Wifezilla, Black Belt

Wifezilla passed her black belt test last Saturday, but with all the holiday company and hoopla, I'm only now posting about it.

She tested with five other candidates, most of whom started at the same time she did. The exam began with each candidate answering the same series of questions about Taekwondo, with some Korean culture and history thrown in for good measure. After that, the candidates took turns executing a series of movement patterns, sometimes together as a group, other times individually. The funniest moment of the exam was when none of the six knew the announced pattern. They frantically looked at each to see if someone was going to correctly begin it. For the final part of the examination, the candidates had to break four boards: two using two different styles of kicks and one with a clenched fist punch, and the last with their arm, elbow leading.

None of the candidates broke all four boards on the first attempt.

None, that is, except for my wife.

Yes, my cute, little petite wife, who weighs maybe 120 pounds soaking wet, the mother of my two children and mild-mannered middle school orchestra teacher by day, broke all four boards on the first attempt.

I was amazed.

And so proud.

And rightly so. A man twice Wifezilla's size had difficulty breaking some of the boards she so thoroughly destroyed. I was most amazed to see her punch through a board with her little clenched fist. As she explained to me later, she connects the board with her two lead knuckles, but the key lies in putting her shoulders and hips behind the punch. The many who failed to break through the boards with their fist did so because they did not have the weight of their shoulders and hips to power the punch. Master Cho only allows candidates two attempts at the punch because they can easily injure themselves if they don't have the skill and prowess, break bones even.

So Wifezilla is a black belt now. As her teacher said at the end of the examination, her training has only now begun, as there are multiples degrees of black belt to earn. I think I'm as scared of her as I am proud.

But mostly I'm just proud.

Emanee Snags Amani Punisher

In a recent ZA run last week, Emanee finally obtained the Amani Punisher, a huge upgrade for her in terms of raw spell damage power. The boss kill also yielded her enough heroic badges to purchase Orb of the Soul-Eater, one of the finest off-hands available for those who deal shadow damage.

All in all, Emanee saw about a +100 increase to her spell-damage after getting the Amani Punisher enchanted with Soulfrost. She hasn't raided with this new gear yet, but I'm anxious to take her out for a spin now. She's been dancing at top of the threat meters (threat, not damage meters. Emanee is rarely top five for 25 man raids) lately, so I'm curious to see how I manage aggro with all this new damage.

Should be fun.

300

My Toshiba HD DVD player came packaged with two movies (but no HDMI cable as noted in an earlier post . . . curious, I know), 300 and The Bourne Identity. I sat down this afternoon and rewatched 300 in glorious high definition and enjoyed the movie even more.

With all that increased resolution, I noticed that the Spartan soldiers appear to be as ripped and well-toned as myself. I thought my six-pack the envy of the Houston area, but Gerard Butler definitely gives me a run for my money.

I do concede their superiority in spear thrusting and phalanx maneuvering. I, uh, would likely hurt myself twirling one of those spears or shields around.

Sometime next week I'm going to pop in Sin City and see how the new player handles that cinematic bonanza.

Black Bars

I was a little freaked out when I first fired up my new HD DVD player. My Comcast (it's Comcraptic!) cable shows HD movies fullscreen, at 1080i. My HD DVD player also shows movies in 1080i, not fullscreen though, but with thin black bars above and below the main picture. I checked my setup to make sure that both my TV and DVD player were configured for 16:9 ratio picture, the standard for today's widescreen sets. They were.

So why the black bars?

Well, I did a bit of research on the Internet and discovered that most theatrical movies are filmed at a 2.3-2.4:1 ratio. That doesn't match the 16:9 ratio of today's widescreen HD TVs, so the bars are needed to depict the actual movie. Without it, the left and the right sides would be cut out of view. When Comcast (it's Comcraptic!) broadcasts theatrical movies in HD fullscreen, they essentially crop the movie to fit the screen so. That's not the end of the world or anything, but good to know when you shuffle between HD cable and HD DVD.

I popped in a regular DVD in a regular DVD player as an experiment to see if I could discern a difference between it and HD DVD. The difference?

Huge.

First off, I estimate the top and bottom black bars on a regular widescreen DVD are more than twice as wide as the HD DVD bars. And the picture resolution is dramatically worse. The difference between regular DVD and HD DVD is at least as great as that between VHS and DVD. Likely greater, when you throw in 1080p and Dobly TrueHD 5.1 support.

And upscaling works spectacularly well. I popped in a regular DVD version of Live Free or Die Hard (great movie, by the way, my favorite of the series) into the HD DVD player, and as promised, it looks almost as good as actual HD formatted DVD. This is a relief, as I have no intention of replacing my current DVD collection. I've also noticed the Blu-ray DVD library seems larger than the HD DVD one, so I'll likely need to rent regular DVDs for those titles that are exclusive to Blu-ray.

Brains! Brains!

***Spoiler Alert***

Wife and I went and saw I Am Legend yesterday. I love zombie flicks, so when I saw the ads for this movie, I was sold.

The movie is based on a book by Richard Matheson of the same name. I haven't read the source material so I can't attest to how faithfully the movie depicted the book. But I can testify that I Am Legend had a different zombie vibe than its contemporaries like 28 Days (or Weeks) Later, Dawn of the Dead, or even the comedic Shaun of the Dead. I think maybe the difference stems from increased production values. I Am Legend seemed well-funded and very polished, while other zombie movies of note have that B movie quality that make them as funny as they are scary.

Overall, I enjoyed the movie, even if I found the ending unsatisfying. I recognize the tie-in with the butterfly, but it felt forced and a bit sloppy. I also didn't quite understand why Will Smith felt the need to sacrifice himself. As the woman survivor noted, he could have easily crawled into the hatch with them. Instead, he refuses, making some speech about how that is not his path, or something to that effect. Maybe the book does a better job of explaining how he gets to that point, but in the movie, it didn't synchronize very well with a character that has spend incredible amounts of energy and thinking to survive the apocalypse.

The Witcher

Well, I've finished The Witcher's prologue and am just starting chapter one. I have to say, I am as impressed as I am pleasantly surprised.

First off, ignore the criticism directed at the game's engine. Yes, it's an iteration of Bioware's Aurora engine, but I can tell CDProjekt tweaked it because The Witcher looks hands down better than Netherwinter Nights 2. Along with some graphic upgrades, CDProjekt scrapped the D&D gameplay and created their own combat and leveling system. Even though NWN2 and The Witcher share a game engine, they play like entirely unrelated games.

Secondly, the game has an interesting and compelling story, even if it is set in a conventional fantasy world. The game's world is based on a best-selling book series in Poland, which gives the game its depth and feel. For the first time in a long time, I can honestly say I know what's going on with the game's story, I understand why I'm performing the quests I'm performing, and I am anxious to finish them to unravel more of the plot.

Thirdly, combat is cool. You have three styles of fighting, strong, fast, and group. You have to alternate between the three to effectively fight different opponents. For instance, I found myself pitted against a dexterous bandit. I had my style set to strong and discovered quickly that I wasn't landing blows. I switched to the fast style and cut him down in short order. In addition to styles, you have the opportunity to unlock second and finish moves depending on how quickly you can left click on your opponent. While fighting, your cursor flashes a flaming sword. If you click at that exact time, Geralt executes a second move, dealing extra damage. If you complete that maneuver, the cursor may flash again, allowing Geralt to perform a finishing move for even more damage. It's a fun system and adds a certain frantic element to the combat.

The game does suffer from a poor translation. Dialogue mostly sounds odd and stilted, and occasionally wanders into the realm of "wtf?????" But despite the mangling of the English language, the story shines through loud and clear. I think it helps that Geralt, your witcher avatar, is a pre-generated character. This allows the developers to write dialogue with just that character in mind which gives them the power to tell a more detailed and focused story. Self-generated characters are nice, but don't allow developers the same ability to include the character within the larger story, at least not in such an intimate and detailed way.

And the world has amazing depth. I stepped into the local inn, and amid the sparse patrons milling around, I could hear punches being traded. I followed the sound, turning a corner, and happened upon a ring of men surrounding two other men fist-fighting. They broke from each other and fell into the ring when I stepped forward and questioning one of the men allowed me the opportunity to fight for money. I set my wager and quickly trounced my opponent (it helped that his name was "weakling fist-fighter." Fighting for money has nothing to do with the main quest line, or even a meager side quest, but it was a cool detail that added some texture and realism to the game world. It was also comically disturbing having one of the fist-fighters comment to me that my mother performed fellatio on a dwarf.

I know the game has attracted some press regarding it mature content, but the game is an outstanding debut and I'm looking forward to seeing more games from CDProjekt in the future.

December Guild NameZzZzZz of the Month

Pit of Infamy

--LeGeNDZ--

I don't usually kick a dead horse, but I'm making an exception this time because my fellow guildees and I have gotten so much mileage out of this guild's name, I'd be remiss if I didn't include it.

Not too long ago, --LeGeNDZ-- was a horde raiding guild on the rise, quickly conquering 25 man content at what appeared at the time to be a record pace. But within a couple months of forming, the guild suddenly imploded from within--personality conflicts I'd imagine. From day one, the guild became the object of derision, not for its talent or raiding prowess, but for the exclusive capitalization of its moniker's consonants and the replacement of its "s" with a "z." It's probably for the best that --LeGeNDZ-- burned out, but I really do miss making fun of their name.

Any chance they'll get back together?

Beacon of Reasoned Judgement

--WTB Good Guild Name, PST--

I looked far and wide for a worthy December Beacon of Reasoned Judgement guild title, but came back empty-handed. The truth is, most of the guild names out there belong in the Pit of Infamy category. Here's hoping the new year sees the advent some good guild names.

