Christmas is nearly upon us so we here at the G4A fun house thought that before we get too drunk we would try to help you all out with  lists of 5  games on each format that we consider to be essential purchases.

So lets start with Microsoft’s beige box of wonderment the Xbox 360. If you are lucky enough to be unwrapping one of these Christmas morning these are some of the games you should hunt down in bargain bins or on Ebay as soon as you can afford to, or else RIGHT!!!

1. Bioshock

Ken Levine’s Art Deco underwater FPS masterpiece is a gaming tour de force. Everything in this game is a cut above from the art direction to script it is a ‘how to’ list of gaming goodness. After your plane crashes into the Atlantic sea you happen upon what looks to be a simple lighthouse which in fact is the gateway to Rapture, an  underwater city. Rapture was the ideological dream of Andrew Ryan a place where all the worlds leading luminaries could live together in a kind of intellectual utopia free from war and other such troubles. When you happen across it though it has completely gone to rack and ruin with dead bodies and flooded corridors at every turn. Crazed genetically mutated splicers roam the corridors looking for their next fix of ‘Adam’ the source genetic substance that allows you to alter your abilities. With a fantastically adult story (by this I mean it never once insults your intelligence),wonderful gameplay mechanics and beautiful Art Deco graphics this is a title that every gamer worth their salt should play. You will never forget defeating you first Big Daddy or the decision you make regarding his Little Sister, complete and utter genius. Lets just hope that Bioshock 2 lives up its predecessor but we here at G4A do have our doubts (but fingers crossed eh?).

2. Mass Effect

Bioware’s  Xbox exclusive, epic space soap opera RPG is a game with few peers. It is a Sci-fi epic on the scale of both Star Trek and Star Wars. Placing you in the shoes of Commander Shepherd, the first human to become a Spectre agent and charged with saving the galaxy. It boasts an incredibly well scripted and acted story with adult themes and explosive gameplay this game is up their with the very best to be found. Also as part of trilogy you really need to have played this before the sequel hits early next year.

3. The Orange Box

This compilation of Valve goodies is far too good to be ignored. Containing 5 games this was incredible value when it launched at £39.99, so it is damn near essential now that it can be picked in bargain bins for sub £15. To be truthfully honest it would be worth that much just for Portal on its own. The first person gravity defying puzzle game redefined what a first person game could be. Add on top that Half Life 2, Half Life 2: Episodes 1 and 2 and Team Fortress 2 and this is a proper bumper gaming package. Go get it now, I tells ya.

4. Gears Of War 1 & 2

Ignoring the fact this game series brought supposed games designer “Cliffy Blah Blah Blazinsky” to the fore at Epic you would have to be a fool not to count these games as titles you need to have if you own an Xbox. These games are straight up, good old-fashioned dumb Hollywood blockbuster action with incredible graphics. Forget about the dumb ass sub B-Movie plot and immerse yourself in well designed gored up shooting. With the aforementioned stunning graphics, rock solid gaming mechanics and enjoyable online modes you need to experience both of these exceptional titles. Roll on Gears 3 which I reckon is a shoe in for Xmas 2010 but until then get these in as soon as you can.

5. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

Hitting the streets just a few short months after the Xbox 360’s launch Bethesda’s massive fantasy role player remains a must buy. With an absolutely huge open world to explore and all manner of side quests to do this is still regarded by many to be the best role player on the Xbox. You can literally go anywhere or do anything it is entirely up to you whether you follow the storyline or just get on with leading another life. Speaking of storyline just before he is assassinated, Emperor Septim passes you the “Amulet Of Kings” and tasks you with finding his son, The illegitimate heir to the throne of Tamiril. What follows is your usual stock fantasy fiction story but with compelling gameplay, beautiful graphics and top voice acting, including Patrick Stewart it is a stunning game. For fans of fantasy fiction and or role players this game is essential. With the game of the year edition (which includes all the downloadable content) costing £15 or less you really have no excuses not to give this a go. Bethesda have remained largely quiet on the follow-up but rest assured as soon as we know anything we will let you peeps know ASAP.

