Flag Captured vs Everything

Black Ops 2 Wii U - Review

2013-01-03T08:33:00.000-08:00

Black Ops 2: Wii U edition

Why you'd buy Black Ops 2 on the Wii U if you own an Xbox 360 or a PS3 like I do is beyond me, but I decided to try it out on my new console because it's worth a shot, right?

Whilst the game really doesn't differ from the PS360 counterparts much (as with the PC edition, I'd assume) The Wii U version of Black Ops 2 has a number of bugs and glitches that are flat out crippling to the experience. I'll get to those in a minute, but I'd best go through the rest of the game first for consistency's sake. The Campaign mode is standard Call of Duty affairs - you play as a generic soldier called David Mason, and his father from the original Black Ops game, Alex Mason. Thoughout the campaign, you jump between post-Cold War sort of era (late 60s/70s ish) and the more futuristic 2025 missions. It works to break up the pace nicely, I have to admit - instead of being greeted with the same dullish brown corridor in a country that's clearly supposed to mimic a middle eastern location, the gameplay is kept fresh with nice grey corridors in some future compound somewhere. It all serves to follow the main bad guy through the years and attempt to explain why he wants to terrorise the rest of the world. Or America.

I can't really tell which one, because the story is so vague and there's so many things going off it's really difficult to follow exactly what's happening. I suppose it's testament to how Call of Duty is, and always will be about following the icons and shooting things in your way. Whilst I'm not going to spoil the whole thing, it's a fairly generic sort of ending as you'd expect from Call of Duty but the small number of story-changing elements serve to be moderately intriguing, even if they are quite limited. You can get a number of different endings, but they're usually just compilations of cutscenes that play whether event X or Y was chosen in the campaign mode. They're not obvious, however, which is a rather nice touch - instead of having press A for ending X device, it depends on your actions in a certain event, which will become obvious after you've played, but it's interesting nonetheless. It can't really save the story on the whole, however, which sort of scrambles things up a bit by moving across various timezones and locations, not going chronologically like other Call of Duty games.

Unlike other Call of Duty games however, you get loads of admittedly rather cool gadgets, like the flying squirrel suits and other nice things that only seem to be used once or twice in the Campaign, which really is a shame considering that this is the only really 'new' bit of the game, and if they'd have managed to use them more, and more freely as opposed to the almost cutscene like uses of most, it might have been a vastly more interesting experience. Multiplayer has no such niceties and is just a copied and pasted version of the old CoD multiplayer from last year. And the year before. And the year before that. And the year before that... Whilst I've noticed no major problems with the game apart from the distinct lack of innovation on other consoles, the game on Wii U is damn near unplayable due to Activision only providing funds for an old toaster to use as the 'Black Ops 2 server'. Every five minutes I'm thrown out of a game because 'the server is unavailable' or that the game cannot migrate host in a game that was perfectly fine without a host migration, with nobody leaving or having their connection spontaneously give up on them to warrant said host migration.

Not only that, but it takes a ridiculous amount of time to actually find a match and half of the playlists might as well not exist, because you'll never find a game in them. Truth be told, the only times I've ever managed to find a game have all been when I've searched in the 'Team Deathmatch' playlist which as you'd expect is the most popular playlist out of all of them. Not to say that the other playlists have no people searching for games in them, however - there's plenty of people in each playlist, so I'm going to put it down to horrifically bad coding. Speaking of which, when you're in a game you'll often experience really bad lag issues, or the bullet hit detection will fail, so much so that I used 15 bullets, all of them hit but only 3 registered overall. That's inexcusable, and the thing is that it's random, so there's no way of knowing whether you'll manage to lose a gunfight due to a clearly broken game mechanic - I could get into detail about this being because Call of Duty runs on the age old Quake 2 engine that's older than the dawn of time, but there's not enough space for that in a single post. Heck, there's probably not enough space in 2 posts.

