I knew Keith was gonna leap at the chance to attack News Corp with that "vile and vicious "racist" attack on Obama" in cartoon form. For those who haven't been following, a woman was mauled by a Chimpanzee that her friend kept as a pet, however the said cartoon had two police officers shooting a Chimpanzee and mentioning the stimulus bill, seems innocent enough right? Wrong, as Ubermoronn took this chance to slam News Corp (owners of Fox News) and Rupert Murdoch.
I was pretty shocked that anyone could find racism in the said cartoon, as it was pretty harmless and honestly was basically saying the stimulus bill was outta control and needed to be put down, but not to Keith and Rev. Sharpton. Using such time honored liberal skills such as finding racism in the oddest places, they deduced that it was a vile attack by New Corp and Murdoch and the Chimpanzee was actually a veil attack on Obama.
Really Keith? You and The Rev. honestly saw it that way? Well I guess I can't be to surprised, as Oralmann has done this before. He is pretty much your typical libtard that looks for racsim in anything and everything. For Keith it was just another run of the mill smear on News Corps...you know what he does best.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Good ole' Keith.
Man, I tell ya, nothing says comedy than MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann. I've been watching the show for about a year now, and thanks to that wonderful site, Olbermannwatch I can see I haven't missed much.
Seriously every episode of Countdown is pretty much the same damn thing every night. The usual targets are how evil republicans and to lesser extent Independents (he does go after Lou Dobbs for being "racist"), pointless and often ridiculous attacks on his more successful competitor for the 8 P.M time slot, one Mr. Bill O'reilly (who constantly destroys Olby in the ratings nightly), attacks on Fox News, which he often called "Fox Noise", Fixed News", and "Faux News" for being biased, which is ironic coming from Keith as MSNBC is 4 times as biased that Fox or even CNN, who is also pretty biased but I don't mind CNN personally, numerous smears on Bill (who Keith has a disturbing man crush on), Rush Limbaugh (whom he called fat, which is also ironic, considering Keith is a fat bastard himself), and basically one who makes the smallest mistake or bad mouths NBC, GE, Democrat's, or the Messiah (Obama). He's also famous for his "rip and read" style. Meaning if he sees something negative about Fox or something more successful than himself, he attacks, and quotes random pieces from said article to make said person seem like they did something awful.
Keith is also know for his lulzy "Special Comments". These said comments are often about how bad George Bush was, which I didn't like George Bush either but you know, I get tired of hearing the same shit over and over again, however Keith's shining moment of melodrama was his comment of Prop 8 the legislation which banned gay marriage in the most liberal state in America, California. The comment was one for the ages, fake tears, forced emotions, holding back said fake tears, and other melodramatic elements and honestly the only reason he even said did a comment is because his BFF, Richard Mancow (Rachael Maddow) who's a huge lesbian, with her own show on MSNBC, which gets destroyed in the rating by Sean Hannity nightly. Seriously, you can find said comments on Youtube for a good laugh.
I'm glad Countdown is shown at least 3 times a night, cause I can always use a good laugh and Countdown delivers in spades.
Seriously every episode of Countdown is pretty much the same damn thing every night. The usual targets are how evil republicans and to lesser extent Independents (he does go after Lou Dobbs for being "racist"), pointless and often ridiculous attacks on his more successful competitor for the 8 P.M time slot, one Mr. Bill O'reilly (who constantly destroys Olby in the ratings nightly), attacks on Fox News, which he often called "Fox Noise", Fixed News", and "Faux News" for being biased, which is ironic coming from Keith as MSNBC is 4 times as biased that Fox or even CNN, who is also pretty biased but I don't mind CNN personally, numerous smears on Bill (who Keith has a disturbing man crush on), Rush Limbaugh (whom he called fat, which is also ironic, considering Keith is a fat bastard himself), and basically one who makes the smallest mistake or bad mouths NBC, GE, Democrat's, or the Messiah (Obama). He's also famous for his "rip and read" style. Meaning if he sees something negative about Fox or something more successful than himself, he attacks, and quotes random pieces from said article to make said person seem like they did something awful.
