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 It's shamefully outdated, and not in the ironic way.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...

2007 - The year of games.

Hype, media, useless shit...
all the junk keeping the bulk of america out of politics, foreign affairs, and giving politicians an utmost freedom to do as the please in office.

But, as with me and the bulk of computer enthusiasts, this year can best be summarized as "the year that games kicked ass".

No, really.
it is.

So I'm halfway through zelda:phantom hourglass (the main story at least o.O) and i'm basically amazed. This is by far the best and most efficient use of the DS' potential I've seen to date. Its like sex in a little tiny rectangle box that'll make you come in a mere 10 seconds of playing it. (I still love you kelsey = ) )

I mean, who makes a puzzle where you have to open your map with a mirror map on the wall showing a location and basically requires you to "press" or close your DS to copy the wall to your map?
I had to look it up and i was amazed at the possibilities. Want your boomerang to do trickly loops? simple, draw it. This game is ingenious. Given its no ocarina of time, but it sure as hell has to be my favorite game to date on DS (Mario kart, you're still my multiplayer king. If smash ever hits DS though...mmm..)

Crysis is sex in a bottle too.
Assasin's creed is just you being a badass.
Super Mario Galaxy is SERIOUSLY KICKASS (fastest selling mario game to date!) and is basically what you get when the super mario 64 devs do MORE drugs and make a really sexy game.
Call of Duty 4 will have you feeling the action.

The list goes on and on

In my personal life however, I'm currently in Tennessee.. bored out of my mind. You know those moments though where you're out and public and you see possibly the MOST redneck, obese, and just plain retarded people and it just warms your heart to get a nice superiority complex in your heart? Well that happened about 20 times today. Fat kid after redneck after retard guy...
I was amazed at what the american society has become.
Same with politics.. people being fucking stupid as to WANT a communist government apparently. "Oh please ban McDonalds because apparently we have no sense of self-control and need our government to do it for us since we're all so fat"
Simple solution dumbass, DONT FUCKING EAT MCDONALDS.
WOW.
that was so hard! You had to think to do that. aww poor baby.
God dammit.
Cry more.

Vote Ron Paul if you can vote next year. seriously.
Hillary look like a fucking botoxed crack whore. obama is cool but a socialist pig. Fucking republicans (ron paul excluded) are dumbasses.

/sigh
Whatever though.

10/23 - never forget oink.cd
The day the music died.
Speaking of which, is it pretty sad when you feel more sympathy for the death of music lovers than for the 9/11 attacks? I mean seriously. 180,000 music lovers.. just slain right there on the spot becuase its "illegal" and stealing oh so much money from the music industry.
Well according to canada, you're fucking wrong dipshits. Learn 2 Research.

Fuck.


And FUCK YOU GRANT Halo 3 is a shitty game.
get over it.
Consoles can suck it. Fucking noobasses.
If you're gonna play consoles, at least play the good ones (i.e. N64, PS1, Ps2, Wii, anything nintendo for that matter)

There seriously hasn't been anything 360 has had to offer to make me remotely want one as almost every game for it comes out on PC and is even better than the console ports.
heh.
owned.


Well, I'm out.

My loss of motivation to game.

To begin, i would like how it took Matt three lines to sum up the insult of "Fuck you, Grant" =], nice one.

Well more on topic, i have been less motivated to play video games, and i solely blame this on WoW. Why? because that goddamn game will destroy your social life, and you will want to do nothing but play it. I quit the game about a month or so ago (grew tired of the repetition after 2 years of playing), and ever since then i don't game near as much. Even before WoW i played Halo 2, Gears of War, and other games like i had no life. And now, I can't help but not feeling any motivation what so ever to play new games. Could it be the effect of MMORPG's? I'm not sure, but if you have any game that is addictive and can replace WoW as a long term game please let me know. I have gotten recommendations from Matt for new games, but so far, no games have attracted me enough. I was going to play hellgate:london, until i realized it sucked complete balls. I also have Halo 3, but i do not have near the same motivation to play it as i had when i played Halo 2, I do not agree completely that it sucks. But i will admit that the gameplay feels a bit aged, but the casual Xbox Live Multi-player is fun as hell (gamertag=eliteslayer749). I think it may also be the fact that im trying to compare games' addictive values to WoW's which is usually way off from Blizzard's Godlike game.

What have i been doing in the meantime? School, actually being social, music, books, and movies. I do enjoy actually getting out a lot more, but i do miss the feel of WoW (which i soon lose after 10 minutes of playing). So, never play WoW, it makes every other game seem as boring as a motherfucking carrot after a few weeks of play.

Although this could just be a phase where i don't care to play video games, i do miss the addiction somehow, even though i hated it at the same time. I guess after 2 years of playing WoW like crack, it'd burn anyone out. Except Matt, who lives off video games.

I'm still hoping that Age of Conan and/or Warhammer Online will be badass, but until then, i don't think its possible for me to play a game the same as i played WoW.

Peace motherfucker.