Author: Shmee

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Microsoft Just Bought GitHub For Some Reason…

It must be nice having tons of money to throw around.  Microsoft just made its first major purchase of Satya Nadella era, GitHub.  You know, that site where all the open-source nerds host all their projects.  For free.  Well it turns out that Microsoft is hosting a bunch of their stuff there too since they closed down CodePlex in 2017.  I mean sure, it is a cool site, so I can kind of see the appeal, but they bought it for $7.5 Billion!  That is like buying a nice little bungalow by the beach for a couple of tons of gold bullion.  A slight overspend there.

Here is the thing, while there is a massive amount of data on GitHub, Git is an open-source version control system, and there is nothing, I mean nothing stopping people from making a new GitHub-esque site somewhere else.  Not to mention GitHub was only bringing in about $140 Million a year in revenue, so it will add next to nothing to Microsoft’s already massive bottom line.  This is nothing more than a vanity purchase.  Microsoft wanted to prove that they are down with open-source, so they bought where it is all stored (for the time being).

I just don’t understand it.  Hosting a bunch of projects on GitHub already sent the message Microsoft was trying to make, and if it is a code ownership thing, Microsoft could have made their own Git site in the blink of an eye, but so can all those aforementioned open-source nerds, so now it is just a count down until GitHub becomes an empty wasteland as the multitude of anti-Microsoft code jockeys leave to self made geekier pastures.

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Why PUBG, Why?

Yesterday PUBG Corp did something very dumb, they sued Epic Games for copyright infringement.  While I get why they are angry, PUBG pays Epic to license their engine, and then Epic turns around uses that money to create a Battle Royal variant for their game Fortnite.  Which at first played very similar to PUBG.  It must be hard watching a bunch of players leave to a similar game made by the people you pay to help you with your game, but this is just a bad look.

PUBG should have responded to Fortnite: Battle Royal by doubling down on making their game better.  To be fair it has gotten better on both Xbox and PC, but it is still poorly optimized, and it doesn’t have the best aesthetic.  Not to mention its loot system is pretty lame.  Though despite all that I like PUBG more.  The moment to moment tension in PUBG is better than the arcade-y thrill of Fortnite.

Which is another problem for PUBG’s lawsuit, while Fortnite started out very similar to PUBG, they are vastly different games now.  I am not sure how copyright works in Korea, but they would have a hard time making people think they are the same game here in the states.  Especially since the game industry is full of clones of one another, and a lot of them are far more egregious than Fortnite.

Look, it was bad form for Epic to literally say, “we like PUBG so much we are going to make our own Battle Royal game”, but suing people for bad form is not good business practice, and it makes all the gamers out there dislike PUBG for its epic case of sour grapes.  If PUBG wants to get its gamers back it needs to buckle down and make its game better, not sue Epic for bogus copyright infringement.  That will do the opposite.

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Deadpool 2 Delivers Exactly What You Would Expect

In 2016 Deadpool delivered something audiences had never seen, a foul mouthed jerky “superhero” that made fun of all the other superhero movies out there.  It was the self satire that the genre needed.  While Deadpool’s shtick is still funny, it lacks the shock and awe that it had two years ago, but if you are looking for more Deadpool, Deadpool 2 delivers.

Deadpool 2 starts soon after the end of the first Deadpool, and things are at first going great for the Merc with the Mouth (Ryan Reynolds), but then tragedy strikes.  To make things even worse Cable (Josh Brolin) comes from the future causing chaos, so Deadpool has to get a team together to stop him, the X-Force.  Queue zany hijinks and over the top action sequences.  Maximum Effort!

They way they tried to change things up was to make this a more personal story for Wade Wilson.  To give it a little more heart, but the problem is that it undercuts itself to tell more jokes.  Which to be fair is why the audience is there in the first place, but it makes it feel like the writers were trying to have their cake and eat it too.  By making this a standard emotional superhero movie, and then turning around and making fun of all those movies.  Thankfully most of the jokes land the way they were intended.

We all know that this was the superhero role that Reynolds was meant to play, but Brolin’s Cable is spot on too, and Zazie Beetz as Domino is fantastic.  Even better the rest of Deadpool’s excellent cast all return, and they continue to be hilarious, even if they are used to a lesser degree.

It is strange to be a little let down that Deadpool 2 gives us more of what made the first film so good, but I was kind of hoping they would try new things, maybe even find new genre’s to make fun of.  However, the action is still explosive, and the jokes are still funny, so it is still worth watching.  I just hope that they find something a little different to tackle with the upcoming X-Force movie, and don’t just use it as an excuse to turn Deadpool in to just another X-Man.

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Star Wars Most Overrated Character Is Still Getting A Movie…

Rumors have it that James Mangold (Logan) is creating a Boba Fett movie.  WHY?!  I am sorry internet, but Boba Fett is lame.  He is a man with a jetpack that got killed by being knocked off a hover cart by a blind man.  The only thing he is proven to be good at is hiding his space ship in trash.  That is a skill that pays the bills for sure.  He looks cool, I will give him that, but he is terrible.  The best thing he ever did was ride a pink dinosaur in the Star Wars Christmas Special.

From all accounts Solo is a fine movie, but Disney needs to start creating original Star Wars movies not just creating random character prequels.  We don’t need an Obi-Wan movie, we don’t need this Boba Fett movie, or any other random original character movie.  That being said, I will accept a Pokins movie.  His origins need to be explored.  What I am saying is I would love James Mangold to make a Star Wars movie, but I would like to see him explore something new, instead of dredging up the past.

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Battlefield V Tries To Become Left 4 Dead III!

Well this was unexpected.  We were expecting a Battle Royal mode, which since they increased Battlefield V’s player count to 64, I am sure it is coming, but what we got was a new co-op mode with randomly generated objectives.  You and three other friends will do your best take on different scenarios from early parts of World War II.  As the game gets older, it will get later on in the war.  Also, there are no crates in Battlefield V.  You of course can buy cosmetics for your soldier, but you don’t need to.  They are hoping, that much like Fortnite, you will really need that scorpion bomber jacket, so you won’t mind throwing down your hard earned cash, or grinding your way to get it.

If fan reaction is anything to go by, people are really excited to head back to WWII with Battlefield.  All I know is that they had better remake Wake Island!  You can’t have a Battlefield in  WWII without it.  So if Battlefield’s tried and true gameplay with a little bit of Left 4 Dead excites you, Battlefield V launches this October.  I know I will probably be getting it, and yes, I will probably have a lady avatar!