Gaming – Some thoughts on Bioshock

Bioshock came out on tuesday and if your a PC or Xbox gamer your probably already playing it and fwapping at the same time. I must admit that when I first laid eyes on the first pictures all those many moons ago I thought that the game looked very spooky and interesting. Then the PS3 version got canned and I said that 2k games could suck a rotten egg.

Then I remembered that I had a PC and that FPS games pretty much belong on the PC and I was happy again. That is until I played the actual game itself. Now now now…..don’t get angry at me I’m not saying that Bioshock is a bad game. In fact, it’s probably the best FPS game that I’ve played since Doom 3 was released, but I just felt (to me anyways) that the game wasn’t as good as it’s hype made it out to be. Is it the graphics? Hell no….the games beautiful. Is it the story? Nope, the setting and backstory make this game. So, where is the problem? the gameplay itself.

It’s not the difficulty nor is it the controls. It’s the fact that it’s just like every other FPS game that came before it. It just has a few RPG quirks added in for some extra flair. The game will play like it’s predecessors….which means that if your familiar with Condemned, Doom, FEAR, The Darkness, etc etc etc. Then the game will become second nature to you in a matter of seconds. It’s not groundbreaking in this department even though it promised it would be.

“But but but! It has PLASMIDS!”

So? It’s basically underwater scary story with guns and MAGIC! It’s been done. You can hack stuff, use magical powers thanks to Plasmids, and use enemies against themselves. System Shock 2 did all that and the whole “turn enemies in to foes” thing has been done in recent games so it wasn’t so surprising to me. And besides….those Plasmids things aren’t all they are cracked up to be. You find yourself scrambling for ammo to use them than anything else so if you go all plasmid crazy then you can get screwed in a hurry. So, use dem guns peoples!

Not to mention Penny Arcade warned of the frequent overuse of them and what can happen:

Again, I’m not saying that the game is awful or bad in any sense. It’s probably one of the most fine tuned FPS games I’ve ever played. However, it isn’t the messiah of FPS that people made it out to be. It just does what most other FPS games already do, but better.

Overall? 8.5/10.0

Not the innovative game it claimed to be, but it’s still a hell of a lot of fun. So, why aren’t you playing it yet?

News – My view on “The Meltdown”

Rummaging amongst the links to find a topic to comment on I find this.

Well, Leahy is right about the fact that conservatives (including myself) are trying to bring light to the fact that NASA’s calculation of the hottest year on record (they said 1998, it’s really 1934) were incorrect and that there has been little to no coverage on this issue except for a few conservative outlets.

I can’t answer for my other conservative bloggers but I know why I have mentioned the data error numerous times. It’s not to say that Global Warming is a hoax. No, the Earth is warming and has been since the end of the last ice age. However, like most environmental journalists Leahy uses Greenland as the barometer that foretells the impending doom of the world.

Now the warning: The complete collapse of the massive Greenland Ice Sheet — which has a mean height of about two kilometres — now appears inevitable, and could raise sea levels seven metres.

How high is that exactly? 7 metres = 22.965879 feet

Wanna hear the rest of it? click the link below.

News – GA dismisses Global Warming activists, calls them “alarmists”

I so love Georgia right now.

And the leftist libs in the comments are on full attack too. Right off the bat they start claiming that the power industry stacked the panel in the favor of the “deniers” so that the “elitist” oil, coal, etc etc groups could steer public opinion. Well, to bad for them that none of that is true. Also, Georgia Power has begun a green program itself by converting over to clean coal power (there is such a thing and if you don’t believe me just look it up.) so saying that the Coal plants are just trying to pay off critics.

The one major thing that people need to realize is that despite what scientists shove out in front of you they aren’t really giving you conclusive evidence. They are passing along a “consensus” which is a smart way of saying “the majority of us agree on a few things but we all disagree on something”. What was the consensus agreement by those 2000 scientists? That the earth is warming.

That’s it. They all agreed that the earth is hotter now than it was back after the ice age. That’s as far as the agreement went.

Do they know what causes the increase? Well, I’m assuming, and this just might be my conventional wisdom here, that the Sun (our lone source for light and heat) might be the reason. It is experiencing a period of it’s activity where sunspots are more frequent and are throwing heat towards the planets more often. Solar scientists have been screaming this since the IPCC announced its report but nobody has paid attention.

Also, the eco-groups continuously silence critics by claiming they are junkies of the power industry which has been proven time and time again to be false. Each model that the IPCC and NASA put forwards was found to be debunked and false. The hockey stick? falsified. Proven to be a sham. The NASA temperatures that said that 1998 was the hottest year on record? falsified. A programming error offset the formula that calculates the charts for temperature change. It was found that 1934 was the hottest year on record. I think that’s correct…it was in the thirties and four other scorching years in the top ten all happened before WW2.

Only three were in the recent ten years. 98, 99, 05. 2006 didn’t make the top ten.

Also, that theory that the major atlantic jetstream was slowing down or stopping? Debunked as well. Turns out that another group of scientists found normal variations within the current and it shows no sign of stopping.

Apparently the panel of the GA legislature knows all this and made a decision that is better for the people. Putting the hysteria of Global Warming aside they can focus on better things for the country. Enviromentalism isn’t one of them.

Video – Dallacroce Vs. Geraldo.

She takes him to task about his pandering to the illegal immigration crowd.

Good for her. I especially like the part where she asked him why he changed his name. Geraldo makes so many factual errors in this little video that it’s not even funny to watch when he screw up anymore. He goes off and says that NY is the safest large city in the world now (BS) and then says that Arizona is not a sanctuary city (double BS)

The guy can’t take being schooled by everyone on this issue and so he lashes out against the conservative and right-wing blogosphere and supporters. He probably won’t ever learn, but it’s good to see him getting owned by a mother who has just had enough.

News – Birds to blame for 35w bridge collapse?

In a weird kinda way they are.

Stupid birds. Always crapping all over the place and ruining a good car wash on a sunny afternoon. Now it seems that pigeon crap is one of the causes of the bridge collapse. How could that be possible?

Experts say the corrosive guano deposited all over the span’s framework helped the steel beams rust faster.

Although investigators have yet to identify the cause of the bridge’s Aug. 1 collapse, which killed at least 13 people and injured about 100, the pigeon problem is one of many factors that dogged the structure.

“There is a coating of pigeon dung on steel with nest and heavy buildup on the inside hollow box sections,” inspectors wrote in a 1987-1989 report.

Kinda makes you wonder why they didn’t just wash the darn bridge off. I know we have city workers who can go out and perform maintenance and cleaning on some of our aging structures. I know for a FACT that we do because I see at least thirty DOT worker in my state just standing around in a construction zone while about three actual guys do the work.

Still, all these investigations in to the bridge collapse have shown that the infrastructure on Minneapolis has really dropped the ball on this one. They’ve known the bridge has had problems for now as early as 2 decades ago and still the bridge hadn’t been repaired or had some sort of preventative maintenance on it. Kinda makes you wonder what the heck they’ve been spending the money on all these years.

I have an idea though. You know what would get rid of pigeons crapping on bridges? DDT I hear that stuff pretty much does the trick and the best thing is you don’t have mosquito’s either. I’m kidding of course but I’m in the mood to take a swipe at the eco-freaks today. Unrelated, but thats just my way today.

ATS – The New Black

Your damn right.

Thursday morning and it’s already 100 degrees outside. The news is coming in and I’m in the mood to just start ripping on some topics today. So lets get this hot, humid, and overall crappy day started off with a bang. As for who the band is? It’s Every Time I Die and they pretty much kick so much ass that hearing their music will make your back hurt.

They rock that hard.