sean's first post: a respone to kotaku

Even with all the alternatives on the market, no one can look Microsoft straight in the eye and claim that there's a service more complete or polished than Xbox LIVE. And their arcade titles are complimenting the service, not just through spec-sheet pleasing "leaderboards," but massive amounts of co-op injected into new and old titles alike. I have huge hopes for Home and the few PSN titles out there are fantastic, but LIVE tips the scales of me buying/playing a game on the 360 instead of the PS3...daily. As for Nintendo, their infrastructure is the equivalent of a 1991 AOL member homepage with animated mailbox gifs and site counters. It's shamefully outdated, and not in the ironic way.

A new post (hxxp://kotaku.com/339165/calling-it-the-xbox-360-won-2007) on the popular gaming news blog Kotaku declares that they find Xbox Live the winner for online gaming in 2007. In their analysis, they compare Microsoft's online service to that of Nintendo and Sony, but is this examination complete and conclusive? What gives this man the right to compare the content level of a 4 gig DVD inside their large piece of electronics to the tiny hand held Nintendo DS?

There is an obvious reason the DS won in sales this year; its portable, its suitable for all ages, and its cheap. For the price of a 360 game, one can almost buy two DS games, and the cartridge for these is probably a 10th of the size! how could any one expect the same level of content in a portable game next to a DVD in a console?

And what gives this guy the right so say that Live has the best online gaming service available? he compared it to the two other consoles; the wii and the ps3. But the Wii was designed to be played with friends in the same room, and the online service was created with little 8 year old kids online. What parent could submit their child to a game with voice chat with drunk college kids or worse: those evil 12 year olds who are so ruthless on Live. And the PS3, well no one has a PS3 so what are you going to do. He missed a crucial opponent though, acting like he doesn't exist; PC gaming.

PC gaming has made steps beyond Live that pre-teen fan boys can only begin to imagine, yet it is so much more simple. On xbox live, you select an option that you want to play a game. From there the service searches out other people who just pressed the same button and throws you all together in a tiny room. This brilliant scheme sets you back about $50 a year. Now who's tiny room is it? why, which ever one of those kids who happens to have the lowest latency, of course! just throw all the hosting onto a system that is already running the game and we'll have cool runnings from here on out. in PC gaming, a group of people come together, chip in some money (and i've looked at it, if you get a small handful or so of people it can be $50 or less per year easy) and create their own server. On this server, they can pick their own rules and map rotations and game types. They can ban cheaters or "hax0rz" with a simple command. What has live got to stop these hax0rs? well, you can report them, and they'll probably have their account suspended for a while. but what happens if a couple people report some innocent young chap who just pwnd their asses of the face of the earth? well, they'll probably have their account suspended for a while. Now that kid can't play, where-as on the server system, he just goes and jumps on a new one of hundreds.

Another clear difference in online pc gaming and live is the competency of the players. server admins do have more power than a normal person on live, so their is some kind of law present. our little johnny the 1337 12 year old decides that he's going to start busting heads on voice chat, well consider little johnny banned. from there he can go find a server full of other little 1337 12 year olds and they can all yell obscenities on their microphones together. But for every other server in the list, you'll find these kids completely absent. There is a level of respect there that you just can't buy from Microsoft.

Let's talk about Microsoft's acclaimed content download packs. Gamers eventually get tired of playing the same few maps over and over again, so when the fan base for a certain game begins to shrink, Microsoft can release a content download pack to update the maps and game types, for a price. Pay and extra 5 or 10 dollars, and you get 4 or 5 new maps, maybe a new game type, and continue to play their product for another year or so, until they release the next content pack in the form of Game 2, for another full $60. Now how does PC gaming keep it's gamers happy? Users can create their own maps and mods and release them, for free, on the internet. What?! Computer games release more content at a quicker pace, for free, from better servers, with less in-game lag, for a game that initially cost less money, but somehow looks better?! just a thought...

Another Buystuffmas passes... and here come awards

Underneath the 8 inches of snow (I'm in Colorado at this moment in time) and pounds of lights and trees, another 'buystuffmas' slips by. We should just call this damn 'christian' holiday National Materialism Day and get our heads out of our asses to be honest. Maybe post-pone jesus' birthday or vice versa since only 20% of people if that actuallly celebrate christmas with that being the central idea. Oh well, maybe i'm just a cranky asshat.

Anyways, I feel like a dried prune due to the typical colorado weather and altitude and I can wait to see my lovely wonderful girlfriend when i return.

But in a sadder light, there's.. people.. i miss.
Oh well i shall get over it.

