I should have known. You dirty little bastards I gave you the benefit of the doubt with Turning point: Fall of Liberty and you burned me. You mother fuckers thats two strikes on my shitlist. Spark Unlimited how could you take two good ideas and make abysmal games out of them. First the alternative timeline history in the aforementioned game and now... well now you somehow managed to scew up a shooter where you fight werewolves. HOW DO YOU FUCK THAT UP. Werwolves + Guns = hot damn. Not anymore now it equals shit. Such a massive failing by the way that as a fan of werewolves I demand a written apology. Actually you know what I am in a good mood I will write the apology for you and you can just sign it.
Dear Dale,
We are complete idiots. We are sorry we tried to make a game. We are sorry you cannot continue to play our game because the controls are so unresponsive you think your controller is being beligerant with you. We are complete tools we took something as awesome as lycanthrope and made it lame. That in itself is a world record feat on our behalf. We have no dicks and we are extremely feminite and like dance dance revolution and people that dress as anime characters.
Yours shittily
Those fags that suck at games.
Alright, Alright I admit that might be a bit harsh. Maybe I jumped the suck gun and probably shouldn't have used the word fag. I mean really they don't like other people of the same sex just other games that suck. If Turning point and Legendary were attracted to each other they would be Homosuxuals. Ok Ok I am going to try to illicit some constructive criticism. Someone once told me about criticism sandwiches. This is where you start with a compliment then a criticism and then another compliment. The end result is the person gets to lie to themselves that they are not a complete failure at life because you said two nice things about them instead of just all bad shit. Lets put this theory to practice on Spark Unlimited.
Good - The music in your game is actually awesome. The mix of sirens and wailing screeling ambient guitar is a boner inducing soundtrack to shooting people.
Bad - It's just to bad that in order to shoot people you actually have to touch the controller and deal with your molases themed interface. Remember that commercial for arthritis where the old ladies knitting needles are covered in barbwire because it hurts so much for her to knit cause her hands are old and all seized up. Well thats what my controller is when I play legendary. It hurts me. It hurts my whole body trying to move the aimer thinger jinger onto your ugly monsters is harder than doing pushups.
Good - Your game is good I guess because it's so much work to actually control that little fat kids everywhere will loose weight.
See that was one complete criticism sandwhich. I feel better because I got my feelings out and now those no minds over at Spark Unlimited can feel a touch more than useless tools. Lets do another
Good - Theres werewolves in your game
Bad - These werewolves are fucking ugly and stupid looking. The look like that Sumatran rat monkey think from Dead Alive. 
I'm not even going to tell you which is which. You will just have to figure it out if you can. Actually every character in this game is fucking ugly. The humans are all wierd proportioned and move dumb. The other bad guys are simple and look like they are shiny. Maybe get a new renderer.
Good - Did I mention the music was good
Alright thats the end of criticism sandwhich time because I can't think of anything else to good to say about this game. Its a flying lump of turd. If you are hellbent on playing this game though I encourage you too. It will be like when baseball players are on deck and swinging a bat around with a weight on it so its harder than a regular bat and then when they step up to the plate they have more control over their swing. Play this game and then play a real shooter and you will probably be better at it.
Legendary suck
Darksiders
Ok i know we are used to being pretty critical of games until we have done some investigating. I mean we never want to get caught up in hype and expectations because it usually just ends in broken dreams and tears. So this is especially bad because it goes against my better judgement. I didn't learn my lesson from how good Asassin's Creed looked and how shitty it delivered apparently because I am telling you that I will be buying one game based on a trailer. The Darksiders trailer from E3 is the best trailer I have ever seen for a video game. I know its most likely not gameplay and its just a cgi or fmv or whatever its called when shit looks really good but then the game turns out it isn't. I will be buying Darksiders: Wrath of War because of this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phe2x4CytYE&feature=related
I mean (insert every known curseword) seriously I have never been so jacked at anything in my entire life as this game.
Once when I was 8 years old charlie and the chocolate factory (the old one) was going to be on TV and me and my brother went fucking metal and were running around the house screaming like girls. I knocked over a vase full of dirty plant water in my fervor and was sternly told that I would no longer be allowed to watch the show because I had misbehaved. I cried harder than anything even my sister pleaded with my parents to let me watch Charlie and the Chocolate factory because even though I was so bad this was such a monument of delight to hold it from me would be an act of cruelty.
I want to play this game now more than I wanted to watch Charlie and the Chocolate factory when I was 8.
Side note even though i have a hard on for anything Gene Wilder and his comic genius Johnny depp was such a good wonka it gives me body lightning.
Left 4 Dead
Played Left 4 Dead campaign mode in the 4-player co-op mode, hilarious and so intense. Player reactions quickly become a series of frantic yells. Here are a list of the top 5 things I found myself screaming over and over again as we finished the first two levels.
1. AHHHHHH!!
2. TONGUE!!
3. HUNTER!!
4. Tank! Tank!! TANK AHHHH AHHHHHHH
5. WHY ARE WE ON FIRE!?!
Get a new tv for your set up
Now that so many games are out you might want to finally upgrade your tv. I for one am seriously thinking about this since its damn near impossible to read much of anything on ole gigantor we have in our living room. It might have been why I noticed the next ad at work the other day.
699 is a pretty good deal especially when you get a venereal diseased vcr for FREE
New voice of batman
Usually I don't care that much about Batman. It seems everytime you bring up the subject everyone needs to whip their dick out and twirl it around and tell you about their favorite batman and why and blah blah blah. Although there is one development that is pretty fucking amazing the voice of batman in the animated series is this guy 
fuck they should just destroy that stupid robot thing that is playing batman in the movies right now and make this guy batman. Then maybe at least one person can actually remember that the movie was supposed to be about batman and there were other people in it besides the joker.
