I have been looking at my stats to see how many people are reading my blog and I have just gotten my first international page views. So to the three people in Malaysia and one American G'day from me and I hope you like what you see.
I also noticed that besides my facebook page as a referring site another has popped up so here's a quick plug to them. Check out http://theblogisdead.com I have just had a look and they are way more full on than me. I'm just an Australian kid in my room ranting. They have ads, colour schemes, fancy formats and a live feed that shows where people are viewing from which is super cool, I want one of those. Worth checking out.
So yeah just a quick one today because I have been out all weekend and I've only just sobered up enough to use the keyboard.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Monday, November 29, 2010
Real life achievements list
I posted this as a note on my facebook some time ago and it was popular so I thought I'd put it out there for everyone else on the internet to take a look at.
I find that sometimes life can be really boring, which is why I usually escape into video games. But even these can lose flavour after finishing the game many times (the exception to this being Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, I can play that over and over again). Which is why the people at Microsoft searched the world and stole or bought the idea for achievements and in turn Sony stole from Microsoft and thus trophies are born.
Achievements are challenges that bring some life back into a game that either was losing its appeal or had none to begin with. They serve no other purpose than to provide bragging rights to those who for the most part don't care. Even Microsoft had a hard time selling achievements to the gaming public in a video that can be freely viewed on Xbox live. However should you find yourself in a real spot of boredom chasing achievements of 'Achievement hunting' can be a good time killer.
This brings me back to my first point, life can get boring. So why not have achievements (or trophies I'm not Sony-ist, but I'm going to call them achievements because I can) for life! Each one has a gamerscore that gives at a glance how difficult each achievement is. If you want to show them off you can post your scores on your facebook page or on your Bio on xbox live and wherever the hell Sony lets you do that you can post it there too. Coming soon will be a facebook page where you can post your achievements, organize meetings for the multiplayer achievements and to discuss ways and means of getting achievements. Below are the list of achievements for your daily life that you can do when life gets boring.
30G Reach out and touch someone
- Hold or participate in a Halo Reach LAN party (minimum of four xbox's)
50G I think I saw a 2!
- Write an essay in binary (minimum of 300 words)
10G Look ma, no eyes
- Spell a difficult surname correctly without looking at it (surname must have a minimum of 11 letters)
10G I wish to engage in sexual relations with your spouse
- Translate the title of this achievement into another language and say it
50G Did he just run in there?
- Announce your presence in a room by shouting "Leeroy Jenkins" for a day
5G Don't eat the dinosaur Daddy!
- Consume a Milo Godzilla
20G Never gonna give you up
- Publicly Rick Roll a stranger
100G Rollin' Rickey
- Rick Roll Rick Astley
20G All your flags are belong to us
- Dress up as a character from either Call of Duty 4, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 or the Halo series and play capture the flag outside with at least 3 other players present
50G I just did the world a favour
- Publicly burn a Twilight book (any)
5G At least I got some chicken
- Walk out of a KFC shop without purchasing anything
10G Geek pride
- Wear a game related T-shirt outdoors
5G Follow the yellow brick road
- Hold hands with another player and sing "We're off to see the Wizard, the wonder Wizard of Oz!" while skipping
30G Cake Call
- Get a persons number by saying a video game related pickup line
40G Look ma, too much free time!
- Spell a difficult surname correctly backwards without looking at it (surname must have a minimum of 11 letters)
10G I'm singing in the rain
- Go outside and sing when it is raining with at least two other players present
Well thats the list so far. This list will be updated with more achievements as I and my comrades come up with them. But these 16 should tide you over for a while.
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Sunglasses the new guitar?
Last Friday I went to my mates 18th birthday party, It was awesome. Although it was a masquerade party I decided not to travel through my hometown of Springvale wearing it. For the sheer fact that I knew someone was going to mistake me for a gay robber and stab me. So I did what everyone else does on a sunny evening and wore sunglasses.
