Paines rants

moved

2009-02-16T02:24:00.000-08:00

I moved to a new location at http://grokthegeek.wordpress.com/

NASA holds press conference soon

2009-02-14T21:12:00.000-08:00

This has been a long time in the making. Not to say that they should not have taken the time they did to give proper respect of the dead. Now they will be using the Discovery, and will hold a press conference on the readiness of the shuttle on the 20th of this month. The mission shouldn't get under way for about another week later depending on the status of the craft.

NASA television will broadcast this on the 20th of this month. What is promising is that the general media will be able to ask questions. Now NASA said that they have worked out what caused the tragedy of the last mission with the tiles. We hopefully will be able to see them show and defend what has changed and how they construct the space shuttle now. Also it would be nice for them to talk about what are their thoughts on private organizations making their way into the space game. As having talked to one of the engineers at NASA (turns out she was a big Apple fan.) It seems that NASA is a huge group of Libertarians that hate government spending on anything but themselves. God I love NASA.

So we will just have to wait and see what is going to happen with NASA. Regardless of what they say, in any case it's just good to see them reach for the stars once again.

Microsoft puts bounty out on the worm

2009-02-14T01:23:00.000-08:00

So you thought to yourself one day, I want to make a worm for windows machines. Then you did, but you didn't make just any worm you made the Conflicker this little guy has infected more than twelve million computers since fall of 08. So you did no small task, to say the least to become famous.

Luckily people have noticed your work to the point of Microsoft putting a bounty on your head to the tune of $250,000. Now this may seem radical to some but back in 05 Microsoft did the same thing. They offered the same amount for the sasser, so it seems that Microsoft is looking for blood. The mac observer has some extra info on the subject if you like to dive a little deeper into the subject.

Acron mp3 player to brake out of the mold

2009-02-13T23:34:00.000-08:00

gadget4all is selling what has to be one of the most inventive mass produced mp3 players out on the market. A wooden acorn mp3 player that comes in 1gb currently. On an interesting side note this is the only mp3 player I know of that can play ogg files. For twenty-one bucks it's a hard sell not to pick one up. It replace a main but it looks like a great work-out mp3 player.

Stop making Chernobyl a scape goat!

2009-02-13T05:34:00.000-08:00

I'm sorry, I really like Bob Marley. My favorite song by the man is buffalo solider, but Bob is wrong. Now is the time for nuclear power. with the cost of oil only going up and now that China is moving up in the world oil just no longer makes sense. Yes I am for wind, water and solar but that will only help so far. As it is France is near seventy percent of all of their electrical power is from nuclear power.

So since we have not heard about France going through that special type of winter one can assume that maybe just maybe the tech has improved since the early eighties.

Now we all know why nuclear is feared for the most part. I'm not saying we should forget what happened at Chernobyl, I would be annoyed to say the least if lessons where not learned from the incident that has turned seven countries of using that type of power for the for seeable future. Though we should put some of this in perspective. First issue is they where testing for what later become the problem that brought Chernobyl to it's knees. The problem being is that they could not get get the issue under control until two years after it had been open. So how their safety inspectors where OK with the shape it was in to open the plant is beyond me.

So let me reiterate that last part. They the crew building the plant rushed the job so the plant was unsafe by their own standards so they could get their bonus pay. This was covered up until the government went looking into why this had happened. So I'm sorry to say this was a walking disaster waiting to happen.

To be fair, if you see people using this reasoning to tell you that you should be against Nuclear power, you should also ask them if they are against other proven unsafe things. A few quick examples you could ask them is if they are against driving due to the mortality rate each year. Or you could ask them if they also do not fly but take the safer train when they have to travel cross country. My point being is in the greater scheme of things, dying of nuclear winter is much less statistical then dying by plane, car or cheese burgers.

So if you are willing to have an open mind I may just have an answer to powering us in a cheap cleaner manner over oil and coal.

Get your Mac pride on

2009-02-13T04:10:00.000-08:00

So you say you're a big Apple fan and would love to have an official Apple hoodie, hat or old school poster. The best to go is the source, to the headquarters in Cupertino. It's a little south of San Francisco just a little below the bay, you could turn it into a cool little road trip if you live on West Coast or say Utah.

So you say you don't live in the West? Fear not, you always have ebay to pick up the latest and greatest new gear. So you say you don't trust ebay or am not a fan of dealing with pay pal. It seems you are not alone in your mistrust of ebay, it seems there are some sites that strictly deal with old school mac gear and some really cool indie stuff as well.

The first site I found is a gem of a site. For price they are very reasonable for what they offer. The site is called the missingbite.com they seem to have just about everything under the sun. They have everything from Apple watches to full size banners touting how awesome the PB is. The only thing they don't seem to have is custom work. Though I have you covered on this, while surfing I found maybe the coolest iphone shirt ever. the shirt is a mock-up of how an iphone would look like if it was made by Leonardo Da Vinci. The shirt is called the isteam phone. So those are the two sites I really like for Apple pride.

New iphone back leaked?

2009-02-12T16:04:00.000-08:00

The new back to the next iphone has been leaked on Mac Rumors. It seems the source has a bit of a trustworthy track record in this field. They where the ones to brought us all accurate photos of the last phone.

So assuming this is accurate the new back will drop the high gloss, for a less finger print friendly matte look. On top of that they will be shedding the old plastic and moving on to an all metal look. The picture is of a black 16gb model, no word yet if they will also offer the old look. My only hope is they can make them less slick, in the hands. Of course as more comes out on this I'll do my best to get it out A.S.A.P.

large scale space stations to help advance humanity

2009-02-11T01:03:00.000-08:00

Recently some old concept drawings from the 70's of Nasa colonies have surfaced again. they have made the rounds on the news site Digg.com. All in all they are pretty interesting to look at but what they mainly do is show us two things. one of them is how Nasa was a lot bolder with their dreams up until and slightly after the moon landing and two it shows us hope.

When I mean hope I am not just talking about the amazing feat it would take to construct such an impressively monumental human habitation. I am speaking about how we will have taken that first but very critical step. Once the Human race has reached colonization in multiple locations we can no longer be wiped out by one catastrophe. Once we have reached that step we can begin to explore and truly grow as a race.

Now I'm sorry to say I am not currently aware which one would be easier to get up and running first. Though with large scale space station you would have the advantage the ability to refill and stock up and supplies. On top of that, a station of that size would have to have an gravity generator to help stop with human muscle deaeration, along with the need of having a hydroponics to help supply with a varied food source.

One major downside right now in the U.S. in trying to gain any funding for such an ambitious project. As much as you and I agree advancing the human race at any cost is a noble task, some do not share our ideals. Which is fine, but when you are left with the option of one side hating anything that needs government funding and one who sees space shuttles as something that does more harm than good, we may have a problem. Granted this is only the fringe of both sides so I am hoping they never gain any real power. Though they are still something to keep an eye on.

Other countries may not have such stringent governments and real progress might be made for them. Yet there is still hope for third parties to innovate to keep the U.S. as a player in the space race, even if it's a second tier. I'm sorry to say I'm to much of a cynic to see a world effort to get this off the ground.

Now before you bring up LHC as an example, the amount of money needed to get this station up and running would make the LHC budget look like a drop in a lake. Not to mentation that we would have to make hundreds of them. The ones that NASA came up with would only hold at best a little over a ten plus thousand people. This is no where near expectable in real honest look at what is trying to be accomplished. So the drawings of the space stations are interesting but they are at best a first step at worst just a poor tease.

"I think therefore I am" So what is reality after all?

2009-02-10T03:20:00.000-08:00

So the old line "I think therefore I am." By Renatus Cartesius granted most people understand it as a statement of individuality and what went on to be cited as the birth of Western philosophy. Granted this could be argued but I am more interested in the meaning than what a websites cites.

"I think therefore I am." So this is a pretty obvious point to everyone nowadays, but just knowing that you exist is not enough. What becomes important is in fact reality? Now I know this seems like an obvious answer until you begin to think about it. first off what in fact is reality; reality is what you assume is in fact real vs fantasy. Fantasy being events that do not change anything on this planet in either positive or negative manner. All in all this is nothing to new. But my point of this is not teach you anything, I will assume that whoever reads this has already asked themselves this question at least once.

So reality seems to be a fickle thing. It is both abstract and concrete at the same time; which helps to create something that is malleable. Reality is a series of events, truths and lies that you either learn or are taught at some point. Granted the survival instincts plays at a very base level. Since we all know this we could almost all agree then, since we are not all taught the same things and do not have the same life experiences reality therefore can not be very black and white. Even something as simple as what color is which is arbitrary. The same goes for time. Minus Earths rotation, but even that is not a constant. So when things as simple as time and color are so easily brought in to question what does that leave us?

Now once you believe you have a grasp on what is time and something as simple as color you might be beyond some of us. Then you will be able to tackle some of the fun stuff like point of existence, if in fact there is one at all. OK there is one, that was an easy one. Now what you could ask yourself is what is our primary mission in life and what be a secondary one? Now some will tell you that continuation of the species is the primary job of all humans. I would disagree, but I do see the importance of keeping the species going. Though is having a child more important then creating science or art?

If reality is subjective then are there levels of reality? If so, is one more "real" then another? If that is the case that there are multiple versions of reality do we owe it to ourselves to experience as many as we can? To answer the question you be forming after reading that question, yes, I am saying that all psychotropic drugs should be legal. Not so much because some people claim it is "fun" but I am for their legality to help all human beings if they so choose to experience every type of the human experience.

So with these simple questions I hope that someone will read this and question if only for a second. What is truth and is reality an absolute for everyone; and if not are we in fact all contributing to what is reality? If that is the case are we possibly working as one mind on a basic subconscious level to shape what is what was and what is important enough to be what is? If that is true then is individuality not so much a fact as the human race has chosen instinctually what they are to become in the greater scheme of what positions are needed to advance the species as a whole by geographical location? With some randomness thrown in such as ever changing weather patterns to disrupt what should be to what is.

In any case "I think therefore I am." Has been a very important realization for mankind. It helped us advance humanity just a little, and got the ball rolling in the West to help us to begin to question what is in fact reality and self. Something that might just help us advance to the next stage in our evolutionary step if we can ever fully understand what is and what is not. If in fact there is nothingness.

No more hunting while in Snow Leopard

2009-02-09T21:40:00.000-08:00

I'm really trying to find some fault with Snow Leopard, I am not trying to a Windows zealot especially after reading about the multi-version Windows Seven releases are now known. But the new news to come out about Snow Leopard is looking very promising.

We have already heard that Apple is working mainly on speed boosts with Snow Leopard. Nothing wrong in getting the most out of new technology, I'm all for a faster computer, though with the split between processor and graphics card I am curious how well games will play on the machine, when we start playing more taxing games. But that is a discussion for a different time.

One thing that has always been in my opinion a very understated but such an incredible feature in Apple has been the driver support. So you could guess how excited I got when Apple announced that in the new version they will now bring their A game. By that I mean that Apple will now also have printer drivers show up when you do your normal software updates. So now when you get your new Mac and free printer you will now truly be able to plug and go. For a little bit more information on this Roughly Drafted has a good write-up.

PPC gets music lessons as well

2009-02-08T13:02:00.000-08:00

So you say you always wanted to learn to play the guitar? That you just knew with some practice you could out shred Herman Li. Well then, I have some good news and bad news, the good news is that the lessons that come on the new ilife will work on your old work horse Power Book. Which is good news for all of us who tad finically destitute at the moment, I mean why should passion be derailed so early on in the pursuit of a dream?

The only bad news about this is that you will not be able to purchase any new or different ones. So at least you will get to learn the basics and then get to start experimenting a little earlier. Which isn't such a bad thing. The other downside is that if you can read this you are already to old to become better than Herman Li, I'm sorry to be the one to have to tell you. For some more information on the subject TUAW has a write up.

Amazon to open ebooks to Apple?

2009-02-07T01:05:00.000-08:00

Amazon dropped a major hint that Apple rumors was quick to pick up on. It seems amazon said "We are excited to make Kindle books available on a range of mobile phones." So with that blatant hint, I kinda feel sorry for Amazon, without the exclusivity of the ebooks being on the kindle it kind defeats the reason of owning one. Granted there is always the technology behind it, with e-ink's patented technology you save your eyes the strain you get from looking at lcd screens all day.

So if the rumors are true it is sad to say but the kindle will have more than Sony's and a few other ebook readers to compete with. Though on the plus side anything that will save the consumer a little bit on money these days is always welcomed news.

10.6 to let you know you're in your house with multi-touch

2009-02-05T10:06:00.000-08:00

Now before you freak out like I did a little, the tracking feature that will be in Snow Leopard will be on par with the original iphone. For those of you who didn't have one or didn't get to play with it, the first generation iphone only showed you about where you where in couple block radius. So think something like the old style GPS of the early nineties or a bit better.

Though I have to admit it could really cool for people who travel a lot. Instead of grabbing the map while you are in a coffee shop somewhere on vacation and asking what is nearby to do. You could just jump on to the tracker get a good idea of where you are then search for fun stuff to do online. That's just one idea of how this can be useful.

From what has been talked about online Snow Leopard will not be a huge leap forward with new toys beyond the tracker and multi-touch. From what I was able to scrounge up on the multi-touch it seems that third party developers will now start working on programs to bring to the new MacBook and MacBook pros, as it is the pinch is nice on Safari and iphoto. But where you will see the improvements is in speed, it seems that Apple this time around will be optimizing how the processor and graphics card work together so that work loads will be spread out more evenly. It sounds promising so we will all just have to wait and see how this all turns out.

D.O.J. To get real serious real quick about L.C.D.

2009-02-04T08:10:00.000-08:00

So we all have known for a while that LCD T.V.'s could be cheaper. We just didn't know they could have criminally low prices. (Sorry) It seems that it has gone from slaps on the hands to big fines. The Department of Justice statement that came out this morning showed that a grand jury in San Francisco brought a major blow against LG, Sharp and Chunghwa Picture Tubes.

