Captain Malcolm Reynolds is Jim Raynor

One of things I really noticed about Starcraft 2 is how they created a very vivid theme. It is most definitely a Western, which may be what they were trying to do with the original Starcraft? Unfortunately, all I really felt was "rednecks in space" for the Terrans in the first game.

What I'm pretty sure is a violin, used to just set the tone of the adventure, occurs regularly throughout most of the campaign. It reminded me very much of Firefly. Several times, in fact, I very much got the feeling that the writers had at least seen Joss Whedon's Space Western. Not that I'm complaining, mind.

I think it works very well, and although I see a similarity it could just be the natural result of anyone who knows what a Western is, and then adapts it into a Sci-Fi adventure. In any case, it is a damn good theme and really creates an enjoyable and vivid video game experience. I'd truly liken it more to an interactive cinematic experience, as I said before.

The multiplayer, on the other hand, seems to be a bit lackluster as far as innovation goes. Then again, Starcraft didn't originally become the multiplayer RTS due to innovation; it was the perfectly calibrated balance between the units and teams that created such a legacy, and I have every confidence that they will continue their proud tradition.

Of course, success in Starcraft depends very much on the number of your actions per minute. In other words, it is all about the micromanagement... something I'm not a huge fan of personally. In fact, I've long maintained that the Real Time Strategy genre was a bit misnamed; seems like its mostly a focus on tactics, with minimal strategy necessary.

In any case, I love the theme and overall storyline to Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty, and I can't wait for the next installment in the series!

Now to try my hand (yet again) at the final mission of the campaign. Been stuck for days now! :(

Starcraft 2 - First Impressions

Having done little else for the past 36 hours, I thought I'd write a quick post talking about Starcraft 2. So far my experience has been quite fun! I've had three crashes, (two lockups requiring a restart, and one crash to desktop) so I feel like it is pretty damn stable for a newly released game.

The game-play is fun, familiar yet innovative. The storyline is amazing, in my opinion truly more like a cinematic experience than a video game story. The voice acting is superb, the animation is excellent, and the characterization is almost universally very well done.

I really enjoy the way the campaign is set up, too. It is very fun and offers some choices in way of how you proceed, as well as the order you take various missions and campaign-wide unit upgrades. There's a lot of small touches that make it really come alive, too.

My favorite thing so far is just the sheer number of different mechanics they built into the campaign. Most missions are so completely fun and unique that it is really an experience to play through them. I'm excited at the possibilities, and can't wait to see some awesome user-made custom maps.

All in all, if you were on the fence about buying it, I'd highly recommend it. Even if you don't like RTS games in general, there's a casual mode and the story itself is so good that it'd be worth it in my opinion.

And with that, it is past time I get back into the game and try to figure out a strategy that'll help me beat the last mission!

RPGs - Part 1

No, not that kind of RPG...

When I was a little kid, we had some table-top role playing games and some Nintendo cartridges. Do you remember the joy of the original NES games?

Blow on it, put it in, doesn't work, push it up and down repeatedly for twenty seconds, doesn't work, take it out and blow again, doesn't work, push it in and out five times, light some incense in front of Nintendo Power Magazine, say a prayer to the Game Master, turn it on, and finally rejoice! After 30 minutes of hard labor you can enjoy your video game of choice. Kids today are spoiled.

Anyways, RPGs generally had some basic elements: levels, experience, hit points, statistical values representing strength, intelligence, etc. They tended to be fairly linear, and usually involved an entire planet to explore.

Nowadays, the label RPG has evolved to take on a plethora of meanings. We have FPS-RPGs, Puzzle-RPGs, MMORPGs, Sports-RPGs, and I could go on. What ever happened to a good old fashioned game of Fighters and Red Mages who are trying to save the world?

It seems like the idea of what an RPG is continues to evolve. I find myself less interested in playing the latest offerings, such as Final Fantasy 13. I just don't want to feel like I'm on rails, watching a story unfold while fighting a bunch of bullshit random encounters in between cut-scenes. I'll watch a movie if I want to see a story unfold.

No, what I enjoy are games where you truly have choice. Where your actions impact the world. I'm a fan of the open-ended sandbox style of role-playing game. Apparently, there now exists two camps in the world of RPG creation. There are the highly linear, rigidly defined J-RPGs (so called due to the Japanese inception of this design), and there are the open-ended, loosely defined Western RPGs.

We'll take a closer look at the differences next time.

For now, I must go and prepare for the coming storm. Upon wings of liberty do Heaven's Devils approach.

Cable - Why Pay?

The guy who wrote this article is emblematic of what the future holds for entertainment. I for one will never pay for cable TV when there are so many free legitimate options on the internet. Many people follow the legally questionable practice of downloading TV programs through bit torrent sites.

The creators of South Park recognized that fact, and took control of their show's distribution by offering it for free (with limited advertisements) on the show's official site. This seems like a progressive move, and the direction that entertainment is truly heading.

Adult Swim likewise faced the inevitability of preventing free distribution of their product, offering episodes available to watch through their website. They embraced the idea of hosting a fan-community, integrating forums and web games into their site.

