocks new armor for Reach. And I'm already having a whale of a time trying to unlock all the armor pieces in Reach (hey, at least after a year of playing, I'm halfway towards Mythic). I think it'd be best to just wait it out for the "Anniversary" map pack to hit the online stores at a later date and not waste the $40. Besides, I already have the first Halo game, so I can play that when November 15th hits.

Now if you excuse me, I need to go cancel my pre-order.

Foot Cast Update

2011-11-01T10:23:00.000-07:00

Been a little more than a week now, and now I'm in a MUCH MORE COMFORTABLE, NON-CLAUSTROPHOBIC cast.

Sorry, had to emphasize the adjectives in capital letters to tell how much pain I was in for the first week. But anyway, I'm healing pretty fast, and I'll be in a walking cast three weeks from today. Foot still hurts, but it turns out that the doctors did an incision on the back of my shin to strengthen the muscles connecting to my foot (or something like that, even I don't know much about medical jargon), so applying a lot of pressure could be a problem. At least the doctor said I could stand, but I think that's gonna be at least a week from now, since the leg itself still aches. Ah well, a few more weeks can't hurt.

Numb foot good, non-numb foot bad

2011-10-25T10:47:00.000-07:00

It's weird how yesterday my foot is totally numb, yet today, it hurts. Not in an "Oh God it hurts so bad" way, but in an annoying way. I'd take painkillers now, but I have to take them in 4 hour intervals, so I can't take them right now. Better to tolerate the pain now and take the painkillers in a few hours when it's time. Other than the annoying foot, I'm fine. Will update soon.

Mein Fuhrer! I can NOT walk!

2011-10-24T10:02:00.000-07:00

Surgery went well, and I will be going back in eight days to get the soft cast removed. The bad news is that for the next few days I have to keep my foot elevated, so I won't be doing any of my usual activities until then. And for the next few posts regarding my health will be typed via iPhone. Expect them to have autocorrected words.

Dawn of the final day

2011-10-23T08:48:00.000-07:00

The moon shall grow an eerie face, and it will smash into the town of Termina-wait...whoops, wrong script.

Sorry, I kept thinking of Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask when I came up with the title for this post. But in a way, it pretty much is my final day of having mobility in both feet. Don't expect much of a post tomorrow, but I will give you the images of the cast and my overall status after surgery (which is going to be at the crack of dawn). Nothing left to do, except go out for one last walk and enjoy the autumn foliage.

Transformers 4...and 5!?

2011-10-18T08:48:00.000-07:00

http://www.showblitz.com/2011/10/transformers-4-5-may-shoot-back-to-back.html

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118044618

For FUCK'S SAKE.

Transformers 4 may happen, even if...whoa, Deja Vu

2011-10-17T11:19:00.000-07:00

http://collider.com/transformers-4-news-micronauts-movie/120848/

Yes, it seems as though Transformers 4 may (or unfortunately, will) happen, since Hasbro has been thinking of a fourth movie. And while I'm well aware that I posted this way back in February, this is basically an update on if (or unfortunately, when) Hasbro announces a fourth movie. For those of you (including me) that have seen the third movie, already we know that fourth movie is going to need a new villain (or villains), since at the end of Dark of the Moon, all of the Decepticons pretty much die. Now, Michael Bay did say that the third film would be his last, so hopefully...hopefully we get a better director if the fourth film ends up happening. All I can say is, please let it be someone competent.

One week left until immobilization

2011-10-17T08:07:00.000-07:00

One week left. Less than 168 hours. 10,080 minutes. 604,800 seconds.

I'd go smaller on units of time, but then I'd be here all day.

I honestly couldn't be dreading next week any more if I tried. And I tend to dread quite a bit about a few other things (like why the hell George Lucas is re-releasing Star Wars Episode I in 3D next year), but I digress. I have reconstructive surgery coming up in a week, and once that happens, it'll be unbearable for me for the few weeks. Needless to say, I'll be posting the pictures of the cast, and any updates to my health (though don't be alarmed if I post in a stupor due to pain medications). You're probably wondering why I said "cast" in singular form instead of plural, since the reconstructive surgery involves both feet. Here's the thing: it's gonna be one foot at a time instead of doing both. Yes, it turns out that when one of my feet is fully healed, the other one will go under the knife. So not only will I be spending the holidays in different casts, I will be spending a good chunk of next year in different casts as well.

Huzzah. *Sarcasm*

I'm trying to find an upside to all this, but sadly there doesn't seem to be one. Better enjoy my last week of mobility.

Xbox Live hacked...by soccer fans

2011-10-15T06:54:00.001-07:00

I honestly have nothing witty to say, except...damn.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-10-14-xbl-accounts-hacked-to-buy-fifa-packs

PSN hacked again.

2011-10-13T22:01:00.000-07:00

Wow. Hacked twice in the same year, and within 6 months of each other, too.

http://gamerant.com/psn-accounts-hacked-compromised-info-mole-109049/

http://gamerant.com/psn-hackers-dormant-accounts-mole-109357/

To be fair, the hackers only went after 93,000 dormant accounts, and this time, Sony actually acted fast and locked down the affected accounts.

Hmm? You're expecting me to make a snide remark? Alright, if you really want me to comment, let me just say that Sony seems to have learned from their mistakes back in April, and it looks like they're finally being smart and handling these situations a little better now.

"But Razorclaw," the hypothetical questioner asks. "Does that mean you'll change your mind about Sony and reconsider buying a PS3 again?" Let me answer that question for you: NOPE. As I said in the previous post (the one regarding Seth MacFarlane actually wanting to end Family Guy), the day Family Guy ends permanently is the day I get a PS3 again. And even though Sony's doing better, what with the awesome commercial shown not too long ago, and now this, I still stand by the song, "I won't get fooled again." And I'll keep doing so until either Sony does something so amazing that it'll get me to buy a PS3, or what I said about Family Guy ending.

And the irony is, I feel as though the latter may actually happen soon.

Seth MacFarlane wants Family Guy to end.

2011-10-13T10:36:00.000-07:00

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-15286557

Hey, Seth? It's a bit late for an April Fools' joke. The day Family Guy ends and stays ended is the day I reconsider buying a PS3 because of that awesome commercial that I showed in the last post.

...Something tells me I'd better save my quarters. *Runs off*

New PlayStation Commercial that is actually really awesome

2011-10-09T09:21:00.000-07:00

Sony made this. The same Sony that had at one point admitted that, during the great PSN blackout earlier this year, PSN had no firewall, which made it easy to hack into.

I'll admit, this commercial is WELL DONE. The person who plays Nathan Drake is spot on (even looks the part), and they even got the voice of Solid Snake to play as Solid Snake. This almost makes me regret selling my PS3 out of disappointment for Sony's incompetence to make a security system of sorts for their online gaming community.

Almost.

Steve Jobs - 1955-2011

2011-10-06T06:35:00.000-07:00

(Typing this from my iPhone)

While I've never been much of an Apple fan, I appreciated Mr. Jobs' dedication to making the next big thing. Because of his great mind, technology has jumped ahead by leaps and bounds, and the world wil never be the same without him. Rest in peace, Steve, and Godspeed.

Final Fantasy XIII-3. Square-Enix, Y U DO THIS!?

2011-09-12T20:23:00.000-07:00

http://www.joystiq.com/2011/09/10/final-fantasy-xiii-3-gets-a-head-start-on-domain-name-registrati/#

Because, you know, two shitty games set in the same universe wasn't enough. How about instead of giving an already crappy JRPG two unnecessary sequels, you do a simple graphical remake of FFVII and put it up on XBLA and PSN. That should net you some money.

Surgery to be done on me again. In other news, the universe conspires to be an asshole to me.

2011-08-23T12:52:00.000-07:00

Remember when I told you all that I had to have surgery done on my ankle, and how I said that being in a cast sucked for a few months? I had figured once that whole ordeal was over, my life would be back on track, and I'd get a new job, and everything would be back to normal.

If that's the case, then God must be the biggest Internet troll in the entire fucking universe, because now he's grinning like troll-face and saying "Problem?"

Well, I did recover, I got a new job...and now a new problem arose. So I went to my foot doctor almost three weeks ago, since I've been having foot pains again (you know where this is going). Well, it turns out that the reason why BOTH feet are hurting right now is because it's a physical deformity. Yes, it turns out that the feet that I was born with are tilting outward and away from each other at the heel, which shouldn't happen for normal feet. All my life I had thought that this was normal, but turns out it wasn't. So as you've pretty much guessed by the title and the first few sentences of this post, I'm going to have surgery done on me.

Again.

And this time, it's reconstructive surgery to get the bones in both feet to be correctly aligned.

Fucking. A.

Apparently, the universe, grand and vast that it is, can't seem to accept the fact that I don't want bad stuff happening to me physically, yet continues to torment me in any way, even when I'm trying to be a good person on this green and blue planet I call home. I have physically deformed feet, yet Hollywood is allowed to keep making shitacular live-action movies based on parts of our childhood. Universe, what is your fucking logic?

Sorry, it just really pisses me off that I may (or may not) have to quit my job AGAIN and contend with a foot cast AGAIN, all because I was born with freakish feet. I'm just thankful that I'm 22, because I could really use some gin right about now, given the situation before me. You know what? I might as well.

Happy 20th Birthday SNES!

2011-08-19T09:22:00.000-07:00

Today marks the 20th anniversary of the North American release of the SNES, and I for one couldn't be happier. :) Here's an article about this momentous day in video game history: http://retro.nintendolife.com/news/2011/08/feature_20_years_of_the_super_nes

Alex Trebek...Crime Fighter

2011-07-28T07:20:00.001-07:00

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/alex-trebek-lauded-by-fans-216514

I'll take "Game Show Hosts that Kick Ass" for $200, Alex.

Hollywood, you sunk part of my childhood

2011-07-27T19:51:00.000-07:00

Couldn't resist the "you sunk my _____" joke, but really...

http://movies.ign.com/articles/118/1184521p1.html

A movie based on Battleship. A board game.