As for the actual multiplayer, I can't comment too much. It seems to run much smoother than previous games, and the weapons definitely feel more unique to one another, with the 'pick 10' class modification system actually proving to be a rather intuitive system for choosing your weapons and game modifying perks and all that. It's just a shame that the multiplayer flat out doesn't work at the best of times.

And the final part of the package is the Zombies 'mini game' that's spawned a massive amount of support from fans since the days of World at War, and has a bigger community than most other AAA titles, which is impressive in itself. Much unlike the Black Ops 2 incarnation of Zombies, which feels like a bit of a dud in comparison. If you've never played the Zombies mode before, it's like your typical horde type mode, zombies come at you in waves, you kill them to gain points which can be spent on opening up new areas, better weapons so on and so forth. Black Ops 2's only real contribution to the mode is the introduction of a new 'Tranzit' mode, which is extremely vague in what you're supposed to do. Yes, it's the biggest map thus far in the history of Zombies, but it's still just a load of smaller maps sellotaped together with a bus that will allow you to move between them. Of course, you can run between locations without the bus, but you'll likely get savaged to death by a particularly annoying creature that spawns out of nowhere and proceeds to remove your face.

My main issue with this particular game mode is that it not only does nothing to innovate, but also leaves absolutely no clues as to what you're supposed to do, which was alright for the optional easter eggs in earlier games, but certainly not for the main portion of the game. As a result, it's very inaccessible for newbies to the series, and incredibly confusing for anyone who's not scoured the internet for clues regarding the mode prior to playing it. Of course, it does add buildable items to the mix, which are all rather average and don't really do anything to change the game up at all. Again, there's no hints as to what goes with what and where you can build it, it's all trial and error which is pretty poor in a game where you have to start all over again if you simply get caught off guard by a zombie that you couldn't quite take down because you were sellotaping a fan to a tyre or something. Again, that's another complaint - there's absolutely no way to even guess what's being built unless you've done it before, so you don't know what you'll need to find to be able to build something. For instance, to turn the power switch on in one portion, you have to build the power switch itself, which you'd think is simple, but one of the parts is a generic zombie arm (because apparently you can't turn the switch without the zombie arm attached) and so you have to literally hold the Y button over anything that vaguely looks like an arm in the hope that it's the one that you're looking for. Not any arm will do, it's just one specific one that looks no different to the others. That's annoying.

So, overall impression on Black Ops 2 aren't very good. Yes, it's probably in part due to the fact that I played the Wii U version of the game but at the end of the day, the game should not be released unless it's functional and the best it can be, regardless of the system it's on. A rather glaring issue that I should note along with this is that the framerate occasionally and somewhat randomly drops from a steady 60+ to below 10 for no reason, sometimes sustained periods, on all game modes. As a result of these kinds of issues, and the general lack of innovation across the board I'd highly recommend that you avoid this game like the plague, or at least until they fix the blatant issues with it. Which they won't, because Activision would rather Treyarch dedicate their time and resources to making (urgh) paid DLC.

Final thoughts:
Some interesting ideas, but a greatly missed opportunity and horribly broken finished product means you'll have more fun skimming the disc down a driveway.

4/10

Oh, and a little sidenote too - I forgot to mention the Wii U Gamepad functionality in this review. Because there is none. Apart from being able to play on the little screen on multiplayer co-op whilst someone else uses the TV, there's really no gamepad support at all. The touchscreen doesn't even work in menus, and the only real thing it does normally is display your minimap and/or mission objectives, thus showing that this is nothing more than a tacky port.

Black Ops 2 delayed?

2012-11-01T10:00:00.001-07:00

There's some debate and speculation as to whether Call of Duty Black Ops 2 has been delayed on Twitter at the minute, with the picture above being the source of confusion for many Call of Duty fans.