Well, Honey, the European Version Has These Cards . . .

It's Christmas Eve as I write this and we just got done opening a smattering of presents. For reasons I still don't completely understand, we're opening some Christmas Eve, the rest tomorrow morning. In any case, I'm going with it because I got to open The Witcher and am currently installing it as I type this.

Joe public may not be aware, but The Witcher has a couple different versions of the game floating around. All versions come with a mature rating, but the U.S. version has been edited somewhat from its European cousin. I read in a Games for Windows preview of the game that a player can unlock collectible cards featuring nude versions of the different women with whom you have "relations." Now that's the kind of gamer immersion I'm talking about. That clever feature was cut from the U.S. version, but thankfully, sick gamers like myself can get the European version from GoGamer.com.

Actually, Wifezilla got me this game, fully briefed on why I wanted this version over the lame U.S. one. She gave me a deserved look of disgust, but got it for me anyway.

What a woman.

Merry Christmas everyone!

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

I walked into Half Priced Books with my father in-law today and picked up S.T.A.L.K.E.R. : Shadow of Chernobyl for a song. Even though the game was released back in May, Half Priced had it for $15. I wouldn't normally buy a game like this, but reviews for it were consistently good and the price was right.

I've barely started playing, but already the game's bad Eastern-European to English translation is cracking me up. Apparently, "the jump" can be performed by hitting the space bar.

I'm expecting The Witcher and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare to be under the Christmas tree tomorrow morning, but I'm sure I'll come back to S.T.A.L.K.E.R. again, if only to witness more mangling of the English language.

Hellgate: London Patch 0.7

Patch 0.7 for Hellgate: London came out Wednesday. It’s conspicuously missing the promised holiday subscriber content. In fact, besides The Transmorgifier and twelve world weapon drops, the patch doesn’t include any new subscriber content. Instead, it fixes a memory leak and some miscellaneous bugs. I haven’t heard if FFS plans on even releasing their major holiday content. If they are, they better get a move on because it doesn’t make much sense wearing a Santa hat in January. If they aren’t, then they’ve got egg on their face because they already teased the HG: L community with talk of holiday dye kits and pets.

I have to say, FFS has now officially been caught with their pants down. Their launch woes cannot be written off as a miscalculation of server usage or a few miscellaneous bugs. The game was clearly not ready for release. And FFS clearly didn’t have their content pushes lined up for steady updating. It’s easy to blame EA for the untimely release, as that parent company has a well-established history of releasing games that weren’t fit for beta testing, let alone the retail market. But I’m going to heap most of the blame on FFS, as they penned a deal with EA and had to know full well the pressured timetable they’d be under.

I think Roper and company are counting on a forgiving gaming community. And maybe that’s what they’ll get if they can fix what’s wrong with HG: L. But not only do they need to move at a faster pace, they also need to start dazzling us with content updates. If they don’t, they’re user-base will continue to shrink to the point that market economics will kick in and they’ll no longer be able be economically viable. As much potential as I think HG: L has, there are just too many good games out there to have to play a mediocre one.

***Edit***

Here's the link to the 0.7 patch notes.

Tooth Fairy Strikes Again

Hallie lost another tooth last night. This time, the tooth fairy remembered to leave some money.

Stupid idiot.

Dungeon Runners Adds Ads

1UP reports that Dungeon Runners, the free MMO by NCSoft, recently updated their game to include forced advertising for it's non-subscribers. Subscriber pay $5 a month to play without ads and enjoy some exclusive content.

With so many MMOs coming to market, I foresee this being the pricing scheme many of them develop to survive: track down advertising dollars (just like radio and TV) and let paying customers play without seeing the ads. This setup will continue to look more attractive to MMO developers and advertising companies as more and more key demographic consumers spend more time playing games and less watching TV. It wasn't all that long ago that I read an EQ2 executive hint that even their game might switch to such an economic model. Dungeon Runners serves as an excellent test run to see how viable such a system will be.

HDMI Cable and Consumer Rights Not Included

Why in the hell doesn't the HDMI cable come packaged with the HD DVD or Blu-ray player?

That's a rhetorical question.

It's also a stupid question: if Sony and Toshiba can get chumps like me to buy the vitally necessary cable separately, than why not?

This trend of "cables sold separately" started around the time of the first DVD players. I remember bringing my first Sony DVD player home and quickly discovering that I had no cables to connect it to my TV and AV receiver. Another trip back to the store, another $50 worth of audio and video cables, and I was finally able to get the stupid thing to work.

It's consumer gauging crap like this that makes me want to chuck an HD DVD player through a corporate office window. These cables seem to get more and more expensive with every gadget iteration. Deservedly so? I bet not. For some reason, a six-foot HDMI cables averages $50, 16% of the HD DVD player itself. I doubt seriously there is $50 worth of materials or labor in that cable. Rather, it's a necessary component an American consumer needs to get their DVD player to work, so pay it or use that new toy as a paper weight. Better yet, return the player, stick to the DVD format, and give Toshiba and Sony the bird.

At least some stores advertise the cable isn't included; that tiny, but horribly important, detail is hardly obvious from the players' packaging. Yesterday, I walked into Best Buy and saw a big stack of Blu-ray players strategically placed smack dab in the middle of the entrance. A big yellow sign announced that the HDMI cable you need to hook the player up to your TV is NOT included, but that Best Buy carries them for "your convenience." If only Sony and Toshiba were so forthright. But then again, I'm sure Best Buy gets an ear full, not the manufacturers, when some poor slob comes back to the store complaining that he can't hook the player to his TV.

But honestly, this crap needs to work out-of-the-box. There's absolutely no reason why American consumers should have to pay what amounts to a hidden fee on high-end electronics like HD TVs and DVD players. If the HDMI cable really is worth 16% of the DVD player, then package it with the player and jack the price up to reflect that. Don't make consumers guess and track and wander aimlessly trying to get their high-end electronics to work. The entire affair is complicated enough as it is.

X-Play Names Bioshock Game of the Year

I'm a bit surprised by this. I haven't played the game myself, but while reviews for Bioshock have been good, I wouldn't describe them as raving. Many critics and players were disappointed with the ending and described gameplay as linear with the illusion of open-endedness.

Still, I might have to pick this up and give it a try.

HD DVD Player: Taking the Plunge

I’m getting an HD DVD player for Christmas this year. I don’t think a clear winner has emerged in the HD and Blu-ray format war, but I couldn’t think of anything else to ask for and the HD players are significantly cheaper than the Blu-ray. I realize that’s probably a bad reason to jump into high def DVD, but what are ya gonna do.

Apparently, both players convert normal DVDs into near-HD picture quality. I don’t buy a lot of DVDs, but I do rent a ton. And Netflix offers movies in both formats.

For now.

I doubt they’ll long support both formats, unless the market share splits evenly between the two players. I would think Sony would have an edge with the PS3 having the ability to play Blu-ray. But the PS3 came out of the gate over-priced and if HD players can retain a price edge over Blu-ray, they might tip the scale in their favor.

***Edit***

I just visited Best Buy and Sony's Blu-ray player is priced the same as the Toshiba equivalent, $299. Seems the format war is alive and well.

Lady Vashj Sucks Or How I Learned to Love the Strider

My WoW raiding guild is currently wiping on phase two of the Lady Vashj boss fight. Phase one is basically a tank-and-spank, but phase two is everything and the kitchen sink.

What I like most about this fight is we're raiding ground that few others have tred. And that means we're having to hammer out a strategy, not just cut-and-paste one from WoWWiki or some other site. Yes, it's been frustrating wiping continuously. And it's also not much fun being a weak link on strider duty. But I have really enjoyed having to think about the fight the day-after and ponder tactic tweaks to address problems. It's the heart and soul of raiding and heartening to think that Black Temple is ready and waiting for us one day.

Warhammer Online Gearing Up for Beta

1up reports that Warhammer Online has more than 500,000 people registered to participate in the game's beta.

The game is slated for release sometime mid-2008. I bet Age of Conan comes out around that time too. The real question is how can either game survive if released in close proximity to each other, not to mention compete with other, more established MMOs like LoTRO, EQ2, and WoW.

I think I heard Warhammer Online offers a more PvP gameplay mentality than Age of Conan, so that kind of difference could set the two games apart enough to appeal to different sorts of gamers. But we do seem to have a glut of MMOs on the market at the moment. And with most of them demanding almost all of a gamer's attention, I don't imagine that all can succeed.

GeForce 8800 GT Gets Top Marks from GFW

I found my December issue of Games for Window in my mailbox a few days ago. It arrived just five short days after the November issue, which should give you a pretty good idea of the quality of service my local post office provides.

There’s lots of juicy stuff inside the December issue, most notably a review of Nvidia’s most recent videocard, the GeForce 8800 GT. GFW gave it a ten out of ten, noting the card’s benchmarks perform almost as well as the beefier 8800 counterparts, but costs significantly less. All the performance for a fraction of the price.

Well, almost. Even though Nvidia trumpeted the 8800 GT as selling for around $200, the review notes that no one can actually find a card at that price. Sure enough, I did a newegg.com search and found most of the 8800 GTs to be hovering around $300. There are a couple priced between $209 and $250, but only the ones with 256 MB of onboard RAM.

Creative marketing on the part of Nvidia aside, the 8800 GT seems a great card to consider if you’re in the market.

Blizzard Developing New MMO

And it's NOT an expansion to WoW.

You can read the forum post reply here from Drysc.

Since it hasn't even been officially announced yet, I estimate it will see the light of day in three to four years.

