Halo, truly a modern classic.

Hello there fellow nerds, geeks and  various combinations of the two, what I'm here to talk about today may be met with a lot of how you say, dispute. But frankly my dears I don't give a damn, as in my opinion the Halo games(all of them) are no doubt some of the finest of this, or any generation. With the upcoming release of Halo 4, the first of the Reclaimer trilogy, some of my friends and I have been reliving the series, one even playing the series from start to finish in its entirety. In doing so I have had some of the greatest gaming moments of my gaming career and remembered others from the past. One of these moments which I'm sure you will all agree was "off the chiz-ain" so to speak towards the end of Halo 3, The Covenant to be exact. While the whole mission is a myriad of awesome battles and ass-kickings, four player co-op taking down two scarabs at once on legendary was, just amazing. The music, the fighting, all the possible strategies and those pretty blue lights make this an unforgettable fight. You truly feel the urgency of the fight and the desperation having been built up over all the previous missions and games. 

While Reach is often known as the underdog of the Halo series, there was a sort of shift with the spartan 3's, but it is not without its own brilliant campaign and some sweeeet moments. Once again it's in the co-op where Halo shines, each player playing as their own Spartan 3(some even creating backstories for them) creates a wholly different atmosphere to the other games, a far more personal one. Probably my favourite mission was New Alexandria, in co-op of course(and no i will not stop saying co-op). Watching the city crumbling and the planet being glassed around you and your team is pretty nifty for starters, without even mentioning the cwazy easter eggs and memorable firefights at shifting locations.

So this rambling doesn't go on too long I'll have to bundle the best of the rest together but this in NO WAY makes them less awesome or kewl. Halo CE is where it all began, the story of The Master Chief and Humanity's struggle against the Covenant began here and where the iconic ring  was first seen. CO-OP! Sorry but split screen co-op with a bro just...makes me so happy... Anyway, Halo 2 continues this trend of course but twists the norm a wee bit letting you play as le Arbitre(clever code to avoid spoilers). Last but definitely not least is Halo wars, without a doubt the most controversial of the bunch, but coming from a history of strategy games, I really appreciated it . Many, many, many, many, MANY Halo fans have trashed this game just because it's something different, even a certain Chief fanboy on this bl4rg, but through its intuitive controls, AWESOME cutscenes and nerdalicious technology, I felt it was a fitting addition to the series. And co-op, always co-op. Even as I write this I'm thinking more and more how amazing Halo is and if you haven't played it yet, do. And if you have a PS3 , SELL IT AND PLAY THIS SHIT! I always remain so professional... Hope this helped, buh bye! 

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The Walking Dead - Episode 3: The Long Road Ahead Reaction

oh......OH! 

Damn it all to hell! Why Telltale? You make the emotion so raw with your ridiculously good storytelling I mean, why? Why are you so good at doing this?!? What tragic lives have you lived?!? Are you all living the lives of paranoid schizophrenics that hear a voice of a guy called Ronaldo telling you that zombies actually exist?!? If so you should seriously get that checked out....

But in all seriousness, paranoid schizophrenia is not something to necessarily joke about, and neither is Telltale. The reason being is because Telltale and schizophrenia are serious things because you could possibly get schizophrenia from playing Telltale's The Walking Dead. I'm super serious! The agonizing decisions one has to make multiplied by the time limit one has added on by the emotional stress by ones decisions could lead to the breakdown of thought process and poor emotional responsiveness. Or schizophrenia for short. It's a super serious problem you guys! 

Take for example, that awful decision of doing nothing in the second episode where I had to choose between  helping Lilly save her father or help Kenny kill her father. It was a tough position because I didn't want to loose my loyalty to Kenny (who was awesome until that point) and I really didn't want to piss off Lilly (because she was a bitch [still is]). Well the thought process was too much and I didn't decide quick enough and Kenny squashed Larry's head in with a boulder (or something). My emotional response was too much of course and it was hard to go on, but being the resilient bastard I am, I continued. 

Of course that decision ultimately came back to bite my ass so hard that the emotional response to that decision I made so long ago in the other episode was even harder to cope with. It hit me right in the feels man, right....in.....the.....feels....

Right in the feels! 

And my character was gonna get laid man! Damn it all to hell! I did not make those agonising decision that tested my manlihood to end up with nothing good going for my character. Dam it all to hell! 

Well at the end of the day at least we still have Clementine and unlike 'Papa' in The Road I actually managed to do some good for that little girl that has (somehow) managed to stay alive all this time. Anyway, I recommend you start playing this game its an EMOTIONAL ROLLERCOASTER! 

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Why Do Americans Watch Propaganda in the Movie Theatres?!?

Great more bollox...

Another election year, another president running for his second term and another biased documentary leaning towards the opposite way of the current president you may as well cut off the leg of wherever they wish to lean. For this year it's right. Yea I really don't know who comes up with this shit or who finally gives the say on whether these documentaries get produced or not but one thing is clear, they're immensely fucking biased no matter how informative they are.  

