Alright back to the games...well back to the game. I still cannot fathom how much of a hold Modern Warfare 2 has over me. Yes, yes I know I pretty much say that in every post, but it's only because it's 100% true. When I started playing Mass Effect 2 I took a nice hiatus (right around level 32 in MW2), but soon as I crushed out that final mission, I was right back in the rough of it. I'm now almost level 50, and really hitting my stride in the game. Some games I walk away amazed at how well I did, others I'm just trash. I guess it depends who is on the other side of that red dot. The thrill of the game is still there for me and I am sure in a few months from now I'll be able to put down the controller and walk away but for now, this is just as addictive as WoW was for me. The point of this post is really for you other fellow MW2 die-hards, or even if you aren't maybe this will change your mind about playing.
I'm a big RPG player, and since MW2 does a fair job of joining a first person shooter with RPG elements, it was only natural that I ended up using "class-based" naming schemes for my custom classes. First of which, naturally, is my main. My main changes from game to game usually, it's the one class that I switch stuff in and out of the most depending on the map and how I am doing. It's my good all purpose "I want to win" build.
Since I don't want to have to link every weapon 10 times in the post, this is a great site reference when reading these posts: http://www.themodernwarfare2.com/
The Main
Primary Weapon: On my main I use an assault rifle (generally the M16/SCAR, but lately I have been loving the TAR-21) but really, any assault will do due to their high rate of fire, generally good accuracy and a decent damage output. If you are more of a sharp shooter player, stick with the FAL, FAMAS and ACR. For a more run and gun scenario M4A, M16, F2000. The latter of the bunch being higher fire rates while still doing significant damage, and the first set having the highest accuracy, but lower than average damage. While they might hurt your mobility a slight bit, in general AR's make for a great all-purpose weapon.
Attachment: I personally love sights since I'm not really a good hip fire player. Especially for a gun like the TAR-21 that has low accuracy, they help. Otherwise for something like SCAR, FAL or ACR, FMJ works due to their lowered damage. In general I stay away from the grenade launcher unless I want to unlock the shotgun attachment. While heartbeat senors are alright, personally they aren't always reliable in cases where you are running or aiming with your stock sight. When it doubt, sights are always a good choice.
Secondary Weapon: For the main, I tend to stick with a handgun as my side arm. It's reliable, plain and simple. I tend to stray away from the Magnum, and while is damage is decent, it's accuracy and magazine size are not as sure fire as a USP.
Attachment: I don't use my side arm that much, opting for a knife kill in most close cases, but FMJ is always a good choice when using the USP/M9 due to their lower damage ranges, or even with the Magnum/Desert Eagle to just give it that little bit of extra kick. Again more damage is never a bad choice. If all else fails, Tact Knife it.
Equipment: Throwing knife. I love it. I'm not very good with it yet, but I love it. The knife takes a bit getting used to as you can either hip throw, or take a bit to hold and aim. On a level like Estate when we hold the house, nothing is better than sitting above the hot tub room, waiting for someone to come over the railing to meet a knife in the face. Otherwise, explosives are always great fall backs. I sway towards claymores, but a well placed Frag or Semtex does the job.
Perk 1: Sleight Of Hand Pro. 90% of the time I use this, but it varies between this and Scavenger Pro. It can never hurt to aim faster, or have 2-3 claymores set up in your crow's nest.
Perk 2: Hardline Pro. Like I said, this is my I want to win the match class, with hardline, that make it that much faster. Kill's come easier with AR's for me, so what better way to get more kills than calling in my Kill Streaks sooner. Stopping Power is good to for guns whose damage is less than optimal, while if you are running with the grenade launcher and/ or frags, Danger Close works just as well.
Perk 3: Command Pro. I like it just because when in doubt, pull out your knife.
Death Streak: Final Stand. Why not? A chance to get back up and fight some more, yes please.
For the most part, I end up with a good K:D ratio when using my main, and in cases where I might be playing another class and sucking, I can always switch back and pick up my score again. Like I said, this class is reliable. It's a good middle of the ground, new to the game build due to its all around average stats. Substitute and change based on your level, or even try a different weapon when one gets stale. I was using the M16 for a long time, but once I started doing not so well with it, switched to the TAR-21, and was sitting right back up at the top.
Stay tuned tomorrow for the next installment of my Modern Warfare 2 in depth class reviews, The Tank.
Thanks for reading,
Nerdsbeware out-
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Thursday, March 4, 2010
While Hollywood is off reinventing the wheel...
There are movies like this getting made, Terror At Blood Fart Lake.
Wow. I commended whoever came up with this concept, found the funding to make the movie, people to star in it and actually make it to some sort of distribution. Again it looks like it's supposed to be a spoof but the title alone brings into existence the thought that there are people out there making movies like that, and not shit like this.
For my day to day money making purposed, I do "data entry." I put that in quotes because it's not really as simple as that. I mean it is since what I do all day is essentially enter data into a database but there's a bit more to it. I work for a pretty major book distribution company that I will leave nameless, but we also distribute entertainment (read: movies, music, video games). Of my group there are five of us, and each get companies to handle. These companies range from Disney, to Sony to EMI down to the no name companies that just sorta float in the dead space that is entertainment distribution. I myself am pretty much responsible for half of that floating garbage. When I first started working here I was the new guy, so naturally I got junked with the small companies that are unheard and uncared for. Our main purpose here is to get titles that all the companies send, into our database, so that a buyer can order those titles for places such as Best Buy or Borders. So when a new release is coming out, say for instance Avatar or Sherlock Holmes on DVD/BluRay, we get that information anywhere from 2-4 months before the rest of you usually find out. I knew Inglorious Basterds was coming out in December, in August, practically a week after it hit theaters.
Being a huge movie fan, its a nice perk to know when my favorite summer movies are coming out, and when to put money aside for them.