Good, Wholesome Family Fun

Wifezilla bends over a lot. She’s a busy mom with three kids, including me, so she’s always bending over to pick up an errant sock, spilled milk glass, or skid-marked underwear.

This is great for me because I like the view. And sometimes, I get to peek at a pantie sliver and sing my favorite song:

I see London
I see France
I see Mommy’s underpants.

I have another one for when I spot her bra:

I see London
I see Zaire
I see Mommy’s brassiere.

Or my other favorite variation:

I see London
I see Boulder
I see Mommy’s bosom holder.

As I’ve mentioned before, Wife is a patient woman.

The other night, Wifezilla finds herself once again bent over. She’s got her head stuck inside the pantry, rutting around for God knows what. I quickly scan for the tell-tale signs of underwear leakage so I can sing my song, but there’s no pantie spillage to be found. Undeterred, I hop over to her and shove my index finger down there to see if I can hook some underwear. Wifezilla swats me away. Hallie joins the fun and also reaches in for some underwear, but also comes back empty-handed. By this time, we’re both giggling like a couple of school girls.

Actually, Hallie IS a school girl.

Sharing a special moment with Hallie, I look over at her grinning stupidly and say, “I was digging for gold!” Hallie smiles back and says, “And I was digging for some butt crack!”

Chasing Gollum Just Got a Tad Cheaper

Turbine is offering an unusual holiday pricing offer for LoTRO. Subscribers have until January 31, 2008 to sign up for three months of service for $29, which works out to about $10 a month. The deal continues as long as the subscriber continues to follow the three month payment option.

Linda Blair's Got Nothing on Baby Claire

Claire's daycare called me at work last week. It seems she had a temperature of 103° and had just got done puking her little guts out.

They never call Wifezilla for this stuff.

So, I scramble to tie up loose ends at work and jump in the truck. About halfway to the daycare, I get another phone call from Claire's teachers. She puked again. I'm not exactly sure why they're calling me with this special update since I'm in my truck and still fifteen minutes away. Maybe they think I'm the Magneto of puke, that my special genetic mutation allows me to manipulate the stomach contents of mammals from as far away as ten miles. I don't remind them that I'm not Puke Magneto, but instead politely reply that I am on my way.

When I arrive on the scene, Claire is a sad sight. They have her separated from the rest of the herd, sitting in a tiny chair. Her little shoulders are slumped and her eyes are the puffy redness that comes from recent hurling. A garbage can is shoved in front of her presumably to gobble up the next puke sortie.

I scoop her up and give her a good squeeze. The teachers hand me a plastic bag full of all the clothes and pillows Claire puked on. She's a little person, but apparently she barfed in front of an electric fan because she somehow managed to spray a lot of stuff. I thank them for handing me this bounty and with Claire hugging me like a baby monkey, I make my way for the truck.

Now, Claire is my baby girl and I love her more than life on earth, but in the back of my mind, as I'm stuffing her in the car seat, I'm thinking to myself, "She's going to puke all over my truck." I momentarily entertain visions of strapping Claire to the top of my truck. I've got a metal rack welded to the roof and some strategically placed bungee chords would fasten her securely. Ensuing puke would harmlessly splatter on the roof, maybe my windshield.

That's easily hosed off.

But that good idea flashes by in seconds. I fasten Claire's seat belt, pull out of the driveway, and make way for home. I call Wifezilla because she is blissfully unaware of these events and I feel the need to share the joy. As I'm talking to her at a red light, I hear Claire suddenly quiet down. Too quiet down. I ask her if she's ok but I get no response. Her car seat is directly behind me so I can't actually see her without severely twisting my body around, seat belt fighting me all the way. And part of me doesn't want to look back because I already know what's going down.

Or up, as it were.

A sickening wet sound confirms my worst fear. It sounds like a boot stepping in a mud puddle, but even more juicy if that's possible. I crane back and Claire is in the middle of hurling her guts out. She has a bewildered look on her face. The involuntary response is new to her and I can tell it's freaking her out. Thankfully, the puke isn't shooting out, but rather dribbling down her chin, shirt, pants, car seat. I can almost picture the car seat screaming in horror as it slowly take the brunt of the partially digested food and drink, but all I can think is better it than me. Or my truck's upholstery.

Wifezilla is still on the line. I can hear her tinny voice distantly asking what's going on. I pull the phone back to my ear and scream for back up. I tell her we need to double team this because I CAN'T handle our kid puking by myself. She vows to leave right then. The light has turned green by now so I put slam the truck in gear and tell Claire everything's going to be ok. The poor little thing has to sit in her own puke until we get home because I don't have any means to clean her up at the moment, even if I weren't currently driving.

But we get home uneventfully. I draw a lukewarm bath and carefully peel her clothes off. She seems immediately relieved. She soaks for a few minutes while I scope the damage in the truck. The car seat took the full brunt. What a trooper. There are some splashes here and there on the back seat, but they are easily sprayed away. The car seat bottom comes off, so I pop that in the washer along with Claire's abused clothes. It could have been much, much worse.

The doctor checked Claire out a few hours later. She had strep throat. Antibiotics cleared it all up within a day, so that by Friday, she was back to her usual maniacal self.

The silver lining through all the puking: Claire's head didn't spin around 360°. At least not that I saw.

Don't Share Your Account Information . . . Even With Your Most Cherished Pet

Not even with your wife.

Ok, maybe your wife. But NOT your girlfriend of two weeks. She's going to dump you soon anyway.

I'm not linking this to add fuel to fire Silvermoon drama. But I did find the entire incident an outstanding reminder of why people shouldn't share their accounts with anyone and why people shouldn't assume that because someone says they're quitting for good, that they actually mean that.

I lay blame at both parties involved. If you give your account info to a friend, you almost have to assume that your username and password won't stop with that person. Don't want someone messing around with your toons while you're vacationing from Azeroth? Then don't share account information! And if you're playing on someone's account, you almost have to assume that the original owner will someday show up and want it back. Yes, even if they said six months ago that they were done with WoW forever and forever and forever.

I myself alternate between playing and quitting WoW. My most recent break was just last month, after some solid months of raiding. At the time, I felt exhausted with every aspect of the game; the prospect of months more weekly raiding made my head spin. But then a month away from it and I suddenly had the urge to play again. I've experienced this cycle before with WoW and I anticipate that I'll experience it again. I tell people, "Yeah, I think I'm done with WoW," and they roll their eyes at me and say a knowing "uh huh" and when I reappear weeks later, they show little surprise and only give me a little grief, which I have coming.

Which brings me back to people playing on accounts belonging to people that have "quit." Just know, they'll likely come back. And when they do, if they inherit a ton of loot and gold that you slaved on for months, don't be shocked or pissed, don't assume they're going to analyze the gold and gear on the toons and hand you a cut. Just grin and bear it because they should have never shared the account with you, you never should have been playing that account to begin with, and even if you didn't deserve to have all that work go to someone else, everyone definitely should have known better.

1UP Podcast Covers Gerstmann Firing

1UP's December 7th podcast discusses the recent Gerstmann firing and the merger of Activision and Blizzard. I haven't heard any commentary from people who work in the industry, so it was interesting to listen to four editors and reviewers talk about the firing. Surprisingly, they didn't all agree on the influence publisher marketing department's put on game reviewers.

They also talk about the Activision/Blizzard merger. Like me, they seem puzzled by it. The also made a point that none of them had any glimmering that any such merger was in the works.

The Gerstmann conversation begins about an hour into the two hour podcast, with the merger discussion immediately following.

American Dreamz (No, I didn't change the "s" to a "z")

If you haven't already, I recommend you rent American Dreamz. I dvr'd the movie blindly, on a whim, and was amazed at what a funny (though darkly so) movie it turned out to be. I won't say much more than that because part of the fun I had with this movie was experiencing it without any preconceived notions on what it was about.

So go out and rent it soon. You won't be disappointed.

FFS Chats about Hellgate: London

The dudes at FFS held a chat event last night, answering questions about their recent release, Hellgate: London.

Of most interest to me is the technical fixes due out as part of patch 0.7. Commenting on the fixes, Bill Roper said, "The biggest and best is yet yo [sic] come in patch 0.7 when we get our memory issue fixes in. There is also a new DirectX patch we’re looking at that potentially resolves a lot of issues. We’re very happy about this since some of our problems come from outside our game code."

Hopefully, the memory leak that FFS fixes combined with the DirectX update that Microsoft patches will let me play in gloriously smooth DX10.

Richard Garriott Rethinks Tabula Rasa's Open Beta

Tabula Rasa has been quietly garnering middling reviews after its early November release. Gamasutra recently interviewed Richard Garriott, the game's famous producer, who had some surprisingly candid comments about TR's open beta testing: "We burned out some quantity of our beta-testers when the game wasn't yet fun. As we've begun to sell the game, the people who hadn't participated in the beta became our fast early-adopters. And the people who did participate in the beta, we've had to go back to and say 'look, look, we promise: we know it wasn't fun two months ago, but we fixed all that. Really, come try it again.' We've had to go out and develop free programs to invite those people back for free before they go buy it. So the beta process, which we used to think of as a QA process, is really a marketing process."

I find this a fascinating realization on the part of Garriott, mostly because it begs the question of how increasingly more complex MMOs will QA their final product. If the beta should be morphed into a marketing process, then how will game producers successfully stress test their gameplay and servers with large numbers of players?

I didn't beta test WoW, but I did participate in its stress test. By then, the game was largely complete and the gaming experience was nearly identical to its retail equivalent. Looking back now, the WoW stress test was as fun to play as the retail version. What Garriott realizes, perhaps too late, is that their open beta wasn't fun to play which ultimately translated into those beta testers not picking up the game on its release.