Just look back eight years ago when Michael Moore set out to destroy George Bush with Fahrenheit 9/11, once again made and produced during that election year where George Bush fought for his second term in office. Did it affect the election? Nope, and I highly doubt this will either. You see these documentaries always appear informative and draw mad opinionated conclusions that for all you know may be a fact. But it may not be, you see watching Fahrenheit 9/11 you will draw a conclusion that George Bush is the devil and we must stop him and his quest for middle eastern oil. All that information you have consumed may again be in doubt when you see the likes of Christopher Hitchens (may he RIP) go on the news and say that all that information was complete bullshit. So then it becomes a pissing war where everyone is shouting random "facts" at each other to try and convince voters and it becomes almost impossible to find the real information because the biased media cant decide on how flip the "facts". 

What is outstanding though is the fact that some people cant decide whether it is biased or not. I mean really? The trailer to this garbage has first of all dramatic weird ass middle eastern music and images of revolts across the world portraying an apocalyptic setting. Plus it paints the fact that anti-colonialism is a bad thing and that America is the only country to spread liberty. As a non-American I find that slightly offensive, just saying. As well as that I don't know how exactly you Americans see anti-colonialism, but it's kind of a good thing throughout history. Take King Leopold II and his conquest of the Congo, his rule of the Congo resulted in the death of about 10 million natives. And your shocked that the president of the United States is anti-colonialism? Considering that the president is half-black and his roots are tied to Africa....obviously. Just saying....

I mean it doesn't take a fucking genius to find out about the presidents life. There has been many books on the presidents life and from what I heard they're are boring as fuck, the only difference is most legitimate biographers aren't biased. But that isn't what shocks me, what truly shocks me is that a lot of Americans are taking the effort to run off to the nearest cinema showing this movie and paying money. When you can easily watch biased piece of crap information on the news you just have to take your pick; MSNBC or Fox News.  And guess what? It's totally free....kinda. 

I see this is gonna be a trend every eight years in America, at least make them entertaining. Fahrenheit 9/11 was at the very least funny, this Indian dude doesn't look remotely funny, just saying. Give me your thoughts on this bollox. 

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RIP This Console Generation

They're all sequels!?!

I don't know why it took me two years to fucking realise this because I probably had some mad delusion that someone, I don't know would actually make another innovative game that would blow my socks off. The last time I experienced that innovative experience was Borderlands in 2009 when all those people thought it was going to be shit and continued to hype up about Modern Warfare 2, like most wankers do. Well I took satisfaction in that they were wrong and that the game became very successful both critically and in sales. You see what most "analysts" missed is that gamers were beginning to become hungry for something more innovative since there last fix in 2007. Sadly today there are no innovative titles this fall. 

So that got me thinking, what has been interestingly different from the bollox that has been copying Modern Warfare 2 and therefore narrowing the selection of games? Well nothing great, and by that I mean nothing that got an average score of 8 or 9 by critics. I mean Metro 2033 was a pretty cool game that came out of the Ukraine and that was ultimately different but it wasn't great. So then I looked towards the only thing that could probably revive the innovation and have less of the focus on the constant stream of fucking sequels. And that was E3 2010, the last bastion of hope for this generation of console gaming, and my god was it awful. Both Microsoft and Sony's press conferences consisted of "motion gaming" with cameras and well, moving....and all of it didn't involve a couch! It was awkward to watch and it looked even more awkward to play and Microsoft thought it would be "fucking dope" to bring out little kids and play kiddies games. But that's nothing compared to Tim Schafer coming out at the Microsoft press conference and revealing the Sesame Street Kinect game. It was the biggest betrayal since Mufasa was betrayed by his own brother Scar in the Lion King. That moment still sends shivers down my spine. Anyway the whole press conference was the gaming apocalypse! 

Gamers reaction everywhere of E3 2010

But for some reason looking at my reaction in hindsight to this mess was that I could always wait until next year. Well two E3's later and no fucking change, except now its appropriate to put singers on the stage now. The sad thing about this years E3 was that the highlights were all fucking sequels and nothing new looked remotely interesting except one press conference which was Ubisofts. Yes the dark horses came striding in to reveal a NEW INNOVATIVE TITLE!! OMFG! Which was obviously Watchdogs. And it was awesome! Everyone was talking about it, and everyone wanted to know when that glorious fucker was coming out. And it was the sole reason Ubisoft won E3! Everyone was starving for something new and innovative and we caught a tiny glimpse of it and everyone went crazy! That ultimately tells me why this console generation is over, done, finished. Because all they're doing now is stalling with sequels and prequels to squeeze that last drop of cash from people who aren't sick of it yet. And that is unfortunately the best business model for publishers in this shit storm of an economic climate. 

What drove me over the edge? Just reading this article that gave the top 5 anticipated games of this fall. In case you didn't notice they're all sequels. Anyway Ill continue to buy the sequels since that's where all the money is going, some of them has to be good.

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Blizzard Developers Are Saps

I don't really know if this is worth blogging about but it just made me slightly pissed off to go on and do this post. Well just recently Blizzard South developer Jay Wilson slagged fellow game developer and creator of the Diablo franchise David Brevik over his tiny criticism of the more recent Diablo 3. David Brevik did not say anything personal about the guys in particular he just gave his two cents on a franchise he basically created. What ensued was Blizzard South developers going on none other than Facebook to well, none other than rage. See the discussion below: 

As you can see all their names and parts in the process of making the game are distributed. Not the smartest move for game devs to share their opinions but the whole thing becomes all the more silly when you actually read what David Brevik said; 

IncGamers: You are very well known in the world of ARPGs, and I am going to ask you, Diablo 3 is probably the most anticipated PC title in 10 years. What’s your opinion on the final product?