Too many fucking games aaaaaand Game of the Year?
By Dale
Well we are midway through November and that means games. Lots of Games. Giant fucking mountains dumping delicious gold on your head games. Its a little overwhelming the grade a quality that is being released right now. In time for the holiday season there is a list of A - list material that quite frankly gives me a chubby. I'll just run through what I have been playing lately and give you my impression of the game.
COD World at War (beta) - I was going to skip this game all together. I mean I have played the absolute shit out of the COD 4 so I didn't really think I needed more of something similar. I was wrong. This game is awesome. I was only able to play a few levels but my impressions of the over all game are pretty dern good indeed. The graphics are more detailed and realistic than the past and the broken train yard level is tits out awesome times. With the better graphics though there is one problem that I never knew would bug me. The levels seem a bit too busy and cluttered. I understand that this doesn't seem like a bad thing but more often than not by the time I took it all in some jag ass had stepped up and stabbed me from behind.
On the other hand one of the things that I thought would be a detriment actually wasn't. I thought that the weapons would just be low tech garbage full of recoil and un fun times. I was wrong the replacing of air strike and helicopter with mortar strikes and attack dogs is pretty spectacular. The sound alone is a definite tension builder the ghostly wailing of incoming shells and the snarling and barking of distant beasts is terrifying and gives you nothing but feelings of impending doom. I passed on buying this and decided to try out Quantum of Solace instead but there is a part of me that yearns for the flame thrower that I still need to use.
While I'm on it lets just jump into bond.
Quantum of Solace - First off this is not the best game since Golden Eye because anyone who is going to pretend that Agent Under Fire was not better than Golden Eye is a vicious ignorant savage that I immediately want to swear about for 10 years. Also Rogue Agent is also better than Golden Eye so its even more of a moot point. What isn't a moot point though is how good the juggernaut 007 family has actually become. This title holds its own against its gigantic lineage. The multi player weapon customization mode is awesome. I actually enjoy saving up money to unlock gadgets sights and guns alot more than unlocking them by leveling up because you can get what you want sooner. This game is on the same engine as COD 4 and COD World at War and is actually developed by Treyarch the name responsible for COD WAW. It begs you to question though with two very big titles being realeased within two weeks of each other under the same roof did one suffer? Did they maybe forgo some attention in Bond in favor of maximizing COD well maybe. The character skins are a little week and I was ever so hoping I could be Baron Samedy instead of that tool in a bike helmet. I do admit the cover system that I grew to detest in Gears of War is very lovely in this title and the sticking to walls to peer around corners is well not too sticky like it is in gears of war. The transition from first person to third person is actually quite painless as one might think. I mentioned before that the levels in COD WAW were to cluttered and a bit confusing and that is not the case here Its the perfect blend of detail and simplicity and the rooftop map is quite delicious. Now if only all the lamerz on the internet would stop using shot guns we would be getting somewhere. 
Fable II - Well it's more of the great fable goodness that you grew and loved in the first one. Buuut since you can do most of the customization that made the first one such a shit hot deal in other games its not as mind bending or pants shitting. Although this game is very good I found myself not really able to get to into it. I think the main problem with this game is its too fucking easy. You never really have to try. Whether your pissing around in the world buying houses or bar tending to make over 100,000 in one go (yeah it happened) or whether you are spelunking in the caves to fill up some flask with magic special water to plant some acorn of life to bless crops the game just feels like one big sleep walk. You might call it hand holding or kiddie but I really felt the game would offer me no challenge and that if I kept playing it I would just make my way through it. Since I have been playing so many RPG's lately it might have made my palate a little too rich for this sort of thing buut after about 10 hours I traded this game in.
WoW - It's still the same game and I am still playing it. It's enjoyable but not to the extreme a perfectly commendable waste of time. I have no played Wraith of the Litch King actually I have not even played Burning Crusade yet because my Orc Warrior is only level 45. I did finally get a full set of plate mail. I also made some macros that make my guy dance and sing the lyrics from that old MC Hammer cartoon.
As Far as game of the year is concerned I do not think it is Fallout 3, I do not think it is Fable 2 actually I don't think it is Gears of War 2. I would like to remind everyone that a certain game came out in the past that has swallowed hours and hours of my passion and its definitly not Grand Theft Auto 4. Actually it's exactly what GTA4 was not. Its that beautiful driving game built on the Criterion engine. Its updates and Downloadable Content were free unlike many of the paid map packs and goodies other titles welched you of your hard earned dollars with. I am talking about Mother Fucking Burnout Paradise City. It came out last January but with the bikes pack and the upcoming Island pack it managed to stay awesome and current. This is my vote for game of the year. Even though EA is fallen from grace in my eyes with the Spore debacle and the fact that there is no Warhammer demo and I don't really agree with the way they handle pretty much anything they did good here. Even though their threat of banning people from games as well as their online forums is egregious burnout gives me a boner. Even though their press release telling people to guess the last digit of their cd code was something out of bizzaro land I still think that Burnout is better than boobies.
F-ZERO to F-HERO: A list on Friday (supposed to be out sometime in August)
We've been playing some serious burnout lately, jumping through planes flying off cliffs, taken eachother out and basically just fucking around way to late to be "effective" the next day at work. Theres one thing thats integral to the burnout franchise that is not as obvious as crashing and thats music. While playing we were thinking how great it would be have a personalized play list that we could call up and drive around the city with. Here is what we came up with.
