A week of stuff, August 6th

This is a child of fine taste, and without adhering to his high-class specifications a trip to the zoo isn’t the same exciting venture it may be to those children with “less refined” taste.

 

I’ve been seeing some ridiculous innovations in the fields of women’s clothing and accessories recently (search above for wine rack) but this absolutely takes the cake? Any women have feedback on this? Is this enough of a problem for you that would buy this? Do any women actually read this blog?…oh, I should have known.

 

Raver Dog

Seriously, all he needs is some glow sticks. 

This is great: A group of gamers fight off two masked men during a robbery. It definitely would have been even cooler if one of them whipped out the blades of chaos or something but i guess that’s asking too much.

 

This is some of most poorly thought-out advertising ever.

 

Here’s a pie graph with some groundbreaking new research behind it.

Just when I thought I would never see a more ridiculous invention than the wine rack…enter: The Daddle

For all those times when a father spending some innocent, quality time pretending to be a horse with his child wants to make shit really awkward and weird.

 

Siiiick, I’ve always wanted to mess around on one of these but I don’t have one, a spot on a lake, or enough fat friends.

 

Epic reporter faaaaaaail

 

Most badass caterpillar ever.

 

 

That’s all for this week. My next post should be on the next game coming out that I am most looking forward to, Mafia II. There’s also a demo being released on it next week so I’ll be giving my thoughts on that as well by probably Thursday or so.

Inception

Here’s a couple Inception trailer mashups and some cool visuals that might clear a couple basic plot points up for anyone out there that’s confused.

 

Bill and Ted’s Excellent Inception

 

 

Toy Story 3/Inception

Now this is awesome

Apparently CollegeHumor.com absolutely refuses to allow me to embed this video so just click the link and be slightly inconvenienced by a new tab.  Inception Characters Don't Understand Inception

A week of stuff 7/29

First up some music:

I wasn’t crazy about this song at first but the video was immediately funny. After even just the second time though I’m really into this song now. These guys are just awesome. Sort of Tim and Eric and sort of

 

Dey Rapin E’erybody Out Here

Yeah, enough said.

 

Videos of people on drugs after getting their wisdom teeth out are always funny…

But this is easily the best I’ve ever seen. Did they purposefully overdose him?  Amazing. This is a few days old so I’m sorry if you’ve seen it already but if you haven’t you absolutely must.

I’m actually starting a new job today so I’ve been busy getting my shit together  and didn’t get to updating this until too late. So I’ll leave you with just geekiness at it’s cutest. I don’t think I’ve played a Pokemon game since I was in 4th grade and a girl bumped into me, knocking my pokemon yellow ( i think ) out of my gameboy and corrupting the save file. I decided it wasn’t worth redoing and sold my gameboy. Even with such a brief experience with that game i found this super fucking geeky and adorable.

That was a really brief entry but I’ve started watching Dr. Who and it’s taking over my free time. More on that later, and I’ll work on gathering more material for next Friday.

 

-Ben

Dare I say..consistency?

So I’m going to try something out here. I’m going to make Thursday my official update day…probably…for now at least. And on these weekly updates I’ll have either a game review, some type of ranty/rambly/thing or (what I’m planning on for tomorrow) a collage of funny/amusing/interesting items I’ve found amongst the filth in the internet world that week. Think of it as all of the funny videos you get forwarded to you or run into on stumble upon or however else but all in one place so you don’t have to sift through the crap. They will generally be the week of the previous Friday to the Thursday that they’re posted but tomorrow’s will mostly be just the past couple days since I just decided to do this a few minutes ago. Feedback is appreciated as always. Who knows, I may turn this into something totally readable and interesting someday…which reminds me; i really need a proper title. Suggestions for that are very welcome as well.

 

-Ben

Have you seen Missy?

Ok, let me just preface this by saying that I like animals in general and I absolutely adore cats. Not only that but the cat pictured in this item (link below) looks almost exactly like mine. I was really hesitant to laugh at this at first but you will see, as I did, that the elocution of sarcasm and wit shown here is far too good to not appreciate. I’m sure this woman is really emotionally distraught over her pet and I feel for her, I really do. Losing a pet you’re really attached  to can be pretty hard (and really hard for some people) so I get that.

With that said: If she had a single reasonable bone in her body she would not be blogging requests for fancy missing poster designs and just put a picture of her fucking cat on a piece of paper, write the word lost or missing and her phone number. Then photocopy it and hang them around town. Maybe even go outside and look for her fucking cat. But instead she is blogging about how much she misses her cat, the one she isn’t out there looking for. And someone saw the opportunity, grasped it, and hilarity followed.

I sincerely hope she finds her cat and that it’s safe and healthy; but if her cat dies out there because she was too busy whining on a blog to actually go find her cat then RIP Missy and I’m sorry your owner was such a dumb bitch.

Have you seen Missy?

I’m pretty happy about this

Wilmington, North Carolina

Goddamn I love it here. I visited for a few days about  a month ago and I’ve now been here for the second time since Wednesday and I sincerely want to move out here as soon as I can. Everything from the people you meet to all of the fun things there are to do is just top notch. The very atmosphere exudes such a warm friendliness that having a bad day around here feels nearly impossible. The only exception from pure awesome about Wilmington would have to be the heat and humidity—which I’ve actually already become acclimated to, at least to some extent.  Maybe that’s part of it even. Everyone is generally having such a good time but we’re all in the same sweat-filled boat of torturous heat so everyone shares that common link right off the bat. Anyway, I absolutely love it here and even though I don’t leave until tomorrow night, I can’t wait to come back already.

