RuneKey's Blog

So I finally started using Rainmeter

2012-01-14T09:41:00.001-08:00

So after seeing many desktop threads on the 4chan boards /g/ and /wg/ I decided to try out this whole "rainmeter" thing on my second monitor instead of using Microsoft Windows gadgets. So far I must say I'm really happy with how they work. Finding a good skin and customizing the code to be the proper color takes a bit of tweaking (the clock used black font when I downloaded the skin, for example) but in the end looks a lot ricier and sleeker than Windows Gadgets.

And as for performance issues, I haven't noticed any random spikes in CPU usage when doing simple tasks on my desktop. I still don't think I'd want to install something like this on my Intel Celeron HP laptop, but I'm definitely keeping it on my 990t desktop.

If you guys know any other good skins to add to this monitor let me know... there's a lot of empty space to fill!

Click here to download Rainmeter for yourself; its free!

Why do I love "Drive" so much?

2012-01-02T22:25:00.000-08:00

Drive is a fantastic movie. I've seen most of the "film of the year" considerations for 2011 (including A Separation, 50/50, Water for Elephants, and The Another Earth) but Drive really takes the cake for me.

Everything in Drive is so memorable, and for me that's rare in films today (aside from comedies). I'll be quoting "want a toothpick?" and "my hands are a little dirty" for a long time after seeing this film. The characters themselves are all so cliche, but in a way that's obviously intentional and memorable. The actors all play into the mob-boss, out-of-jail husband, shy neighbor, and sensitive nice-guy stereotype characters the movie creates, and I love all of it.

The movie's plot itself is a bit of a mystery. In the first ten minutes, the audience is led to believe they're watching a mainstream action flick with get-away driving scenes and criminal protagonists. As the film progresses toward the middle, though, the focus turns Drive into a film about romance and desire despite the situation, which heavy emphasis on subtext rather than words to describe Ryan Gosling's feelings for his new neighbor and her son. Then, when you think you've figured the movie out, it gets flipped on it's head and suddenly it's all about revenge and anger, featuring some ultra-violent fights and murders that are far from the usual light-hearted karate-fights of mainstream action films. And then at the end, the focus is moved back to Gosling and his neighbor, and what really caring about someone means.

I've only watched this movie three times, but I really feel good about calling it my favorite film of 2011 already. I already pre-ordered my BluRay copy and am excited about seeing the director's cut version. I've only seen Ryan Gosling in this, The Notebook, and Blue Valentine, but I assure you I'll be watching out for him in future films from here on.

In short, I really love this movie, and you should definitely either torrent it now, or wait for it's late-January Blu Ray and DVD release.

50/50 review

2011-11-28T19:34:00.001-08:00

I really went into 50/50 with high expectations. I had heard a lot of good things about it and I do like Seth Rogan. However after seeing the film for myself, I have to say I'm a little dissapointed.

Spoilers ahead!

The whole film was pretty cut-and-dry. I was never really surprised by any part of the film. Guy gets cancer. Girlfriend's an asshole. Guy breaks up with girlfriend. Get's hot psychiatrist. Psychiatrist is new girlfriend. Cancer goes away. I know it's a romantic comedy but knowing how the film will end half-way through is boring to say the least.

I really want to love a film with cancer and weed, but I just can't bring myself to do it.

On the positive side I kind of expected Seth Rogan to steal the spotlight and kind of smother the other characters, but he really fit well as a sidekick to Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who plays the cancer-striken protagonist Adam. He really does well as a lead character and does a great acting job later in the film when he has his emotional breakdown.

Solid characters and good acting aside, the see-through plot makes this nothing more than a decent romantic comedy.

2/5

MineCraft 1.8: the good and bad

2011-09-24T18:08:00.000-07:00

So I may be a little late to the pros/cons post on MineCraft 1.8, since 1.9 has already been leaked, but there are still a few things I'd like to share my opinion on.

Good: random villages/underground mine shafts

After an hour or so of exploring in MineCraft's survival mode, I only came across one random village. After another half hour, I only saw one underground mine shaft. What I'm trying to say here is that these randomly generated structures are unique enough to make the exploration of MineCraft more interesting, without being so frequent that it makes seeing one seem like a common event (*cough* squids *cough*).

Good: hunger

When making your shelter in MineCraft to protect yourself from enemy mobs of the night, it got to a point where you created an unbreakable fortress that provided no sense of danger for the player. With the introduction of hunger, the player is forced to leave their shelter if they want to regenerate health, adding a subtle but welcome bit of depth to the game.