The above list is just a few games that we here at the G4A fun house think that any new owners of an Xbox 360 should try.  If any of you out there want to suggest any other must try games for the Xbox 360 please add them in the comments section below. I’m now off for a beer so piss off and have a Merry Christmas.

Moonhead

I am a meat eater.

Very much indeed so. Holla back to all those other carnivorous motherfuckers out there!

No – but in all seriousness… let me begin again.

For the last two weeks I have actually written twice… which basically culminated in three mediocre pages scribbled into the blank inner-folds of my buddy Nicky Cave’s new book – published a couple of decades since his first… that would make this his second (for those keeping count). Which is kind of obscene on the side of a theoretical [should be present]principle of consistent work-ethic. I mean, after all, as a professional writer (not this blogosphere bullshit, of course – that involves the difficulty of Polanski to sodomize an underage girl when quaaludes are involved) this is my job – the factory where I punch in my time-card. But I’ve been sick off that – spending five days out of the last two weeks in a row (both weeks/five days, respectively) watching back episodes of It’s Always Sunny in California and drinking Port Wine – the brilliance of this given canvas of surrealism and static clinical psychosis is genius for two reasons: reason one – the show in of itself has the premise of being an archetypal old-school classic sitcoms – a la Cheers. Except exactly like Cheers (there’s a bar involved as the stagnant setting nearly 80% of the time, excepting scenes minus banter – plus action of the composing characters’ misadventures), and I mean exactly like Cheers if not for every character being a complete degenerate. So to recap – exactly like the Cheers-set bar show with each character (post-premiere-season involving the joined-in-immediately-into-the-fold, an auteur-like amazing performance by Danny DeVito as the patriarch condescended unto a piece of walking mayhem of immorality “Frank Reynolds”) being the biggest socioapathic, satirically-debaucherous asshole that one could possibly imagine. Second reason for the brilliance of the setting – the fact that I was drinking port-wine the entire time watching the show, seasons available streaming online (GooGLE that shit, mothafucka!). Sick. I had just relapsed from 11 months of sobriety off heron. Body’s not used to it. But I found a way to make it work (I only did it once – divided by a sleepless night’s scepter) – when I was getting stomach illness, just like a stomach bug by now – after seven+ years of a dope-habit (minus the couple of other times that I tried to kick – those that only lasted a couple of months, until Lilia finally brought me completely out of the comatose equation, made me bake a cold-turkey); some weed saved the day. Now I’m high as fuck and I’m eating oranges.

…

But back to being a meat eater. I have a theory that the government is responsible for keeping certain animals on the endangered list because those are the ones that are the most delicious. For example – who’s to say that bold-eagle wings in barbeque sauce is not the most incredibly-tasting delicacy. Man, I could go for some of that right now…

… I think I’d rather fuck someone instead. That’s the plan. Except I get too introverted and paranoid when I’m high – might be a barrier – thus, it has to be someone who wont produce performance anxiety – someone who I wont care about the next day.

To Be Continued…

Auschwitz Concentration Camp (Auschwitz-Birkenau). 23 August 1944 (Taken)

Unique photograph shows clouds of thick smoke rising from the Auschwitz camp. At this stage in the history of Auschwitz, in the final months of the war, we now know the number of people being killed was so high that the crematories were unable to burn all the corpses.

This image graphically illustrates, the burning of these mass funeral pits. When viewed at high-resolution, prisoners can be seen on roll-call. The camp commandant, Rudolf Höß, testified at the Nuremberg Trials that up to 3 million people had died at Auschwitz.

© RCAHMS. Licensor www.scran.ac.uk.

Google Earth last version:  Aerial images of Berlin in 1945-1953-2002 (with the tool time – clock icon)

MORNING – Mnemosyne
Mnemosyne, gatekeeper of memory;
I ask for your blessing on this day,
To stir my mind and help me gather my thoughts,
To let nothing important slide past my gaze,
To warm my mind with the touch of divinity, and
To help me remember all that I need.
 