Dale:
1. Operation ground and pound - Dragon Force
2. Steam Machine - Daft Punk
3. Like a White Bat in a Box, Dead Matters Go On - Melt Banana
4. Black Is The Color - Nina Simone
5. Jesus built my hotrod - Ministry
6. Art Star - Yeah Yeah Yeahs
7. Ping Island rescue op - Mark Mothersbaugh
8. So Haunted - Cut Copy
9. Ride the Sky - Lightning Bolts
10. My friend Dario - Vitallic
11. Nitrous Burnout - Man or Astroman
12. Here Comes The Hammer - MC Hammer
(Note from Mike: Dale, I have only even HEARD of three of your songs.)
"Holy shit this new car driving around is awesome I gotta take that shit out. If this new car is a stunt car I will shit in my hand"
-dale
In the two months since I wrote my half of this post mike never did so I am posting mine.
How the WoW Patch is like an NHL game
There are many great things about WoW, but one of the best is how they constantly release new content to keep everything new. Granted, this balances out with paying monthly fees, but it's still pretty awesome.
Case in point, the latest patch that was released ON MY BIRTHDAY. Now, most patches for games do things like:
• fix bugs
• fix a monster that is 100x harder then it was designed to be
• fix your fireball spell that instead of shooting fireballs kills you dead
This is what most patches are. Game fixes. However WoW patches are insane. They release new areas, new monsters, new items...they release more in patches then some games do in entire expansions. Because hardly anyone I know plays WoW I will explain it in terms as if you were at a home game for your favorite NHL team.
1. You're at the game and before it starts, they tell you the power will go out after the first period and it will be down for an hour. (WoW was down for a day while they updated and after we had to download a massive 2.5gb patch.)
2. The lights come back on, and the hockey game starts up again. You notice all the jerseys got overhauled and look better now. (WoW graphics got tuned up noticeably.)
3. In addition to being able to skate, shoot, pass, hit, and fight, the players are now able to turn back time. (After years of having a set number of professions such as blacksmithing, enchanting, alchemy, Blizzard introduced a new one called Inscription which is changing the entire game. It is like Diablo's gem-slotting system, but for actual abilities instead of gear.)
4. Whenever someone does a drop pass, their team gets a bonus penalty shot. (Blizzard made some of the old professions grant special bonuses, like extra health or an improved critical hit chance.)
5. You know that 4th line scrub on your favorite team that plays approximately 13 seconds a game? Yeah he got traded. For Alexander Ovechkin. And every other player on your team also skates harder and shoots faster. (Every class got huge power/enjoyment boosts, and Dale and Shaun's favorite class - the Paladin - went from being one of the weakest classes to one of the best.)
6. Speaking of players, you know the prima donna player on your team who is really good but gets in trouble off the ice, complains all the time, and causes fights in the dressing room? Well, he's had a change of heart and is now a perfect teammate, took a pay cut to help the team, donates huge amounts of money to charity, and offered to paint your house. (The Hunter class gets an animal pet/companion who fights with you, but before it was pretty flawed - you had to keep feeding the pet to increase its happiness, capture other animals to learn special pet skills, and not all pets were equally good. But now, the happiness system is gone, all pets already come with their skills, and each of the different pet types are all good. PLUS, they added more tame-able pets. PLUS!!! they gave each type of pet their own special skill tree to customize. It's insanely awesome.)
7. Earlier you bought a hot dog, but now you wish you had gotten some nachos instead. Well, turns out the arena now lets you pay like a buck to switch! And to top it off, when you're choosing your new selection, you also see new things on the menu that weren't available before, like an ice cream sundae! (There is now a barber shop where you can change the appearance choices you made when making your character, and you can also select hairstyles that are not available at the character creation screen.)
8. During the game, fans start doing the Wave. You take part, and a nearby security guard hands you a little souvenir pin. Later on, you buy a game program and receive a second pin. Curious, you ask the program seller and discover that now when you do certain things at the game, you'll receive these useless but fun pins. (WoW took a page out of the XBOX 360's book and introduced Achievements, with many of them being retroactive. At current count there are over 900 TO GET.)
9. Last week, your team announced that during the playoffs, every fan in attendance would receive a free ice cream sandwich each game. Well, it's still the regular season, but now the team has decided to start their free ice cream promotion early, and everyone gets free frozen treats! (In the WoW expansion coming mid-November, the level cap is being raised from 70 to 80, which means new higher-level skills will be available. Blizzard decided to make these higher-level skills available now, for free!)
10. If you smoke or have to leave the arena in the middle of the game for whatever reason, you used to have to keep and show your ticket stub to get back in. But now, the security guards memorize your face, and when you come back, you can just freely re-enter the building. (Riding mounts and pets used summoned from items, which meant you had to keep them in your inventory, taking up a bag space. But now they become spells, meaning no item, meaning no unnecessary bag clutter.)
RPG's and infinite Undiscovery
As you may have heard I have been playing WOW lately and as you also may have heard it is a very big time consumer of an action RPG. So I have been weighing with the options of giving up on RPG's right now and moving onto another genre maybe that new Horror Survival game Dead Space. But really can it even compare to how amazing Bloodshot 2 was really.... because that shit was amazing. Well maybe I don't know. I really wanted to try Infinite Undiscovery about 2 months ago but now that it's actually out am I still feeling it? The characters look a little kiddie and I am kind of over leveling up guys and shit. Well I guess I should at least do some research and see what the game looks like. So on Xbox.com they have some screen shots of the game and they are not entirely thrilling EXCEPT THIS ONE.