Keith is also know for his lulzy "Special Comments". These said comments are often about how bad George Bush was, which I didn't like George Bush either but you know, I get tired of hearing the same shit over and over again, however Keith's shining moment of melodrama was his comment of Prop 8 the legislation which banned gay marriage in the most liberal state in America, California. The comment was one for the ages, fake tears, forced emotions, holding back said fake tears, and other melodramatic elements and honestly the only reason he even said did a comment is because his BFF, Richard Mancow (Rachael Maddow) who's a huge lesbian, with her own show on MSNBC, which gets destroyed in the rating by Sean Hannity nightly. Seriously, you can find said comments on Youtube for a good laugh.
I'm glad Countdown is shown at least 3 times a night, cause I can always use a good laugh and Countdown delivers in spades.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
No Mutants Allowed is right.
You know folks, I'm gonna say it right now folks, in the time leading up to the release of Fallout 3 I thought No Mutants Allowed was over doing the complaints about Fallout 3, but you know what? After playing the game I have to say, NMA was right on the money. Fallout 3 is noticeably inferior to the first two games, and honestly it's inferior to Fallout Tactics as well in my book. So, I know what some of you might ask, why do they think that way, and in retrospect, why do I hate Fallout 3? Well prepare to be enlightened.
The core mechanics. The first two Fallouts where open world, well though out RPG's with many quests that often had far reaching consequences for example in Fallout 2 you could murder children if you wanted to, but you had best be ready for the consequences that game with it. If you killed three or more, you would have bounty hunters come after you, in addition you your horrid karma in pretty much every area of the game. You see, Fallout 3 offers none of that, and it doesn't even have to be child killing as in this day and age in America, something as taboo as that wouldn't float at all but it can't be that hard to think up something that would have similar and far reaching negative repercussions. In addition to the karma system being screwed over, the combat mechanics are dumbed down and Oblivionized, which for all purposes is not a good thing at all. Combat is exceedingly easy, even on the hardest difficulty setting and trust me, I've played the game on Very Hard and the only enemies you have to watch out for are Deathclaws.
The writing in often a target of ridicule and criticism, and rightly so, as it's amateurish and sloppy a good 99% of the time, however it sometimes has flickers of brilliance from time to time. In addition to awful righting, the skill checks and dialog check are often ridiculously stupid. Here's an example. Upon meeting Three Dog, owner of Galaxy New Radio and walking black guy stereotype, you will discuss why he keeps "fighting the good fight" and after a few lines of dialog, you get an Intelligence dialog check if it's high enough that reads as follows [Intelligence] "So, you fight the good fight with Galaxy News Radio?" moments after he just got done explaining why he "fights the good fight" or another good one is when you explain why the mole rats die from the repellent she made, however to be fair some of the skill checks do make sense such as when she wants you to go to the RoboCo robot factory, as you can skip it entirely if you have the "Robotics Expert" perk, which does make sense, but things such as this are few and far between.
The main story makes no damn sense and seems utterly pointless. So the water is irradiated and your dad wants to make it drinkable again, ok seems like noble goal however you dad is suffering from a case of Doing it wrong. This is a more sense able solution, "Filtering through earth removes essentially all of the fallout particles and more of the dissolved radioactive material than does boiling-water distillation... In areas of heavy fallout, about 99% of the radioactivity in water could be removed by filtering it through ordinary earth." and yet your dad wants to use the Jefferson Memorial to go about a lengthy and time extensive process using a GECK, and making you run pointless errands around the wasteland and it all end up with an extremely cliche' ending. Oh yeah, and giant robots. The side quests however, are often pretty damn good with the best being Blood Ties, The Replicated Man, and You Gotta Shoot'em in the Head. The three I just mentioned are the cream of the crop, offering many skill checks and dialog check, multiple ways to finish the quests, and believable NPC reactions.
Bethesda's voice acting often comes under fire as being mediocre, which isn't far from the truth if ya ask me. Ever since Oblivion, they have started to hire big name talent such a Patrick Stewart and Sean Bean in Oblivion's case and the former being the game a whole 10 minutes. With Fallout 3, Bethsoft hyped the fact that Liam Neeson was in the game, and I have to be honest, I was unimpressed. His delivery was iffy at times, however, I won't put full blame on him, as he had shit to work with. The rest of the voices are the usual Bethesda odd ball local talent, some of which is good (Wes Johnson) and some is just mediocre at best. Another noticeable flaw with Bethsofts voice work is the over saturation of voices, i.e you hear a voice so much you wanna go on a murderous rampage.
