Category: Rant

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Why Can’t We All Get Along?!

console-wars

Image via shirtoid.com, and you can get it on a shirt!

As long as there has been more than one gaming platform, there has always been the argument that one reigns supreme over the others, but instead of discussing it like mature adults, we like to rage against one another on forums.  The sad fact is that now more than ever the platforms are very similar to one another, so all this rage is mostly meaningless.  Why is it that we can’t all just get along?

I think it all comes down to money.  Gaming can be an expensive hobby.  By the time people get the hardware, the peripherals, and the games, you can be several hundred dollars, if not thousands, in the hole.  A person just wants to feel justified in their purchase, so when someone makes a different choice then them it is like they are saying “you were wrong”.  Buying a console or PC is not a test.  There is no wrong answer.  Are you having fun on the platform you purchased? Yes?  Good you made the right choice.  That is all there is too it.  People are reading in to the current console hardware sales, and trying to use them to prove that one console is better than the other, but the console race will last for years to come.

Plus we do not really want a winner.  If there was only one platform, there would be no competition, so games would cost even more, and the lone console would be pretty crappy.  For those of you that are old enough, look what happened to the Atari.  The Atari 2600 came out, and it was the only game in town, so when they made a follow up, the 5200, it was a giant pile of dung.  It was so bad it almost destroyed video games, but luckily the Nintendo Entertainment System saved the day.

The new consoles are all selling well, and there is a resurgence in the PC market due to the rise in indie development.  We as gamers should all be happy about that.  As an Xbox One owner, I want the PS4 to do well, and as a PC owner, I want there to be strength in the console market.  We are all part of the same hobby, and it is something we enjoy greatly, so we should be happy for one another.  Though I am sure we can all agree that mobile gaming is the WORST! 😉

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They Finally Cast A Wonder Woman!

gal-gadot-2

Well it must be very cold someplace hot because they have finally cast Wonder Woman for the Batman vs Superman movie, Gal Gadot!  I have not seen much of what Gal Gadot has been in, but maybe that is good since I will not have any preconceived ideas about her acting abilities unlike the man set to be Batman.  She may not be my choice, but she has got the look, and has been in a few action movies, so I wish her the best.  With the main cast set, I hope this movie gets DC’s comic book cinematic universe rolling!

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Don’t Pre-Order Stuff From KMart!

Xbox-One

Update: They shipped out my console at 2:50, so my nerd rage is slightly quelled, but when the consoles have been in your warehouse for a month this should have happened earlier.

You would think that this would be a no brainer, but in my lust for next generation console goodness, I ordered my system through KMart because they were the only place that had Day One pre-orders left.  The good places (Amazon/Target) shipped out their consoles yesterday, but I guess KMart is taking their time.  They did charge me yesterday, but as of yet have not given me a tracking number, so I guess they will ship it when they ship it.  They also do not have a cancel button on their website, so there is no real finding my console somewhere else either.  SIGH.  I supposes patience is a virtue I need to work on, but it is hard as an early adopter on launch day without even a tracking number to call my own.  NEVER AGAIN KMART!

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Why I Wanted A Next Gen Console!

Xbox-One

The PS4 is out for the press as of yesterday, and out for the general public tomorrow.  The Xbox One will have a similar release next week, but as the reviews are coming in for the games for these consoles the scores look pretty average.  So why did I decide to keep my pre-order on one when there isn’t anything great to play?  Potential.

Consoles generally always start off slow.  They have a limited number of games, and their menu’s need tweaking.  There are always glitches of some kind, but the potential of what people can do once they understand the hardware is always mind blowing.

People have been on COD: Ghosts for only running at 720p on the X1, and 1080p on the PS4 with some major frame rate drops, but you have to remember that this is the first time out of the gate with these new machines.  It took awhile for Xbox 360 games to look better than the original Xbox, but now looking back they aren’t even comparable anymore.

So you would think that after a paragraph like that I would be telling you to wait a year to buy a new system, but I am not.  Being able to try the new ideas and abilities of the machine as the games come out is exciting and fun.  Having the system in hand as developers learn to use the potential of the system is a great feeling!

Plus it really isn’t that expensive.  People look at the cost of the PS4 at $400, and the Xbox One $500 and complain that it is just too much money, but really it is not.  If these consoles last as long as the last ones did, I could be using this thing for eight years, so that is only $62.50 a year.  Plus with the rate of inflation these systems are right in line with the Nintendo Entertainment Systems of old.

I can’t wait for next week (probably the week after that due to shipping) to get and setup my new box of potential.  Developers you have a lot of potential to use, and I can’t wait to try it!

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Oh DC!

DC-entertainment

The guys over at DC/Warner Bros crack me up.  Things have been going so well with the new Arrow show on the CW that they have decided to add a few more shows to their comic book line up:  The Flash, A Gotham cop show that may or may not have James Gordon in it, and saving the best for last an Hourman TV show.

Yes you know Hourman … oh you don’t.  Well I guess you weren’t buying comic books in the 40s, or paying real close attention to the Justice League of America comics.  He is always in the background somewhere.  He takes drugs to be super strong and fast for one hour, and in later comics he can see an hour in to the future.  As a crime fighter you could see how that could come in handy.  He has never really been a fan favorite, but I guess one hour precognition and general super awesomeness are easy powers to show on TV, and good on them for digging through their catalog and finding something interesting.

What is intriguing about this that there is the potential for at least four DC Comics TV shows, but that there is only going to be one movie so far, and that may not come out until 2016.  The TV people are finding all sorts of fun things to do, but they can’t get more than one creative movie group.  That is astounding.

I almost want to drive down to DC studios and shake somebody.  It can’t be that hard to write a good superhero movie.  As we all know freaking Marvel has like six of them on the docket, so I am sure that they could at least poach one of their writing teams to make something happen.

Now you may have heard that Jaime Alexander (my number 2 choice) is in talks to possibly play Wonder Woman in the new Batman Vs. Superman movie, but that is putting a lot of eggs in one basket.  I just hope that it is successful so Warner Bros can be as creative with their movies as they are with their TV shows.

Just for fun I am going to leave you with what looks like the best Justice League movie we are going to get: The Lego Movie.