I can only wonder how long it will be before these practices are adopted by mainstream media across the board.

This is the future?

I remember growing up, and there being lots of talk from the late 80's through the early 90's about how crazy and different the world would be in the next millennium. Flying cars, teleportation, giant robots... turns out none of that came to be. Here we are in 2010, and we don't even have sexbots?! I'm disappointed in the glacial pace of technological growth.

Then again, I read this article the other day and feel like its pretty damn exciting! Now that is a crazy high-tech futuristic change to the world that I'd love to see become a daily sight.

What about you, my faithful reader-legion? What sort of technological advances did you expect to see by now? Will there any other near-future revolutions in our daily lives?

What can World of Warcraft teach us about the inception of society?

I've been perusing the pages of Jared Diamond's The Third Chimpanzee lately, and I will admit it has been a wonderful read so far. One of the things he touches on is how important longevity was towards the survival and increasing success of various ancient human tribes.

This was because of the phenomenal nature of personal experience in an era that predated record-keeping. From an example given in the book, let's say we have two hunter gatherer tribes. One has an average lifespan of 40 years, the other 60 years. They both inhabit a region in which food becomes scarce for a year.

The first tribe dies off due to not having enough nourishment. The second tribe has a few elderly members who recall a previous food shortage, and know that certain plants and nuts can be safely consumed for nutrition, in spite of their unappetizing taste.

And thus, longevity can literally be the difference between an entire tribe's surviving or dying off. Due to the simple ability to share their experience.

I often think about how powerful language is. The ability to communicate clearly and accurately to each other, to formulate plans and talk about past, present, and future. The ability to put emotions and feelings and other intangibles into symbolic form. Even the ability to just think is pretty much reliant on articulating your thoughts into words, no?

All of this came to my mind while I was learning some new raid encounters in ICC 25 the other night. For those of you who avoided getting hooked on World of Warcrack, basically there are "raids" where you join up with 9 or 24 other people, (there's two different sizes to every raid encounter,) and then you go in and participate in difficult "boss" encounters which are highly technical and require exceptional performance and communication from all members of the raid.

In order to learn these fights, we could go in and die 30+ times as we slowly learn the mechanics of each fight. That'd be a rough way to go about it, though. Instead, due to the power of communication, an experienced raider (elder tribe member) is able to explain the fight's strategy (strategy for survival) and prevent the inexperienced raiders from making mistakes.

Through the experienced person's communicating and sharing with the rest, we all are able to survive and prosper. Haha, probably a bit of a stretch as far as analogies go, but I enjoyed the idea when it first occurred to me and thought I'd share.

One last thing: I threw the word "inception" into today's title as homage; it is an amazing film, go see it if you haven't!

The shrieking of indignant internet users

I saw this post over at Kotaku about how Valve's gonna implement a totally optional software survey in the future.

Wait. Do you... do you hear that?

Listen.

It is the shrill sound of nerd rage.

Most responses to this news are from Kotaku readers indignant of the fact that Steam would dare to request permission to scan their Windows generated program list.

There's a lot of very impassioned claims that people would never let a friend snoop around their computer, let alone a corporation. Kinda makes ya wonder what these people are hiding, no?

I understand the desire for privacy, and I hate invasive snooping as much as the next guy. And don't get me wrong, I'm no fanboi. But I do possess a reasonable level of trust for Valve and have no problems letting them grab my installed programs list.

I figure they'll either try to sell me relevant products that I want to use and will gladly buy, and/or figure out what programs cause compatibility issues with various Steam games and hopefully patch a fix.

I mean, really, what's the worst that could happen?

Dick Pix

So apparently guys have collectively decided that the best way to a woman's heart is by taking pics of one's.. how should I say.. man meat, and then emailing it to one's target of romance. The only conceivable result is an instant swoon, followed by love ever-lasting. Amirite?

Now, I have been told by some well-meaning but clearly delusional people that this is, in fact, not so seductive... but I'm not really convinced.

In order to put my doubts to rest, I'd like to conduct a test. I've compiled some pictures of really big dicks, and would like to see if you, dear reader, find them arousing. Let the viewing begin:

Dick Pick 1
Dick Pick 2
Dick Pick 3
Dick Pick 4
Dick Pick 5

Well, what say you?

Serenade me with the song that will quiet my burning question: are dick pix truly an effective method to seduce a woman?

Why "global warming" is still controversial:

In this Washington Post article, Stan Cox supposes that we ought to all give up our air conditioning so as to help save the world from global warming. And of course when I say global warming, I mean the sort caused by the actions and machines of humanity.

This article is a pretty good example of why a lot of people are still ambivalent towards climate change and taking action to help protect our planet. People like Al Gore have spear-headed an extremist movement that ostracizes anyone who dares to doubt, doesn't welcome dialogue and debate, and is constantly pushing the doomsday scenario.

No matter how true this message may or may not be, a lot of people just won't buy into it when its crammed down their throats in such a ridiculous fashion. Calling on the average North American to give up our air conditioning is exactly the wrong way to go about achieving meaningful change in the world.

