And now, ladies and gentlemen, you will witness the long overdue return of Drwhyn's Drink Time (DDT)!
In this issue, we'll look into the mad, the bad and the downright brilliant in the way of alcoholic beverages! So hold on to your hats, and let's get them rolling!
First off, the bad:
Cassiliero Del Diablo; you've probably seen the advertisement, and for some odd reason I decided to pick up a small bottle of this as my first real foray into red wines. Safe to say, it's bad, just plain bad. It has no distinctive features whatsoever, and even though it was supposed to have a tangible fullness to it, I've had glasses of water that fit that criteria better. Don't buy it!
Serve at room temperature.
Chapel Hill; a sparkling wine along the lines of Asti, only without all the flavour. Another one that's completely unremarkable, you forgot it ever touched your tongue half a second after you swallowed it.
Serve chilled.
Port; no, just no. It's oily, has some odd wicked sweetness to it, and the flavour can best be described as freshly polished wooden furniture. Stay away from this one at all cost! For some reason, my mother rather enjoyed it, but I found it utterly impossible to get down my throat. If you let it linger on your tongue for a moment, the wooden aftertaste will make you wretch.
Preferably don't serve at all.
Martini Vermouth; See "Port". Also, I spilled a glass of it onto my Economics book; the paper still smelled exactly the same.
There, feels so much better now we've got those out of our system, doesn't it?
Moving on to the brilliant:
Cinzano Asti; a sparkling white wine that is just about everything champagne should be, but isn't. It's sweet, a little dry and very refreshing. It's the kind of thing you can sip for hours without ever getting tired of it. I recommend you try it as an alternative to champagne for big celebrations, as it's just that much more appealing in every way. Also, make sure it's the Cinzano one, and not Martini, because the Martini one, while by no means bad, is not of the same order. This is a must-buy for both cozy friday evenings and festive occasions.
Serve chilled!
Macleod's Whisky Trail; it's a collection of six small bottles of whisky, ranging from the very smoothest to the very peatiest. Not too expensive, and excellent for anyone who wishes to delve into the rich world of scotch without having to buy big bottles of each type. It's a rather representative collection of different kinds of whisky, and really another must-have for anyone who enjoys his, or her, spirits. It's quite simply put; wonderful!
Serve at room temperature; whisky suffers, as has been explained in earlier editions, from both too high and too low temperature, so make sure you keep the bottle someplace that's not too hot and not too cold.
That's all for this edition of Drwhyn's Drink Time (DDT), stay tuned for more, very soon!
fredag 2 juli 2010
tisdag 11 maj 2010
Game Developers!
Yes, yes, I know what you're thinking; not another one about game developers. Well, here's what I'm thinking: This is me blogging, not you, shut up!
So anyway, with quite a few high profile releases having come out over the past couple of year that illustrate all the highs and lows of video game development, let us have a look at the big do's and don't's of the industry!
First of all, there are a number of things that add up to a complete video game, from a developer's standpoint. There is the story, the gameplay mechanics, the coding, the graphics and the sound department. Now, unsurprisingly enough, the big cruncher in actually making a game is how well the developers manage to balance the different factors into an end product.
If you look at any modern gaming catalogue, you'll find games with highly variable balance in this respect; there are games that are extremely well coded, but have gameplay that amounts to no more than a shit'n'chips sundae. Conversely, that are games that are so pretty any gamer will instantly want to have children with it, but is so badly coded that you run of the risk of causing a time-altering paradox destroying the universe, and crashing the game, if you so much as use the quickload button at the wrong moment.
Now, I'm not saying there must always be an absolutely even balance between them, because I'm not, and if you think I am you are clearly incredibly thick and shouldn't be entrusted with going to the lavatory by yourself for fear of you somehow drowning in the toilet! Rather, developers that try to achieve perfect balance is going to end up in that ninth level of hell that belongs to "People who make games that does everything poorly and nothing fucking well". As I've said before, alot can be made of a finely crafted plot that ties everything together and where everything makes sense without feeling predictable, but if you stick that into a game where the fun is derived entirely from running over old ladies while surfing on top of a car and shooting a rocket launcher at innocent bystanders it's just going to make you look like a fucking pretentious prat, which you are!