I think Garriott makes a good case for the shortcomings of TR's open beta, but I think it's more likely that gamers beta tested TR, got a pretty good idea of what it was like, and then went back to WoW or LoTRO or whatever floats their boat. I do think he's on to something about shifting the open beta concept to more of a stress test: get the game polished, practically to retail, and then hold an open beta to whet gamers' appetites, generate some buzz, and test your servers.

But if gamers are shunning TR in large numbers, I think it's because WoW has a strangle hold on the MMO crowd and TR didn't have the mojo to pull away some market share. It isn't the first MMO to suffer this indignity, and it won't be the last.

File Under "Oops"

Gamespot reports that the recent Eve Online expansion update removes a boot.ini file that prevents Windows XP users from being able to properly load the OS.

Quality Control FTL.

Tom Chick Rips HG: L a New One

He gives the game a score of 4. I can't disagree with anything he says about the game, even if I think he scores it too low.

I've said this many times, but FFS needs to hit a homerun with their December content patch. If that patch is full of more stupid potatoe recipes, then this game could be sunk.

1UP Interviews Blizzard President

Jeff Green has an interview with Mike Morhaime, the CEO and president of Blizzard Entertainment on the recent merger between his company and Activision.

I love Jeff Green. I've been reading his stuff in Computer Gaming World and Games for Windows for years. He's a funny, insightful writer, and he asked Mr. Morhaime the most immediate question I had about this merger: what does Blizzard get out of it? The last part of Morhaime's response was the most interesting, saying of the merger: "I think this actually takes a little pressure off of us. Because when you have multiple pistons firing, you're not just dependent on one thing happening on schedule, something else can release, which can buy you a little time."

Huh?

Blizzard practically invented the mantra "the game is done when it's done." They've always missed release dates. Lately, they barely even bother speculating when a game will be ready. Instead, they wait until a few months before they're ready to release, and then kick up the hype. So I guess I'm a little unclear to what scheduling pressure Mr. Morhaime is referring. I've always perceived Blizzard dictating their own schedule, with consistently spectacular results.

By the way, in the wake of Gertsgate, I'm abandoning GameSpot in search of another quality gaming news site. I subscribe to Games for Windows magazine and am happy with the crew that produces it. So I'll be checking out http://pc.1up.com/ in the coming weeks to gauge if it's a suitable replacement.

It Was the Mic . . . Yeah, That's It. It Was the Mic That Made Us Do It

Gamespot has released a second statement on the Gerstmann firing in as many days. It's qualified as a "SPECIAL REPORT" and is once again authored by "Staff."

The article is long on repeating what the earlier blurb denied, but short on any revelations. And it absolutely bleeds desperation.

It does report GameSpot's timeline on when the review was posted, pulled, and then re-posted. I'm not giving GameSpot any credit for putting the review back on their site; it's been on YouTube since the controversy emerged, so slapping it back on GameSpot isn't exactly illuminating the shooting gun.

The real kicker is the explanation of why the video review was removed in the first place. The article lamely claims they pulled it, ". . . due to concerns of quality. Specifically, its audio was deemed inferior due to a faulty microphone. There were also concerns about the limited amount of footage, which was unrepresentative of the game in the review." I'm going to give them an "A" for effort, but this statement has the corporate spin doctor stamp of approval all over it. It almost makes me laugh, if my intelligence wasn't so insulted.

The rest of the article continues to deny that Gerstmann was fired from the Eidos ad revenue being pulled while also refusing to come clean with the specific "internal reason" that lead to the sudden firing. Deny, deny, deny might come straight out of the Corporate Handlers' rulebook, but it's not playing well out here in the real world.

They can sell it, but I ain't buying.

Rocket Launcher = Pig Squealing Fun

Kammris, my Blademaster in Hellgate: London, duel wields two swords, has a charge ability that hurls him directly into the fray, and has a devastating whirlwind aoe attack that tears into swarms of mobs. He's also got a single attack move that doesn't do a whole lot of damage, but helps heal him over time. Kammris can take on multiple melee units at once and emerge undamaged. He has considerable more trouble with ranged units, but tactical use of line of sight goes a long way towards his survival. All in all, he's fun to play.

But on a whim last night I rolled a Marksman. Within minutes, I had a fiery rocket launcher in my grubby hands. How do I describe the audible glee I felt at shooting flaming death into mobs of zombies from range. Sometimes, the direct hit from the launcher was enough to kill the zombie outright. Other times, the launcher missed its marked by a few feet. But that's when the fiery aoe kicked in and from a safe distance, I watched handfuls of demons and undead writhe and scream as they unsuccessfully tried to shamble from the burning ring of fire. And they burned, burned, burned in that ring of fire!

Good stuff, that.

I was cackling so hard at the death I was dealing, I had to explain to nearby Wifezilla the new toy I had found. I think she stopped listening at "rocket launcher."

I did quickly discover that the rocket launcher works great on swarms of normal mobs, but not so well on bosses. No problem. HG: L gives three weapon slot combos that you can change on the fly with F1, F2, and F3. I put a newly found rifle in F2 and switched to it when I happened upon a boss. Clearing trash with the rocket launcher, shredding bosses with the rifle, a good time was had by all.

Err, maybe a good time was had just by me. I don't think the demons or Wifezilla particularly enjoyed my rocket launcher/rifle combo. I do need to finish normal mode with Kammris at some point, but I may continue goofing around with my Marksman for a bit.

Gamespot Comments Officially On Gerstmann Firing

Today, Gamespot officially commented on the recent firing of Jeff Gerstmann, one of their prominent editorial reviewers. Written by anonymous "Staff," the blurb's most interesting statement refutes the widely held notion of the past few days that Gerstmann was fired because Eidos pulled its ad campaign in retaliation for a withering review of Kane and Lynch: Dead Men. It states, "However, contrary to widespread and unproven reports, [Jeff's] exit was not a result of pressure from an advertiser."

The blurb goes on to quote Greg Brannan, vice president of programming for CNET Networks, who states, "Neither CNET Networks nor GameSpot has ever allowed its advertising business to affect its editorial content. The accusations in the media that it has done so are unsubstantiated and untrue. Jeff's departure stemmed from internal reasons unrelated to any buyer of advertising on GameSpot."

For just a second, I'm going to give Greg the benefit of the doubt and assume that Jeff really was fired for "internal reasons unrelated to any buyer of advertising on GameSpot." It's still the stupidest move on the planet. Like I said earlier, why fire your editorial director on the heels of a game publisher pulling their ad campaign for a bad review that the editorial director wrote? People are going to assume that's the source of the firing, whether Greg says it's "unsubstantiated and untrue" or not. If the two really are unrelated, then wait a month or two and then can him! I mean, the guy worked there for eleven years. I'm thinking those "internal reasons" could have waited another few weeks.

But I think the internal reasons were related to a buyer of advertising on GameSpot, in this case, Eidos. Jeff authored a withering review (magnified more in video format) and pissed Eidos off so much, they took their money and left. How much money exactly? I'm not sure, but Penny Arcade mentioned not thousands or tens of thousands, but hundreds of thousands of dollars. That's a lot of money. Seeing that much money walk off the table must have pissed GameSpot off to the point where they reacted with red-blooded corporate anger and fired Gerstmann, perhaps without thinking ahead to the dots their readers would connect when the news hit.

I think this is what happened. I don't have any proof, and the vice-president of CNET even goes out of his way to say it didn't go down like that. Nevertheless, I think that's what happened and until GameSpot or Jeff announce officially the reasons for his termination, I'll continue to believe that series of events.

By the way, I want to point out that if I were Eidos, I likely would have pulled my ad money too. It's up to GameSpot to do the right thing here, not Eidos. From Eidos' point-of-view, why pour money into ad space for a site that just got done tearing your game to tiny shreds? The answer is, you don't. And they didn't.

Blizzard and Activision Merge

Coming on the heels of EA's acquisition of Bioware, WoW's website announced today that Blizzard and Activision are combining to form a new company dubbed, surprisingly enough, Activision Blizzard . Not exactly the most catchy name ever.

I can see what Activision has to gain from this combo, but I'm less clear on how Blizzard benefits. Activision seems to publish as many flops as it does hits, while Blizzard follows a tried-and-true formula of releasing a handful of games that are as polished and fun to play as any in the entire industry. I'm not sure why Blizzard would want to tie its future to that of Activision's, but I'm sure they did the math and it must somehow work in their favor.

The site's blurb mentions that nothing is really changing within Blizzard itself, so I'm guessing the entire company's workforce is breathing a collective sigh of relief. I bet Activision's crew gets no such reassurances.

I Want You to Hit Me as Hard as You Can

Back in '99, when I saw the preview for Fight Club, I marveled at Brad Pitt uttering that line and vowed to see the movie. Wifezilla, who viewed the same preview I did, groaned and tried to get out of not going. But I dragged her anyway. Fight Club was on HBO this weekend so I had an opportunity to see if I still enjoyed it as much as I did eight years ago.

Fight Club does not disappoint. It's about as perfect as any movie I've seen. Great beginning, flawless middle, grand slam ending. The acting, top-notch. This was the first movie featuring Brad Pitt where he didn't annoy the hell out of me. I remember seeing Legends of the Fall and hoping throughout the movie he'd fall off his horse or have his flowing locks shaved off. But in Fight Club, he nailed the role of hedonistic Durden. I also happen to think that Ed Norton is overrated in most every movie he's been it, but he's the perfect counter to Pitt in this flick. It's a shame they haven't done a few more projects together.