Now I don't have JUST small companies, I have a few major ones, plus the best one of them all, I enter every and all video games into our system. So that same rule of finding out when stuff is coming out way in advance holds true for games as well. It's not a bad gig and it pays the bills, and from time to time we get free promo CD's and DVD's. What's nice is were not just handed a sheet and told to put it in, we get to actually talk to our vendors sometimes. It ends up being a bit more personal than just standard data entry. And then there's the movies like Terror At Blood Fart Lake. Every once and a while you get a gem like that, that crosses your desk and you remember that no matter how bad that movie looks, someone out there is trying to do something different and not adapt, reboot or sequel something.
Real question is, if I were to get a copy of this movie, who would watch it with me?
Last one for the day, I promise.
Nerdsbeware out-
Wow. I commended whoever came up with this concept, found the funding to make the movie, people to star in it and actually make it to some sort of distribution. Again it looks like it's supposed to be a spoof but the title alone brings into existence the thought that there are people out there making movies like that, and not shit like this.
For my day to day money making purposed, I do "data entry." I put that in quotes because it's not really as simple as that. I mean it is since what I do all day is essentially enter data into a database but there's a bit more to it. I work for a pretty major book distribution company that I will leave nameless, but we also distribute entertainment (read: movies, music, video games). Of my group there are five of us, and each get companies to handle. These companies range from Disney, to Sony to EMI down to the no name companies that just sorta float in the dead space that is entertainment distribution. I myself am pretty much responsible for half of that floating garbage. When I first started working here I was the new guy, so naturally I got junked with the small companies that are unheard and uncared for. Our main purpose here is to get titles that all the companies send, into our database, so that a buyer can order those titles for places such as Best Buy or Borders. So when a new release is coming out, say for instance Avatar or Sherlock Holmes on DVD/BluRay, we get that information anywhere from 2-4 months before the rest of you usually find out. I knew Inglorious Basterds was coming out in December, in August, practically a week after it hit theaters.
Being a huge movie fan, its a nice perk to know when my favorite summer movies are coming out, and when to put money aside for them.
Now I don't have JUST small companies, I have a few major ones, plus the best one of them all, I enter every and all video games into our system. So that same rule of finding out when stuff is coming out way in advance holds true for games as well. It's not a bad gig and it pays the bills, and from time to time we get free promo CD's and DVD's. What's nice is were not just handed a sheet and told to put it in, we get to actually talk to our vendors sometimes. It ends up being a bit more personal than just standard data entry. And then there's the movies like Terror At Blood Fart Lake. Every once and a while you get a gem like that, that crosses your desk and you remember that no matter how bad that movie looks, someone out there is trying to do something different and not adapt, reboot or sequel something.
Real question is, if I were to get a copy of this movie, who would watch it with me?
Last one for the day, I promise.
Nerdsbeware out-
The Plot Theif
I like movies, technically speaking I love movies (I also love lamp) but sometimes I hate them, and technically speaking (again) I hate them. I hate them for their ability to spill acid on anything awesome and melt away all the coolest parts of something, their ability to take a story and so brutally murder the shit out of it that you regret paying for that small piece of paper and stale popcorn. I got to see a movie like that, that I was very much looking forward to, and now wish to never see again.
My girlfriend reads a lot, I don't, as proof that I have a video game/movie blog and not one about books, either way, she generally knows what's good and what's not. I'm not really a fiction person, I like to stick to the whole wizards, lasers and hand drawn mediums. So when my girlfriend told me about a kid series based in Greek mythology but set in current times, eyebrows were raised, interests were perked. I really like Greek mythology, I don't know why but their gods and stories like the Odyssey, the setting of the Underworld, and all the different heroes that came with it was something that I really love. I was a staunch hater of Harry Potter when the book first came out, as I am with most things, if everyone else tends to LOVE it, I'll hate it. I saw the first movie, and my whole outlook changed. Deathly Hallows will definitely go down as one of my all time favorite books. Every once and a while, a good kid series like these come along, so when I was introduced to the world of Percy Jackson and the Olympians, I dove in head first.
As stated above I'm not one for reading that much in my free time with the exception of maybe World War Z or the Alphabet of Manliness, I decided to check out the first book in the series via audio means. This isn't really a review of the audio book, but the kid who did the reading, was pretty bland and boring. Despite his inability to have emotion in his voice, the book itself was awesome. The movie however, was horrible. The story is centered around Percy Jackson, a slightly troubled 12 year old with ADHD and dyslexia, no father figure to put him on the right track. While on a school trip he's attacked by some crazy bitch and the ball starts rolling. He finds out that he's a demigod, goes to a camp for other demigods and starts training. Soon its found out that someone stole Zeus's master bolt, and that its up to Percy and his friends to retrieve this bolt, seeing as Zeus thinks Percy stole under his fathers order. And of course, Percy's father turns out to be Poseidon, which is quite bad seeing as Greek gods aren't supposed to bang humans. The story is a roller coaster ride across the states from this point on with Percy and his gang running into all sorts of Greek mythology celebrities like Medusa and Hephaestus. Action ensues, bad guys revealed, bolt returned. That is pretty much like the quickest description of the book (I left out A LOT so go to the wiki page) I can give, since I want to review how badly the movie was adapted.
