Dear god Not Yet.

A picture (albeit a crappy one) from the local Wal Mart taken a day ago:

Kill me...

Halo 3 out of 10

A couple of days ago a friend bought Halo 3 and invited me over to try it out. After all the hype I went in extremely skeptical. After a number of hours playing I have to say I under-whelmed, even as skeptical as I was.

I know that I'm the only one out there, but it's just more of the same. Gameplay is virtually identical to previous Halos. with the irritating exception of changing the "reload" button to a shoulder button, so that the original button could be used to deploy various "enhancements" - cloaking, shields, etc. So both my friend and I found ourselves wasting these things instead of reloading. Is there a reason they couldn't assign the new features on the new button?

Anyway, I digress. The visuals are amazing, not that I'm surprised. The XBox 360 is a console solely designed for visuals, sometimes at the cost of game quality. Halo 3 is one such game, the game simply delivers the same gameplay, the same plot, the same challenge. The game, even on "Legendary" isn't overly hard - yes you die a lot, but simply respawn and go at it again. Despite this, it does a much better job of respawning than Bioshock. Halo at least respawns all the enemies too, and you lose your weapons.

The new features seem to be created with multiplayer in mind, rather than single player. Just like Halo 2, the game suffers. bungee has done a little better for single players, but the game is still multi-centric. That being said I think it's pretty cool that you can now play 4 player co-op.

Bottom line? While there's no doubt it's fun, it's not the stunning game that everyone is raving about. Is it fun to play someone else's copy? Yep. Is it worth getting an Xbox 360? Hell no.

Mark this one up as a disappointment. as for myself, I'm going to bide my time waiting for Assassin's Creed. Let the flame war begin...

Virtual Transvestites

Chinese developers of MMORPG King of the World have frozen accounts of any player that has a female character in the game. The only way to play these characters is to "proove" to the company that the player is actually a female. The company is requiring that female players proove their womanhood with a webcam.

Seems to me that this is rather sexist - there's no restrictions about females playing male characters. Besides, is there really any valid reason to require this? Is there really an issue with players thinking their actually talking to women? Is their still anyone that believes that people are honest online? I know there are female gamers out there, but I don't assume that every female character online is either a woman or as attractive as they are in the game.

I'll admit it, I've played female characters online. Not because I have any ulterior motive, it's just that if I'm going to watch a figure running from behind - why not make it an attractive behind?

Basically, I think the company's perverted execs want to evaluate the female clients "qualifications." I wonder if women can get "extra credit" for better and more revealing "qualifications"...

So that's how it works

We recently bought a new carpet sweeper for the shop. After assembling it, I noticed this line out of the manual:

To Use: Push in front of you in a back and forth motion to clean dirt off floor.

Really? Is there someone out there that really needs this explained to them? If so, shouldn't they be buying something more than a $20 sweeper? I'm guessing that there's a lot more dirt than this bad boy can handle...

Boogie oogie

The other night I picked up Boogie for the Wii. It's a rhythm game that combines dancing using the remote and singing with a USB microphone. Although the word "combines" may not be the right word - there's no singing and dancing at the same time.

I was mildly surprised that the game is kinda fun. There's not a lot to it, you move the remote left,right,up and down to the music - different combos are available to "mix it up". While this made it easy to pick up and play, it's also it's biggest flaw, there's no challenge after the first 30 seconds.

The singing is pretty typical of karaoke games, you have to match the pitch of the song - which isn't as hard as I thought. Even my caterwauling managed some decent scores. You do actually have to stick pretty much to the words too, just grunting in tune doesn't work as well. Another nice thing is you can turn down the volume of your own voice and mix in the actual singer's voice so that people aren't as tortured.

It's basically an OK game that would be more fun in a party setting. Look out game night...

My cyber hair is graying

Even the internet mocks my age...

Today I was entering some info for a site, and at one point I needed to enter my birth date. I was fairly depressed that I had to click to the third screen to find my birth year, something I've noticed a few times in the past, but really hit me this time. It was nice back when you could just write the age on a a form- it wasn't a factor then.

I know that mid thirties isn't "old" per se, it's still strange to know that I could be a parent to the kids that are graduating high school. Although, I suppose it could be worse, I could be as old as Toothygrim ;)

Maybe it's time for a pre-mid life crisis, fast cars and faster women here I come!!!

Missed it

Oh, in honor of yesterday...

I be sorry I be a landlubbing swine and missed a glorious post about it being the most wondrous and joyous of all the year!

To me fine mateys - you know who ye be - I cry a hardy "AAARGGH!!"