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.

That Which Was Lost Has Now Been Found

Those missing pair of shoes that Claire lost last weekend? Wifezilla found them in Hallie's laundry basket. Why that little monster put them there I have no idea. When we asked her if she remembered putting them in the laundry basket, she just smiled at us and broke out laughing.

I feel so used and duped.

Wifezilla, however, was ecstatic. She was just on the verge of breaking down and buying a new pair when she stumbled upon them. It's sad that the solution to such a domestic misadventure brings her such joy.

WebkinzZzZzZz

I'm on my computer the other day, writing up some ideas for this blog, when Hallie walks in and says to no one in particular, "I need to do my dailies now."

I practically burst with pride. Wifezilla isn't quite as enthused.

Yup, my cute little six year-old daughter is doing dailies. Not WoW, mind you. No, her virtual time pit is Webkinz.

For the uninitiated (those of you without six year olds), a Webkin is an adorable stuffed animal you buy at a store. Its collar holds a secret code that you enter on the Webkinz website. Once you register, you pick a name and gender for your pet, and then you're off to the races. The digital pet looks approximately like the stuffed one and the site gives you a room to walk your pet around. You also play games to earn Webkinz dollars.

That's where the dailies come in.

Some of the games you can play over and over again. But they yield just a couple of dollars at a time. The real lewt is with the dailies. These aren't games so much as lotteries. Hallie's favorite is the Wishing Well where she hits a button and tries to get three different combinations of symbols to line up; it's disturbingly similar to a slot machine. She gets to hit the button five times. But then she has to wait the following day to play again. Where a normal game usually yields no more than five Webkinz dollars at time, Hallie scores more than fifty dollars when she does her dailies.

She spent her first Webkinz dollars wisely: she bought a blue and white two-piece swimming suit and a jewel encrusted throne for her dog named, appropriately enough, Puppy. Next purchase: some shades to go with that smart swim suit.

I tried to get her to buy the thong, but she'd have none of that.

Night of the Living Snotbags

Last night, I unleashed Hallie and Claire unto my unsuspecting neighbors. Their insatiable appetite for candy was as horrific as it was inhuman. The two mermaid spawn smote the ruin of many a empty candy bowl unto the suburban concrete and left in their wake a wash of trick-or-treaters with empty bags.


Behold raw, unbridled terror!