David Brevik: Honestly, I think that they did a lot of the things the best they could, it was a very different game than I would have created, the team and personalities, the people, the talent and all the design philosophies of the people that worked on it in Irvine, we called them Blizzard South, those people have their own style and the their own way they like to design. It was very, very different from the Blizzard North.

So I think that when Blizzard South took over the development of Diablo 3 it was inevitable that they were going to create an experience that was in the Diablo theme but concentrated more towards the things that they liked to experience. Including more story and things like that.

When Blizzard North shut down they lost a ton of experience with why the Action RPG works and what about it works. That’s really difficult to recover from. They didn’t have the experience of people that knew it well. This is why you do things with random levels for example, and so when you lose that experience you are going to create a very different experience in the end than we would have created.

IncGamers: Do you think they bought the wrong people in? As we understand, Jay Wilson, for example, his background was RTS. From our point of view it looked like they misunderstood what kept people playing, The type of loot drops, which has been a big issues. One of the other issues is they have not listened to their community, and they have not anlaysed what makes up that addictive Diablo experience. What are your thoughts on that?

David Brevik: Well, the loot system. They made some decisions with the loot system that were very different than the way that we did it in Diablo 2 and I think that obviously the community has been upset with some of the decisions they made. Having all of your powers work off your main weapon and things like that, to having blues that are more powerful than yellows. Eventually the auction house and how that worked, even something as simple as when you equip an item and it’s bound to your character permanently would have totally changed the dynamic of the game.

It seems odd that they have not really responded in a quick fashion to some of these things. I think they are very well aware of the problems at this point and are trying to fix some of this stuff. It’s a shame that they had to learn some of these painful lessons

IncGamers: As you created Diablo, how do you feel about it? Do you feel a little let down that the legacy has kind of been mashed up?

David Brevik: I have very mixed emotions about it (laughs). On one hand I am sad that people haven’t enjoyed Diablo because it’s a love, a passion, and its obvious people still have a giant love and passion for Diablo and they are speaking out about it because they have such love for it. That makes me feel great.

I am sad because people are outraged and, you know, some of the decision they have made are not the decisions I would make and there have been changes in philosophy and that hasn’t gone over very well. I think in that way I am a little sad.

I am also a little happy, which I hate to say, it shows that the people that were involved in Diablo really did matter, and so I am happy that it has come to light that how talented that group was and how unique and special that group was. I am hoping that, as this happens very often in the industry, you see it with Call of Duty and things like that , when the people leave the game changes and it shows how critical people are in this industry.

IncGamers: One of the questions the Gazillion guys asked me to ask you was, where did the name Diablo come from?

David Brevik: I thought of the game when I was in high school and I lived in the east part of San Francisco in a town called Danville and I loved at the base of Mount Diablo and that’s where the name comes from. Once I found out what the mountain name was, I thought that was awesome, I didn’t speak Spanish, so I thought I wanted to use that as a title for a nemesis in a videogame. It’s simply from where I lived.

IncGamers: Well thanks a lot David, you’ve brought a lot of pleasure to millions of people over the years and hopefully you’ll continue to do so.

You know it's not the whole thing of actually being immature about the small critique about the game that pisses me off, its just the manner in which they did it. Facebook, really? I mean it pretty much doesn't separate yourself from a bitchy fifteen year old teenager. Now Twitter, there we have some ground of actually growing a pair and telling the person directly and the rest of the world how you actually feel. Then it would be a completely different issue. But you guys had to do it on Facebook and then delete the post and then probably got the guys from upstairs calling on your door. You see if you did it on Twitter you would be representing yourself and no one else, the fact that you did it collectively on Facebook makes you all guilty, and sad. I mean I'm sure they're pissed, you don't spend that long on a game to match the standards of the predecessors just to have the guy that created it all to say..."meh". Of course you'd be pissed I would to, but get some fucking initiative. And tell him to go fuck himself, in his face.

I don't really care much for Diablo and I'm a moderate player at best, I certainly like playing Diablo 3 in the modern gaming world regardless of all the difficulties.

I just find this whole situation really fucking stupid, but I'd rather developers take some initiative and stand up for their titles publicly to show the fans that they mean business. And not cowering on Facebook!

Any thoughts?

And yes all the pictures are stolen from reddit.com :) 

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I Now Despise Competitive Multiplayer Games For Good

Describes multiplayer in general on a number of different levels....

Multiplayer games are starting to grind my gears. Well that's a lie, multiplayer games have always grind my gears, why? Because I always had the nerve and the adrenaline to keep playing them and gain nothing from them. You see I don't find achievements in being the best in any game or having the highest level and always reaching top of the play list in a game of Team Deathmatch. It's always pursing more games to fill the need of telling myself 'I'm good at this game and I want to challenge people that are equally as good as me' and this is the essence of any multiplayer game. But of course you're lying to yourself because there are always going to be a ton of more people better than you unless your MLG. So I came to ask myself why am I truly wasting tons of hours playing this game if I am getting nothing out of it? I don't necessarily consider myself a competitive person but naturally I don't like to lose and due to this I usually get frustrated in a game and myself included. I get frustrated because when I lose a game that I certainly felt I should have won I tend to continue playing the game to get a win so I can justify investing all these hours I have put into these games. And all for what? Just to get a small satisfaction of telling myself 'I'm good at this game' when I don't really care to begin with. I know this is confusing but allow me to explain with an example. 