So, is it true? Has Black Ops 2 been delayed? Short answer - no. This particular image is fake, or so David Vonderhaar's twitter account (@DavidVonderhaar) says:

"Oh Internet. You so crazy. And apparently bored. And will apparently believe anything you read hacked up in Photoshop."
So there you have it, Black Ops 2 isn't delayed, though there is some speculation as to whether the game will still be released due to potential legal issues that are supposedly arising though this close to release I can't really imagine the game being halted due to something like that. Still, watch this space for more updates on the situation

Halo 4 Updates and News! September pt1

2012-09-30T15:32:00.003-07:00

Here's a bit of a catch up on all of the Halo 4 news that's made itself known on the internet in the latter bit of September. All of these Halo 4 videos don't actually have gameplay, but there's definitely news there to be listened to in a very easy-to-listen format. Enjoy!

Halo 4 - Valhalla returns | Valhalla Remake | Ragnarok leaked | Mantis gameplay leaked

Halo 4 - Flood Playable in multiplayer war games infection (flood) mode!

More Halo 4 Gameplay news to be added soon!

The best handheld game, ever.

2012-09-20T14:11:00.002-07:00

Alright, that's a bold statement to make, I agree. Maybe it's not the absolute best handheld game out there, but it's definitely high up there on the 'great games' scale, and funnily enough it's not widely recognised by people as such.

What is this game, you ask? One of the Mario games? Nope. Sonic? Nope. Metal Gear Solid on the PSP? Nope.

Robot Wars: Extreme Destruction on the Gameboy Advance.

I'm guessing that's either a look of confusion or disgust on your face right now, in which case - shame on you! RWED on the GBA (acronyms LOL) is quite frankly one of the best games of it's era, and even today too! Whilst it's definitely not the best game it could have been, RWED definitely encompasses everything a Robot Wars game should be. On top of that, despite a very small number of modes the game still manages to be entertaining to this day, 10 years later or something - that's an achievement in itself.

Of course, being on GBA it does have its graphical limitations. And by graphical limitations, I mean it's about as soothing on the eyes as shards of glass. Don't get me wrong, it's not the worst out there but it's certainly not the best and in any case the robots at least look recognisable. It's not beautiful, but pretty much full 3D with a damn good physics engine on the Gameboy Advance is incredible for the time. Incredible, I say!

Most of my sheer delight playing this game may come from the nostalgia of Robot Wars (I still watch it daily!) but I have to say it's even great fun for people who know nothing about Robot Wars, sure you won't get the whole 'You unlocked Chaos 2' thing (2 time Grand Champion) but it'll still be a blast to play through nevertheless. You'll blast through said game in an afternoon if you're half decent at it, but the replayability is what really draws me back to this game. The fact that you'll never meet a made-up robot (as you would in the console games) in any of the modes minus multiplayer if you still have a link cable, or indeed build your own and enter it in the main contests, means that everything just works. It feels like the Robot Wars game that Robot Wars should always have had.

Especially compared to the console ports, the game is incredible - I can't sing it's praises enough! If you go back and play the old console/PC games now, you'll know that they're buggy, don't work right, look silly... granted, they're fun but a true representation of the show they aren't. The GBA counterpart isn't either to some extent, with no visible damage on robots unless you count a certain polygon glitch and no mid-round fixing of the machines. As a concept and a game it works fantastically well, but just imagine if someone were to develop a combat robotics game using a proper physics engine for the PC...

Now THAT would definitely be worth throwing some money at!
-Flag Captured

Tiger Bread? You're having a Giraffe, right?

2012-02-01T02:41:00.000-08:00

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16812545

Not all news these days is bad news, sometimes you get those genuinely funny bits of news like this. Basically, the retail chain Sainsbury's recieved a letter, saying "Why is tiger bread called tiger bread? It should be called giraffe bread. Love from Lily Robinson age 3 and 1/2".

This made me chuckle. It proves that not all major retailers are heartless, money-grabbing organisations. Well, it might still be, but it just shows that they can have a laugh every once in a while.

Flag vs the Media

2011-08-10T14:52:00.000-07:00

You know Britain? Yeah, the place that's just had the riots. Well, the media have had an absolute field day with it, and guess what's to blame. Videogames - clearly, every single person who went out and destroyed stuff because they felt like it and wanted to loot stuff plays video games like Modern Warfare and Grand Theft Auto and they all simultaneously went out to be violent at the same time. No, that's nonsense. Videogames have NOTHING to do with this at all - it's simply people being idiots because they're opportunists.