Of course when I arrived at the party off came the sunglasses and on went the mask but I kept getting people walking up to me and commenting on my sunglasses. Remember these are just a cheap pair that another mate of mine gave to me. People would ask to try them on and no matter who wore them they would look good in them and it wasn't just me who thought so. I'll give you an example.
At this same party one of my mates masks broke (it was some stupid slipknot mask, cool as it may be is completely impractical if you want to talk or eat) So he asked if he could wear my sunglasses. I had no problem with it and said yeah and handed them over. Later on that night this photo was taken.
The guy in the middle wearing the glasses is my mate and the dude in a suit with a silver tie in the right corner is me. A short time after this photo was taken he comes up to me and asks me how much I love him. I was trying to contemplate where this line of inquiry was going when another of my mates walks up and says that the glasses were lost. Now I know where the questions were leading. So we went on a search for the lost sunglasses. it was about thirty seconds into the search that I found them. They where sitting on the head of a girl about three meters away from me. Should have seen that one. They were all raving about how much they liked the glasses.
Which is how I come to my question are sunglasses the new guitar. It seems that wearing sunglasses has superseded pretending to be a rockstar and wearing a guitar. That's not a bad thing. It means you don't need to go out and spend a thousand bucks to look sexy. Its a more economic way of achieving sexy status.
No more posts are going up till after the weekend because me and my sunglasses have a few parties to attend so tune in on Monday for more of my insanity.
Of course when I arrived at the party off came the sunglasses and on went the mask but I kept getting people walking up to me and commenting on my sunglasses. Remember these are just a cheap pair that another mate of mine gave to me. People would ask to try them on and no matter who wore them they would look good in them and it wasn't just me who thought so. I'll give you an example.
At this same party one of my mates masks broke (it was some stupid slipknot mask, cool as it may be is completely impractical if you want to talk or eat) So he asked if he could wear my sunglasses. I had no problem with it and said yeah and handed them over. Later on that night this photo was taken.
The guy in the middle wearing the glasses is my mate and the dude in a suit with a silver tie in the right corner is me. A short time after this photo was taken he comes up to me and asks me how much I love him. I was trying to contemplate where this line of inquiry was going when another of my mates walks up and says that the glasses were lost. Now I know where the questions were leading. So we went on a search for the lost sunglasses. it was about thirty seconds into the search that I found them. They where sitting on the head of a girl about three meters away from me. Should have seen that one. They were all raving about how much they liked the glasses.
Which is how I come to my question are sunglasses the new guitar. It seems that wearing sunglasses has superseded pretending to be a rockstar and wearing a guitar. That's not a bad thing. It means you don't need to go out and spend a thousand bucks to look sexy. Its a more economic way of achieving sexy status.
No more posts are going up till after the weekend because me and my sunglasses have a few parties to attend so tune in on Monday for more of my insanity.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Ads, the vicious cycle
Ads drive me up the wall and I'm positive that I'm not the only one. Which is why so many people download movies and television shows illegally or buy them on DVD. Of course the TV channels are designed to generate ratings so that companies will buy ad space on those channels, but by doing this it drives people away because they don't want to see ads. It is a vicious cycle.
What happens is that there is only so much time in a day. There is a balance of shows to ads. As the ratings drop the channels get desperate. They sell off more ad space at lower prices to keep up the cash flow. However that ad space has to come from somewhere. It is not procured from thin air. It has to come out of the time there is for shows. Which then drives even more people away. If this cycle continues eventually TV will only just show ads. It will be a billboard in your lounge room.
So how can it be fixed? I have absolutely no idea. The Internet was supposed to be this ad free utopia for watching shows and movies but instead of getting ads intermittently throughout the show you get one long one at the start which you cant skip or you get them popping up on the bottom of the screen. Honestly I don't know which one is worse.