To give you a quick idea of how bad we are talking here LG will be limping for a while since they will have to pay a $400-million dollar fine, for the price fixing. Sharp got off a little easier in compression with a fine of $120-million.

The price fixing has had more victims than just you and I. They also where sticking it to their third party buyers like Dell, Motorola and Apple. In a move to try and please the public Sharp is cutting the salary of their CEOs in the range of 10-30%. Which sounds like a start, the only downside is that this punishment is only going to last three months. Though before you even have to ask it, there is no word right now about LCD buyers getting any of that money they dropped for an over-priced T.V. For more reading on this engadget has a great write up on the subject.

Apple dominating mobile gaming

2009-02-03T20:27:00.000-08:00

As Apple moves up in the world with an ever expanding PC base. It seems that they have already arrived when it comes to the mobile gaming. The company comScore stated that not only is Apple is in double digit of games downloads currently ranking in at fourteen percent of the current market of all downloaded games. Now add up the fact that just about one third of all iphones owners have downloaded a game.

Now apple ranks in at one point nine percent of the world wide phones owned. That may not sound like a lot but, just last year one point two billion phones where sold overall. So that means Apple has twenty two million phones in the hands of happy customers.

So I am pretty sure you have heard about the separate tier for the higher level games that will be rolling out soon. The games sold in this sub-section have already been stated that they will have to be held in a much higher standard then the simple flash games already out. How high are we talking here, well strictly speaking quality wise you may be able to leave your PSP home more often then you think. For some further reading on the subject the cool people over at TUAW have a nice write up as well.

South Korea to shame us all via the internet

2009-02-02T14:10:00.000-08:00

It seems that South Korea once again wins the prize for craziest plans for the internet. granted England also has some very ambitious plans for their country. England is hoping to have a country wide Wi-Fi which a very ambitious project that I am very jealous of living in the U.S.

The only major Wi-FI plans I have read about in the U.S. recently is that the Bart system that runs through San Francisco will now have a Wi-Fi cloud that covers the entire train system. Granted it's a start, having Wi-Fi all the way to work so you can put the finishing touches on that project, or learn that the meeting has been moved before you even arrive to work will be very useful to those in need.

I only hope that South Koreas plan works better than what was tried in Portland Oregon. There was A failed attempt to bring ad based but all be it free Wi-Fi to the West Coast city. It's biggest problem was if you where more than fifteen feet away from a node good luck getting it to work. Though in South Korea they are going to try and have one gigabyte connection speed throughout almost all of the country. Granted as being a nation under fifty thousand square miles would be a little easier to cloud up compared the U.S.'s size of nearly five million square miles.

I wish South Korea the best of luck to get this project up and running by 2012. Once again they are putting all of us to shame in the U.S. may only hope is that we get rid of caps for downloading and have moved to at least thirty megabyte speed. Ugh, I know that's not a very high speed but it is far better than companies still claiming speeds under one megabyte are high speed.

Some long overdue Apple support coming

2009-01-31T20:33:00.000-08:00

Some life changing news is coming to all you lucky people with iphones. It looks like Adobe is working with Apple to help fix one of the iphones biggest complaints. The news on this is sketchy at the moment but engadget has the run down on this.

It seems that the full version of flash is just a little to much for the current version of the iphone right now, but the "lite" version will not cut it. So Apple and Adobe have begun working on a custom version just for the iphone. So very soon all of the flash sites will no longer be out of your browsing goodness.

I will keep my eyes on this and bring all of you the updates as I can find them. Al I know right now for sure is this is all sounding very promising.

Netflix to end premium cable?

2009-01-31T09:08:00.000-08:00

It seems that Netflix had an open vote for anyone using their service about coming out with a new tier for their streaming service. Netflix though the current talk about the price increase would be somewhere around $10.00 extra a month.

Now that may seem like a lot, but considering the extra you pay for Cable or Satellite plus the extra cost on top of that for HBO. So an extra $10 to get to stream HBO shows and movies in a timely manner may not in fact be such a bad deal. With such big hits like Dexter, Sex in the City, The Sopranos just to name a few. Plus with it's ever growing movie library this might not be a bad deal.

Doing a tier system is not a completely new thing to Netflix. They already charge a little more bit more for Blu-ray movies so they know that some people are OK with paying a little extra to gain access to premium services. My big hope is that is proven successful and all of the movie services follow suit.

Sony and SanDisk to hit 2TB flash card

2009-01-30T22:06:00.000-08:00

The nice people over at Cnet have an interesting read about the new Sony SanDiskin collaboration the works. Out of all the things that need to be worked on to get this very ambitious task is to get a new name. The current name that was given for the project is "Memory Stick for Extended High Capacity." The biggest hurdle they will have is the transfer rate. Flash is not known for its fast sustained transfer rates.

So I'll keep my eyes peeled and bring all of you up to speed as I learn details. Though for the time being Sony will be coming come out with a 16gig flash drive next month. The big downside is we will not see this state side at that time. It seems that the drive will be able to take a bit of a beating at least when it comes to temperatures. The drive will be able to take down to 13 degrees below 0 and up to 185 degrees Fahrenheit. So the good news is if you happen to leave the drive in the car you should still be OK when you remember it and grab it from the glove box a few hours later.

iMac update sooner than later?

2009-01-30T12:42:00.000-08:00

So how do you know when Apple is about to update a product line? You ask the guy at the Apple/Mac store if they are getting less and less of something. It seems that is happening right now as you are reading this, the iMac seems that it is finally getting that update.

It looks like Electronista has some good theories on what the new machine might look like. The most reasonable theory is that the iMac will remain at the same price point. That has become a Apple staple. They improve the hardware and leave the price point the same to help out the consumer. The only time in recent memory where this has not been true is when the laptop line was changed over from Intel to the new Nvida line. So while the normal rule would be true about the iMacs but if they are in fact switching like it seems they are expect the price to change accordingly.

Now I can not guarantee that the new iMac is coming anytime soon, but it is well known by all Apple enthusiast that short supply of a product means emanate upgrade.

17" MacBook Pro now shipping

2009-01-30T10:30:00.000-08:00

Macnn is reporting that the new 17 inch unibody laptop has begun shipping it's pre-orders today. On top of that if you go to purchase one these new bad boys and it will be in your hot little hands in 7-10 days. Though if you still need a MacBook Pro the other models are still shipping in 24 hours.

The base price for the new 17 inch MacBook Pro is $2,799. Though you can upgrade the machine to 8 gigs and to a beastly 2.9ghz processor though you will paying through the nose to the tune of $4,299. That would be $300 to upgrade form a 2.66ghz to 2.9ghz processor. The ram is what will get you. To double your ram from 4 to 8 gigs will set you back $1,200. Though if you are looking for a deal you can drop the glare for the preferred matte by photographers for only $50.

Next iphone out all pink and naked?

2009-01-28T20:09:00.000-08:00

Is that what the new firmware looks like for the next iphone? With the fact that it says iphone 2,1 holds some validity to the question. With the original iphone it was given the title 1,1 and the 3g version was given 1,2. So with that known 2,1 might be the code for a big jump in technology. The newest rumor surrounding the new iphone is that it will be an multi-core Cpu and maybe a multi-core GPU from image technologies. With June now becoming the time for iphone news it seems we still have some time before we have a better idea of what we are dealing with.

Love to tag and crazy about cats?

2009-01-28T12:33:00.000-08:00

It seems that the people over at Mac life have found a cool new feature with ilfie09. You can in fact tag pictures of your pets. Or at least you can do it with your cats, it's still unknown if this new power will be used for good or annoyance.

Also on the unconfirmed side, it seems some of the commenters where able to get the face repagination to work on tux the linux mascot and Wlado from the where's Waldos books. The people at Mac Life said they would also try dogs to see if the face recognition was more robust than just human and feline. I am eagerly waiting to see what the outcome will be.

UK gets screwed over on conversion rate

2009-01-27T11:11:00.000-08:00

The U.K. is just now getting the privilege to download shows in HD. I know, thats been a long time coming but now that you finally get to sit down at your MacBook or MacBook pro what do you get to download? It seems that season five of Lost is up and running. Not a bad choice overall it's one of the most popular shows in the world.

So far so good, A good show to kick off that sweet new HD video content. Just what is that you see when you go to purchase? 2.49 Euro!? That's right As of this morning that would bring the U.S. price from $2.99 an episode to $3.28 an episode. This pricing seems wrong to say the least. Which is odd because they sold the iphone 3g at $199.00 U.S. across the board. So this may not be Apples doing on the price.

At best this a mixed blessing the British. You now get to see the show in HD but it's going to cost you a b more than your American counter parts. Maybe if a big enough stink is thrown by the community Apple will fix this little problem.

The Zune can't catch a brake

2009-01-26T20:10:00.000-08:00

Apple insider is reporting that Microsoft's Mp3 player the Zune can't seem to get a brake. After two plus years of being out on the market they had finally hit the one million mark in sales, and they introduced the new models with more choices in tradition hard drive and a couple flash based ones. This along with the fact they switched to glass first for the screen. It was even chosen best hard drive based Mp3 player by consumer reports. Though while Microsoft was perfecting the hard drive it seems Apple and the majority of consumers have moved onto wanting a ton of futures on their Mp3 player with the ability to surf the internet while listening to their favorite bands.

With the new models last year this was a big step forward for Microsoft. Yet it seems that the Zune will not even make the shores of Europe till later this year. Microsoft's biggest problem it looks to be right now is the ipod touch. Yes it may be unfair to compare the Zune 120gb to the ipod touch but those are in fact the two companies now signature products.

To add insult to injury the ipod had a record year of 22.7 million ipods sold over the holiday season. That is 3% higher than last year at this time. This might have to do that the ipod touch dropped in price.

EU to bring Microsoft of court....again

2009-01-26T18:16:00.000-08:00

For those of you not been following this story I'll bring up right up to speed. The EU is demanding that Microsoft no longer package Internet Explorer with Windows. The charge is that Microsoft has an anti-competitive behavior. Now this may seem a little odd but this is case that Microsoft might loose.

It seems that Microsoft has already lost a case in which the EU said that Windows Media Player was anti-competitive. So now that they are taking Microsoft to court again a few questions come to mind. One if they do win the case what browser are they going to put on? Safari, Opera, Fire Fox the list goes on for a while. If that's the case will it be put on in store or will it just come now with a dozen or so browsers? The other part of this that annoys me is that the European Union assumes that other Europeans are dull witted to put it nicely. If someone does not like I.E. such as myself it was not hard to get another browser and delete I.E.

So we will know have to wait and see how this turns out. Though the deck seems a little stacked that the EU will be trying the case in a EU court. So I wish Microsoft the best of luck in the case. Not so much because I am huge fan of the company, (I'm writing this on a Mac.) but I se it more as they are also fighting the EU because they also know we know how to go online and get a different browser if we want one. Or for those that like I.E. even better no hunting required.

ilife09 just now geeting out the door.

2009-01-25T11:31:00.000-08:00

Some good news seems to be coming out of macrumors.com the people over at the fine site seem to have been told by some their readers that the new ilife09 is now shipping. So it looks like in true Apple fashion that they will make there deadline by just the skin of their teeth. To all the old mac fans this is really nothing new and has become a standard for Apple.

the prices are being reported that they will stay the same, so it'll be $79 for a single licenses and $99 for a family pack. twenty extra dollars is not a bad price to throw ilife09 on four extra machines. Though now that they have dropped serial numbers we'll now see just how honest the average Apple user is. With the susses of gaming programs like steam, it has been proven that people don't have a problem with D.R.M. but they do have an isue with poorly done D.R.M. So we will just wait and see what Apple will do now without any protections on their intellectual property rights.

It seems that people have already traken the oppertunity to prey on some Apple users. An over zealous hacker has released the new ilife09 with a worm. Could this be the first sign of what we are to expect when Apple releases the reigns even just a little form it's products? Lets just hope they never take this relaxed attude to their hardware. Though on the subject of ilife if I have the choice to put in sixteen numbers and letters so I don't have to worry about a worn then a typing I'll do.

Windows seven waiting for everyone to join in

2009-01-24T14:40:00.000-08:00

Microsoft has now once again extended the time you have to get the windows seven beta. The new deadline is February 10th as reported on Endgadget. So if you have been on the fence about trying out the beta now is the time to get it. Plus if you are new to the beta idea in general this is a great one to start on.

Windows seven is wowing the almost everyone who has tried it. It keeps the newer Vista look but that about it. To those of you familiar with how the OSX dock works then you will be a pro at the new windows version. In that one you can drag all the programs you use most often and "pin" them there so you will always have quick access. Plus the new I.E. is making leaps and bounds in improvements. they have everything from in private browsing to teh abilty to look up any word on the fly with how the dictinory works now.

So what do you have to loose? The beta will move all your current data so you will still have all your documents pictures videos and even your browser of choice and the all important bookmarks.

How long till Apple drops Leopard?

2009-01-23T19:05:00.000-08:00

With Snow leopard coming out sometime this year a huge change will happen. Snow Leopard will bring the down the final curtain on all of the stead fast PowerPC users. Granted Apple users are now legendary for holding onto their machines for what seems like an eternity to PC users. But is this really a bad move for Apple? To be fair they have treated their computer line with much more thought on longevity then their ipod line.

Granted it's not like the Power PC was just fazed out just recently the line is was finished almost three plus years ago. though the goes back to almost 2000, Also they only left that line of computing because they where at the time being out done by Intel. Now AMD are big dogs on top now, being why Apple recently did a complete laptop refresh. Plus you are still buying the only computers on the market that could run both Windows and Mac OSX. On top of that there are a couple ways to run Windows, either the free way with boot camp or you can with parallels or VM fusion you can run Windows in a window while you have mac OSX up and running. The only thing being I would not game with that set-up. Being as you are running two OSs at once.