Bad: Endorman

Endorman at this point stand out like a sore thumb. They are much taller than other mobs and are far too frequent. I like the idea of a mob that only attacks when your eyes meet, but seeing them everywhere takes away from the fun. Ideally, I want to see one Endorman every 3 days in MineCraft.

Good/Bad: creative mode

I love creative mode. It's a perfect, simple way to make all the awesome structures you want in MineCraft without the need to hunt for supplies or use InvEdit. The fact that it works in online servers is even cooler. That basically means without having to mod your server, spawn resources every time a player asks for it, or have every player mod their own game, you just have to switch the game-mode in your server file to "1" and you're all set for a productive build server.

The bad part of creative mode is the flying; instead of stopping as soon as you let go of the directional key (as you do while walking and with the Zombe flymod) you have a slide-float that makes you overshoot your target every time, sort of like you're walking on ice. It's an exasperating decision that makes building elevated structures more complex than it should be.

Happy 47th birthday Keanu Reeves!

2011-09-01T21:32:00.000-07:00

In honor of Keanu Reeves 47th birthday (September 2nd 1964-2011), I thought I'd pick up a cake to eat with a friend in celebration. It's not much, but hats off all the same to my favorite actor of all time.

Vanilla cherry Drumsticks are the shit

2011-08-26T23:09:00.000-07:00

Hey bros. I know I haven't posted on my Blog in awhile, but I'd just like to say that Vanilla Cherry sprinkled Drumsticks are basically the shit.

Summer time, fuck yeah!

2011-06-15T23:35:00.000-07:00

Ah, a night of powdered donuts and Adventure Time. No better way to spend summer nights.

Finding time to watch TV shows and movies during the school year can be so difficult, but now I can finally catch up on the ones I've missed. I recently finished watching the first two seasons of Regular Show as well as season 2 of K-On!! Currently I'm watching Adventure Time season 1 and Nichijou.

I work almost every day of the week at Wendy's but so far I've had all dinner shifts (4pm to 8pm or later) so I'm able to sleep in late and stay up watching movies and cartoons even later (though once my computer arrives, I'll be playing a lot more video games).

So how are you spending your long, summer days?

Toaster Strudels for dinner

2011-06-12T22:08:00.000-07:00

Toaster Strudels are best cooked with a little brown around the edges, am I right?

ArenaNet explains why there was no Guild Wars 2 at E3 2011

2011-06-10T11:28:00.000-07:00

E3 was a bit meh for me. I was super excited to see and hear more about Battlefield 3 and thought what they showed of Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim looked amazing (holy shit, unscripted dragon encounters!), but there wasn't much on the side of new game announcements. In fact, the only game announcement I am excited about is Far Cry 3.

Guild Wars 2 is still my absolute most-anticipated game. About 40% of the reason I got a gaming computer is to be able to properly play Guild Wars 2 upon release (my laptop chugs GW1). Thus, I was very sad to not hear anything new about Guild Wars 2 at this years electronic entertainment expo, so I conveyed my confusion to ArenaNet via Twitter, not expecting a reply. This is what I got...

This makes a lot of sense to me, and puts my mind at ease by erasing the possibility of delays or issues in development. The last show they really pimped Guild Wars 2 at was GDC (Game Developer's Conference), so I guess the most likely place we will see more info on GW2 would be Pax Prime, which is on August 27th of this year.

I only hope I didn't sound rude in my tweet ;_;

Finally ordered a gaming PC!

2011-06-09T14:07:00.000-07:00

So, after putting up with Dell desktops and single-core laptops all my life, I am now finally the proud owner of a proper gaming desktop computer.

Take that picture and subtract the mouse/keyboard/monitor and it should be what will arrive in the mail by the end of the month.

Specifications:
CASE: Apevia X-Dreamer 3 Mid-Tower w/temp display (black with blue LED)
MOBO: Asus M4A87TD
CPU: AMD Phenom™II X4 (quad-core) 970 (3.5ghz)
GPU: AMD Radeon HD 6870 1GB GDDR5
PSU: 700wt CoolerMaster Silent Pro 80 Plus
RAM: 8GB DDR3/1600MHz
HDD1: 1TB SATA-III (32mb cache) 7200rpm
HDD2: 500GB SATA-II (for saving captured video)
SOUND: HD 7.1 on-board audio
DISPLAY: 24" (1920x1080) Asus VH242H LCD

Cost about $1165 (free shipping, 5% off deal)

I also have a 19" fullscreen monitor that I'll likely use as a second screen to check TweetDeck while watching a movie or something like that.

