Somewhat Manly Nerd

I’d be the first to admit to being a Blizzard fanboy, but World of Warcraft has tempered my fandom quite a bit. I feel like its success has pushed back the development of other games, specifically the two games referred to in the title of this post. And that is inexcusable. I’m looking forward to the release of both games, but one much more than the other. I’m basing this stance of my experience with their predecessors, but I’m sure Blizzard will surprise me in the years leading up to release. Yes, years — we are talking about Blizzard here.

Diablo II came out 8 years ago at the turn of the century. With the addition of its expansion pack Lord of Destruction in 2001, it became the most addictive game ever before the existence of WoW. But I believe it still holds the title for most people killed in internet cafe marathons — and the victims didn’t even need to pay a monthly fee. I’m going admit here and now that I shamefully never actually played Diablo II with LoD.

My D2 experience is almost solely limited to a summer where I broke my left thumb, leaving a mouse-click fest such as D2 as my only gaming choice. Not that it was something I resented — it was obviously addictive and fun as hell — but I may never have sunk that many hours into it otherwise. Nevertheless, I didn’t even finish the game, because of the worst gaming mistake of my life. I dropped the wand I had built my entire necromancer character around in town so I could pick up some other stuff or whatever. I don’t remember the specifics of why I fucked up so bad. Needless to say, I saved and exited while my wand lied on the ground. It was gone. I had just opened up the portal to Act IV, nearing the very end of the game, when I fucked it all up. This occurrence just so happened to sync perfectly with my cast getting removed, and I pretty much never picked up the game again.

Since then, the only similar game I’ve played is Titan Quest, and while playing that I’ve often thought to myself, “Why the fuck am I even playing this game?” I just run around, killing dudes by clicking on them, picking up the shit they drop, making a portal to go back to town when my inventory is full, trading everything for gold, and then rinse and repeat. So do I even want Diablo III? It’s going to be the same core gameplay, as this is Blizzard we’re talking about. They’ve released videos and the graphics don’t exactly impress. Do I really want to sink hours of time into just trying to get increasingly progressive loot? I guess it’d be more fun with other people, but isn’t that just what WoW is? And fuck WoW.

On the other hand, Starcraft is quite possibly my favorite PC game of all-time. The day I got my mom to buy me the Starcraft Battle Chest at Price Club (now known as Costco), was one of the most glorious days of my life. This was almost 10 years ago. I didn’t even know what the game was, but it sure looked cool. When I got home to play it, I had a game that blew away C&C:Red Alert and Age of Empires. Sure, I loved those two RTS games, but this was the combination of every cool sci-fi thing ever! Actually, I take that back a little bit — Red Alert was still awesome. Just the three totally different, yet balanced, factions of Terran, Zerg, and Protoss was an incredible feat to me. Not to mention the cutscenes were badass and the Battle.net multiplayer was both fun and simple as hell to use.

I repeat: This was TEN YEARS AGO. A decade. Starcraft is arguably still the most balanced RTS ever created. Actually, thinking about it, I’m not even sure if it’s debatable, considering the massive of amount of Koreans that still play competitively. But that doesn’t mean it’s any less archaic. The unit path-finding is beyond godawful, the A.I. is a cheating bastard, and it’s 10 YEARS OLD. I played the game in middle school; I am now a college graduate and I don’t have my hands on a sequel. I need it. Millions of people across the world need it. Red Alert 3 won’t satisfy our urge. Dawn of War II – no matter how awesome it may look — won’t satiate either. We need our Blizzard overlords to fill the hole in our lives. We need to kill lings and hydras without mercy in 3D and in a resolution higher than 640×480.

Starcraft II is just needed more than Diablo III. If you feel differently, vote to make me feel wrong. If you agree, vote so the Diablo fans know why their game is coming after ours.

I was going to embed the poll in this post, but I think a better idea would be to place it on the sidebar so no matter what post you’re looking at, it’s there. I want as many people as possible to vote. This is important stuff we’re doing. So look at the top right of my blog. And vote. Or die.

I would do whatever you say, Natalie. If you wanted me to murder my parents instead of talk to them, I’d still do it. Just say the words! I’LL BURN MYSELF! I’LL BURN MY PARENTS!!

Season 7. Episode 8. (Even if the above shot is not from it.)

By this time, most shows are canceled or a shell of their former self. Law and Order doesn’t count. I don’t even know if that qualifies as a TV show anymore. It’s more omnipresent than God.