Case #1: S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Shadow of Chernobyl
The game looks more gorgeous than that classmate you always had a crush on, and has more atmosphere than jupiter, but there's just something odd about the game, namely the fucking atrocious coding. A game that constantly crashes and in which enemies can't decide if they love you or should ejaculate lead straight into your bloodstream in the middle of firefights is not bloody good! I don't know about you, but I've grown slightly tired of the old Oblivion-finger, namely that physical deformity that comes as a direct consequence of having to quicksave every .0 seconds for fear of losing progress when the game all of a sudden realizes that you're playing and decides that it's gonna have none of that, no siree!
Case #2: Saint's Row 2
Yet another game with coding that is simply a fucking pile of steaming garbage, but this time with developers who know what it is they are trying to accomplish. The story is at best a shallow and irrelevant necessity that you use to distract you inbetween butchering innocent bystanders and clearing out entire fortresses of goons with just your extremely overpowered pistols with infinite range, ammo and auto aiming (Yes, that's right, auto aim, even in the PC port), and at worst a shallow and irrelevant necessity that smells. Thing is, the story seems to be aware of that you're not expected to give a shit about it, and thus decides to take the scenic route by having you mow down an extraordinary number of enemies at every turn without all the action being hogged up by cutscenes (Yes, I'm looking at you, Metal Gear Solid...fuckers...). It's neither a smart game, nor a sophisticated one, but it's not trying to be! It's trying to be mindless fun, with things like jumping in front of cars for insurance money and riding around town hosing it down with feces to lower property value! Mindless fucking fun! Which brings us to...
Case #3: GTA IV
Here we're looking at something with the potential of being one of the best releases of the decade, expanding upon all the things that made the GTA series great and making full use of the current hardware to deliver an experience that amounts to nothing less than the gaming equivalent of an orgasm!...or possibly not just the equivalent...
Problem? It doesn't.
It's just one of those games that doesn't deliver at all. What made the previous GTA games good? As I've said countless times; Mindless fucking fun! What did not make the previous GTA games good? Trying to woo a boring middle-aged housewife and constantly getting phoned by your cousin to go play darts with him!
Quite clearly, Rockstar knew perfectly well what it was that made GTA III great, managed to distill it down to the pure essence of awesomeness, and then poured all of it down the drain in favour of a bland, dull and brown mess that had none of the appeal of it's predecessors. Largely, it boils down to that Rockstar somehow forgot all about the point of the series, that elusive Mindless fucking Fun, and instead opted for a more realistic depiction of life in a big american city seen with the eyes of a disillusioned immigrant. Who the fuck wants that?! Who wants to play a game wherein the main character has a life that is no better than yours or mine, and is boring as all hell to boot?
Sure, you can watch television and take your cousin out for drinks and drive home drunk as a lord, but who on earth would ever want that out of a game? Games are played for escapism, people don't play games to experience the very things people desperately want to run away from in real life, dammit!
The world would be a much better place if developers could simply get it into their immensely thick heads that the primary objective of any game is fun, and it shouldn't be fucking compromised by realism, or anything else that they ought to know doesn't belong!
So anyway, with quite a few high profile releases having come out over the past couple of year that illustrate all the highs and lows of video game development, let us have a look at the big do's and don't's of the industry!
First of all, there are a number of things that add up to a complete video game, from a developer's standpoint. There is the story, the gameplay mechanics, the coding, the graphics and the sound department. Now, unsurprisingly enough, the big cruncher in actually making a game is how well the developers manage to balance the different factors into an end product.
If you look at any modern gaming catalogue, you'll find games with highly variable balance in this respect; there are games that are extremely well coded, but have gameplay that amounts to no more than a shit'n'chips sundae. Conversely, that are games that are so pretty any gamer will instantly want to have children with it, but is so badly coded that you run of the risk of causing a time-altering paradox destroying the universe, and crashing the game, if you so much as use the quickload button at the wrong moment.
Now, I'm not saying there must always be an absolutely even balance between them, because I'm not, and if you think I am you are clearly incredibly thick and shouldn't be entrusted with going to the lavatory by yourself for fear of you somehow drowning in the toilet! Rather, developers that try to achieve perfect balance is going to end up in that ninth level of hell that belongs to "People who make games that does everything poorly and nothing fucking well". As I've said before, alot can be made of a finely crafted plot that ties everything together and where everything makes sense without feeling predictable, but if you stick that into a game where the fun is derived entirely from running over old ladies while surfing on top of a car and shooting a rocket launcher at innocent bystanders it's just going to make you look like a fucking pretentious prat, which you are!