 
EVENING – Lethe
Lethe, goddess of oblivion;
I ask that you rest your hands upon my head
And pour your forgetful waters over my skin,
To soothe away the troubles from my mind,
To calm my frantic thoughts, and
To help me find peace, so that I might sleep.

As it’s the last Mon-Wed-Fri I have before break, I want to throw in a quick post here to announce my crazy shenanigans.

• I apparently renewed my World of Warcraft account (I normally pay via the Blizzard Store and purchasing 30-day cards through it), but last month as I was raiding, I got the “You have 30 minutes left” warning in ToC 25 Heroic.  So I went and renewed my account… but through the WoW website, not the Blizzard Store.  A-durr.  So now I have a month of game time.  Went and told LE that I would be in after the break, as I do have a freaking thing to finish up in a few classes… I think I’ll finish up leveling my Shaman, perhaps level my Hunter.
• I picked up Borderlands.  Surprisingly a fun game.  It’s a pretty good mix of RPG and FPS, of which the last I played one of those was that one failed MMO… oh, what was it called… crap, can’t remember for the life of me (wait, it’s Hellgate: London);  I only know it lasted for like several months before people just disliked it.
• I reinstalled Oblivion.  I like the game, couldn’t run it too well on the old PC, but now I can (heh, it’s only like 3 years).  I really enjoy the genre of a RPG-FPS, and Oblivion is one of those games… though, I wish I could make an orc in that game really look orcish, can’t really do that.  Warhammer Online got their orcs right, as far as I’m concerned… stupid and crazy and all about the WAAAAAAAAAAGH!

That’s it for now.  More later.

  my knees hurt. the arthritis foundation wants money. the surgeons. recommend i get a new job.
  my doctor recommends i go back to work.
  i cant walk around the block.
  one morning
  my knees hurt
  dreadful
  my moans dont wake the wife
  i call the mental health clinic
  its too early
  i push 1..1 is the suicide button
  the rest is a blur
  i am in my first psychiatric ward
  i cry cry cry
i cant see thru the tears
5 days 5 days 5 days
what happened to 72 hour observation?
i make friend. i love mentally ill people.
i demand to be released when a homicidal maniac enters the ward and takes my room
 i have to share a room with an apnea blast furnace
 i demand freedom.
  i wind up in the senior ward and i am medicated enough  to hijack karaoke night for two hours.
  i am singing ” white wedding” by billy idol when they pull the plug.
  retreat to my room with diaper man and a great wall of concrete feces
  all the smells the accompany white wedding diaper blocks of the great block of the senior ward and a mattress that smells like urine.
  i’m not bagging on seniors. one day i hope to make a psychiatric ward smell that way.
  the next day i demand to see the authorities and they are dismayed by the way i can weave facts and fiction into the kinds of headlines the might snatch some attention.
  i am returned to the ward from which i came.
  the whole ordeal was one of the most traumatic experiences of my life.
  i need pills and booze and i am much better at talking the talk with mental patients  that i meet here and there.
  i have a new audience.
  of course this is an outline
 a sketch from the bracelet makers everywhere

Dragon Age: Origins is a glorious amalgamation of every RPG I’ve ever played. I mean, really — all of them.

Of course it’s taking things right back to Baldur’s Gate with the party control and the pausing, and then putting the Neverwinter Nights direct movement control and pulling the camera around with the mouse, just like Drakensang. Also like Drakensang is the infinite plot-items inventory, that is apart from the main inventory. A part of me really likes this; it means you don’t have to worry about dropping loot for quest items, you don’t have to worry about them being too heavy, you don’t have to worry about them generally cluttering the place up. But another part of me is railing against having an infinite inventory, which goes completely against my realism sense. Yes, yes, it’s not meant to be real, but… It’s a tough one. I think the majority of players will call me nuts for saying that.

