Destiny’s Destiny

Posted by BlackWidower on

I am a fan of the Stargate franchise. I’ve seen every episode, own two copies of the movie, one of which is the Deluxe Edition, and I’ve written a fanfic crossover with Harry Potter. However that was years ago, on a laptop that got stolen. Anyway…

SG-1 is over, Atlantis is over, and at this rate it doesn’t look like there are going to be any more movies from either series in the near future, in spite of what the producers promised. So all we have is Stargate Universe, and as series go, it’s not a bad one. Continue reading →

Geekgasm DS

Posted by BlackWidower on

Well, Halloween is approaching and I really want to take this opportunity to have some spooky halloweeny fun.

Recently I was at our local grocery store and bought a video game from a bin. The store’s called Real Canadian Superstore, they’re like Wal-Mart but in reverse. The price tag said $15 but when I went to cash out the machine said $10…I wasn’t going to correct them.

The game was oddly enough titled Teenage Zombies: Invasion of the Alien Brain Thingys…Eloquent. Also, it’s spelled Thingies. There’s no “Y”.

Anyway, the game itself is a puzzle-platformer themed around an alien invasion of Earth. The aliens appear similar to human brains, and apparently they smell similar too, because the stench of brains somehow penetrated six feet of soil to awaken three young zombies, kinda like how the smell of coffee wakes people up in a Folgers ad. Continue reading →

The Rally to Restore Hipocracy

Posted by BlackWidower on

September 16, 2010, Jon Stewart of the Daily Show announces the Rally to Restore Sanity. With a call to end to hyperbolic partisan fear-mongering from both the left and the right, from the pundits and the people. A call to begin proper discourse, and to realize that just because someone disagrees with you, does not make them evil, or Hitler.

Seems pretty reasonable. Which is exactly what they’re going for, and I’m hoping it changes the discourse in America from partisan to logical. But considering how things tend to go, that’s unlikely. People tend to do what’s easy, and thinking is hard. Continue reading →

Election Rejection

Posted by BlackWidower on

In my home town of Sudbury, we are electing a new city council in less than a week, as they are across the province. I don’t have a lot to say about it, but I figured what I do have to say, better be posted now, before I forget or it looses its timeliness. Like that piece I was going to write a year ago when Harper prorogued parliament for the second time, or that piece about Ahmadinejad, the President of Iran, and how he’s insane.

Anyway, I’ve been voting since I turned 18, and I got lucky, since my first election was a week after my 18th birthday. I’ve always had a passion for politics and I’ve always cared who got elected, always staying up late to watch the election coverage until all the results were in. It’s the last good reason to have a TV. So I love it when I get the chance to exercise my democratic right, and I always kind of get excited when an election comes around because it’s my only chance to have my opinion really, truly matter, and as Craig Ferguson once said, “if you don’t vote, you’re a moron.” Continue reading →

Myst Online: Uru Lives

Posted by BlackWidower on

Regular readers, of which there are probably one, will remember about a year ago, when I wrote about Myst Online: Uru Live. An MMO centred around the Myst Universe, which failed and was released as a single player game called Uru: Ages Beyond Myst, before being resurrected as an online game by GameTap for about a year before dying again. The online version was a game I never got around to playing, but I wrote about how, as someone who only played the single player version, it didn’t surprise me it never took off and how it was a flawed idea from the beginning.

That post received a record amount of feedback, nearly 30 comments, which is incredible, considering I rarely get any comments that aren’t spam. Of course the feedback was from those who were fans of Myst, including some who were major players in the Myst fan community. So of course they told me why I was wrong, some a little more crusader-like than others. One of them posted a link on the official Myst Online forums, and you know I just realized, he said I called Myst Online a “flop”, in quotes, which I didn’t, you can check, and one of the commenters said I used the word “facts”, in quotes, which I didn’t, you can check, although the leader of the crusade did. I believe that is called a straw man fallacy. He even called my blog “contemporary game review journalism” which is kind of embarrassing, primarily because it’s not…it’s a blog, it’s one asshole’s small-time blog.

Anyway, when people made me aware of the concept of instancing in Myst Online, politely, I retracted a lot of what I said while explaining that it doesn’t make sense in-universe…or in-cavern as they call it.

Of course, just to boast my own ego, I’d like to mention that most of the feedback I got was actually positive. Saying they agreed with most of my points but I missed the point of instancing.

So since then, Cyan got their shit together and brought Myst Online back, under their own servers and free. I would have liked it if they said free to those who already bought the original Uru, but whatever, it would have been difficult to coordinate and this is more open anyways, so it’s all good.

The first few days were apparently insane, with thousands signing up for the game. THOUSANDS! I know we are all excited it’s back, but seriously, I didn’t even know there were a thousand Myst fans who still gave a shit about the franchise, much less paying close enough attention to sign up on opening day. Continue reading →

In Defense of PCs

Posted by BlackWidower on

Don’t worry, this is not another post bashing Apple. Those are just too easy. No, this has to do with games.

There has been this recent view that PC gaming has gone the way of the Dodo bird, and I am not sure why.

I’ve heard this directly from two sources, actually three. Two are colleagues from a newspaper I used to work for, all of which shall remain nameless.

When I called them out on it they gave a good argument: Piracy. On the PC it is rampant, and difficult to control. However consoles are virtually pirate-proof, because any sign of piracy, Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo can brick your console remotely.

It’s a good argument…for the developers. But it’s not such a good argument for the consumers, in fact it’s the opposite of an argument. Especially if you become the victim of a false positive. Where they think you pirated, but you really didn’t, you tell them that, and they don’t believe you. So if you’re spending $300 on something, it’s probably not a good idea to get a product the manufacturers can disable at a moments notice. What else would we allow this on? Oh, Apple products, right. Continue reading →

Portal 2: Portal Harder

Posted by BlackWidower on

Hype is one of those things you can’t get away from. There is always that movie, or TV show that one cannot wait to see begin or continue for whatever reason.

When it comes to hype, I like to refer to the infallible logic of Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw.

It makes the logical sense to be pessimistic

Any questions? Now it may be presumptuous to take the word of an Anglo-Australian prick just because he has a yellow background and a sweet hat, but I honestly can’t see how he’s wrong. But in spite of this, I can’t help but be caught up in the hype virus. Continue reading →

Deepoil Horizon

Posted by BlackWidower on

Back in my SimCity Societies review I mentioned how one of the more disgusting things about the game was the blatant product placement by BP. How the more environmentally friendly power plants have the BP logo smeared all over them. Well as many may or may not be aware, recent events have caused me to look at that little game and notice how fucking ridiculous it is. I’m surprised they didn’t put the BP logo on a wildlife reserve while they were at it.

Yes, BP has officially destroyed the Gulf. It’s Armageddon for the coast, and the good news is if you’re planning a trip to the area: Congratulations, you won’t have to fight for space at the beach or resort because you’re the only one.

So what is going to happen? I don’t know. There’s talk of BP going bankrupt in the near future, which doesn’t surprise me. But one things for sure, things will change.

When I first heard about this disaster, word was it would take months to fix, which freaked me out at the time. I mean come on! Five thousand barrels (which would be around 800,000 litres) were spilling into the gulf each and every day. I knew the worst was coming. But I figured the problems would have been mitigated by the advanced oil clean up technology we have. Continue reading →