*Insert overtly epic sounding bombastic battle music as you gun you way threw Super Mutants near the Capitol Building*. Seriously the music is...odd. At times it more reserved and more ambient sounding, but when you fight enemies it changes into a faux epic movie score.
The change from Isometric, turn based combat was criticized by NMA, and honestly it's not that big of a deal for me, BUT Bethesda implemented first person perspective and real time combat horrendously with a insta-cheat option, VATS, which renders all skill pointless. However, NMA was indeed right, Isometic, turn based works best for Fallout.
Now for the biggest complaint, was Bethesda the right developer for the job? Honestly, no, they weren't. Once Bethesda picked it up, it's fate was sealed. The core concepts where dumbed down and Obivionized, striping away a thoughtful story, skills, and writing for a more mainstream, XBOX audience, and it really shows and in closing, "Bethesda...Bethesda never changes" have never rang more true.
The core mechanics. The first two Fallouts where open world, well though out RPG's with many quests that often had far reaching consequences for example in Fallout 2 you could murder children if you wanted to, but you had best be ready for the consequences that game with it. If you killed three or more, you would have bounty hunters come after you, in addition you your horrid karma in pretty much every area of the game. You see, Fallout 3 offers none of that, and it doesn't even have to be child killing as in this day and age in America, something as taboo as that wouldn't float at all but it can't be that hard to think up something that would have similar and far reaching negative repercussions. In addition to the karma system being screwed over, the combat mechanics are dumbed down and Oblivionized, which for all purposes is not a good thing at all. Combat is exceedingly easy, even on the hardest difficulty setting and trust me, I've played the game on Very Hard and the only enemies you have to watch out for are Deathclaws.
The writing in often a target of ridicule and criticism, and rightly so, as it's amateurish and sloppy a good 99% of the time, however it sometimes has flickers of brilliance from time to time. In addition to awful righting, the skill checks and dialog check are often ridiculously stupid. Here's an example. Upon meeting Three Dog, owner of Galaxy New Radio and walking black guy stereotype, you will discuss why he keeps "fighting the good fight" and after a few lines of dialog, you get an Intelligence dialog check if it's high enough that reads as follows [Intelligence] "So, you fight the good fight with Galaxy News Radio?" moments after he just got done explaining why he "fights the good fight" or another good one is when you explain why the mole rats die from the repellent she made, however to be fair some of the skill checks do make sense such as when she wants you to go to the RoboCo robot factory, as you can skip it entirely if you have the "Robotics Expert" perk, which does make sense, but things such as this are few and far between.
The main story makes no damn sense and seems utterly pointless. So the water is irradiated and your dad wants to make it drinkable again, ok seems like noble goal however you dad is suffering from a case of Doing it wrong. This is a more sense able solution, "Filtering through earth removes essentially all of the fallout particles and more of the dissolved radioactive material than does boiling-water distillation... In areas of heavy fallout, about 99% of the radioactivity in water could be removed by filtering it through ordinary earth." and yet your dad wants to use the Jefferson Memorial to go about a lengthy and time extensive process using a GECK, and making you run pointless errands around the wasteland and it all end up with an extremely cliche' ending. Oh yeah, and giant robots. The side quests however, are often pretty damn good with the best being Blood Ties, The Replicated Man, and You Gotta Shoot'em in the Head. The three I just mentioned are the cream of the crop, offering many skill checks and dialog check, multiple ways to finish the quests, and believable NPC reactions.
Bethesda's voice acting often comes under fire as being mediocre, which isn't far from the truth if ya ask me. Ever since Oblivion, they have started to hire big name talent such a Patrick Stewart and Sean Bean in Oblivion's case and the former being the game a whole 10 minutes. With Fallout 3, Bethsoft hyped the fact that Liam Neeson was in the game, and I have to be honest, I was unimpressed. His delivery was iffy at times, however, I won't put full blame on him, as he had shit to work with. The rest of the voices are the usual Bethesda odd ball local talent, some of which is good (Wes Johnson) and some is just mediocre at best. Another noticeable flaw with Bethsofts voice work is the over saturation of voices, i.e you hear a voice so much you wanna go on a murderous rampage.