A. FUCKING. BOARD GAME.

Why haven't we invented time travel yet? I need a time machine so I can go back in time and kill the person who came up with this idea.

Captain America - The Humorous Truth Behind Getting his Superpowers

2011-07-23T15:14:00.000-07:00

Ah, Captain America. One of the two superheroes who can wear bird-wing-horn thingies on his head and not get laughed at (Thor being the other one). Super speedy, super strong, nigh invulnerable...but has there always been a catch to his superpowers, like...what if there was something important he had to trade off? The fine, funny folks at Rooster Teeth have made a short detailing a rather humorous take on Steve Rogers being injected with the super-soldier serum.

<p>&amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;gt;</p>

And no, I haven't seen the movie yet. But I will, soon.

Family Guy MMO - What is this I don't even...

2011-07-20T21:00:00.000-07:00

Hey there! Do you like Family Guy and its pathetic attempts at humor? Do you like MMO video games? Here you go!

http://blog.machinima.com/insidegaming/2011/07/20/get-greased-up-family-guy-online-game-in-development/

Why is it that good games like Mega Man Legends get canceled before its greenlit, yet shitty games like this do get greenlit? Can anyone PLEASE explain to me how the fuck this makes sense? Hang on, let's see if there's a Youtube video to describe how I feel about this. *Rummages through Youtube* Found it!

Mega Man Legends 3 Canceled. I has a sad. :(

2011-07-19T08:28:00.000-07:00

So Duke Nukem Forever finally gets a release, but gets crappy reviews, yet a game like Mega Man Legends 3, a game that would be much more favored by the gaming community gets canceled? http://www.capcom-unity.com/devroom/blog/2011/07/18/a_message_from_capcom

While I've never played the first two Mega Man Legends games (nor the spin-off starring Tron Bonne), it has quite the following, and I myself always wanted to play the games (though I don't have a PS One, unfortunately). It is rather upsetting to see a much-desired sequel get canned, but ever since Keiji Inafune left Capcom...the company kinda sucks now. Though to be honest, I really don't know who to point the finger at, Inafune or Capcom. But you know what the French say, "C'est la vie."

Frank Welker dubs over scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark

2011-07-17T08:55:00.000-07:00

Frank Welker, who for many Transformers fans voiced the iconic Megatron in Generation 1 (and in Prime, too), is a man I respect. And this video should be a reason why:

Mind. Blown.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon - A Review by Razorclaw

2011-07-04T09:43:00.000-07:00

http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/transformers-movie-discussion/422495-i-have-seen-dotm-thread-124.html#post6282508

I'll just give a brief, tl;dr version of my review, for those of you who don't want to spend ten to fifteen minutes reading through the extended version:

It sucked. Not as bad as Revenge of the Fallen, but close. The only good thing this movie has going for it is that it's the last one. Hopefully in the future if we get a reboot, we get someone who knows how to direct.

Oh, and Happy 4th, everyone.

At long last! Meet the Medic! Also, Team Fortress 2 is free...FOREVER!

2011-06-24T14:30:00.000-07:00

It seems that after...a long amount of time, the "Meet the Medic" Team Fortress 2 vid is finally up:

At the very end, Valve announces that Team Fortress 2 is free...forever. While I and many others are happy about this, there's just one problem:

My computer sucks. It's a Dell Laptop that runs on Windows Vista; a game that I've been wanting to play that's now free for download probably won't work on it. So now I'm going to have to do some research on what computer can work for my specific needs (namely video editing, photo editing, watching videos, and gaming). But I can tell you this; it's NOT going to be made by Dell. Their laptops are notorious for being screwy.

Halo CE Anniversary to get Kinect support....WTF Microsoft?!

2011-06-20T09:28:00.000-07:00

One of the very few good things to come out of Microsoft's pitiful E3 conference this year, and they fuck it up:

http://www.trueachievements.com/newsitem.aspx?newsitemid=4281

Microsoft, for the next eleven minutes and thirty-five seconds, I want you to watch this vid, because it sums up my feelings about this bullshit of an idea.

Wii U? Seriously, Nintendo? Also, thoughts on E3 2011

2011-06-07T12:22:00.000-07:00

Remember when E3 was something that was actually worth looking forward to? Good times.

Yeah, E3 2011...was just bad. Microsoft briefly showed off games we actually gave a damn about (such as Mass Effect 3, Gears of War 3, a remake of Halo: Combat Evolved coming November 15, and...Halo 4, of all things), and then went for the next hour or so dicking around with the Kinect.

Hey, Microsoft? STOP SHOVING THE KINECT IN OUR FACES! You need to present your games and hardware equally, not just show off the good games for five minutes, and then spend the rest of your time showing off Kinect titles that are obviously going to suck! Especially since you're making a DISNEYLAND Kinect game! I'm not making this up, I swear! Believe me, I wish I was!

Sony...well, I never bothered watching their conference (since, you know, they have the worst security for their online network), but they revealed that their Next Gen Portable will be called the Playstation Vita. Nothing interesting for me there.

Finally, we come to Nintendo. It's the moment we've all been waiting for. After starting off with an orchestra playing Zelda music, and then showing off more new 3DS games, we get to the point of the conference where they finally reveal the new console. Well, it is a console. A rather good-looking one that's pleasing to the eyes:

A nice, more curved Wii. But the controller on the other hand...

Okay, it's not THAT bad, but it did get me a bit peeved. First off, the screen is TOO FUCKING HUGE. It looks like an iPad got eaten by a Nintendo Wii Classic Controller. Maybe if the screen was smaller, I may consider, but this right here is just...ugh. And with all the features on the controller alone (gyroscope, accelerometer, camera), no wonder the damn thing is so fat.

Second, the right analog stick shouldn't be above the face buttons, but below them. It's gonna be hard to play games that require both analog sticks.

Third, Wii U? Nintendo's really gonna call it that? Not Wii 2? Or Wii HD? Wii U sounds like the siren of an ambulance.

Well, judging by the video, the new console will be coming out next year, so hopefully Nintendo will make some revisions to the controller by then. That, and they announced Super Smash Bros for both the Wii U AND the 3DS, so if the Wii U tanks, there's always the 3DS to fall back on.

Waspinator wins the Botcon 2011 Hall of Fame Fans Choice!

2011-06-05T08:09:00.000-07:00

http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-news/conventions-15/waspinator-wins-botcon-2011-hall-of-fame-fans-choice-172388/

Should I? Ah, what the hell. :P

Nintendo's New Console - What I want to see

2011-05-28T13:01:00.000-07:00

E3 is less than a couple of weeks away, and with that, I and many other people are wondering just what is going to be on Nintendo's new console. From what we know so far, it has a few rumored names: Wii 2, WiiHD, Stream, Feel, and Project Cafe. We also know that there will be a touch screen of sorts on a more traditionally-styled controller, and that instead of an actual internal hard drive, the Big N will be opting for an 8GB flash drive for game saves.

And that's pretty much it, regarding info we know so far. Onward to crazy speculation/wishing time!

Let's get the ball rolling with what I think are the most important things Project Cafe will have: the games. Now it's no doubt that long-time mascots such as Mario and Link will mark their debut on the new console (and I feel as though I'm the only one who thinks that Skyward Sword will be moved from the Wii to Cafe, just saying), but what about the other, somewhat more obscure characters in the wonderful world of Nintendo? I for one would like to see a new Earthbound game. The last one we Americans got was...sixteen years ago. Sure, we did see a new Earthbound character, Lucas, in Super Smash Bros Brawl a few years back, but he was from a Japanese-only sequel, Mother 3. So how about it? Would anyone like to see Ness come to Project Cafe after more than a decade of cameo appearances in three fighting games? I think the little psychic kid deserves a new game.
Virtual Console support. It seems that Nintendo's service of classic console games has hit a snag as of late. Barely any new retro games come out any more, and when they do, it's usually a game that only a few of us recognize. If Nintendo plans on making a new console, I can only hope that the Virtual Console service continues onward, maybe with some games from Sega's other consoles (and console add-ons) like the Saturn, Dreamcast, 32X, or Sega CD. And why stop there? Nintendo could go even further into the past and get even more obscure, like the 3DO, Atari Jaguar, or maybe even the Philips CD-i!

Kidding. I don't think anyone would want to even see the horrible abominations that are Hotel Mario and the three Zelda CD-i games, though it would give Youtube Poopers some HD footage that they would need. Who wouldn't want to see King Harkinian say "MAH BOI" in high-definition?

:P
A new Super Smash Bros. game. Damn, I love this fighting game series. And having a new one for the Cafe could be perfect. Of course, if it wants to do better than Brawl, the first and obvious thing it would have to do is have a better Internet server. Brawl's online capabilities, looking back, are just absolute piss. A lot of lag, sometimes crappy connections, and you have a failed opportunity for a good fighting game to go online. But with Nintendo's new console, perhaps we may see a new Super Smash Bros. game that has good online capabilities (and hopefully Mewtwo as a playable character again). One can only dream. And if there isn't a Super Smash Bros. game announced for Cafe, then we can always hold out hope for a 3DS version.
NO 3D. I'm sorry to those of you who think 3D is the future, but come on! Now, I've got nothing against the 3DS and its 3D capabilities (hell, after playing a demo of one at Best Buy, I'll be lucky to even get one this Christmas), but the whole 3D gimmick is wearing out its welcome. I just don't think Nintendo should include 3D for Project Cafe because, well, they already have a 3D handheld out, so it'd be jumping the gun a bit to announce a 3D console not too long after your latest money-printing device has been released. That, and I don't think they want to have another Virtual Boy incident.
3DS connectivity. Self-explanatory. Share games between the two.

Since I was successful in guessing the price for the 3DS, my guess for Project Cafe's price when Nintendo unveils it? At least $300.

Clairvoyance, don't fail me now!

Macho Man Randy Savage passes away

2011-05-21T07:09:00.000-07:00

http://www.wwe.com/inside/savage-tribute/randy-savage-passes

Here's an old Dexter's Laboratory cartoon I found that has Macho Man in it as a tribute.