What I like most about Fight Club is that it's a splinter movie: people either love it or hate it. And most people hate it. I like being in the minority that like it. The people that hate the movie usually shut it off well before the surprise twist. Their loss to be sure, but the twist isn't my favorite part. What I like most about Fight Club is what it has to say about men living in the world today. I relish the beginning of the movie where Tyler (the Ed Norton one) frequents self-help groups to fill the emptiness inside him. He's a pathetic shell of man, a consumer of IKEA products, a mindless zombie at work, a "tourist" to use his own vernacular against him. The testicular cancer group is the most damning testament of men in the movie, a circle of emotional, vulnerable men discussing their feelings, weeping uncontrollably as they hold each other closely. Wallowing in the detris of modern life and disconnected from his own masculinity, Tyler Durden suddenly just . . . snaps in the middle of all this, creates an alter-ego who operates outside of his emasculated slumber. The duality he imposes on himself abandons his self-loathing and ricochets the completely opposite direction, forming a club whose sole purpose is to punch and hit and kick fellow men until teeth fly and blood sprays. To what end? Maybe no end. Or maybe to feel alive. To awaken too.

Awaken what? I guess the barbarian all men have inside them from thousands of years of evolution. Or maybe just that urge to push back once a certain philosophical line has been crossed, the "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore" tact. It may seem that I admire the violence the movie presents. And maybe I do, at some basic instinctual level (to be clear, I haven't thrown a punch in anger since middle school). But I think it's too simple to theorize that men require violence to make their lives complete. The movie takes that stance to make a point, but I don't necessarily think it seriously advocates it. Instead, the movie is about fulfillment if it's about anything, carving out meaning within life.

This is what makes the movie so great. It spawns a necessary conversation about what it means to be a man nowadays. The movie doesn't necessarily put forth that men have to give in to a primal rage and beat each other weekly. Instead, to make a point, it exaggerates what happens when men bottle the rage fueled by the pressures of everyday life. Through the miserable Tyler Durden, Fight Club theorizes that the Information Age has blunted within men what once used to be sharp, that we sometimes resemble a shadow of men that came before us, that we walk around our daily lives asleep, adrift. There can be no better metaphor for this than the idea of Tyler waking up from his own stupor by punching himself in the face.

Is violence really the answer to the civilized man's plight of stress and pain?

I am Jack's psychoanalytical review of Fight Club.

Gamespot Chooses Cash Over Journalistic Integrity?

I've always wondered about GameSpot and that huge banner ad space they rent out to companies plying their latest gaming release. I wonder, how much does GameSpot get for the space and how do they juggle reviewing games that they also sell ad space to?

Well, it turns out they earn thousands of dollars for that space and that maybe they don't do a particularly good job of juggling the management of it. Friday's Penny Arcade reported that GameSpot fired Jeff Gerstmann, one of its editorial staff reviewers, for panning Kane & Lynch: Dead Men. Eidos published the game and allegedly threatened to pull thousands of dollars in ad revenue from GameSpot in retaliation for the review. Though there is no official response from GameSpot, numerous third party sources report that GameSpot insists Gertsmann wasn't fired for his most recent review, but instead for the overall tone of his reviews over the long haul.

Even if Gerstmann really did get fired for something unrelated to his Kane & Lynch review, the GameSpot management team are the stupidest people on the planet. If he really deserved firing, then wait a few weeks. Don't fire him in the midst of allegations that Eidos pulled their ad money for a bad review of their game. Even the monkey scratching his ass in the zoo would have enough foresight to head off that kind of public relations disaster.

Now, that's IF he deserved to get fired for something unrelated to the review. It seems all too likely that GameSpot really did cut Gertsmann loose in a last ditch effort to appease Eidos and grub their ad money.

Bad move. If I perceive that GameSpot is nothing more than a corporate mouthpiece, then I'll take it about as seriously as I do that lame light blue section in the back of Game for Windows, the one written and produced by Microsoft hacks. Short term, I can see GameSpots motivation: the bottom line. But long term, this could bite them in the ass. Game publishers want to advertise on sites like GameSpot because gamers read them. But if gamers can't trust GameSpot content to be independent of its corporate sponsors, then they won't read. At least I won't. And then game publishers won't want to advertise. Rather than firing Gerstmann, GameSpot should have let Eidos walk. Instead, they whored themselves and jettisoned their editorial integrity when they escorted Gerstmann out the door. Good luck getting that back any time soon.

It's a long shot, but GameSpot could salvage something from this mess by bringing Jeff back and telling Eido to piss off. By all accounts, the review Jeff gave the game was largely in line with other reviews of the game, if not a bit harsh. You can read his original review here on YouTube (GameSpot pulled it from their site as part of their effort to shill).

Cookin'

I don't cook. I don't even like reheating. I'll make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or some mac 'n cheese out of a box if I'm desperately hungry or my monsters are chirping, but I refuse to authentically cook with, like, ingredients and stuff.

Emanee, on the other hand, is a master chef. WoW's patch 2.3 introduced some new daily quest opportunities, including a cooking quest that changes daily. I picked mana berries the other day and had to travel to Blades Edge and whip up a dish over the steaming corpse of an Abyssal I had just smote. The day after that, I flew to Nagrand, hunted some Clefthoofs and then whipped up a little dish over an open fire in the Ancestral Grounds. You get almost eight gold for the effort, plus your choice of crates full of either fish or animal meat. The past two crates have also contained recipes I didn't have, including a blue one for chocolate cake and another blue from some "shocking" steak. Hmmmm . . . cake and steak.

I like the direction Blizzard is going with this. As I mentioned in a previous post, the daily quests before 2.3 bring a whole new meaning to the term "grind," especially the Netherwing ones. Obtaining my drake nearly burnt me right out of the game. But where the Netherwing dailies are frantic and competitive, the cooking ones have been relaxed, dang near serene. I'm not sure if everyone gets different cooking quests each day, but I was the only toon picking mana berries in Netherstorm. If that had been a Netherwing quest, I would have had to elbow five other schmucks for just one node of mana-flavored spherical fruit. I did notice on the day I hunted Clefthoof's that the critters were conspicuously thinned out. But with just a bit of flying I was able to track some down easily enough.

So I hope Blizzard continues marginalizing the grind in its daily and reputation quests.

Unimaginable

Sometimes I worry about how I'm raising my two kids. And sometimes I worry about how others are raising theirs.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/11/28/child.remains.ap/index.html

Soothing the Savage Beast

I gets the road rage.

Last year, my commute consistently took thirty minutes. Fast forward a year later, and it's suddenly rocketed up to forty-five minutes, sometimes up to an hour if people are driving especially stupid. In the course of driving to work each morning and afternoon, I am cut off, flipped off, and run off the road on a daily basis. Occasionally, I enter my zen state and smile benignly at these offenders. Rarely though. More often than not, I trade arm gestures and familial epithets and generously mix in some colorful adjectives that would likely make an Iraqi veteran blush, if not grab paper and pencil to take notes.

Lately though, I've been able to counteract the consequences of my fellow Americans' driving inadequacies with music. For some strange reason, blasting The Outsider by A Perfect Circle assuages all driving slights against me. It's a true zen state, not just me staring blankly at the tail end of a car that just magically appeared in front of me via a sharp tug of the steering wheel and total lack of concern for anyone's vehicular chassis integrity.

It's not that it's just a good, loud, throbbing song; I've got plenty of those in my music library and they don't seem to stop me from shutting the stereo off so I can better berate my neighboring driver and remind him how promiscuous his mother is. I think it just happens to be that rare song that, even though it blasts loudly, somehow calms me.

Even though I can't adequately explain it's affect on me, I'm going with it. I keep Thirteenth Step handy with me at all times and the second I hear a blaring horn, even one not directed at me, I pop it in and tap to track seven.

God help me if my commute gets longer still.

Texa Renaissance Festival Pics

As promised earlier, here are some pics of the family at the Festival:

The Centaur:

Hallie and I standing with the leaf armor dude.

Claire with her Unckie

Hallie getting her face painted:

The Tooth Fairy Cometh . . . Or Not

Hallie lost another tooth the other day. It's a front one so she looks extra cute when she smiles. I just love those toothless grins.

Hallie is six and still firmly believes in Santa, the Easter Bunny, that George Lucas can direct, and of course, the Tooth Fairy. So the night her tooth fell out, she promptly and carefully placed it under her pillow, giddy with anticipation for the inevitable visit from the Tooth Fairy.

Keep in mind that I tucked Hallie in and witnessed the placement of the tooth.

The morning dawns and I go to work early, before the rest of the family awakens. Wifezilla wakes up and Hallie soon saunters up to her, groggy but reasonably awake. She says to Wife, "The Tooth Fairy didn't come last night."

Yup. Wifezilla and I completely forgot to put some cold hard cash under Hallie's pillow.

Wifezilla, completely stunned, stuttered a couple of "uhs," but before she could produce a lame explanation for why the Tooth Fairy neglected her life's work, Hallie said, "Yeah, I think there's two reasons why the Tooth Fairy didn't come last night. My tooth was a little yellow and was on the yellow part of a flower on my sheets, so I don't think the Tooth Fairy could see it very well. Or, I took too long to fall asleep and the Tooth Fairy couldn't keep waiting for me. I'm going to try falling asleep faster tomorrow night."

Thank god for floral-patterned sheets and active imaginations.

Huzzah!

Black Friday means the day that retailers finally start turning a profit for their fiscal year. It's the day that hordes of Americans take to the stores at four in the morning for a day-long shopping spree meant to kick-off their Christmas shopping season. It's also the day that I hunker down at home and refuse to get within a four block radius of any store (no matter how obscure or ignored) in an admirable attempt to avoid said hordes of Americans.