Last night I saw Grace Potter and the Nocturnals play at The Soapbox, with Blues and Lasers as an opening band. It was one of the sickest shows I’ve been to in a really long time. I actually had never heard of them before last night (although I think I recognized one of their songs that’s probably in a commercial or something like that) and that just made the whole show even better. It’s rare that I go into seeing a band play not knowing anything about them and end up having great time. That show was just amazing and I’m already in love with Grace Potter’s voice and her rocking band. The opening band Blues and Lasers is actually comprised of The Nocturnals and some of their roadies whom decided to get together and make awesome music together. They sound like Zeppelin in that they are the sickest actual rock band I’ve heard since Zeppelin. It was just such a phenomenally fun show. Great music and energy and people the whole time—with the single exception of the creepy dude who may or may not have tried to date rape Sophia Bush. He was like hovering over her the whole time and kept acting really weird every time any of us made eye contact with him and then later on offered her some shots. She had to work early this morning so she declined and in a fit he threw the shots on the ground—getting them all over us—and then immediately proceeded to go buy more. It could be paranoia but why would he go get more and waste those ones unless he did something to him. SO shady. Oh yeah so Sophia Bush was there, as well as other One Tree Hill cast members—none of which I recognized. It was cool to meet her but it wasn’t really as much of a trip as meeting celebrities is hyped up to be; that’s mostly because I’ve never really seen that show or anything else she’s been in so even though I know she’s a well known actress that some people would flip their shit over meeting, it was almost as if I kind of had to just take everyone’s word for it. Anyway she is really funny and an absolute sweetheart—and gorgeous of course—so all in all it was a pleasure to meet her—and eat her food because I was too broke to buy my own. But wait, this is Wilmington, North Carolina…East Hollywood…one of the coolest places in the country and quite possibly taking Vegas’ place as my favorite city to visit, so of course meeting one celebrity isn’t nearly enough. Grace Potter herself joined us as well. Now keep in mind I didn’t know anything about her the day previous to this, but over the course of this one show I fell absolutely head-over-heels in love with her singing and was quickly converted into a huge fan. So not only meeting her, but meeting her so quickly after discovering her music was just plain insane. It was comparable to converting to Christianity wholeheartedly when not a moment later Jesus himself walks in with a twenty-pack of Aquafina and is like “Hey wanna hang out and drink some wine?” There’s really nothing else that compares.

At this point I’m ready to just die, I don’t see how my life could get more fulfilling—unless actually, I moved down here. So maybe dying is a bit drastic but I’m definitely going to have  a really difficult time trying to top last night for the rest of the summer. I doubt even the collective whole of my remaining summer could be more amazing of an experience than that one night was. Such a goddamn blast.

I’m here for one more night and it’s hot as balls out so who knows what we’ll end up doing tonight. Based on the heat and what little money is in my wallet it probably won’t be anything too crazy although having a good time is certainly guaranteed. I may or may not make another update about Wilmington before leaving but I’ll be sure to make one after I get home and recover either way.

Also if you’re not listening to Grace Potter and the Nocturnals and Blues and Lasers by now you really should be.

You can check out their music and find out about their upcoming shows by clicking their respective names above and you really really should. They were absolutely unreal live and if you never see them play you are doing yourself a shameful disservice.

Grace Potter and the Nocturnals are actually playing in North Conway, NH in August and then Burlington, VT soon after that. I’m definitely going to one of those shows and possibly both if I can afford. They’re that good.

Stay cool, I’ll definitely be trying to and I’ll start right now with a tasty popsicle.

-Ben

The Week in Rants

Evil Park Bench

Have you ever been walking through a park, gotten a bit tired and sat on a park bench? Sure, why not. Well listen up you lazy bum, no more bench-sitting for free, you think benches grow on trees? This is one of the most absurd things I’ve ever seen. Fabian Brunsing, an artist/photographer/designer living in Berlin created this crazy contraption. If you know me, I hate paying for anything so that’s the main reason I don’t like this thing—granted it’s only one euro which is a littler more than a dollar but the video below gives the impression that only gives you a very limited time. Not only does this bench charge you before use but after like thirty seconds it forces you to leave by threatening to sodomize you with metal spikes. I’ll admit that this is the most badass bench I’ve ever seen, but I don’t think I’d ever want to sit on it.

 

 

Least Practical Weapon Ever

I don’t even know what to say. When I read the subject “Rocket Propelled Chainsaw” my first thought was “Awesome!” but after looking at this a little more and thinking about it…what a horrible way to kill zombies. The design is apparently legit enough that you could actually build one but you would have to be picking up your ammo all the time (amidst zombies, remember) and probably have to sling some extra gas over your shoulder for when it runs out. The more I think about it the more a regular chainsaw seems superior. The only place these designs will ever thrive is in a videogame or a movie because it's way too absurd for real life—but goddamn would it be awesome in those places.

For the Alcoholic On the Go

Now if this was intended to be some sort of discrete Camel Back thing for women it would make slightly more sense; but still look incredibly obvious and be a hell of a lot less convenient than just wearing a Camel Back. Why would you want to hide a camel back anyway? Ohh because it doesn’t have water in it it has wine. Yes; this is a sports bra for those women that are sick of carrying around that box of Franzia during their morning jogs. Finally, right? It’s only redeeming feature is it’s name being the Wine Rack and that’s only because I’m a sucker for puns. I still can’t believe it’s actually advertised and suggested as something you drink wine out of. As I said, using it for water would still be stupid but at least slightly more reasonable.