*Insert overtly epic sounding bombastic battle music as you gun you way threw Super Mutants near the Capitol Building*. Seriously the music is...odd. At times it more reserved and more ambient sounding, but when you fight enemies it changes into a faux epic movie score.
The change from Isometric, turn based combat was criticized by NMA, and honestly it's not that big of a deal for me, BUT Bethesda implemented first person perspective and real time combat horrendously with a insta-cheat option, VATS, which renders all skill pointless. However, NMA was indeed right, Isometic, turn based works best for Fallout.
Now for the biggest complaint, was Bethesda the right developer for the job? Honestly, no, they weren't. Once Bethesda picked it up, it's fate was sealed. The core concepts where dumbed down and Obivionized, striping away a thoughtful story, skills, and writing for a more mainstream, XBOX audience, and it really shows and in closing, "Bethesda...Bethesda never changes" have never rang more true.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Resident Evil 5: Demo Impressions
Capcom released the RE5 demo a few weeks ago, and I had a chance to play both the 360 and PS3 version.
Visuals: Honestly both version look pretty much identical except the PS3 has clipping and lighting problems and this is certainly odd considering the PS3 supposedly the lead development platform, but it looks like the PS3 is getting another crappy port, but they still look pretty good.
Sound: The voice acting is pretty good as far as RE games go. I also love how the Kujiji (I think that's what they are called) speak what appears top be Swahili (an African language).
Controls: If you played RE 4, then the controls will feel right at home.
Story: It's a demo, not much is reveled, except your in in Africa after Wesker.
Game play: RE5 much more action oriented than any RE to date. In addition to the usual stuff in RE4, Capcom has added a cover system similar to stealth games i.e you can put you back on a wall, and pop up and shoot an enemy as some of them use hand guns, rifles, and shotguns. The A.I of your computer controlled partner is pretty bad as she like yo block chainsaws with her neck, although you can play with a friend offline or online.
Resident Evil 4 Ver. 2.0: There's no denying that RE5 is pretty much the same damn thing as RE4. I mean the only difference is the skin color of the enemies. In RE4 the Gonodos where white (Spaniards) and in RE the enemies are mostly black as apparently Capcom caved in to accusations for being "Racist" as there are now White, and Asian enemies....in Africa. Oh yeah, the infamous chainsaw enemy is now back, although he isn't really that hard honestly.
Overall the game isn't bad but I'm not paying $60 for this damn game, maybe when game is around 30 bucks., but until then, I'm gonna hold off from buying it.
Visuals: Honestly both version look pretty much identical except the PS3 has clipping and lighting problems and this is certainly odd considering the PS3 supposedly the lead development platform, but it looks like the PS3 is getting another crappy port, but they still look pretty good.
Sound: The voice acting is pretty good as far as RE games go. I also love how the Kujiji (I think that's what they are called) speak what appears top be Swahili (an African language).
Controls: If you played RE 4, then the controls will feel right at home.
Story: It's a demo, not much is reveled, except your in in Africa after Wesker.
Game play: RE5 much more action oriented than any RE to date. In addition to the usual stuff in RE4, Capcom has added a cover system similar to stealth games i.e you can put you back on a wall, and pop up and shoot an enemy as some of them use hand guns, rifles, and shotguns. The A.I of your computer controlled partner is pretty bad as she like yo block chainsaws with her neck, although you can play with a friend offline or online.
Resident Evil 4 Ver. 2.0: There's no denying that RE5 is pretty much the same damn thing as RE4. I mean the only difference is the skin color of the enemies. In RE4 the Gonodos where white (Spaniards) and in RE the enemies are mostly black as apparently Capcom caved in to accusations for being "Racist" as there are now White, and Asian enemies....in Africa. Oh yeah, the infamous chainsaw enemy is now back, although he isn't really that hard honestly.