With the Steam Summer sale coming up, I hope to get a lot of good PC games with the extra money left over from getting this PC (about $35) and then start uploading some 1080p (or at least 720p) HD video clips, commentaries, & montages to my YouTube channel.

Now I just need something to do for the next 20 days... ;_;

(also, expect a "setups" tab on my blog to appear once I get this all installed)

Varying opinions

2011-06-06T13:34:00.000-07:00

Although from what I've seen of Battlefield 3 so far, I have to agree with Little Kuriboh. Everything they've shown so far has looked so bland and boring, and this is coming from someone who loved 1943 and Bad Company 2.

I'm hoping that the single player will look exciting and explosive like Bad Company 2's MP was, because otherwise my pre-order may be canceled.

My favorite thing from Wendy's

2011-06-03T19:04:00.000-07:00

I've worked at Wendy's fast food restaurant for a little over three months now, and of all the things I've eaten there, this is my favorite thing to eat there.

It's a 5-piece spicy chicken nugget with ranch dipping sauce. To drink: Mellow Yellow mixed with High-C Fruit Punch. Normally I don't like chicken nuggets at fast food restaurants because of the tasteless white meat, but being spicy nuggets, these are packed with flavor. They have a certain "ring" to the taste buds, and the ranch dipping sauce complements them perfectly. As for the drink, think of a sharper, more carbonated Mountain Dew Code Red.

Being an employee, I get this for $0.52. For regular people, it costs $1.99 + tax.

Not a fan of nuggets? Try my other favorite, the new Jr. Spicy Chipotle cheeseburger for $0.99.

Sort of want: PayDay The Heist

2011-06-03T14:00:00.000-07:00

Pay Day: The Heist is a cooperative first-person shooter that's coming out later this year for the PC and PS3. I know a lot of people will roll their eyes at the idea of another FPS, but I've always thought bank robberies were awesome, and aside from a level or two in GTA IV haven't appeared very often in games.

From the look of the trailer, it's going to be a budget game (as expected from a download-only title for around $25) but if they add in some harder difficulties and a time attack leader-board, the game's 6 heist missions could go a long way in terms of replay ability.

So what do you guys think of the game? Mite be cool or shit?

5 for $20 at BlockBuster

2011-06-01T16:39:00.000-07:00

Well, my friend @space_space told me that there was a secret BluRay sale at BlockBuster last Monday; 1 movie for $0.99. Well, I went there after cashing in my paycheck, and to my dismay, my BlockBuster didn't have such a sale. Fortunately they did have a 5 BluRays for $20 sale, so I decided that I'd jump on the offer while I was there.

Street Kings, District 9, and Ninja Assassin were the only films I wanted, but the selection was pretty shitty, so I grabbed a couple more films just to wrap up the deal (would've costed me $24 if I had only gotten those 3 movies).

From now on, though, I think I'm going to stick to only picking up BluRays of movies I've really really enjoyed. Sucker Punch and True Grit are among these.

Fuck off, Starbucks

2011-06-01T16:22:00.000-07:00

I had a bit of a sweet tooth today, and was looking to down a cup of coffee. So what I did was take the cold coffee leftovers of this morning's brew and a few scoops of chocolate ice cream and blended it together. Then put whipped cream on top of that, and this is what I got...

Pretty good, I must say. It had a nice, sweet taste, but still felt like I was drinking a cold coffee, instead of all that overly-flavored shit they make at Starbucks for $6.00. Next time, I think I'll add more ice cream to it, just to make it more creamy.

Doodle Jump on Windows Phone 7: $2.99

2011-06-01T14:25:00.000-07:00

So I already own Doodle Jump on my iPod Touch. Bought that shit fair and square. To be honest, its one of my all-time favorite mobile games. However I don't always have my iPod Touch on me, so playing Doodle Jump on the bus isn't an option. Today, I got the news from @majornelson that Doodle Jump was on the Windows Phone Marketplace (or the Zune Marketplace, I guess). I knew it wouldn't be free, but I didn't expect this...

What the fuck Microsoft? A 300% mark-up? Are you even trying?