It would be brilliant if some of these newspapers actually read this, because it's discrimination against a certain group of people by saying that, or even suggesting that videogamers are violent people. Because of this, there's people that now avoid me if I wear a 'space invaders' shirt simply because I play videogames and will therefore take great pleasure in punching them square in the face, except I won't because that's just a preconception you're getting in people's heads.

But still, I could condemn the papers too much. I would leave it here for good, but it's inevitable The Daily Mail's going to go bash another group of people soon, so yeah...

I condemn a riot.

2011-08-09T10:38:00.001-07:00

Alright, this has gone on far too long now. These riots are quite frankly ridiculous, but to be honest, I could see something like that happening with the most senior people in our Government on holiday at the SAME TIME.
David Cameron's come back home from his holiday and seems pretty annoyed that he's had to come back, and whilst I can understand why, he shouldn't have put himself forward to be prime minister if he wasn't prepared to do what he has had to do.
These rioters are terrorists. They're destroying homes, shops, cities, and so on - They deserve no sympathy whatsoever and need locking up for life - I've seen people on the news who've lost everything because of these idiots, and in all honesty, I think we need stronger security measures. Yes, get riot police to block them and try and get arrests made, but this is an attack, not a bit of an out-of-hand protest. If the rioters aren't taught a lesson, they'll try and get away with more and more, and eventually there'll be something close to a war going off, if they aren't stopped completely and swiftly.

To be honest, I hope the rioters grow the hell up and turn themselves in.

Back/rant.

2011-06-14T14:10:00.000-07:00

So yeah, I took a bit of a break from updating this. There are many reasons why, but to be honest, I really wasn't motivated with anything and so this blog had to stop. For a bit. There was one reason why this all happened, but it quickly progressed into another, but later turned out I was overreacting about said thing (I think so, anyway...)

But yeah, I just felt like I needed to catch up on the rants, so here's a selection of 'tweet rants' that I've had ready to go for the last few days on twitter/wherever, but guess what? That went the way of the Blog too.

Duke Nukem Forever has been released, and it looks a good game. What I hate is the reception it's had - there's no way possible it could live up to the hype, but stop bashing it because it's retro, or it's not enough like Call of Duty. Of course it isn't - that's the whole point. It's designed to be fun, not realistic. And completely realistic games are awful anyway, like those 'realistic' sports games. WHY?! Just go and play the sport fo reals if you really want an authentic sports experience...

Lag switchers, Turtle Beach headset users and Modded controller users - go away. Nobody likes you in the gaming world. Yes, Headsets as well. I'm sorry if I've just bought a £45 game on a £200 console with a £40 a year membership, I don't really want to pay another £150 to be able to do better at a game, and nobody else should have that privilege either.
Alright then, in the next Call of Duty, make Headsets still effective, but I want to buy constant radar and the best guns straight away. And all the people who don't buy them have to lose all the time. That's the same thing.

School. Enough said.

Exam boards, why are they so vague with questions? I've had History today, and a question went 'What does Source X say about the popularity of Jazz Music' and the Source literally only said it became more popular. Great, one mark. What about the other 3? Fail.
And don't even get me started on Religious Studies. "Christians should look after the world. Do you agree? Give an opposite view referring to Christianity."
Erm... What? I've got to suggest that Christians should leave the world alone for it to descend into ruin when nobody cares about pollution? HOW DO I ARGUE AGAINST THE STATEMENT?!?!

[/rant]

BRB

2011-06-07T14:52:00.001-07:00

Stuff's going off, lost motivation to do this, etc. etc.
So I'll be back in a few days once it's all blown over - I get over things easy.

Why I support the CoD Elite Boycott to an extent.