Case #1: S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Shadow of Chernobyl
The game looks more gorgeous than that classmate you always had a crush on, and has more atmosphere than jupiter, but there's just something odd about the game, namely the fucking atrocious coding. A game that constantly crashes and in which enemies can't decide if they love you or should ejaculate lead straight into your bloodstream in the middle of firefights is not bloody good! I don't know about you, but I've grown slightly tired of the old Oblivion-finger, namely that physical deformity that comes as a direct consequence of having to quicksave every .0 seconds for fear of losing progress when the game all of a sudden realizes that you're playing and decides that it's gonna have none of that, no siree!
Case #2: Saint's Row 2
Yet another game with coding that is simply a fucking pile of steaming garbage, but this time with developers who know what it is they are trying to accomplish. The story is at best a shallow and irrelevant necessity that you use to distract you inbetween butchering innocent bystanders and clearing out entire fortresses of goons with just your extremely overpowered pistols with infinite range, ammo and auto aiming (Yes, that's right, auto aim, even in the PC port), and at worst a shallow and irrelevant necessity that smells. Thing is, the story seems to be aware of that you're not expected to give a shit about it, and thus decides to take the scenic route by having you mow down an extraordinary number of enemies at every turn without all the action being hogged up by cutscenes (Yes, I'm looking at you, Metal Gear Solid...fuckers...). It's neither a smart game, nor a sophisticated one, but it's not trying to be! It's trying to be mindless fun, with things like jumping in front of cars for insurance money and riding around town hosing it down with feces to lower property value! Mindless fucking fun! Which brings us to...
Case #3: GTA IV
Here we're looking at something with the potential of being one of the best releases of the decade, expanding upon all the things that made the GTA series great and making full use of the current hardware to deliver an experience that amounts to nothing less than the gaming equivalent of an orgasm!...or possibly not just the equivalent...
Problem? It doesn't.
It's just one of those games that doesn't deliver at all. What made the previous GTA games good? As I've said countless times; Mindless fucking fun! What did not make the previous GTA games good? Trying to woo a boring middle-aged housewife and constantly getting phoned by your cousin to go play darts with him!
Quite clearly, Rockstar knew perfectly well what it was that made GTA III great, managed to distill it down to the pure essence of awesomeness, and then poured all of it down the drain in favour of a bland, dull and brown mess that had none of the appeal of it's predecessors. Largely, it boils down to that Rockstar somehow forgot all about the point of the series, that elusive Mindless fucking Fun, and instead opted for a more realistic depiction of life in a big american city seen with the eyes of a disillusioned immigrant. Who the fuck wants that?! Who wants to play a game wherein the main character has a life that is no better than yours or mine, and is boring as all hell to boot?
Sure, you can watch television and take your cousin out for drinks and drive home drunk as a lord, but who on earth would ever want that out of a game? Games are played for escapism, people don't play games to experience the very things people desperately want to run away from in real life, dammit!
The world would be a much better place if developers could simply get it into their immensely thick heads that the primary objective of any game is fun, and it shouldn't be fucking compromised by realism, or anything else that they ought to know doesn't belong!
onsdag 5 maj 2010
Religion!
Now is that most special time of year; the time when I decide to say nasty things about religion and religious people.
First of all, what is religion? It is something that is very suitable for the large parts of the human race that favour bandwagons, hating those who are not on the bandwagon, and following ridiculous arbitrary rules and limitations. Also, and this is the part that bugs me, there existing no vertical discussion whatsoever.
Let's look at a piece of the Bible, that I find to perfectly illustrate the lack of critical thinking involved in religion!
Once upon a time, much earlier than last wednesday, there once was a man named Saul. He spent his days, merrily and gayly persecuting christians. In essence, he tried to kill them all, and since I've never been known to be above the odd dick-joke, I say it was because he was compensating for something...you know what!
But, see, his chosen line of profession had run into some difficulties; the christians were getting awfully numerous, and as any great persecutor will tell you, times are not necessarily good to you, if the persecutees outnumber the persecutors ten to one.
Thusly, all of a sudden, literally out of the blue, he had an epiphany! A, literally, blinding light struck him, and god told him to stop being such a fucking tosser to his babies.