That's why we went to the Texas Renaissance Festival instead. The weather was perfect that day: overcast, with temps hovering around 60 degrees. It had been about fifteen years since I last visited a Renaissance Festival, one in Minnesota. I remember it being pretty cool, expensive, and a bit circus-freaky. The Texas Renaissance Festival seemed just as expensive, but less carnivally. I was simply amazed at the size of the place. The entire venue is a massive circle. The different stores, restaurants, and stages form the perimeter. It's carved up into different sections according to ethnic food type. So there's a Polish, English, French, German, Italian, and Greek sections.

There's also a jousting field. We attended a show which was more theatrics than authentic jousting. Lances would sometimes explode spectacularly even though the knights themselves typically fell off their horses seconds after actually being hit. Medieval Times in Dallas proved a more visceral jousting experience. Those guys choreographed their moves to the point that blows and falls looked real. Still, the Renaissance Festival captured the spirit of the ancient contest so I guess that's what counts.

But the costumes stole the show that day. A handful of people came to the Festival dressed in authentic armor and costumes, some so intricate and detailed, they positively reeked atmosphere. One confident fellow strode the grounds as a centaur: the front part of his suit included leggings resembling that of a hoofed critter. A back set of hooves wheeled behind him. He wore no shirt, even though the daytime temperature never hit past 60 degrees; I guess that hairy chest of his kept him warm. The poor guy never got to walk farther than ten feet before someone asked him to stop for a picture. He always obliged.

Another participant dressed in red/maroon leather, most of which was sculpted to look like leaves. Two antlers topped his helmet and he carried a staff to finish the look. I actually got my picture taken with this guy. My sister-in-law took it so as soon as she sends me the picture, I'll post it here.

We arrived at the Festival around noon and stayed nearly to closing. To be honest, I didn't want to leave. As the afternoon waned, we sat down at a tiny pub and gulped down hot chocolate and mead, relaxing and watching the costumed wander past us. Not long after, as the girls were taking potty breaks in preparation for the long trip home, I wandered over to a troupe performing Scottish music, Tartanic. I'm part Scottish myself, so I dig the whole kilt scene. And bagpipes coupled with some rhythmic drumming, now that's some tunes for ya! It's nails down a chalk board for some, but for me it's time to do a jig.

Now that we know how entertaining it is, I declared the Festival an annual event for the family. I'm even thinking of tracking down my clan's kilt so I can stride the grounds proudly, dangerously. Perhaps confront and strike down rival clan members who dare to aspire to the greatness of the Thomson name. Aye laddy!

Patch 0.6 for HG: L Set for Release Later This Week

It patches a number of things, but mainly squashes the disappearing party member bug. You can read the notes here.

The notes hint that patch 0.7 is just down the road and includes subscriber content. It's worth noting that the Guy Fawkes event ended nearly two weeks ago and that subscribers have essentially been playing the same game that non-subscribers play. I don't know if this is the big December patch everyone is talking about or something to whet the appetite before it.

We shall see.

HG: L: The Quest for Framerate

Well, I've quite given up on DX10. I get 40+fps in some areas, less than 10 in others. DX9 doesn't look as good, but with almost max settings, I get a constant 30+fps no matter what zone I'm in. I'll check in with DX10 periodically, especially after patches, but until its framerate rivals that of DX9, I'll be gaming with the latter.

I am most curious to see the upcoming December patch for the game. If you heeded the HG: L's forum boards, you'd think the second apocolypse was nigh. Yes, FFS bumbled the release of the game just about as badly as a company can. But I'm still withholding judgement for the big content push in December. My gut feeling is they have something up their sleeves. If they don't, the game might be done before it hardly started.

Jade Raymond Is Hot and We Can't Handle It

I've mentioned Assassin's Creed in past blogs, but I was surprised to get wind of a brewing controversy with the game's producer, Jade Raymond. This past week, someone made a sexually charged webcomic that depicted Raymond "servicing" male gamers. I won't link the comic, but I have seen it and can attest that it's neither witty nor insightful nor funny. I have, on the other hand, seen Raymond interviewed regarding Assassin's Creed and she seemed like any other game producer I've seen: knowledgeable, passionate, professional.

I don't know anything about Raymond beyond what I've seen in two or three interviews. But I guess others do because rumors swirl that she is unqualified to produce games and that she only got her job because she's attractive. Jane at GameGirlAdvance does a good job defending Raymond even if she unfairly directs a heap of blame on Ubisoft who, ". . . unfairly pushed her image as part of the marketing of Assassin's Creed."

I think the comic as slanderous as anyone, but I haven't seen any evidence that Ubisoft used Raymond as a spokes-model for their game. Does anyone really think Ubisoft out-of-line for asking the game's producer to conduct interviews and promote the game to the media and the gaming community at-large? It's not Ubisoft's fault that the main demographic for their product are young males, many of whom have little to no chance of getting laid anytime within the next calendar year. As for her being unqualified, I say let the game's release pronounce judgement on that. Plenty of games have failed and I doubt many of their producers were accused of getting their job for good looks and sexual favors after the dust settled.

Raymond didn't do anything that Bill Roper or Chris Taylor did for their respective games except be pretty while explaining the mechanics of a video game assassin combing the streets of a medieval town. Apparently the gaming community can't handle this, as witnessed by a distasteful comic and a community of forum trollers obsessed with the idea of courting a woman who might also make their most favorite game EVER. The comic reflects badly on Raymond because it disparages her unfairly. But it reflects on the gaming community even worse because it implies that we can't cope with the idea of an attractive woman being competent enough to make games.

For the record, I watched G4's review of Assassin's Creed this past weekend. They gave the game five out of five, praising the game for its novel setting, elegant control scheme, and immersive gameplay.

Happy Turkey Break!

Have a safe and enjoyable Thanksgiving.

Eagle Ears

So I'm multi-tasking the other day, shuttling the girls from point A to point B and talking to my parents on the phone. I don't call them as much as I should mainly because I only ever think of it when I'm in the truck. Anyway, I'm talking to Pops and somehow we get on the topic of global warming. I tell him that I had recently saw a news blurb with a scientist discussing how the polar ice caps reflect a tremendous amount of sunlight from earth and that if they should melt, sunlight will be absorbed rather than reflected and global warming will accelerate even more. Pops dismisses this kind of theorizing; he thinks the phenomenon is a natural cycle, but I go ahead and try to convince him that it's likely we're the culprits. The girls and I pull up to the driveway and I say goodbye to Pops so I can take my two monsters into the house. I jump out of the truck and open the back door to fetch Claire when Hallie looks at me pointedly and asks, "Is Earth in trouble?"

Oh crap.

"No, no. Earth is fine."

"But you just told Papa that water is going to rise and flood cities. And that it's going to get hotter."

Crap, crap, crap.

"Oh, never mind that. I was talking about something else. Earth is fine. Okay, out you go."

But from the look she gave me, I could tell I had dodged nothing. She didn't say anymore and skipped happily inside the house, but I forget too often that she is getting older and smarter and that she's more than capable of understanding and processing the content of discussions she overhears. What bothers me in this particular instance is the global warming issue concerns her generation even more than mine and definitely more than her Nana and Papa's. I'm torn between wanting to honestly share with her the future she will inherit and protecting her from things she can't do anything about. At least right now. As you can see, I went the protection route; I just don't see any use burdening her with something as large scale as climate change.

I think I'm going to take a page out from Old School and Vince Vaughn and have Hallie start applying ear muffs when I'm talking of things so serious.

The Slippery, Sliding Slope to Hell

Patch .5 for Hellgate: London is due out in the next couple of days. It's mainly a clean-up patch, fixing bugs and whatnot, but it also includes a controversial change to the number of available character slots: twenty-four for everyone now, including non-subscribers. FFS also added Nighmare mode for non-subscribers as well.

This has the subscriber community in an uproar. They quite rightly call foul for having paid for features that are now free to non-subscribers. I don't think this bodes well for FFS. It's a slippery slope they slide by shifting paid content to free play. Granted, I think it's the right thing to do, but it should have come out-of-the-box like that, not two weeks into the game's release. My gut instinct tells me that FFS doesn't really have substantial content waiting in the wings, at least nothing that justifies $10 a month, and that a tsunami of subscribers are going to bail. And now with this latest change in player slots and Nightmare mode, I see that flight solidifying even more.

Despite HG: L's controversial release, I can testify that the game has been running better lately. I've slowly been adding video options, like enhanced weather, dynamic lighting, and triple-buffering and I still average around 25 fps. Certain zones witness my fps plunge down to the low teens; these areas have a lot of fire strewn throughout the level and I think that causes the slowdown. But other areas, especially the enclosed bunker zones, see my fps top 40. I foresee future patches and driver updates improving that considerably. My goal is to be able to run the game on the highest texture setting.

I know many people are unhappy with the game and even unhappier with FFS. I understand their frustration and don't fault them for their criticism of the game's current state even if some of their forum posts indulge in hyperbole. But personally, I'm enjoying the game. It's not an MMO, no matter what others or FFS state, but an action RPG that allows the gamer to burn twenty minutes or twenty hours at a time, depending on their individual schedule. If more people approached it with that mindset and stopped expecting it to have the same gameplay and gargantuan content as WoW, I think more gamers would begin enjoying the game as well.

1-60 In Less Than a Mouse Click

Before I had even read the 2.3 patch notes, I intended to write a blog about easing the leveling requirements for new WoW toons. I'm not going to claim I was prescient, only that after reading some of the ideas being thrown around for Wrath of the Lich King, I thought why not apply that to the early leveling portion of the game?

