Fanatical Gamers.

If there is one thing I hate about the Universe it is that whatever planet with whatever race; there will always be someone who loves something so much they are simply blinded by it.

You’ve guessed it; I want to rant about Fanboys. I’ll start this off with a link to the Urban Dictionary Definitions and a quote of a few of my favourites:

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=fanboy

The first definition is pretty spot on;
“A passionate fan of various elements of geek culture (e.g. sci-fi, comics, Star Wars, video games, anime, hobbits, Magic: the Gathering, etc.), but who lets his passion override social graces.”

As is this rather wordy definition;
“(n) Technocratic zealots; evangelicals of geekery. Characterized by irrational advocacy of a particular OS, console, company, or franchise.”

I came to this point off the back of writing an Anti-Tekken post on a Forum, detailing why the games I used to love suddenly became nothing but tripe and how people still regard said tripe as “Game of All Time” material. Please, everyone knows that’s got to be Britney’s Dance Beat.

What irritates me most is, they are completely incapable of holding meaningful discussion. You know the type, you go to a forum and join in a discussion about the latest game, lets say the Cult Classics Final Fantasy X. You enjoyed the game, but admit that sometimes it shifts difficulty a bit too quickly. That it lacks the correct amount of warm-up before some boss encounters.
You are met with fierce resistance; people call you a noob and tell you that you are crap at video Games. But … But … My points are perfectly valid, or at least I think they are. Rather than discussing the validity of said points, you are personally verbally assaulted. Shortly after which the thread is closed on grounds of flaming.

Gee. Thanks …

As someone trying to make it as an amateur journalist in this competitive world I find that there is a dwindling number of people to debate with. I am in my very nature a negative person, I am captured by a game, I play it, a few weeks pass and BAM my true feelings come out, which more often than not constitute nothing but contempt.

The only thing to counterbalance this is someone on the other side of the fence to balance out my opinion through debate. Like in Deus Ex: Invisible War, the Illumanati are two sides, because they realise that to create the perfect world you have two take two opposites and have them collide. Only then a truly perfect result can be achieved and I say the same is true of reviewing games, all reviews should be co-written based on a lengthy recorded debate.

What do we call someone who is intellectually competent and also a fan of something? Say someone who will give an undeserving game they love 10/10 but will fiercely defend that score with all manner of argument and discussion. That is not a Fanboy to me; I think Fanatical Gamer is appropriate. Someone who has the love of a game much like a Fanboy but also the knowledge base and experience to adequately defend their opinions. This does however leave me with a quandary, what does that make me?

I call myself the Anti-Gamer. I am so totally opposed to the idea of Fanboys that often I will find every fault I possibly can to dismantle a Games reputation. At the same time I refute any claim that I myself am I Fanboy because it is simply not true. There is NO game I fanatically love to the point I would give it 10/10 once I had sincerely considered it. No game is that good.

This has deteriorated into a rant, but I like that, this is all impromptu which means you hear what I actually think, which is why it makes no sense. I will leave it at that.

I would like to also welcome a new writer: James Bone, a Good friend of mine and a fellow student at Portsmouth University. He is a full-on gamer with some unusual political insights. Whatever floats your boat.

I’ll be in touch.

The benefits of the Nazi’s.

I must make one thing clear. I am not a Nazi. However, I am a History student and as such I feel compelled to express my views. Hitler and the Nazi’s killed many, many people either directly or indirectly and were arguably responsible for the starvation or disease on many more. The way this happened was cruel but was it “bad”?

In today’s culture we are having serious problems with overcrowding and an ageing population. During World War Two the Nazi’s specifically concentrated on murdering the old and disabled members of society. How come then, nobody has ever put the two together and realised that the result of the Nazi’s policies has had long term benefits for the whole of humanity. It may seem evil but the world is not limitless and Hitler significantly lowered the population enough to give us a few more years of the present quality of life we have.

Already, China (a country of a Billion people) has created a law stating only one child can be had per couple. Perhaps, without World War Two and the actions of the Nazi’s we would have had a similar law. Without the Nazi’s you may not have even been born. The Nazi’s or anybody like them should never be allowed to come to power again (oh, and they were elected democratically) but if you look at the facts from a purely logical perspective then you have to say we will need more (and increasingly larger) groups of people to kill other groups or else the world will grow to such a point that society will collapse under the amount of humans occupying it. Think about it. Comments would be welcomed.

Testing, Bitches

I’ve switched to Flock, merely because IE7 has suddenly become slower than Worms emulated in Dosbox. Slightly more entertaining post coming soon.

UPDATE – The post is below… silly drafting system.

Blogged with Flock

Games That Suck: Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force

How? That’s the defining word of this article. How? How did I, or anyone, think that this was an enjoyable game? How did the development company Raven Software escape from being hanged? HOW?!