I have heard from an anonymous person about how well Snow leopard is coming along, things like how fast it runs certain photo program and that the OS as a whole has been slimmed down a decent amount. Apple is also pushing for a fifteen minute install this time around. Plus on top of that with stability higher than even what Leopard is now out of the box for Snow Leopard is sounding very hopeful f or Apple to make an even bigger splash in an ever shrinking Windows market. So even though you may be forced to pick up a new machine you should be far from disappointed about the boost you will be getting.. Plus with the fact that AMD chose Apple to debut it's new line of processors you will jump back to the bleeding edge of technology for a reasonable price for what you get. A added bonus to boot is you will also have the greenest computer in the world currently. Now with the ability to choose matte on the 17" screen photographers are back in business.

So even though Snow leopard will force a few of us to upgrade the overall benefit to it'll bring to advancing computing in general will be worth a few casualties in the end Even this blogger will feel some shrapnel for a while at least till he comes up with some cash to save up for a new MacBook Pro. �

Recession proof?!

2009-01-23T13:52:00.000-08:00

Recession proof, it's a nice thought but is there any part of the public work sector that is? A lot of people thought the the gaming industry would be that shining beacon of hope. But it seems that no one knows what people will spend money on anymore or if in fact that they will.The new question is what type of rescission would be best for the U.S.?

It's pretty obvious we are not going to all build hoover shanties again, though we may have the same greeting soon. With a Japanese style recession things could just limp by for the next decade or so. By the way you can thank anyone over thirty-five for that. It's a great thing to hand the next generation, a college degree that's not worth the paper that it was printed on.

The only positive that one might see in all this is that this will trim a lot of the fat when it comes to poorly run businesses. Granted this is only a good thing if you are in a well run one otherwise there is nothing good to come out of this. that may b e a tad cynical look at it but it's the best spin I could come up with.

I have been told if you don't mind working in other parts of the world there is tons of work. To give you an idea of what you would be doing you would be most likely be in construction. That's not to bad until you are told you will be building in Iraq or if you are very lucky in the hand chopping off parts of Africa. so sure there is work if you want to work in parts of the world where you will sleep with one eye open and the safety off on your Mp5. Why an Mp5? it has better burst for close quarters.

Apples hit and miss last year

2009-01-21T16:34:00.000-08:00

It seems that we all might have guessed wrong about the iphone and how well it did last year. Apple as a whole is up in a big way in sales. The ipod had an incredibly strong showing this winter quarter. It seems even though the economy is down most us have been very good this year. Or at least good enough last year.

Though it's not all not all sugar smiles and puppy dog tails. It seems that the ipod touch might just be a little to big. The iphone did not have quite as hot fourth quarter last year. Now this may be because not everyone is a huge AT&T fan. With all hopes you will be able to pick up the iphone on any carrier by the end of 2010. That is the best guess I was able to come up with. Granted it was not a random number I just made up. It was made public that when the iphone was dropped in price that AT&T was able to wrangle another two years out of Apple.

Now one other reason why the iphone might not be growing as fast as been hoped for is because of the cost of the plan. The plan was not any easier to swallow when AT&T dropped text messaging from the basic plan. It was well known that Apple originally tried to get Verizon but the word was they where not able to agree on a cost of the phone. The irony being AT&T was able to accomplish what Apple was against in the second go around.

So with all hopes you will be able to pick up an iphone sometime next year on any provider. With everyone getting to offer it expect that plans will begin to drop fast. That includes all of you on AT&T. It's all about free market to the rescue of our pocket books. Plus with that you might start seeing specific apps appearing on different providers. So the cut and paste argument BlackBerry users always fall on may become a moot point shortly, though you could argue the need of that application to the general end user. Granted this is already something you can have if you are using a jail broken iphone.

Now with widespread WIFI and Voip programs the ipod touch might just become the choice for inner city phones. It would be a cheap way to stay in-contact with friends and family on a budget. So Apple had the right idea to include a phone on a ipod. We just might have found a better way.

Apples new battery choice for the big daddy

2009-01-20T13:13:00.000-08:00

So the big thing I have been seeing all around the internet is that the seventeen inch battery can not be replaced by the end user. At first I was surprised and a little annoyed about this direction Apple went. So I went to go look at the rest of the line and was happy to see that you could in fact replace the rest of the line yourself.

To Apples credit I have read that the battery life touted in seventeen inch pro model is to last five years. If this turns out to be true then Apple has really stumbled on to something. That model is also claimed to get an eight hour battery life off a single charge. So even though you can not replace the battery, it should get more than three times the cycles an last half a decade. Not a bad trade-off to not getting to replace a battery.

What does the U.S. get out of it?

2009-01-19T10:32:00.000-08:00

That's something I have been thinking about for a long time. I have never heard what benefits we as a country get out of supporting the Israel "state?" Besides appealing to a small but very vocal minority. To give you an idea of how small this group is, we now have more people who openly say they are atheist in this country. Which is no small feat in such a religiously controlled state.
Though you have to remember that we where not the only country to support there statehood. Great Britain also had a hand in it, but as time went on you can openly disagree with Israel. When a journalist speaks ill off the harsh treatment in Gaza they get letters written to them, with harsh and slanderous accusations, such as anti-Semite. Have we come to this point that you have to only speak words against one country safely behind the anonymity of the internet? How did a such a small population change the very way we are allowed to speak our mind?
Though do not get me wrong, Israel was being attacked by rockets so they did have to do something. Though you would hard pressed to deny the disproportionate levels of attacks. So what is a fair way to deal with the situation? I have no idea but something does need to change.

Are we global or American citizens

2009-01-11T12:23:00.000-08:00

So I know it is an easy question to answer in theory. Yet it may be harder and more complicated then you first thought. They both bring heavy repercussions on how we are seen in the world and how this country will act and see the world itself.

Since we are in fact becoming a smaller more tightly knit world, the question becomes does the old ways on dividing the worlds land still relevant? Also, if we are global citizens do we now all get to take part in the best parts of what the world has to offer? Since the U.S. is often asked to take part in peace keeping due in part to our military budget compares to other countries. Which is a noble thing, trying to save the world and punish those who would do it serious harm. Without borders or citizenship there are no illegal immigrants to treat poorly and when it comes to getting a better job they would not be looked over for a "native." Plus with a more global look at the world we could intact a global health care system. So you could be able to see a doctor anywhere in the world.

Though what if we where to keep going and return to an pre-world war U.S. state? The first thing is we would still be trading at the same level we are now. We are and cannot be a self sufficient country. Trade would still be a major business and would still have to be done. Though if the country was less involved in global affaires new trade routes would be open. Granted no every country would be feasible to trade with. Though without having standing armies around the world stopping the natural order we would be seen as more of global market instead of a watchman. With a lack of involvement we would have more money to pump into schools, roads, health care and other essential avenues that desperately need a boost.

So which is the right way? I'm not sure, they both have their advantages and disadvantages. Maybe after all the tight rope we walk is in the best. With having bases around the world we can continue to work in a preemptive way. So American lives do not have to be lost before we are aware of a dire situation.

A new battle once again

2009-01-05T20:05:00.000-08:00

So now that the middle-east is completely falling apart because of the blood thirsty Hamas; an a over zealous Israel. Should we in the U.S. re-think our links in the middle-east? With still over two weeks out before we have a new president, people around the world are already taking it to Mr. Obama. With President Bush sitting on the side lines just counting down the clock like a kid to summer vacation; we are in a interesting time.

With no major call for blood of either side in the United States, either because the U.S. populace is sick of war, or because there is really no "good" guy in this battle. We now may be on the verge of something; that has not been seen in many years. A interest in staying out of it. Though U.S. non involvement is nothing new, just ask anyone living Africa. Or even in some of the smaller south east Asian countries.

A reason for this lack of intervention might be, well plainly we have no one left to send. Even with stop loss you will only have the support of your own troops for so long. If pushed to far they will openly disobey or worse revolt. Now add the fact that this country is in a very fragile state as it is. So to have forced service would only hasten the demise to open conflict in our own streets.

Though if the U.S. is forced to go into combat one last time which side do you back? We have old and strong ties to the state of Israel. Yet if we are only in this for ourselves we could in fact help Palestine as a show of good intentions to try and repair the damage that has been done. Neither side looks that appealing to back. So it brings us back to a possible non intervention scenario. Both sides would criticize us, but none of us would be forced to lace up possibility the last time.

Playing with Artweaver

2008-12-01T17:46:00.001-08:00

What's the next stage?

2008-11-20T12:47:00.000-08:00

With Wrath of the Lich King selling as well as it has, you may think this question need not be asked. Thought I would tend to disagree. It's long been stated that in the M.M.O. world that when it comes to fantasy we have pretty much hit not only full saturation but the crown is firmly on the kings head. Though I'm not trying to take anything away from the others, such as War and Conan.

But after a while we all have to realize that the well is nearing depletion, and that begs the question what now? Well there is some hope in the sci-fi genre. With Bioware taking on the juggernaut that is Star Wars. Plus with the rabid fan base of Bioware hopefully this will help us move on from the dark ages. But that's just the tip. In the depths of the CCP studios they are with any hope working on the World in Darkness MMO. Granted this may not be a nine million plus seller but at least you should hopefully have the chance to kill Vampires. While tearing through nearly anything if you play as an lycanthrope.

That's just a couple ones that are being worked on. So now what is it that makes people keep coming back to WOW? That's the big question, other games have similar things as WOW does on first glance. One of the hurdles developers seem to have a problem on is choosing PVE or PVP. A friend of mine pointed out that WOW does PVE very well. Not so much PVP but the PVE is very easy to pick up and go. Personally speaking MMOs out now and in the pipeline are just as good games. (Well some of them at least,) so what's the issue with these games not killing the king, is it timing releases well? Maybe, but I think that's only half right. You can bring a game out before, after or on the day Wrath launches and it wont matter. What these companies are fighting is something they can't win for now, and that's time invested and still thinking time well spent.

Until most people start thinking what they are doing is complete waste of time why would they stop doing it? Sure I, would rather be a werewolf tearing through the back alleys of New York city. Let's face it what WOW does it does very, very well. So Let's say I have a staff from WOW that only drops one in a thousand boss kills. Look at this awesome achievement for my time spent. Plus the game is very good at making you feel important. With that new staff I can help heal or be a better tank or off dps for my guild. (for the record my raid guild died a week before I was ready to raid.) new MMOs will have to take this account if they want to carve out a name for themselves.

So until a team can come along that can masterfully blend PVE and PVP which War might be able to if you give them a year or so. Or out PVE WOW or at least bring something that makes the grind as much or more fun. I want wish the best of luck to all the developers working on getting us to lay down our axes and shields and get us to pick up a lightsaber or steam powered pistols.

It would work

2008-11-13T14:59:00.000-08:00

Dear friends;
I am hoping with your help we can return to a safer and more sane nation. Now theses are the end result hopes of the plan I hope can work. With this plan I believe the United States will once again become a place the world looks at in a positive manner.

What I would like to do is return this great nation to its long tradition of non- interventionism. So how do we begin to accomplish this massive task you ask yourself? Well that is a good question. We start by first removing our selves from Iraq. Now some say this is simpler said than done. I say to them that this is not the case. The last time I checked the ships in the gulf, planes, jets and helicopters still have gas. So moving the troops will not be hard. Hell, we where only going to stay till they had put in a government anyway. This has been done so we are in fact done with the task. Now for the bases around the world, we can close up a decent amount of them but not all of them. The reason for that we have a contract to protect certain nations still.
To give you some quick history just so you know I am not a complete nut, in 1919 Woodrow Wilson was the first president to really force the American people to deal with forces that where not a clear and present danger to American soil. Before that the United States and her people had no interest in being the police of the world. Now here we are nearly a century later and what do we have to show for it? Thousands dead in New York and in our own army. We have also caused an uncountable amount of death around the world. All in the name of both home and world security.

Even now the rest of the world is sick of us putting our collective noses where it does not belong. Unless in the case when the might of the American army benefits them in eradicating an enemy of theirs. Then they are all for it point in case the British in World war one ad two, also both Iserial and Kuwait come to mind in the middle east. But as a whole we are not wanted so I think we should take there advice and get lost.

I still think we should trade with the world. We still need goods and services, and I still believe we are the melting pot of the world. So we must not wall ourselves up but should remember the old saying. "Trade with all friend of none." In the case of fighting terrorism we should in fact use the CIA and FBI for what they where meant for. Finding dangerous individuals and organizations. Armies fight nations and rulers, not small mobile groups.

So I urge all of you in the house and senate to demand that American troops start leaving tonight, and let them come home. In the case of Afghanistan, Like I have already stated we have a CIA let's use them. We can work together with other countries because this is a threat that benefits all the world, to be dealt with.

Why Prop 8 needed to pass

2008-11-07T07:17:00.000-08:00

OK, before everyone calls me an asshole for this let me explain. First off, I don't care if gay or lesbian couple want the same rights as heterosexual couples get. As a civil rights struggle I am for them. I think for the most part most people are for this. The issue is the word marriage, some people put undo importance on the word itself, so any try to change it's meaning do to it's religious connotation will be an issue for sure to a lot of people, and at the moment I'm not interested in open war with these people.

With that said, I'm sorry it was the homosexuals that took the blow against them for the preservation of keeping church and state separate. This is why I am glad the prop passed. If we tell churches that they have to marry people then that religion becomes a state sanctioned religion. Granted multiple religions may be forced to change holy text to allow gay marriage to happen. On that part I could care less, but once we start telling churches how to act it will be a double bladed edge. So that is why I am happy it passed. I'm sorry but I refuse to bow to any deity. So it may seem that I'm throwing them under the bus to slow it down till it hits me.

Now since they already get state money because of the Bush administration I guess what I said is a moot point. Though I guess until you only have atheists run the government the church has already won. Now before you get your torches and pitchforks they don't have a central ruler to attack. As it is three of them fight over the same deity.

A friend of mine said it's no big deal Obama will fix this. Well that's a comforting thought I suppose but one flaw a rises. That is that neither Obama or Biden are for gay marriage. Plus federal government can't undo state laws. If they could there would be no medical pot and no assisted suicides.

Like I said I really don't have anything against the gay community, I just don't want to have to submit to someones imaginary friend. For their monetary benefit advancement.