Afterwards, he went and met with some of the people who he had been trying to butcher. He told them that he had received a vision from god, but that it had unfortunately made him blind as a bat. Here comes the funny part though; the idiots actually believed him. More stunning is, after them having prayed abit for him, he proclaimed that he could see again! What a bloody miracle, you don't find it at all a tad too convenient that he suddenly appeared to have gained absolution, a most fitting argument as to why they oughtn't lynch him?
If it had been me, I would have been slightly wary of Hitler suddenly walking into my living room, telling me that god had made him see the error of his ways, at a time when his chosen direction in life would have meant he'd most likely be hanged.
You don't suppose, just maybe, that Saul was feigning the blindness, and then claiming to have been cured by prayer, when he in fact had 20/20 vision all along, just so he could claim he had in fact been forgiven by the lord?
Of course, the problem with this line of reasoning is that it is contrary to doctrine, and ultimately, priests like sticking with doctrine, and equally ultimately, religious people will side with the fellow in the frock, if things get to a head. The example I have brought up, is just one bit where maybe the reader shouldn't be so utterly naive to believe every single word written, and perhaps not take something that can't possibly be verified scientifically, as gospel (pun intended).
Now, christians can sometimes shift their position, and decide that parts of the Bible are only metaphorical, and do not represent reliable historical facts. But surely, that's just a big cop-out, after all, if the Bible truly was the eternal word of god, surely he'd be able to put a note in the margin, regarding whether or not particularly silly bits are metaphorical or not.
Here's what I wish all religious individuals would do; read their respective holy scripture, and after every sentence just stop for a moment, to reflect on how that would have worked in practical terms, what the logic behind it is, or whether or not what is written is clearly silly. Read the part about Moses parting the Red Sea, and wonder how on earth they could just walk across the sea floor for miles and miles without the egyptians catching up until just after they had all passed it, or how it would have affected the surrounding area, that obviously was not exactly built to accommodate a huge corridor in the middle of the Red Sea being magically dried out.
Think, dammit, think!
First of all, what is religion? It is something that is very suitable for the large parts of the human race that favour bandwagons, hating those who are not on the bandwagon, and following ridiculous arbitrary rules and limitations. Also, and this is the part that bugs me, there existing no vertical discussion whatsoever.
Let's look at a piece of the Bible, that I find to perfectly illustrate the lack of critical thinking involved in religion!
Once upon a time, much earlier than last wednesday, there once was a man named Saul. He spent his days, merrily and gayly persecuting christians. In essence, he tried to kill them all, and since I've never been known to be above the odd dick-joke, I say it was because he was compensating for something...you know what!
But, see, his chosen line of profession had run into some difficulties; the christians were getting awfully numerous, and as any great persecutor will tell you, times are not necessarily good to you, if the persecutees outnumber the persecutors ten to one.
Thusly, all of a sudden, literally out of the blue, he had an epiphany! A, literally, blinding light struck him, and god told him to stop being such a fucking tosser to his babies.
Afterwards, he went and met with some of the people who he had been trying to butcher. He told them that he had received a vision from god, but that it had unfortunately made him blind as a bat. Here comes the funny part though; the idiots actually believed him. More stunning is, after them having prayed abit for him, he proclaimed that he could see again! What a bloody miracle, you don't find it at all a tad too convenient that he suddenly appeared to have gained absolution, a most fitting argument as to why they oughtn't lynch him?
If it had been me, I would have been slightly wary of Hitler suddenly walking into my living room, telling me that god had made him see the error of his ways, at a time when his chosen direction in life would have meant he'd most likely be hanged.
You don't suppose, just maybe, that Saul was feigning the blindness, and then claiming to have been cured by prayer, when he in fact had 20/20 vision all along, just so he could claim he had in fact been forgiven by the lord?
Of course, the problem with this line of reasoning is that it is contrary to doctrine, and ultimately, priests like sticking with doctrine, and equally ultimately, religious people will side with the fellow in the frock, if things get to a head. The example I have brought up, is just one bit where maybe the reader shouldn't be so utterly naive to believe every single word written, and perhaps not take something that can't possibly be verified scientifically, as gospel (pun intended).
Now, christians can sometimes shift their position, and decide that parts of the Bible are only metaphorical, and do not represent reliable historical facts. But surely, that's just a big cop-out, after all, if the Bible truly was the eternal word of god, surely he'd be able to put a note in the margin, regarding whether or not particularly silly bits are metaphorical or not.