But after 83 episodes — with only five left — The Shield is still managing to hit higher notes than ever. I have no clue how they’re going to keep this up for the remaining episodes. The shit is out of the bag. I feel like this post is somewhat pointless, as I don’t want to really talk specifics because I think every person should be able to watch the show from the beginning with no spoilers, but I just need it to be known that The Shield kicks fucking ass. One line in my latest REAL TALK post isn’t enough. While insufferable nerdlings watch shit like Heroes and Fringe, awesome people watch The Shield.

So here’s a perfect time to make use to the new poll feature on WordPress.com:

I look forward to seeing the results of 0 votes!

Radiohead – 2+2=5

I put my iPod on shuffle to try to think of a song to post for this week. I came to the realization I have way too much freaking music. 11,000 songs? What the hell is wrong with me? I’d be surprised if I’ve listened to half of them.

Oh, and if you don’t get the title, don’t worry about it. The Tampa Bay Rays manager is some crazy hippie old dude who makes up retarded math equations. I bet he listens to Radiohead.

The Rays won Game 7 of the ALCS 3-1. I like being wrong sometimes.

Almost the entire game I thought the Red Sox were going to win. Dustin Pedroia’s home run in the first inning may have had something to do with that. Even as the Rays held a 3-1 lead, I figured the Sox would find a way back. After the error in the 8th inning — with the middle of the Sox order coming up — I really thought it was over. Yet somehow the Rays managed to stop it from falling apart. Coco Crisp not sliding straight into second base helped.

They deserve the AL pennant. They beat the best. The Red Sox were on their way to becoming the 90′s Yankees of this decade, but this loss signals the end of any dynasty talk. The Rays, at the very least, look like they’ll be competitive for a few years. The AL East is just STACKED.

I’ve said it before, but the Rays better not shit the bed in the World Series. I don’t want this to be another 2006.

And I wonder if Dick Vitale had a heart attack. That’d be awesome.

Raking and picking up leaves always takes about three times as long as you think it’s going to take. A similar phenomenon occurs when writing one of these posts.

I’m ashamed to admit that Christina Hendricks would undoubtedly be too much woman for me. I’d be done the minute she touched me — if I got that far.

The Office is still worth watching if only for the random Creed lines. Anyone that watched this past week’s episode knows what I’m talking about.

TBS shouldn’t be allowed to cover sports anymore after their fuckup tonight. Being subjected to The Steve Harvey Show is not something white people take lightly.

As you may have heard or played yourself already, Call of Duty: World at War is a WWII Call of Duty 4 mod. With Kiefer Sutherland yelling at you. You may think that sounds awesome, but it isn’t, since Treyarch isn’t Infinity Ward.

Can we all agree that it’s going to be fucking awesome when this election is finally over? I don’t even care if every racist in America comes out and votes for McCain, facilitating a shocking victory. I just want it to be over.

The Shield is better than whichever TV shows you’re watching this season. People should be speculating how this show wraps up just as much as people were talking about the end of the goddamn Sopranos.

World of Goo is not a porno game.

If you enjoyed Iron Man and/or Tropic Thunder due to Robert Downey Jr. being awesome, you owe it to yourself and humanity to watch Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Especially since it’s a better movie than either of those.

The more you research a potential purchase — whether it be an HDTV, a car, or a digital camera — the less inclined you become to actually BUY one.

While watching Steve Harvey for 20 minutes was painful, watching the same Frank TV commercials for the second year in a row every commercial break is even worse. Fuck you so much, TBS.

The Red Sox are about to win the ALCS tomorrow and subsequently the World Series. I hate being right sometimes. I’d hate being wrong about the World Series even more.

And I don’t have a video or GIF of it to post. You have failed me internet.

Edit: Welp, MLB.com has video of it right here. Anddd that doesn’t directly link to the video. Goddamn it, MLB.com. Just find the “Kotsay comes around to score the tying run” video.

I hope you’re not a baseball fan that turned the Rays-Red Sox game off when the score was 7-0 in the 7th inning. You missed the second biggest comeback in playoff history, and I don’t think the 8-run one happened over the course of the last three innings. The Rays bullpen pulled a choke job worthy of the Mets. As for Red Sox fans that left the stadium at the point of desperation: fuck you. You missed your Fat Papi hit one of his patented late-game clutch home runs, and J.D. Drew showing off his MICKEY MANTLE POWER. God, I hate J.D. Drew.