Ok... shit ok thats awesome i have to play this game now based on this screen shot alone. THAT IS THE HAPPIEST FUCKING BEAR I HAVE EVER SEEN. AND YOU RIDE IT. AND ITS IN YOUR PARTY. AND IT HAS A HORN. AND IT HAS JEWELRY. AND YOUR MAKING THE OTHER CHARACTER WALK BEHIND YOU IN THE DISTANCE. THATS THE HAPPIEST BEAR EVER. THAT BEARS SMILE JUST FILLS ME WITH JOY WITH THE FEELING THAT EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE ALLRIGHT. That was all in caps because I was actually screaming that when I first saw the picture. Ask mike he was there
Indesign has crashed and your fucked
Oh great now my indesign desides to poop out and I lost all my work.
"A crash report has been generated. To provide us with the best chance of fixing this problem, please select Continue to add a detailed description that includes the steps required to reproduce the crash.
Adobe will use this crash report to help find a future solution to this problem."
OH lovely I can tell them exactly what happened and they can fix it.
"I tried to save :|"
waiting for wow patch
Well we're sitting around Mike's house waiting for his shitty internet to let the newest Wow patch trickle through. Besides cursing our non hakerz abilities and being outsmarted by whatever firewall is making Mike's "dial-up" make me wait to play the delicious game I am actually starting to wonder what I did before wow.
Wow is already ruining my life as you probably guessed by the fact that I am sitting around waiting for it to download. I could play xbox I guess but since it has been about 2 months since I got a new game that is very unappealing. Looking at internet dating sites (which i guess could be considered a time churner) is also out but for different reasons. It's depressing. Apparently no one wants to have sex with me. Worse yet they aren't even pretending they do. At least give me that build up with no follow through even that is better than an empty in box. It gives me the fear that my virility has withered and wasted away.
Back to more important matters--namely why I am waiting for the wow patch. I guess I am officially one of "those weirdo gamers" we all pretend we aren't. I am pretty stoked for the patch because they made the Paladin a way better class. Apparently everyone in the world hates the paladin besides me so Blizzard decided to juice that particular class a bit by making even more badass. They increased the healing spells a bit but most importantly they made the Judgment spell so that it doesn't break your seal which is a pretty fucking big deal in baseball town. Also the seals last 2 min instead of 20 seconds so its actually worth your time to use them besides the fact you can throw as many hammers as your little hearts content.
On a side note the other day mike glitched on the deep way tram or whatever its called between the human and dwarf cities and he got booted. When he tried to sign in again he kept getting booted. I decided to do what anyone in my position would feel compelled to do.... Kill rats.
I killed 35 with my cleaver but then got bored and switched to punching them and when i got bored of that i switched back to the cleaver by the time mike got back i had killed 63 rats.
so i started playing wow
Yeah its ruining my life. Its true when you hear about people talking about wow and you look sideways at them with disdain. I'm not going to tell you to stop doing that because really i am not trying to defend or condemn wow. Were all sick of that anywaw. I mean the game has been out for about 5 years and that has given everyone enough chance to fully cement their opinion of it and feel the need to share that opinion.
My opinion of the game is it is just like other action rpg games. Its all the regular stuff you would expect from one of those its just really really really really fucking long.I've been playing for about a week now roughly 18 hours and my highest level guy is 15. Yeah my highest level because as if the game isn't long enough you feel compelled to go through it with multiple characters. So you can try out all the stuff you can do in the game.
What this turns into basically is fetch quests... go here kill this bring me that. Its pretty annoying and if i hear "bring me so and so's head" I might have a redundancy stroke.
But the game does have its fun factors. It is an action rpg and to me thats really all it needs to be and if I get bored of running around going to a lake and killing murlocs to gather crystal pond frons well then i can just go fuck around.
Like making a macro to say this because my weapon is a shovel.
Scramble
After literally MONTHS of trying to beat Dustin at Facebook Scramble, I have succeeded. The funny thing is I just today had a conversation with Dale about how when I finally beat Dustin it would be the beginning of my reign as champion of Everything. And unlike Dale's month-long Movember bliss, mine would last an eternity. (or until someone beats my score.)
I think I might take tomorrow off work to celebrate!
horse the band is your new bff
You should all listen to horse the band. The are a rad metal band that has many songs about video games. Their older album "The Mechanical Hand" has songs about being frustrated playing mega-man call cutsman. Also Bird-o will change the way you view the mario universe. I never pick anyone but birdo in mario party now just because this song endured me to that pink fat but awesomeness
illustrator sucks
[14:37] dalebot 5317: dear illustrator
using your program is awesome i feel like a hacker because i have to trick your program into doing what i want
[14:38] mike @ work: hahaha
[14:40] dalebot 5317: seriously this is whats happening
[14:40] dalebot 5317: hey dale make these dots bigger
[14:40] dalebot 5317: sure why not how hard could that possibly be
[14:40] dalebot 5317: highlight dot drag corner hold shift?
guess shift doesn't work in illustrator
[14:41] dalebot 5317: highligh dot alt-apl->
[14:41] dalebot 5317: nope that doesn't work either
[14:41] dalebot 5317: shift-apple >
[14:41] dalebot 5317: nope that also doesn work wierd
[14:41] dalebot 5317: guess i will manuall have to change the height and width of each dot
[14:42] dalebot 5317: ok h=.16 w=.16 hit enter look at boxes and it says h=.1507 w=.1507
[14:42] dalebot 5317:
[14:43] dalebot 5317: but i hacked the system and when i put .17 it changes it to .1601
[14:43] dalebot 5317:
[14:43] dalebot 5317: i can just imagine what the hand book for illustrator says
chapter 1
go fuck yourself and eat shit you piece of shit mother fucker.
chapter 2
oh still here eh fuck off and die
chapter 3
we just drove to your house and ran over your mothers head
Too Human is Terrible (part 1)
=Early Thoughts= (originally written August 21)
Dale and I purchased Too Human yesterday. Actually that is incorrect, Dale purchased it about 2 or 3 months ago via pre-order and has been counting down the days and screaming at me about it every day since.