Here's what I wish all religious individuals would do; read their respective holy scripture, and after every sentence just stop for a moment, to reflect on how that would have worked in practical terms, what the logic behind it is, or whether or not what is written is clearly silly. Read the part about Moses parting the Red Sea, and wonder how on earth they could just walk across the sea floor for miles and miles without the egyptians catching up until just after they had all passed it, or how it would have affected the surrounding area, that obviously was not exactly built to accommodate a huge corridor in the middle of the Red Sea being magically dried out.
Think, dammit, think!
torsdag 22 april 2010
Fun! Fun! Fun!
Let's get one thing straight right away; I'm a nerd. Yes, a nerd, that subsection of the human race that is commonly spurned by the rest, and usually considered beyond redemption.
Furthermore, I'm a computer nerd. Yes, a computer nerd, that most annoying subspecies of nerds, scorned and outcast from all the rest of nerddom for the complete and utter dedication to computer technology.
What's more, I'm a computer game nerd. Yes, a computer game nerd, the deranged secteric group hated by all others for the lack of complete and utter dedication to complete and utter boredom.
What am I, as a computer game nerd, looking for in life? What is it I want?
In a word; fun!
I want to have fun. I want to enjoy myself, laugh, be excited and blow shit up, lots of shit!
There are many different kinds of fun; the sublime pleasure one gets from taking part in a well crafted overarching storyline; the exhilarating rush of narrowly beating a challenge; the emotional satisfaction of being part of something great! But, perhaps most importantly of all, there is the mad, reptilebrainy, joy of ruthless and completely pointless destruction, mayhem and wreaking of ultimate havoc! Now, I don't mind following a linear sequence of events, or having little choice in what to actually do, so I decide to now and then play Half-Life 2 for 30 minutes or so, but I keep coming back to sandbox carnage!
Who really gives a toss about a well-written story or believable interaction between main characters when you can run up the wall of the highest skyscraper in New York, launch yourself straight towards the ground and land face first on top of an M1 tank, throwing the now burned out husk of the tank at an army helicopter, the destruction of which attracts another helicopter, which you hijack by pulling yourself up to it by way of your mutated upper extremity, flying to the nearest military base, jumping out of the helicopter to land next to the base's commander, eating him to get his keys, infiltrating the base, killing everyone in it with a blade that comes out of your arm, then exiting the base only to hijack another helicopter, use it to blow up the base, then eat any civilians who happened to be out for an afternoon stroll in the vicinity?
DAMN, FREEDOM ROCKS!
To, probably not, be continued...
Furthermore, I'm a computer nerd. Yes, a computer nerd, that most annoying subspecies of nerds, scorned and outcast from all the rest of nerddom for the complete and utter dedication to computer technology.
What's more, I'm a computer game nerd. Yes, a computer game nerd, the deranged secteric group hated by all others for the lack of complete and utter dedication to complete and utter boredom.
What am I, as a computer game nerd, looking for in life? What is it I want?
In a word; fun!
I want to have fun. I want to enjoy myself, laugh, be excited and blow shit up, lots of shit!
There are many different kinds of fun; the sublime pleasure one gets from taking part in a well crafted overarching storyline; the exhilarating rush of narrowly beating a challenge; the emotional satisfaction of being part of something great! But, perhaps most importantly of all, there is the mad, reptilebrainy, joy of ruthless and completely pointless destruction, mayhem and wreaking of ultimate havoc! Now, I don't mind following a linear sequence of events, or having little choice in what to actually do, so I decide to now and then play Half-Life 2 for 30 minutes or so, but I keep coming back to sandbox carnage!
Who really gives a toss about a well-written story or believable interaction between main characters when you can run up the wall of the highest skyscraper in New York, launch yourself straight towards the ground and land face first on top of an M1 tank, throwing the now burned out husk of the tank at an army helicopter, the destruction of which attracts another helicopter, which you hijack by pulling yourself up to it by way of your mutated upper extremity, flying to the nearest military base, jumping out of the helicopter to land next to the base's commander, eating him to get his keys, infiltrating the base, killing everyone in it with a blade that comes out of your arm, then exiting the base only to hijack another helicopter, use it to blow up the base, then eat any civilians who happened to be out for an afternoon stroll in the vicinity?