Window's Xbox Live Mobile system is cool, but all the games either (1) Aren't compatible with Xbox Live Mobile (2) Cost way more than they do on iPod Touch (We Love Katamari is $7 on Windows Phone, $3 on iPhone) or (3) fucking suck.

Why PlayStation can't just give you $20 on your PSN account as a "welcome back!" present.

2011-05-19T17:14:00.000-07:00

I thought this would be fairly obvious to everyone, but after seeing even reputable video game news sites asking this question, I thought I should explain it myself.

To recap, the PlayStation Network went down for 23 days. April 20th to May 14th, 2011. Sony's promise to their loyal fans was that they were going to have some sort of "welcome back" program to convey their gratitude to their player base.

Now the PlayStation Network is back up, and the Welcome Back program will go live within a week or so. The details on it have already been revealed; every affected PSN customer will receive 30 days of PlayStation Plus and a bunch of shit in PlayStation Home. But more importantly, everyone will receive two of the following games in the US:

Dead Nation
Little Big Planet
inFamous
Super Stardust HD
WipEout HD

Cool, right? However I already own 3 of these games, so there isn't much of an option for me to choose from now is there? Others have it worse; some have all of these game already. The question that PSP GWebber presents is why can't we all just get money in our PSN accounts instead of having to choose from a list of games we already have? I mean, they're downloadable so they're free, right?

Wrong.

Just because PlayStation Store games are downloadable, doesn't make them free. All of these games are published by Sony, and therefore they do not have to pay anyone to "give them away" as a present. If Sony gave everyone PSN credits, however, and everyone decided to get Marvel Vs Capcom 2, for example, then Sony would have to pay Capcom's share of 77,000,000 game sales.

What is Capcom's share of each title sold digitally? Half? A tenth? Who gives a shit? Even if Capcom only got a dollar per $15 game sale, that's still $77,000,000 Sony now has to pay to Capcom, and something tells me that they aren't ready to lose that much money right now.

What this doesn't explain is why this is such a small amount of games to choose from. Sony also has the rights to Motorstorm and God of War 1 and 2, but they're not on this list. In fact, Sony Europe customers have these games plus Ratchet and Clank: Quest for Booty on their list. Why don't we? Who knows. I'm just glad I can play my games online again.

Plus, I was planning on getting Super Stardust for some time now. Glad I didn't.

Sucker Punch movie review: why so serious?

2011-03-26T02:20:00.000-07:00

Let's get this out of the way, Sucker Punch is not a good movie. It has almost no character development, no story progression, and the dialogue is atrocious. Did I enjoy the movie? You bet your ass I did.

When I generally go to see a movie, I go in expecting to pay attention to the story, become attached to the characters as the story gradually unfolds, and then watch the movie's protagonist(s) fight through whatever complication comes there way. The fun part about watching a movie like Sucker Punch, is that it doesn't follow any kind of logical structure for a movie. It doesn't need an excuse for shoe-horning up-skirt shots, steam punk, dragons, and samurai into one movie, it just does. It's nice to be able to watch movies like this that obviously aren't going to film-of-the-year, but are just made for entertainment, and damn this movie can be entertaining.

Just giving a synopsis of the film is hilarious. Five prostitutes attempt to escape from their whore-house by obtaining means of escape through erotic dances that transport the girls to fantasy locations, is the best I can do. The story moves along at an extremely fast pace, leaving no time for subtle touches or drag time, which is what I want from a generally mindless action flick.

If you've ever seen Zack Snyder's "300", you'd know that Zach is a big fan of stylized visuals and slow motion shots. Sucker Punch is certainly no exception. Especially during the first half hour or so, Sucker Punch is constantly picking alternate camera angles, zooming in on interesting parts of the shot, or throwing some CGI effect in your face. Every scene of this movie has a very distinct feel and is very pretty to look at.

The CGI in the action scenes can be a bit lame at times. It reminds me a lot of The Matrix Reloaded in terms of how easy it is to tell when the characters go from actual actors to CGI effects. The action scenes themselves are very cool and I was really impressed with the camera work. Usually in action movies, the camera angle changes positions every half second to give the illusion of fast-motion, but ultimately this effect takes away from the action direction in the scene, as you can't really watch what's happening. The action scenes in Sucker Punch generally hold one camera position for a few seconds, letting the audience take in the action for themselves. The only thing I might have wanted is for the camera to be pulled back a bit, since sometimes it is again, too close to tell what's going on, but generally they did a good job.