The next time I snap into a Slim Jim, it'll be for you, Macho Man. :(

PSN returns. Unfortunately for Sony, the damage has been done.

2011-05-14T17:35:00.000-07:00

Yeah, looks like PSN's starting to return slowly after more than three weeks of the outage. Some of us have managed to sign in and are now downloading the mandatory update that will allow us to reset our passwords.

That doesn't mean I'm gonna flip-flop and go back to playing games for the PS3. Oh no, not even close. No, here's what I'm going to do tomorrow morning (if or rather when PSN comes back up):

-Unsubscribe from DC Universe Online.
-Unsubscribe from PSN. As part of the title says, while it's good news for PSN users, the damage has been done...to me. I can't accept Sony's apology for a number of reasons, but if I list those, I'll be here all night posting this long post of my ramblings, so I'll just say this: Sony was lazy, kept PSN's systems obsolete, and outage was caused due to Sony's incompetence.
-Sell PS3 games and the wireless headset. The only reason why I'm keeping the PS3 is because I need a Blu-Ray player to play some of my movies...until I find an actual Blu-Ray player. Then the PS3 goes bye-bye.

It's been fun, Sony.

PSN is back online, but only for developers

2011-05-13T14:16:00.000-07:00

Not necessarily the best news in the world, but good to know that it's online for some...sort of.

http://www.giantbomb.com/news/developer-playstation-network-back-online-but-not-without-issues/3185/

TL;DR PSN still has some issues, should be old hat to me now.

The Prequel Star Wars Trilogy in under 3 Minutes!...with LEGOS!!

2011-05-10T09:12:00.000-07:00

Anyone remember that one post I made last year? The one with that kid with the really cool Lego Star Wars collection that made a funny video summing up the original trilogy in under 3 minutes? He made a new one that perfectly summed up the god-awful prequel trilogy!

And now Sony says that May 31st WON'T be the date of PSN's restart. Make up your minds, Sony!

2011-05-10T08:55:00.000-07:00

I was kind of hoping I wouldn't have to post a PSN-related post today, and I was also kind of hoping Sony would keep their promise when they said PSN would be back up by May 31st, but now they're reneging again and saying that that date won't be the deadline.

*Inhales deeply, exhales deeply* Okay, this is just getting ludicrous. I mean, wow. I'm at a loss for words, people. I honestly don't know if my PS3's gonna even make it through the summer staying in my room. Now I just want PSN up so I can delete my account so I don't ever have to deal with Sony's laziness ever again. It's just getting unbearable reading news articles regarding the situation with the PSN breach, hoping that there would be a light at the end of this long, dark, dank, crap-infested tunnel. Looks like the light isn't gonna shine on Sony anytime in the near future, because even when PSN eventually gets back up, Sony may not have a fanbase left.

Or the chance of a PlayStation 4 happening.

UPDATE: http://blog.us.playstation.com/2011/05/10/psn-restoration-timeline-update/

Now Sony says "a few more days." Well Sony, it doesn't really matter, because one way or another, I'm getting rid of my PS3 when PSN gets restarted. Don't count on me returning to the PS3 online community permanently anytime soon.

Transformers MP-10 Revealed! Finally, news that isn't PSN-related!

2011-05-10T08:14:00.000-07:00

Finally, something I can post that isn't related to Sony's troubles. Earlier this morning, online toy shop Kapow Toys released the first few images of the newest Transformers Masterpiece toy, AND...

It's Optimus Prime. Again. But in a new mold.

I...really don't know how to respond to this new toy. I'm of two minds on this one; on one hand, this toy looks just as good as the original (if not better). Definitely pleasing to the eyes, and this time his trailer includes the plucky little car drone thing, Roller. If that's not enough, Optimus Prime can store his gun in his back, which is REALLY great for those of us who don't want his accessories lying around when in truck mode. And if that doesn't convince you, he comes with a little Spike Witwicky figure, so it's like getting a Masterpiece toy and a Human Alliance toy in one.

On the other hand...it's yet another Masterpiece Optimus Prime toy. I'm sure most of us are sick of the numerous repaints of the first mold; Ultra Magnus without his armor, Black Edition Convoy that can pretty much be used as Masterpiece Nemesis Prime, and even a Convoy in his faded colors when he died in the 1986 animated movie. Having yet another Masterpiece Optimus Prime would feel like a waste of plastic, but if the character sells well (and he has been for the past 27 years), chances are there will be more Masterpiece Optimuses. Another thing that's keeping me from wanting to buy him is his price: $250. That's a bit steep there TakaraTomy. Well, seeing as though the images have the name Hasbro printed on them I can assume Hasbro will bring this new Optimus to the states soon enough (I wouldn't be surprised if he was announced at Botcon 2011 or SDCC 2011), and hopefully at a more affordable price. The only other thing that's gonna keep me from buying this new MP toy is the fact that there hasn't been a new Masterpiece Megatron announced that will be more in scale with this toy. It really annoys me that I just got Masterpiece Megatron not too long ago and already TakaraTomy pretty much said "NEW SMALLER MASTERPIECE OPTIMUS PRIME LOL!" But hell, I'm sure we'll get a new Masterpiece Megatron soon enough to compliment the new Masterpiece Optimus Prime...in Japan (because strict American toy gun laws, that's why). And if Megatron can't work? There's always hope for a Masterpiece Galvatron.

Still, pretty good toy, but I'm gonna hold out until the price drops on MP-10, or until Hasbro announces him for North America.

New date for PSN to return...hope you like waiting!

2011-05-09T11:34:00.000-07:00

'Kay, so Sony's said that May 31st is when PSN will supposedly restart.

Just thought I'd say that for anyone who still gives a damn. All I know is, when (or rather if) PSN does come back up...Sony better expect a hell of a lot of purchases from the PSN store if they want to get back on track.

PSN still down, and Sony won't get any more of my money

2011-05-07T08:41:00.000-07:00

Few of you who know me know that I tend to be a bit impatient when it comes to things, but when Sony had said that PSN services would be back up this week, I had really hoped that when it did come back up, I'd go as fast as I can to unsubscribe from DC Universe Online (and I apologize if I've said that quip a few times already, just really anxious to get off from that game), but guess what we got from Sony today?

http://blog.us.playstation.com/2011/05/06/service-restoration-update/

As you may know, we’ve begun the process of restoring the service through internal testing of the new system. We’re still working to confirm the security of the network infrastructure, as well as working with a variety of outside entities to confirm with them of the security of the system. Verifying the system security is vital for the process of restoration. Additional comprehensive system checks and testing are still required, and we must complete that process before bringing the systems online.
As you’ve heard us say, our utmost priorities are the security of the network and ensuring your data is safe. We won’t restore the services until we can test the system’s strength in these respects.
When we held the press conference in Japan last week, based on what we knew, we expected to have the services online within a week. We were unaware of the extent of the attack on Sony Online Entertainment servers, and we are taking this opportunity to conduct further testing of the incredibly complex system. We know many of you are wanting to play games online, chat with your friends and enjoy all of the services PlayStation Network and Qriocity services have to offer, and trust me when I say we’re doing everything we can to make it happen. We will update you with more information as soon as we have it. We apologize for the delay and inconvenience of this network outage.

Hey Rage Guy meme? I need you for a sec.

Thank you.

Sony, what the hell. WHAT. THE. HELL. Now, I think maybe because of that "third attack at Sony planned" article that I posted yesterday, Sony probably found out about it and they're postponing the PSN's relaunch date to a later point in time. I must be clairvoyant now; first I guessed that the 3DS would cost $249.99, and just yesterday I said that Sony would puss out because of another strike planned at PSN.

Nah, too easy.

Anyway, this latest update from Sony...pretty much sounds like the last few updates from them. I think I can sum up this update as such: "Yeah, we fucked up, keep your panties on, we'll get this done as soon as we can...when we feel like it." Sony could do better than this: they could at least give us an actual time frame instead of saying "Oh yeah, it'll be up this week! Oh what's that? We're still testing? Sorry guys, maybe some other time." Just give us an actual date and keep that date instead of reneging at the last minute. So, with that said, I might as well just say this to Sony:

You just lost one customer. Don't think I'm the only one who will renounce faith in you, because I'm sure that when PSN DOES get back up, you won't have many online players left. I bought your system not just to play Blu-Ray discs, but also to play games online. If it can only do one of the two, then to me, the system isn't worth living up to the promises it tried to keep. You knew damn well that PSN didn't have a firewall or some kind of security system, yet you never bothered to fix this problem until it was too late. You wanna know what that's called? Being lazy. And sometimes being lazy doesn't get you the benefits you reap as your reward, but rather the consequences of your dubious actions. I know PSN is a free service (for us that don't use PlayStation Plus), but that doesn't mean you shouldn't have security for it. Xbox Live is a pay-to-play service, but at least the money goes into keeping Microsoft's online service well-maintained and secured against any threat that comes its way. Learn from your mistakes, Sony, and you may eventually get me back into playing PlayStation. Until then, I have two other consoles that can keep me entertained. And judging by how long you tend to keep PSN down, it'll be a long time before I give you my money again. As the song goes, "I won't get fooled again."

Third attack against PSN planned, Anonymous denies credit theft from current PSN outage, and Sony might just lose this customer

2011-05-06T08:35:00.000-07:00

Sony's not having a good two weeks, aren't they?

Now there's been word of a third attack against PlayStation Network, right as Sony says that they're almost done getting PSN's security up and ready (despite the fact that they know damn well that there's no firewall to PSN. Really smart idea there, morons). To the hackers that plan on making a third strike against PSN, please keep PSN up long enough so I can unsubscribe from DC Universe Online. That's all I ask.

Anonymous has posted a statement denying that they're the ones responsible for all the credit thefts, saying that they're being framed by "standard online thieves"...even though there was a file named "Anonymous" with the words "We are legion" inside said file (but as I said before, they could be right, and it could be someone else using their name and motto as a scapegoat).