The title of this post is a correlation I made between the time when the book was licensed as a movie and the movie actually coming out. Someone obviously stole the plot to the movie, hid it far from director Chris Columbus, and replaced it with something that had nothing to do with the book. Once again I am not going to get huge into detail here because many of you haven't probably read the book, probably won't read or see the movie so it's not a severe gash to the face like it is to me. The major problems with the movie is that the whole plot was changed to something that had NO significance in the book. Something that was mentioned once, and not brought back til the end of the book. Major characters (and more importantly VILLAINS who have a huge outcome on the plot) were left out. The biggest one was Ares (and subsequently one of his daughters), the God of War. In the book all the Gods in the book are described as constantly moving with time and staying current which is a very cool plot point, and Ares was described as a biker who probably rolled with the Hell's Angels. Now on the credits it lists Ray Winstone, but it lists him as "uncredited." A point I found strange because while reading the book, I knew Ares played a large part. So I'm thinking alright maybe its just his voice? Could it possibly be him with make up or mostly CG? I didn't know but I did know he was probably going to look badass. Well turns out he never even shows up in the movie at all. W T F. I mean you have to understand this, Ares is pretty much the major antagonist during the book. The writer wants you to believe that its Hades since he is the lord of the Underworld but in the end its not. Hell Percy even has a brutal battle on a beach with him that serves as a "boss fight" for the end of the book really. So when you leave him out completely, it's sort of a big deal.
Again not to cut this short, but really I could go on for about five more pages how much I hated this adaptation. Characters changed, plot points missing (or added incorrectly), and scenes added for apparently no good goddamn reason. I trusted Columbus too seeing as he did the first two Harry Potter movies and they were really close to the book, and I enjoyed them a lot. I expected more from him. The final nail in the coffin for what should have been an awesome movie was Lady Gaga's Poker Face dance sequence followed by Kesha's TikTok. In a movie about Greek gods wanting to start war, and a kid trying to stop them.
Oh movies, how you love to fail me.
As always, thanks for reading,
Nerdsbeware out.
My girlfriend reads a lot, I don't, as proof that I have a video game/movie blog and not one about books, either way, she generally knows what's good and what's not. I'm not really a fiction person, I like to stick to the whole wizards, lasers and hand drawn mediums. So when my girlfriend told me about a kid series based in Greek mythology but set in current times, eyebrows were raised, interests were perked. I really like Greek mythology, I don't know why but their gods and stories like the Odyssey, the setting of the Underworld, and all the different heroes that came with it was something that I really love. I was a staunch hater of Harry Potter when the book first came out, as I am with most things, if everyone else tends to LOVE it, I'll hate it. I saw the first movie, and my whole outlook changed. Deathly Hallows will definitely go down as one of my all time favorite books. Every once and a while, a good kid series like these come along, so when I was introduced to the world of Percy Jackson and the Olympians, I dove in head first.
As stated above I'm not one for reading that much in my free time with the exception of maybe World War Z or the Alphabet of Manliness, I decided to check out the first book in the series via audio means. This isn't really a review of the audio book, but the kid who did the reading, was pretty bland and boring. Despite his inability to have emotion in his voice, the book itself was awesome. The movie however, was horrible. The story is centered around Percy Jackson, a slightly troubled 12 year old with ADHD and dyslexia, no father figure to put him on the right track. While on a school trip he's attacked by some crazy bitch and the ball starts rolling. He finds out that he's a demigod, goes to a camp for other demigods and starts training. Soon its found out that someone stole Zeus's master bolt, and that its up to Percy and his friends to retrieve this bolt, seeing as Zeus thinks Percy stole under his fathers order. And of course, Percy's father turns out to be Poseidon, which is quite bad seeing as Greek gods aren't supposed to bang humans. The story is a roller coaster ride across the states from this point on with Percy and his gang running into all sorts of Greek mythology celebrities like Medusa and Hephaestus. Action ensues, bad guys revealed, bolt returned. That is pretty much like the quickest description of the book (I left out A LOT so go to the wiki page) I can give, since I want to review how badly the movie was adapted.
The title of this post is a correlation I made between the time when the book was licensed as a movie and the movie actually coming out. Someone obviously stole the plot to the movie, hid it far from director Chris Columbus, and replaced it with something that had nothing to do with the book. Once again I am not going to get huge into detail here because many of you haven't probably read the book, probably won't read or see the movie so it's not a severe gash to the face like it is to me. The major problems with the movie is that the whole plot was changed to something that had NO significance in the book. Something that was mentioned once, and not brought back til the end of the book. Major characters (and more importantly VILLAINS who have a huge outcome on the plot) were left out. The biggest one was Ares (and subsequently one of his daughters), the God of War. In the book all the Gods in the book are described as constantly moving with time and staying current which is a very cool plot point, and Ares was described as a biker who probably rolled with the Hell's Angels. Now on the credits it lists Ray Winstone, but it lists him as "uncredited." A point I found strange because while reading the book, I knew Ares played a large part. So I'm thinking alright maybe its just his voice? Could it possibly be him with make up or mostly CG? I didn't know but I did know he was probably going to look badass. Well turns out he never even shows up in the movie at all. W T F. I mean you have to understand this, Ares is pretty much the major antagonist during the book. The writer wants you to believe that its Hades since he is the lord of the Underworld but in the end its not. Hell Percy even has a brutal battle on a beach with him that serves as a "boss fight" for the end of the book really. So when you leave him out completely, it's sort of a big deal.
Again not to cut this short, but really I could go on for about five more pages how much I hated this adaptation. Characters changed, plot points missing (or added incorrectly), and scenes added for apparently no good goddamn reason. I trusted Columbus too seeing as he did the first two Harry Potter movies and they were really close to the book, and I enjoyed them a lot. I expected more from him. The final nail in the coffin for what should have been an awesome movie was Lady Gaga's Poker Face dance sequence followed by Kesha's TikTok. In a movie about Greek gods wanting to start war, and a kid trying to stop them.
Oh movies, how you love to fail me.
As always, thanks for reading,
Nerdsbeware out.