Not long after the announcement of the Wrath of the Lich King, I read an article in Games for Windows highlighting the proposed features. The article included an interview with the Blizzard developers about the Death Knight, the new character class included in the expansion. The dudes at Blizzard first toyed with the idea of having players turn their level 80 characters into the new class. So, you have your mage or priest or warrior become a Death Knight, through quest chains and dungeon runs I imagine. But then they thought better of that, realizing that perhaps people wouldn't want to part so drastically from the characters. Instead, the developers mention that players will unlock the Death Knight class through a quest chain similar in difficulty to that of the warlock mount quest line. After unlocking the new class, players won't start with a level one Death Knight, but with one around level sixty.

Good stuff, that.

Which got me thinking, with so much of the game's focus on the Burning Crusade content, why not apply the Death Knight class concept to the original part of the game? Perhaps allow players to unlock character slots that would allow them to create a new toon at level 30? 40? Hell, why not level 58 so you can jump immediately into the BC stuff? Or if that seems to drastically generous, then why not allow players to level faster in Azeroth? Maybe have quest rewards be worth more experience or lessen the amount of experience a toon needs to level? Or perhaps both?

Well, before I could actually write that blog, Blizzard was already implementing some of those very changes, and with Patch 2.3 out last Tuesday, players can now level lowbie toons faster than ever before. Here's what the 2.3 patch notes say:

Now leveling from character levels 20-60 is faster, with less experience needed per level in that range as well as higher quest experience rewards for quests levels 30-60.

I've got a 27 pally I've been neglecting these past few months, mostly because I had no interest in the grind it would take to get him to 60. I dusted him off this past week though, after the release of 2.3, and sure enough, that xp bar is climbing faster than it ever has before; after killing a mob, I can actually see the bar inch forward. I think I actually have a shot of getting him to sixty now, especially if I keep him rested.

So I'm looking to level my third 70 toon, only because Blizzard excels at examining and reexamining its game and adjusting it accordingly. It's game design like this that continues to make WoW the premier MMO on the market today.

Could Be He's Twiddling His Thumbs

Wifezilla reminded me that the creator of 24 might have a lot of time on his hands right now with the writer's strike bringing the series to a grinding halt. Still, his time would be best spent finding a way to reinvent Jack Bauer. And hashing out a somewhat plausible plot line. I'm not asking for ultra-realism here, just something that doesn't have me spitting out chunks of popcorn while screaming at the TV.

I'll Tell You What's "Nuts"

. . . is anybody related to the show 24 distracted by anything other than improving that steaming pile. Joel Surnow, the creator and executive producer of the Fox series, recently said of one presidential contender, "Are we nuts thinking Hillary Clinton could be president of this country?"

Apparently he's not a fan. And I'm not a fan of last season's 24. It stunk like raw sewage. And that's not even accounting for the off-air antics of the main star; Keifer has graduated from attacking helpless Christmas trees while fully loaded to all-out DUI. Mr. Surnow needs to stop waxing philosophical on the American political race and focus on getting his show back on track.

One more stinky season, and I'm watching something else. For the love of God don't force me to watch Desperate Housewives.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

This game barely registered with me that it came out last Tuesday, but my brother called me up and told me he's really digging it on his 360. X-Play devoted an entire episode to Call of Duty 4 and ended up handing it five out of five stars. So I downloaded the demo this past weekend and was blown away out how great it looked and at how fun it was to play. I haven't played any of the Call of Duty series mostly because I dismissed them as Medal of Honor clones. But I know the series has received critical acclaim and Call of Duty 4 is subtitled Modern Warfare, a smart move on Infinity Ward's part to move outside the crowded WWII shooter genre.

I may ask Santa for this. That fat bastard better come through or I'm liable to shank some of his elves.

Homeowner 1, Geyser 0

Well, after an hour-and-a-half of digging four different holes in my yard, my neighbor and I tracked down the leak in my main line. Once again, it was a joint coupling that cracked. This is the second crack I've had at a connecting juncture, the first was a L coupling close to where the main line meets the house.

The pressurized spray leaked a surprisingly high volume of water. The break itself was hard to pinpoint given that the water seepage run all the way along my main line, from one end of the yard to the other. As a result, we stomped around until we sunk into a particularly squishy section of yard and dug till we found the main line and the tell-tell sign, bubbling water. It was almost blind luck that we found it at all. But the fourth hole yielded pay dirt and cutting and refitting a new section of pipe took maybe ten minutes.

I'm averaging a break in my line every four years, so I pray my neighbor doesn't move away.

Yellowstone National Lawn

Wifezilla and I bought our house back in '99. It was our first house and we were naturally excited. Up until then, we had been apartment dwellers. When something went wrong, you called the building and they fixed it. I had no fixer-upper skills and no reason to develop any. Something goes wrong with your house, and you call yourself and you fix it. Or some smelly, toothless dude billing you $30 an hour.

So I found myself waaaay over my head when I found the house's sprinkler system riddled with leaks. They didn't appear at first, only after a couple hours of watering. And then one day I aerated the yard and punched a whole right into one of the pipes. Water shot out a spectacular two feet into the air and then bubbled like a pretty fountain. We had our very own Old Faithful.

I actually rolled up my sleeves and fixed the leaks. It was a horrible experience. First, you have to dig the hole. Not just down to the pipe, but under it as well. After you shut the main water line down, you have to cut the section of the pipe with the leak, about an inch to an inch-and-a-half. Then you run to Home Depot and buy a coupling, a two-inch piece of pvc pipe that will fit pipe on either end. You also pick up some pvc glue. This stuff, when applied to pvc, fuses piping together rather than just sticking so it's more like acid than glue. You glop some of that glue inside both ends of the coupling, you pop the coupling into the missing cut section, you let it dry for a good long while, and then you turn the water on and pray to Jesus that water doesn't come shooting out.

Actually, my first attempt witnessed a fine mist spraying out one side of the coupling; I had to re-cut and do the whole thing over. My second attempt stuck though. I was one tired but proud fixer-upper.

That was probably eight years ago and I haven't had any plumbing problems since. Till yesterday. Backing out of my driveway to pick Hallie up from Girl Scouts, I noticed one section of my sidewalk wet. It hasn't rained in days and I haven't watered in months. It's dark by the time we get back but I grab a flashlight and investigate. Sure enough, a tiny section of grass is swampy with too much water. I check my curb-side water meter and it's spinning slowly despite the fact that no water is running inside our outside the house.

My next door neighbor drives up at this time and guesses what I'm doing. This guy is in the middle of remodeling his house. And I mean HE is remodeling his house, turning the attic into livable space himself. This guy can't park his truck in his garage because it's full of power tools and gadgets, many of which I can only guess their purpose. Every weekend he's sawing, measuring, nailing, or gluing something. In other words, he's my complete antithesis. David chuckled at my dilemma and then kindly offered to help me fix it this afternoon. He's even got all the supplies! With a little luck, we can have it fixed by dinner time.

Layer Cake

This movie stars Daniel Craig, my complete look-alike except I'm a little more ripped and toned than he is, as a drug trafficker who quickly finds himself over his head when a deal goes bad. I really enjoyed the movie. However, I wish the actors would have enunciated their lines more instead of mumbling through the entire movie. I must have asked Wifezilla ten times, "What'd he just say?" It was like listening to a Eddie Vedder song, only movie dialogue.

I think this is the movie Craig did right before James Bond. I can see how Layer Cake might have landed him that coveted role. There's a scene where he contemplates having to pack heat. At first, he fans the gun around like a toddler, but then grabs it with two hands, barrel pointed at the ceiling. Classic James Bond pose. He also dresses smartly and woos the honies so I can easily see how the producers of the Bond franchise may have seen this movie and gotten the idea to cast him to replace Brosnan.

After the movie was over, Wifezilla asked me to get her a Daniel Craig wall-calendar for Christmas. Which means she's getting a lump of coal instead.

Strike a Pose

Here's a shot of my Blademistress as of yesterday.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y34/jedijames/Screen1.jpg

His main hand has "Hive" in the title, indicative of the green bugs buzzing around it. He picked up a nice chest piece which looks like a turtles shell. His gloves emit flame, a unique subscriber-only glove piece as part of the game's current event.

Here's a shot of Kammris a few days ago, still donning his Ghost Rider headpiece. You can see his zombie pal to his left.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y34/jedijames/Screen2.jpg

Gamespot Reviews Hellgate: London

Gamespot reviewed Hellgate: London last Friday and I found it to be a dead-on summary of the game as it exists right now.

Basically, Flagship has three issues it needs to address at the moment:

1. Stability

2. Tilesets

3. Subscriber hook

Ever since I fine-tuned my video options, the game has only crashed on me once. Clearly, HG: L is a system resource hog and either hardware needs to catch up to it or the game needs to be more efficient. But the forum boards are full of people complaining about game-stopping crashes and video lag. FFS has to fix this fast as the patience level of today's gamer mirrors that of my three year old daughter and many won't wait around for weeks for these kinds of issues to be fixed. I'm averaging around 25 fps in DX10, but I've got most of the options turned off. So improving the graphic performance of the game should be a top priority for the development team.

The game environments are too repetitive. Perhaps FFS has horded tilesets and intends to steadily stream them out for their subscribers. But many players, myself included, perceive that the game is shorter than it really is because there are basically four environments you play in throughout all the acts. I'd like to see more unique levels, like the Mind of 314 or the Museum to help break up the ubiquitous town, subway tunnel and bunker levels that otherwise make up the rest of the game. I know the game has "London" in the title, but when you're battling demon spawn from hell gates, the sky's the limit for imaginative levels. In other words, it's fine the game starts in London, but there's no reason to be anchored there the whole time.