The plot is laid out just like Mass Effect. You do a little bit of starting quest (your chosen “origin”, and then some other stuff), then you get given four missions to complete in an order of your choosing. Once those are done, you lock back into one big mission to catch up with and kill Sovereign– Hurrrrrr.

The origin stuff is relatively slick, but by the time I’d chosen “Human” and “Warrior” I only had one option to pick from. Robe Cousland was born — looking absolutely nothing at all like his parents or his sibling(s?), indeed, hardly even dressed for his station. He’s bald and has a small beard (delightfully similar to my real beard, no less), but I’d have thought even worse for a noble,  a huge face-tattoo. To quote Paul Denton of Deus Ex, “I’m pretty certain we don’t have a stitch of DNA in common with either of our supposed parents.” Couldn’t they at least have modified their facial features to match me just a little bit? I’m quite sure such dynamism is possible.

Isn't he sexy?

The conversation system is pretty much Mass Effect too; people pace about occasionally, lips are synched (but nobody has yet solved the shouting issue — there are plenty of shouting moments where the serene face is warped into a grimace but the mouth remains moving calmly), responses can be chosen (though the radial menu is exchanged for a classic list of responses). Very Deus Ex, really. All dialogue is voice-acted except your character’s lines, which I find somewhat annoying — you go through the entire game never once being addressed by name, by anyone. My noble father called me “pup”, Shale from the DLC (we’ll get to that later) called me “it”, but that’s the best you get. Even after sleeping with Leliana (we’ll get to that later), she never called me by name. Yes, yes, voice acting increases immersion and whatever, but they could at least have given me a fixed nickname to go by. Insert rant about the need for quality speech synthesis in games to replace real actors.

The world map reminded me a lot of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, with the little “clay” tiles to represent places. One thing that really got me about the map, though, was the presence of large sub-world-maps; upon entering Denerim, for example, you get another world map with more little tiles floating about on it. Slick.

There are more little things, that have jumped out at me along the way as being from other RPGs, but those are the main ones.

I should remark that it took me a good thirty hours to complete the game. Dragon Age is fucking massive. To compare, a super-completist run of Mass Effect at a reasonable difficulty level takes about 20 hours (including Bring Down the Sky and Pinnacle Station). The game claims that Robe has only experienced under 50% of the game’s content. Since I’m an achievement-whore (and I’ve been told that achievement-points can be turned into DLC-buying points), there will be repeated playthroughs. Value-for-money ho!

Yes, downloadable content. Chicks seem to dig that shit these days; right out of the box (yes, apparently DA was delayed so much that two DLC packs were ready to go at release time rather than afterwards), I got The Stone Prisoner and the Blood Dragon Plate (which will come with me to Mass Effect 2 when that rears its beautiful head). The Stone Prisoner introduces a bonus party member, Shale, who is a golem that is generally quite fun to have around. Complete with weapon and armour crystals that only he can use, plus gifts and banter. The second DLC, Warden’s Keep, is hard-wired into the game but not present — it, and The Stone Prisoner, add achievements. But the worst thing is that after a while a little bastard quest-given for the Warden’s Keep story crops up in your party camp with a glaring exclamation “take my quest” mark over his head, and of course, I can’t take the quest without buying the DLC. As I mentioned earlier, achievement points can apparently be exchanged for DLC, so this mitigates the annoyance somewhat — but it’s still just a little bit underhanded. I wonder if people that didn’t get The Stone Prisoner out of the box have a similarly niggling prop slotted in?

The Blood Dragon plate is pretty useless. I spent the first ten hours frantically trying to get the 38 strength required to equip the breastplate, by which point the rest of the armour (which can be bought from your portable merchant) had been completely superseded. The breastplate was pretty bitchin’, though, and remained better than most stuff until level 17 or 18.