Only time will tell

2008-10-30T21:36:00.000-07:00

So with everyone cretin history is about to be made in this country come November fourth. A second piece of history is about to be made; now, this one may not be as obvious at first but it's there. Anyone in my generation only knows the republican party as Reagan's party.

Now what I mean by this is that Ronald Reagan had to do something that has changed and had far reaching repercussions for decades. Reagen for better or worse was the man who put the GOP in gear for what is happening now. Let's be honest Sarah Palin is nothing more then the end result and now the final blow to those who are traditional conservatives. Now I did not Just choose Reagan because he is an easy punching bag for the left. (Which he is. Or the death of the right.) I mainly chose him because of this quote "I didn't leave the party, the party left me." (I know he was talking about the Dems. He started his career as a democrat)

So on what almost everyone has deemed a guaranteed victory for Senator Obama. I do wish him best of luck, the poor man is walking into a true shit storm. I am very interested in what will be unfolding in the Republican party. Everyone knows the party is put together by people who either hate each other or are uninterested in their goals to say the least. With the party supporter of old and those who wish for the old goldwater days; one would have little in common with an religious zealot. So as Palin goes "rouge" and John McCain supports now distancing themselves from her we might just see the party split for the fist time in my life.

To be honest I welcome it. This used to be the party of intellectuals. The party of limited government. lets be honest the republican party is the big government party not the dems. Hell they are not even a fiscal conservative party. Let alone a party for non intervention. So as history is being made in many ways this November. A president of color a Democratically controlled house, senate and presidency. We just see the much needed amputation of festering cancer ridden republican party of all of their religious zealots.

Only time will tell what will come of this possible massive defeat. I think the larger the defeat the faster the party will drop it's dead weights and old ideology. The questions I have are, will the religious extremist leave peacefully or will we see things get ugly. Will they have knock down drag outs on the news shows? Granted I would watch while eating popcorn. Or will they create a third party? They could create a third party that would give a run for the other twos money. The last thing that could happen is something I would rather not think about. I am saddened that I am even typing it. Though this could be the death of all Berry Goldwater republicans. If Sarah Pailn is the future of the party we truly are all fucked on the right.

As Keith olberman says "goodnight and good luck."

Fable two first impressions

2008-10-25T19:59:00.000-07:00

I finally got to sit down with Fable two for a little bit. For the most part I was very impressed with what I saw, the mini games are easy enough to drop in and out of to make a few extra gold. Plus another thing I really liked that they did was when you rent out a house or two you now will just get the money, you will no longer have to travel to the property to collect the rent. This is very helpful if you would like to do some adventuring without having to head back to town every 15 minutes or so.

Over all the game has seen a large improvement over the first one. Though I think the first one was well done since you did not go evil. The world boasts that it is around five times larger then what it was. Plus they have done something that I have really enjoyed so far. That is when you die you lose some experience but not very much and then out get right back into it. No more load from the last save you did. This makes all the difference. So no more re-doing the boss battle three times because of a cheap shot or mechanic. Now if he kills you wait a couple of seconds then you can keep pounding him into the ground until he or she is dead.

As it is with my limited play time I have only come across one annoyance. Though this is due in large part in how I play these games. When it comes to games that allow you to choose which type of "hero" you want to be, I always choose the bastard at first. I am not sure if it is in fact because I am just an asshole or if I am curios on how far the game lets you push it. So with that said Fable one was a bit of a let down. Mainly because in the first game people just tell you to sod off and find you so ugly and fearful shop owners just run out the shop screaming. Which gets a bit old when you want to hock some stuff and get some better gear.

So sufficient to say I was not a huge fan on having to look really pretty while having huge horns so people would stand still long enough to talk to. Which brings me to my one quip so far, and that's that the system is still there. Granted this may be games way to try to detour you from kill everyone in a town and buying up all the houses and rent them out. Though it's still annoying to say the least. Also one thing I have noticed is that the people you work for in sword mini game say all about five things. Which gets old if you are grinding the skill as fast as you can. I get it, I need to hit it in the green dot!

Overall I think this game has made huge advances from the last one. One thing I really like is that the towns people do in fact remember you. As it is in one town people will run away screaming when they see me, plus yell murderer at me. This is very cool that your actions are remembered. Though in my defense the guy I kill in the town had it coming, he claimed to minstrel. He spoke ill of me, granted I may have done all the things he said but it was getting old to hear sung back to me. In any case this game is at least worth a rent to see what all the fuss is about, plus with at least two plays through I would even say it's worth picking it up. I mean how many games do you know are a guaranteed two play through without thinking about it?

Sorry no updates for a bit

2008-10-18T10:16:00.000-07:00

Since this is a free rants that I am doing it's taking a bit of a backseat at the moment. I'm trying to work out about five things first then I'll be back better than ever. Or at least back to adequate.

The blame game

2008-10-14T23:08:00.000-07:00

Since people love to point the finger when stuff goes badly so here goes. Where can we point the finger? Most scream either wall street or main street. Which don't get me wrong they both plaid a part in this. I mean its never good when you just make up profits, ok that's not true.
In the beginning it looks really good. Hell people thought Clinton was a genius, because it was the first time ever the Dow broke 14,000. Well of course it does when you make up how well you are doing. That's ok it was not Clinton's fault, really he did right by his country. No the real truth it seems from what I can see is that we are all a little t blame. OK, maybe not all but pretty damn close.
First up like I said when you just make shit up it will come back to haunt you. Plus no offense to anyone making around ten a hour. (I'm right there with you guys) we are not the house owning types let's be real. To own a house might be your dream, I know one day I may like one myself but; with all the do you really think ten a hour will cover everything? You have a mortgage (rent) power, water, sewer, net and whatever you might need. Plus lets say you make enough to cover this, one thing goes wrong and boom you are back in major debt. So no, maybe we should be smarter and take some personal reasonability.
Then came the lenders that gave you the reach around saying its all good. They may be a little slow but they all cannot be out to lunch. They know how much you make, hell they can up how much you make a year and how you spend it faster than you can. So yeah they also are to blame big time.
Now the last group, well I don't one needs to do a drum roll. No surprise here the last group is those we elected into office. I know its a real shocker that I blame the government. Now I'm not going to whine and say they should have stopped the banks, and told us what is right and wrong for our own good. No, my issue is running two wars at once for what is now coming up on a decade. We are nearing eight years and still no Osamma just saying. Anyway, they have been spending cash likes it's going out of style. Ha, ha guess what? When spend money like it's going out of style it will in fact go out of style. So what does this mean? Well it's to late to turn your money into Eros that thing that now runs the world. You will have to improvise. Or just admit defeat and never leave the U.S. because you can't even afford to get to the borders to Mexico or Canada.

So how long is enough?

2008-10-10T20:51:00.000-07:00

So the big questions we have to answer is when do we get to leave Iraq? The other big one is how? They seem simple enough but yet no one has a great answer. Senator Obama at least has one to his very great credit. Mc Cain well I will get back to you when he is at the gates of hell. So Obama is for being out in around years time. This is very promising mainly because he is leading in most of the battle ground states.
How do we leave Iraq? It's a very tough question to answer especially if you are unaware that the country has borders. No, I'm not just making an asshole statement, we were able to fly and march in how hard is it to walk backwards with a gun? In a country with now free elections it's own troops and way, way more money than we do they need us to hold their hands anymore? I'm being serious if that is not the sound of victory what the hell is? Free elections check, money in the bank check, own people to defend your borders check. So..they are not free until? What they need universal health care, the four day work week, hybrids?
So if you have to vote for one of the main two at least vote for the one that wants to get the hell out. Then we can work on repairing dams, bridges, and banks. Shit you want to fix problems I bet any American can give you a list as long as their arm. Oh and who is going to give Iraq the bill?

Let them eat cake

2008-10-08T00:16:00.000-07:00

The very ominous words from a queen out of touch with her subjects. Now with Congress passing the bill to save us all and now after seeing what has gone on with the AIG "issue" should we stay by quietly? I am not advocating any dismemberment of anyone but I did find the story about the Dick Fuld getting knocked out a little humorous.

So lets think about this for a minute. You are the head of one of the largest insurance companies in the world. So you may have embellished some facts and now you have to pay the piper. Lowe and behold the piper comes in and carries all the rats that are the American people demanding everything from wanting to know how one perpetrates such a heinous crime. To the ones that question your very intelligence.

Though that doesn't matter to you. You know what you need, and that is a message. Well that and an extended stay at a spa and thousands on thousands of dollars of room service. Now the only road block in this plan would be how to pay. I know why not skim a little off the 85 billion the US government gave you to fix your blunder.

I mean with your advanced inelegance you know how to get back on track with the money so you skim what about half of a billion off the top. So yes tell the world let them eat cake and see what happens.

Now What?

2008-10-07T08:21:00.000-07:00

So now that it seems that the 700 billion may have been a mistake what do we do now? Granted some have said that enough time has not been given before we can question the validity of the plan. This might be true, I'm not sure how fast the congress works after they have enacted a plan.

Though one thing I do know, the markets issues went from some peoples problem to every ones who pays taxes. So we all now a forced interest in keeping crooks and thieves in power. So the question is how do we measure success and how long should we allow our money to act like a salve to the deep wound caused by the housing crisis? Once again it is to soon to see the the long term effects. The immediate ones have shown us this may have been a rash decision brought on by a desire to want to help.

So what is the correct thing to do? I have no idea, the level in which these people fucked up we will still be finding issues for years.

Dear John:

2008-10-04T20:44:00.000-07:00

So it seems that John McCain has giving up on Michigan. In a rare statement that did not hurt my brain Mrs. Palin said "she understood but was still wishing she could spend time in Michigan." It seems they believed that a million a week was no longer worth it; for the battle for the state.
Granted in the greater scheme of things it was a smart business move. Obama and Biden are leading by double digits after the vice president debate. Though the issue is that this is not meant to be a business. You are fighting for the minds and hearts of your fellow Americans, so this has come off as nothing more than a lazy and dare I say it an elitist move? Think about it, Obama has not conceded a state yet. But John no longer seems to care about his fellow Americans unless they are the majority in the zip code. So what's the deal? Are you really that broke John? Look I'm not sure how much you have been able to raise but you really are to poor for a million a week? You have no problem voting for wasteful and damaging bailout to the middle class and lower class. Wow, all I can say is I hope you shoot the TVs like Elvis did we you see Obama take that very historical walk

The 800 Billion it'll Be OK Fund

2008-10-03T22:26:00.000-07:00

So where to begin? No really, this is stupefying on a level I didn't think possible. Now this could have gone down worse but not by much. Look we already know at this point they are just making up numbers. That much has already been reported. When asked why 700 billion the response was, we wanted to ask for a high number. Well, I don't even know how to respond to something so blatantly greedy.
Now I have stated that this could have gone down in an even worse way. To the credit of the United States government they at least took out a loan. Now I know it's bad when you praise a loan; but the only other alternative for most of those in the House and Senate where willing to accept was to print the dollar into oblivion. So what does this mean to you and me? Well that's to be seen.
To a good deal of people who where either misinformed or just stupid it means that they will be able to keep their homes. Which is a good thing. I am all for home ownership, as long as you know what you are getting into. Don't get me wrong I don't completely blame the people on this, they where told that they could live way outside their means by the banks. So blame will and has fallen on the banks in at least in some part. Some have even gone T.U. but with the bailout we may see saved. Once again only time will tell.
So what "we" have agreed to when we bailed out the market? Basically it is that "I know you have messed up. Now if I give you a lot of money do you think you can be more responsible?" Look, most of us in this country are or at least give lip service to believing in the free market. Part of that belief is the belief that it can take care of it self. As Wachovia was going under bigger banks that could whether the storm where already lining up to buy it. So people would still have their money it would just be under different name. That sounds a lot like the market fixing it self. I am not saying we should not punish and throw away the key to those that stood by and let it get this bad.
But Texas Republican Jeb Hensarling said it best "How can we have capitalism on the way up and socialism on the way down?" A valid question if I ever heard one.

Right around thirty and counting

2008-10-02T21:21:00.000-07:00

With about a month out till the next presidential election you need to start asking yourself some tough questions. Not how much does a plane ticket cost, and how quick to naturalize in your new home country. You have to ask yourself are you going to vote? It's a simple question but one that was a topic of a fierce debate on world have your say.
Should people be forced to vote in our country? Is choosing not to vote really a way of sending a message and should you really vote for the lesser of two evils? If so is that a statement about a failed party system?
So will you vote? I know in my home state of Oregon not to vote means you may be the laziest individual I have ever met. For you that are unfamiliar with what I am talking about in the state of Oregon all ballots are mailed out and you have multiple weeks to fill it out and send it in. So at least in my state you really have no excuse not to vote unless you are so disenfranchised with what you see and what you have lived through all these years. Now I would recommend instead that if you so not see enough in McCain or Obama to write someone in. The reason I say this if the candidate can garner just five percent this time around, next time he or she will gain campaign funding for 2012. Now if don't believe in the system at all then I cannot help or give any advice to you.
Now comes to the age old question should you just vote for the lesser of two evils? In the words of Mr. Nader "the lesser of two evils is still not good enough for America." Now this brings up an interesting question should you fall into line for someone you agree to at least on a few things in principal over one that you do? not Now a lot of people would say, "of course you do." Though all this does is give you a taste of what a better America could be like.
Another issue plaguing this country is for the most part only the extremes of the ideological left and right are vocal and sometimes in power. Now that's great if you vote straight party lines and don't think. Or maybe in fact that crazy.
Now with all that lets tackle the first question. Should you be forced to vote? Like I said you could always vote for a third party no matter what people tell you. Every election is important no one will tell you otherwise so why not at least vote your voice? So should be forced, well I will still say no. Choice is the reason we are free and it's what we love more than anything. Now I do urge you to vote but I will never make you. Once it's no longer a choice you are no longer voicing your beliefs. So in fact we have lost what we love, democracy. So it all comes around, yes you should vote but what's point if it's at the barrel of a gun? If we are going to force people to vote what's next? Only have a two party system? Yeah limit choices and voices that'll make us great.
So remember as long as we have the choice we are free, and that's what this is all about. Now not voting can be lazy if you don't at least look into all the candidates, hell, if all else's fails run yourself. It's not like you'll do much worse anyway.