DAMN, FREEDOM ROCKS!
To, probably not, be continued...
lördag 27 mars 2010
Lots of stuff!
Alright, got alot of catching up to do, so let's get to it!
First point on the agenda; Lost. Hasn't it occurred to anyone that that show is absolutely fucking bananas? It's nuts! Crazy! Insane! It doesn't jump the shark, it flies constantly above it, on a pig! How can someone watch that useless crap?! There is no message behind it, there's no logic, there's just a bunch of incredibly incompetent writers who make up shit in exchange for a paycheck! It doesn't make any fucking sense whatsoever!
Second order of business; Batman: Arkham Asylum! How on earth did that game come to be? It's abso-fucking-lutely brilliant! The graphics, the animations, the controls, the characters, the story, it's just so incredibly great! So how on earth did the developers let this happen? A game of this quality comes around once every decade, if we're lucky, and between them the developers seem to just be phoning it in with every possible bit of the design on all other games.
Take Far Cry 2, for instance. The graphics and physics were some of the best I've ever seen. What was the problem? Everything else! The characterization wasn't there. There were supposed to be two different factions to work for, but since every single person outside of the main town was out to kill YOU, and do nothing else at all than kill YOU, you didn't really notice much difference apart from which building across the street you picked up the quests from
The natives never ever fought amongst themselves, there was complete peace and order in the little african country until you showed up, and anyone you encounter in the entire game will drop everything they're doing to hunt you down and kill you if they so much as get a whiff of your cologne!
Let's also look at Command & Conquer 4!
The earlier games in the series were built on the basis of building basic bases, basically, then training tonnes of troops to beat the enemy into submission with, all the while balancing offense and defense, managing your economy and enjoying the slaughter.
So, seeing as how this model had been so successful in the past, naturally EALA went and changed it completely.
Base-building? Gone, you now get exactly ONE structure, which is an MCV that conveniently builds all your units.
Economy? Gone, the game has no economic system at all, beyond you having to gather small tiberium samples to fund your research of new technologies, where one single crystal let's you research about half of all the potential technology in three seconds.
Large armies? Gone, you get a ridiculous population limit, so instead of a huge army of troops, you can get six tanks and three soldiers. Thus, any battle becomes a question of just churning out a steady stream of units rather than actually having something that at least remotely resembles an army.
Big-name actors? Gone, apart from Kane himself, there isn't a single face you'll ever recognize in any of the cutscenes.
So, apparently, EALA knew perfectly well which bits made Command & Conquer good, isolated them, and then burned them under ritual circumstances to make sure it would never affect the development of Command & Conquer 4.
You fucking whankers!
First point on the agenda; Lost. Hasn't it occurred to anyone that that show is absolutely fucking bananas? It's nuts! Crazy! Insane! It doesn't jump the shark, it flies constantly above it, on a pig! How can someone watch that useless crap?! There is no message behind it, there's no logic, there's just a bunch of incredibly incompetent writers who make up shit in exchange for a paycheck! It doesn't make any fucking sense whatsoever!
Second order of business; Batman: Arkham Asylum! How on earth did that game come to be? It's abso-fucking-lutely brilliant! The graphics, the animations, the controls, the characters, the story, it's just so incredibly great! So how on earth did the developers let this happen? A game of this quality comes around once every decade, if we're lucky, and between them the developers seem to just be phoning it in with every possible bit of the design on all other games.
Take Far Cry 2, for instance. The graphics and physics were some of the best I've ever seen. What was the problem? Everything else! The characterization wasn't there. There were supposed to be two different factions to work for, but since every single person outside of the main town was out to kill YOU, and do nothing else at all than kill YOU, you didn't really notice much difference apart from which building across the street you picked up the quests from
The natives never ever fought amongst themselves, there was complete peace and order in the little african country until you showed up, and anyone you encounter in the entire game will drop everything they're doing to hunt you down and kill you if they so much as get a whiff of your cologne!
Let's also look at Command & Conquer 4!
The earlier games in the series were built on the basis of building basic bases, basically, then training tonnes of troops to beat the enemy into submission with, all the while balancing offense and defense, managing your economy and enjoying the slaughter.
So, seeing as how this model had been so successful in the past, naturally EALA went and changed it completely.
Base-building? Gone, you now get exactly ONE structure, which is an MCV that conveniently builds all your units.