Shifting Masses
The blog has been quiet as of late for many reasons. The main being, as I stated in another post, that I'm pretty much focused and honed on Mass Effect 2 or Modern Warfare 2. Bioshock 2 dropped sometime ago which I did not yet pick up due to the fact that I was/am trying to actually finish games when I start them. I failed pretty hardcore with Mass Effect 1. It happened to come out on the very same day that the original Rock Band came out, and I ended up buying both the same day. The choice was pretty clear, plastic drums were way way more interesting. ME ended up getting shelved for quite a while. I finally broke it out somewhere around a year or more later and started to play. I got a bit into the story, picked up a few squad mates, and then my WoW addiction kicked in and I lost track of the game again. Cut to another year later, I start up the game with the determination to start and finish it. Naturally that didn't happen. What we ended up with was me rushing through the first game the week that Mass Effect 2 was released. The reason for this was that you were able to import your Shepard from the first game into the second one and have all the consequences and outcomes (plus a nice boost to your XP and credits) become part of the storyline in ME2.
On Mass Effect 2 release day I walked into Best Buy, picked up a copy off the shelf (so much for your "not getting a copy unless you reserve" bullshit Gamestop) and went home. I promptly unwrapped the game and put it right on my shelf. It pained me to not be able to open it and place it in the tray and being my adventures as Commander Shepard again. No, I had to still finish the first game and at this point I wouldn't be touching ME2 until the weekend due to not being all that far into the first game. Needless to say the rest of the week was a blur as I raced through the main story line, picking up the rest of my team, blowing from planet to planet, hunting down Saren to save the galaxy. By the time the weekend hit, I was facing off against Saren and Sovereign and saving the galaxy. At this point in the game I hadn't capped yet, I was maybe in the high 40's and I was going to start a second play-through because as stated above, you could bring your character over to 2. That lasted all of 5 minutes before I said screw it, grabbed ME2 and dug in.
With the help of two decent snow storms, Mass Effect 2 is now finished. I capped out at lvl 26 (full cap is 30) so I basically want to play til I hit 30 so I can be ready for DLC and ME3. Bioware really through the game for a loop in terms of game play, and I have to say, I love 90% of the changes they made to the game. Being able to use powers like "cast-able spells" was a huge improvement in my eyes. In the first game I did A LOT of micro managing of myself and my team which I felt took a good deal away from the action aspect of the game, especially the ebb and flow of the story and action sequences. If you don't know what I am talking about, basically in the first Mass Effect you could only map one of your powers, other wise in the middle of a battle you would have to pause the game, pick the powers you wanted to cast yourself or your team, unpause the game, said powers cast, and then basically rinse and repeat. In it's second edition, you are able to map up to three powers and use them just by clicking the right and left bumpers on your controllers. Awesome.
There are a few other things they changed such as your inventory system, which virtually doesn't exist anymore. Instead of just changing full suits of gear, while on mission now you can stop at various shops and pick up various different pieces of armor (legs, chest, helmet and shoulders maybe hands?). Each piece of armor now has its own stats that you can mix and match to make a perfect gear set for your class. Guns now work a lot different as you only have a handful of options to choose from, but are able to upgrade whichever you want. No more having 10 pistols from Eden Prime sitting in your inventory. A few other things absent are all the Mako stuff thankfully, and with that Omni-Gel is pretty much gone too. Medi-Gel now works totally different, you get the Unity skill again (which in the first game you had to unlock) that basically brings your whole squad back to life, if you have the gel.
Over all the game was a huge improvement on the first one. Graphics were improved, the new combat style that they took with it love. There are still a few parts of the game that drive me nuts such as the mining mini-game to find minerals that will help upgrade your weapons, skills and other things. The new hack games are sub-par matching games that after the first few times (plus the hack extension upgrade) were like doing simple math. The load times are somewhat long but I think that was in response to no one wanting to stand around on elevators anymore, and sometimes the AI of your party just drops to 0 and they do something really stupid. Other than that the story is awesome, there was a real sense of "some of you might not make it back alive" to the larger picture, and there's some nice set ups for the third game. All in all if you love Bioware, and loved the first Mass Effect, pick this up, get the free DLC, and venture forth into the galaxy.
Commander Pria Shepard reporting for duty (and hitting on Yeoman Chambers...)
End Transmission.
Nerdsbeware out-
On Mass Effect 2 release day I walked into Best Buy, picked up a copy off the shelf (so much for your "not getting a copy unless you reserve" bullshit Gamestop) and went home. I promptly unwrapped the game and put it right on my shelf. It pained me to not be able to open it and place it in the tray and being my adventures as Commander Shepard again. No, I had to still finish the first game and at this point I wouldn't be touching ME2 until the weekend due to not being all that far into the first game. Needless to say the rest of the week was a blur as I raced through the main story line, picking up the rest of my team, blowing from planet to planet, hunting down Saren to save the galaxy. By the time the weekend hit, I was facing off against Saren and Sovereign and saving the galaxy. At this point in the game I hadn't capped yet, I was maybe in the high 40's and I was going to start a second play-through because as stated above, you could bring your character over to 2. That lasted all of 5 minutes before I said screw it, grabbed ME2 and dug in.
With the help of two decent snow storms, Mass Effect 2 is now finished. I capped out at lvl 26 (full cap is 30) so I basically want to play til I hit 30 so I can be ready for DLC and ME3. Bioware really through the game for a loop in terms of game play, and I have to say, I love 90% of the changes they made to the game. Being able to use powers like "cast-able spells" was a huge improvement in my eyes. In the first game I did A LOT of micro managing of myself and my team which I felt took a good deal away from the action aspect of the game, especially the ebb and flow of the story and action sequences. If you don't know what I am talking about, basically in the first Mass Effect you could only map one of your powers, other wise in the middle of a battle you would have to pause the game, pick the powers you wanted to cast yourself or your team, unpause the game, said powers cast, and then basically rinse and repeat. In it's second edition, you are able to map up to three powers and use them just by clicking the right and left bumpers on your controllers. Awesome.