It's times like this that I wish I could go back in time and stop myself from getting a PS3. Now I know what you're thinking. "Dude, don't jump to conclusions about Sony's inconvenience. Xbox Live went down for two weeks, surely you've had no troubles there." Well, you're right...and you're wrong. I got my 360 back in 2008, while Xbox Live's intermittent troubles were during the holidays back in 2007. Since then, the only times Xbox Live has been down were when they had to do some maintenance, and those only lasted for a few hours at best (and I have a Wii that has all the N64 games downloaded for the Virtual Console, so no troubles for me if Xbox Live goes down). Sony's current PSN outage has been for more than two weeks now. They say it'll come back up within the coming days, but all we may see is Sony pussing out and keeping PSN down because of that first article I posted earlier. At this point, when PSN comes back up...I'm going to take the opportunity that I get and just unsubscribe from everything, and sell all three of my games that I have for the system. After that, my PS3 will be lucky to even be my temporary Blu-Ray player until I find a real one.

Hacker Group Anonymous are the ones responsible for PSN Outage... or are they?

2011-05-05T07:24:00.000-07:00

I don't mean to say "I told you so," but...well, I told you so. Sort of...

http://www.dualpixels.com/profiles/blogs/anonymous-responsible-for

http://kotaku.com/#!5798675/anonymous-fears-nerd-backlash-from-playstation-hack

According to the news articles, Sony found a signature file named "Anonymous" with the words "We are legion" inside the file. Now, it could just be someone else who used Anonymous as a scapegoat (which I have to admit, that guy's got balls to use a Hacker group's name to cover his ass), but look at Anonymous' "We didn't do it letter".

At the very end of their statement, they put down "TL;DR Sony is incompetent." If that wasn't a not-very-subtle indication of them being the ones responsible, I don't know what is. But again, it could be someone else pretending to be this group so I could be wrong.

PlayStation Network to be back up by the end of the week...and PSN users get Compensation

2011-05-02T06:35:00.000-07:00

There's been some good news regarding the PSN outage (and Sony's shit-tastic servers getting hacked so people can steal personal information from PSN users). PSN will be back up by the end of the week, according to some sources (can't remember the name of the site that I got it from, my bad), and to those of us who are PlayStation Plus users, be very happy. For us that aren't PlayStation Plus users, we still get some compensation. For me...I might as well say that I'm disappointed.

Sony has created a "Welcome back" program, giving all PSN users 30 free days of PlayStation Plus, while PlayStation Plus users get 30 free days as well. Sony's also said that "selected PlayStation entertainment content" will be free to download for all PSN users. You're probably wondering why I just said I'm disappointed by this. For those of you who can't stand my rambling rants, feel free to close the window and do something else, so I won't waste your time.

...You still here? Alright.

I'm disappointed not because I use PlayStation Plus; far from it. I don't use PlayStation Plus because it isn't worth the money to subscribe just so you can pay less on other things at the PlayStation store. I'm willing to pay full price on a piece of DLC, or a downloadable game, but to spend $40-50 a year just to keep myself subscribed for content that I find rather useless, is just pointless in my opinion. Why pay an extra few dollars just to spend a few dollars less? That kind of cancels out in some way.

I'm disappointed partly because I'm one of the two people who still play DC Universe Online, and since the outage, I'm assuming the worst and my virtual wallet has been drained due to subscription fees, but I didn't play any DCUO because of the outage. So far there hasn't been word on whether or not DCUO members will get compensated for those days. My take on how we'll get compensated? We'll either actually get the money from the outage days, or we'll get some crappy little gift that doesn't do jack. My money's on the latter.

The other reason why I'm disappointed is, although we can download something for free as a means of compensation, it says in the article "selected PlayStation entertainment content will be free to download". Considering how piss poor the PSN game library is to me (I mean the exclusive games, not the multiplatform ones), there's not really a lot I can download for free as compensation.

I really don't know if I should keep my PS3 or not. Then again, I barely play any of the games that I have for it, so that probably says something. Maybe I should just get rid of the games and keep the thing as a Blu-Ray player.

PlayStation Network is down...for everyone

2011-04-23T08:59:00.000-07:00

I chose the wrong time to finally play my PS3 after a couple of months. PlayStation Network suffered some sort of outage Wednesday night, and it's still down as of this post. Sony said this outage was an "external intrusion", which can only mean that somebody could have hacked PSN, explaining why it's down. A group of hackers, known as Anonymous, denies that they are involved with this, seeing as though they were the same ones who threatened Sony (something over piracy, I could care less right now) earlier this month, which caused the company to perform maintenance on PSN. Here's what Anonymous had to say about this:

For Once We Didn't Do It

---

Sony's Playstation Network, its online service for Playstation 3 and its Playstation Portable consoles, suffered from a major outage today; which is on going as of this writting. According to Son'ys blog, the interruption in service may last into the long weekend - for at least another "full day or two". Sony released a statement through its EU blog, saying that the network outage may be a result of "targeted behaviour by an outside party", brining in the possibility of cyberattacks. Adding to the confusion is the fact that the message has since been removed.

While it could be the case that other Anons have acted by themselves AnonOps wa not related to this incident and takes no responsiblity for it. A more likely explination is that Sony is taking advantage of Anonymous' previous ill-will towards the company to distract users from the fact the outage is accutally an internal problem with the companies servers.

I'd believe them, but here's what they said at the very end of their statement:

TL:DR

Sony is incompetent.

Real subtle, Anonymous. REAL subtle.

So yeah, PSN's down until Sony solves the problem, which could be days or weeks from now. And I was about to go out and buy Portal 2 and Mortal Kombat for that system. Guess not.

New Nintendo Console on the Horizon?

2011-04-17T07:32:00.000-07:00

There's been some buzz going around recently about Nintendo unveiling a new console at this year's E3, and it already has the codename "Project Cafe" according to IGN:

http://wii.ign.com/articles/116/1161875p1.html

http://wii.ign.com/articles/116/1162045p1.html

The first IGN article has a link to Game Informer, where they originally posted about this. I'd give you the link, but my computer for some odd reason freezes up when it goes there (then again, I'm typing from a Dell Laptop that runs Windows Vista, so it's pretty much old hat to me now to see it screw up every other day).

Anyway, this is rather sudden of Nintendo to announce a new console, but seeing as though new video game consoles come out every five or six years, this really shouldn't surprise me, but what does surprise me is that from the articles I've read, there doesn't seem to be any mention of motion controls the Wii has. Is Nintendo giving up on the whole motion-control idea in general? If so, it's kind of an odd move, seeing as though the Wii still sells well, despite its recent competition with Microsoft's Kinect and Sony's PlayStation Move controller. I guess we can only wait until E3.

2011 Transformers Hall of Fame Voting is Online!...And a rant about one of the finalists!

2011-04-13T11:20:00.000-07:00

It's that time of year again, where Hasbro asks everyone to vote for who should go into the Transformers Hall of Fame! 2010 had Optimus Prime, Megatron, Starscream, and Bumblebee (No surprise, seeing as though they're the four biggest characters of the franchise). The fifth and last inductee was Dinobot from Beast Wars, which was a really nice surprise, having Hasbro to let us know that the Hall of Fame isn't just G1, but a celebration of all things Transformers. 2011 has Ironhide, Ratchet, and Soundwave added, but now is the time to vote for the fourth and final inductee! Vote here: http://www.hasbro.com/transformers/en_US/discover/2011-TRANSFORMERS-HALL-OF-FAME-VOTE.cfm

We've got Shockwave, Grimlock, Waspinator, Jazz, and...Erector.

This is where the "And a rant about one of the finalists" comes in. Normally, I would try to keep any dubious thoughts inside me, but the last finalist on the list is where I might as well spill this out (and by the way, I don't mind the criticism that I'm definitely going to get from some fans from a site that I visit on a daily basis, because at this point, I'm not even going to bother any more):

Erector was one of the Transformers that was part of the "Micromaster" subseries in the early 90s, when Generation 1 was dying. Like some of the characters introduced during the twilight years of G1, he didn't have much backstory. To be honest, the only thing that said something about him throughout the 20-some years was his character bio that I think was on the back of his packaging (though I could be wrong). Now I want you to stop for a moment, speak out the name "Erector", think of what it really sounds like, and not giggle while you say it.

Are you done? Good. Guess what sounds similar to his name? I'll let you figure out what THAT is.

Did you giggle when you found out about what his name could mean if you thought about it in THAT way? If so, you need to stop, and grow up.

Since fans have found out about this poor little Micromaster's unfortunate name, that's pretty much all he's remembered for; his name is a sex joke, and an immature one at that. He's not the only one to have a poorly thought-out name; two other Micromasters were named "Heave" and "Discharge". But I'm not talking about them, I'm talking about Erector.

The trouble that I have with this character actually began a few weeks ago, when the site that I said earlier (I'm not going to say the name of the site, by the way) decided to have a little contest on who should get nominated for the Transformers Hall of Fame. Obvious characters like Grimlock, Shockwave, and Jazz were considered, as well as Waspinator. Hell, I nominated Animated Lugnut simply because of how over-the-top loyal he is to his series' Megatron. However, someone thought it'd be funny to nominate Erector. To be honest, I thought this was just a harmless little joke. Surely only a small number of fans would vote just for shits and giggles, right?

I was wrong. Oh. So. Wrong.

Over time, what I had thought would be a passing joke eventually evolved into an actual campaign to get Erector into the Hall of Fame. People had sigs saying "GET ERECTOR INTO THE HALL OF FAME" and some were declaring just how awesome he is (despite the fact that he has appeared in NO FICTION WHATSOEVER). So, they know that his name is a dick joke, yet they're taking this seriously like it's a big deal? Can someone please explain why that is? Well, the only explanation that won't get a feeble, shoddily-constructed defense from me is that Erector, to some fans, was their first toy. To be honest, my first Transformers toys were also Micromasters, so I can relate. But the toys I had didn't have a double entendre like Erector did, unless Crumble, Groundpounder, Neutro, and Takedown do.