Finally, FFS has got to make subscribing a worthwhile venture. Right now, subscribers get an extra player slot, a bigger bank, and the ability to play in hardcore and nightmare mode. Many critics are quick to point out that those are features that easily could have been included as part of the base game. So unless FFS starts streaming actual content, I see people not subscribing at the very least, perhaps leaving the game entirely. HG: L doesn't even come close to offering the amount of content games like WoW or EQ2 do, so they are going to be under extreme pressure to rationalize their current pricing scheme. I sure hope they've got some good stuff waiting in the wings.

And I'd like to see them add a shared bank or mail option into the game. My Blademistress finds tons of loot he can't use, but since there's no auction house or method for sharing with alts, I end up stripping most of it down for parts.

If they can address these three things, I think the game has a chance of being successful. FFS has pissed a lot of people off though and if the company lingers in fixing the bugs and doesn't stream some worthwhile content, HG: L could find itself on the scrap pile of highly-anticipated-games-gone-bad.

A Special Weekend Edition of Furion Cognition

I want to wish my beloved Wifezilla a happy birthday today. She has to work most of the day, but we're taking her out on the town tonight to afford her a much needed respite from the cooking grind.

So happy birthday Wife!

November Guild Names of the Month

Pit of Infamy

--The McRib Is Back-- WoW, Silvermoon

Thanks for letting me know! I'm dropping everything and driving to McDonalds right now.

Beacon of Reasoned Judgement

--Requiem-- WoW, Silvermoon

This is a WoW guild on the Silvermoon server, devoted almost exclusively to raiding. A requiem refers to a song or hymn honoring the dead. Given the number of times a raider dies during a single raid session, this name is oddly appropriate, but only if the guild membership actually does break out into song every time a member falls. If they're not chanting and ringing a death knell each time a member passes, then they should immediately disband and pick a different name.

I recommend --Stonard Temple Pirates--, a Beacon of Reasoned Judgement Hall of Fame Recipient.

Crashgate: Houston

Mkay, so the title isn't exactly fair. I beta tested Hellgate: London for about three weeks before the October 31st release date and amazingly enough, the retail version of the game is less stable than the beta I played. I'm just a tad disappointed that the game is plagued with game-stopping crashes and video lag that can sometimes last longer than two minutes. I'm seriously not exaggerating the latter. When visiting stations, the game's video freezes without warning while my hard drive thunders for atmospheric blast-off. I've experienced this hard drive activity with other new releases and this kind of stuff almost always gets cleaned up a few weeks or, god forbid, months later.

It seems odd to me that the beta proved more playable than retail. The beta version had a ton of video glitches and stutters, but almost never crashed. At first install, the retail version crashed more than Keifer Sutherland's car and hung like a monkey from a tree. And I'm talking about the DirectX 9 version; I tried DX10, and while I could get a playable 22 fps in the beta, I couldn't get above 13 fps retail. And that's IF I could keep the game from committing binary suicide.

Playing around with the settings, I think I narrowed down the source of the video lag. The game has numerous video options I have turned off, mostly because I can't perceive a visual difference when they're on and they grant a nice fps boost when they're shunned. But two of the options, model detail and textures have both a noticeable visual and performance impact.

I have to keep model detail on high; knocking it down to medium turns the surrounding landscape drab and boring. Now that I've seen the game on high, I simply can't play it at a lower setting. But the textures have a lesser visual impact. And the performance boost they give more than compensates for the loss in eye-candy. On its highest setting, very high, I take a performance hit and I get that annoying, game stopping video stutter and lag. I'm guessing the textures take memory and all that hard drive grinding is my virtual memory trying to compensate for the inadequecies of my video card. Or for unoptimized video drivers, game code, or both (I hope it's the latter because I just bought this card and I don't think I have the scratch to get a new one). Taking textures down just one notch to high removed the hard drive grinding and video lag, gave a slight boost to fps, and only involved a slight degradation in appearance. Well worth the trade-off.

As for game-play, the game is fun as all hell. Many have compared the game-play to that of the Diablo series and there is some merit in that. But the camera angle is different in HG: L and that makes a big difference in terms of how the game plays and feels. In Diablo, the third-person isometric perspective meant you clicked where you wanted to go and clicked on mobs you wanted to kill. HG: L plays more like WoW or a shooter in that you move with your arrow keys and point to shoot or swing. The game is most like Diablo in that you're killing tons of mobs, collecting lots of loot, and constantly analysing and swapping out equipment to best optimize your killing efficiency. The game has that play-for-just-one-more-minute hook to it and I've found myself plunging into one more instance well past the time I should stop.

Subscribers currently enjoy some holiday loot that ranges from bad-ass to funny. A rare drop is a unique helm that once donned gives your toon's head a fiery Ghost Rider skull. The stats aren't all that great, but I run around wearing it anyway because it's just too much fun. I also assembled my very own zombie pet. It took me a couple of days to get twenty-four zombie blood (the two hearts and two organs were much easier to get), but once I did, I stitched together a cute little undead buddy. Whether you're idle or knee-deep in demon guts, the zombie pet frequently breaks out into dance, complete with some Michael Jackson type music reminiscent of Thriller. I was like "wtf" the first time he did it and it took me a few more dance numbers to realize the source. Like many of the pets in WoW that aren't hunter or 'lock led, this guy is purely cosmetic. He doesn't fight or buff, just busts a move.

So I do recommend the game, though most people would be well-served to wait on picking it up until Flagship Studios squashes the technical problems. I've read a lot of HG: L forum posts bitching about the payment system for the game. All I can say is, deal with it. $10 a month is a movie ticket, a small pizza, a beer at the ball game, parking for an event, etc. They're going to constantly stream new content and they want people to pay for it. Balking at the price? Then don't pay it! Show FFS your displeasure by speaking volumes with your wallet. But whining and bitching on the boards isn't going to make FFS suddenly make the entire game free to play. We can all moan and groan at these economic models, but the reality is many developers look with envy at the cash cow that is WoW and want a piece of that. I have no idea if HG: L's content is going to be worth $10 a month, but I do see what is motivating them to implement this payment model.

Spider-Man Trois

I didn't get the chance to see this movie in the theaters like I wanted; when you have little ones, your theater attendance plummets to unacceptable depths. But I did hear rumblings that the movie was kinda . . . bad. I didn't see how they could screw up a movie that told the tale of the black costume and the birth of Venom, but after watching it, I bore witness to them indeed mangling this awesome storyline.

Truthfully, the first half of the movie was great. It looked and felt like the first two. I wasn't really buying the Sandman's excuse for a life-of-crime, but I went with it and started to wonder if people had misjudged the movie.

But then Petey wore the black costume under street clothes, let his hair hang into his eyes, and started gyrating strangely on street corners and in jazz clubs. The movie slid into bitter oblivion from that point on.

In hindsight, the movie did try to tackle more content than it should have. Many people have pointed this out and it's absolutely true. They should have either gone with a Sandman story line, or the symbiont story line, but not both. And probably dropped the whole Harry thing entirely. The real problem with the last half of the movie is that Petey's slide into aggression and hedonism is too sudden. As is his emergence from it. If the writers had taken out the Sandman plot line and added more depth to Spidey's struggle with the black costume, the movie would have created a more effective tie-in to Eddie Brock inheriting the symbiont.

Speaking of which, they really messed up the mechanics of the alien. The cute little guy only solidifies into costume form while bonded to a host. Alone, it stays oozing and tarry. Yet Pete kept the black costume folded in a trunk? It didn't make sense that it would stay in that form, especially since its biological urge is to find and corrupt a host. In addition, the movie didn't adequately explain the power surge the costume gave Spidey. When he wears it for the first time, he says something like, "This feels GREAT!" He then proceeds to jump around and web-sling like he always does; the movie never gives a good example of the increased power the costume grants (which is one of the lures that makes it hard for Petey to eventually part ways with it).

And to be clear, combing Toby's hair down and painting black eye-liner on him does not make him a bad-ass. Neither does having him get down and funky in the middle of the street. I think the movie made the mistake of trying to be humorous while depicting the costume corrupting Peter. It was a mixed message that failed completely. And how many times did Toby cry in that movie, like tears-streaming-down-the-face crying? I counted at least three, which is three too many. It's fine that Peter Parker is a sensitive guy. But in the comic, he never blubbered. Yeah, he got down in the dumps and depressed, but he always compensated with humor, not sobbing. Spidey's fast-talking, wise-cracking clobbering of bad guys is his trademark and unfortunately the series underutilizes it in favor of tears and moping.

Topher was miscast as Venom. In the comic, Brock has a brooding hatred for Petey, which is why the symbiont bonds to him differently than Peter. Venom's evil visage and wide-open mouth of razor-sharp teeth most obviously reflects the raw emotion he feels for Spidey. But the Topher Brock isn't brooding, only mildly devious. I didn't get brooding or undying hatred from Bropher, only likable, funny, easy-going, and handsome. Just like his character in That 70s Show. The movie didn't allow enough time for us to see the natural progression of hatred Brock develops for Spidey, but even if it had, I doubt that Bropher would have been able to depict it.

This is a great series, and with the success of the first two, it can likely continue to flourish despite a bad third movie. But clearly this is a wake-up call to the movie producers to do better next time. I could give them the benefit of the doubt and chalk the whole thing up to a third movie curse, since the third installment of the X-Men series also blew chunks. But if the fourth movie is as bad as the third, the Spider-Man movie series could find itself in the dubious company of the Fantastic Four movie franchise. And that would be a real shame.