There are a few other things they changed such as your inventory system, which virtually doesn't exist anymore. Instead of just changing full suits of gear, while on mission now you can stop at various shops and pick up various different pieces of armor (legs, chest, helmet and shoulders maybe hands?). Each piece of armor now has its own stats that you can mix and match to make a perfect gear set for your class. Guns now work a lot different as you only have a handful of options to choose from, but are able to upgrade whichever you want. No more having 10 pistols from Eden Prime sitting in your inventory. A few other things absent are all the Mako stuff thankfully, and with that Omni-Gel is pretty much gone too. Medi-Gel now works totally different, you get the Unity skill again (which in the first game you had to unlock) that basically brings your whole squad back to life, if you have the gel.
Over all the game was a huge improvement on the first one. Graphics were improved, the new combat style that they took with it love. There are still a few parts of the game that drive me nuts such as the mining mini-game to find minerals that will help upgrade your weapons, skills and other things. The new hack games are sub-par matching games that after the first few times (plus the hack extension upgrade) were like doing simple math. The load times are somewhat long but I think that was in response to no one wanting to stand around on elevators anymore, and sometimes the AI of your party just drops to 0 and they do something really stupid. Other than that the story is awesome, there was a real sense of "some of you might not make it back alive" to the larger picture, and there's some nice set ups for the third game. All in all if you love Bioware, and loved the first Mass Effect, pick this up, get the free DLC, and venture forth into the galaxy.
Commander Pria Shepard reporting for duty (and hitting on Yeoman Chambers...)
Quality might be lame because I had to take a picture of my TV since it's not hooked up to my computer for capture purposes.
End Transmission.
Nerdsbeware out-
Friday, January 22, 2010
Weird...I thought this was a gaming blog?
Well it is, but in all honesty I haven't really been gaming that much, I mean in a sense of playing lots of games. Hence the big posts about movies since I pretty much only play Modern Warfare 2 these days. It's a funny story...(if this were like Scrubs it would probably cut to a dream or flashback sequence but, it's just a crappy blog so...) Actually it's not, basically I had boycott the game, not because of all the dedicated server BS that went down, but pretty much because my history of first person shooters growing up has been strictly PC. Now I played shooters on consoles, but I never could fully get the grip of them, I just work better with a mouse and keyboard. For a long while the only shooters I played were Left 4 Dead and Team Fortress 2. Oh, and that dreaded Counter-Strike.
I played the SHIT out of Counter-Strike let me tell you. I was never anywhere near OGL standards or anything, but I could hold my own. I got pretty damn good at Scout no-scopes which was always fun. But I loved CS, I played almost every night with friends. For a long time I barely touched other genres of games, esp when HL2 came out with, followed by the awesome-ness of the Orange Box. Thinking back to my days in college playing CS, it's just funny. Since those were the days when I had little money being a college kid with no money for anything but food and probably DVD's but not high quality gaming headsets, I had a crappy pair of regular walkman style head phones and what I liked to refer to as a "pencil-dick mic" and I would have to lean all in and speak directly into so teammates could hear me. My roommate and suitemates would always ask what I was shouting about or who I was talking to. Now I have a great Logitech headset that I don't think I could live without. Anyway, we got off topic there, so yea, I played a lot of CS, got pretty good, and quit as I do when most things get boring. The influx of cocky, brash 12 year old kids and ratio of people with mics grew, and I got tired of being pissed on and shit talked by some kid who goes to bed at 9PM. I moved on and played a TON of RPG's, a good deal of Blizzard games, finally settling into World Of Warcraft for a solid 4 years. And as I said above, I got pretty good, and got bored again.
When this new game came out that people were blown away about (COD4:MW) I was in a TF2 phase and didn't care much for Modern Warfare. I never touched the first one at all, my brother gave me his copy, but since it was his I couldn't always go online or whatever with it. When the second one was announced, I figured I'm steering clear. I had put in my time with military shooters and was happy with my RPGs and 360 games. So game comes out, I don't get it, life goes on. My gaming world didn't come to a halt or anything, I played Borderlands and was perfectly happy...until New Years.
We head over to the greatest EVE player in the world's house (I had a submission for fun, but I couldn't find the legendary DEERBIRD 4 LYFE picture to edit, I will find it dammit) and he had gotten it for the holidays. Before the major drinking and fun began we were watching him play, and I got lost in the game. The next day we sat around recovering for a bit and passed the controller around and each took a turn playing. To say I fell in love with the game is sorta an understatement, because even though I got destroyed my first time playing, the next day when we left, after a 1h45m drive home, I rushed to Target(sold out) and Best Buy (1 copy on shelf) to get it before they closed and proceeded to play til like 1-2AM. The game is amazing.
Now this is commonplace to most people who played the first one, but since I never touched it, I was blown away. The way they incorporated slight RPG elements into a primarily FPS game works wonderful. The addicting grasp of multi-player fun has just hooked and reeled me in once again. As it stands, I'm decent at the game. At the end of most matches, I've sucked and come in last but I don't even give a shit about scores or leaderboards or any of that. What I love is just the thrill of playing, getting that game winning kill, calling in a Predator missile, or just working with my team to win the match. Yea, it's awesome and I feel good when I come out with a positive kill-death ratio, but for me, it's just the thrill of the game. And isn't that what it should be about? To most, probably not, to most it probably is all about the leader-boards but whatever.
In short, but not really because my posts are never short, I've been playing and will be playing MW2 for the next few weeks. Mass Effect 2 comes out next week, which I am really looking forward to, but don't plan on picking up right away...maybe. As it stand ME2 comes out on the 26th, I have yet to beat the first one because I have gaming ADD. Two weeks later on 2/9 Bioshock 2 comes out. I'm really excited for BS2 and don't want to pick up Mass Effect 2, only play it fleetingly between MW2 rounds, and then move to Bioshock without giving it the proper time frame to play. If I can burn through Mass Effect in the next few days, maybe, just maybe I'll pick up a copy.
For now, Modern Warfare 2, my heart belongs to you and only you.
Thanks for reading!