In case you don't know anything about it, it's an action-RPG co-op adventure game with tons of loot and insane gear upgrades. It's also got a storyline based on Nordic mythology (Baldur, Tyr, Freya, etc.) in a super-technological/robotic world. Kind of Diablo meets Mass Effect meets Beowulf. (It's actually had a lot of comparisons to Diablo 2, Champions of Norrath, Baldur's Gate, etc.)
We played it for about 8 hours last night and I have to say - I have no fucking idea what is going on. Not because the story is poor, or convoluted, or even poorly constructed. No, I am completely lost because we played it co-op multiplayer, and apparently in co-op there is no storyline. At all. Literally.
This astounds me. I've never seen anything like it. I cannot think of a single game that has a co-op campaign mode without the storyline. Halo 3, Champions of Norrath, Diablo 2, Army of Two, Kingdom Under Fire: Circle of Doom...all of their co-op campaign modes had the regular storyline. Granted, sometimes the NPCs would only acknowledge Player 1, while Player 2 had to stand there admiring the scenery or entertain themselves by jumping around in the background, but the storyline was still there.
But Too Human...you play through the same levels and everything as in the single player mode, but the designers actually removed all the cutscenes, dialogue, even the NPCs. There's no one to tell you why you are in this place, or why you are now in that place, or what the point of your quest is. There's nothing. It's just random, directionless fighting. I am utterly confused why they would lobotomize the co-op mode. They took what could have been (and in single player, still might be) a great, epic adventure and turned it into hours of mindless smashing robots and taking the swords and helmets they were carrying around.
(Now here is where you might say "Well what about games like Call of Duty 4? That multiplayer has no storyline! And you like that game so what the hell?" Well if you thought about it for a second you would realize that COD4 and similar games are VERSUS games, where the objective is quite simply to defeat other players. There is no storyline necessary - you are not playing through a campaign. Now shut up and keep reading about this horrible wasteland of a game.)
Let me describe to you how our game went. We started it up and were immediately in some metallic/stone cavern. No idea what it was, but hey, pretty soon some little golden robots showed up to smash! So we smashed them. We then just wandered around the place, smashing every robot we found, for about an hour.
Eventually we found a weird green glowing altar. We used it and teleported to a lush, healthy grove of trees and bushes, completely different than where we were. We also had no weapons. After a few minutes we got the ability to magically "push" things...but only in "cyberspace" which we figured was the plant realm we were in. We pushed open a door and it showed us a metal door opening back in the original world. I don't know why we couldn't have just thrown a switch instead of entering cyberspace, but maybe there will be a reason later? Seems kinda pointless though.
We finished the first level, after destroying a robot that punched us. Once again, I have no idea why it was punching us, or why we needed to destroy it, or why it enjoyed the act of punching, but we killed the would-be mechanical pugilist and finished Stage 1.
Before Stage 2, we got to choose to focus on either "human" or "cybernetic" which led to various differences in growth, though I was skeptical about how valuable these differences would be - the cybernetic got things like "better explosives" and "increased healing", while one of the human-side "benefits" was "highly customizable armor." :\
Stage 2 took us six hours. SIX HOURS OF DOING NOTHING BUT SMASHING ROBOTS. There are many things that are terrible about this fact.
We also entered cyberspace numerous times and pushed rocks or lifted trees or some other pointless crap, but since every one was exactly the same (enter cyberspace, use MAGICAL CYBERSPACE POWERS to do something - aka throw a switch - and then return to the real world.) I am trying to forget they ever happened.
At some point in stage 2 Dale's armor started flashing red. We deduced that this meant it was in need of repairs. After some menu searching and consultation of the instruction book, we learned that to repair our equipment we had to do this in "Tyr's Armory." This might have well said "on the purple fairy planet of Zygora" because we had no idea where Tyr's Armory was. So we continued on, Dale's legs and shoulders doing a wonderful imitation of a stop light, hoping to stumble across the famous Tyr's Armory.
Also during Stage 2, while distributing skill points after a level up I accidentally hit the shoulder button while in the skill tree screen and discovered that we had gotten an entirely NEW skill tree for Human/Cybernetic attributes. The game never mentioned the fact that we had received this second skill tree, and we had already leveled up about 5 times since we apparently unlocked it. Fortunately the game has a "skill reset" for a small amount of money which kept this from being a gamebreaker, but it was still extremely shoddy. Maybe in the single player game an NPC mentions this to you, who knows. But in co-op it was ridiculous.
After slaughtering hundreds of robots for hours and hours, we were shocked to see a human show up. He shouted something along the lines of "Fools! You thought that would work on me??" and started shooting us and laughing. Keep in mind we had not seen another human being in the game so far, let alone this guy. But we shrugged and chased him around and started fighting him. He also started using ruiners, which are the special "big explosion that kills everything around you" move that we could use. I didn't know why he could use them, but then again I didn't know why we could use them, so I guess it's a moot point. Anyways we killed him, no questions were answered, and we returned to the lobby.