The memories! They're bad!

I just finished up a game of King of the Hill on Gears Of War 3. GoW3 is the most infuriating game to play multiplayer wise and gets the most biggest rages ever even from the best of us. It's a fact, I have played a huge amount of Gears games with my friends and most of them cant take it because its so frustrating, usually quitting after probably an average of 3-5 rounds of multiplayer games. I press on usually, that's because I love the game and the franchise. Why love the game if its so infuriating and don't have a competitive personality? Well, it's the only game I have ever had a challenge. Games like Call Of Duty, Halo and Battlefield all have pretty easy learning curves to their multiplayer, to me its just gun and run. Obviously those players would tell me differently but then again I don't care, because those games became boring and ultimately not entertaining for me because no amount of skill that some players achieved didn't entertain me. So why invest time into those games if the skill you get from them is ultimately worthless to me? So, naturally I don't play them. Let the record show that I feel all three of those franchises are mundane and ran into the ground and have shown no innovations in their franchises for a long time. Ok so back to the game. In the King of the Hill game things got tense naturally as the score became very even but my team withheld and we won the round, so one round to go. The second round got far more tense and we lost the round by one point and in overtime. Unlucky is to sum up that round, we should of won but when things got more tense and the the 'hill' kept changing I guess we couldn't keep up, so that leads us to the final round. So this round starts up really well but ends EXACTLY THE SAME as the last round. We got up to the final point and lost in overtime. I wanted to scream at my team but I kept to myself as always (I never rage, ever), and as a man I accepted the defeat. Lets face it shit happens and there is nothing you can do about it, sometimes you just have to shut the fuck up and take it. This doesn't happen quite a lot in Gears games especially in the manner of this one, I mean it was grade A ridiculous. And It wasn't fun. So what do you do with a game that isn't fun? Simple, you stop playing it. 

Moral of the story? I don't give a fuck....

Believe me at that moment the game was over I wanted nothing more than to play another round and prove to myself that 'I can do better' and that 'I am good at this game' but that was all bullshit. I am no longer going to justify my means to play multiplayer games any more. To me they're simply not fun and are ridiculously  addictive forms of entertainment that appeals to our inner competitive personality, and it has only came to this point that I have realized that I control whether or not I have a competitive personality or not and not these fucking games. So I choose not to have a competitive personality and I am going to stop chasing these phantom achievements for good now. Fuck you multiplayer, I never really liked you anyway! 

Give your thoughts on competitive multiplayer and tell me how you challenge yourself! 

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JOSS WHEDON IS DIRECTING AVENGERS 2!!!

FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES!FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES!FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES!FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES!FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES!FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES!FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES!FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES! FUCK YES!

He is also doing a Marvel related TV-Show for ABC........just let that sink in.........

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Rick Remender Finishes Up Venom With #22

Sadly it's true. After twenty two awesome issues of Flash Thompson gracing his presence in the alien symbiote the leading writer that started it all is leaving the solo series to grace his presence in more upcoming Marvel series. Rick Remender will finish his work on Venom in issue 22 where Flash will take on his arch nemesis Jack O' Lantern, which Remender had worked hard on to achieve these two as nemesis, its nice to see he'll be finishing something he's worked so hard on. Remender has achieved a lot on his run of Venom, first one being that Venom is finally cool again. Yea the only time I can remember Venom being awesome was in the hands of Todd McFarlane who takes credit for creating the beast. Then there that weird spell of Eddie Brock becoming the good guy in Maximum Carnage and we all know that pretty much screwed up the character. It lead to a lot of downfalls for the symbiote one being years later when Venom was sold in a super villain auction.....yea, I know (terrible!). But just when you thought it couldn't get any lower.....well it did. Mac Gargan or Scorpion I think bought the suit for 100 million and later became both Scorpion and Venom, which sucked ten folds. So that brings us up to about Flash Thompson gaining the Venom symbiote from the US government as part of a covert black ops experiment which actually makes sense (finally!).

Ever since Flash became Agent Venom I couldn't help but describe this new Venom as 'Spider-Man with guns!'. It fits perfectly, he moves and kinda acts like Spider-Man (considering Flash is Spider-Man's biggest fan) but has a darker costume and has the balls to use a gun. Awesome is one word to describe him and the fact that he is a war vet ad's to his characteristics which has led to some interesting moments in his story. Such as that goofy Circle of Four story arc where Hell took over Las Vegas, best way to describe that would be 90's-esque storytelling (nothing wrong with that), and General Ross became part of that roster of heroes. Either way the interactions between the general and this AWOL soldier was just awesome, the conversation dialogue between the two just fitted together so nicely you couldn't help but compliment the writers. 

Small little moments like these is something I really hope that does not disappear from Venom and I'm hoping Cullen Bunn (the new writer) leads by that example. 