You And Your Johnson

That heading could have gone so many ways but I think that simplicity not only saves you from reading horribly crude puns but also saves me from having to think of one while still laughing over this video. I love ad campaigns that were poorly thought out; I just like to imagine the type of people who approved this commercial being divided into two groups: the completely oblivious and the people thinking to themselves “Holy shit if we can actually get this on TV I will never stop laughing” or something along that sentiment.  Well before I say anything else please watch this family friendly advertisement.

Now. Presumably this commercial is about boats but not only is it a little ambiguous in it’s wording but it NEVER says the word boat; doesn’t even hint at it. It doesn’t even really focus on the boats as much as the people in it and of course, that song is all anybody is going to be able to focus on anyway. But in all seriousness the most surprising part of all was discovering that spending quality time with you and your Johnson has only been a way of life for 50 years (let’s say closer to 70 based on how old this commercial is). I’m sure we’ll see a rise in the amount of time you spend with your Johnson thanks to such colorful suggestions seen here such as: your girl and your Johnson, your mate and your Johnson, the controversial your kids and your Johnson and the ever-popular classic: just you and your Johnson. Ah, good times.

 

I was planning on making this longer but after that last 30 seconds of pure awesome I feel compelled to post this immediately. Thus, I shall divide this into two parts and start working on the second now. So expect the continuation of whatever this is in a couple days after I finish rounding up the funny, obscure and whatever else.

-Ben

Playing With Lions

This is super random but since I’ve been so long absent, I decided to make random little update like this.

I’ve been basically binge gaming and occasionally working right recently. Ever since I got my new PS3 I’ve lost all my saves so I’ve played through a  lot of my games again such as GOW:III which I’m almost through again, Uncharted 2 which I’m almost done with and Modern Warfare 2 which I’ve been playing mostly multiplayer in even though all I need to get platinum on that game is the spec ops—which are really hard to do with one person.

Anyway, here’s an awesome video of an Animal Behaviorist who plays with lions.

 

So now that I’ve got that out; I haven’t played a new game since Red Dead Redemption with the exception of when I rented Battlefield 2 by the way which was a pain in the ass. The game itself was pretty fun. The single player campaign was really nothing special and got pretty stale pretty quick. But it wasn’t bad by any means. The online is definitely the game’s strong point and although it was really fun I just couldn’t get into it too much; I could see that there’s a lot of progression available and the combat online is pretty damn fun but I just couldn’t get especially into it. The worst part—the pain in the ass part—was that I never even got enough time to really play it since Blockbuster has completely changed their rental polices to some nonsensical rip-off. I’ve always preferred Gamefly but being unemployed and constantly broke, I haven’t had the money to keep my account recently. But Blockbuster was ok for when I was waiting for a game to come in or I had one and wanted to try another right away. Games were eight dollars to rent for about 20 days or so. The receipts would have an “own it” date on them (which was about 20 days, give or take a couple) and you could keep them until noon by that date. Keep in mind there was always a “due date” on there as well which meant absolutely nothing. You could bring it back any day before the own it date and be golden. Apparently they not only changed the price of game rentals to nine dollars but changed it so that absolutely everything is a five night rental (technically four since it needs to be back before noon the due date). It’s HORRIBLE. I don’t know how that place is still in business but it’s not going to last long at this point. I’ve racked up a few bucks in late fees recently but I’m not paying them anytime soon. Maybe as soon as I get a job and some steady income I’ll go in, pay my rental fees and then explain to them how shitty it was of them to offer the same products, the same weak-sauce, outdated selection of games but sever the services rendered in half and degrade the experience of renting games at Blockbuster to a point at which it’s just not even worth it. You horrible, horrible corporation. *Sigh* I miss Gamefly.

 

Anyway I’ve been in a bit of a slum lately but I plan on getting out of it this week so hopefully we’ll have some updates soon. I don’t know how game-related they’ll be considering there’s no way for me to play any new games at the moment. Luckily there isn’t a whole lot coming out soon that I’m interested in. Not until Mafia II in August maybe and I’m still fluctuating on my opinion of that game; I’m pretty sure it’s going to come out alright though, we’ll see.

Until next time (which should be soon),

 

Ben

Another Podcast list on the way

There was one podcast I meant to add to that list and forgot to, a videogame podcast. Instead of mentioning it here I’ll be having another podcast list of gaming related podcasts. I’ve downloaded a good handful of popular ones so I’ll sift through them all to find my favorites and put them up on here. Expect that in a week or so.

I also just rented Battlefield:Bad Company 2. I know I’m late for this party but I’ve only played a demo so I wanted to check out the multiplayer everyone’s raving about and also see what the campaign is like. So expect a review on that within the next week at the very most—thanks to blockbuster’s stupid return to 5 day rentals—as soon as I have a decent job again I can fiiiinalllyyy reactivate my Gamefly account and get a decent flow of games to play and review.

I’m guessing the review will come before the podcast list but I can’t be certain; either way expect one of them before the end of next week.

 

Until then,

 

-Ben

FINALLY! A Review

NOTE: I’m still unsure on how I want to format my reviews here but I think I’ll be dividing them into the categories of Visuals (graphics), Sound, Gameplay (controls), Overall Fun (entertainment value), Immersion (how easy it is to feel immersed in the game world) and Replay Value. I’d like a format like that and it’s what I’ll stick to for now but I’m sure I’ll keep it loose and make some changes until I get it just right. Here we go.

Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands

 

Prince of Persia 2.0

This Prince of Persia game is clearly an attempt at a revival with a taste of the traditional Prince of Persia that we all loved; redeeming the failure from the previous game which was visually beautiful but in every other way a major disappointment.  Unfortunately it fails at this. It certainly does bring back the original art style and focused the core of the gameplay on agile combat, acrobatics and puzzles. The only problem is that the puzzles are nothing special and certainly not original, the combat is absolutely atrocious and the acrobatics are good but not nearly good enough to hold up the other two aforementioned failures. It’s great to see the developers bring the prince back to what we loved about him in the first place; but a lack of any innovation makes this game come off feeling painfully stale.

A Tale as Old as Time

Yeah, Beauty and the Beast reference,  what of it? The story in this game is very much like the usual deal: The prince comes home to find his kingdom under attack, an evil genie gets released and it spawns sand monsters of no particular origin. The prince gets help from a magical woman whose back story is just as boring as everything else blah blah blah. Everything about this story is predictable and it’s just solid enough to press the game onward but not enough to actually be enjoyable or interesting. If the story was better I may even push through the sluggish combat to see how it plays out but still having not finished the game (something I haven’t done in a very long time) I have absolutely no interest in whatever bits of that dull story I’m missing. There is very little beauty in the visuals of this game but a whole lot of beastly flaws that tear up any of the positive points to shreds. While on the topic of visuals that’s about all I have to say: It looks good but not great. It doesn’t stack up to that stylistic visuals of the last game and somehow even the originals look better than this one. Atmospherically everything’s there but everything about the environments (with only a few exceptions) feel dead and uninspiring. Some areas have more unique styles to them that do look nice but when they’re the backdrop for mediocre gameplay in a snore-inducing story, well they lose any flare they had.

Dynasty Warriors but simplified.

In another review I heard the combat in this game compared to Dynasty Warriors—which is insulting to Dynasty Warriors. Yes, DW has a very simple control scheme and consists largely of button mashing; but it’s actually fun to play. Whereas in Prince of Persia combat always feels tedious and wasteful of your time. So much in fact, that I would consider setting up a Dippy Bird (one of those little bird figurines you hang on the edge of glasses that repeatedly dip in and out of the water) on my controller over the square button and finding a letter use of my time through the combat sections. Maybe a second Dippy Bird on the X button and perhaps an elaborate setup of a laser pointer jumping around the d-pad to lure my cat into swatting at the arrows in order to activate the lame magic powers you get. Actually, setting up that contraption would be a much better use of my time than playing this game.  I guess I should explain it a little bit, as fun as just clarifying how horrible it is can be. Square swings your sword in an extremely basic combo set—but wait, you can even hold it for a power attack! Unfortunately said power attack is just slow and boring to such an unexciting that I ended up never wanting to use it. You can kick enemies individually or in groups with triangle and jump over or on top of most enemies to set up a fancy aerial stab or slash (of which there aren’t more than three or so varieties). When I realized that these were the controls I immediately thought, “Oh, well there must be some sort of drastic improvements on the combat throughout the game right?" Wrong. The only other real additions beyond your usual time powers (which you’re more likely to save for puzzles) is a variety of magical powers and upgrades that do a get a bit more impressive as you go on but are never enough to balance out the dull button mashing that the combat is comprised of.

Exhaustion, Surrender—Just Get it Away From Me

Normally, my reviews would be a lot longer and comprehensive than this but I’m almost as sick of talking about it as I was playing it. This is easily the worst nine dollars I ever spent and I once invested nine dollars in BP. Regardless of how true that is the sentiment remains; this is easily one of the most unbearable games I have played in quite a long time. I don’t even remember the last game that I not only couldn’t force myself into finishing but also couldn’t even stand to play for more than fifteen or so minutes at a time.

If you are a diehard Prince of Persia fan there may be enough of the usual atmosphere and the acrobatic feats to keep you interested but in terms of straight up great games; this was just utterly disappointing and barely playable. Don’t get me wrong on this either, I loved the original Prince of Persia games and I can fondly remember my friend mike yelling “Erra Erra!!” as a cue to rewind time whenever I fell into a pit of spikes but this iteration just doesn’t stack up—whether it be to today’s standards of gaming or even stacking up to the original classics. I can’t stress enough how rarely I don’t finish a game (especially one I plan on reviewing) and how even more rare it is that my patience allows me to only play a game in such short intervals. Check this out if you’re a big fan of the series but even then I think a rental would be the best idea.

So onto the scoring. I’ll try it out like this and see how it goes in the future. Keep in mind that as far as I’ve decided now: The overall is an overall estimate from 1-10 from 1 being so bad not a single person of any state could ever enjoy it and 10 being a must have that anyone with any interests should own; and that is in now way an addition of the other specific scores. These other six will probably be accompanied by comments in the future but I have very little more to say about this game so for now just a 1-10 score.