As the nomination voting closed on the site, Waspinator had won, with Erector at second. I figured this would be the end of this overly-long joke. That was that, it was over, finished, done, and any other related synonyms.

Today was obviously not my day. I had just come back from school after getting a bad grade on my math quiz, and I found out that Hasbro's Hall of Fame voting was online. I was happy that this came up, so I eagerly clicked on the link, and went to the page. Guess who was one of the finalists?

Mother. Fucking. Erector.

There aren't enough facepalm images on the Internet to describe how I'm feeling right now. This is no longer just a joke; it is now a horrendously mutated, overly-long gag that even Seth MacFarlane, creator of Family Guy, who is notorious for using overly-long gags in his show, would facepalm at. Seriously, Hasbro? You actually decided to stoop to some fans' level of humor and put in Erector as one of the finalists? I honestly don't know what to do (other than, you know, NOT vote for the Transformer who has a dick joke for a name and have zero appearances in fiction and vote for an actual character instead). To quote one of my favorite Internet movie reviewers as a response to the fans who praise Hasbro for getting Erector into the final five...

"Dude, fuck you."

I'll just say this: if Erector does get into the Hall of Fame come June 2-5 at Botcon, I will do either one of two things:

1. Drink my own piss in a bottle.

2. Quit the fandom and sell all of my toys.

I heard Bear Grylls say urine ain't half bad...

4Kids goes Bankrupt...'Tis a great day indeed

2011-04-09T07:01:00.000-07:00

After getting their asses handed to them by Japan because of the whole Yu-Gi-Oh! incident, it seems 4Kids finally gets the last nail in their coffin...

THEY'RE BANKRUPT!!! :D

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/4Kids-Entertainment-Files-for-bw-277838303.html?x=0&.v=1

This is DELICIOUS!

Yu-Gi-Oh terminated...in America, and 4Kids gets sued. A belated birthday gift?

2011-03-30T17:45:00.000-07:00

Forgot to tell you all that my birthday was eight days ago. I'd post what I got, but it wasn't all that spectacular. Turned 22 and got Pokemon White as a birthday gift (well, the only one worth mentioning). While Pokemon White continues to suck more time out of me, it seems that 4Kids, the dubbing company responsible for butchering-err, I mean, adapting anime shows for North America, has gotten hit with a lawsuit by TV Tokyo and Nihon Ad Systems.

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2011-03-29/tv-tokyo-nihon-ad-terminate-yu-gi-oh-deal-sue-4kids

'Scuze me for one sec, need to get a video to perfectly sum up my feelings about this particular predicament:

Hopefully someday there will be a dubbing company that does Yu-Gi-Oh well.

Now is the time to be a Hero.

2011-03-13T10:33:00.000-07:00

On Friday, Japan suffered from what is being considered to be the worst earthquake and tsunami in history. Many people lost their homes, their material possessions, and perhaps, the lives of those they loved. And now there's been news of nuclear meltdown at one of their plants. It's really saddening to see a country in trouble, especially one that I someday wish to visit. If you know me, I happen to be a bit of a fan of Japanese culture, and seeing it shattered by this recent disaster upsets me. Unfortunately, in times of crisis, there will be evil who will do whatever it takes to profit off of this by pretending to be someone who will donate your money to Japan, when in the harshness that is reality, they'll just steal your money and laugh, not giving a damn about the consequences. Thankfully, there are a select few people who actually will donate your money and help out those in need. This site has those few people:

http://superherotime.chipin.com/super-hero-time

Be a hero. Help out.

I know some people would think Super Sentai is crap, but...

2011-03-08T20:11:00.001-08:00

I think this speaks for itself.

Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger TOILET PAPER.

Oh, you wacky Japanese. What will they think of next?

Transformers 4 may happen...even if Bay isn't involved in it

2011-02-24T07:44:00.000-08:00

http://www.movieweb.com/news/transformers-4-will-happen-with-or-without-michael-bay

I sometimes wonder what goes on in those board room meetings at Hasbro when they talk about the future of Transformers. Apparently, the head CEO thinks that doing a fourth movie would be a great idea...even when Michael Bay has said that Dark of the Moon will be his last Transformers movie (YAY! :D). While I like the idea of a Transformers movie without Michael Bay in the director's chair...I just don't like the idea of another Transformers movie in general. Sure, both the first movie and the abominable crapfest that was its sequel were huge hits at the box office (and I'm sure the third may do just as well, even if we do get more racial stereotypes and sex jokes), but I just don't think Transformers may ever do well as a live-action film on the big screen. Making a lot of money is no excuse for bad acting, bad storytelling, bad writing, and bad storytelling. But...since Hollywood has degenerated into a bunch of (to quote the Nostalgia Critic) money-grubbing whores, a fourth movie will probably happen anyway. If it does, then at least do the following for the movie:

Get a better director. At least Hasbro will do that. One can only hope they don't fuck up and get someone worse than Michael Bay...like Brett Ratner. *Shudders*
If you're going to continue the movie series, give it a new human cast; no Sam, no Sam's parents, no Mikaela/Carly/whoever the hell Sam's girlfriend is, no army guys, just a new human cast that would react in a human way to giant alien robots, not just go "NONONONONONONO" every five seconds like a chihuahua on crack.
It's called "TRANSFORMERS" for a reason. Focus a little more on them, and leave the humans as minor characters. It's okay to focus on the main human sidekick, but it's NOT okay to focus on twenty-some people we don't know or care about.

Hopefully they do at least the first one. But knowing Michael Bay and his fetish for explosions, I kind of doubt it.

New Year, new things to expect...and probably get disappointed again. PART 2: What we will see in 2011

2011-02-21T09:21:00.000-08:00

Since it's the new year, there are a lot of nerdy things we can expect to happen in 2011. However, since I'm someone who tends to overreact, get ahead of myself, and jump to conclusions before stuff actually happens, I'm going to look at some of said nerdy things that will happen this year, and why it may disappoint some of us.

-Power Rangers Samurai. It's good to know that Saban got back their golden franchise after Disney bought it out back in 2002, and after seeing the first episode, a wave of nostalgia hit me. This was gonna be like Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers again!...And that's where I began to have second thoughts about the show. Sure, we got Bulk back, along with Skull's son, Spike (which raises questions about who the mother is, and why Spike calls him "Uncle Bulk"), and the show itself is great for any new fan that's just getting into Power rangers. The footage used from its Sentai counterpart, Shinkenger, is awesome, and we even get all new footage of the Megazord cockpit, complete with the Rangers assuming "Mega Ranger modes". You're probably wondering "what's the problem, then?". Well the thing is...I kinda wished Saban didn't have to make it really cheesy like the first few seasons of Power Rangers were. Sure, it's a nice thing to do for the veteran fans that make them feel like a kid watching MMPR again, but there were Power Rangers shows that were a lot darker, and relied a little more on the story and the action than the Power Rangers simply hammering in "WE CAN DO ANYTHING AS A TEAM" like Samurai is doing. The teamwork in the action scenes alone can pretty much tell us that teamwork is a good thing. But hell, at least it's more tolerable than "NEVER GIVE UP!" like Wild Force did. So, will Samurai bring Power Rangers back to its former glory? Who knows.

-Transformers: Dark of the Moon (The movie itself). After seeing Revenge of the Fallen, my expectations for the third movie doing well (what little I had) pretty much went down the crapper. It was obvious that Michael Bay couldn't get these movies right (then again, the man has never directed a single GOOD movie in his life, so this should be old hat to me), and with Orci and Kurtzman gone, I knew that the third movie would be a flop. The only thing that made me smile about the third movie was that Megan Fox was gone, so no more Eyecandy McFakeTits. As time passed, we were given news of what would happen in the movie and which new Transformers characters would get little to no screentime to develop past the basic characterization of "this guy is good, this guy is bad". The story so far for this movie is that...well, something happened on the moon during the space race between the US and Russia (Maybe it's something related to the Transformers!), and since the humans know of the Transformers' existence, the shit hits the fan, and yadda yadda robots beating the shit out of each other a third time. Is it really any different from the first two movies? Probably not. But, I'm going to go by the classic phrase of "three's a charm" and simply hold judgment until I see this movie when it hits July 1st. I really hope this movie makes up for the travesty that was Revenge of the Fallen. Even if it ends up sucking, I can at least smile, knowing that this will be the last Transformers movie Bay does. Ever.

-Nintendo 3DS. Hoo boy, I can bet a lot of you are pissed at why I put the 3DS on here. Put the torches and pitchforks away, and hear me out. I. WANT. This thing. SO BAD. This is a handheld that I'm more than willing to shell out the $250 for (hey, I WAS right! It will cost $250! Go me). However, there are a couple of reasons why I'm holding off on getting one, and the first one right away is the 3D gimmick itself. Didn't Nintendo try this gimmick before on the Virtual Boy? Look where that went: Barely lasted six months before it was discontinued and only 14 games were released in the US, not to mention that the only colors you could see on the thing were black and red. No wonder some people got headaches from playing this thing. If the 3D gimmick failed before for Nintendo, what makes them think it'll work now? Is it because of the 3D craze that the movie "Avatar" started? Kind of a dumb move, because 3D TVs aren't selling all that well. At least if you don't like the 3D gimmick, Nintendo added a slider on the side of the top part of the 3DS so you can turn the 3D effects on or off. The other reason is the launch games. Normally when Nintendo releases a new system or handheld, they sell a game that features one of their own franchises, like Mario, or Zelda, or Metroid, or Kirby. But the 3DS launch games surprisingly have none of them. The only two video game series I know of that are getting a 3DS game are Dead or Alive and Street Fighter, and even those aren't pulling me in. I guess I'll just have to wait until the inevitable Mario Kart game comes out.

So yeah, that's pretty much what 2011 entails for me...so far, at least. I apologize if I've been sporadic in posting, quite a few things have happened since the last post, but nothing too spectacular...other than me considering getting a Twitter account. But hopefully that doesn't happen.