There is too many moments in Venom that I will cherish in the series in total like when Jack O' Lantern and Flash took a road trip to Las Vegas. Awesome conversations and happenings ensued; 

Anyway, it will be interesting where Venom will go with Cullen Bunn and I'm looking forward to what he does with the series. I just hope the fucker doesn't screw it up. Cheers Remender for finally making Venom fucking awesome again!

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The Man Behind Atari; Creator of Video Games

(Courtesy of Kotaku) 

It's hard to believe that 40 years ago Atari would be the creator and ruler of the gaming industry. Of course home consoles wouldn't have been very popular in the 70's and what most kids used to do was go to the arcade. Where all the best games were made by none other than Atari. Now of course, they're practically finished publishing any game close to being decent and we don't consider them a major player in the world of gaming anymore. But there was a time when Nolan Bushnell ruled and gave kids like Steve Jobs their first job (lol). But of course we all know that a lot has changed since Bushnell sold his company for 28 million after four years of owning it and the rest as they say is history. 

You should check out Eurogamers awesome interview with the man himself as they discuss the past, present and future.

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Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale Information Review

"Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale" is a game that's been the source of a lot of controversy in the gaming world and it's essentialy been declared a Smash Bros. copy from a variety of sources. However that doesn't sway me when it comes to my opinion of it. While I of course agree that they're similar in a number of aspects, Nintendo doesn't own the genre. Hell if you think about it, Marvel Vs. Capcom and Street Fighter X Tekken are similar games also. The idea is simaler to that of Smash Bros, smash the shit out of people, try not to die, rinse and repeat. However instead of the likes of Mario and Link we're given characters like Jak and Daxter and Nathan Drake. Personally I'm VERY excited for this game and a recent leak has only made me MORE excited for this game. A variety of characters (Both first party and beyond) have been announced for this game. The characters being;

• Nathan Drake (Uncharted)
• Cole MgCrath (Infamous)
• Kratos (God Of War)
• Fat Princess (Fat Princess)
• Sweet Tooth (Twisted Metal)
• Heiachi Mishima (Tekken)
• Big Daddy (Bioshock)
• Sly (Sly Cooper)
• Jak and Daxter (Jak and Daxter)
• Colnel Radec (Killzone)
• Toro and
• Dj Pararapa

All but two of those characters are enough to send me into a frenzy for this game. I'm a big fan of Infamous, Tekken, Twisted Metal and hell even Fat Princess. The rest are simply icing on the cake.

However there has been a massive leak recently (Please bear in mind this hasn't been confirmed) One person using the beta of the game has searched through the files and found a variety of interesting bits of information. For example, a level list. 

• Alden’s Tower (Infamous)
• Black Rock Stadium (Twisted Metal)
• Columbia (BioShock Infinite)
• Dojo (Parappa the Rapper)
• Dreamscape (LittleBigPlanet)
• Franzea (LocoRoco)
• Hades (God of War)
• Invasion (Killzone)
• Metropolis (Ratchet & Clank)
• Paris (Sly Cooper)
• Sandover (Jak & Daxter)
• San Francisco (Resistance)
• Stowaways (Uncharted)
• Time Station (Ape Escape)

Obviously if these levels have been included it means someone from that particular series will be playable. Aldens tower, Black Rock Stadium, Dreamscape and Time Station have me most excited at the moment. Also the main chunk of meat from this leak. A revised character list. 

• Big Daddy(BioShock)*
• Colonel Radec (Killzone)
• Dante (DMC)
• Evil Cole (Infamous)
• Fat Princess (Fat Princess)
• Good Cole (Infamous)
• Heihachi (Tekken)
• Jak & Daxter (Jak & Daxter)
• Kratos (God of War)
• Nariko (Heavenly Sword)
• Nathan Drake (Uncharted)
• Parappa the Rapper (Parappa the Rapper)
• Raiden (Metal Gear Solid)
• Ratchet (& Clank?) (Ratchet & Clank)
• Sackboy (LittleBigPlanet)
• Sir Daniel Fortesque (MediEvil)
• Sly Cooper (Sly Cooper)
• Spike (Ape Escape)
• Sweet Tooth (Twisted Metal)
• Toro (Sony Icon)

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/u5BLgycbUog" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

E3 Trailer

Now I'm even more excited. Ratchet, Dante, Raiden, Sackboy and Spike are all from games that I love. Ape Escape 1 was the 2nd console game I got for my PS1 so I'm very excited to play as him. As of now, I think that the roster is shaping up to make this a VERY impressive game. However characters I would like to see; 

Crash Bandicoot

Spyro The Dragon

A Final Fantasy character

Solid/ Naked Snake

At the moment I think it's very likely I'll get my wish but either way I can't wait to pick this up on my VITA on the 24th of October!

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Dear God I Just Had a Major Nerdgasm...

Never in my life have a seen a more better cast suitable for this web miniseries. UNFORTUNATELY it isn't and what we do have is Zac Levi, Adam Baldwin, Nathan Fillion and Alan Tudyk all killing zombie cosplayers for awesome entertainment. Can anyone say Firefly and Chuck reunion? 