- Nerdsbeware Out
I played the SHIT out of Counter-Strike let me tell you. I was never anywhere near OGL standards or anything, but I could hold my own. I got pretty damn good at Scout no-scopes which was always fun. But I loved CS, I played almost every night with friends. For a long time I barely touched other genres of games, esp when HL2 came out with, followed by the awesome-ness of the Orange Box. Thinking back to my days in college playing CS, it's just funny. Since those were the days when I had little money being a college kid with no money for anything but food and probably DVD's but not high quality gaming headsets, I had a crappy pair of regular walkman style head phones and what I liked to refer to as a "pencil-dick mic" and I would have to lean all in and speak directly into so teammates could hear me. My roommate and suitemates would always ask what I was shouting about or who I was talking to. Now I have a great Logitech headset that I don't think I could live without. Anyway, we got off topic there, so yea, I played a lot of CS, got pretty good, and quit as I do when most things get boring. The influx of cocky, brash 12 year old kids and ratio of people with mics grew, and I got tired of being pissed on and shit talked by some kid who goes to bed at 9PM. I moved on and played a TON of RPG's, a good deal of Blizzard games, finally settling into World Of Warcraft for a solid 4 years. And as I said above, I got pretty good, and got bored again.
When this new game came out that people were blown away about (COD4:MW) I was in a TF2 phase and didn't care much for Modern Warfare. I never touched the first one at all, my brother gave me his copy, but since it was his I couldn't always go online or whatever with it. When the second one was announced, I figured I'm steering clear. I had put in my time with military shooters and was happy with my RPGs and 360 games. So game comes out, I don't get it, life goes on. My gaming world didn't come to a halt or anything, I played Borderlands and was perfectly happy...until New Years.
We head over to the greatest EVE player in the world's house (I had a submission for fun, but I couldn't find the legendary DEERBIRD 4 LYFE picture to edit, I will find it dammit) and he had gotten it for the holidays. Before the major drinking and fun began we were watching him play, and I got lost in the game. The next day we sat around recovering for a bit and passed the controller around and each took a turn playing. To say I fell in love with the game is sorta an understatement, because even though I got destroyed my first time playing, the next day when we left, after a 1h45m drive home, I rushed to Target(sold out) and Best Buy (1 copy on shelf) to get it before they closed and proceeded to play til like 1-2AM. The game is amazing.
Now this is commonplace to most people who played the first one, but since I never touched it, I was blown away. The way they incorporated slight RPG elements into a primarily FPS game works wonderful. The addicting grasp of multi-player fun has just hooked and reeled me in once again. As it stands, I'm decent at the game. At the end of most matches, I've sucked and come in last but I don't even give a shit about scores or leaderboards or any of that. What I love is just the thrill of playing, getting that game winning kill, calling in a Predator missile, or just working with my team to win the match. Yea, it's awesome and I feel good when I come out with a positive kill-death ratio, but for me, it's just the thrill of the game. And isn't that what it should be about? To most, probably not, to most it probably is all about the leader-boards but whatever.
In short, but not really because my posts are never short, I've been playing and will be playing MW2 for the next few weeks. Mass Effect 2 comes out next week, which I am really looking forward to, but don't plan on picking up right away...maybe. As it stand ME2 comes out on the 26th, I have yet to beat the first one because I have gaming ADD. Two weeks later on 2/9 Bioshock 2 comes out. I'm really excited for BS2 and don't want to pick up Mass Effect 2, only play it fleetingly between MW2 rounds, and then move to Bioshock without giving it the proper time frame to play. If I can burn through Mass Effect in the next few days, maybe, just maybe I'll pick up a copy.
For now, Modern Warfare 2, my heart belongs to you and only you.
Thanks for reading!
- Nerdsbeware Out
Friday, January 15, 2010
All aboard the hype train! Choo Choo... Part III The Finale
Last stop, all off folks. This week I finish off my retrospective of movies that I've viewed over the past few days, one generally tied to some sort of major marketing, insane buzz or general chatter. Today we touch on comedies! Over the past few weeks I've watched NUMEROUS comedies, and sad to say that most of them were just not funny at all. Since there are quite a few here, I'm going to just go with small blurbs about each one.
Land Of The Lost: Terrible. It wasn't even that the movie was bad, I mean it was bad, but it was just boring. I didn't laugh once. The plot was weak, but again when you are trying to make a movie out of a 70's Sid and Marty Krofft show, you don't have much to go on. My two biggest grips with the film were first while I never watched the original show, I knew that Rick, Will and Holly were a family, a father and his two kids. In this iteration, Rick was a fumbling scientest, Holly falls in love with him (shes some college age woman?) and Will is a redneck who loves fireworks. Not related at all, pretty lame. The second thing that bothered me is once again Will Ferrel was playing Will Ferrel. There was nothing new about his character. Hey I'll scream a bunch in an angry voice, I'll make dumb comments so on and so on. It was weak. Danny McBride (who I really like) just played the same guy he did in Tropic Thunder. The only saving grace was the beautiful Anna Friel whose performance even fell short (go watch Pushing Daises). Over all bad movie.
The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard: From the outside this movie looked like it could be good. With a decent cast and a glimmer of comedy gold, I had hopes for this one. They were quickly squashed about 15 minutes into the movie. Another flat comedy that just was trying to hard. I'm sparing plot descriptions for length here but basically its about a super car salesmen played by Jeremy Piven and his team of sales people. Basically the reason this movie sucked is that it pushed the "random" envelope to much, it was trying to be a new Anchorman. Anchorman is probably my all time favorite comedy, with its super random moments(News team street gangs WTF?) and the idiocy of people("They say 60% of the time, it works every time.") being the main reason for this. Surprising enough the only part of the movie that made me laugh was Will Ferrel in a small cameo. The Goods tried doing the whole random moment, people saying and doing absurd things way to much with a weak plot to stand on and in my book, didn't sell me shit.