We were ready to call it quits for the night, but we had noticed a "Return to Aesir" option in the pause menu that we hadn't used yet. So we started Stage 3 and selected it, and it brought us back to the pre-game lobby, which we then discovered we could run around and explore. Apparently the lobby is Aesir. No people, of course. It seems that we and the angry Stage 2 boss are the only human beings left in existence. We did however find a library with a bunch of computer monitors, each one with a different game tip (like how to use combos or how to air juggle).
We went down a hallway marked with crossed swords. Surely this was going to be the gear repair place? It was! We were overjoyed, and after figuring out that the robot arm by a workbench was the weapon shop, we repaired all our broken weapons as well as perused the weapons for sale and bought some snazzy new armaments.
You will notice that I said we repaired our weapons. Yes, we were not able to repair our armor there. So off we went again poking around the ghost town.
We got to the library again and Dale was reading some of the tips he hadn't read earlier. While I was waiting and walking around, I stepped on a circle in the center of the room and noticed the option to enter the shop. Yes, THIS was the mysterious Tyr's Armory. A circle. IN THE LIBRARY.
It was at this point that The Rage reached a boiling point within me, and after quickly repairing my armor I shut the game off before I threw it out the window in frustration.
I was all set to trade in the game the next day, but then Dale found out that the game is only 4 levels. So I guess I will endure it and see if it gets any better.
Too Human is Awesome
As you remember a couple of weeks ago I took my game geek status to a new level. I pre-ordered Too Human and lamented on how that pushed me over the edge from normal gamer to geek. Well it came and went. I got the game played the shit out of it and traded it in. This is a kind of misty eyed bookend nostalgia view of the game.
I played Too Human through twice. Once with mike as the commando on co-op multi and then once one single player with the defender. The game is rad. Rad rad rad. I loved every second of it but I do admit that there were some flaws.
The first giant flaw was there wasn't enough of it. there was only 4 levels and I played through them in 16 hours. When I finished I wasn't ready to quit I still wanted more. I wanted more gear, I wanted more ruiners most of all I wanted more of that delicious combat control style. Holding down the r trigger and pressing the right stick in which direction you want to shoot is such a natural ergonomic feeling way to shoot in this style of game that I am surprised shitty internet girls don't exploit it to become popular. I mean if something feels this good there has to be some way of bribing me into paying too much to watch it on a webcam. At the very least my seven hour game sessions were not marred by sore thumbs.
I know the lack of story and tutorials in co-op mode is a bit of a problem with mike. Actually it was a game killer problem for him so it might be of concern for some of you as well. I however played the single player mode as well so I got punched in the face with a million cut scenes and quit frankly got more than my fill of story. I still think It is a very cool idea for a game for the story to be optional like that. If you are choosing to play co-op with a friend you are choosing to forego the cut scene and total immersion style of the game. The ripped the narrative from your grasp and gave you nothing but lumps of glorious boner inducing combat.
One thing you must know is my opinion of trilogies is that usually in trilogies the first installment is wasted with boring introductions and too much character development and things don't get really fucking good untill the third installment. Think of how good the first lord of the rings would have been with out building your belief in that quasi homosexual hobbit bond and just cut to the epic battlescenes.
Nope too human didn't go there they took the delightful root of if you want to know more do research. There was a disclaimer on the Too Human website. They gave you a list of ways to prepare for the games launch. One item stated that if you wanted to know more about some of the characters you could read the norse mythology of which they are based on. It even had hot links to some very helpful stories.
I think the story was done perfectly it showed you characters told you their motivation and left it at that. Love it. There is nothing worse than video games that take a cliche character and ram it down your throat. Pretty much every fantasy character you can think of has been fully mapped in one media or another. I am very appreciative that this game didn't have the final fantasy disease. Oh look a new main character that is pretty much the same as the last one but guess what were are going to spend hours of cut scenes telling you what this character is about, GOODIE.
Don't get me wrong I pretend that I love story. I put in a modest effort and it takes me at least 4 hours of game-play to start skipping the story. On occasion though I will want to know more about the characters like their history and past feats and what really makes them tick. Thats what fucking wikipedia is for and not my valuable monster killing time.
I want to know more about a character I will go online and search their history. Like Dhalsim I recently went online and found out about his character. True it took me about 14 years to care enough to search it out but could you imagine how much street fighter would have suffered with hours of game-play being rededicated to character back story. It would have sucked then and it sucks now.
I want to move from that subject as me and mike have already argued the subject to death and I don't really want to re-live that with any of you... ever.
The best part of this game is the gear. Although my opinion might be swayed because I am a giant gear whore this game really hit the mark when it came to stuff. You pick up items by the ass load and although you do end up spending a lot of time in your inventory screen ever second of it is majestic. If it wasn't enough looking at comparing and juicing the stats on all the items you picked up you could also look at the blue prints you picked up of better items that you would have to pay to create. If after that point you still don't have a giant item erection you could just go back to "town" and shop for weapons armor and socket inserts and then jump right back into the story.
The look of the game is a mix of old norse mythology mixed with the classic fantasy armor mixed with futuristic robotics. What this means is you can make your character look like anything you want from a rubber jumpsuit ninja to giant armored to fuck knight to mega man to samus. Since you can also color your armor you actually really do look like mega man and samus. Which I did and it was awesome.
It may seem weird that I have already moved on from a game that I was in love with in less than two weeks. But let me tell you this even the sweetest game tastes sour when you play it for 27 hours in 8 days. Another interesting side note is that this game holds my record for unlocked achievements which is 32.
My final judgement of this game is 8.5 with marks docked solely for the shortness.