Microsoft to sell gears 2 Zune

2008-10-01T22:44:00.000-07:00

All in all it's not that surprising that Microsoft would not give this second outing. This seems to be an obvious choice to push the Zune more. The first time was with Halo three the most anticipated shooter for the 360 that year. Now the Gears of War two Zune will be on the 120gb model. You will be able to pick it up at Amazon on October 1st for $280.00. With the large cult following that the Gears of war series has, this only makes sense to introduce it. This news is also coming on the heals of the new 3.0 software update that has been very positively received.

The new update now introduced quite a few things this go around. Some things are small little fixes like adding the much demanded clock, also with the ability to tag songs you hear on the radio so you can buy them from the zune store later. That and they have introduced games as well. Only time will see how well it will sell and if the Zune can rise to be a serious competitor to the ipod.

For the full story Endgadget has all the news.

Capcoms new RE5 screens

2008-09-30T20:13:00.000-07:00

You realize your marketing has executed perfectly when people are ecstatic to just see four new screen shots of your game. Capcom has released four new screens of the hugely anticipated Resident Evil 5. The game never needed the controversy it gained after the first trailer to sell games but it got it in a colossal way. Now with the new screens it looks like you maybe doing some cross country cleansing. With the backdrop of the cradle of life you be taking out the walking dead. Here's a quick link to the very promising screens.

Red Alert 3's new trailer

2008-09-29T22:06:00.000-07:00

Up on Gametrailers.com there is a new Red Alert trailer. The trailer all be it fun and showing a quick snip-it of the actresses and all the actors; is all it shows. No game play no in depth look at what is coming out. All the game tells me is that I have to play as the Russians, that's it. Seriously you be taking orders from Tim Curry, the Devil himself. How could compete with that? OK George is a really really persuading argument to play for the land of the rising sun.

Of course the other main reason to play as the land of the rising sun would be the mechs, yeah they get mechs. But as everyone knows the red alert series has never been about reality, or even trying to remain semi-realistic. It's looking like Three will be no different. If your heart is set on the Soviets they will have their shock tanks. Because Tesla coils should always be mobile. OK that could be done so where is the weird stuff? Fine if you need it, the Ruskies will give you armed bears, yeah armored bears. Though if you watch all the trailers one of them state that the sharks will have armor soon. It appears that the Soviets not only want a government that screws everyone over but have really relaxed enlistment credentials.

With troops like that it's little wonder why the red alert franchise has such a great loyal but very tongue in cheek following.

DS refresh by the end of year

2008-09-28T09:23:00.000-07:00

It seems videogaming247 has an interesting story about Nintendo. Sometime this year, ( obviously near Christmas) a new DS will come out. Though the price will be changing up a bit, the word is that it will retail for $189, So what are you getting to justify the extra $60 bucks? How about a larger screen, plus Nintendo is offering the ability to use sd cards. That's right you can turn your DS into a mp3 player. But that's not it, you will also be able to take pictures with it. Then lastly they state it will have an "advanced" wireless functions. I'm not sure what that entitles, my guess is that you may actually see people near you and be able to drop in and out of multi player games, or sharing music over a wifi or what.

*edit* I have been told that my sources on this story are subject at best. I am sorry for anyone angered by the story.

1up.com showing some love

2008-09-27T08:01:00.000-07:00

Next week 1up.com is giving away 2,00 little big planet beta codes away. All you have to do is head to their LBP page on Monday. No word yet on how you can win the prize but, if you end up not getting one of those coveted tickets. Fear not, they will be getting at some point beta tickets in the excess of 25,000. The only downside to that is the official word on the extra 25k is they will be getting them "soon." For more details and a direct link to the contest page it can found here.

Steams "new deal"

2008-09-26T21:03:00.000-07:00

This weekend you will be able to get a great deal on Rockstar games from steam. How good are we talking here? How about Grand theft auto3 and vice city for $5 dollars each. This also includes one the most hated games of all time, manhunt. Though oddly enough grand theft auto two is right around $15.00. Or if GTA is not your cup of tea how about the Max pain games? $5 a pop or $7 for the both. All of these juicy details where broken by the nice people of Joystiq With this deal it'll be hard not to pick up some of these classics and either give them a spin for the first time or just to remember what made them so engaging in the first place.

Florida re-gains some respect:: kicks Jack out

2008-09-25T20:07:00.000-07:00

I just want to thank the people over at Kotaku for this feel good story. For the few of you who have not already seen it. It now appears that Florida is trying to make amends to the whole country, and they started with booting Mr. Thompson.

The order came down so Jack Thompson has only thirty days left to annoy you and I with our money. After that he will just have to go back to be the hobo on the street telling you that it's the end of days. So not only has he been kicked out of the the halls of justice he has to pay a very nice size fine. The amount came to the sum of $43,675.35 all I want to know is how after they charged him $43,675 they thought; what the hell tax the bastard another .35 cents.

I guess people have just realized that playing GTA and Doom never brought about bloodbaths. Oh but it doesn't stop there. He said and I S*** you not about the judge. "A raving wild women." Yeah, that'll help to play to your misunderstood sensitive side.

Duke Nukems new anniversary

2008-09-25T00:14:00.000-07:00

With a new year coming up very quickly comes the one year anniversary of the Duke Nukem forever trailer. If you take the time to tour their site you'll notice their message when will Duke Nukem come out? In a very Blizzard answer "When it is done." But that begs the question what are you making?

Duke Nukem was a game about humor and and mindless killing. For it's time it was controversial, and a toy. Over the years it has became a folk legend to most of the younger gamers of today. We are now to the point that the last duke game came out when todays college freshmen where six.

So with this extreme level of time and disconnect by todays gamers can 3D Realms do anything to bring them into the fold? I guess only time will tell, and at this point what do they have to loose? Duke only has everything to prove and all to loose. The trailer that 3D Realms debuted back at the end of last year was jaw dropping, and showed the world that yes in fact the game had people still working on it.

Though the problem was it didn't show much of anything in gameplay. My only hope is that they played and learned from Doom three. If you haven't played the game the problem became *spolier* that you would clear a room then a re-spawn would happen. So all you had to do was clear a room turn a round and walk backwards. Then boom with a shotgun you could drop the hell spawns.

So with a game that was meant to be out over a decade ago, this had better be the second coming of shooters. Or at least make people forget about that little green space marine.

Warhammer another flash in the pan mmo?

2008-09-23T22:42:00.000-07:00

ms a story has a risen at Big Download that some analyst are already claiming that warhammer will top out about 300,000. Now this is not a bad number it's enough to keep a game running. Though out of that how many will dual play Wrath when it comes out? Will we see the Conan effect in warhammer, I highly doubt it. The reason being that while Conan is a really fun world to read, warhammer has been a fun world to play in for over twenty years.

So don't take to much stock in the reports you'll read the coming months, it's their job to drive you to click on their links and get you on the sites they work for. Warhammer is to established to be snuffed out so quick. Plus you know that they have yet to bring out all the classes out that they want. You know I'm talking about those lovable rodents and the wood elves. Sorry couldn't bringing the wood elves up. But fear not this should be a mmo that can stand on it's own two feet for quite some time.

Sonys "little" drm issue

2008-09-22T08:20:00.000-07:00

The story comes via ars technica, So Sony's rental system is nothing new. It's just the same as Apples and pay per view like on cable or satellite. You rent it, then have 24 hours to to get through the movie or show. Though if you want to buy it that's a different story.

Right now it's not clear if this is Sony's doing or all the studios doing but, once you buy a movie that's it for the most part. You wont be able to get rid of it off your hard-drive and bring it back like on Steam. Though if you talk to the customer support you will be able to get a code that will let you re-download one more time. That will be it, like the article stated what happens when the Ps4 comes out? do you really want to have to rip out that 40, 60 or 60 gig drive out because you would still like to own the movies?

It's odd how "buying" sounds a lot like renting. The question is with enough of a outcry will Sony change their ways or is this a pricey lesson to all of us about trusting Sony's movie service?

Diablo III with a whopping four new screens

2008-09-21T20:35:00.000-07:00

That's right, all should rejoice for the small nuggets of Diablo news. The screens in note are here, via the nice people over at Kotaku. The four screens have two of the barbarian one of the male and one of the new female charter models. But the last one had a person I could not quite tell, I would think witch doctor but I would be wrong. I wouldn't put it past Blizzard to "reveal" a class this way but I am pretty sure it's the good doctor.

The most dangerous game

2008-09-20T18:30:00.000-07:00

So lets say you have to log into that wow charter but your not in for one of the funnest nights. No huge raid, no battle grounds for you. It's your guild telling you to grind that fishing skill, or else. Or else what, that's right. Now don't get me wrong I know staring at your screen waiting for fish to bite is electrifying.

Though the nice people over at WOW insider have been given something to help with the tedium. Turns out that PoP Cap is there to help you out. They will be releasing for free if the news is true. Bejeweled will now be able to work seamlessly in the game. That's right Bejeweled. So fret not for mindless rep or skill grinding. Now you can just hit the auto attack or grind fifty stacks of bandages all while playing that great game with the techno and explosions.

oit, it's not done yet: warhamer makes amends

2008-09-19T21:26:00.000-07:00

Thanks to an interview over at 1up Mr. Mark Jacobs has stated that all the content that plans on making it's way in the game will be coming back to us free of charge. To be honest this might be some of the best news I have heard come out in a while.

The only downside is when and what all is coming back, you know the cities will make it back in. That's a must, the question is really, who is coming back? I'm hoping for the Choppa but from what I've read this would be one of if not the most popluar choice.. remember “Wuz betta den one choppa? Two choppas! Two choppas is one more… is one times da… is lots more fun! Waaagh!”- Chopmo, Dung Heap Philosopher

It has already begun

2008-09-18T11:31:00.000-07:00

Are you already sick of playing warhammer online without knowing where to go. First off, damn it's only forty levels. It wont take that long to get to the high level killing RVR it's OK. Though if you demand to not be slowed down, hammer wiki is up and running for you. One of the really fun things on the site is it has a lore section, so if you want the whole bloody story and really desire an interesting reason to want to chop them up into little pieces you will find the reason.

It seems sony has standards over microsoft

2008-09-17T09:43:00.000-07:00

Shuhei Yoshida is the big cheese at Sony worldwide studios, and it seems he was nice enough to talk to videogaming247. One of the major problems he said is Microsoft has not chosen which one of their systems id the main one. Is it the premium or the arcade? Mr. Yoshida said that Sony made the decision a long time ago that they would only offer hard drive machines. It may cost more but it creates a standard and will allow all the player s to have the data cached so we can provide more seamless gameplay.

Mr. Yoshida even goes on to say without this ability to cache data, Uncharted wouldn't have been nearly as playable. Also he went on to state, "without a hard drive we wouldn't have been able to offer games for digital distribution."

We will "hate" blizzard, blizzard says

2008-09-16T21:22:00.000-07:00

Seems videogamer.com has a really interesting interview with Jay Wilson Lead designer of Diablo III. They seem to have really paid attention to some of the now glaring flaws. Now when you team up with players everyone gets loot that's class specific and only they will see it. So gone are the days training to be the fastest mouse on the net.

It turns out all the haters of rainbows did not cause the lead art designer to leave in tears. I know, I bet you all felt really bad about this. The word is he had a once in a lifetime job opportunity outside of gaming so he took it.

Turns out the Barbarian was not meant to be in the game, it's they just called it that because they couldn't make the warrior class all that different. Jay admits people will be pissed about the other classes since no one else will show up. No pally, necro, amazon, sorceress ,druid, or assassin. Time will tell how well the new ones work in multi-play and hardcore grinding.

A very humble Molyneux

2008-09-15T21:09:00.000-07:00

OXM has a great interview with Peter Molynuex. It's a very stark and honest interview with the man behind Lionhead. Some of the interesting things that came up are he wants to deal with the people who exploited the pub game. He's been thinking of making a achievement that says congratulations you cheated. Though I'm not sure if that would drive people away or be seen as a badge of honor?

He also said something I found very revealing about who he was, and who he has become. What Molyneux brought up during the interview about Fable one. "I'm gonna be very harsh on myself. I use my reputation. Now I didn't do this because I'm some PR guru, I did this because when I talk to you I'm a kid showing off my toys at Christmas, that's who I am. I just can't help myself getting excited and saying, 'you've got this and this and this.' And I talked to you lot and I put this game up here [raises hand in the air], and when you looked at it, it was actually there [lowers hand]."

He went on to say he thinks how games are paced for release is bullshit. Granted even he said this is not a new idea. He brought up in one week Fable Two, next Falllout 3 then Gears of War Two. Why not release them in a timely manner? Of coures it's because of Christmas.

I hope you check it out, this is by far one of the most interesting interviews I have read in a while.

Want to be a zombie, lets talk how: left 4 dead style

2008-09-14T08:59:00.000-07:00

So on the the Left 4 dead 411 site they have some of the zombie details I know a lot of us wanted to know about. Just to go over a couple of the juicy details really quick, in verse mode you will get to trade off every other level on who gets to be the dinner and the hunter. Also the game will not give you any breaks at all like in co-op, so one wrong move and they will be all over you. But don't fret to much you will now have very quick re spawn time so you wont be sitting to long in that penalty box. For some more info on the story plus a link to a trailer showing some people playing the zombies you can check it out here.

Blizzard to conquer itunes

2008-09-14T08:42:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to let all the people who haven't already checked the Blizzard page on itunes in the lat couple weeks, you may want to right now. Turns out Blizzard has released not only released three WoW CD's(The Original Soundtrack, The Burning Crusade and Taverns of Azeroth.)They have also released the StarCraft (orignail soundtrack), Diablo (Diablo 2 soundtrack) and WarCraft Three sound tracks as well. For more information you check out the Blizzard site here.

