by Matt | Jun 23, 2008 | Aggravation
I know most of you know about the “pour shot” saga by now. This kid took one of my photos, edited it, claimed it was his until I called him on it and got DeviantArt involved, it got pulled down, he begged an pleaded with me not to sue him, I was nice and let it slide and ever since it’s run wild around the internet and I can’t seem to stop it.
The image is of course this:
Which is an inverted and recolorized version of my photo here:
The only reason I mention this is because it just showed up again under “92 Must See Photographs” over at “Just Creative“, which is a feed I happen to read from time to time. Saying I was shocked is a little of an understatement. Then again, it’s been on Worth1000 as well, which is kind of an honor in an of itself. In this case, not even the ripoff was properly credited, so I don’t even know where this tiny version came from. It’s been included in wallpaper packs, posted in forums, all over the damn place. I’ve gotten past the “people are stealing my stuff” because professionally I’ve grown past it and I’ve done a lot better work since I took that shot, but it still kinda irks me to see it float around in this fashion. What’s worse is that this isn’t even the “real shot”. This was one of my test shots before I took what I considered to be the final version. For reference sake, I put that photo up on Flickr. I had to dig through hundreds of old backup disks to find the originals to resize and post, but this incident spurred me on. So, it’s up on Flickr in a reduced size, and you can see that here:
Some days I don’t understand the internet. Then again, maybe it’s just Monday.
by Matt | Jun 19, 2008 | Personal
So, we’re developing a new web site at work, and I needed some dummy text as a place holder for a section called “Who’s Having fun?” Rather than use regular old Lorum Ipsum, I decided to actually write a paragraph or two, just for my own enjoyment, lol.
We’re all having fun. Pie is fun. I like to eat pie. Apple pie, Blueberry pie, Strawberry Rubarb pie, Key Lime pie. Oh, Key Lime is good pie. Have I ever told you about the time I made a Key Lime pie and it caught the cat on fire. Well, not directly, but the oven sure did. That’s ridiculous, pie setting cats on fire, who would think such a thing. Crazy people, that’s who. And we’re certainly not crazy. Nope nope. We don’t even talk to ourselves, that’s how not crazy we are. Nope, we just enjoy pie. I think that’s a universal law. Liking pie. I mean, who doesn’t like pie? Cats on fire I suppose, and maybe Communists. I bet the Commies don’t like pie. That’s what’s wrong with that system of government, no pie. How can you have a constructive society without social problems when you have no pie. I tell ya what.
Now just don’t get me started on cake. The cake is a lie. I found that out the hard way. Got all the way to the end and did I get cake? Hell no. They teased me with the promise of cake the entire way and then, just at the last second, no cake. What kind of a deal is that? I tell you, they wouldn’t have done that over at Black Mesa. Those guys are nice over there. Especially that Dr. Freeman. Quiet guy, doesn’t talk much. But man, you get him to a bar and that cat can’t shut up. I bet he gets cake. Any time he wants too.
HA!
by Matt | Jun 15, 2008 | Personal
Having now seen both Iron Man and The Hulk this summer, I find myself missing comic books as a whole. A long time ago I had stopped reading them altogether, mostly for budget reasons and the lack of a good comic book store nearby. I had skipped months at a time and, like all serial story arches be it movie, TV or literature, once you fall behind, catching up is nearly impossible. It’s the same reason I don’t watch Lost or Heroes. So I gave the habit up.
Now, after seeing those two, I find myself wondering what exactly happened to the stories and characters I loved as a kid and a teenager.
I was also confused as hell when (spoiler) at the end of Iron Man, Nick Fury was black and (spoiler again) at the end of The Hulk, Tony Stark pops in and wants to start a super team.
Apparently I had missed the whole “Marvel Ultimates” universe and it’s becoming blatantly obvious the more I read about the comics in that series, that this is the direction Marvel is taking and drawing from for their movies. It’s also pretty obvious that we can expect either a Capt. America movie in the very near future or they’ll go all out and to an “Ultimates” movie of some sort. Apparently it’s not cool to call them “The Avengers” any more either. Found that out the hard way.
So, long story short, I feel like if this is where all the new comic book movies are coming from, I may as well catch myself up. I started digging around on “Things from another world” or TFAW.com, which I remembered being a website Nagle had ordered comics from back in college, and quickly realized that in a few short years I had not missed just a mini-series of a title or two but that Marvel created and entire other universe and filled it with dozens of titles. I don’t know where to being. I think I might pick up the TPBs of “The Ultimates” and “Ultimate X-men”, at least the first ones.
From the sounds of it, the entire universe revolves around S.H.I.E.L.D and the super-solider program. It’s the basis for nearly everything in that universe, minus the mutants of course, but only kinda.
This brings me to my next point in that TFAW is having 50% off on their “Nick and Dent” TPBs. I figure, for $30 I can catch up on years of comics. Just thought I’d pass that little tid bit along in case anyone else is needing to catch up too.
So, has anyone read any of this stuff? Is it worth trying to catch up?
by Matt | Jun 13, 2008 | Friends and Family, Personal
I typically don’t see the point in “general life” updates, but it’s been a while, so maybe it’s needed. I usually think that if I don’t have an opinion about something, that’s it’s pointless to talk about simply for the sake of posting something. No ones cares that I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch today. That’s all I’m trying to say.