The acting is good enough. The only character I felt was out of place was the owner of the establishment, Blue. I won't spoil anything from the movie, but he does a few things that are very rash, and his goals never seem to be clear. As for the characters, I was generally only attached to Rocket and Baby Doll, the two main protagonists. To be honest, going into the film, I didn't think I would care about any of the characters.

The Conclusion

After reading the reviews of Rolling Stone, Kotaku, and a few other sites, I feel like this film is being mis-judged. It seems odd to me that a movie that is so obviously over-the-top is being judged so critically in terms of writing. The only parts of the movie I didn't like were the times where storyline and plot interrupted the progression of the film. Yes, this is a mindless action flick. Yet, in terms of mindless action movies, I liked this more than Transformers or anything else by Michael Bay, for that matter. I was always surprised with each new location the girl's visited and what crazy mission they had to carry out, and I think being surprised by events in a movie is something that a lot of films today sadly lack.

But again, this isn't a good movie. It's just a mind-numbing action flick. So should you go see it? If you're ready to see a schoolgirl fight 12-foot samurai zombies, then I would say it be worth it to grab some friends and see this at a matinée. I'll definitely be watching this movie again when it comes out on DVD.

The Games of 2011: What I'm looking forward to and why

2011-03-19T11:42:00.000-07:00

As the spill-over games of 2010, such as Little Big Planet 2 and Killzone 3 get released, and events like PAX and GDC reveal more information and news on upcoming titles, it's getting to that point where everyone has their eyes set on a few AAA games that they're dying to play this year. These are mine...

Brink is the game I seem to have the most trouble explaining to my friends. The art style of Borderlands with the controls of Mirror's Edge with the gun customizations of Black Ops with the frantic shooting of Quake... it all gets very confusing. But what's clear is that this looks like a very well-built, and fun first-person shooter. It may be that I'm just a sucker for customization though. A good portion of my time playing Skate 3 and even Guitar Hero World Tour was spent dabbling in the cosmetic customization, while it seems like my Black Ops load-outs change every week. 16 character slots, each with their own appearance and gun customization settings will surely keep me busy for an embarrassingly long time.

I know what you're thinking; there's not a snowball's chance in hell that Guild Wars 2 is coming out in 2011. Maybe you're right on that one. But with the way the official site has been posting updates left and right (Thief class, fuck yes!) and the way the guys at Ncsoft seem to have a bigger presence at recent gaming conventions (GDC most notably) makes me think that an explosion of news at E3 followed by a holiday launch is still possible. If not that, maybe we will see a early 2012 launch. I'm probably being overly optimistic when saying all these things, but whatever.

I've never been a big fan of MMOs. I played my 10 day free trial of World of Warcraft, left, and never thought about it again. I spent a lot of my younger years playing Rune Scape, but that of course died. I may have even played some Lord of the Rings Online and Pirates of the Caribbean Online for awhile, but never really got serious about it. Playing the original Guild Wars, however, showed me what I actually liked about online RPGs; getting together with other players and going on quests. Not dungeon crawling, grinding, and completing endless fetch-quests. Guild Wars 2 seems to expand even further on the idea of taking out the filler in MMOs and replacing it with what people really want to play.

I was sold on Portal 2 the minute I heard you could play co-op between the PlayStation 3 and PC/Steam versions. However, it was when Valve announced that adopters of the PS3 version of the game would receive it on PC for free that I went into "shut up and take my money!" mode. I have a lot of PC gaming friends. Sadly, I probably have more PC gaming friends than PS3 gaming friends, so being able to play though the awesome-looking campaign of Portal 2 in co-op with them is something I'm really looking forward to.

If you read my Fault Line Episode 2 impressions blog post from earlier last week, you would know that even the smallest details of Battlefield 3 are getting me pumped to play it later this year. Hey, when the creators of one of the best FPS series ever put out trailers for their new game showcasing a new physics engine, spectacular graphics, and tactical military gameplay, how can you not be excited? Dice is being completely serious when they say they want to make the best Battlefield game to date, and it shows. Plus, EA wants Call of Duty to be gone, and while I don't think BF3 will do better than Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 in sales, I think EA will provide Dice with however much funding they need to put out the absolute best game they can make.