War server lists are out

2008-09-13T16:20:00.000-07:00

Looks like the nice people over at Massively have the Warhammer online server lists are out. Turns out that they will have role playing servers. Not only will they have rp servers they will also have open rvr servers. So what does this mean for you? Well it means if you really want to to tear into the opposing side but can't stand killing a kid with name noob killer, well maybe the rp/open rvr server is for you.

One thing that will also drive the kids away will be the enforced role playing. I'm not sure how this will be done but it sounds interesting. The last thing that will be implemented game wide is "chickened" so if someone who is a much higher level than you tries to gann form they will have k you, they will be turned into a chicken. In chicken mode you will have ten hit points and will o a whopping one damage.

wow PVE to jaoin the PVP ranks

2008-09-13T11:55:00.001-07:00

Blizzard is about to change up something that will cause thousands to scream at their monitors and maybe even snap a keyboard or two. For all you PVE players out there that have fantasized about ganking low levels of the opposite side your time has come.

The only real downside is once you join your shiny new PVP server plan on being ostracized by all of the other players. PVP players have a deep sense of entitlement to what they have. Anything else to them that has not been obtained on their server is considered easy mode.

For more detailed information 1up has a great write-up on the story.

LIke Cosplay, love Atlus? Get Free stuff

2008-09-13T10:49:00.000-07:00

To all of you out there that are huge cosplay fans, and I know there are a ton of you. How would you like to to recognized for your hard work and get a ton of free swag. Of course you do; it turns out Atlus is running a contest thorough out all of October.

The contest will be on website; at this time it is unannounced. Though Atlus for those of you unfamiliar with the company they are the fine people who brought us Disgaea hour of darkness, which just recently has come to greatest hits.

To get the full details you can click here.

World Tours complete set list now out.

2008-09-12T17:42:00.000-07:00

So Today Activision announced their set list for World Tour. World Tour boasts a very impressive eighty-six song set list (which can be found here.) Of course you will have bands that span the decades from Jimi Hendrix to newer rock bands such as 30 seconds to Mars, and tons of acts in between. Another thing that has now become a staple is master tracks, so no one will have to cringe through a wannabe Cobain. Speaking of Nirvana about a girl will be on the list. The interesting thing is that they decided to go with the unplugged version instead.
Though one thing I found interesting is that Tool will have three songs. Though none from albums older than Lateralus.

heavy rains possible wash-out

2008-09-12T16:44:00.000-07:00

At videogaming247 they have gotten back from talking to David Cage of Quantic Dream about Heavy Rain. The good news is that Mr. Cage said Heavy rain is at the halfway point. So he has stated that his best guess is if you play at a non rush speed you can get a good eight up to twelve hours. Now some people have commented that eight to twelve hours dev speak is closer to four to six gamers time.

Other people have stated that Bioshock is another short game that has gotten rave reviews. So the question is how much fun per hour are you willing to pay? Do you want a bunch of kinda fun over fifty hours or is eight ours of "oh my god, my eyes....their bleeding joy!" A good trade? It's a question that wont be answered until the sales come in.

PS3 Bioshock going all out in the site

2008-09-11T18:11:00.000-07:00

If you have not already checked the site out by 2k for the Bioshock port I would scamper over there for a minute or so. This is by far one of the more entertaing game website I ahve been to, it starts off by showing you the opening in the game and then has you walk about in Rapture.

As you walk around the website points out tonincs, guns and potions. They also give you a little movie about how each are used. It seems that Bioshock is getting far more than the port treatment, and I glad personly that it is.

Death is not the end in Heavy Rain

2008-09-11T17:38:00.000-07:00

It appears not only is Heavy Rain a gorgeous looking game, it is going to be a big picture game. How times have you maybe picked the wrong class or after a while got bored with your character but still thought the game was interesting? Turns out you are not alone. A really interesting bit of gameplay has been announced by Quantic Dream’s David Cage. The story was came via videogaming247.com

Turns out from what it sounds like so far is that if you do get killed in the game. The game will still progress without that person. Now they have released any information whether or not you'll be able to jump quickly into the next person closest or how the game will progress merely that it will.I was not able to find much more than that at this time though any new news comes up I'll be right here to update you as fast as I can.

EA still thinks you and everyone is a theif

2008-09-10T19:05:00.000-07:00

Don't take it poorly it's not like it's some thing new to EA fans. I don't really think EA is trying to annoy and drive anyone away from the game. It seems we are at that point in video games like the record company a year or so ago. (EMI dropped drm in all cds about a year ago or so.)

The story comes via Kotaku, it's in reference to a forum post on EA where the unfortunate news dropped. But after reviewing it, this might be a large step in at least the right direction. Granted I think we all would like EA developers join in rational thought like what Sins of the Solar Empire developers did. Until that day I am happy for whatever baby steps they can take; and hope they continue down this path.

For a link to the forum it can be found here. Just to give you a quick over view it does have a authentication phase, but it's only one time when you first pop in the game to install. Second one you put it on to five machines. They also said they would provide you with more keys on a case by case basis. So far it's not perfect but better than it could be. Plus you won't have the pop in the CD every time you want to play the game. They also stated that you can play offline without impediment or any penalty. So like I said it's not perfect though I do believe it is momentum in the right direction.

Some of MMO's bigest hurndles

2008-09-09T20:15:00.000-07:00

If you talk to most people who don't like M.M.O.s; the first thing they will cite for not liking the genre is the monthly cost. I can understand that to a point. But what I think the main disconnect between people who really like M.M.O.'s and those who just don't get them is the big picture.

A MMO is more than just the game. Granted the game is very important though it's how you play it. The game can be much more than a DPS, Tank, heal-bot and nuker. I think one of the really fun parts of the game that seems to get overlooked or trivialized is that you can play with anyone other the planet. That alone I think would and does appeal to tons of people. It helps you get a little world perspective, plus it's fun to see people from other countries go at it. Case in point just listen Australians and New Zealanders go at it. That alone for me has been worth fifteen bucks a month for me to see them really go at it. The only down side is I now refuse to where any wool products from either of those two countries. If you have never heard the two people go at it from either of those two countries lets just say steam cleaned is just not enough.

Now lets address the elephant in the room. A game in which you only rent time to play. It's the same as when you go to a concert or a movie but; because both have been happens longer than MMOs this is not seen as a waste of money. Well you might think it's not a waste to see either of those because other people are there. Yet when you log into a game most of the people running around are really there as well. So that can't be it. So is it ownership of the game? Because as I have already stated that the disk you buy to install the game is yours. You do buy it.

Still you might say that's good and all but I'm still pissing money down the drain. Then I would ask you if you have a netflix account or game fly account? That's pissing money away as well. Yet there is one game that I can point to that has a one time buy option. It turns out that Turbine has a one time buyout option for the Lord of The Rings Online. the cost what two years cost. That's it, you can log on for for the rest of the games life and play to your hearts content for no more cash except for the price of optional expansions.

So as long as you like or can stand Tolkien fans who seem to unusually nice for a online community. You could enjoy the game for as long as it is up and running. If that's not enough of a reason to at least give a mmo a chance I don't know what else to say. �

Gears 2, really no PC?

2008-09-08T20:45:00.000-07:00

This is an interesting story that has been around for a little while. Though I just had to throw my two cents in on the controversy of Gears of War two. with sixty days and counting to the next installment of the largest charter models in a first person shooter have seen in a while, seriously their arms are have got to the width of me. Then Soul train, just, damn is all I can say.

It's no secret to anyone one that Gears two will be seeing no PC love this time around. Granted Gears One took a year to make it's way to the PC. Some people have become very defensive about this. Of curse if you do any form searching you'll see that pissed off fifteen year old saying, who needs another shooter on the PC anyway. I guarantee this same kid will gush over left 4 dead when it comes out. Now the real question is who are really pulling the strings on this deal? A lot of people will quick to blame Microsoft on this. I have read the interview where Cliff Bleszinski nonchalantly tells the interviewer that gears two will never see the PC.

The thing that annoys me is that all he says the interviewer didn't press him. So it makes me wonder if it is staying on the xbox 360 because that is where they saw the biggest success. If that's it why not just say it. Granted we don't "need" gears of war two on the PC but the series so far has very fun look and interesting cast of charters. It makes me wonder if porting to PC and trying to change up the controls are harder to do? Hell they where able to do halo pretty well. To this day you can still find halo one games still going on. So the question is are they just lazy or do they really just do not want to be on PC with this franchise. It's not working on the PC would be new to Cliff Bleszinski . Hell he is still known as the Unreal guy to a lot of people.

But it's not all bad news they have in store some really fun stuff for the 360 crowd. one the new features will giving a thank you to all the Gears of War one players. It turns out that if you have played Gears one some of your achievements will unlock goodies for you new Gears two game. It's always nice when game developers remember the fans that get them to where they are. Another thing you will be able to unlock in the the game will be bringing the dead back to life from the first Gears of War in multi-player. IGN has a picture of one of the guys. It turns out you can play Carmine the mysterious man in the mask, and one of the others they showed was Minth. With attention like this to the multi-player I hope that they expand on what they did do in the first one. Some of the things I have heard that could be improved are bringing more maps out in a timely manner, and to have more play types. With games like TF2 Gears would have had to stay on top of the multi-player if they will wanted a long and prosperous online PC community. There in lies the problem how many updates have you seen on gears compared to other online shooters? It may not be lack of skills and more lack of time to dedicate a full team to keep the community happy.

The Spore has landed

2008-09-07T19:17:00.001-07:00

Today is the beginning of a terrible cold, flu, stomach cramp etc. Today is the day Spore comes out, so once you take that first pause at 3am Monday morning you just now know what it's been like for all of your Sims playing friends. Though for all the old Will Wright fans out there, and I know by now that must be most of you. Sitting down when it's light out and emerging from a game when dawns first light begins to break will be nothing new.

To say this is one of the most ambitions games made to date wold be a understatement. Even if the game falters on a few steps. From what I have heard and read it only falters in some ways when compared to games, where that type of game play is the only element of the game instead of one aspect of it like in spore. Case in point in Spore you can take over other nations. Now some reviewers have stated that it is simple and redundant to more experienced gamers. I have no doubt Spore will lack the nation building depths of say civilization four. Yet it would be silly to also assume it would have combat that would be on par with games like god of war. Though I am assuming obviously reviewers know that Spore will be a hard game to draw comparisons to.

So what is spore anyway in a nutshell? Well it's a game that you will control life from the very beginning of time at the single cell stage to being able to eventually travel to distant stars to and either conquer or live with the civilizations there. So it sounds like it is a game to take a long weekend on.

For a very cool in depth interview on Spore and what Mr Wright was hoping to do you can check out this article on cnet.com though if you are after just a few of the tasty morsels from the interview I can help you out there.

The first question which is the most obvious one is why did you want to make this game? The basics are and it's pretty cool is it turns out Will Wright is a huge space nerd. I know a big surprise, but the game was meant to be a huge space travel game, where you went off to distant worlds to explore and witness how other worlds worked. Then that go him and his team thinking about evolution, the rest is now apparent what came out of that thought.

One of the other other features that came about that they thought wouldn't be as interesting to the general public is the Sporepedia. Mr. Wright said they only continued with it is because of the colossal popularity of social networking and file sharing. Yet I don't think that is a nod at pirates. In any case it doesn't matter what I say because I have already seen first hand the demand of the game first hand. The very first call I got this morning at my job at an Apple store was "do you have spore in?" That and cosplay people picking up the game, I was told this since I don't get the floor that often.

Mellon then enter: All mourn Gloin in Moria

2008-09-06T18:06:00.000-07:00

Ennyn Durin Aran Moria: pedo mellon a minno. Im Narvi hain echant: Celebrimbor o Eregion teithant i thiw hin.,( The doors of Durin, Lord of Moria) See I'm not like a Lord of the rings nerd or anything. Anyway, with the mines of Moria almost in sight I thought now would be the time to bring everyone up to speed on what is going on in the mines both Man and Dwarf fear to tread.

One of the first things you'll notice when you finally get your hands on the game. Is that you will be able to try two new classes, the first one want to talked about is the Runekeeper. There's no secret that lotro is low on the magic classes, it's not because Turbine doesn't want to make them it's just they can't make them. To those of you unfamiliar with Tolkiens world he was not a man of high fantasy. So this is why the Runekeeper is such a great new class. The Runekeeper will work as both some offense and some heeling. Though one of the really cool things that will happen as you end up becoming a magical dps or healer you will see the bar between the two move toward the one you are doing more so you gain a higher proficiently in that. So I think this class will find a huge following in the game.

The other class in the game is the Warden. Now the warden from what I have been able to read up on will be neither a tank or dps replacement. She will be a spear wielder with medium armor. So I'm thinking either a off tank that the mistral will have to watch more or a more self sustaining dps player. So where the Warden shines is that as she cycles through her abilities if she does it in a specific chain you will be able to pull off new skill to unleash.

A really interesting new feature will be added the game come launch and that will be the new Legendary Items. To give you a idea on what they mean by legendary think something like Bilbos Sting. An old Elvish blade that would shine a brilliant blue when the orcs where around. Just think of a having a edge like that in middle earth. To help you make such unique treasures lotro will introduce two new NPC's the Relic and Forge masters will be on staff to help you make a blade or item truly yours. the Rune and relic maters will be able forged and re-forged when need be a variety of abilities and boosts that will actually grow in efficacy over time. Not only will you be able to walk around with an legendary item you will be able to take on all sorts of evil with being able to carry up to six legendary items at once.

It turns out that you will be able to go beyond the mines and join back up with the fellowship. In the expansion you will be able to travel to the great forest Lothlorien. That's right you will be to see Galadriel's garden. So Elven fans rejoice, it turns out it's not all about the Dwarves. First their no Dwarven women and then the Dwarves have to hand some of the spotlight over to the elves. Man it's not easy being stout.

Now I have been trying to find anything I can on the mines them selves. I was only able to find a couple of nuggets of information that sounded very hopeful. One the mine will have 200 steps you must traverse down, and the second which I found on Massively.com is that this will in fact be the largest underground space ever created in a game. Now how does that not at least make you want to keep you your ears open for any new information?