What happens is that there is only so much time in a day. There is a balance of shows to ads. As the ratings drop the channels get desperate. They sell off more ad space at lower prices to keep up the cash flow. However that ad space has to come from somewhere. It is not procured from thin air. It has to come out of the time there is for shows. Which then drives even more people away. If this cycle continues eventually TV will only just show ads. It will be a billboard in your lounge room.
So how can it be fixed? I have absolutely no idea. The Internet was supposed to be this ad free utopia for watching shows and movies but instead of getting ads intermittently throughout the show you get one long one at the start which you cant skip or you get them popping up on the bottom of the screen. Honestly I don't know which one is worse.
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
GOTY 2010 rant (more like a Black Ops rant)
I was asked last night what I thought my game of the year is. If someone had asked me this question two months ago it would have been easy, I would have said it will be Call Of Duty: Black Ops. After playing the game (both singleplayer and multiplayer) I must say that it isn't.
Why? Because it was the biggest disappointment of a COD game since Modern Warfare 2, the previous game in the series! I am always willing to forgive game companies and let them try and make a better game. This is because most of the staff at many game companies are fired and others are brought in to replace them. Treyarch have had plenty of time to get themselves sorted out and make a really good game. What the hell were they doing the entire time they should have been making Black Ops (or COD Blops as my friend Bradly calls it), taking holidays and chucking sickies!
The entire game feels like its been rushed and while the multiplayer is good (because it's core mechanic hasn't changed since COD 4, all they have done is add pretty additions to it that don't effect gameplay too much) The singleplayer is crap. The plot is set in the first few levels along with some character establishment then nothing happens for most of the game then the Scriptwriters remember that there is a plot (I'm positive that the same guys that wrote the Resident evil movies wrote Black Ops) and mash it in in the last three or four levels. Its not like Treyarch couldn't think of a story. The game is set during the sixties through to the eighties, and a lot of characters and events are based on real people and events. So right there is half of the story done for them. So there is no excuse to make up a good story because that time was a very interesting period in America's and the worlds history. It was the height of the Cold War, the Vietnam war is raging and J.F.K is assassinated. I'll admit it had a good twist, but that was all it had. Once I had discovered the twist I wasn't intrigued nor did it peak my interest in the game at all. It was one of those meh moments. I didn't care.
Zombie mode was nice though. Basically it has everything wrong with Nazi zombies from COD World at War fixed. Although the cutscene for the start of the pentagon zombie level was (while amusing) a complete fail. It was better than nothing. Still zombie mode is impossible to complete without friends, unless you are one of those people with no life and all you do is read blogs and play COD in your mothers basement in which case have a Twinkie and get back to it.
As I mentioned earlier the multiplayer is essentially the same as previous titles in the series with a few tweaks. You don't unlock weapons when you reach certain levels, you buy them with in game "COD Dollars" you earn while playing. The setback is that you cant really customize your gun with all the cool stuff advertised on TV like your clan tag on weapons and custom emblems and reticules until about level 25. Which completely sucks. I can understand the custom reticule being one to unlock but the clan tag should be available right off the bat. Seriously how does your clan tag engraved into your gun make any difference to gameplay? It doesn't it is purely to pretty up your gun. So why not have it! Also (and this is what really pisses me off) I want the ability to have golden guns. But it is only unlocked when you reach the maximum level in the game. I don't have the Patience to dedicate six-odd months of my life to a game just for that one little thing. Totally not worth my time. Still I'll hand it to them that having everything unlocked in LAN and splitscreen games is a great idea.
This game was my number one contender for Game Of The Year 2010. But due to it being so rubbish and no other game catching my interest I'm giving it to DJ Hero 2. Even thought there was next to no storyline it had enough to keep you morbidly interested. The gameplay and the soundtrack is what makes the game so fantastic. The DJ Hero developers had decided to do what they do best and it shows. Black Ops had no direction both online and offline. Also DJ Hero 2 is just more fun to play. Don't get me wrong I'm an FPS fan boy but I want to play good FPS games, and if there is none I'll play something else. Treyarch really shot themselves in the foot with this one.