And without further ado, here are my annual Matt's award ceremony!
These are given to people I hold dear to my heart and deserve these with the utmost respect.
Wear it proud!
~~~~
I'd like to give my yearly "good for you!" brownie button award to Grant for finally having a good pc and not shutting the fuck up about how godly he is now.
So grant, I formally announce

ahem.
"GOOD FOR YOU!"
dumbass.
Thank you. Now we can do some pwning in TF2.

Runner up was Zach for failing to succeed in flaunting useless shit.
:D
~~~~
My "I'm Better than YOU" award goes to no one other than myself of course.

So I'd like to announce that I am indeed better than you and my ego will clearly tell you that jackass.

Runner up again was Zach for this award in an attempt to have a successful superiority complex that clearly falls short of mine.
~~~~
The "Wonderful Person" award goes to my girlfriend for being..well an amazing person.
Take my ideal woman in my mind and she's pretty much a projected image of just that only short of playing video games which she's started to do as it is anyways!
So I just wanna say...

I love you so much and I can't wait to see you when i come home!
~~~~
The "Sinful Award" goes to Cheyenne.
oh you're just silly you silly christian you!
~~~~
The "Fail" award goes to no one other than Hillary Clinton for not only having a face to ROFL at but for failing at politics as well.

Runners up for this award were my sister, Zach again, and grant who only saved himself by building a good PC.
~~~~

In media, my favorites of the year are as follows
~~~~
Top 5 Games of the year (in order 1 being best):
1)Bioshock
2)Orange Box
3)Phantom Hourglass
4)Call of Duty 4
5)Unreal Tournament 3

Crysis did not make the list although it wins hard in graphics.
~~~~
Top 5 Movies I saw this year:
1) Superbad
2) Igby Goes Down
3)I am Legend
4)28 Weeks Later
5) Walk hard