VISUALS	7
SOUND	6
GAMEPLAY	5
IMMERSION	3
REPLAY VALUE	0
FUN	4

OVERALL—5.5

Ten Great Podcasts to Check Out

• FitzDog Radio
• This podcast is GREAT. I listen to this consistently and as of recently it’s the main podcast I’m always antsy for a next episode of. If you don’t know Greg Fitzsimmons by name you may recognize his face but regardless; his podcast is hilarious and packed full of celebrity guests almost every episode, unique comedy segments and some insight into how Greg has survived a mid-life crisis and 20 years of sobriety. He’s just a really funny guy who very much has his shit together at this point in his life and it’s just very clear that although his stand up is amazing—he is meant to be a podcaster.
• The Moth Podcast
  • The Moth is a great organization that produces this easily addictive podcast. Hosted by Dan Kennedy, The Moth consists of people telling true stories in front of a live audience without notes. The always interesting and often humorous stories range from strict humor to horror or purely inspiring true stories of conquering adversity. The storytellers consist of all kinds of people from comedians to authors  to NY Police officers—really anyone with the courage to share a true story and the charisma to entertain with it. Definitely a must have for anyone with interests in stand up, storytelling or any other such live performances and something that everyone should check out at least once.
• Stuff You Missed In History Class
  • This comes from a section of HowStuffWorks.com (a great site if you’re not familiar with it) which is a great source of basically finding out about how almost anything works. I originally fell in love with this podcast shortly after high school, when I suddenly became enamored with history, for two reasons: It always has somewhat obscure and always interesting tidbits of history and also had some sort of aural-crush on one of the original hosts (who is still the History editor for the site but no longer does the podcast) Candace Keener. How I could have a crush on someone based purely on her articulation, enunciation and fascination with Jefferson is beyond me but it’s totally true. Although my beloved is no longer hosting the podcast is still a favorite of mine and a great source for interesting I-never-knew-that’s of history.
• Stuff You Should Know
• This is yet another from HowStuffWorks and although they have many other great podcasts these are the two I couldn’t live without. Hosted by the sometimes hopelessly nerdy but always loveable Josh and Chuck this podcast covers everything from how memory in dogs, serial killers, flamethrowers and hangovers work to even more hypothetical or random topics such as how to best clean up an oil spill or top ten most bungled crimes. This is a must-have podcast with tons of interesting information and a good portion of it is even useful! At the very least you’ll have some awesome conversation pieces for your next cocktail party—or kegger or tea party or whatever such social event you attend.
• NPR Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me
• Any list of great podcasts without an NPR podcast is pretty lacking. NPR produces several great podcasts and I listen to three of them pretty consistently but probably this one the most. It can basically be summed up as weekly game show that uses the past weeks events as a base for trivia. The questions are organized into entertaining segments and is played not only by listeners calling in but also a panel of three celebrities that always make humorous contributions. This is one of my favorite ways to catch up on the weeks news—which actually leads me one of my other favorite ways to do so…
• Real Time with Bill Maher
• This is a show that airs on HBO and the podcast is merely an audio recording of the show. Seeing as I don’t have HBO this is the easiest way to catch the show and only very rarely is there a visual-specific gag that you’ll miss through the podcast. There’s a lot of humor in this as you’d expect from a comedian and although there is a small helping of pop culture included in the shows they are heavily based in politics; as are the guests on his panel with the exception of one “token celebrity” on each episode. I actually feel like a jerk for recommending this since he just finished his finale episode before the summer break but you can check out older episodes to see if you’re into it and he’ll be back in early September!
• WNYC’s RadioLab
• Think This American Life meets fringe science and the most fascinating of fascinating bits of culture. I really can’t describe it better than its own description so I’ll just type that up here: On Radio Lab, science meets culture and information and sounds like music. Each episode of Radio Lab is an investigation—a patchwork of people, sounds, stories and experiences centered around One Big Idea.It is very much like This American Life in terms of format but I just find that This American Life puts me in a tone of pensively stroking my chin with interest whereas RadioLab is much more likely to cause me to slide to the edge of my seat or exclaim in excitement or want to share it with a friend. In two words: Absolutely Fascinating.
• WTF with Marc Maron
• This is much alongside the style of Greg Fitzsimmons’ podcast in the sense that it’s a comedian who often has other comedians as guests on his show. Marc is a much more acquired sense. He is self-deprecating and neurotic but very aware of that and seeking solutions. When I first listened to him he was so much of a mess that I would get annoyed listening to him complain about not having enough success or whatever else and since I’ve started listening again he’s seemed to be much more together. He was always funny and his interactions with his guests (mostly comedians) are full of laughs and insight into the world of stand up. Not my favorite but definitely worth checking out and it’s a great source of comedy while I’m waiting for the next FitzDog update. Which leads me to my other source of comedy while awaiting Greg’s updates…
• The Adam Carolla Show
• I don’t even know what to say if you don’t know who Adam Carolla is. When Loveline ended, a little part of me died. It was only in the past year or so that I discovered Adam had his own podcast and well it just so happens to be THE podcast in the podcast community. Adam is often considered to be for podcasts what Howard Stern is to radio. It’s a great podcast. For some reason I’m not nearly as into it as I was into Loveline and I’m not usually dying to hear the new episodes but I always listen to and enjoy them. Each episode includes over an hour of Adam ranting, the wonderful Teresa Strasser reading some news, and great interviews with guests that often (mostly due to Adam of course) go all over the place in a way that is always entertaining.

So I guess that’s it. I listen to a few others here and there and that doesn’t include any video podcasts but

Heyy I’m actually back!

I’m still working on that review of Prince of Persia and actually playing the game is still the hardest part. Ugh so enjoyable. I would actually prefer to outsource this at this point; have someone play the game for me and just describe it to me. It just has such a sluggish boring progression in both the gameplay and story. There isn’t a single likeable character yet.