Why? Because it was the biggest disappointment of a COD game since Modern Warfare 2, the previous game in the series! I am always willing to forgive game companies and let them try and make a better game. This is because most of the staff at many game companies are fired and others are brought in to replace them. Treyarch have had plenty of time to get themselves sorted out and make a really good game. What the hell were they doing the entire time they should have been making Black Ops (or COD Blops as my friend Bradly calls it), taking holidays and chucking sickies!
The entire game feels like its been rushed and while the multiplayer is good (because it's core mechanic hasn't changed since COD 4, all they have done is add pretty additions to it that don't effect gameplay too much) The singleplayer is crap. The plot is set in the first few levels along with some character establishment then nothing happens for most of the game then the Scriptwriters remember that there is a plot (I'm positive that the same guys that wrote the Resident evil movies wrote Black Ops) and mash it in in the last three or four levels. Its not like Treyarch couldn't think of a story. The game is set during the sixties through to the eighties, and a lot of characters and events are based on real people and events. So right there is half of the story done for them. So there is no excuse to make up a good story because that time was a very interesting period in America's and the worlds history. It was the height of the Cold War, the Vietnam war is raging and J.F.K is assassinated. I'll admit it had a good twist, but that was all it had. Once I had discovered the twist I wasn't intrigued nor did it peak my interest in the game at all. It was one of those meh moments. I didn't care.
Zombie mode was nice though. Basically it has everything wrong with Nazi zombies from COD World at War fixed. Although the cutscene for the start of the pentagon zombie level was (while amusing) a complete fail. It was better than nothing. Still zombie mode is impossible to complete without friends, unless you are one of those people with no life and all you do is read blogs and play COD in your mothers basement in which case have a Twinkie and get back to it.
As I mentioned earlier the multiplayer is essentially the same as previous titles in the series with a few tweaks. You don't unlock weapons when you reach certain levels, you buy them with in game "COD Dollars" you earn while playing. The setback is that you cant really customize your gun with all the cool stuff advertised on TV like your clan tag on weapons and custom emblems and reticules until about level 25. Which completely sucks. I can understand the custom reticule being one to unlock but the clan tag should be available right off the bat. Seriously how does your clan tag engraved into your gun make any difference to gameplay? It doesn't it is purely to pretty up your gun. So why not have it! Also (and this is what really pisses me off) I want the ability to have golden guns. But it is only unlocked when you reach the maximum level in the game. I don't have the Patience to dedicate six-odd months of my life to a game just for that one little thing. Totally not worth my time. Still I'll hand it to them that having everything unlocked in LAN and splitscreen games is a great idea.
This game was my number one contender for Game Of The Year 2010. But due to it being so rubbish and no other game catching my interest I'm giving it to DJ Hero 2. Even thought there was next to no storyline it had enough to keep you morbidly interested. The gameplay and the soundtrack is what makes the game so fantastic. The DJ Hero developers had decided to do what they do best and it shows. Black Ops had no direction both online and offline. Also DJ Hero 2 is just more fun to play. Don't get me wrong I'm an FPS fan boy but I want to play good FPS games, and if there is none I'll play something else. Treyarch really shot themselves in the foot with this one.
Monday, November 22, 2010
Why I have started this blog.
I've never been much of a blogging type of person. I could never think of what to say really. But as of recently I have been wanting to say more and more and all of it ends up on my facebook. However because there is a 400 character limit on facebook I am restricted in what I say. Usually what I do is leave the rest of what I want to say as the first comment but it is just annoying. So if Mark Zuckerberg or anyone who works for facebook ever reads this, please do something about it. So until that gets sorted out I'm gonna rant here, and I mean rant. When I have something to say I will say it. If you're not into reading or simply don't care what some Australian bloke sitting in his room on facebook all day has to say then this blog is not for you.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)