Prince minus the eyeliner

2008-09-05T16:28:00.000-07:00

So the new word on the street is that the prince is no longer a angry little kid. OK he was never a little kid but you know what I mean. It seems that over at gamespot they have a sweet lowdown on the new game. To those of you who have yet to see the trailer from Leipzig I would recommend it. Granted it's more of a showcase of some of the basics and the art which has gotten the most amount of attention so far. If you have seen any of the trailers so far you'll know why so many people have been drooling over even just the first few trailers when it was just a picture of the prince and Elika. Though in the article they bring up some really interesting nuggets of information.

One of the main points the article touched on was that this story will be outside of the main story arc of the sands of time trilogy. This means that you will be introduced as not so much as a prince per say; but more of a man who is setting off to find and acquire his own riches. The article goes on to talk about some of the inspirations for the new "prince" to give you a better feel of who the prince will be like. Some of the names thrown out are Han Solo and Lo "Dark Cloud." If the name doesn't ring a bell that's OK. It just means you where not caught up in the Crouching Tiger hidden Dragon mania that hit the states. It was called the greatest movie of all time by Al Roker. So you know it must be true. Yeah, so anyway sorry for that tangent.

The game is said to focus more on acrobatics than combat, we'll see what they mean by that. I highly doubt this will turn into a circus show but personally I like the idea of focus on acrobatics just by watching the trailer you can see why. If you watch the video you can see the princes new partner Elika. She is there to help the prince out in a multitude of ways. Just name a few of the cool things she can do to help you out are if you ever are to get lost while roaming Elika will help guide the way to your next goal. another one of the very helpful things she will do is give you that extra little distance when trying out some of the more interesting acrobatic moves in the game. Though one thing I did notice was that Elika seems to also be a pretty good fighter as well. The last thing you'll notice that the end of the demo she can heal parts of the world around her.

It turns out she is being very well received those who have played the game already. One of the things they like about her is when you are on a ledge and have to get by she will just drop down and the prince will garb a hold her and move her to the other side. Also on top of that Ubi has said that they plan on making her un killable by the AI.

With all of this I only hope that Ubisoft can pull most of it off.

Bioshock: What was right what the player couldn't get.

2008-09-04T09:35:00.000-07:00

Gamasutra has an insightful write up on Bioshock this week and I urge anyone who has not read it to do so no now. The Story can be found at their site Gamasutra.com
I'll just talk today about some of the highlights I found while reading the article.

One of the more interesting things they brought up early on was; how can you merge two very different play types and still end up with something fun. As you read on you notice that at first they where going down the path of a very nerdy and slow moving game. So they addressed the issue that in the beginning they had the classic leveling of skills. Though cool it was one of the things that took away from the pacing and overall use in the world. As it is they had to re-write the enemy AI because it was to far along on a rpg style.

Another major problem they had which is the biggest problem any game company has is, how do you make the game fun? They talk about in the interview that for the most part it was well received by the internal testers and family. Yet once it went to open testing the group hated it with a passion it seems. So much so they had to remove levels and "dumb" the game down quite a bit. Their words not mine, I'm not that good at FPS so I would have crashed with training wheels. Anyway once they got the news the game was to hard but people did kinda see how cool the game ultimately became. It became very clear that a lot more had to be done than they thought. As it is they had to change the entire pavilion to less sandbox to more of a teaching aid on the importance of plasmids; and on top of that make it so you had to deal with the little sisters and big daddies more directly than in previous builds.

One thing I think worth mentioning when it comes to how they determined how hard to make the game was how well their own developers where playing the game. So it seems that everything was going fine in their minds until they learned one little secret, the secret is that the developers where using cheat codes. Granted this is not a problem when doing testing on how the Ai reacts to you. It's also not bad on trying to find glitches I would think. Without the fear of death you could run around all day and look for weird poly rips or poor movement animation on that third guy on the left. Though it seems using cheat codes was a poor way to guess how hard to make your game. Of course we are all gods with IDDQD, (for those of you to young to get the reference it's the god cheat in Doom one and two) sorry had to do it.

I think now knowing more about all the issues the game had and learned what had to be done I am amazed that the game was one as good as it was and two received as well as it was. My hope is now that we all know the name Bioshock the very dedicated staff can bring us a much closer vision of how and what Rapture should be.

Mirrors Edge: Beauty and the blinding

2008-09-03T15:01:00.000-07:00

With Mirrors edge almost out I thought it would be the right time to let all of you thinking about picking up the game to help fill in the gaps of what you might not know. Granted for some reason it's been all quite on the news for a while now. So first off what do we all know? Well we all know that this game is gorgeous but that takes about two seconds to discover so that's most likely nothing new. Plus the other thing you probably know is that you'll have the choice of most systems to pick this up for.

Though what may be new is that you take the role a women named Faith who is a runner for the underground. Yet this is not just for money or a way to just stick it to the clinically clean totalitarian government, no, your end goal is information. It turns out the police force in the city has set up your sister, and Faith believes this is the only way to get the information she needs to find out why they targeted her sister.

It turns out that in this game that guns will not play a huge roll in your defense or offense it seems. It has been stated that when you get into hand to hand combat with a guard or cop you will be able to disarm him or her and then use the gun after elbowing the poor sap in the temple. The other thing thing is that you will not be able to reload a gun, so feel free to go hog wild with the bullets because you'll be able to just jack a gun from the next guy you that has the ill fate coming between you and your packages destination. One of the fun things about the guns in the game is that size will matter, it will matter the point of slowing you down and making you less nimble if you so choose to wield one of the lager weapons. Granted at first this may sound like a bad thing but I believe it'll give you a more realistic feel to being a regular person trying to wield a large bulky gun jumping from rooftop to rooftop.

The one of the last things I wanted to touch on with you was as you play you'll notice very quick that you will not see a life bar. Granted this is becoming very popular this year and a little bit of last year. But what they are doing is something that you'll have to pay attention to; the world as you have seen is incredibly vibrant. The color scheme seems to be two fold the first is that you'll notice a lack of green. Dice says it's because it takes away from the clean and sterile look of the city and grey is used as little as humanly possible. The second part of the colors you see is that as you get closer and closer to death the world will start to loose some the radiant look the city has had. It seems that though Dice and EA have moved away from a sad but running joke of next gen FPS's that the future is very crisp and very drab.

Save pc gaming: Is it really dying?

2008-09-02T12:27:00.000-07:00

OK we have all read the cries of the death of the PC gaming. I don't know if these people just think if they whine enough about it their hopes are it'll be self-fulling or maybe it's something much more sinister than that. I think the people that bitch about it just get paid on page views. That's the only thing I can think of.

Let's be honest we are not fearful of the death of PC gaming what we are scared that might happen is that it'll be the death of "hardcore" games. I don't think anyone who really cares about the state of PC gaming will shed to many tears if one day you when you buy a computer it wont have solitaire on it or minesweeper. What they care about is if Blizzard will go console only. Or if City of Heroes will wither and die.

We all know the truth weather we want to admit it or not. Blizzard has more money than all the gods put together thought history and more computers are sold each year than game systems. So is PC gaming dying? No it's just accelerating at a faster pace than consoles because it can. It's really that simple, when was the last time you saw on the Nintendo store to up the ram or processor? Granted

Now what I will concede is that the PC gaming market does care less and less about people who do not upgrade on a regular basis. Well that's really to true either I guess because remember Blizzard the people with all your money? They strive to make games work on the lowest possible machine they can. Now the truth isn't that sexy as it seems no rush to arms no great cause; just the cold hard facts. OK we have all read the cries of the death of the PC gaming. I don't know if these people just think if they whine enough about it their hopes are it'll be self-fulling or maybe it's something much more sinister than that. I think the people that bitch about it just get paid on page views. That's the only thing I can think of.

Let's be honest none of us are fearful of the death of PC gaming. What we are scared that might happen is that it'll be the death of "hardcore" games. I don't think anyone who really pays attention to the debate about the state of PC gaming will shed a tear if one day you when you buy a computer it wouldn't have solitaire on it or minesweeper on it. What they care about is if Blizzard will go to console only. Or if for some mysterious reason Valve shuts down forever, and that would scare people on two fronts. The first is Valve is in fact important to the "hardcore" community because the list of such strong titles; also it's love of the mod communities. Yet, those of who are not Valve fans fear that steam would up and die. No one wants to have to re-buy a game and no one should. I think if Valve would just release it's numbers on steam sales. The "discussion" about the state of PC gaming would be the one dead. But then these writers would have to go and do some real work and not just preach the end of days.

We all know the truth weather we want to admit it or not. Blizzard has more money than all the gods put together thought history and more computers are sold each year than game systems. So is PC gaming dying? No it's just accelerating at a faster pace than consoles because it can. It's really that simple, when was the last time you saw on the Nintendo store the ability to up the ram or processor?

Now what I will concede is that the PC gaming market does care less and less about people who do not upgrade on a regular basis. Well that's really to true either I guess because remember Blizzard the people with all your money? They strive to make games work on the lowest possible machine they can. Now the truth isn't that sexy as it seems no rush to arms no great cause; just the cold hard facts.

Dead space: Get killed in all directions at once

2008-09-01T11:37:00.000-07:00

So I had some luck on my side. I was able to talk to the head art director, So of course I asked him if he wouldn't mind mind explaining some of the game. I mean why would you ask him something stupid like why did you chose this art direction or how hard was it to come up with very impressive Gothic space looking designs. No I wouldn't do that no one would be interested in such things. Though he was very nice and indulged me since all I knew about Dead space was just a really cool looking trailer of this poor guy trying to blow a hole in a tentacle that is trying to wisp you off to a dark secluded place. Ian(the head art director) was able to give me a quick tutorial on what has gone down and what is about to it the fan. In the game you receive a message that something on the station has gone wrong and out are needed to help. Now before you go off and say "oh great I'm just another super soldier out to save the world." Well maybe then you should let me finish and stop being so damn cynical.

You are instead you play a poor welder with only your gear to protect you. It turns out that you have an obviously inept military escort seeing as they were no where to be found. So you are now wandering alone in a space station that is slowly on it's way to hell, or something much worse. The few things I was to fight before getting sliced open looked incredible. The overall pacing was very well done. One thing I noticed is the pacing of the monsters coming at you, the pace I saw was a lot closer to horror style than shooter in that zone.

Just incase you don't have a real good idea about the game I just I wanted to touch base on it really quick. One of the first thing you will notice is there is is no hud in the game. At first I was a little off put though as you get drawn deeper in the game you will notice that all relevant information is already in front of you. The weapons you use have a clip meter on them, your cool glowing back is really your health bar. Which I think is a really nice un intrusive way to let you know how you are doing, and the last one I want to touch base on real quick is the map. The map you bring out to help you move around is actually a glowing beam that comes from your hand and goes on the floor; to illuminate your path in the right direction.

Turns out I had the privilege to meet up with some of the fine staff at Joystiq and was able to bounce around or thoughts on the game. So we where in all in a agreement in the look and pacing of the game. The one part we where not in complete agreement was the quickness of the guy. I didn't think it was the quickest movement speed but as they where kind enough to point out (One of the writers is a friend) pointed out is that I don't have a 360 and when you are used to the twitch of a mouse everything will seem "clunkier."

Though the thing they pointed out that I wish I had caught on to quicker was that it seems to be the say setup or very close to that of resident evil 4. Even to the non strafing ability. I can now say with confidence that Dead Space is a title Definitely worth your attention and possibility some hard earned coin.

left 4 dead hands on

2008-09-01T03:15:00.000-07:00

Left 4 dead is almost out, and for the few readers that are not already experts on all things Valve.( I know there must be a couple of you out there.) To those of you who are not familiar with it; is the new project that will reward you for killing everything that goes bump in the night. The game is an online shooter like previous titles Valve has produced such as team fortress two and day of defeat. Though that's about where the similarities part ways. Left 4 dead is implementing some new features that I hope will become the new standard we will begin to see in new upcoming shooter titles.

The one that pops into mind first is that the game tracks how well you are doing and scales up or down. This I see is a huge bonus. Another really big bonus I saw while playing is when you get separated you will see a blue outline of the rest of your group, so they are always easy to find. Trust me this is a game that will punish you hard you want to be that lone maverick that saves the day. More times then not you will just piss off every zombie in the zone and bring them all home to roost and rape you and your friends.

Now one thing I'm not to fond of and this is because if you are like me you may be used to doing the "spy check" as the pyro; or you could be used to the blind fire in D.O.D. In Left 4 Dead this is a huge problem. The game will always have friendly fire on so you will have to become a very good twitch precision shooter. So with that said my hope is since friendly fire will always be on gamers will see this more a challenge worth conquering then as a leper that must be shunned.

One thing that should be noted is that Zombies is this game really want you dead. I know that statement may seem redundant but it's true. I have little doubt that you haven't heard about in the new resident evil about and how the zombies will look roud and climb to get you. OK good now that you have smart zombies on the brain add the speed and desire to kill of the zombies of 28 days/weeks later. Now multiply by their weight in crack. Once you have done this very simple math problem you'll start to get the idea of what you are up against. Let's just hope you end up with a good group. To fight this undead Horde.

Some more good news is the system requirements. It has been said that if you an run Orange Box you can play Left 4 Dead.

The Pirate Bay hits a new record again

2008-04-25T07:59:00.000-07:00

Over at torrent freak they are reporting that the overly famous Pirate Bay has reached a new milestone. In 2008 the Pirate Bay has reach 12 million seeders, a first in any torrent community. That means even with the fear of fines and jail time depending on the country you live in; that the raw desire to spread information is out shining any fear of repercussion.

Now the really amazing thing about this it used to be a great thing if a site could get even near 30 percent seeders. The pirate Bay this year is closing in on doubling that. The Pirate Bay is at 50 percent at the time of this rant.

Though that doesn't appear to be enough for them. The new goal is for anyone in using the service to tell a friend or two. By the end of the year their goal is to reach 20 million seeders. I would say this was a lofty goal to say the least but with the startling gains over last couple year I would not be surprised to be eating crow by the end of the year.

No matter what happens The Pirate Bay doesn't seem to be going anywhere anytime soon.