Economy? Gone, the game has no economic system at all, beyond you having to gather small tiberium samples to fund your research of new technologies, where one single crystal let's you research about half of all the potential technology in three seconds.
Large armies? Gone, you get a ridiculous population limit, so instead of a huge army of troops, you can get six tanks and three soldiers. Thus, any battle becomes a question of just churning out a steady stream of units rather than actually having something that at least remotely resembles an army.
Big-name actors? Gone, apart from Kane himself, there isn't a single face you'll ever recognize in any of the cutscenes.
So, apparently, EALA knew perfectly well which bits made Command & Conquer good, isolated them, and then burned them under ritual circumstances to make sure it would never affect the development of Command & Conquer 4.
You fucking whankers!
torsdag 18 februari 2010
Education!
One thing that really vexes me about education in general, and the teaching of history in particular, is that most of it is absolute codswallop through and through.
Take the Marathon, for instance. Every kid is taught at an early age that the Marathon is based on the distance that a messenger ran from the battle of Marathon to Athens to tell the people there of their victory over the persians, upon which he fell down dead from exhaustion.
It never fucking happened! It's simply not true, there is no way around the fact that it is absolute nonsense! There was no such messenger, no such run and no such death!
And how about the earth being round? Every kid is taught at an early age that everyone thought the earth was flat up until Columbus proved that it wasn't.
Utter claptrap! At least for the last 2000 years people have commonly known perfectly well that the earth was more or less spherical. The reason why Columbus was initially laughed at was because he thought the world was much smaller than it really was, and everyone knew that. If he hadn't discovered the West Indies, him and all his crew would have starved to death, and his contemporaries knew that. They knew perfectly well that one could, in theory, travel to India across the Atlantic ocean, but in practice, it wasn't doable due to the immense distance. Columbus was in fact just an idiot who thought the distance was much smaller.
Now what about the V-sign? Nothing to do with archers wanting to show the french that they still had their fingers, or whatever. Do you know what it means?
FUCK OFF!
So, stop corrupting history, stop teaching bullshit to the kids, or I will come to your house and shove a copy of the collected works of Herodotus up your candy arse!
Take the Marathon, for instance. Every kid is taught at an early age that the Marathon is based on the distance that a messenger ran from the battle of Marathon to Athens to tell the people there of their victory over the persians, upon which he fell down dead from exhaustion.
It never fucking happened! It's simply not true, there is no way around the fact that it is absolute nonsense! There was no such messenger, no such run and no such death!
And how about the earth being round? Every kid is taught at an early age that everyone thought the earth was flat up until Columbus proved that it wasn't.
Utter claptrap! At least for the last 2000 years people have commonly known perfectly well that the earth was more or less spherical. The reason why Columbus was initially laughed at was because he thought the world was much smaller than it really was, and everyone knew that. If he hadn't discovered the West Indies, him and all his crew would have starved to death, and his contemporaries knew that. They knew perfectly well that one could, in theory, travel to India across the Atlantic ocean, but in practice, it wasn't doable due to the immense distance. Columbus was in fact just an idiot who thought the distance was much smaller.
Now what about the V-sign? Nothing to do with archers wanting to show the french that they still had their fingers, or whatever. Do you know what it means?
FUCK OFF!
So, stop corrupting history, stop teaching bullshit to the kids, or I will come to your house and shove a copy of the collected works of Herodotus up your candy arse!
torsdag 3 december 2009
Around the next dream!
So, due to large amounts of popular demand, here comes the next dream of note:
It all started out with me and a buddy of mine staying over at an old friend's place, a friend who for some reason were really bloody annoyed by our presence there. Apparently, we had disturbed him in his sleep, so we were just lying in our bed (yes, that's singular, don't ask me why!) and pretending to sleep when he came and checked up on us in a rather foul mood.
Next thing I knew, we were visiting my buddy's girlfriend, and somehow some kind of argument erupted, and my buddy took his leave of us, and I was left at gunpoint from my old friend, who wanted me to come along outside and get into his car. Noteworthy is also the fact that at this point, the girlfriend of my buddy was in cahoots with him. I had also picked up a nice little rock with a fossil in it that I asked him if I could keep, upon which he took it and threw it on the ground to break it, but I still picked it up, and since he had discarded it, it would not be considered theft if I took it as my own, which I then did.