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Dark Knight Rises Discussion (Beware Spoilers)

"So.....yea, Dark Knight Rises. Totally not like, movie of the year or...something." Is what I would say if I was dickhead. Well, bigger dickhead. But the point I am trying to make is that this film must be a benchmark for closing trilogies as spectacular as this did. I mean not a lot of movie franchises remain as consistent as this trilogy, actually, scrap that barely any movies can compare to Christopher Nolan's Batman. These films are something that will stand the test of time a lot like the Star War's trilogy. But, there wont be a lot of knock off's and such. Well, lets hope not...

Actually a more suitable comparison would be to compare Nolan's Batman to the Godfather trilogy. And I know what you're thinking, the Godfather never had a trilogy it was two movies and that's that, well for just this once we're going to include Godfather 3. Now when we think of the two Godfather movies we think of the second one mainly because it was so fucking good, pretty much being a benchmark for amazing storytelling. Again we can easily compare this to the Dark Knight the second movie to Nolan's Batman, an amazing introduction to Batman's arch nemesis the Joker who was played by the late and great Heath Ledger. Arguably the best in the trilogy, a lot like the second Godfather movie. Now in comes Godfather 3, and we're given a completely different Michael Corleone, and it sucks, plain and simple. It just doesn't keep up with the standards of the second or the first and that is exactly why it is forgotten and why no one will consider it worth watching. Batman's third entry is probably the most unforgettable out of the three movies.

Basically in Godfather 3 Mario Puzzo and Francis Ford Coppola should have stopped at its peak. Was it possible to make a good sequel to the Godfather 2? Well they tried and failed and because of this many people will forget the amazing accolades the Godfather achieved. Such as both films getting preservation in the United States National Film Registry, the boatload of Oscars they achieved and Stanley Kubrick naming the first Godfather movie as the greatest movie ever made. As for Nolan's third entry on Batman we can see a potential future of this being one of this century's best movie trilogies.

So the legacy of Nolan's Batman is always going to be filled with awesome memories and amazing actors portraying the best villains against Batman. The Dark Knight Rises being the most unusual in its selection of villains but in my opinion and entirely my own is that I prefer Bane over the Joker. I'll even go as far to say that The Dark Knight Rises is my personal favourite Batman movie entirely because it just goes all out. Nolan holds back quite a lot in Batman Begins and The Dark Knight to keep the reality levels of the movie in check and to make sure the movie isn't too over the top. For The Dark Knight Rises both Christopher and Jonathan Nolan decided to say 'Fuck it! It's our last hurrah on making this series, why the fuck not?' and put Gotham right in the hands of the villains, making it a royal shit storm for Batman and Bruce Wayne.

Sure The Dark Knight Rises is flawed, not immensely flawed, small flaws in the plot make it slightly annoying and hard to contrast to the bullet proof (plot wise) Dark Knight. Hell I'm sure gonna give it another go and enjoy the fuck out of Bane once more and maybe see how the film holds up a second time around. So now you can stop reading, and have my permission to comment your opinions...

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Terraria Review

I've been very inactive on the Blarg for the last while. I'd like to explain why.

The first day the Steam Summer Sale began, Terraria, the 2D sandbox, went on sale for €2.50. Being a person who owns 3 Minecraft accounts (I got one for free and bought an extra one for €10 in case you think I sent Mojang €30 extra) I never thought I'd buy Terraria, the fact that it was 2D always made me feel it would be something lesser than Minecraft considering how it's an entire dimension shorter and due to the lack of noise that I heard (or rather didn't hear) I really didn't think that it could be THAT good. I was wrong. Oh so very very wrong and it's become one of my most played games on Steam in the space of 2 weeks.
Terraria is a sandbox game from indie producers "Relogic". It's hard to not compare this game to Minecraft but that's because they have so many similarities. Graphics wise, gameplay wise and more. The game involves mining, crafting and building just like Minecraft does only there's so much more stuff to do.

Minecraft has 5 tiers of items, Wood, stone, iron, gold and diamond. Terraria on the other hand has way more than double that. Wood, copper, iron, silver, gold, meteor, lava, shadow, hallowed, mythril, adamantie, cobalt, hero and that's just some of the armour classes, there is also a variety of other clothing options such as top hats, wings (Both demonic and angelic) and even the hero's garb from Zelda. Weapons wise there's also a lot more to choose from. For example, you got your basic swords, bows and spears. The weapons list however, also includes handguns, rifles, shotguns, lazer rifles, flails, boomerangs, star cannons and even more. Accessories are also welcome such as rocket boots, grappling hooks and various others that can be used to influence combat. Where combat is concerned, it's a lot more diverse. Potions and spells can easily turn the tide of battle between you and your variety of foes such as goblins, demons, mutant slimes and more.  The game has a variety of other bosses, something which I felt Minecraft was lacking (The repetitive pattern of the Ender Dragon hardly makes it a boss. More of a test of how you can press space, left click and another direction button). The bosses are also diverse and challenging raging from a demonic eye of Cthullu to a flying Wvyren high in the skys.