28 Weeks later didn't live up to 28 days later so i honestly have to put I am legend between the two so its debateable.

~~~~
I'm too tired to do the rest of this section so i'll do it later.

Anyways, hope everyone had an excellent National materialism day and hope you all have a great new years!

~With love

Merry Christmas

It's the night before buystuffmas, and i'd just like to wish anyone who reads this blog a merry christmas =D. Eh, corny but i felt it was needed.

Now that that is out of the way, i hopefully will be playing some badass games tomorrow night; TF2, UT3, GH3, etc.

And rofl at the guy who made this :
^Religious freak lolz.

Skyboxes and my future forecasts and apparently news too

So, lets see here....

First off, there's a simple concept behind no sky box in a video game. There's so fake image in the sky. Its all rendered in real time.
So lets look at a few examples here of games with skyboxes. First we have the age old class zelda. This skybox is fairly easy to spot.
Good! You see the skybox now!
lets move on to some newer games. How about.. Halo 3. Halo 3 does in fact use a skybox


If I really have to point it out for you, you're a dumbass and should probably go back to playing JumpStart Kindergarten.

Now, this next one.. NEEDS video to do it justice. Its a game called crysis. The most technologically advanced game available to consumers. The beginning of the clip shows what i'm talking about




YAY! now you know what real time rendering looks like dipshit.



Moving right along, I have a pretty good idea where i could see most of my friends within a good 20 years or so.

Lets start with my best friend...


Me. - Game Programmer or Computer Sciences major at a well of company pooling at least 60 grand and married most likely in the Seattle area or northeast.

Kelsey - Probably an art major like she says. I'm not sure exactly what she'll be doing, but itll be something fancy. Probably married, maybe poor but she could care less how much money she has. I think she may still be a vegan by then. = P


Grant - After nabbing Salutitorian, having no life for 3 more years of his high school career, and successfully talking the ear off in interviews and making em laugh so hard they HAVE to hire him, he'll probably be a successful person in computers or the engineering field abroad. This is just my impression at this point in time of course.

Zach - Zach.. honestly could take two routes. The first is the most likely, the second is the more humorous to dream up and is totally logical.
1) Successful fashion designer, maybe making more money than I will be still flaunting his conceitedness and smoking hot body. Maybe not a fashion designer, but he'll definitely do something in that artsy field where i do not dare to roam.
2) Mooching off those around him living with them, moving from place to place across the country in a traveling folk singer's manner. I think it'd be cute.

Sean - Pft. Since he seems so set on an electrical engineer... he'll probably get it. Nuff said.

Abby - Artistic.. blah blah blah. Same redundant thing i've said twice already.

of the million kids thinking they're going into medical, I predict about 5% actually will.
Most will fuck themselves over when they realize once its too late how totally kickass engineering really is.

-------
Onto a more less depressing subject....
I now have a companion cube on my desktop. For those of you who don't know, the companion cube is the amazing loving cube you get in portal. (it won't stab you!)
So if needed, familiarize yourself with the companion cube and cake.
Because portal is possibly the best puzzle game you'll ever play in your entire life.

Onto my stress levels which are at this moment through the roof. I failed a precalc test today becuase of my own stupidity in studying for it ( i remembered all the hard shit, forgot the easiest things) and almost cried afterwards. Bivings still fails to really teach and then bitches at us for "wasting time" while she rants for 30 minutes about how we waste time. (WAY TO GO)
By the time I'm done typing i'll probably need to go shoot some things on team fortress 2.
By the way, if for some reason i don't know you read this and you have the game and live in my area, feel free to let me know as i plan on having a 4v4 Shooter lan party sometime in the near future. = )
Wireless, land, laptops, and desktops welcome. I have plenty of desk and table space. = )
*Talk about me being a nerd wow..*

Well i'm done, this post has pretty much been a waste of about 10 minutes of my life.
grats.

OH also. here's a few sites for the weekend to checkout should you get bored.

www.torrentfreak.com (All torrent news)
www.kotaku.com (hardcore gaming news about the gaming industry, new games, and sales)
www.neopets.com (my girlfriend made an account.. FAIL)
www.digg.com (Fairly nice news on there sometimes)

This reminds me of yet another endless rant topic.
News.
Oh gotta love the uprise of the internet media. With thousands upon millions of voices streaming in 1s and 0s from left to right. It really makes television and old fashioned news print look like censored fascist pieces of shit if you ask me.
which if you think about it, it really is easy to understand.

American television: the cooking pot of a lazy deathly fat society. For the following reasons of course.
1) People like Ellen Degeneres ruin classic japanese TV. - This is just the epitome of moments where you take something that's a good idea (human Tetris) and turn it into a tard fest of women screaming and making you rather be in hell. In the span of about 15-20 minutes time, american tv fails to accomplish even the surface of what wholesome japanese television tv covers in 5 minutes. ( Seriously, look up the ellen human tetris and the japanese human tetris of youtube, you'll see what i mean). So in a sense this leads to...
2) Failure of successful presentation - Fuck, american tv.....you watch it for 30 minutes and feel left with about 5 minuets of actual content most of the time. Honestly. Enough said.
3) Only taking in....and...taking in more..- The beauty of the internet is its truely a melting pot of ideas. So what,that 14 year old fag can be a little bitch on the forums, but most of the time there is true substance in what people say. Take for instance digg.com and take a news article. You get the media's side of a story as well as the input of several individuals that range usually in tastes and opinions. The most accurate news is that from 360 degrees because there's really no such thing as total unbiasedness.
4) US Censorship and Capitalism annihilates complete freedom of speech - This is pretty self-explanatory. Of course, the FCC has let up a little bit but for the most part american society is too naive to listen to what they don't really want to hear (i.e. Comfort and consoling and shelter from "evil" ideas) . Besides horrid censorship, Capitalism forces news and television and media as a whole to comform to supply and demand. The beauty of the internet is despite the fact not many people will read your publications, inevitably people will stumble across it if you get it out there. Since networks have to care so much about ratings to make ends meet, they end in producing the most shit possible in order to appeal to mass of flies I call the bulk of america. Way to fucking go you ignorant douches. Anyone actively involved in the internet knows where to look for what in regards to modern technology (for example, kotaku is a shining example of video game media with an active community following with input through comments. THIS IS A SHINING EXAMPLE OF HOW NEWS SHOULD BE.) The internet is also more cost effective and is essentially free advertising for several individuals, bands, and independent filmmakers and developers.

Anyways, I think i've burnt some steam on how i'm better than 80% of america, but that's okay. We still love you. We need someone to be stuck in between true intellectuals and the true hard workers in this world.

By the way, I'm sorry to disappoint you, but buystuffmas is almost here.

Today was amazing

I made all region, 2nd band 7th chair.
Better yet, i met a girl.
She's adorable<333

I did it.

I officially quit WoW.
My account is gone.
Fuck yeah.
Sold for 200$.

I will NEVER go back to that game, too goddamn addicting.
Well, if i get my money through PayPal by tomorrow, im buying this beast core 2 duo (2.66ghz 4mb cache)
In other news, i have Guitar Hero 3 for PC now, and its the shit. Old school Weezer took me by surprise, and it was badass, as well as Muse's Knight's of Cydonia being on there. Oh yeah and Fall of Troy's song is tight. But jesus christ its choppy as hell on my 3.2ghz single core, my new processor should change that incredibly, especially after i overclock it a bit.

Twenty Three days until Christmas!
Peace.

Quote of friday night

"Life is better with a cat on your lap"
=]