New Year, new things to expect...and probably get disappointed again. PART 1: Looking back at the past year

2011-01-18T08:20:00.000-08:00

2010 was, to me, disappointing. Sure, there were a few good things I enjoyed last year, like Pokemon Heart Gold and Soul Silver, the announcement of the Nintendo 3DS, Toy Story 3, Saban's reacquiring of the Power Rangers franchise, and...umm...well crap, I was hoping there were other things that I thought would make 2010 an okay year. But to me, there was stuff that we expected (okay, I expected) to kick ass...but ended up falling flat on its face. Let's take a look:

-Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers got relaunched...and we got the first 32 episodes of the first season with unnecessarily-added comic book effects that look like a five-year-old made using a video-editing program you get with your computer. But I really shouldn't be surprised, knowing Disney's dubious business strategies. Then there were the toys Bandai made. As a fan collecting Transformers toys for almost nine years, I've learned a lot about the toy industry; if a toy sells really well, chances are that said toy will be high in demand but low in supply. I wish I could say the same for the MMPR 2010 toys (or MMPR V2 or MMPR Generation 2 or whatever the fandom calls it). Never before have I seen a line do so poorly that it would go on clearance, and then just be removed from the shelves altogether. Sure, we got the classic Megazord and Titanus...but we were also promised a Dragonzord. Unfortunately, since Saban got back Power Rangers, and with Power Rangers Samurai on its way (though for some of you out there the PRS toys are already out), Bandai of America probably decided "Durr, eff it, kids no like MMPR, we no make Dragonzord to complete set." Yeah, Bandai seems to make really dumb decisions for their toys, especially since Operation Overdrive, where instead of just importing the original Sentai giant robot, they take the cheap way out and make a cheaper, less impressive version of the Megazord that corresponds to the current Power Rangers series that's airing. I can see why that is, but it's still kind of stupid in my opinion. Hopefully the next time I go to a retail store I see Power Rangers toys on the shelves again.

-Final Fantasy XIII. Where did it all go wrong? When we first saw the trailer for it at E3 2006 (well, you guys saw it in person, I saw it on a computer days after it was shown at the convention), it looked impressive. I thought it would hearken back to the days of Final Fantasy VII, but alas, that was not to be. Instead, we got a story that made no sense, gameplay that's too linear for a Final Fantasy game, broken combat system, and stupid characters (emphasis on stupid, especially for one of the main characters, Hope). I got this game for my birthday, thinking that it might be good. Hell, it has to make up for VIII, X, and XII (IX was okay...it was meh). I must be one stupid person to believe such drivel. I played this game...for a few hours, and then sold it, and watched the rest of the game on Youtube through a walkthrough. Granted, it's not enough to justify my opinion, but in my own feeble defense, I'm sure there are a few people out there who agree with me. The sad part? There's talks of a sequel to this game. Excuse me for one moment. *Walks away from computer, screams into empty trash bin in anger*

*Comes back in* Okay, I'm better now. I mean, it's not like there's a trailer for this obviously stupid sequel-*Notices that there is a trailer, watches it* MOTHERFU-Sigh, excuse me again. *Walks away from computer, screams into empty trash bin yet again*

*Comes back in* Fuck you, Square-Enix.

-Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode I. Sega seems to always find a way to mess up their mascot whenever a new Sonic game is announced. We got the first 2D Sonic game in what was probably 16 years...and Sega STILL screwed it up. Flawed jumping physics and a price point that made me regret getting this game. I mean, $15 for a game that I can beat within an hour? No thanks. I guess the chances for an Episode II won't be very high. Sega...just quit. It's becoming more and more obvious that Sonic is a decaying corpse that you keep trying to resuscitate with new games. The Sonic games should just stop, and rest in peace along with the consoles Sega's made throughout the 90s.

-Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II. The first game ended on a high note (well, if you chose the good ending, that is), and it felt like one of those games that didn't need a sequel. But it got one anyway. Why? Because as we all know, George Lucas is the embodiment of greed, and will do anything to make more money. I wonder if Larfleeze from DC Comics has a spare Orange Lantern Power Ring for this guy. *Ahem* Err, anyway, the sequel to what I thought was a decent Star Wars game ended up being disappointing because of a couple of reasons. One of the reasons is the fact that Starkiller is too powerful, and leveling up throughout the game...just isn't satisfying. The other reason is the story. You wanna know how Starkiller's still alive, even though at the end of the first game (if you chose the good ending as I said before), he sacrifices himself to save the Rebellion? Guess what, the Starkiller in TFU II is an imperfect clone of him. That's right, Lucas once again pulls a plot device out of his bullfrog neck and gives us a clone story. BULLSHIT. At least unlike Final Fantasy XIII, I actually read the reviews for the game before I decided not to get it.

Nothing else I can think of that was a disappointment to nerds everywhere, so in Part 2, we'll be taking a look at what we can expect in 2011...and how it may or may not disappoint.

Happy Holidays Everyone!

2010-12-25T10:17:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a happy new year. So before I go back to enjoying my gifts, here's what I got:

-3 pairs of wool socks
-A pair of wool jammy bottoms
-A 2011 cat calendar
-Red Vs. Blue: The Recollection DVD set
-Super Mario All-Stars and Donkey Kong Country Returns for the Wii
-4000 Microsoft Points for Xbox (I smell movie marathon!)
-$50 PlayStation Store dollars
-6000 Wii/DSi Points
-Windows 7 (Not sure if this could be considered a proverbial lump of coal, seeing as though the Nintendo WiFi connector isn't compatible with it)
-2010 G1 Reissue PREDAKING (And this effer's huge. HUGE)
-Gloves that can be used for my iPhone (so I don't have to take off my other gloves to use my fingers to navigate said iPhone)

See you all in 2011!

Boo Boo Kills Yogi Bear...Wait, WHAT!?

2010-12-15T14:29:00.000-08:00

You know that live-action Yogi Bear movie coming out this Friday? Well, someone involved with the movie made an alternate ending parody. If there's any kids watching this, I suggest you don't. This is...a bit disturbing.

And yet I find this funny. I have a dark sense of humor, apparently.

Snow...I have it

2010-12-12T08:18:00.000-08:00

Yeah...Ohio got hit with a bit of snow.

Fuck winter.

Xbox 360...Do I even bother anymore?

2010-12-10T07:59:00.000-08:00

I think it's true that as time goes on, you start to lose interest in the things you enjoy, and you eventually move on to something else. The same can be said for my recent problems with the Xbox 360. Whether it be the crappy customer support, or updates that you're forced to update to or else you can't play on Xbox Live, or some third thing. To me, it's all of the above. I'm beginning to think that the Xbox 360...kinda sucks now. The only games I ever play now on it are Halo Reach, Soul Calibur IV, and Grand Theft Auto IV (the third one I'm almost through with, I just need to finish Ballad of Gay Tony and that's that). The latter two of those games I could play on PlayStation 3, but I got those games long before I got a PS3 Slim last Christmas, so trading those two out for their PS3 counterparts would just feel like a waste of time (that, and I would have to download all the DLC for both games again). Maybe the reason I'm losing interest in the Xbox 360 is because of Kinect. Ever since that came out, there's not really any more games for the 360 that I'm waiting for. In fact, the games that I am waiting for, like Marvel Vs. Capcom 3, will also be released on the PS3.

Now I'm sure a few of you will argue, "well, what about the Xbox Live Arcade games?" Well yes, I could switch gears and just buy arcade titles from now on, but even some of the titles don't really suit me well. Some of the games are only worth playing if you want 200 more Gamerscore on your Gamertag (which as of this post, they still don't do anything except make your e-penis larger). Hell, I bought Pac-Man Championship Edition DX a few weeks back, and I beat the game and got all the achievements within 24 HOURS. The same can be said for Virtual-On Oratorio Tangram. Don't get me wrong, the 360's got plenty of great games (both digital and physical copy games), but when you hear that a game is coming out on more than one console, you have to make a choice, and I'm not that good with making tough decisions, especially when it comes to a multiplatform game.

Another argument that I'll probably hear is, "What about the Indie games? You know, those games that you get for a couple dollars?" Well, you have me there, as I have never actually gotten an Indie game, so I can't really complain. I may consider getting an Indie game and trying it out, and I might enjoy it, giving me a new reason to keep my 360. But for now, I'm going to continue to think on whether or not I should get rid of it and the games altogether.

Halo Reach - A Review by Razorclaw

2010-12-03T08:42:00.000-08:00

I said a long time ago that after a couple of days of playing the last Bungie-made Halo game that I'd review it. Soon days became weeks, and then days became months.

Yeah, I tend to procrastinate a bit. It's a really bad habit. But here we go, my review of Halo Reach:

What a letdown.

Before any Halo fan starts sending me hate mail, yelling "U HATE REACH ZOMFG UR NOT A TRUE HALO FAN!!", sit back down and clamp your traps. I liked Reach; it's a decent FPS, and an okay way to end the Bungie era of the Halo franchise...but it's a disappointment. Let me explain.

For anyone who's played all of the Halo games like I have (including ODST), we should know by now the full story of the Halo universe, including what happened on Reach, and how it fell because of the Covenant. Halo Reach takes place a few weeks before the events of the first Halo game, Halo: Combat Evolved, and details what exactly happened that caused Reach to fall. You assume the role of Noble Six, a Spartan that's part of Noble Team, sent to investigate a sudden loss of a transmission relay. You and your team find out that the Covenant is responsible for this, and they plan on invading Reach in full force. The campaign itself is decent, at least ten hours of playtime. You get the sense that humanity is losing as Reach is slowly destroyed by the Covenant onslaught, but if you're like me, you pretty much know how it ends. One of the great things I liked about the campaign was that on the sixth mission, "Long Night of Solace", there's a section where you take control of a starfighter and engage in an epic space battle. But...that's pretty much where the fun ends. Reach to me is basically another Halo game, meaning that not much has changed, save for the beautiful level designs.

I really wish there were more positives I could say for this game, but unfortunately, the negatives outweigh the positives. A LOT. Also, expect some spoilers from the game.