I want to complain about variety. There’s basically only one set of ruins props; green lighting and some tree roots, and you have the elven ruins in the forest. Blue lighting and some snow-drifts, and you have the Andrastean ruins in the mountain. There aren’t particularly many types of enemy either (I remember how Drakensang boasted that it had 70 enemies… I pulled more than that out of my buttocks for This Wreckage; maybe I’m just spoiled by Warcraft III, or is it a symptom of increased detail meaning there just isn’t development time to produce a lot of models?) — you get darkspawn, a few demons and undead, some spiders… Though I did thoroughly enjoy the little velociraptor-like dragon kiddies.

I said “want” to complain because I actually can’t — they’ve followed my value-for-money-squeeze-every-drop-out-of-every-resource philosophy to the letter. The behemoth that they have achieved is truly immense — I haven’t played a game this big since Morrowind. I am extremely satisfied with what I’ve been given for my hard-earned (heu heu) cash. I’ve paid £34.99 for far worse games.

Uni might not be so satisfied, since I basically spent my every waking moment playing Dragon Age since I bought it last thursday. I’m also proud that it’s an 18 and I didn’t get ID’d — remember how I got ID’d when I bought Loki, Tomb Raider: the Angel of Darkness and Sonic Heroes (a 16, a 12 and a 3 respectively)? The shop assistant tried to sell me a strategy guide, which I scoffed at, then a games controller. I told him I was a mouse-and-keyboard man.

Yeah, we need to talk about DA being an 18. The game is covered in blood. I mean, it’s everywhere. It’s on the loading screens, spreading everywhere while you wait. It’s on the map, dribbles of it marking your path as you travel (to be waylaid by quests, Baldur’s Gate II style). And, if you’ve even looked like you might have entered combat, it’s all over your party too. Persistent blood splatters on characters are hilarious, yes, but when it’s a uniform speckle all around (shouldn’t my front be dripping and the rest be relatively clean? Do rats even have that much blood in them? Shouldn’t spider blood green or something?) it’s a little bit silly. Not to mention nobody remarks on it when you walk up to them absolutely sopping wet with the stuff.

So it has bad (but really, what doesn’t?), and it has good. But the good massively out-weighs any niggling little complaints. This is what the PC gaming industry needed so badly — a massive shot in the arm that just couldn’t work on a console (apparently the XBox version is absolutely dreadful. I’ve got a full mouse and keyboard and I don’t know what’s going on half the time, though playing with a rumble-pack would be cool). It’s Baldur’s Gate, it’s Mass Effect, it’s Morrowind and Oblivion. It’s Deus Ex and it’s Drakensang and it’s Neverwinter Nights. It is a masterwork.

I think I’ve said everything I want to say.

The verdict: Dragon Age: Origins is fucking awesome. Buy it now… Unless you’ve got a lot of work to do.

The real test comes next: the editor.

I’m ready, sir.

Yes. Yes, you are.

Press Play

Moochers

I.E. – “Yo that dude is a crab, always havin’ his hand out and shit“

2.)Person who steals weed from others, often friends.

3.)Gay motherfucker that mooches off everybody’s weed and pitches 5$ every week or so. Basically is the biggest jew to his friends.

I.E. – Okay fellas time to throwdown your cash: Jontavius-$20 Garret-$20 Crab-$5    (see the jewness?)

Since I’ve been in Tuscaloosa, I’ve noticed some behavioral trends that kinda fuck with me. Like how some people, when walking on the same sidewalk as you in the opposite direction, will look at everything possible to avoid making eye contact with you so as to avoid an awkward moment only to get 2 feet in front of you to say “Hi” abruptly.

Newsflash!

That only makes shit more awkward genius! I know there is nothing interesting on your phone and that tree above you has no more significance than the 30 others you just walked by. Look, there’s nothing wrong or difficult about looking at someone as you approach them, smiling, and saying hello. But of course, Only here in this 205 zip code is this simple everyday thing made into fucking rocket science.