Agh. Anyway, I thought I would update with some podcast recommendations in the meantime since they’ve been taking up so much of time recently. Since reformatting my Zune I’ve been trying a few different ones so coming up in the next post is a list of some of my old favorites and a few new ones as well.

Revival

 

So, it’s been quite a while since my last post and its promises of a God of War III review. I never finished that review but if you’ve been paying attention to the gaming community at all in the past few months you must know by now that it’s one of the highest rated games of the year. Great game, no doubt about it.

Recently I’ve been spending my time playing Red Dead Redemption as much as possible. What a magnificent game. The atmosphere is so immersive, so complete. I never realized how much I wanted to play a western game until I first played this one. Everything about that game is about as perfect as it could be, within reason of course. There are some very minor glitches but I haven’t run into any that actually impede upon gameplay or anything so drastic as that. Just your garden variety collision glitches and things like that. I may write up a review on that game but considering how well it’s selling, I think the consensus is out anyways so there isn’t much point. Not only that, but I think I’ll be reviewing the new Prince of Persia game. There’s only one problem: It’s soooo bad I don’t even know if I can play any more of it. So far I haven’t had the patience to play it more than ten or fifteen minutes at a time. It is just so abhorrently unimpressive in everything it does. The puzzles are just horrible God of War rip-offs from what I’ve seen thus far and the combat is spectacularly dull. All combat I've experienced up to this point  has consisted of pressing square a lot, occasionally holding it for a boring and painfully slow “power attack” and then jumping around on enemies heads—mostly just to give some buttons other than square a fair chance to participate. There is a very, very small chance I will get much further into this game. I rented it and have it for about another week but I expect to play some more and write what I can about it before bringing it back to Blockbuster and overwriting the painful memory of this game with some quality time in Red Dead Redemption. I cannot stress enough how little I enjoy this game—and I’m really trying my best to get some entertainment out of it to no avail—but I will do my best in expressing that in a short review to come soon.

I really shouldn’t be surprised to be so disappointed by this game if you consider how my review of the last Prince of Persia game turned out. You can find it HERE. Looking at it now I realize how easy I went on that game, giving it a 7.2 out of 10, when it really deserved much less.

Anyway that should be coming up soon and I might actually start updating a little more consistently in the near future, not all about videogames even; but no promises.

 

-Ben

God of War III

 

Awesome. Entirely as great as I hope it would be.

 

Unfortunately school has dominated my life since spring break as well as the play I’m in.

 

I’ve started my review but I’ve yet to finish it; and I want to do the game justice. I should be posting it soon but it’s definitely pretty late for a review so I want it to be pretty conclusive and thought-out well.

 

In the meantime, I may make some random posts; game related or not.

 

-Ben

Only A Day Away

It feels like Christmas Eve. I’m going to need to heavily sedate myself in order to get to sleep tonight.

Tomorrow I wake up early, eat breakfast and head to Gamestop when it opens. Then I’m going to play it for several hours, possibly all day and I’ll be updating every hour or so with some spoiler-free impressions.

Sometime after I finish I’ll post some final impressions before putting a full review together.

Also my friend Mike may be updating as well or just sending me some final impressions to post alongside mine.

I will do my best to update pretty consistently and not get sucked into the game indefinitely.

The average play-through time is probably 10-15 hours and although I’ll be playing it almost non-stop I will be savoring every moment; so who knows how long it will take.

-Ben

Quick Combat update

I just ran into this video interview with Adam Puhl, Combat Designer on the game, who you may remember from one of the interviews in my first God of War entry. In this video he just goes more into some of the details involved in the combat design and how it turned out, very cool.

6 More Days!

-Ben

Quick Update: God of War Movie

Before you get too much of a hard on let me start by saying there is NO GOD OF WAR MOVIE. There are some rip-offs, such as Dawn of War which for some reason recently changed it’s name to that from it’s original “War of Gods.” What’s it about, you ask? Well, it’s plot description on IMDB is:

“Greek warrior Theseus battles against imprisoned titans.”

When I first heard about it it was described as,

“Greek warrior Theseus battles against Gods.”

Interesting…   There’s also Clash of the Titans which is respectably a remake so there’s no “ripping-off” going on but I just found it funny that it’s release was pushed back from the week after God Of War:III comes out, to a week later. Funny, is that their official reason was “to accommodate the addition of 3D to the film.” I’m sure it had nothing to do with the highest selling Greek Myth-based media in history coming out around the same time.

Anyway enough of that, I also wanted to share a humorous hypothetical about the possibility of a God of War movie. G4 did this short segment about casting a God of War movie that isn’t very serious, but pretty funny to imagine:

I am pretty curious as to how serious they were by suggesting Vin Diesel…that’s a horrible, terrible, repulsive idea. Kratos may not have the broadest of emotional spectrums (pretty much just angry, and really fucking angry.) but if a movie was made they would need a great actor to not only be badass and angry, but nail his voice and play out that whole anger part really damn well. I know who my only acceptable choice for an actor to play Kratos is, the same one David Jaffe suggested when the God of War movie was actually in the works and fully scripted back in 2003: Djimon Hounsou, a man who not only looks the part, but is also a pretty exceptional actor from what I’ve seen. Seriously, can you name a better resemblance to Kratos than Djimon?

If you can, please share, I’d be interested to know.

Now I’m actually going to get back to that whole school thing, I’ll update again over the weekend.

