WoW Patch 2.2.0

I'm sitting here waiting for my taxi to take me to the Blasted Lands and for the new patch. The past two days have been absolute hell in my personal life, and to read some dude dredge up shit that went down nearly a year ago only compounded my stress. I don't think it would get me into more trouble to speculate that the only reason that guy wrote what he wrote was because he was throwing a pity party and wanted to feel good about himself.

So the world is a better place with me in total obscurity? Doesn't seem that way to me. Jack-ass.

Those Of You Who Had Bookmarked/Linked This Site

Continue to do so but be sure to add/re-add Eclectic Gamer as I am head writer for that site again and I've completely redesigned it. It looks absolutely fab and is much easier to navigate. I'm using Wordpress instead of MT now and it's like going from an eMachine to an Alienware. If you got that joke then you have true geek cred. You belong at eGamer.

As for this site, it's not going anywhere. Hell, it's not costing me anything, so why not use it as a dumping ground for personal stuff and experimental writings. Many comedians hone their material on the stand-up circuit, traveling from town to town finding out which jokes work and which don't. This is in no way similar because if I was funny enough to do stand-up, I wouldn't be wasting my time slogging around on the Internet. I'd be Speed, not Chim-Chim. Thank you for taking your time reading the personal rantings of a bitter, insane cynic.

GAH! Resident Evil 5 Trailer. GAH!

Oh Daddy like. Anyone want to take bets on whether or not Capcom is going to throw some politics into the mix in this one. It's almost like they could call this The Constant Gardener: The Game. Bah, all I know is I want to play this game right MEOW!

Video would go here but it's too damn big! Can anyone help me on resizing GameTrailers videos or any others for that matter. If you're die hard about watching it, go here.

Good GAWD that looks good, not to mention hard as hell. Are they sure they can't get this game out before the end of the year?

Ubisoft Getting Aggressive With. . ."Licenses?" WTF?

Does Ubisoft know something the rest of us don'? The last time I checked, licensed tie-in games were rushed products that rarely made for good games. The handful that have been released this summer have continued that trend. Yet that has not stopped the French company from aggressively pursuing some high profile properties. Just today it was announced, by The Hollywood Reporter of all places, that they had secured the rights to make games based on NBC's Heroes. Earlier this week they locked up James Cameron's Avatar and this past April said a Lost game was coming. Since that last announcement they've gone dark on Lost news, but maybe something will spring up this week-end at Comic-Con.

The bigger question, of course, is will these games be any good. If history is any indicator the only thing we have to looks forward to is a lot of hype and no substance. Things could change, however, but does anyone really think Ubisoft is the company to bring about the tie-in revolution? [Via]

First Three Things I Learned From Guitar Hero 80's

Last night mediamelt snagged a copy of Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80's from Best Buy for a cool $35. It was a steal I thought, but the real thievery was Activision charging you $49.99 for an expansion. Of course, it's not like they haven't been raping consumers with the song packs on XBox Live since the spring. Anyway, we went over to his house to jam out on it and I learned a few things, South Park style.

• I would not be surprised if past, present, and future bass players were all lonely virgins destined to be surrounded by poon yet never drink. Seriously, that is one boring instrument, unless maybe you're Les Claypool or Geddy Lee.


• "Balls to the Wall" has to be the most seriously retarded song I've ever played in a GH game. If that's, like, you're favorite song of all time then you should go out a buy this game immediately. If you're like everyone else, and have a pulse, then it will be one you play once just to get through it.


• Harmonix really didn't go out with a bang for their last title with Red Octane. Only 30 songs, none unlockable, and with the exact same skins except slightly altered to fit into an 80's suit. It was like that had a bunch of interns Cntrl-V the source code from GH II. Of course, none of this would really be an issue if the game were marketed and sold at a MSRP as an expansion!

Overall it is what it is: Guitar Hero II with new songs, a handful of which you might care about. Believe it or not, but of the 10 tracks we played last night, I had most fun playing "We Got The Beat" by the Go-Gos and the most cursing went during "I Ran(So Far Away)" by Flock of Seagulls. Seriously, New Wave nearly kicked my ass.

Huh?!?

This was what was up on my Xbox 360's blog today:

I was practically startled when his greasy finger pounded my power button. I mean come on... be a little gentle... I am fragile.

Look, bitch, you're the one that keeps threatening me with red eye. I can't help it if my nervousness causes my hands to sweat a little bit, but that doesn't mean you have to go blabbing that shit out into the real world. The only reason you're fragile is because you were put together by malnourished 4-year olds outside a rice paddy in the Pearl River Delta. Keep talking shit and I'll give you a reason to tremble.

My PS2 wouldn't dare blog like that, and not for fear of reprisals.

When Hobbies Are Swallowed, Should The Mass Market Choke?

Wow, less than a week and this blog is filled with sexual connotations. Leigh at SVGL has put up a post about the emerging trend of mass market advertising and games. She wanted to know what her readers thought about it, and here's what one reader has to say(that would be me DUR).

Long has been my disdain for gaming being co-opted by hipsters and jocks muscling in on my hobby. They've effectively killed the niche market of gaming shops and turned video games into this sub-culture of hip-hop lingo and calling little kids fags on Xbox Live. I'm not knowledgeable enough of the subject to know if it's endemic, but I know enough to know if you just play Madden or just WoW or just Bejeweled, or even JUST Halo, you're not much of a gamer. You're just someone who lathed onto to one thing and built an obsession around it.

Quite frankly I've always wanted games to stay as a hobby and didn't care what my parents or yours thought about me playing them. Seeing 14 year olds geeking out about the ORIGINAL Super Mario Bros is both charming and depressing. Dude, get your own adolescence and leave mine to me. Such is the industry though; bereft of new ideas, companies farm the past and repackage it for a new generation. It's not just games that does but it's far more widespread in this business. This all ties in to what Leigh was talking about, that advertisers are seeing a veritable goldmine in the casual gaming market. She thinks the downsizing of E3 is indicative of a, I'm not sure, a diluting of console offerings? I think sales figures this Christmas will tell the tale about the future of gaming. It will be interesting to see what 7 figure analysts say about the sales of Echochrome versus Mass Effect versus the latest PopCap offering. GTA and Halo are non-factors in this discussion due to the built in market for those titles. Same with this year's sports entries.

Ultimately I don't think the horde of casual gamers will hurt the console fare much. Certainly there are genres and niches that survive, and even thrive, amid much greater ones in any sort of medium. Certainly my parents playing WiiSports will not prevent me from buying Bioshock this year nor mean there won't be games like that in the future. I could be wrong. 3 years from now all but the most casual, colorful, and digitally delivered games will hog all the spotlight, and the more cerebral, "hardcore" fare will take a backseat. Perhaps EB Games will revert back to selling hardware first and software second.

On second thought, NAAAAHHHHH!