Or the recent infestation of Tuscaloosa by Nicki Minaj and Beyonce Knowles emulators who think they’re finer than the really are.

They actually think that this make believe diva status that they’ve concocted in their heads will somehow excuse they’re bad attitudes, buffoonery, or lack of capital.  -This is a DICK MOVE! Go read the SAFER LIVING GUIDE for an explanation of why.

I just so happen to have run into a person who has managed to encompass both of these pet peeves in one lifetime……..The other day I was getting ready to “get on the elevator” with a few associates of mine and one of the said associates decided to bring one of his lady friends along for the ride with us. It was all good, I mean, I’m not against “going up” with a female at all. (Shit It’s almost always cool to “go up” with someone you’re dating) That wasn’t the case this time though. Apparently, somebody told Shrek Fiona that she looked like Cameron Diaz in real life because this dragon tried to scoot by on the ante with her fantasized attractiveness.

You have to be fine in reality to get a sponge pass.

I’m sorry my lady, but it’s 2009 and just as the fucking swagg fad dies so does the disproportionate circulation of “chivalry” toward Chebba-hawking-hoes……especially if they’re fugly. Seriously though, I’m not mad at you for trying but don’t appalled when I turn around and say

“C’mon you ain’t fine enough for that.So,  Pony up”

because, yes, “we are who you thought we were and, no, we won’t let you off the hook”.

I'm calling it the "Dennis Green Philosophy"

So there you have it. Don’t disrespect my ascent to the clouds by thinking that my homies and I are naive enough to let you enjoy the warmth without setting the fire.

Two Fingers

Ima leave you with this song. Check it out. I think it’s pretty cool.

I really did. I just can’t get into this game. I know it’s been three years since it came out, but I’ve only recently started getting into newer games.

In case you’re lost, the game I’m referring to is The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. It’s a multiplatform game that I’ve been trying to play on the PC (because games are better on the PC, bitch) and I’m about two, maybe three hours in. Plenty of that time was spent wandering around wondering where the fuck I was going.

The setting is simple. It’s a medieval world with magic and people who look like fucking tigers from time to time. There’s a king who has a vision of this place called Oblivion (which is actually an odd name choice, considering the meaning behind the word) and he is dying or something. It’s been too long since I played the beginning. All I remember is that I was a prisoner in this king’s dungeon, they let me out (which makes no fucking sense–how do they know I’m not going to seek revenge, hmm?) and I proceed to escape the dungeon.

Oh, and I think I’m the only bastard lucky enough to get out too. Ironic, huh? The prisoner gets away, but the people who helped the poor sap out are SOL.

Anywho, after giving back a frickin’ sweet sword I’d gotten off of a dead soldier (me = disappointed at this point) I then get my actual mission. I need to go meet some dude and help him out because he’s the heir to the kingdom… or something.

I then proceed to go down the endless road to the next city and get jumped by a bandit or two, one of which was one of those half-tiger people I referred to earlier. The fights were pretty boring. Click click click. Dodge, slash, shield, cure, etc. Simple stuff all the way down.

I later found my goal and was given another mission. Another “go tell this guy something” mission. I got bored at this point and tried to kill a monk who had formerly been a soldier. The fucker pulled out a sword and killed me in about three hits.

It goes on like this for quite awhile. But if you’ve been paying attention you’ll notice I left something out: who I am and my role in the story.

There’s a reason for that.

Who are you? – A nobody. Some guy who got roped into this because he was the only person around when the king was dying.

What is your role in the story? – To kill shit between point A and point B and play messenger-boy as far as I’m concerned. Also, to singlehandedly kill the princes of Oblivion. That’s right – by myself. Hardly makes sense to me that the princes of what is essentially hell would be taken down so easily by a common prisoner.

So, as of today, I’m officially done with the game. I’m lucky that I was able to use a free version of the game to try it out, because I really thought I would enjoy it. I was sadly mistaken.

I guess all I can do at this point is say “Oh well” and move on. At least it gives me plenty of time to finish Mass Effect now, eh?