Blizzard pwns Boll

2008-04-21T20:25:00.000-07:00

It turns out "famed" director Uwe Boll had his sights set on Azeroth. Luckily for all of us Blizzard is not a stupid company, the reports say Uwe was laughed out of the meeting. To be honest I don't know what he expected. The man has yet to make a remotely watchable movie from what I have been told and have read.

For those of you like me who are not to familiar with Mr. Bolls work, here is a short clip of his "art." I am all for art in any form but; I don't think this really hits the mark. It's not thought provoking, it's not really trying to push a worth while idea, and lastly it seems poorly written.

All in all WOW may never get a great film adaption. Let's be honest dose everything we like have to be put to film? WOW is such a epic and yet personal experience that film may not be able to meet all of our expatiation's.

Wii's poors sales

2008-04-21T15:41:00.000-07:00

I know you have read all about how no one has the wii and it's one of the best selling systems of all time. Yet we could see this all coming from a mile away, Nintendo has some of the most accessible charters of all time. I mean who doesn't like at least one of the Nintendo franchises?

No one can argue that Nintendo hit a major home run in the cheap hardware department. Though take a look around online. You see bundles a wide as the net, this isn't because Nintendo is requiring it. The Wii sell wells enough by itself.

The issue a lot of retailers are coming across, and Nintendo as well is that no one really new what "casual" gamers would do. Now we seem to know. The NY times has a story just about this question. It seems that "casual" gamers have yet or will never get bored with the free sports disc. Now Nintendo has sold other software; but no where near the xbox360 or that of the PS3.

So the question has seemed to be answered for the moment. Maybe when you build a game system, sticking with the base is the best thing to do; and let the gamers bring in their friends and families into gaming so games can continue to push artistic freedom and imagination.

Funcom shooting CE people in the foot.

2008-04-18T18:10:00.000-07:00

First off don't get me wrong, I am looking very forward to AOC, I have heard many good things like, "this game will rule our lives." Granted this may sound over the top but I was told this by a MMO veteran.

So I was linked to a story that AOC will know give the drinking cape to all that have been new subscribers. The drinking cape!? I couldn't believe this, this along with the early access going to cost you a extra five bucks, on top of a dwindling exclusive package. For anyone who likes to role plays a cape that lets you drink anywhere in the world for free would have been awesome.

Think about you could easily have come up with hundreds of ways in which you either have saved the world and the only thanks you wanted was free drinks everywhere in it forever. (Which would be pretty sweet, think about the money saved.) To how you saved towns or even a bar keeps wife or daughter from a band of thieves; or rival god.

Granted I do not know how many people will really role play in Age Of Conan, granted I am not a RP'er; yet I am annoyed for all of those people who spent ninety dollars to have a complete Conan experience to only have it be chipped anyway to those of who spent almost half.

ESRB has sights on DLC

2008-04-17T15:22:00.000-07:00

The great guys and girls over at 1up have a interesting write up on how the ESRB wants to tackle down loadable content. It's no secrete that companies are shipping games that are not fully done. I not sure they are so much trying to sneak things under the ratings so as they are being lazy. Granted this is nothing new. PC games having been doing this for a while now.

Now what I think is interesting is; on the movie side when companies either put in a different ending or add back some deleted scenes the movie just becomes NR. Or the scenes are NR. So the question begs what makes a movie different from a game? Granted obvious differences asides they are both art forms. Granted this is they same with books, I don't see the huge censorship out cry.

So what makes them different? I don't think as for a art form there is a major difference. I think this is very complicated subject we have all heard the scapegoat answer; it's all in the protection of children. Though I think the issue gose much deeper than digital nudity and blood.

I think a lot of people are scared of new things. If you think about it, video games have not been around very long. A lot of the people who are most worried about them never grew up with them, so I think they fear where this could go.

Yet I think a greater number know out of all the things to protect your children from video games rank pretty low. This being you're a parent that pays attention to the world at large. So in one sense I don't blame them for throwing a fit. I mean video games, movies, books and music is all they can do to protect their kids form some untold danger. I think it gives them a sense of accomplishment and worth.

Yet I am not their kid, and no one has the right to limit art.

funcoms stone bleeding

2008-04-17T10:27:00.000-07:00

I will first say that the price for the collectors edition of Age of Conan is pretty steep until you learn what you get. Any game that let your charter get drunk for free, though out the world forever isn't to bad. Plus if you are or are going to role play be "famous" enough to get free drinks for a lifetime is not a bad thing.

Though the thing that annoys me out of the collectors edition is the early access key. Don't get me wrong I think that part is cool and should come with the pre-order. What I don't like is that you have to pay to use the code. Really I mean after you either spend fifty or ninety dollars you have to give funcom five more bucks to play. So assuming you don't live in Oregon or another state that doesn't have sales tax ; to play Age of Conan to its fullest you will spend well over one hundred bucks. Look I am really looking forward to this game. Hell I do live in Oregon and I did get the collectors version, but even I'm thinking twice about handing over five more bucks.

The over thing I do not like about this is seems like they are trying to mix Koreas micro transactions with the Wests monthly subscription. I really hope this is the only thing they do to annoy me and you. I would hate to see this be a pre-cursor to a long and annoying trend to kill a great world before it even rises to it's feet.

Ooh, Ooh a girl is playing the Wii

2008-04-15T18:59:00.000-07:00

In what could only be described as some of the most poorly executed ideas to get to gamers I have seen in a while. On YouTube.com you can see a preview to a show called Girls Play Wii
The show is of course not safe for work.

The clip starts off with a fairly attractive women throwing one of the most poorly acted fits I have seen in a great while. You'll notice that the voice track has been disabled, so you can't hear whatever she seems to be complaining about. Though do not despair the lovely ladies voice has been replaced with incredibly generic rock.

By her actions I could only assume she is waking up from a hang over. So over course the only thing to do is play the Wii. I didn't know this but it seems that the only way to play Wii bowling well is to strip down to your underwear. I have to admit I did like the fact that they used the Mario star fade when she went from being drunk to playing the Wii.

In all honesty I hope we can show potential upstart sites like this that yes most of us do like pretty women, but we do not need them playing a video game to get our interest. That just looks and is stupid.

Android coming to life

2008-04-15T17:33:00.000-07:00

Yesterday a press conference was held on Google's new venture, the Android. Granted this is far from the first Linux based phone; though it could be the one to brake so thoroughly into the general public.

I think it's a smart move. If Google wants nothing else it wants the biggest piece of the phone pie. So that's why we have seen a few different models online. I have seen phones like the IPhone and The Blackberry to more end user general public phones designs. I think this is a incrediblyGoogles part. I never understood why if you can why just release a premium version of your product. Chances are more people will buy the sturdy work horse of the expensive fancy version.

To say they would like to go after Apple IPhone I think is pretty obvious, but I think is wrong. If you look at the numbers the IPhone overall has not been this huge success. I have heard from many people about how they all have jail broken phones, and when you look at the numbers AT&T doesn't make a ton of money when you go online.

Sorry about that I'll get back to the news at hand. One of the great things that Google had done was release the code to the general public a while back. I liked the fact that they could begin real world testing on it so soon. I just hope with all this real world testing that they have been doing, Android will be able to integrate with the average end user like myself. For the complete text story you can check it out over at arstechnica.com

MMO's for Mac?

2008-04-14T15:20:00.000-07:00

The awesome guys and girls over at massively.com have posted something real cool. They are letting us all know about who still loves the Apple. I was amazed after reading it more than just a couple companies are bringing social gaming to other eight percent.

Granted we all know World of Warcraft is on the mac, but it's a common fat that Blizzard has and will always make games for Apple. What's great about WOW being on the mac is the low system requirements. Since the only macs that have dedicated graphics cards are the mac pros and macbook pros.

of all time EVE is on the mac. From what I have been reading about EVE online and heard from a friend who has played the game is; it's not for the weekend gamer. It's also a huge money drain, if you want to learn something The great thing is it's not just medieval MMO's, one of the most popular space themed MMO'spractice it, in real time.

Dead Fantasy the movies

2008-04-12T10:11:00.000-07:00

So how many of you have ever wondered if different characters form different series could in fact kick each others ass? Granted that is a stupid question, why, because of course you have. I bet even had discussions with friends who could kick whom ass Well at gamedaily.com you can watch some of the Final Fantasy girls vs the Dead or Alive girls.

Granted this video has been online for a few months now but has not always been the easiest find. So I am hoping for a few of you this is a new and exciting video. The fist one is only about three minutes but the second one is a little over ten. The quality is jaw dropping, the motions are smooth as they are beautiful.

With two videos down I am eagerly waiting for the third film. If the jump is nearly as large as the first to the second, the final one will be epic, that and about twenty minutes in length. In each installment you get to see at least one new fighter. the Second one had the dramatic entrance of Tifa from FFVII along with Rino Hearilly.

So I ahve high hopes for the third installment. My hopes are that my favorite Final Fantasy girl will make a startling appearance. I'll just have to cross my fingers and hope. I really do recommend that if you have about thirty minutes to spare you will check this out. I honestly think that it will not be timed wasted.

Metal Gear bundle comes to Amcerica

2008-04-11T14:23:00.000-07:00

I have jut read from Ps3fanboy that the highly anticipated Metal Gear solid 4: Guns Of The Patriots bundle will be coming to the U.S. markets. It has already sold out in Japan and most likely do the same in the U.S.

the bundle it self is a new color, the Ps3 will ship with the gun metal gray and will come with the new rumble three controller. It will also be sporting limited edition Guns Of The Patriots. The Bundle itself form what I have been able to dig up is predicted to run for $499 . If what happened in Japan is any indication of what is in store for the U.S. market this will go ridiculously fast. As it is they have sold out of all the pre-orders in the entire country. So if you are fan of the Metal Gear series I would recommend that you stop reading this right now and run to a Gamestop, or EB games and put some hard earned cash down right now.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Metal gear world, from what I have read up on there be cut scenes during the game from all of the other Metal Gear games. This will also include the portable ops for the Psp. The game takes place in 2014 five years after Metal Gear Solid 2. In this world the Military has had most of non interference restrictions lifted. This has lead to the rise of privet contractors. The main privet contractors are owned by a umbrella company called Outer Haven. Which in turn is being run by a man with the name of Liquid Ocelot.

A cool little tidbit of news is that this will be the first game to make full use of all fifty gigs of blu-ray disc. Granted this is not life changing news but I thought it was cool little fact. In North America Gamestop is announcing that the collectors edition will come in a metal tin with a limited edition box art, a second Blu-ray disc that has containing documentaries and interviews. It will also have a four chapter comic. You will receive all of this plus a soundtrack disc. The great thin about the soundtrack is the score is done by Harry Gregson and Nobuko Toda who did the music for the Metal Gear Acid games.
So with all this said I think Snake is getting the royal send off it style.

Red Alert 3 crazier than ever

2008-04-10T13:25:00.000-07:00

So with all the R.T.S games coming out, one more is biding for your hard earned coin. It seems after seven years Red Alert will role out a new game. Though one of the cool things is if you purchase Command and Conquer :3 Kane's Wrath, you got a special code to get in the beta. But you will have to do this before September fifteenth or else the code will no longer work.

One of the things that I have loved about the Red Alert series is the what if. Though I doubt I was the only person to think before the game had come out, what if someone had killed Hitler before he could do all the untold amount of damage that he did. What turned out was a super slick and sweet R.T.S. game. With some really fantastic straight forward game play.

Now with the new game they are going with, what if all those crazy experiments in the seventies worked out? Just to name a few are the time travel, teleportation, invisibility, and the good old Tesla technology, that with all the weird training of dolphins and killer bears to name just a few. So they say this is just a taste of the over one hundred new toys to make.

Now with all that you would think that's all they would need to do. Yet the Red Alert crew has gone and added a new faction. That's right in the next Red Alert game you will be able to play as our friends in the land of the rising sun. I'm hoping the Japanese units will be able do some cool things with the floating fortress.

With all this I am confident that Red Alert Three will be well worth the coin it will cost. Plus with the limited time we will all have for R.T.S. this year I think this game will definitely shine in a already great year for the R.T.S. genre.

Warhammer Getting to Know the Zones

2008-04-10T07:32:00.000-07:00

A new video came out yesterday that I thought you all would like to see. It shows some of the areas of the world. Granted I'm not to sure where they all are, but from the podcasts I can guess that the giant that you see is the one that Paul talked about getting drunk and blowing a hole in the Dwarfs castle.

Yet the nice thing I saw was the overview you got. You got to see a hint of some of the Destruction and Order zones. You got a clear view of some of the Dwarf zones, and I could only guess a saw few of the Chaos. Either way it was a nice pan of the zones in which we did get to see.

I have to admit the world is coming along nicely. Plus from watching the video you could see they seemed to have hit the mark in portraying it as a war torn world. The evidence is there in the broken pillars and dilapidated castles constant battles by players and NPC's.

Though the important thing is that it shows the game in it's current state. Which isn't bad as I have been reading it is in. Though I am glad that they are taking their time. I would rather wait another few months and have a great game instead of a good game. Well that ad it gives me a chance to beef up my system.

Alan Wake the game Remedy forgot?

2008-04-08T20:41:00.000-07:00

I know what you are thinking. Alan Wake.... Alan Wake, hmm why does it sound familiar? Well it could be, if you where like me. It was the reason why you wanted a 360 two damn years ago! For those of you who don't remember, Alan Wake was one of the first games that where shown to us when Microsoft was trying to convince us to pick up the system.

Today I am happy to say after wondering online for a few hours I have found a few good reads. On is on what you will need to play the game on Vista, the short is a quad core system will run the game up to thirty percent better than on a 360. Here is the link to get all the interesting news.

Some other promising news is that the "blackout" will hopefully end soon. That is the official word from the Alan Wake site. The last little tidbit I was able to find out was just a rumor that Tokyo would get the first real look at the game. Being at the Tokyo game show in September.

No matter what happens I will still be looking forward to the game, just I like everyone else. My only fear is how well did Remedy use their two plus years making what could be one of the most anticipated games on the xbox360.