-Ben

6 days Left!

With God of War:III one week away I thought I should make an update. Last night when I got home from my miserable Astronomy mid-term, I was greeted by my newest edition of Playstation Magazine featuring a God of War:III review. It took all of my strength to not peek at it…for about ten minutes and then I did. Luckily, it’s very short and spoils very little, which makes sense since it’s still a week from release. Not surprisingly it got 5 stars. Currently Metaritic.com has it listed as 94 with a lowest score of 80; pretty awesome. There’s nothing that could stop me from being completely enamored with this game anyway, but it’s good to see the reviews are indicating the game is everything I hoped for.

I’ve been particularly careful to avoid certain GOW:III news recently, hoping not to cross over any major spoilers but I have been keeping up best I can. Two Commercials, beginning to air next week at release, are the first things that come to mind. One is just some clips and review blurbs and the other is the inevitable GOW commercial I’ve been waiting for, with Kevin Butler. If you don’t recognize that name you’ll surely recognize him when you see the commercial.

That first one exemplifies how God Of War:III will affect my social life. If I currently had a girlfriend I would choose Kratos over her in a heartbeat.

Next up is a brief interview with Stig Asmussen (Game Director) with Adam Sessler on X play.

PS3 Games - E3 2010 - God of War III

That’s pretty much my dream job.

Next up—and most interesting I think—is Adam Sessler again giving his thoughts on the game. Of all the pieces of  God of War news floating by in the past few days, this video revamped my excitement the most. Probably because Adam was admittedly very excited to play the game and clearly had a great time with it. He talks about how great the controls feel, not only for the Blades but the other three weapons as well, how great the pacing is and how badly, upon completion, he wanted to play it again. All great things, as expected.

 

Did anyone else find it a horrible tease to see the XMB in the background with God Of War:III in the PS3 just begging to be played? Or how badass the games background wallpaper is?  Ah, the anxiousness with which I await to play this game is downright painful.

Well I have a big paper due and a good 80 pages of reading to do before Thursday so I’m going to get to that. I’ll try to make at least one more update over the weekend and I’ll plan to document My first days with the game as much as possible before posting a review..whenever I stop playing the game.

-Ben

God of War III

Man oh man, I have not been so overwhelmingly excited for a game in a very long time.

From the masterfully done quick-time sequences to the epic story of Greek mythos to the overall gameplay that makes you feel god-like while still feeling challenging'; what isn’t there to love about this series? Now the final conclusion to the trilogy is on it’s way and fans of the series are steeping in anticipation.

I haven’t kept up with this blog in a long time either and this is the game giving me enough momentum to do it. I’ll be ranting and raving (hopefully in a more eloquent sense than what that phrase conjures) about it until it’s release and then documenting very closely (day by day, possibly even hour by hour) my experiences with the game from day one. Incidentally, and this is about as close to a proof of God I’ve ever seen, I have spring break that same week so I’ll be living God of War III day-in, day-out with the exception two rehearsal nights and possibly some homework if I find the time.

Before I get into the third game too much let’s recap. I’m assuming that if you’re reading this you’ve played I & II and possibly Chains of Olympus on PSP (a totally legitimate prequel in the storyline, in case you didn’t know) but just in case you haven’t (for shame) and even you if you have and need a refresher, here’s a great video summing those three up quite well.

Now that we’re all on the same (awesome) page, let’s get into the fast approaching conclusion to the trilogy. That does a decent job of summarizing some of the main plot points but if you were to map out the series’ in terms of badassness it would go something like:

• Kratos is killed by Aries, God of War, fights is way out of hell
• Kratos gets revenge by killing Aries, God of War
• Kratos becomes God of War
• Back to hell again but he’s been through this before, it’s even easier this time.
• Kratos kills himself a second God, Athena, by accident but whatever; he killed A GOD by accident..that’s so Kratos.
• God of War II ends with a promise to kill ALL GODS and raze Olympus.  So Badass.

If you’re anything like me, you’ve been dying to get your hands on God of War III ever since that beautifully CGI rendered cut scene that GOW:II ends with, which is rubbish compared to how mere gameplay looks in the third iteration.

If you’ve played the demo (and if you haven’t, seriously, what’s your deal. Go download it now!) then you’ve seen what I mean BUT as noted in the first of the three interviews from developers working on the game; the graphics and overall visual appeal has improved massively, even from that seen in the E3 demo.

Ok, ok, I’m losing focus. Let’s start with these three interviews I just mentioned and then I’ll work out what else to add as I find more information from now until it’s release. I also plan on doing my best to steer clear from spoilers—I want to go into the game as fresh as possible so this blog will likely reflect that by remaining spoiler free. If I happen to come across one that I know, I will very clearly mark it as such, but I’ll definitely be trying to avoid them at all costs.

John Hight, Product Director

This interview mentions some interesting details, most eye-catching of which to me were the difference in graphics in the final game—even compared to the E3 demo just released on the PSN. Hight mentions some of the different effects added since the demo such as HDR lighting and things like motion blur and depth of field,

“… for some people it will probably feel like splitting hairs, but, you know, the depth of field that we have, motion blur, high dynamic range lighting. Just, in general, higher texture in fidelity of the models. Kratos himself, we get a lot tighter in close-ups. Overall, it just looks great. If you were to look side by side, you would see the difference. If you play the demo first and are like, "Wow, this is intense. I love it." Then, when you actually get the game, it is going to be, I think, a very positive experience, like, "Man, they made a lot of improvements in six months time."