I’m a Star Trek fan. Not to the same degree as the resident Klingon-groping James. More of a casual fan. I even like the original series, which seems to be an amazing impossible feat of mental strength these days. (James will try to tell you that the plot of every episode is Kirk having sex with an alien woman. DO NOT LISTEN. This was the 60’s. They couldn’t get away with showing sex yet. There isn’t even an alien woman in every episode, for god’s sake.)

I even enjoyed Voyager, though it went on too long. Far too long. It would probably take less time to cross the fucking gamma quadrant than to watch every episode.

I tell you this so any possible readers don’t get angry and send me emails complaining OMG U DON’T WATCH IT IT’S LIKE THAT ON THE SHOW U GAY U JUST HATE STAR TREK FUCK YOU and people start DNS attacks against blogger.

Down to business.

This game is shit. Wearing a federation uniform.

Quake 3 engine? That thing needed to die when Quake 3 was released. It became old that quickly. I wasn’t sure if Seven of Nine was in the game until I patched it. Before she was a shapeless blob. After the patch she was a shapeless blob with Jeri Ryan’s voice.

As for the gameplay… Enter room, 30 things spawn, kill them. Walk into next room, kill 30 more things… you get the idea. For exotic alien ships, these places certainly feel bland. Then again, there could be beautiful rooms in these places… I wouldn’t know, all I really saw were corridors. With endless spawning enemies. Oh, and the story is shit too, even for Voyager. I can’t be arsed to write much more than that. If you don’t see why it sucks just from these few sentences, then you don’t deserve to play video games.

On a final note, I would like to make it clear to any budding game developers that making games like this is NOT ok anymore. Try harder.

Why I love WoW – Reason 1

I have a 29 Rogue Twink.

There will be a Glossary at the end of this post.

The Scene: Warsong Gulch, 20-29 Bracket, 10v10, Alliance is largely twinks, Horde is largely non-twink although competant.

Ah, the familiar Alliance base and the even more familiar task of tracking down the Flag Carrier to coordinate the attack. Where could he possibly be … I’m progressing up the tunnel, I spot a 24 Warrior whom I have killed 6 times already, I quickly dispatch him.

I take the right turn out and up onto the roof, nope … not here, but wait … there he is. Stood right in the middle of their Flag Room, unstealhed is the 29 Twink Rogue holding the Flag. He’s #1 on the scoreboard with a 28 Killing blows – 2 Deaths. Crikey, heres me on 8 Killing blows and 3 Deaths. (Gang-banged by Groups of twinks, I like to solo PvP … ie i’m a rogue)

Well … my team is struggling to defend, i’m the only infiltrator … I’ll have to risk it. I drop down onto the ledge, then down into the room. I open with my typical Cheap shop, Rupture and SS spam. He’s down to 75% before he gets a chance to react, and he nails me with a single 300 Damage Crit Backstab. Ow. I only have 1050 Health to start with.

Not to worry, all my cooldowns are intact, I down a Health Potion and continue the scrap. He’s trying to get me on another backstab, I don’t think so. I vanish and cheap shot him again, nailing him with a 5 point eviscerate. Thats him down to about 20%. He drinks a potion and attempts to escape by using Sprint. I pursue, also using Sprint.

Sprint clocks off and i’ve outmaneouvered him catching up completely. Sinister Strike spamming pays off with a few timely crits, he burns evasion, but the 5-point eviscerate nails him reguardless.

He falls to the ground dead, embarrassed by an inferior Twink in an epic duel in the middle of his own base. I return the flag and my team scores the last cap for the win, I’m a national hero … well maybe not. But I feel awesome.

Best 35 Warsong Outriders Rep i’ve ever earned.

**Edit:

It WAS the best 35 Warsong Outriders Rep untill the next day (ie. now) when my twink did another fantastic fight.

[Battlegrounds] [Player]: Flag on ally roof
[Battlegrounds] [Dreadmoore]: I see them, 29 paladin and 28 Druid. I’ll see what I can do.

Alliance Roof, 29 Paladin carrying the flag and a “Stealthed” Druid on watch for essentially me … Anyone whos played WoW will know that this is a pretty dire situation. Both can heal, both have stuns, the paladin can shield himself and the druid has allsorts of perks.

29 Rogue, Sinister Strike/Eviscerate/Combo points Build vs 29 Paladin and 28 Druid.

I walked up and got the druids attention, the paladin was staying adamently still, lets hope he stayed like that. I drew the druid around to the otherside of the roof, got him into position and opened-fire. Cheap shot, Sinister Strikes … his health was hurtling down, excellent, then … uh oh, Paladin add, Range Stunned. But the damage was already done, 4 combo points up and the druid shifted into caster form and started healing/running. Stun wore off, I nailed him with an eviscerate … now the hard part.