Cars and Songs Game
I design car ads every day. These ads require many different car photos. So I have a site bookmarked that has hundreds, if not thousands, of pictures of pretty much every type, model and year of car ever made. One day we were bored at work and decided to make a game where one of us picks a car photo for the other person, who then has to name a song that suits the photo. That person then chooses a car, etc.
What resulted was OVER 6 HOURS OF PLAYING THIS GAME.
mike: ok your turn
dale: instantly
dale: ITS RAINING MEN
dale: GERRI HALLIWELL
mike: haha
dale: yours
mike: I Ran (So far away)
dale: HHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
mike: HAHA
mike: ok here's yours
dale: HIGHWAY TO THE DANGERZONE
mike: hahahahahaha
dale: heres yours
mike: Led Zeppelin - Immigrant song
mike: (do you know it?)
dale: hahaha
dale: :|
dale: no i am unfamiliar with led zeppling
mike: haha well i wasn't sure if you knew the song because of its dumb title
mike: i always forget what it's called
dale: its the one thats like aaaaaaiiiiaaaaaaa aaaaa over the land of ice and snow
mike: hahaha yeah
dale: its my fave led song
mike: ok yours
dale: hahahaha the song i'm listening to right now
dale: jupiter room - digitalism
mike: hmm i dont know it
mike: youtube
dale: i am finding it
mike: is this it?
dale: hahahaha yeah
dale: here is yours
mike: SUGAR RAY, RPM
dale: hahaha fuck yea
mike: fuck why isn't THAT song in a burnout game
dale: that album is fucking amazing
dale: they only put in indie shit
dale: cause its cheaper
mike: if that came on when a race was starting i would lose it
dale: burnout always has such good music
dale: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gjb7UD7jPqM&feature=related
dale: or this song
mike: HAHA I WAS JUST TRYING TO FIND THAT
mike: i couldn't remember the name though
mike: look at the comments
mike: ROAD RASH 64!!
mike: oh right your turn
dale: raspberry
dale: fuck who sang that
mike: i mother earth
dale: really hmm
dale: yeah
dale: I WANT HIS SHIRT HAHAHAHAHAHHA
mike: who the main guy's?
dale: yes
dale: heres yours
dale: the best car ever
mike: hmmm
mike: millencolin - penguins & polar bears
mike: yours
dale: haha nice picture
dale: damn thats a toughie
mike: haha
dale: oh wait i know
dale: freshman
dale: bhahaha that song is just douchie enough
mike: freshmen
mike: like verve pipe?
dale: yeah
dale: hahahahah
mike: hahahahaha
mike: totally
mike: fits the actual car too
dale: haha
dale: yours
dale: haha
dale: i don't quite know what that box thing with the trees in it is
mike: haha
dale: house? atrium? vestuble? garag?
dale: where should i go for lunch
mike: choices?
dale: acutally i am going to taco time cantina
dale: to celebrate payday
dale: cause its always like 15 bucks
dale: cause their beers are 6 bucks
mike: taco time has beers?
dale: the cantinas do
dale: they even have daquiris
mike: crazy
mike: okay i see this picture as being a secret party room
dale: hahahaha
dale: how mrs doubtfire
mike: haha
dale: i need to go for lunch i am effin stahven
mike: k wait
mike: i am sending you one then go
mike: so you can think on it
dale: ya freekin hadon
mike: haha
mike: hahahahahahahahhaa
mike: ok lunch
dale: here is one for you
dale: back yet
dale: my answer
mike: hahaha wipeout
mike: my answer is rammstein amerika
mike: OR nine inch nails closer
mike: for the machinery feel
dale: hahahahahhahahahahha this is retarded
dale: yours
mike: hahaha alanis - ironic
mike: yours
dale: haha is that mine
mike: haha yeah
dale: really there is only one answer
dale: hold a tick
mike: ahahahahaha
mike: nice
dale: like that wierd intro
dale: "I SMELL YOUTH. VINTAGE YOUTH"
mike: haha yeah
mike: did you give me a car
dale: oh no, here
dale: oh wait i have the best song for that
mike: hahah for that?
mike: i wouldn't have gone with the atv thing
dale: yeah cause its so manly
mike: i would have gone with this
dale: thats too refined
dale: ok here is yours for real
mike: ok got one
dale: GOOD CHOICE
dale: haha i love that fucking song
mike: me too
mike: espec the beginning
mike: so nintendo-ish
mike: your car
dale: this is my song
mike: haha ok
dale: or
dale: your car
mike: haha
mike: my song
dale: haha nice i like that song too
mike: your car
dale: my song
mike: is this your song?
