New Meme

We came up with a new internet meme today. We present it to you now.

A Year in Azeroth

So crappy Blogger erased the post I made a week ago about how Shaun and I have been playing World of Warcraft for exactly a year now.

I had some handy calculations figuring out how much I have actually paid for WoW this year and how it compared to buying new 360 games. It worked out to something like the equivalent of 4 new Xbox games. Knowing how I play Xbox games, I doubt I would play each of those 4 games for 3 months (making a year) so WoW has been worth it. Plus, that is including initial purchase costs of WoW, Burning Crusade, and Wrath of the Lich King. If I play for another year and there is no new expansions it is only like 3 Xbox games, so even better value for my play time.

There is also the case of how much time played. Well, all I know is that after 4 or 5 months we moved to a different server, and my main character on the NEW server has played for something like 20 days...so like 500 hours. And that is only my main character. On the NEW server. Scary. Then again I did rack up over 400 hours on Monster Hunter for PSP which was no quests, no storylines, just slaughtering monsters...so basically what I am saying is this is a terrifying statistic and I should stop talking about it.

I am convinced that the devil works at Blizzard, because every time I was feeling a bit bored of WoW or felt the game was getting a little stale, they come out of NOWHERE and suck me back in.
"Hmm I'm a little bored of leveling right now."
"Oh here is a new patch with an entirely new dungeon and area to level in, and a major storyline swerve that changes the entire game."

"Hmm I've played all the classes and I'm bored of them."
"Hey guess what we reworked every single class and made them all more fun and exciting and added new talents to make everything new and fresh again."

"Dang, I'm still bored now even with these new talents and everything."
"Merry Christmas, here is a new class that is unbelievably fun and refreshing to play as."

And it's not just me! Shaun said he was going to quit WoW. Dale and I had our doubts and made a bet on how long he would last. We ended up both being wrong because Shaun's declaration of quitting WoW lasted LESS THAN A DAY.

EGM is done

Well Electronic Gaming Monthly is dead and I am filled with sadness, shame and regret. Here is the official press release that I found mirrored on www.talkingaboutgames.com "http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/home/permalink/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20090106006505&newsLang=en". I should probably learn how to do that hyperlink stuff one day. Aparently my child hood favorite game mag is going to be done after January 09. My favorite Videogame Podcast is in stasis until further notice and my second favorite video game podcast is the peddlar of dark news on this terrible day... actually Jan 6.

The Uncle Gamer podcast while doing a test live podcast mentioned that 1up digital assests were purchased by UGO. It was kind of skimmed over as a teaser for an upcoming 100th special podcast. I wanted to leave it till I knew it was more than a rumor. I didn't want to find out because garnet, shane and john with 1up yours had grown very dear to me. The still to be determined future of 1up yours is my sadness. I love their podcast and without it work will be well more worky. Fridays will now be just the start of the weekend and not game podcast day. Whats even worse that out of 73 1up employees 40 will be playing more video games in the near future. As in they were laid off. Really youshould go read the story at www.talkingaboutgames.com they have great coverage and even have a link to an interview the editor of UGO did with a MTV in which he comes off sounding like a giant prick in my opinion. But c'est la vie the depression has come and everyone everywhere is suffering in some way.

That explains my sadness but how could I feel shame if I had no actually affect on the whole situation? Well my answer is that I never really supported my favorite game mag. Even though I love magazines I never buy them because come on love is beautiful but 8 bucks is 8 bucks. I feel shame because I never in any manner let EGM know that they were rad. That I have poured over their pages since the Genesis of my gamerdom... get it see what I did there... the video game system named Genesis and the begining of my video gamerdom. Actually I started before Genesis but I digress. Now that the 20 year run is over its hard to think of theworld without it.

I feel regret as well as sadness and shame. Being a video game writer for EGM was a teenage dream of mine. It's one of the main reasons I went into Journalism in the first place. I regret I gave that goal up as a pipe dream. I convinced myself it was most likely impossible and now it really is impossible.

Goodbye EGM thanks for the memories.

Legendary suck

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.

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.

Jason & the Argonauts

Stabbing