I think Joe Maddon may have had a stroke in the 7th inning while he watched that 7th inning. That’s the only explanation I can come with for how he handled the bullpen. I’ve almost become numb to watching such a trainwreck in motion, after seeing so many the past season and a half, but blowing a seven-run lead in three innings is impressive.

The guys over at fangraphs.com produce a win probability for every game, so you can see just how likely a comeback was at that point:

Who doesn’t love graphs?

Anyhow, the throw that spurred the title of this post occurred in the 8th inning. The Red Sox had the tying run in Mark Kotsay on second base with two outs. Coco Crisp (after an incredible at-bat) hit a line-drive single into right-field. As the Rays’ right-fielder Gross rushed in to field the ball and make the throw home, he had to be no further than 200 feet from plate. Not only that, but Kotsay was JUST rounding third. He was dead. He had to run home in that situation, but he was going to be thrown out by 20 feet. But then the camera cut for the throw, and I watched the ball bounce into the dirt of the infield. It was the most pathetic thing I had ever seen. He better have a torn rotator cuff or something. Making an error on a groundball or making an errant throw up the line is one thing. Throwing the ball straight into the goddamn ground is pretty much inexcuseable. I don’t even know how that’s possible. You don’t forget how to throw. The ball can’t take a bad hop in your hand. You can have a bad grip, but that would cause the ball to sail, not to go into the ground. What the shit.

The Rays better win Game 6, or else we’re going to see a Red Sox-Phillies World Series, and no one wants to see that. Josh Beckett is going for the Red Sox, and everyone seems to be talking about his oblique. Torn, strained, bruised, whatever. I smell Bloody Sock: The Sequel.

Fuck.

I readily admit to wasting too much time on the internet, watching TV shows, and generally pissing away what mental capacity I have left. These guys have embraced their nerddom, but in completely opposite ways. One created pretty much the most impressive handheld gaming system I’ve ever seen, while the other has sunk more hours into World of Warcraft than a small Chinese city.

That’s a freaking DREAMCAST. Complete with disc drive(?) and a handheld feel similar to the real Dreamcast controller. Holy shit. I would be all over that if more than one existed in the world. Can you imagine all the reverence you would garner by playing Soul Calibur and Virtua Tennis in public? Or awkward stares. Whichever. Probably depends on whether you’re in Japan or not.

Yeah, so that’s awesome. Now the bad. The scary. The depressing.

What. The. Fuck.

http://www.ripten.com/2008/10/10/wow-whore-has-36-accounts-raids-by-himself/

It costs me exactly $5711 in subscription costs per year with 36 accounts on the 6 month pay schedule. Not bad considering I’m looking at it like it’s a hobby and there are more expensive hobbies out there than World of Warcraft.

Really? What hobbies cost $15 a day? Wait, let me rephrase that: What hobbies as totally unfulfilling and worthless as WoW addiction cost $15 a day? I don’t think being a cokehead or crack addict counts as a hobby. The closest comparison I can think of is being a Chicago Cubs season-ticket holder. That’s pretty unfulfilling, I imagine.

Is it just me or has there been an influx of legitimately creative and original games recently? Examples include Portal, Braid, Assassin’s Creed, Mirror’s Edge, Little Big Planet, not to mention games with twists on old formulas like SKATE and Left 4 Dead. World of Goo deserves a place among these games, as it is a charming, physics-based puzzle game that is just as short and sweet as Portal.

The goal of the game is to make goo balls all of different colors and properties make it to the goal — a pipe that sucks them in to collect them for the World of Goo Corporation. The first level just starts out with you building a simple bridge, but there are levels where you need to blow up goo balls in certain ways, or make a string hang in the air at just the right height with balloons. An extra is that you get to make a massive Tower of Goo to compete with other players, which is probably the most addictive part of the game for me. For every ball of goo you collect over the level goal, you get to add a ball of goo to your tower. As you build your tower, you see clouds floating around that display the towers you’re competing against. So awesome. Who doesn’t love building stuff really high?

The demo I’m about to link you to includes all of Chapter 1. The only problem I have with this fact is that most of levels have you building a similar tower or bridge structure. Chapter 2 is when the game truly gets interesting, so I implore you to buy the game on Steam or Wii (*shudder*) if you AT ALL enjoy the demo. I bought it blindly and did not regret it. The one person I came across online that didn’t like it at all was a total moron who basically couldn’t figure out how to play. I believe that was the demographic McCain was shooting for tonight. Anyway…

Here’s your demo:

FileFront Download
Mirror 1
Mirror 2

Edit: The demo is now available on Steam.

Enjoy. Or GTFO and vote for McCain.