Adventureland: I put this in the comedy post, since it's billed everywhere as a comedy, but my god this movie was so a drama in my book. Yes, it had parts that could make you laugh if you were so inclined to do, but I never was. If you had told me off the bat this was a drama about kids growing up in the 80's or something, I might have had more interest and enjoyed it more. What we got was a bunch of commericals and trailers picking out what I guess "they" (whoever "they" are) thought were the funniest parts, mainly consisting of Bill Hader saying something that people would find funny. As dramatic movies go, it was decent, as comedies go, it was bad. Ryan Reynolds was ok, for once he didn't play himself, Jesse Eisenberg was decent but as my roommate put last night "a poor mans Michael Cera." So true, this dude does skinny, nerdy and awkward pretty well, and what makes me question the movie is that it's directed by the guy who did Superbad, staring Cera. Was that role originally intended for him? Either way, dullsville.
500 Days Of Summer: Finally starting to get to the good stuff. This one is short, not much to say really. It was a good romantic comedy, I truly enjoyed it. I love Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt was really good in the movie. The simple fact that he can play Cobra Commander in one movie, and the play the lead in a romantic comedy is pretty cool. The story wasn't mind blowing, boy meets girl, falls in love, girl doesn't feel the same, and we have our plot. What I liked about the movie is that it doesn't take a linear path recounting the 500 days. We start in the 400's and then skip around to see how the relation developed and fell apart. Normally I would hate it, but in this case, it worked so well for the movie. Again if were defining things in comedy standards, it wasn't laugh out loud every minute of the movie, but there were a few parts that made me laugh and smile. I definitely recommend seeing this one when you can.
Zombieland: I loved this goddamn movie so much. When I first read about it I thought "ok awesome another comedic take on the whole zombie genre!" Shaun of the Dead is by far in my top 10 favorite movies of all time, and they did so much to establish the whole zom-com thing that I knew I had to see this movie. What was nice is that it didn't look like Zombieland was TRYING to be Shaun either, it looked like it wanted to establish its own place. Woody Harrelson was actually fantastic in this movie, he hit his points perfectly while still being able to be more than a one dimension character. Jesse Eisenberg worked in this movie, unlike Adventureland. His quirky, shy, spaz act worked wonderful for the character. Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin were awesome. Again as for zombie movies go, it's not to heavy on the gore and zombie stuff, which I actually liked despite the movie being called Zombieland. It was more about how these four people learn to live and survive in a world over run by zombies. I hope they do as planned and make a whole bunch more sequels in the Zombieland universe. My biggest complaint, the movie was only 1h24mins, way to short. Overall this movie falls into my Top 10 of '09 movies for sure, watch it cause it's awesome.
The Boat That Rocked (aka Pirate Radio): I posted this on my facebook in a conversation with a friend, for the US release of the movie they changed the name to "Pirate Radio" and it bothered me. The movie is a British ensemble cast (save for Philip Seymour Hoffman) about rebel DJ's broadcasting rock music in the late 60's that was not well favored on regular British radio airwaves. As I said before, my suspect for the name change, America has an obsession with pirates and since the three Pirate movies are well liked over here, I assume the higher ups decided that noone would want to see a movie called The Boat that Rocked, we should rename it Pirate Radio because people love pirates! Whatever, I watched it under the banner of The Boat that Rocked, and really enjoyed it. The movie is really about the music since nothing really happens other than the DJ's play music and hang out while British government tries to can them. I'm not a fan of the music in the movie, I'm not a fan of Brit pop from that time period. Before I get flamed to Hell and back, I respect what a lot of those bands did for music, they just aren't my style or what I enjoy listening to. All that aside, the movie was great. An amazing cast, a good director and parts that made me laugh out loud. I really enjoy the whole British movie scene, and hope to see more movies make their way over here.
The Hangover: And finally we come to the end. I choose to end this with Hangover because these three posts were all about hype, and by far The Hangover garnered the most hype over the summer for being the "comedy of the year" from many people. The first time my girlfriend and I watched the movie, we laughed a lot, it was funny. I like Todd Phillips as a director, I really liked his other movies which include Old School and Road Trip. So when we finished the movie we were just like "eh it was good, but not as good as everyone made it out to be." I went on to watch the movie again at another point, and again and it began to grow on me. The movie was unapologetic. They made fun of everything and everyone, but did it without going overboard like The Goods did. Having watched the movie a few times now, I've grown to love the movie, and I can't wait for the supposed sequel that is being worked on. Most people have had a night of drinking (granted in their case there was other factors...) when they wake up and just think what the hell happened to me, and where Dude, Where's My Car failed hardcore in terms of the whole lets retrace our steps, The Hangover did perfectly.
With that we come to a close on our three part look at what hype can do for a movie, good and bad. I still have a bunch of movies in the bank to check out, so expect some more reviews, maybe in a more timely manner, but as you all know this is a gamers blog, and to be totally honest, when I get home from work, I'm playing Modern Warfare 2 and just pass over writing in this damn thing. What can you do?
As always, thanks for reading!
- Nerdsbeware out
Land Of The Lost: Terrible. It wasn't even that the movie was bad, I mean it was bad, but it was just boring. I didn't laugh once. The plot was weak, but again when you are trying to make a movie out of a 70's Sid and Marty Krofft show, you don't have much to go on. My two biggest grips with the film were first while I never watched the original show, I knew that Rick, Will and Holly were a family, a father and his two kids. In this iteration, Rick was a fumbling scientest, Holly falls in love with him (shes some college age woman?) and Will is a redneck who loves fireworks. Not related at all, pretty lame. The second thing that bothered me is once again Will Ferrel was playing Will Ferrel. There was nothing new about his character. Hey I'll scream a bunch in an angry voice, I'll make dumb comments so on and so on. It was weak. Danny McBride (who I really like) just played the same guy he did in Tropic Thunder. The only saving grace was the beautiful Anna Friel whose performance even fell short (go watch Pushing Daises). Over all bad movie.
