Shmee.Me

November 2, 2015

Why You Shouldn’t Be A Halloween Skipper!

In the recent episode of The Simpsons titled Halloween of Horror, Homer uses the term “skipper” for the ever increasing number of people that turn off their porch lights and close their blinds on Halloween. There are any number of reasons to skip Halloween: religious beliefs, agoraphobia, going on vacation, and so on, but it seems like the number one reason people are skipping Halloween is just because they don’t want to bother. Here is why I think you should bother. Halloween is the one holiday dedicated to meeting your community.

Think about it. The big holidays, Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Easter you spend with family. New Years and the Forth of July (or whatever your local patriotic holiday is) you spend with friends, and the greeting card holidays, Valentine’s Day, Mothers Day, and whatnot, you spend the day with the person you bought the card for. Halloween on the other hand is the day that you get to dress up and use getting/giving free candy and toys as an excuse to talk to your neighbors. As your kid joins the sugar crazy hoard, you get to watch and hang out with the rest of the parents from your block and get the dirt on what has been going down on your street. You get to see how excited the old lady down the lane is to see so many kids at her door, or interact with the imaginative scares the guy across the street came up with. In short, you get to be involved in the place where you live.

Halloween is unique in its premise, and by skipping, you are opting out of your community. I will also say this, if your religion is what is stopping you, I would ask that you reconsider. I grew up being a lumber jack or fisherman more times than I can count because I couldn’t take part in the creepy aspect of the holiday, but I was still out there, and if God is all powerful, he can certainly sanctify a day meant to celebrate the darker forces. Don’t be a skipper: buy a cheep bag of candy, turn on the light, dress your kid up as a garden patch, and meet the people of your neighborhood. You will be glad that you did.

October 30, 2015

A Game To Add To My Radar For Next Year: The Technomancer!

Apparently there was a game called Mars: War Logs that came out for the PC, Xbox 360, and PS3. It was a digital only RPG. It wasn’t well received due to the fact it was a little shallow, but mostly because it was a buggy mess. Though it seems that the gaming public liked it more than the reviewers. RPG players have always been a little more bug resilient than gamers at large. Spiders Game Studio decided that they wanted to take another swing at it with The Technomancer.

I have to say if they can pull it off it has a cool setting, and I am always looking new good RPG. It is always nice to see something that isn’t fantasy based, and if it is going to post apocalyptic at least it doesn’t appear to be a Fallout clone. I will be watching The Technomancer’s progress with great interest.

October 29, 2015October 29, 2015

It’s The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown Is Screwed Up!

While watching the Halloween classic “It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown” with Lil’ Shmee, I came to the conclusion that it is a screwed up show. Now don’t get me wrong, I still love it, and I have never been one to get too mad at the Peanuts crew for being hard on Charlie Brown. His resilience to his friends constant barbs is what gives him his charm. No, there are two other parts of this short film that really got to me.

1: The neighborhood gives Charlie Brown rocks. I said I was okay with Charlie’s friends being hard on him, and I am, but the neighborhood parents? What the heck! If some person gave my kid a rock they may find it going through their window. Unless that person is like really in to rocks and gave all the kids little geodes or something, but that would be a special case. Plus then all the kids would be getting rocks. Cool rocks. It just made me so mad that the adults were picking on the poor kid too.

2: Linus waits until 4:00AM for the Great Pumpkin. This never used to bother me. I mean the pumpkin patch is super close to Linus’ house, and they live in a good neighborhood (despite the rock thing), but now that I am watching it in HD I realized that Lucy doesn’t go to get him until 4AM. Not to mention it is Lucy that goes and gets him. So not only are the parents handing out rocks to kids with low self esteem, they are letting their kids sleep on the dirt in the middle of Fall, and they don’t even care. “Don’t worry Lucy will take care of him!” They could have at least given him a sleeping bag. He is obviously shaking from the cold when Lucy retrieves him.

Oh well, it is a classic, and it is fun to watch every year, but if I could reach in to my TV and give those parents a piece of my mind, I would. They may even get some of their rocks back. See you at Christmas Peanuts gang!

October 28, 2015October 28, 2015

Halo 5: Guardians First Impressions!

After years of hype and excitement Halo 5 is out. I got to play it for quite a bit last night, so like I promised yesterday, I thought I would let you know my first impressions. It is Halo. Now that is either high praise or not depending on who you are, but Halo 5: Guardians is more of the Halo franchise we have come to know and love. I have had a blast so far, and I can’t wait to play more.

The game takes place a little after Halo 4, and it quickly introduces you to a new protagonist and his team. Spartan Locke and crew are out looking for the Master Chief who has gone rouge in the Outer Rim, so ONI (Office of Navel Intelligence) sends a new Spartan after an old Spartan. You will still get to play as the Chief leading Locke on his marry chase, but this is mostly Locke’s story (so far anyway).

Sadly Spartan Locke is kind of dull. He just gives orders and takes orders, and he doesn’t question the job. Which is kind of a shame, I understand that they wanted to give you someone like the Chief to play when you aren’t playing, you know, playing as the Chief, but Spartan Buck, who you may remember from Halo: ODST back when he was just an Orbital Drop Shock Trouper, seems like he would have been a better lead (that could just be my love for Nathan Fillion talking though). While he still follows orders, he at least questions them and wonders about the bigger picture.

Still Halo has never really been about the story happening during the game. The game has always been a small window in to large universe. I hope they open it up more later in the game, but the reviews seem to be telling me otherwise. It just seems that after Halo 4, one of the better story based Halo games, that they would have tried to up the ante a little.

Though the reason you play Halo, the great shooting action, is still present in Halo 5: Guardians. It is fast, now moving at 60 frame per second, and frantic, and the controls as far as aiming and shooting go are spot on. My only grip is that I wish I could get the dash forward button ‘B’ and the melee attack button ‘Right Bumper’ swapped. I tried to use a different scheme for awhile to make up for that, but then it was even worse. So 343i if you are listening please swap those two buttons. I may try and use the new Xbox Accessories App and see if I can swap those buttons just for this game.

Halo 5 is also the best looking game so far in the franchise, which should be no surprise. Everything just pops. The characters, the guns, the environments, just everything looks better. It matches the style in Halo 4, but just ramped up a bit.

Besides my minor controller gripe, the other issue I have is that your squad mates are as dumb as dirt. Now that could be because they make the AI squad members dumber when you play Co-Op (I have only played Co-Op), so that you rely on your human team more, but I doubt it. We will see if I play alone any time soon.

The multiplayer in Halo 5 is split up in to two areas, Arena and Warzone. Arena is the Halo multilayer you have come to know and love. Just polished to perfection. It is a four on four test of skill. Which is why I am terrible at it. My skills are lacking. Warzone is like a Halo MOBA highbred. I am not sure if I like it, I may report back on that more later. You fight other teams as well as AI controlled mobs. It was fun, but kind of un-Halo. Like I said, I may need to play more of that to get a better handle on it.

Halo 5 is more Halo. For me that is a great thing, but for you that may sound disappointing. Whether you are playing as Locke or Chief, you will shoot, jump, and punch your way through the bad guys to get your objective. I know what I will being doing tonight.

October 27, 2015October 27, 2015

Happy Halo Day!

Well after years of hype Halo 5 is now out in the wild! The reviews have been solid, so I can’t wait to get my hands on it. It should be waiting for me when I get home from work. Of course I will let you know what I think!