You can find the full interview here, at joystiq,com

Adam Puhl, Combat Designer

You know all of those outrageously badass moves  you’ve seen in the demo such as using enemies as battering rams or ripping their heads off their shoulders as one would shoo a fly in annoyance? Yeah, this is probably the guy to thank. In this interview he talks about how the combat has evolved in the new game and some of the changes they’ve made (while remaining frustratingly/thankfully mostly vague) and also touches on those graphical changes Hight mentioned in the last interview, and how they affect the combat. He mentions the first boss battle—we all know GOW games start with a boss battle in a unique set piece, epic in scale—is against Poseidon who not surprisingly, you kill. If that was a spoiler sorry, but that one’s hard to miss. The journalist doing this interview, Kevin Kelly, actually links to his article about his first play through of the game’s opening scene that you can find here. Personally, I’ve avoided it and refuse to check it out, but I’m sure it’s interesting if you’re ok with hearing about the game’s opening scene.

Puhl goes on to talk about some of the dynamics of boss fights in the game, the variety in the them throughout and also about Dante’s Inferno and Darksiders. I agree mostly with what he said, “about those two games but my two cents on the GOW look-a-likes are: Dante’s Inferno did almost nothing unique and is merely a pencil tracing of God of War done by someone with Parkinson’s; it’s very similar but not better or anywhere near as good. I personally didn’t get too into Darksiders but I could tell right away from the demo that it combined things like World of Warcraft, Legend of Zelda, God of War and Portal to make a game that although borrowing many concepts pretty clearly, made them it’s own enough for the game to be unique as a whole. It’s a much better game in many ways than Dante’s Inferno

Anyway, here is that interview.

Todd Pappy, Design Director

This final interview is with Design Director, Todd Pappy during the God of War:III event in Hollywood yesterday. It’s comprised of pretty varied questions from the interviewer and some lowly fans like us which makes it a bit more brief but also a nice change of pace from the last two. It hits on everything from the “wow” moments of the game to some specifics of the design and development process. Definitely worth checking out, and spoiler free!

 

We’ll I have a mid-term to work on so I should probably end it here for now, but I think I’ve made a decent start thus far. I haven’t even told many people about this yet but if I have linked you hear it’s almost definitely because I’d like some feedback from you—and of course for you to just plain read it as well. So if there’s anything anywhere in between praise and criticism that jumps to mind, please comment on here or feel free to email me ( valosomnio@gmail.com ).

 

I’ll make another update when I’ve gathered up some news but I’ll try to plan on updating again early next week either way.

Stay strong, it’s only 12 days away,

-Ben

Heavy Rain

Heavy Rain was a great experience. I think “Interactive Drama” sums it up quite well. If the sound of that is even a bit enticing, you would probably enjoy Heavy Rain. By the end, especially by the second play through, you’ll notice some pretty big plot holes; that said, it’s a pretty riveting story with a satisfying twist and some pretty innovative gameplay sequences. It is so much more immersive than a “long quick time event” as it’s often been dubbed by those with no taste. It’s an amazing game, I know I promised a full review but I can’t do that right now, I’m too wrapped up in another game entirely… I’ll be focusing on God of War:III from now until…a while from now. Starting with as much preview information as I can get my hands on and then I’ll be documenting my experience with it from day 1. I will likely struggle immensely to pull myself away to update this, but I’ll try my best.

Another quick update to that blog I NEVER update.

Hey,

Remember when I said I'd get back to updating this (sometime in fucking NOVEMBER)?

Well I swear, I actually will soon. At the very least, I want to get some vidoegame reviews up on here. I was hired (without pay of course) for this site Gamelemon.com to write reviews sometime over a year ago. I did one and then for the next three i wrote, I made the mistake of choosing games that had already been reviewed and never actually checked first to see if they had been. So I only have one up on there http://gamelemon.com/review_20155.jsp but there it is for anyone that doesn't believe me. (Who am I kidding..not a SINGLE person reads this. But I hope to develop my writing and most of all, confidence through this to the point where I may even tell someone about it.

Actually, I'm going to do that as soon as I make a decent, worth-reading entry up here and see how it goes.

I plan to do a review on the next big game I play. Possibly MAG although since that's solely a multiplayer experience maybe not; I'd prefer to review something with a whole story and everything but who knows. I've played the beta for mag and it is pretty cool, and surely unique enough to fill up a review. If not MAG I will DEFINITELY, (that's right you're hearing it here first, a fully capitalized, emboldened guarantee) do a review of Heavy Rain. It comes out near the end of February and maybe if I'm feeling frisky enough I'll even do my own little twist on a preview on here before I get it. We'll see. If I can accomplish nothing else in my life beyond making this blog worth reading, I can die smiling.

Speaking of smiling, I saw Mystery Team at the Boston Premiere Friday and it was FUCKING AWESOME. My ribs are still sore from laughing. I cannot stress enough how incredibly fresh, unique and distinctly hilarious this movie is. If you know Derrick Comedy you know how funny these five can be but really; this movie is the epitome of the phrase "I shit myself laughing"....what...you guys don't say that? Whatever. Ok now I'm even talking to my imaginary audience, I really need to work on this and tell some people about.

Well imaginary audience, expect a Heavy Rain review in the next month and possibly a preview before then. Maybe I'll even spread the word and birth you, my readers, into existence.

-Ben

This is pretty cool.