Overall the game isn't bad but I'm not paying $60 for this damn game, maybe when game is around 30 bucks., but until then, I'm gonna hold off from buying it.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Fallout 3 Review
I have to say my reason for posting my thoughts on the game and also a heads up, I've played both the 360 and PS3 version.
Visuals: Well, contrary to what Bethesda said about "eye popping prettiness" the game is actually pretty average looking honestly loaded with numerous visual problems such as messy and blurry textures, lots of jaggies (this is a huge problem in the PS3 version), screen tearing (huge problem in the 360 version), jerky animations (all 3 versions), and a host of other technical mishaps that honestly should have been worked out via testing, but judging from what I've played Bethesda has none.
Game play: Bethesda made some HUGE changes from the first two and Tactics, and not for the better. Gone are the relevance of stats, skills, and perks and replaced with a mediocre first person view and an even worse 3rd person view where stats are pretty much worthless, let me explain. You see, in Fallout 1 and 2, and Tactics where skills such as small guns for example, the overall effectiveness had many determining factors such as skill, distance, armor class of the enemy, and distance among other things would factor in to determine how effective you where at combat. FO3 on the other hand, skills are almost pointless, as you can simply get it to maybe 30ish out of a 100 and still slaughter anything. V.A.T.S (Vault tech assisted targeting system), the much hype "innovative" combat system is in reality a glorified cheat device. Let me explain. You see, when you use VATS the game freezes allowing "tactical planning" to basically see the enemy die the same way over and over. It also grants you a 90% damage reduction and 2x critical hit rate for no apparent reasons and both these factors can be enhanced with perks.
Story/Writing: One of the strong points of the first two was smart and clever writing and a good story, these are pretty much gone in FO3. In FO3, the writing is a at best average and a worst down right god awful. The main "story" is more or less a copy and paste affair from the first two. It involves water (FO1) and a Garden of Eden Creation Kit or G.E.C.K (FO2) and a whirlwind ride of Hollywood cliche's and pointless fetch quests in the effort to purify the water of the waste land for everyone. The sub-quests on the other hand still suffer from poor writing, they are actually well thought out, such as "The Replicated Man", "Blood Ties", and "You Gotta Shot'em in the Head" are among the best and offer plenty of choice, NPC reactions, and skill checks a plenty. In short the main story = fail and the sub-quests = really good for the most part.
Sound: FO1, FO2, and FoT all had really good voice action and music. Does FO3 offer the same. Not even close. The voice acting in Bethesda games have always been odd to me. It started in Oblivion with the hiring of Patrick Stewart (who's a great actor) but voices about 10 minutes of dialog in the game, yes 10 minutes. Bethesda continues this practice in FO3 as well with Liam Neeson (also a good actor) and Odette Yustman (The girl from Cloverfield, she does a horrid job by the way). The rest of the voice actors are the usual Bethesda quality, in other words from average to awful, with Wes Johnson being being light years above the rest of them turning in a good performance for Burke (despite the character being awful) and a humorous take on the Super Mutants. Music is a mix bag, some is ok and others are just way way over the top. The music is also composed by Inon Zur.
Fallout lore: This is a special category. So, who do the Brotherhood of Steel, and other familiar organizations hold up under Bethesda? It's a mix bag really. First off, their are two Brotherhood organizations. The Outcasts and the DC Wasteland detachment. The Outcasts are modeled after the westcoast brotherhood, and the DC detachment are a bunch of goody goody "Holy Knights of the Wasteland" as Emil put it that run around spouting stereotypical fantasy dialog such as Hail or Hail Sir Knight among other retarded things. The Enclave, the remnants of the U.S government are in FO3 for no reason at all other than to just be there. The Super Mutants are now Orc looking guys that eat human flesh. So in other words, Bethesda screwed them up, although The Outcasts are pretty cool.