(more…)
by Matt | Jun 12, 2008 | Games
I had a chance to check out the demos for both Civ:Revolutions and Battlefield:Bad Company this week. Neither of which really blew my skirt up. I’ll start with Civ since it’s franchise is near and dear to my heart. Not to say that Battlefield isn’t, but the most recent incarnations of that franchise have repeatedly left a bad taste in my mouth. Post-coffee-acidic almost.
Sometimes, it would be good, even after years of hard work, for someone in these development studios to speak up and say “Yeah, this just isn’t working”. That’s how I feel about the new Civilization port to the 360. That somewhere along the line, even those who were developing it, had to actually play it on the 360 to test it out. At that point you’d think they’d realize that sometimes a genre/style of game simply doesn’t work on a console. Turn based strategy games are a good example. It’s watered down, stripped of all it’s juicy bits, glossed up for a more mass market and lacks all the depth that comes with the PC versions. It would be like taking a weeks worth of History Channel specials and creating a 30 minute Saturday morning cartoon with them. Yeah, the basic idea is still there, but it’s become comical in it’s presentation. This is both metaphoric and actual when we’re talking about this game. Although Civ 4 for the PC had a slight stylized edge to it, it was really only present when talking to your advisors or other leaders. They looked, well, computer generated, and for good reason, they are. Civ:R takes this literally to the cartoon realm. They are talking cartoons and it’s ridiculous. What’s worse is that for every major decision, and every minor encounter (random roaming barbarians for example) they pop up on scream and yell at you in gibberish (ala The Sims) about something the like/don’t like and refuse to shut up or go away. I looked into the options and I didn’t see any way to turn them off. All I could do is turn their volumes down but that leaves them jumping around on the screen like retarded mute mimes. They’ve also reduced/streamlined features for the console version, again, because the scope of the original was too big to squeeze it all in. Did you like building roads, having workers, managing the happiness of your cities, building outposts on specific resources and so forth? Cause I did, and NONE of that is in the console version. Roads aren’t built where you want them, you merely choose two cities (that you control) and it builds a strait line between the two. I don’t know about anyone else, but when I was about to attack another country, I would build roads right up to the edge of their land, that way my legions of troops could march right in in fewer turns. That ability is gone. Workers? Automated, and you can’t assign them specific tasks, like growing food, gathering resources, working the special resource nearby, or building said roads. Nope. All automated, and not in the way that would be helpful. I guess that’s ok because they’ve taken away the NEED for food and happiness, and anything else that made the city management part of Civ fun. Now the only benefit to building Wonders are paltry tech boost that you probably are about to get anyway. “Oooh, if I build the Colossus for 50 turns, I get Navigation, sweet!” Too bad you can research Navigation in 5 turns.
So, when you consider buying Civ:Revolution in the near future, remember that while it is a Civ game, and it does have the basics required to call itself that, it is in fact the Saturday morning cartoon version of it’s older, wiser and more in-depth brother. If you’re ok with spending $60 on what, visually, looks like a XBLA game you’d spend $4 on, then by all means, knock yourself out.
That brings us to Battlefield: Bad Company. This one is a little tougher to crack because there were elements that I honestly enjoyed. Then I tried to play it. Let me start at the beginning. BF:BC is primarily a single player storyline set in this larger “battlefield sandbox” style environment. Ok, not bad so far. It’s also supposed to be comical, which surprisingly it does an ok job with. The visual aspects are stunning. The combination of the Battlefield gameplay engine with the Frostbite visual and physics engine and full Dolby 7.1 is truly awesome. Thing like fog, smoke and “grit” feel real and look impressive and the sound is off the friggin hook. When you’re under fire, the game turns down the ambient sound and blurs your focus slightly to give you a real feel for the moment. You can hear yourself breath, see the incoming fire, and you respond accordingly. Think the opening beach scene from Saving Private Ryan when Tom Hanks is just kind of looking around wondering what to do next. It has that feel to it. And that’s an impressive compliment, especially coming from me. So, if it’s funny, nicely executed and beautifully done visually, what’s wrong with it? It plays like crap. The controls are clunky, the weapons are weak and unresponsive, the vehicles don’t handle at all, and most of all it just don’t “feel right”. Any gamer knows what I mean by that. It’s what separates a good game from a great game. Doom 3 was a breakthrough visually, but it just didn’t play properly. It wasn’t fun to play. Battlefield 2142, same problem. It’s like comparing Call of Duty 4 and Army of Two. Both are combat/action games, both have nice environments, physics, concepts, and art. Ao2 is just painful to play for more than 20 minutes. Things simply don’t feel right. That’s why it’s on the shelf and CoD is still in the tray after 6 months. I digress. Compounding the problems with BF:BC is the franchises long history of strictly multiplayer games and the fact that, if anything, having a great multiplayer component should have been a given. There’s no reason and more importantly, no excuse for them making a mediocre multiplayer experience. It played worse than the single player, mostly because the impressive visuals were turned off to make the multiplayer smoother. Everything about the multiplayer was disappointing. This makes me wonder where the quality multiplayer development team went. Apparently they didn’t go to Kaos Studios while they were developing Frontlines, and they sure as hell aren’t still at Dice. How a developer with nothing but multiplayer experience can screw up a multiplayer experience is truly mind boggling.
If you’re thinking about getting BF:BC for it’s multiplayer, don’t even bother. If you’re looking for what might be a fun, yet possibly game mechanically speaking, frustrating single player game, then you might enjoy it.
Recent Comments