Skeletron, one of the games many bosses

The building is a lot more diverse with a variety of other features you can add to your house such as bath tubs, bins and more. In Terraria, you have the oppertunity to recruit NPCs to live in houses you yourself have built, be it a shoddy room in the dungeon of  your tower or a beautiful mansion for your merchants. This  creates a more active atmosphere in your home as a once quiet shack can quickly become noisy manor.
The graphics and music are both equally charming. The music fits the theme of exploration perfectly and has fitting and well written music for the bosses. The graphics also are also reminiscent of the 16bit Minecraft graphics. Just like Minecraft, Terraria has a collosal dedicated community who are commited to making texture packs and mods from the likes of Fallout to Zelda and even mods which further continue the game. This is especially welcome as the Terraria developers have ceased development of the game. 

Overall, If you haven't already guessed, Terraria has given the bums rush to Minecraft in terms of it's position in my heart. Terraria has now taken it's place. It has way more to do, a lot more customization and a more involving battle system. I highly recommend that if you ever have an extra €10 to spend or even less if there's a special on offer. 

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Remembering Mako Iwamatsu (Uncle Iroh)

  RIP Mako Iwamatsu (December 10, 1933 - July 21, 2006) 

Six years ago today Mr. Mako Iwamatsu would die due to esophageal cancer at the age of 72. Mako would be most commonly known for the voice of Uncle Iroh from the amazing cartoon series Avatar: The Last Airbender. The character Uncle Iroh would be known for his hilarious antics and his awe inspiring moral compass as he aided his nephew on a quest for self discovery. Unfortunately I do not recognise Mako in anything else other than Avatar except that one episode of The Green Hornet he's in with Bruce Lee.

Mako had a lucrative acting career being both nominated for a Tony and an Oscar for best supporting actor in The Sand Pebbles in 1966. It's easy to spot throughout The Last Airbender that Mako is an extraordinary actor. In the episode "The Tales of Ba Sing Se" there is segment titled "The Tale of Iroh", in this scene Iroh remembers his son he lost in the war and sings a powerful and tear jerking song called Leaves from the Vine (Little Soldier Boy). 

But I'll still remember Iroh as that hilarious Uncle that is wise beyond his years and unfortunately finding his best scenes are impossible thanks to Viacom ripping everything down off Youtube. But anyway his hilarity will always be found in the most subtle scenes such as this;

My favourite scene is where Iroh is getting mugged by a peasant and easily disarms him of his weapon to teach him how to form a better battle stance. He then continues to talk to him and support him in what he wants to become.

Anyway I only wanted to make this post to thank Mr. Mako for the amount of entertainment he has given me over the course of watching Avatar. Uncle Iroh is easily one of my favourite characters throughout that cartoon and I can't imagine watching Avatar without his input. So here's to him....

And thank you Reddit, for reminding me of the anniversary of his death;

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My Deepest Sympathies To The Victims and Their Families at Aurora Colorado...

At 12:00am today in Aurora, Colorado at a local theatre 12 are confirmed to be shot dead and roughly 50 have been injured in a mass shooting at the midnight showing of The Dark Knight Rises, the shooter has been apprehended. Several witnesses report that a man dressed entirely in black with a bullet proof vest and a riot gear helmet entered the theatre in a calm manner approaching a screening and dropping two smoke grenades and began shooting with a machine gun into the crowd. The police are currently at the shooters house and have confirmed that explosives are in the house. They're using the upmost care and have called the Denvor bomb squad. 

Among the 50 victims many children have been injured in the shootings some as young as 6 years to 3 months old. It's fucking madness right now and only a little information has come about this but there has been several videos uploaded to Youtube who were at the scene; 

Honestly I cant express how sympathetic I am for the victims and their families and everyone who was at the scene. I can't imagine witnessing an event such as this and after all the excitement over the release of this movie that fellow Bloggers have commented on, I can't imagine why anyone would want to do an action like this. And for that I sympathise for the shooters mental health. 

I wont be following up on this any more. 

Sources: MSNBC

Live Stream: 9 News

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EA is in the Shitter!

Click to enlarge

Wow, if two years of secondary level education of economics has taught me anything is that this graph could not possibly be a good thing. Now we know recently THQ are also in the shitter business wise but I wonder when EA will announce they're in the same level as shit as them. It's hard to estimate considering I'm not Michael Pachter or.......any other stock person.....

I believe this sort of thing has been going on for a while now, EA's stock has been hugely dropping over the coming months and I wonder when this will affect any of there games. Well it's sort of been affecting their games considering they were taking down the multiplayer for some along with the servers of others.. But then I realised, I haven't bought an EA game since 2010 and I don't like any of their franchises. So right now I couldn't really give a fuck, they can eat shit and die for all I care. 

I guess the folks to be concerned would be the guys who work at EA and to any fans who like Mass Effect, Dead Space, Battlefield, Medal of Honor (lol), Fifa and the rest. 

Oh wait I do like Mirrors Edge, if they make a sequel to that they wont be on my shit list but you know they'll probably still be on the shit list business wise. 

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Rotten Tomatoes Closes 'Dark Knight Rises' Comments

Yep, the most anticipated movie this year has become so big the site was forced to close its entire comments system on the reviews of this movie. A ton of hate and well....hate on the rotten reviews of this movie has become unmanageable for the folks at Rotten Tomatoes, is it a surprise? Nope.