2011-06-04T07:04:00.000-07:00

PS3 gamers were devastated last november when Black Ops dropped and was damn near unplayable on the PS3, but Activision took ages to fix that. Why should we have to pay money for extra features that Activision is spending time and money on when they should be fixing the product they've already sold, but was insufficient!
Oh well, Battlefield 3 all the way across the sky.

Do you like free stuff? Course you do!

2011-06-04T05:17:00.000-07:00

And this is why we <3 Sony. We lost our network for a few days, so we get boatloads of free stuff to say sorry. I'm personally looking forward to playing Infamous and Wipeout HD from the 2 free games we're being given. In fact, that's not it for the free stuff - we get PS+ as well, so there's free stuff to be had there too.
They might have been hacked, but Sony are doing a pretty damn good job of getting people back to their console. Microsoft on the other hand, are doing a great job of pushing me away from their console. First off, they banned me with no reason being given, and after 3 months I got the access to Xbox Live back, then I had to pay for new membership, as it was cancelled in the mean time. They refused to refund the money despite there being no reason for a ban, but I bought another £40 membership and lo and behold, it's been cancelled again. To be fair, it's illegal to steal money like that and they have to give a reason for the ban - it's in THEIR terms and conditions. If they didn't have Halo or Gears, and if my friends had bought the right console, I wouldn't have an Xbox.

Boycott Call of Duty: Elite

2011-05-31T12:04:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXlNLBLYSjg
Free features that cost. Activision, stop ripping us off and actually polish Call of Duty before it releases.

Cheryl Cole's not judging the X factor.

2011-05-31T00:29:00.000-07:00

Now normally, I couldn't care less, but I've noticed that if I write about stuff that's pretty popular, then I get more views. I've doubled my all time views just by saying that Harold Camping is an idiot, so here goes.

Cheryl Cole is apparently at war with the X factor (according to the press) because she was taken off X factor USA or something like that because the Americans 'couldn't understand her accent'. Cool Story Bro.
In all fairness though, I'd be pretty gutted if people couldn't understand me talk. Which they often can't, which is why I have a blog, not a vlog. But the thing is, I'd also go back to said TV show if I was offered a large amount of money - Cheryl didn't according to newspapers and shizzle, so yeah. Make of that what you will.

And that's all I have to say on that....

GAME don't know anything about games.

2011-05-31T00:22:00.000-07:00

"You don't usually associate great stories with first person shooters, but Call of Duty: Black Ops' single player campaign tells an excellent tale. You play as Alex Mason, who remains strapped to an interrogation chair for most of the game. Your captor wants you to reveal the meaning of a sequence of numbers, which are part of a puzzle you're also trying to solve in order to avert a global disaster."

Really?
Halo
Halo 2
Halo 3
Halo 3: ODST
Halo Reach
Modern Warfare (Cod4)
Modern Warfare 2
Battlefield bad company
Battlefield Bad company 2
Portal
Portal 2 (technically, you have a 'gun' and it's first person.)
Half life
Half life 2
^Episode 1
^Episode 2
Red Steel
Red Steel 2
Metroid Prime
Metroid Prime 2
Metroid Prime 3
Frontlines: Fuel of War
Resistance: Fall of man
Resistance 2
Resistance 3 (probably, when it's released)
Killzone
Killzone 2
Killzone 3
Rainbow Six Vegas
Rainbow Six Vegas 2
Crysis
Crysis: Warhead
Crysis 2
Borderlands
Duke Nukem 3D
Duke Nukem Forever (Come on, you just know it will.)
Fallout 3
Fallout: New Vegas
Oblivion (?)
Perfect Dark 64

And that's just a short list. GAME, do your research please. Or at least hire people to write on your website that aren't completely videogame-illiterate.

Oh, and for the record, Black Ops' story was alright. Not great.

"Federal regulations require me to warn you that this next test chamber... is looking pretty good"

2011-05-30T06:54:00.000-07:00

Bit of a visual revamp, and the Blog's looking half decent now, finally.
And I love how I get no views for like 3 days, and then as soon as I start refurbishing this, then I get a fair few views, presumably from people that saw my blog in it's half finished state, with a poor version of Windows XP's Bliss screensaver plastered in the background.
Also, 300k is nothing for a background - It's not helpful at all when you can only have a small but High res background or large but low res background.
Tl;dr 500GB background Image upload limit plz. Kthx.