The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard: From the outside this movie looked like it could be good. With a decent cast and a glimmer of comedy gold, I had hopes for this one. They were quickly squashed about 15 minutes into the movie. Another flat comedy that just was trying to hard. I'm sparing plot descriptions for length here but basically its about a super car salesmen played by Jeremy Piven and his team of sales people. Basically the reason this movie sucked is that it pushed the "random" envelope to much, it was trying to be a new Anchorman. Anchorman is probably my all time favorite comedy, with its super random moments(News team street gangs WTF?) and the idiocy of people("They say 60% of the time, it works every time.") being the main reason for this. Surprising enough the only part of the movie that made me laugh was Will Ferrel in a small cameo. The Goods tried doing the whole random moment, people saying and doing absurd things way to much with a weak plot to stand on and in my book, didn't sell me shit.
Adventureland: I put this in the comedy post, since it's billed everywhere as a comedy, but my god this movie was so a drama in my book. Yes, it had parts that could make you laugh if you were so inclined to do, but I never was. If you had told me off the bat this was a drama about kids growing up in the 80's or something, I might have had more interest and enjoyed it more. What we got was a bunch of commericals and trailers picking out what I guess "they" (whoever "they" are) thought were the funniest parts, mainly consisting of Bill Hader saying something that people would find funny. As dramatic movies go, it was decent, as comedies go, it was bad. Ryan Reynolds was ok, for once he didn't play himself, Jesse Eisenberg was decent but as my roommate put last night "a poor mans Michael Cera." So true, this dude does skinny, nerdy and awkward pretty well, and what makes me question the movie is that it's directed by the guy who did Superbad, staring Cera. Was that role originally intended for him? Either way, dullsville.
500 Days Of Summer: Finally starting to get to the good stuff. This one is short, not much to say really. It was a good romantic comedy, I truly enjoyed it. I love Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt was really good in the movie. The simple fact that he can play Cobra Commander in one movie, and the play the lead in a romantic comedy is pretty cool. The story wasn't mind blowing, boy meets girl, falls in love, girl doesn't feel the same, and we have our plot. What I liked about the movie is that it doesn't take a linear path recounting the 500 days. We start in the 400's and then skip around to see how the relation developed and fell apart. Normally I would hate it, but in this case, it worked so well for the movie. Again if were defining things in comedy standards, it wasn't laugh out loud every minute of the movie, but there were a few parts that made me laugh and smile. I definitely recommend seeing this one when you can.
Zombieland: I loved this goddamn movie so much. When I first read about it I thought "ok awesome another comedic take on the whole zombie genre!" Shaun of the Dead is by far in my top 10 favorite movies of all time, and they did so much to establish the whole zom-com thing that I knew I had to see this movie. What was nice is that it didn't look like Zombieland was TRYING to be Shaun either, it looked like it wanted to establish its own place. Woody Harrelson was actually fantastic in this movie, he hit his points perfectly while still being able to be more than a one dimension character. Jesse Eisenberg worked in this movie, unlike Adventureland. His quirky, shy, spaz act worked wonderful for the character. Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin were awesome. Again as for zombie movies go, it's not to heavy on the gore and zombie stuff, which I actually liked despite the movie being called Zombieland. It was more about how these four people learn to live and survive in a world over run by zombies. I hope they do as planned and make a whole bunch more sequels in the Zombieland universe. My biggest complaint, the movie was only 1h24mins, way to short. Overall this movie falls into my Top 10 of '09 movies for sure, watch it cause it's awesome.
The Boat That Rocked (aka Pirate Radio): I posted this on my facebook in a conversation with a friend, for the US release of the movie they changed the name to "Pirate Radio" and it bothered me. The movie is a British ensemble cast (save for Philip Seymour Hoffman) about rebel DJ's broadcasting rock music in the late 60's that was not well favored on regular British radio airwaves. As I said before, my suspect for the name change, America has an obsession with pirates and since the three Pirate movies are well liked over here, I assume the higher ups decided that noone would want to see a movie called The Boat that Rocked, we should rename it Pirate Radio because people love pirates! Whatever, I watched it under the banner of The Boat that Rocked, and really enjoyed it. The movie is really about the music since nothing really happens other than the DJ's play music and hang out while British government tries to can them. I'm not a fan of the music in the movie, I'm not a fan of Brit pop from that time period. Before I get flamed to Hell and back, I respect what a lot of those bands did for music, they just aren't my style or what I enjoy listening to. All that aside, the movie was great. An amazing cast, a good director and parts that made me laugh out loud. I really enjoy the whole British movie scene, and hope to see more movies make their way over here.
The Hangover: And finally we come to the end. I choose to end this with Hangover because these three posts were all about hype, and by far The Hangover garnered the most hype over the summer for being the "comedy of the year" from many people. The first time my girlfriend and I watched the movie, we laughed a lot, it was funny. I like Todd Phillips as a director, I really liked his other movies which include Old School and Road Trip. So when we finished the movie we were just like "eh it was good, but not as good as everyone made it out to be." I went on to watch the movie again at another point, and again and it began to grow on me. The movie was unapologetic. They made fun of everything and everyone, but did it without going overboard like The Goods did. Having watched the movie a few times now, I've grown to love the movie, and I can't wait for the supposed sequel that is being worked on. Most people have had a night of drinking (granted in their case there was other factors...) when they wake up and just think what the hell happened to me, and where Dude, Where's My Car failed hardcore in terms of the whole lets retrace our steps, The Hangover did perfectly.
With that we come to a close on our three part look at what hype can do for a movie, good and bad. I still have a bunch of movies in the bank to check out, so expect some more reviews, maybe in a more timely manner, but as you all know this is a gamers blog, and to be totally honest, when I get home from work, I'm playing Modern Warfare 2 and just pass over writing in this damn thing. What can you do?
As always, thanks for reading!
- Nerdsbeware out
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