First and foremost, the Campaign itself. You don't really get to spend a lot of time knowing Noble Team, save for Noble Five, a.k.a. Jorge. He's kind of like a fatherly figure of the group...and that's pretty much it. The rest are kind of stereotypes. And if you've played the Halo games, you know that when Reach fell, so did every Spartan except for Master Chief. That would include all of Noble Team. And I'm just gonna be a jerk and tell you how each one of them dies (hey, none of them are mentioned in the trilogy, so why shouldn't I tell you?):

Noble Five/Jorge: Sacrifices himself by manually detonating a slipspace bomb onboard a Covenant Corvette.
Noble Two/Kat: Gets shot in the head by a Jackal.
Noble Four/Jun: He doesn't really die, he just...goes away. At the end of the ninth mission, he escorts Dr. Halsey to a safe place. We never learn what becomes of the two, but I'm just going to assume he got killed as well.
Noble One/Carter: Sacrifices himself by ramming a Pelican into a Scarab.
Noble Three/Emile: Gets stabbed through the torso by an Elite.
Noble Six/YOU: Goes down fighting Elites.

Speaking of Noble Six, you can customize your Spartan any way you want, even pick a gender for any female gamers out there. However, the leveling-up system for your character in multiplayer is downright frustrating. Remember back in Halo 3 and ODST where unlocking certain achievements actually rewarded you with new pieces of armor for your multiplayer guy? Well guess what; that's gone in Reach. In place, we get a retarded leveling-up system that forces you to grind XP (cR, credits, who the hell cares) just so you can get enough to buy armor for your Spartan. But sometimes even having enough credits is not enough; you also have to be of a certain rank for certain pieces of armor. 130,000 cR for a helmet? Screw that, I'd rather play Halo 3's Campaign mode with all the skulls activated, including Iron. Now THAT would be worth an achievement. And sometimes you have to buy pieces of armor to unlock other pieces of armor.

Ugh.

As of right now, I'm at Colonel Grade 3, and to get the Mark VI helmet, I need 300,000 cR and the rank of Brigadier. Sure, let me just spend a good chunk of my weekend playing multiplayer where every match nets me at least 1,000 cR. I can't play 300-some games just to get a damn helmet that does absolutely nothing but make my character different cosmetically instead of giving my character more skills or something! Again, Bungie should have made the armor pieces available as rewards for getting achievements, not an XP-grinding session. If you want EVERY SINGLE PIECE of armor, armor effect, and Firefight voice, expect to play Halo Reach for the next few years, because you'll need at least 10 to 20 million cR to get everything, and you'll need to rank up your character to Inheritor to be 100% complete. True, there are daily and weekly challenges that can get you a couple thousand points each, and they can be helpful, but not the Commendations. These things are frustrating, even to some boosters. You have to get a certain amount of kills (or assists, or multikills) with a weapon or with a vehicle to get a little medal to pop up. Sure, you get cR for these, but the only way you can get these in a short amount of time (a few weeks, probably, at least in multiplayer) is to boost. And even then it gets mundane and repetitive. I didn't get this game as a get-well-soon gift from my ankle surgery just so I could grind XP to get new pieces of armor, I got this game so I could have FUN.

Switching to Campaign again, another thing wrong with it is the A.I. The friendly A.I. in Halo Reach is utter shit. In one of the missions of the Campaign mode that I played, Kat was stuck behind a concrete barrier that was barely up to her waist. I guess Bungie didn't have enough money to animate Kat getting over something. Speaking of whom, her A.I. is the worst, as she cannot drive. Play the fifth mission, "Tip of the Spear," and have her drive, you'll know what I mean. If the friendly A.I. in this game is stupid, then that can only mean that the enemy A.I. is intelligent...too intelligent. You know something's wrong when the enemy A.I. is much more intelligent than the friendly A.I., so Bungie must have effed up on that one. One more thing that grinds my gears is the checkpoint system. It's really infuriating to me, especially when there's points in the Campaign that would be great as checkpoints, but unfortunately, they don't happen.

If you think multiplayer Reach is any better, think again. Although I had some complaints about it when it first came out, some of those complaints were taken care of, so don't expect much, just some nitpicking. First off, the maps that came with the game itself (not including the Noble Map Pack that was released recently). About a third of the maps are from Forge World, the giant canvas map Forge enthusiasts can use to make great stuff. Now don't get me wrong, I like the new maps that we're given, especially Hemorrhage. I just wish Bungie could make some variants of Forge World, like one that's set on an ice planet, or a desert planet, or in a jungle, or in a city. Every other map, including the Firefight maps, are ripped straight out of the game. It seems Bungie decided to take the cheap way out and just implement the multiplayer maps they had during the beta and slap 'em into the Campaign. That's kind of lame, seeing as though the only map in Halo 3 that resembled something from Campaign was Rat's Nest.

The armor abilities, while a good idea on paper, just didn't seem to implement well. I liked the idea of having those things as items in Halo 3, but these abilities are a joke, especially the Armor Lock. Sure, it's good for when someone throws a grenade at you or tries to run you over, but all it is is basically just delaying your inevitable death. And the camo is also stupid; you can't even jump or fall or MOVE without having the camo de-cloak on you. And while the sprint ability is what some of us have wanted, guess what? You can only use one ability at a time at the loadout screen. So when you die, you can either keep using said ability, or switch it out before you respawn. They should have just made the armor abilities available by pressing one of the directions on the D-Pad so you can switch your abilities on the fly, instead of just having to either get killed or commit suicide in order to swap out abilities.

I really wanted to like this game, and I do, but to me, it just won't ever be as good as the first three Halo games. At least it's better than Halo 3: ODST was.

Xbox Irony (Or, Avatar Editor Problem Apparently Solved...I Guess)

2010-11-29T17:13:00.000-08:00

For anyone following the blog, you've probably learned about my recent ramblings with my Xbox 360 and how the customer support was being lame. Well I called Customer Support a week ago for the first time in two years (weird how my problem happened near the same time as when my first 360 crapped out on me), and two of the three affected items that I had were fixed. Now I could wear my Halo Beret and Noble Six Armor again, but my Halo Hoodie was still broken. Unfortunately, Microsoft's Customer Support couldn't help me with that (nor give me a refund), and in their own way, basically told me to piss off (okay, not really, they pretty much said that they would look into it, but it still felt like they were giving me the finger). Another one of the problems I had with the Avatar Editor after the update was that every time I go into it, I would keep getting a message, telling me to update, even though I've already updated. So yeah, things weren't going so well for me.

But then irony struck. Deciding to ultimately just say "to hell with it, I'm deleting the Halo Hoodie" and going about with said action, I inadvertently fixed my update message error problem! I deleted the item that wouldn't work, and now every time I go into the Avatar Editor, I don't get the message anymore. So apparently the Halo Hoodie item just cannot work with the new Avatar Editor. Now to be honest, I still feel a bit peeved that I spent 160 MS Points on a piece of virtual clothing, but at the end of the day, that's pretty much what it is; it's an item that you don't use in real life, but in your fake, yet more glorious virtual life. But oh well, two dollars wasted isn't that bad of a loss.

Unless you paid $10 to see Aliens Vs. Predator Requiem and saw just how craptastic that film was like I did three years ago this Christmas. :(

Transformers Prime in 8 days!...Or rather 5 days if you're impatient. Also, where I stand with the show.

2010-11-21T10:21:00.000-08:00

Transformers Prime is getting nearer and nearer to airing on Hasbro's new channel, the Hub (formerly Discovery Kids). While the official airing is November 29th (a week from tomorrow), the Hub will air the first two episodes as a "sneak peek" on Black Friday. I've been pretty quiet and neutral about Transformers Prime, but I figure I'll post my opinion on the show and where I stand before it airs.

First off, the designs. I honestly don't care much for them. I don't necessarily hate them, they just look rather odd, like a mix between Animated and the Live-Action film series (BTW, The Dark of the Moon is now just Dark of the Moon as I stupidly forgot to correct in a previous post). The robots are okay, but it's the humans that...well, they look like rejected Pixar character extras. But it's forgivable. As long as the story is good, I could care less about the designs. Speaking of story...

The story for TF Prime is about the same as any other story about the Transformers, except in this series, Megatron has discovered some sort of element that allows him to rule over life itself, which will make the battle against the Decepticons much more difficult for the Autobots. That right there has me hooked! It sounds like this Megatron will be a true force to be reckoned with. Best of all, Frank Welker returns to voice the iconic villain after so many years (okay, he did voice Megatron in the movie games, but they don't count in my book), alongside Peter Cullen who will voice Optimus Prime. Hearing these two voices again just makes me giddy with excitement, and the rest of the cast is pretty stellar, too!

Arcee - Sumalee Montano
Bulkhead - Kevin Michael Richardson (My dream come true! KMR voicing a Transformer!...even though he voiced Omega Supreme in Animated season 2. But hey, KMR! :D)
Ratchet - Jeffrey Combs (From Re-Animator!? Hot damn!)
Cliffjumper - Dwayne Johnson, a.k.a. The Rock (If Cliffy doesn't say "Can you smell what I'm cooking," I'll be pissed. Do it Dwayne, you know you want to)
Starscream - Steven Blum (Need I say more? Steven Blum's the Chuck Norris of voice acting, 'nuff said)
Breakdown - Adam Baldwin (Of Firefly fame? And the guy who voiced Dutch from Halo 3 ODST? WIN! I hope Breakdown says "Cosmic ambulance")
Knockout - Daran Norris (He voiced a TF before, Heavy Load from Robots in Disguise)
Jack Darby - Josh Keaton
Miko Nakadai - Tania Gunadi
Rafael Esquivel - Andy Pessoa
June - Markie Post
Fowler - Ernie Hudson (From Ghostbusters!)

Yeah, I'm excited for this show, if only to hear these wonderful voices. Now all we need is a little Energon, and a lot of luck for this show to succeed. But seeing as though this show will be on the air for at least a few years, it's probable that Prime might pull it off.