Now, me never being one to enjoy being threatened with a gun, I took the chance as he was stepping into the car to make a run for it. Fortunately, he was a very short guy, so buy crouching down, I stayed out of his view since he couldn't see over the cars that were between us.
As fast as I could, I ran around a corner, then yet another corner, in order to lose him. At this point, I decided to run into one of the apartment buildings to try and evade him in there, as I knew he was driving around trying to find me. It just so happened there was a hospital in that particular building, and instead of asking anyone in there for help, I ran down to another floor and out of the building, only to manage to sneak into yet another one at the same time as the guy with the gun arrived on the scene, thus he never spotted me, and I was relatively safe.
But, still wanting to evade him even further, I continued moving away from where I thought he was, and I came to a big road, which I tried unsuccessfully to cross. Then a lady came up and spoke to me, but what it was she said isn't told in this story.
Moving further away from the town center, I realized I could use my cellphone to call my buddy for help. Problem is, he was very depressed, and refused to help me since he wanted to stay loyal to his girlfriend, who was, as was explained earlier, working together with the jerk with the gun. He also told me his mother was on antidepressants, something I thought made sense, and that she was so addled by the drugs that the two had had sex, which somehow made their relationship so special that he couldn't possibly help me out.
Hey, stop rolling your eyes, this is my dream!
I had now arrived at a very beautiful suburb to the city I was in, and I tried calling my cousin to get a lift home. Problem is, I had no idea what city it was, only that it was somewhere in the vicinity of Stockholm, so I tried asking a classmate from high-school, a girl who I had once had a big crush on, but she acted all dismissive, and just told me that the name of the city was "Vanessa".
See, that made sense, didn't it?
Well, that's all she wrote, fortunately no more happened after that, because I'm getting tired of writing it down! Ha!
It all started out with me and a buddy of mine staying over at an old friend's place, a friend who for some reason were really bloody annoyed by our presence there. Apparently, we had disturbed him in his sleep, so we were just lying in our bed (yes, that's singular, don't ask me why!) and pretending to sleep when he came and checked up on us in a rather foul mood.
Next thing I knew, we were visiting my buddy's girlfriend, and somehow some kind of argument erupted, and my buddy took his leave of us, and I was left at gunpoint from my old friend, who wanted me to come along outside and get into his car. Noteworthy is also the fact that at this point, the girlfriend of my buddy was in cahoots with him. I had also picked up a nice little rock with a fossil in it that I asked him if I could keep, upon which he took it and threw it on the ground to break it, but I still picked it up, and since he had discarded it, it would not be considered theft if I took it as my own, which I then did.
Now, me never being one to enjoy being threatened with a gun, I took the chance as he was stepping into the car to make a run for it. Fortunately, he was a very short guy, so buy crouching down, I stayed out of his view since he couldn't see over the cars that were between us.
As fast as I could, I ran around a corner, then yet another corner, in order to lose him. At this point, I decided to run into one of the apartment buildings to try and evade him in there, as I knew he was driving around trying to find me. It just so happened there was a hospital in that particular building, and instead of asking anyone in there for help, I ran down to another floor and out of the building, only to manage to sneak into yet another one at the same time as the guy with the gun arrived on the scene, thus he never spotted me, and I was relatively safe.
But, still wanting to evade him even further, I continued moving away from where I thought he was, and I came to a big road, which I tried unsuccessfully to cross. Then a lady came up and spoke to me, but what it was she said isn't told in this story.
Moving further away from the town center, I realized I could use my cellphone to call my buddy for help. Problem is, he was very depressed, and refused to help me since he wanted to stay loyal to his girlfriend, who was, as was explained earlier, working together with the jerk with the gun. He also told me his mother was on antidepressants, something I thought made sense, and that she was so addled by the drugs that the two had had sex, which somehow made their relationship so special that he couldn't possibly help me out.
Hey, stop rolling your eyes, this is my dream!
I had now arrived at a very beautiful suburb to the city I was in, and I tried calling my cousin to get a lift home. Problem is, I had no idea what city it was, only that it was somewhere in the vicinity of Stockholm, so I tried asking a classmate from high-school, a girl who I had once had a big crush on, but she acted all dismissive, and just told me that the name of the city was "Vanessa".
See, that made sense, didn't it?
Well, that's all she wrote, fortunately no more happened after that, because I'm getting tired of writing it down! Ha!
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