Unfortunately, along with my excitement for Battlefield 3 comes some concerns. The first concern is the environments of the game. So far, all we have seen is brown and tan deserts and broken-down buildings. If Call of Duty Black Ops did anything right, they brought much-needed color to their game, and it really helps it's visual appeal in the long run. It's very early in terms of what Dice wants to reveal about the game, and Bad Company 2 had an acceptable variety in multiplayer environments, so I am not too concerned, but it's something I wanted to at least address briefly. My chief concern with Battlefield 3 is the amount of players in the multiplayer matches. According to Game Informer, the PC version of the game will support 64-player online multiplayer in Battlefield 3, while the console versions can only handle a meager 24 players in one game. The lower cap on consoles is a result of the relatively low bandwidth cap on PS3 and Xbox 360 games. Frostbite 2 is apparently supposed to eat up about 3/4ths of the total bandwidth being used to host the matches, leaving little left for other things like high player counts. Having less than half the players in a match in the console versions is a huge issue, for obvious reasons, and will certainly make the decision on map sizes in the game difficult on Dice. I am optimistically expecting the player count for consoles to go up to at least 32 before it ships, but asking for the full 64 may not be a possibility.

I played a good bit of Oblivion. Not nearly as much as some people, and never long enough to beat it, but a good bit. After a while, the game just started to feel stale, and I put a majority of the blame on the muddy graphics. What I've seen of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, however, has blown me away. There's not much I can really say about this game, since we have only seen one real trailer of the game, but it certainly gives the impression that it is a game I want to buy and play for a long, long time.

Finally, any fan of shooters can't help but be excited for the long-awaited release of Duke Nukem: Forever. Aside from regenerating health, this game seems to stick to classic shooter gameplay standards that you just don't see in FPS today. Aside from that, the game is brimming with humor and personality, shown from lines like "power armor is for pussies" in reference to a pile of green armor, strikingly similar to that of Master Chief. If that weren't enough to be excited for, you can't help but shit your pants over the Balls of Steal edition. Rumored to be only $100, the Balls of Steel edition comes with an art book, dice, cards, and a few other awesome collectibles, but mainly it's the medium-sized plastic bust of Duke with the inscription "Carpe Nukem" that make this collector's edition worth the extra money.

tl;dr 2011 looks awesome

Battlefield 3 Fault Line Eps 2 impressions

2011-03-16T11:16:00.000-07:00

In case you don't follow my tweets, I've been on my spring break vacation in Florida for the past week, and haven't been able to get wifi in many of the places I'm staying at. Fortunately, I was able to get online just in time.

Today, DICE revealed another impressing "Fault Line" Battlefield 3 trailer to feed their rabid fan's appetite for gameplay footage. What did I think of it? Impressed is an understatement.

Aside from the orgasmically fantastic graphics, there wasn't a lot we haven't seen before in modern military shooters. Basic "follow the leader" stuff, as you and your team go prone behind crumbling barriers avoiding sniper fire. The part that really impressed me was the last few seconds of the gameplay portion (about 1:50 to the end) of the video.

The standard fair in a military shooter at this point in the scripted sequence would be to pick up a sniper rifle yourself and fire back. Or, hell, if this is anything like Bad Company 2, you could pick him off a mile away with an LMG. But what was different about Battlefield 3 is that he used a rocket launcher. And he didn't use it in an attempt to hit the sniper, but he used it to hit the building the sniper was purched on.

It was at that moment I remembered what rocket launchers are supposed to do; regardless of what Call of Duty has taught me. They're meant to destroy structures, not hit people. And it was that realization that impressed me about this trailer.

As much as I don't want to be a modern-shooter-fanboy, I'm still not excited about the single player. I'll definitely play the single player, start to finish, but my excitement still stems from the multiplayer, which is still shrouded in mystery. But if this single player gameplay is any indication on the multiplayer, I'm more excited for it than ever.

Shooting the structure your target is standing on instead of shooting at your target directly, what a concept! It's those kinds of improvisions that make Battlefield a shooter unlike any other.

I guess that leads us to wonder when we will see Battlefield 3 multiplayer footage. We'll see a metric fuck-ton of Battlefield 3 multiplayer at E3, to be sure, but we all hope that we won't have to wait that long.

Regardless, the next episode of Battlefield 3 "Fault Line" comes out March 30th, 2011, and I'll be holding my breath until then.

Can't we all just stop reviewing Pokemon games?