I was down to about 30% Health, so I drunk a Health Potion and burned by Bubble trinket. The trick is to get the Paladin to bubble, it forces him to drop the flag … a noob mistake, but I hoped he would take the bait. I gave him everything I had and it was working suprisingly well, kicking his heals, vanish + Cheap shot when he tried to unleash seals on me. It was going ’swimmingly’. Then I nailed him with a 250 Dmg Crit SS, but against plate that equates to about 150. He was down to about 15% and his ‘Loladin’ reflexes kicked in, he bubbled and the flag was spilled. I quickly returned it, and realised I was only on about 5-10% Health, so I burned sprint and fled.

Upon fleeing I realised, wait … I have 5 Combo points on him … I ran around the corner, stopped and waited for his foolish chase.

*BANG*
Your Eviscerate Crits the target for 560
The Target Dies.

Wow … I just essentially took down one of the hardest duos possible, I’m hailed with praise. We go on to win the match in style. I kill that druid maybe 5 times in total … he was always healing someone I was trying to gut.

Glossary:
Twink – A Character who has been equipped with all the best possible gear and has enchanted it with enchants well above their expected price range.

Cheap Shot – A Stealth-only move which stuns the target for 4 seconds and gives you two combo points.

Combo Points – Rogues build combo points on a target (up to 5), the number of combo points will increase the damage of finishing moves done on the target.

Rupture – A finishing move which does Damage-Over-Time, perfect to stop the rogue restealthing.

SS Spam – Sinister Strike Spam – Sinister Strike is a simple attack worth 1 combo point which attacks with the main hand weapon for a bit more damage. Spamming means to constantly use it untill something else becomes viable.

Backstab – A Simple one combo point move that must be done from behind, with a dagger, it is a one-swing attack with considerably higher damage.

Cooldown – A move powerful enough to warrant Blizzard giving it a cooldown over 1 minute. Often up to five.

Vanish – A Cooldown that puts you back into stealth.

Eviscerate – A Finishing move that does damaged dependant on the number of combo points in a simple one-hit fashion.

Sprint – A Cooldown that temporarily increases your speed.

Evasion – A Cooldown that significantly increases your dodge chance.

Arg

Fuck. You. Internet. Explorer.

I wrote this article twice, got to publish it, decide to use the Blogger Spellchecker at the University … whats that? Ok … Temporarily Allow Pop-ups.

Refreshed.

Not Saved.

Arg.

Anyway, basic rant = Bring Back Simulators that aren’t Business/Transport oriented.

Remember SimLife? … Well I do.

Moosic

The Incredible Mouth Band

I thought it was time for a slightly more cheerful post.

SHREDDINGSHREDDINGSHREDDINGSHREDDINGSHREDDINGWEEEEOW

Rest In Peace Hershey

15th October 2006

Hershey was a full on companion, she wanted only to be your friend right up untill the end.

She died of an aggressive form of Cancer which she fought with everything she had.

Rest in Peace Hershey, there will never be another pet like you.

I hope theres plenty of mice in heaven for you.

I’m Too Young To Fall In Love… Except With My Cars

Carmageddon was awesome. Carmageddon was arguably more awesome. TDR2000 was shit.

I want another Carmageddon game.

The series deserves a chance to redeem itself. But there’s more to it than that.

Carmageddon was balls to the wall fun. I swear by the gods that the first one (not the second, but that’s probably because I never had a good play on it) is in my top ten. It had crazy stunts, car crashes, hit and run and you got to RUN OVER COWS. In the splat pack addon there are SHEEP. SHEEP TO RUN OVER! And SCi didn’t give a rats arse about being politically correct. As soon as the BBFC censored it they simply laughed in their faces by releasing the infamous patch that turned all the zombies back into pedestrians. Carmageddon would be eaten alive in America today, but I’m sure SCi wouldn’t give a damn. And let’s face it, people stopped playing the yawnsome Conflict games almost as soon as they were released. We want something that’s just fun to play. Because as I’ve said, the gaming industry doesn’t have enough of that anymore.

Just as long as it has internet play that’s actually fun this time.

Now watch that damn video by KillsnCrashes again, or I’ll run your over with the family Nissan Micra.

And then go torrent Carmageddon like I know you will .

I Almost Forgot The Worst Part

On the subject of faction based quest chains, I never finished any either. One reason for that is something I forgot to mention…

There is a bug in Oblivion.

Sometimes, when out in the wilderness, you can be kicked out of all your factions at once for stealing from other members.

Needless to say, you did not actually do this.

This has happened to all of my characters.

Some guilds only ask for money to get back in. But why should I sacrifice money because of a goddamn bug?

The mages guild asks for 40 herbs. 20 of one type, 20 of another.

Fuck you, Bethesda.