mike: nice
dale: i can't be sure but road warrior might be one of the best movies ever made
mike: i also would have accepted this
dale: fuck i can't wait till death race
dale: heres your car
mike: my song
mike: hahaha
dale: THERES BITCHES EVERYWHERE
dale: I actually kinda like nelly
mike: i hated him
mike: then 50 cent came around
mike: and i realized nelly wasn't that bad
dale: i really hated him at first but i like the music he has
dale: and it sounds like he sings instead of talks
dale: its really bouncy
mike: his songs are definitely catchy
mike: YOUR CAR
dale: i actually realized i don't hate rap as much as i hate the music
dale: cause i really like speed tech rap
dale: this is the song
dale: your car
mike: hmm okay
mike: my song
dale: hahaha
dale: nice
mike: YOUR CAR
dale: okay
mike: hahahaha good song
mike: VANCE FINANCE
dale: your car
mike: MY SONG
dale: hahaha good pick terrible song
dale: haha
mike: haha
mike: no way the best version of the song
mike: YOUR CAR
dale: MY SONG
mike: hahahahaha
mike: so good
dale: yeah
dale: instantly thought of it
dale: your car
mike: ooooh
mike: got one
dale: hahahah perfect
mike: your car
dale: hahah oh i found the best car ever
mike: ok i'll use it one next
dale: oh shit wait my song
dale: okay here is yours
mike: HAHAHA
mike: nice
dale: hahahahahahahaha
dale: of course
mike: yeah haha
mike: i couldn't resist
dale: hahaha that was like the money one i was like too obvious but gotta
dale: i am leaving now though
mike: haha
mike: time for one more or no
dale: always time for one more
dale: we've got to be close to out of cars
mike: it's amazing just HOW MANY there are
mike: not that one
mike: just want to share how ugly it is
dale: hahahaha
mike: HAHAHAHA
mike: OH GOD
mike: HAHAHAHAHAHA
mike: i should have just linked this one but i had to show the suits haha
dale: hahahahaha kaaablaaaaam
mike: hahahaha
mike: i'm glad we wasted ALL DAY DOING THIS
dale: or this
dale: hahahaha
dale: me too
dale: such a good idea
mike: DR WHO
mike: BY FAR
mike: okay i'm posting all this
Team Fortress 2 / Looney Tunes
dale: second thought don't give the game a second chance that is fucking retarded
mike: haha
dale: jesus christ
dale: even TEAM fortress has more than that
dale: and thats like the most base multiplayer game i can think of
mike: haha i actually really like the idea of team fortress, the different classes, the varying objectives
mike: its just too chaotic for my tastes
dale: its just to simple and cartoony for my tastes
dale: it feels like a looney toons game
dale: with the level design and stuff too
mike: yeah its very cartoony
dale: haha that would be so rad if it was looney toons
mike: but i really REALLY like the class separation
mike: like how it's not just different weapons
mike: it's different run speed, health, everything
mike: i was hoping it would be more like this in BC
mike: plus the spy
mike: the spy is so rad
mike: haha
dale: medic = wile e coyote
soldier = sheep dog
heavy = taz
flame thrower = daffy duck
sniper is = bugs bunny
dale: spy = sylvester
mike: hahah they should make a mod
dale: no no soldier is elmer fudd
dale: hahah
mike: hahahah yes
mike: and flamethrower is foghorn leghorn
mike: same body shape
mike: scout is roadrunner
dale: no thats the grenader
dale: fog horn grenade
mike: haha okay
dale: i like daffy as the pyro
mike: he would be good yeah
mike: bugs as the sniper though?
dale: because of the mumbled speech
mike: bugs would be a good scout
dale: yeah the hat
dale: hahaha
dale: true
mike: hmmm
mike: ok bugs as one of those
dale: YOSEMITY AS THE SNIPER
mike: who would be the other
dale: NO AS THE ENGINEER
mike: hahaha no you cant
mike: YES
mike: SPY SAPPING MAH SENTRY!
dale: hahaha
mike: tweety as sniper
mike: hahaha
mike: its totally tweety
mike: ps here's our post
dale: hahahaha
dale: fuck i hate tweety
mike: haha he would be great as the sniper though
mike: giant hat
mike: giant gun
dale: haha yeah is that everyone then
dale: or porky pig
mike: nahhh tweety is better
dale: hahaha
Sooooooo I'm a geek
I've been playing video games since grade three, age 8 which is 21 years ago. I've been a giant fan of video games in general since Barry showed me his Sega Mastersystem in his dank basement. 
We played Safari Hunter and Wonder Boy cross legged on a TV that still had dials. I have missed more hours of sleep than one can count over the years and am ashamed to admit that I have missed both getting drunk and having sex in favor of playing video games instead. That said there was one thing I never considered myself. I never thought I was a Gamer Geek.
Thats not to say that other people didn't think that of me. There are probably still a couple of ex-girlfriends who clench their teeth when they talk about video games because of me. Also there was that thing of my parents having to hide the ninetendo hookups after busting me at three in the morning. To me however that was all regular it came with the territory I mean games are awesome. Now I have to admit it, I cannot deny any longer, I Dale De Ruiter am a video game addict but I love it.
Why the sudden change of heart? Why admit it now instead of gradeschool when friends would accuse me of using them to play ninetendo and not really being their friend? It's totally true by the way, you guys were tools but you had ninetendo what can I say. The reason I admit it now is more of a Final straw. It wasn't something giant and momentous that made me realize it was sort of one last little thing.
I Pre-ordered Too Human for the XBox 360.
Sure you can say its a smart move securing a very exciting title that I want to make sure is there when my clammy fat hands are ready to waste life away. To be honest though the real reason I pre-ordered this Silicon Knights delight is that if you do you get bonus armor sets. THE ONLY REASON I PRE-ORDERED TO HUMAN WAS FOR MORE GEAR.
I've been playing more video games over the last year than ever before. It could have to do with my being done school and having more free time and the fact I can play whenever I want because there is a separate room so I never have to worry about roommate-tv-usage. It could also be due to the fact that I work part time at Blockbuster and get free game rentals. Yet another reason could be mike convincing me to aquire Live and the Orange Box to play team fortress with him. Although Team Fortress is pretty shitty I have logged over 10 days online play for Call OF Duty 4. All I know is I am getting fatter and singler with every tick of clock. Its ok though because I get extra armor and I'm serious when I say that makes everything OK.
I should exercise more, I should go out more, I should make more friends but I definitely NEED to play more video games.