Press Play

then keep reading

“Perhaps home is not a place but an irrevocable condition”

-Baldwin in Giovanni’s Room-

“But then, going back home has probably always had as much if not more to do with people as with landmarks and place names and locations on maps and mileage charts anyway. Not that home is not a place, for even in its most abstract implications it is precisely the very oldest place in the world. But even so, it is somewhere you are likely to find yourself remembering your way back to far more often than it is ever possible to go by conventional transportation.”

-Albert Murray in South to a Very Old Place-

I used to be into Pokemon, Lord of the Rings, and Star Wars. (Shit, I even played Zelda on the 64) I had a sense of humor but wasn’t out to make fun of people. I loved women but was always molded to think that was a bad thing. I was compassionate and, even though I couldn’t hide it from my peers as well as I had initially hoped, I was smart. But, to my peers, these interests were hardly ever considered acceptable (let alone celebrated) for a young black male. If you weren’t athletic or a fighter you weren’t anything. This is sad because from about the 5th to 11th grade I would actually succumb to this bullshit every fucking day. But why?

Looking back, I notice that my early interests required you to posses at least one of three things that should have been encouraged but were not in my community.

-Things not to have if you were black in my community- (understanding the unspoken messages we send)

An Imagination.

Hell no! God forbid your mind take you somewhere other than your environment. This shows weakness and femininity. Hey! Hey! They do that shit on Nick Jr. and I don’t care if you’re 7! You’ll be shunned/get your ass kicked by your peers if they see you exhibiting this inane behavior.

Love for reading

I mean why? It’s not like this could benefit you in any way whatsoever. It’s not gangster to read books. What’s in them anyway? Shit, I never saw lil wayne reading a book so why should I? Being caught reading automatically reading immediately indicates that you are clearly uncool. Plus, it’s nowhere nearly as fun as playing Nintendo.

Potential

What is “potential”? C’mon lets keep it real. The only way we see anyone from the hood going anywhere is with a ball in their hands.

Things I’ve heard since I’ve left home and come back over the years.

“You see Jon you done left and changed. Nigga, look at you. You dressin different, talking different, see man you’ve changed. You see, me and my boy AJ we aint changed. We still the same people, doing the same things. We still here in the hood. You’re selling out.”

“I hate the way you talk now. Why you using all those big words? “

“I know yall do it this way at Alabama, but this is how we do it here.”

“Why are you talking about God so much? Nobody want to hear that.”

“Nigga, while you up there playing a different world, im in these streetz.”

I’m way blacker than you”

There are many black folks [especially youth] debating, arguing, and even dying over a gargantuan misinterpretation about our [black folks] culture that links authenticity to geography. This misunderstanding makes one believe that if he/she is black, he/she must vow an ultimate commitment to the ghetto. The crisis lies in the fact that we delineate the ghetto as the solitary black home of the black theme which cannot be abandoned at any cost. This identification of the ghetto as the black “home” is unhelpful and very self-destructive.

Perhaps this is what my associate meant when he told me I was "selling out"

Out of this develops this “keep it real” frame of mind that castigates any exodus from an incurably limited image of black life, one that trades on stereotypes and separation anxiety, since there is an immense fear of (selling out) being severed from the fertile ground of the true black self. But to succumb to this bullshit believe in this way of thinking is to be woefully misled. Yeah sure, the splendor of a desire to remain real, hood, or authentic is altogether understandable:

To protect a black identity that has been assaulted by white supremacy through the assertion of a uniquely guarded and qualified black self, rooted in a similarly protected view of the authentic black home.

Plus there are too many blacks who have “made it” and surely forgotten “where they came from“.