Visuals: Pretty average for the most part with a few nice moments here and there, but over all it's simply average. 6/10
Game play: Dumbed down for FPS fiends that love pointless and not funny violence. Easy even on Very Hard as well. 5/10
Story/Writing: LULZ worth main quest dialog, and decent for the sub-quests. The 3rd grade special ED story doesn't help matters. 4/10
Sound/Music: Average music and crappy voice actiong (minus Wes Johnson). 5/10
Fallout Lore: To much to list. 0/10
Overall: To hell with it. 4/10
Visuals: Well, contrary to what Bethesda said about "eye popping prettiness" the game is actually pretty average looking honestly loaded with numerous visual problems such as messy and blurry textures, lots of jaggies (this is a huge problem in the PS3 version), screen tearing (huge problem in the 360 version), jerky animations (all 3 versions), and a host of other technical mishaps that honestly should have been worked out via testing, but judging from what I've played Bethesda has none.
Game play: Bethesda made some HUGE changes from the first two and Tactics, and not for the better. Gone are the relevance of stats, skills, and perks and replaced with a mediocre first person view and an even worse 3rd person view where stats are pretty much worthless, let me explain. You see, in Fallout 1 and 2, and Tactics where skills such as small guns for example, the overall effectiveness had many determining factors such as skill, distance, armor class of the enemy, and distance among other things would factor in to determine how effective you where at combat. FO3 on the other hand, skills are almost pointless, as you can simply get it to maybe 30ish out of a 100 and still slaughter anything. V.A.T.S (Vault tech assisted targeting system), the much hype "innovative" combat system is in reality a glorified cheat device. Let me explain. You see, when you use VATS the game freezes allowing "tactical planning" to basically see the enemy die the same way over and over. It also grants you a 90% damage reduction and 2x critical hit rate for no apparent reasons and both these factors can be enhanced with perks.
Story/Writing: One of the strong points of the first two was smart and clever writing and a good story, these are pretty much gone in FO3. In FO3, the writing is a at best average and a worst down right god awful. The main "story" is more or less a copy and paste affair from the first two. It involves water (FO1) and a Garden of Eden Creation Kit or G.E.C.K (FO2) and a whirlwind ride of Hollywood cliche's and pointless fetch quests in the effort to purify the water of the waste land for everyone. The sub-quests on the other hand still suffer from poor writing, they are actually well thought out, such as "The Replicated Man", "Blood Ties", and "You Gotta Shot'em in the Head" are among the best and offer plenty of choice, NPC reactions, and skill checks a plenty. In short the main story = fail and the sub-quests = really good for the most part.
Sound: FO1, FO2, and FoT all had really good voice action and music. Does FO3 offer the same. Not even close. The voice acting in Bethesda games have always been odd to me. It started in Oblivion with the hiring of Patrick Stewart (who's a great actor) but voices about 10 minutes of dialog in the game, yes 10 minutes. Bethesda continues this practice in FO3 as well with Liam Neeson (also a good actor) and Odette Yustman (The girl from Cloverfield, she does a horrid job by the way). The rest of the voice actors are the usual Bethesda quality, in other words from average to awful, with Wes Johnson being being light years above the rest of them turning in a good performance for Burke (despite the character being awful) and a humorous take on the Super Mutants. Music is a mix bag, some is ok and others are just way way over the top. The music is also composed by Inon Zur.
Fallout lore: This is a special category. So, who do the Brotherhood of Steel, and other familiar organizations hold up under Bethesda? It's a mix bag really. First off, their are two Brotherhood organizations. The Outcasts and the DC Wasteland detachment. The Outcasts are modeled after the westcoast brotherhood, and the DC detachment are a bunch of goody goody "Holy Knights of the Wasteland" as Emil put it that run around spouting stereotypical fantasy dialog such as Hail or Hail Sir Knight among other retarded things. The Enclave, the remnants of the U.S government are in FO3 for no reason at all other than to just be there. The Super Mutants are now Orc looking guys that eat human flesh. So in other words, Bethesda screwed them up, although The Outcasts are pretty cool.
Visuals: Pretty average for the most part with a few nice moments here and there, but over all it's simply average. 6/10
Game play: Dumbed down for FPS fiends that love pointless and not funny violence. Easy even on Very Hard as well. 5/10
Story/Writing: LULZ worth main quest dialog, and decent for the sub-quests. The 3rd grade special ED story doesn't help matters. 4/10
Sound/Music: Average music and crappy voice actiong (minus Wes Johnson). 5/10
Fallout Lore: To much to list. 0/10
Overall: To hell with it. 4/10
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