Rotten Tomatoes is a huge review aggregator for all movies. Recently critics were allowed to publish there reviews for the Dark Knight Rises and the majority has been pretty positive standing at 86 fresh and 12 rotten. But of course with those twelve rotten reviews fanboys and others with ridiculously high expectations expressed their hate and distaste for the reviews for a movie they haven't even seen yet. Some even going as far to send death threats to the critics. It's all very silly but it doesn't surprise me. While looking at a review for some random movie a while back on the site I saw that one guy was copying and pasting his comment on all of the rotten reviews. This was not only sad, but I thought it was a little excessive as I remember correctly all the reviews for that particular movie were rotten. 

But then again maybe one for two of these comments are constructive criticism on the critics reviews. Hey, some people make bad reviews its not uncommon. Plus you do tend to find critics who intentionally separate themselves from the crowd usually to make themselves looking distinctive or just to make a name for themselves. Yea, those guys are assholes.

But what I take from this is that people have ridiculously high expectations for this movie and for those people I say it is physically impossible for this film to be better than its predecessor. Well, I mean it could be your personal favourite but I think overwhelming majority of fans will go with the Dark Knight just because of Heath Ledgers performance. I mean it was flawless. 

Personally I am going in with very low expectations considering I couldn't understand a word Bane said in all the trailers but then again I barely watched any trailers. Either way I'm looking forward to see it on Saturday.

P.S. Some critics are spoiling the movie, don't read them unless you made sure they're spoiler free. 

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Sons of Anarchy Season 5 Promo's

As this years Comic Con comes to an end we're usually given more information on the things we play, watch and read. So for me one thing I was sure to keep an eye on was one my favourite shows and that is Sons of Anarchy. This show is fucking awesome, a lot of people overlook this big time because they look at the exterior roll their eyes and continue watching something which they believe has more substance. And to those people I say fuck you. 

With Sons of Anarchy people's initial impressions are usually style over substance, but as the show proves otherwise season after season I cant help but think a ton of people are missing out. Ok sure, it might not be the next Breaking Bad and it surly doesn't compare itself to Mad Men but sometimes I just wanna watch a show with a great story followed by enough action and twists in the plot to keep my attention. Basically I want a show that is consistently paced the same throughout and doesn't feel like a chore to watch at times and is just fun overall. SOA offer's that and for that I have become incredibly loyal to the biker show.

So obviously I am excited for season five and with the assurance of a sixth season I am digging these new clips they have released.

This video is an interesting metaphor. Is Gemma intervening in club business, with the intentions to protect Jax, but is harming him herself? We'll know in September....

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Why did previous Punisher movies fail? Because they were made by idiots...

Ok Lionsgate, you had your fun with the movie rights of Frank Castle and everything related to The Punisher. Now is the time for you to give it away so Thomas Jane and possibly Ron Perlman to make the best Punisher movie possible. 

Now I'm going to be honest, I have seen neither of the two Punisher movies mainly due to the terrible reception from Punisher fans which there is a boatload of. I just didn't seem convinced by the trailers and other promotions for both of those films, they tried to appear more action orientated than they should have. And this is painful to watch as Frank Castle isn't a hard character to portray, I mean there is tons of stuff from the source material they can use. Take Garth Ennis's work on the Punisher which I believe was a nine year run, his work got Frank Castle bang on. 

Garth Ennis is known for quite a few Punisher story arcs but one of my favourite is from issue 50 volume 6 onwards. That was the arc when they introduced Barracuda again and was out for Frank Castle, but the major twist in the story was that Barracuda had Frank's daughter. Unbeknownst to Frank of his daughters existence Frank had to make some big decisions. A pretty cool arc to introduce new Punisher fans to the awesome Frank, but my personal favourite is Garth Ennis's work in The Slavers. An awesome scene in that where Frank repeatedly bashes a women against an apartment window from seven odd stories up. And that's just two examples of awesome story arcs! 

Well there is no excuse when you make a shit Punisher movie Lionsgate, you have the audience and the right source material so either get Thomas Jane back or fuck off. Best possible Punisher movie being made would have Jane starring and Ennis in the writing department, man a boy could dream. Either way Jane and Perlman have made a statement with this short ten minute clip and it mainly revolves around "fuck you Hollywood".

Anyone else think this would make an awesome Jack Daniels commercial? Also read this...

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Metro: Last Light Demo looks more Horror orientated!

One game that seems to be wistfully building anticipation is the very distinct Ukraine made Metro: Last Light. Over the past few months publisher THQ were experiencing major problems in finance which sadly pushed the game a whole year back in to development. There has been very few trailers being released (except for that one awesome short film they made) and most of the media coming out of Metro: Last Light have been demos and each one represents the new features of the game. This has been very effective and far more reassuring than its predecessor Metro 2033. 

Metro: Last Light is thankfully keeping all the great stuff of the original while improving the core overall experience. The major issue of Metro 2033's gameplay was the clunky controls, flawed stealth system and bullet sponges for enemies. Earlier demo entries reveal that they have already fixed this problem, which you can view here. 

However the E3 demo is now finally revealed in all its glory, and I am stoked for the release of this game. Metro 2033 was one of my favourite games of 2010 with its creepy survival horror elements while keeping the action varied and interesting. I can't wait to return to the Metro and enjoy a true post-apocalyptic video game. 

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