2011-03-04T15:46:00.000-08:00

Ryan Geddes (IGN writer) RT'd my tweet about Pokemon game reviews, so of course I have to make a new blog post. I know, at this point, 1/3rd of my posts are twitter screenshots, but I'll talk a little bit more about the topic at hand this time.

Yes, we all know that Pokemon is the same damn game every time.

No, it probably will never change.

No, we don't care.

Realistically, you probably know if you're going to get the next Pokemon game before you even see any screenshots or read anything about it. It's just sort of a "oh yeah, I'm down for more Pokemon" or "I'll think I'll pass this time" type thing. Either that or you're buying it just to play it with friends.

If you're not one of these people, then you're someone who has never played Pokemon before and is getting it for the first time. If that's the case, you don't give a shit if it's a rehash, it's brand new to you.

And finally, if you're none of the above, you're not buying Black or White version, so why go through the formality of restating that the 'new' Pokemon game is nothing different and leave it at that?

My gripes with the Oscars (83rd Academy Awards corrections)

2011-02-28T18:51:00.000-08:00

Ah, the Oscars. That magical time of year where either we sit there, bored, wondering why we aren't doing something fun with our Sunday night, or- if you're a movie buff, you sit there yelling at your TV for 3 hours. The latter describes me. So, to vent some of my frustration, I thought I would mention awards of the Oscars that I feel were mis-given.

ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

WINNER: Melissa Leo

MY PICK: Hailee Steinfeld

Hailee Steinfeld not only was the best supporting actress in a 2010 movie, but she gave the best acting job, man or women, all year. There wasn't a second of True Grit that I wasn't entertained or moved by her acting performance. She perfectly portrayed a brash, confident 14-year-old girl and I believe could almost be considered a lead character role.

COSTUME DESIGN:

WINNER: Alice in Wonderland

MY PICK: True Grit

Only a few characters in Alice in Wonderland were even wearing costumes. The majority of the film was computer animation, so I don't think that it's fair at all to applaud the film for costume design.

DOCCUMENTARY:

WINNER: Inside Job

MY PICK: Exit Through the Gift Shop

Aside from the obvious chance to see Bansky or MBW accept a public awards, Exit Thorugh the Gift Shop was one of my favorite films of the year overall.

FILM EDITING:

WINNER: The Social Network

MY PICK: Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (not a nominee)

Some may consider the many "Pow" and "Bam!" titles that pop up during Scott Pilgrim to be special effects, but anyone who has edited a video for awhile would probably identify it as film editing. The Social Network didn't really do anything special or notable in terms of film editing, unless I'm confused about the entire category.

MUSIC (ORIGINAL SCORE)

WINNER: The Social Network

MY PICK: Inception

Sure it would've been weird to give Inception all three sound-related Oscars, but aside from Tron: Legacy, Inception's soundtrack is the only other one that really stood out to me.

The highlight of the Academy Awards was probably Anne Hathaway's "personal moment"

Thoughts on Radiohead's "The King of Limbs"

2011-02-28T18:27:00.000-08:00

Radiohead albums have a strange effect on me. The first time I listen to an album like Kid A or In Rainbows, I think "wow, what a bunch of hipster bullshit." But then I feel called back to the album, I remember how the songs flow together and paint a picture in melodies, and I have no choice but to listen to them again, and again, and again. The King of Limbs is no different.

The album contains only 8 songs, but when listening to the album start to finish, it feels like 2 or 3, which isn't a bad thing. The endings of the songs transition to the beginning of the next song only a couple times, but all the songs have the same instrument style (playing 10 different sounds at once to make a complex arpeggio). This isn't a Dark Side of the Moon, but the songs still do a nice job of creating a central theme to the album, and I think the small quantity of songs on the album helps accomplish this.

The problem with this is that there is no one song that stands out. I've rarely gone back to play one song from this album out of order. Almost every time The King of Limbs comes up on my iPod, it's either because I'm listening to it start to finish or because it's part of the shuffle playlist.

If I had to pick favorites, I definitely enjoy Lotus Flower and Separator the most. Give Up the Ghost was my least favorite of the album, but certainly not a bad song.

Overall, if you're like me and love the artistic style of In Rainbows and Kid A, you'll love The King of Limbs. It works great as quiet, relaxing music or as background noise. However, if you're more of a fan of Radiohead's The Bend and Pablo Honey, you'll definitely wanna steer clear, or at least listen to it on YouTube before a purchase.

The album art is badass as well.