Modern Warfare 3 - will it sink or float?

2011-05-25T03:38:00.000-07:00

I have to admit, as much as I despise Black Ops, I really can't argue against the rest of the CoD series being anything less than good. Modern Warfare 2, despite it's shortcomings was actually a pretty fun game to play. I personally think that all the crap that made it annoying gave it character - the 'overpowered/long range' shotguns like the SPAS-12 were subject to a lot of criticism, but they were fun to use. Commando, despite being completely idiotic, was the focus of many many jokes, and there were times when it went horribly wrong as well. Pro Pipes were also claimed to be overused because you could use One Man Army to stock up on more - but that just made people vulnerable until they could restore their ammo. And the best ones - quickscoping and boosters. People hate both of them, it seems, but boosters were ridiculously fun to hunt down (Sandy Ravage: Booster Justice - go watch) and quickscopers were easy kills. And it looked impressive when they did tricks and actually got a kill, as well as snipers being pretty accurate unlike Black Ops.

And I'd love to see a return to that, and it'll be great that IW/Sledgehammer are using the IW4 engine, the same as was used in Modern Warfare 2, so it'll run smoother than Black Ops did. And it'll feel more up to date - Black Ops used an engine from 2007 and only slightly modified it.

The campaign looks decent as well, but we'll have to see about that. Multiplayer, hopefully, should be amazing.

An experiment

2011-05-22T12:30:00.001-07:00

So, if I type all of this, then put 1. d c
2. bbt
3. iceland volcano eruption
4. indianapolis 500
5. photobucket
6. oscar de la hoya
7. keith richards
8. bernard hopkins
9. wolves
10. gawker
11. bernard hopkins vs jean pascal
12. back to the future
13. cannes film festival
14. tree of life
15. liger
16. westboro baptist church
17. anne hathaway
18. rosario dawson
19. roy jones jr
20. ryan gosling

After it, how many more views will I get? I shall see...

Harold Camping is an idiot, redux.

2011-05-22T07:12:00.000-07:00

So, further going on from yesterday's post, I hope the idiot gets locked up. He TOLD people to leave the Church (lulwut?) And sell everything they owned - they wouldn't need it in heaven.

This man is a liability, and I really do hope that someone picks up on it, or he's stuck in that radio station place for all eternity when he locked himself in securely.

I'm not saying that if you were worried, you're an idiot, I'm saying that you were gullible. Same goes for all those who think we'll die in 2012, we will not. The end of the world is not nigh, and it's highly unlikely that God, if he can even do that, would just say "Ah, you know what, I'm going to end the world" and do so.

Just because the Bible supposedly gives hints, doesn't mean it'll happen. Halo 3 dropped hints as to a sequel. Does it have one? No. it's the end of the Halo trilogy. Don't believe everything that people tell you.

Just to clarify, I do believe in God, and Jesus and a fair few of the Christian principles, but I'm one of those people that believes in a slight variation to it - after all, a 2000 year old holy book isn't necessarily going to be as relevant today, in an age where everyone is a lot smarter than when it was originally written. Hence why they say that Jesus 'suddenly healed' people, as if by magic - The gift of knowledge means that most likely Jesus was the most intelligent person the world has ever known, and knew how to solve diseases and the like instantly. It's like if you took a phone back in time, people would call it 'witchcraft' or Magic. The world has changed, and we need to take this into consideration when following religions. This isn't an attack on people who stick to the 'traditional' Christian views, but that's just my personal view on it.

I'm pretty easy going when it comes to beliefs - if you believe in Godzilla, then I'm not one to go against that. If you believe Aliens created us, then fine - that's your view.

Unless you believe the end's coming on 21st May 2011, in which case you're an idiot.