Razorclaw's Rants #2: Microsoft's Customer Support

2010-11-11T09:12:00.000-08:00

I get the feeling this rant is going to be long, but so be it. I just got to get this off my chest.

Two years ago, in late October of 2008, my Xbox 360 had gotten the E74 Error Message. It wasn't the Red Ring of Death as I had feared the most when I got this console for my 19th birthday, but the reaction couldn't have been any more similar. I did everything I could to breathe life back into it, but to no avail. My console...had bricked. It was a sad time, for I couldn't play such great games like Call of Duty 4, or Halo 3, or Grand Theft Auto IV. So, I did what the usual consumer would do: call Microsoft's customer support. Never before has a customer support line tested my sanity and my emotions. As a matter of fact, the only other time I had a console go bad on me was when I got my Nintendo Wii back in Christmas of 2006. The problem I had there was relatively minor, and it was fixed within a short amount of time, and I was rocking. I wish I could say the same for Microsoft's Xbox Customer Support. Unlike Nintendo's Customer Support, the Xbox Customer Support is atrocious. The first time I called them on the night of my 360's death, I couldn't get a human being to help me with my problem, but rather an automated system response machine...thingy. 20 minutes in, after failing to find out which response can get me to someone who has a brain instead of a processor, I gave up. I called them back a few more times, and after the fourth or fifth try, I finally got an actual person on the phone. I told the person in detail on what had happened to my Xbox, and after dancing around the question on whether or not I can get my console fixed, the guy finally decided to help me out. Within a few weeks, I sent my 360 to Microsoft, got a new one for free (I think I had the warranty on it, not sure), and all was right with the world. To me, I had hoped that that event would be the last time I ever have to deal with Microsoft's customer support.

I was wrong. So dead wrong.

Skipping ahead to two years later now. November 1st, 2010. Ten days ago today, I would get another problem with my Xbox 360, only this time, the problem was minor. No Red Ring of Death, no E74 error message, but rather the dashboard update for Kinect. Right off the bat, this annoyed me. Apparently, when Microsoft releases an update for the Xbox 360, you're either forced to update, or not go on Xbox Live. I can understand Microsoft wants their console to be up to date for their new accessory, but we as consumers should be given a choice whether or not our consoles should be updated to support Kinect. Apparently our pleas seem to fall on deaf ears, but as long as I can play my games online and get DLC, I could care less about anything else. So I updated; the dashboard update went without a hitch. Everything went okay, and to be honest, I kind of like this update; everything looks cleaner and sharper. The dashboard update also updates the Avatars and the Avatar Editor, so I went there and got the message to update it. After that, I checked to see if all the clothes that I had bought for my Avatar was still there. That was when disaster struck: three of the clothing items that I had purchased for my Avatar was replaced with a gray box with an exclamation mark. The items that were affected were Halo Beret, Halo Hoodie, and Noble Six Armor (yeah, I'm a Halo fan, eat me). At first, I thought it was because it was the first day of the update; just a minor bug, surely it'll be fixed. After all, there's a lot of Avatar stuff for sale at the Avatar Marketplace; it would take quite some time for everything to get updated. So I waited for the next 24 hours. I turned on my 360, and the three affected items were still gray boxes. Then I did everything I could to solve the problem myself:

I tried deleting and redownloading them. That didn't work.
I signed out of Xbox Live and signed back in. That didn't work.
I cleared the system cache. That didn't work.

This is where I got peeved. But I needed to remember that this is Microsoft that I'm dealing with. I went to their forums and posted my technical issue regarding the affected Avatar items. To my surprise, I wasn't the only one with this problem. It seems that my problem was one of the many problems the Kinect update had for other 360 users. Unfortunately, Microsoft hasn't responded to these problems yet, and I get the feeling that they probably won't. And all the while, every time I go into the Avatar Editor, I still get the message that I need to update my Avatar's clothes, even though I've already done that. At this point, I emailed their customer support instead of calling them, because I really didn't want to go through the same crap I had to go through calling them two years ago. Well, wouldn't you know it, it seems as though their email support is about as helpful as their phone support. After sending them two emails regarding my situation in detail, I got the same suggestions that I had done to fix the problem. What a load of shit.

So yeah, I'm really pissed off now. I just sent out a letter to Microsoft detailing my frustrations that I've been having lately. If these Avatar items can't be fixed, or if there isn't a patch coming out soon that fixes these affected items, then I want a refund...of 600 Microsoft points, or $7.50. Not much, but better than getting nothing in return for my troubles. Here's to hoping I get a definite answer out of them, otherwise, I may just stop playing the 360. Or better yet, just not buy any more avatar clothes.

Happy Halloween!

2010-10-31T20:42:00.001-07:00

Just wanted to say Happy Halloween to everyone who's been following my blog. Also, a little treat for everyone who's been waiting. Here's the first video review...or rather, first video of something.

I got bored, okay?

Transformers 3 Title Revealed?

2010-10-06T09:05:00.000-07:00

It seems that Transformers 3 may finally have a title to it. According to TFW2005, there have been some books listed at Amazon.com, which reveal the title for the third (and hopefully the last) movie directed by Michael Bay. Here it is:

THE DARK OF THE MOON

And now, my reaction:

AAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! To quote M. Bison from the badly made Street Fighter cartoon from the 90s, "This is delicious!" It's so terrible, and yet, I get a hearty laugh out of it. It sounds like one of the following: Either a really craptastic 1950s B-Movie, or a Twilight film (and people with brains know how bad the Twilight films are). Leave comments and tell me what you think of this possible title for the third Transformers movie.

If Sim City were Real...

2010-10-05T13:02:00.000-07:00

Found a really funny video from CollegeHumor.com.

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Vote or die. Literally!

Houston, we've got a Youtube Channel.

2010-10-01T09:33:00.000-07:00

Like a lot of reviewers on the Internet, many use Blip.tv or Youtube to post their videos. Unfortunately, I'm not used to the former, so I'll have to go with the latter for the time being. So without further adeu, The Razorclaw's Edge now has its own Youtube channel.

The first video will be posted on Halloween. Now I'll leave you all guessing as to what it will be when it's posted. I'll give you a hint: it's posted on Halloween for a good reason.

Nintendo 3DS Date and Price Announced!

2010-09-29T08:49:00.000-07:00

Nintendo has finally announced when and how much their newest handheld will cost, according to IGN: http://ds.ign.com/articles/112/1124149p1.html

The Nintendo 3DS will be released in Japan on February 26th, 2011, and everywhere else sometime in March. It will cost 25,000 yen, which after doing some calculations (and by that, I mean using Google, lol), it comes out to roughly $298.90, which means that for us Americans, it'll cost $300.

Seriously? I mean, I can understand that Nintendo's hopping on the 3D bandwagon, and the technology used to make 3D images pop out without the need for glasses must cost a fortune, but $300? Looks like the 3DS may be the only birthday gift I get next year then.

But hey, the 3DS will have Virtual Console for it that supports Gameboy AND Gameboy Advance games, which means that previous Pokemon games could be available for the 3DS. Just one thing, Nintendo: Please make the inevitable Mario Kart game for this system not suck like it did on the Wii. That is all.

The Raving Rabbids to get their own TV Show?

2010-09-26T10:10:00.000-07:00

If there's one video game series that has gotten quite a lot of attention, it's the Raving Rabbids series. Originally part of the Rayman series created by Ubisoft, the Rabbids eventually split after three games and starred without the limbless hero. But now it seems that the bunnies are getting a TV show, made by Aardman Animation no less!

Raving Rabbids TV Show in the works

I'm on the fence about this. On one hand, having the show be done by the same people who made Wallace and Gromit could be a really good thing. The Rabbids themselves are hilarious characters with plenty of personality, and with their latest game coming up that involves time travel, this show might just succeed. However, on the other hand, it's going to be a live-action show blended with CGI, and as we all know, live-action ANYTHING based on anything else can not work. But, I'm willing to reserve judgment. After all, it's going to be Aardman Animation making this show that features those wacky Rabbids. What I wanna know is this: What channel will it air on? BBC? Nickelodeon? Cartoon Network? Disney Channel?

Please don't let it be one of the last two.

REACH!

2010-09-18T09:10:00.000-07:00

Well I got Halo Reach in the mail a couple of days ago, and I can't stop playing it (especially the multiplayer). I'll post my review of it sometime in the upcoming few weeks. Until then, I'll be racking up some credits.

Halo Reach within...reach

2010-09-06T09:08:00.000-07:00

Halo Reach is in a week (or rather eight days as of this post), and I for one couldn't be more excited. In fact, I've been thinking of having a giant free-for-all game on the first day the game is released. Sixteen players shooting the crap out of each other in one of Halo's most popular maps, Blood Gulch!

Or is it Coagulation?

No, wait, it's called Hemorrhage now. I could never understand why Bungie would change the names of the maps when they remake them for a later game, but I'm not complaining. It's Blood Gulch; everybody loves it (and if you don't...well, that's just you, then). Hopefully it'll make up for Valhalla in Halo 3. Not that Valhalla was bad...it just didn't feel the same.

Anyway, I'm probably not the only one impatiently waiting for Reach, so let's enjoy Halo 3 while we still can before September 14th.

Remember Reach...in eight days!

Duke Nukem Forever...FINALLY getting released?

2010-09-03T18:50:00.000-07:00

You just can't keep a canceled game down, especially when it comes to Duke Nukem Forever: Duke Nukem Forever

If this game ever gets released, it'll be one more omen for the whole 2012 Mayan doomsday theory. Duke Nukem Forever supposedly comes out next year for Xbox 360, PS3, and PC.

Now if you excuse me, I need to go start building my underground bunker in case this game ever does get released.

Mein Fuhrer! I CAN WALK!

2010-08-24T07:36:00.000-07:00

...Okay, sort of. Got rid of the "standing" cast today, and in place...another one. But this time I can walk on it, so no more crutches for me. However, instead of three weeks in this cast, it's going to be four weeks.

Dammit. Oh well, at least I can walk...just not that much.