Buying games used saves you a lot more than $5

2011-01-26T20:21:00.000-08:00

I hear this argument all the time when discussing used game sales:

"It's only $5 less used, why wouldn't you spend the extra money to support the developers?"

To anyone who really thinks that, I ask, have you been to a GameStop in the past 5 years? Have you even visited their website? Ever?

If you had, you would see what a great miscalculation you conducted on your part. To aid the anti-used-sales crowd, I put together this picture today, January 26th, 2011, from prices on GameStop's website:

As you can clearly see, many popular games are listed for $10, $15, even $25 less used than new. Is it really worth paying a third more for a game just to feel warm and fuzzy inside about knowing your money is going to developers? $25 is a lot a lot bigger to you than it is to a major video game publisher. Games out as long as Halo 3 and Heavy Rain probably would've just sat on the shelf for months anyways; developers already got paid when the game was shipped to the retail store.

I'm not saying used game sales don't hurt developers. They do. Not as much as piracy, but they certainly do. And if you're excited for a game that's coming out soon, I fully support buying it new on launch day or around that time. But don't act like consumers should feel obligated to paying extra for an almost identical product simply to fuel the flames of a multi-million-dollar gaming publisher.

I could go on and on about why I think used game sales should be left alone (and free of codes that take out portions of the game) but I think I've made my point for now.

Game and film of 2010

2011-01-06T14:25:00.000-08:00

It's that time of year again. The beginning of it. The time where we look back on the previous year once more before venturing into the next. At this point, everyone and their mom has given their two-cents on what they consider to be film of the year and game of the year, so instead of making a thousand categories, I'll keep mine short and sweet with 3; game and film of the year and the game I'm looking forward to the most in years to come.

GAME OF THE YEAR 2010:

Heavy Rain by Quantic Dream (PlayStation 3)

To anyone who knows me well, this should come as no surprise. Despite it's lack of "gameplay" and it's multiple plot holes, Heavy Rain stands out as the greatest gaming experience of the year, and possibly the decade. I could feel sympathy for the character's struggles even if they would seem insignificant and pathetic compared to the struggles of today's modern video game heroes. Storytelling moves at a good pace, and people who say that the beginning is slow only say that because they haven't made it to the end. I went through the game again just before writing this GOTY post. I made an effort to get some trophies along the way this time, but mainly focused on getting my ideal ending, which happily I did. Replaying the same scenarios a second time was not nearly as exciting or as nerve-racking as the first, I'll admit, but I was still drawn into the story yet again.

Notable mentions: Red Dead Redemption

I don't consider MineCraft to be a contender for GOTY this year, since technically it's not a full game yet (it only recently went to BETA). However I have enjoyed it a lot and will be a huge contender for game of the year whenever it is officially released.

FILM ON THE YEAR 2010:

Inception by Warner Brothers Studios

I hesitated giving this the film of the year award at first. There have been so many good movies to come out this year, and I'd hate to give off the "the story's good because it's complex" vibe, but every time I've watched the movie it gets better. That's not to say I didn't understand it at first; a movie should make sense the first time you watch it and Inception does as long as you're paying attention. It's just that you notice more things each time you see Inception, and you think of how it relates to our own world. It's a popcorn action flick wrapped around a plot that brings things like defined reality and the concept of an idea into a different perspective; something that I haven't seen done this well since The Matrix. I almost feel sad watching Inception, knowing that every time it ends the same way. There is so many things that can be done with the concept, the characters, and the world. Hopefully the upcoming video game adaptation can provide another intriguing story to an audience, even if the game itself isn't that good.

Notable Mentions: Exit Through the Gift Shop, True Grit, The Social Network

Most anticipated game post 2010:

Guild Wars 2 by Ncsoft (PC)

"Why not just say 'most anticipated game of 2011' runekey?" I hear you say. Well, simply put, i'm not sure it's coming out this year. NCsoft is going with a "when it's done" approach, like Half Life Source has for years. Release date aside, the game is shaping up to be an amazing-looking MMO. An ever-growing world, huge bosses, dynamic combat, permanent changes to the in-game world as a result of your actions, and- best of all- no monthly fees. The promises seem to be as impossible as anything Peter Molyneux promises at this point, but even if we don't get the WoW-killing game of the century they're making this out to be, it looks to be a damn good MMORPG at the very least. I only pray my petty computer can handle it.

Notable Mentions: Battlefield 3, Little Big Planet 2, L.A. Noire