RE: The apocalypse

2011-05-22T04:14:00.000-07:00

This was a triumph.
I'm making a note here: HUGE SUCCESS.
It's hard to overstate my satisfaction.
Aperture Science
We do what we must
because we can.
For the good of all of us.
Except the ones who are dead.
But there's no sense crying over every mistake.
You just keep on trying till you run out of cake.
And the Science gets done.
And you make a neat gun.
For the people who are still alive.
I'm not even angry.
I'm being so sincere right now.
Even though you broke my heart.
And killed me.
And tore me to pieces.
And threw every piece into a fire.
As they burned it hurt because I was so happy for you!
Now these points of data make a beautiful line.
And we're out of beta.
We're releasing on time.
So I'm GLaD. I got burned.
Think of all the things we learned
for the people who are still alive.
Go ahead and leave me.
I think I prefer to stay inside.
Maybe you'll find someone else to help you.
Maybe Black Mesa
THAT WAS A JOKE.
HAHA. FAT CHANCE.
Anyway, this cake is great.
It's so delicious and moist.
Look at me still talking
when there's Science to do.
When I look out there, it makes me GLaD I'm not you.
I've experiments to run.
There is research to be done.
On the people who are still alive.
And believe me I am still alive.
I'm doing Science and I'm still alive.
I feel FANTASTIC and I'm still alive.
While you're dying I'll be still alive.
And when you're dead I will be still alive.
Still alive.
Still alive.

Seemed like an appropriate song choice.

GCSE Music - seriously?

2011-05-21T04:52:00.000-07:00

I'm not one to be angry at everything. It might seem like that, but there's just so many things wrong with the world that I have to poke fun at, but I am really angry at this though - GCSE Music.
If you're thinking of taking it next year, make sure your teacher actually teaches you stuff and doesnt rely on the fact that you're all musicians, therefore you should now exactly how to read music and play all of Beethoven's symphonies blindfolded with both hands behind your back.
Alas, I am a guitarist, and can do no such thing because I read guitar tabs, which are essentially the same as sheet music, but with numbers and string diagrams, essentially.

However, my teacher still cannot understand why I can't read sheet music. Possibly because I do not read sheet music to play my guitar. I do have a keyboard and piano, but I learn everything by sight,sound and memory, no sheet music involved.

And even better, I've been playing the thing for about 2 years now, and I'm about Grade 2 at best, which to be fair is pretty horrible, but I play it for enjoyment rather than to be good. So you can imagine how annoyed I felt when he said I was and I quote "Completely useless" because I can't play this -

I mean, I can do the rest of the song, but the solo? Get lost. And you don't have a right to tell me I'm crap at guitar. I know I am, but it's not your place to say that to my face.

The best thing is that he can't play the guitar himself. Talk about an epic fail of a teacher.
And that's why you should always check before you pick your GCSE's.

And I'm not even done yet - the test we did on tuesday was a complete and utter tragedy. The played Greenday as one of the songs, at which point I stopped writing and jammed the pen into my ear to remove my ear drums so that I didn't have to listen to it any longer. This may or may not be the reason I'm now partially deaf in my right ear.

Rise of the Valkyries made up for it, but it was mostly guesswork to be honest. When I get my individual results back from it, I'm betting I can spell 'FUDGE' with my grades.

GCSE Music. Do not want.

Harold Camping is an idiot.

2011-05-21T04:06:00.000-07:00

I'm sorry, but he's predicted the end of the world twice and got it wrong. He told people to quit their jobs, sell everything and give all their money away. Some did, and now that the apocalypse hasn't happened at 6PM local time (http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/) in a few places already, it's proven he's wrong. I'm not spiteful or anything, but him trying to cause panic should get him locked up. He could/may have ruined people's lives because of this, and having read a bit of this - http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/end-of-the-world-is-very-nigh-indeed-2287185.html - I'm pretty sure that some people could be a lot worse off than others, if you look at the end.