This is emblematic of the incredible miscalculation that was made by people like Mr. Gore who wanted to tell the world to change their ways, while he and the other elites are still flying around in their private jets and enjoying a lavish lifestyle.

If you really want to help encourage societal change, then here's a few simple steps:

1) Stop ostracizing anyone that has doubt. I constantly see people get called all sorts of dirty names for not instantly and whole-heartedly believing in man-made global warming. What the fuck? Its like an aggressive religious belief, and that further scares people away. Just say something like "I can understand your doubt, but you should check out the arguments for it. Besides, it wouldn't hurt to try and be more eco-friendly in our lifestyles, right?"

2) Come up with practical solutions, not these pie-in-the-sky ridiculous notions that would completely transform society overnight. We're not going to give up air conditioning, and we're not going to transform our economy to alternative energy sources without a lot of baby-steps. Propose something plausible and you'll get a lot more support.

3) Drop the extremism do-or-die mentality. It doesn't work. You tried it, and I can't fault you for it. We've only got one planet, and there's plenty of examples of past societies going extinct due to lack of environmental management. This is serious shit, admittedly, and precisely because of that we can't afford to lose our cool; if one strategy (the bat-shit crazy religious-like fundamentalist approach) fails to win enough support, let's have the wherewithal to adopt a new strategy with a better likelihood of success.

I apologize if any of this sounds too reasonable to hardcore environmentalists, but really I just want humanity to take better care of our "island" and not go the way of Easter.

Wife Aggro

So recently I've begun playing World of Warcraft again, and one of the common reasons that people end up having to stop playing before they're good and ready is the dreaded "wife aggro".

Now at the risk of sounding sexist, I've truly never heard of a case wherein the wife is playing and the husband is angry at being neglected. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but I've never seen it.

So, what do you do when you have wife aggro? If you're a lamer, (or care about your marriage,) then you'll log off. But let's explore some alternative choices before we do anything as drastic as leaving your raid early!

1) One word: Chloroform.

2) Work out a barter system. If she leaves you alone on raid nights, take her out to a romantic comedy (or whatever it is she personally would enjoy.)

3) Subtly encourage her to find a boyfriend on-the-side. With you seemingly ignorant of her indiscretions, she'll either be out enjoying herself or home and feeling so guilty that she'll let you play in peace.

4) First of all, it is imperative that you have two WoW-capable computers in your household for this to work. Create a level 1 character, then approach your spouse while she's in a good mood. Ask her for the favor of watching over your character while you run out for a few minutes. Show her the basics, then leave for thirty minutes. Come back home and she ought to be well hooked and ready to have you install WoW on the second computer! And the best part: an X-53 Touring Rocket!

5) Should your wife prove resistant to everything else, then just how compatible are you two anyway? I mean, on the one hand you have a living breathing human of the opposite gender who is apparently attracted to you. On the other hand, you have pixels that, if you sink hours and hours into the game (and get lucky), will start showing purple and give you a sense of achievement. Tough choice, I know...

And that, my friends, is sound advice on how to handle the inevitable "wife aggro" problem. Hopefully Blizzard's working on a patch to address this issue, but until then feel free to bookmark this post.

The fight has begun!

As I previously stated, Arizona's new law targeted at curtailing illegal immigration has now become a battle over states' rights verses the federal government. Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I really do believe we Americans have a lot at stake regarding states' rights.

Should the feds steamroll a state's ability to govern itself without undue federal interference, then I truly believe it might create an actual secession movement. And the last time that happened, a lot of Americans died.

And really, no matter what your opinion is regarding illegal immigration and the potential for discrimination and abuse, it is an important precedent that has long-reaching consequences completely unconnected to the issue at hand.

The fact of the matter is that illegal immigration is a problem in Arizona, and the federal government was not enforcing the laws they have on the books. What Arizona did was simply create a state law to allow them to enforce federal laws that aren't being enforced by the feds themselves.


To me, this is a clear case of the federal government's failing to protect a state, and then trying to prevent the state from protecting itself. A dangerous precedent, indeed.

Modern politics has become so mired in retaining popularity for one's future political career that nobody has the willingness to make the right choices, regardless of how unpopular they are. What I would give to see a government full of men who truly wanted the best for their nation, and not just for themselves and their wealthy elite allies. But alas, that is a dream that neither elephant nor donkey could fulfill.

The Perils of Summer? The only danger was to my wallet.

Steam's sale is coming to a close here in a few hours. The end result is that I spent $95 on various games, buying 24 different titles. There were maybe 15 more that I was on the fence with, but I had to keep telling myself that even though I could save $2 here and $3 there, it would ultimately be better for me to just play through the games I already own but haven't beat. Speaking of beat, there's a really fun game you should check out if you like music. And who doesn't like music?

I wonder if other gamers had an equally hard time of resisting Steam's wicked temptations? I suppose I'm safe until next year's Christmas season, at least... which happens to be less than six months away! Is it too early to start preparing for the Yuletide celebrations?

Oh, the weather outside is broiling...

Exhaustion

Just got in, spent all day on the road. I'm exhausted, good night.