I know this is usually a bit of a poke-fun-at-everything blog, but this is me being serious - people could have died after this. To quote the aforementioned site:

"1997: Believing an alien spacecraft was following the Hale-Bopp comet, San Diego-based cult Heaven's Gate declared the end of the world was nigh. Its leader, Marshall Applewhite, persuaded 39 cult members to enter into a pre-emptive suicide pact."
This could have happened in this case, and I really hope it doesn't - Camping could have caused this by generating panic.

And the idiot's been telling people to quit their jobs, sell their homes and all their belongings and give all the money away - what will these people do now?! They've just lost everything because of one moron trying to brainwash people into thinking the world would end on the 21st of May 2011.

And that, my friends, is why Harold Camping deserves to live behind bars.

The amount of times I've resurrected this blog...

2011-05-20T04:25:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I've not been able to post as often as I usually do, and that's because of these bloody exams. Seriously, Who decided that It'd be great to subject school pupils to 12 + stressful exams in the space of a month, even less for some people.
I could go on a huge rant, but the truth is, I'm actually quite happy at the minute. I've literally just got out of my Psychology exam now and despite being about as awake as a dead badger, it's a great feeling to know that it's done - No more psychology ever. For a few months.

And another thing, for some reason, I appear to have gone deaf in my right ear. Seriously, I have no idea why, but I have. I'll get back to you on that one...

Back, once again - Playstation Network wtf?

2011-05-01T05:37:00.000-07:00

Sony: O hai noobs, we lost your personal info and all ur credit cards
Us: ZOMG!!!! [riot]
Sony: Its K tho, we gon giv u all free stuffz to DL on Ps store an free PS+ subs!
Us: woot!11!
Sony: Lolz, JK - Stor wun be back up till offa expires lol trolled.
Us: this sux, Imma go buy 360/glorified Gamecube.

Yeah, sony - you failed at upkeep of the situation - I just want to play Portal 2 online/ on my PC, but no I can't. Nice one. Also, can has unlimited free stuff on PSN as compensation? Thanks.

Long time, no read...

2011-03-29T14:01:00.000-07:00

Yeah, life has been CHAOS these last few days, and I've not really had chance to update the blog. Stuff that's happened these last few weeks include: Exams, More Exams, Mock exams, Homework, Coursework, Asking someone to the prom, More homework, Revising for tests, Getting turned down after asking someone to the prom and endless Guitar playing. I'm in a band now.

So yeah, not the best of times, but on the bright side - birthday soon, which means almost certainly HDPVR soon. Gameplays and stuff will be uploaded and good times will be had by all.
Until then, I'm keeping this blog full of my life stories that nobody cares about. Probably.

In all honesty...

2011-03-16T14:52:00.000-07:00

Halo Reach and Black Ops aren't that bad. I know I'm one of those people who gets all nostalgic, coming out with the "Halo 1/2/3 was better" or "Modern Warfare 1 is better than all the newer CoD games combined" but to be perfectly honest, there's nothing wrong with any of the games. They're just not quite as fun for me as their predecessors. Particularly Halo Reach - I loved bungie's approach to Halo 3 - 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' but they've fixed the thing that wasn't broken in Halo Reach, leading to Armour abilities (nice idea, but very flawed) Loadouts (ruined the rush for power weapons) and all the other ZOMG IZ REALISTIC features, i.e. reticule bloom and stuff.
Black Ops is a huge fail though. They tried to balance it, and they removed all CoD's character. It might technically be one of the best, but it's sure as hell not as fun to play as the others. I'm not taking it out on treyarch though - to be fair, they had an old engine to make the game with, and their Activision overlords probably rushed them to complete some things, hence why there were a few bugs when the game came out, and why there still are some.

Also, I've been playing Reach whilst writing this, and it's not that bad at all. Halo 3, no it isn't. But a fun game? I think so. It's just that DAMN ARMOUR LOCK. And the odd bit of lag, but that's it. 36-5 on my first game back in a game of standard Slayer (team deathmatch) and that was out of the 50 kills we needed to win. The icing on the cake? We were against try-hard 'Legends' (incredibly high rank) so go figure :P