But there is a huge difference between critiquing blacks who have been Aframnesia-ized* and imposing rigid views on black life of how and where blackness erupts, emerges, materializes, and comes into view. That’s how we end up with vicious mythologies and punishing unspoken bylaws: Like the validation of the black male assault on black female interests as the obligatory subordination of gender to race in the pursuit for liberation. Or that the only real black is in the ghetto, a ghetto that in the eyes of mainstream white America rarely looks like the multifaceted, problematical, and paradoxical place it truthfully is.

As a former tenant of the the bottom ghetto, I unreservedly agree with the concept that we can neither disregard its people nor abandon its social revitalization through strategic action. But you mofos should understand that it is not only a beautiful thing for one who has gotten out survived the ghetto, to carry the consecrated likeness of its enlightening dimensions in his/her heart and mind, but it’s also just as beautiful to pledge to never leave the ghetto behind even as they travel millions of miles beyond its geographical boundaries. I mean, it is, after all, a transferable proposition, a mobile metaphor, and an itinerant figure of speech.

But im fucking tired of my peers (and even some folks who may be somewhat wiser older) seizing on the most limited possible view of ghetto life and sanctifying it as the be-all and end-all of black existence. That leads to kids killing each other in the name of an authentic real ghetto masculinity that that is very little more than a pathological self-hatred. The black ghetto working class, the working poor, and the permanently poor have always been more multifarious, and more resilient, than they have ever been given credit for. We have got to avoid the trap of existential narrow-mindedness and ethnic infantilism and see our way to a robustly mature and established vision that shatters the prototype paradigm of the authentic black self and, by extension, the suitable black home.

“Tryan let these niggas know what we talkin bout man. These niggas be talkin that hood shit “(mocking) we so hood” Nigga the hood ain’t gave us nothing but sadness and cases” Earl -Conyers-

Aframnesia – The almost systematic obliteration of the dangerous memory of black suffering and racial solidarity, a gesture that is usually rewarded by white elites.

Yes, I’m in your dryer, fluffin your sheets.

if it’s blue it’s clickable.

Charlie P.

It’s been exactly 20 days since I last posted and I’ve been really busy but today finally I have the time to post something! Drumroll please: …… Torchlight Cheats!

Ok, to start cheating you’re going to have to do some complex looking things:

1) Go to: My computer/ C:/ Documents and Settings/ User/Application Data/ Runic Games/ Torchlight

(It might take a while)

2) Here you will see the “Settings” txt file, click it

3) At the bottom you will see “Console :0″. Change the 0 to a 1 and save the file

4) Now while in-game you will have to hold Shift and hit the ~ key to pull up the console.

(All cheats ARE NOT case-sensitive.)

Warning: Cheating will flag your character as a Cheater and will remove the shared stash.

Don’t forget to…

COMMENT!!!

Old Games: Should Downloadable Content Be Free?

by dkpatriarch

© 2009 David Hilton

I would love to see sales figures for downloadable content for games that were released 1-3 years ago.  Some of this content hasn’t ever changed in price and competes with new release games’ downloadable maps and features.

Old Game Content Should Be Free

In a world where everything, including the retail games themselves, depreciates does this make any sense?

No it doesn’t.

But of course those in charge are certainly not obligated to lower prices or, even better, make the added content for older games free.  But it would be both logical and, well, nice.

This is the point raised recently on the Xbox.com.au forums by user mchiefvs360. The comment was:

It’d be nice if older games like GRAW1, COD2 or PGR3 made their content free as I don’t know many people who would want to pay full original price for maps for a game that is five years old, Perfect Dark Zero did it right.

And he (or she) has a good point.

Games like Gears of War, The Outfit, Lost Planet, Perfect Dark Zero, Fable 2, Batman: Arkham Asylum, and GRAW 2 have some or all of their content free and are praised for it.

Of course the latest trend has been to re-release the bundled retail game and downloadable content some time later as a “Game Of The Year” edition at full or near full retail prices, as with Lost Planet, Oblivion, and Fable 2.

Should Oblivion content be free now?

I’m not sure of the sales figures for those editions either, but I believe it would be good PR and even prolong the use of many of these old games if all the content was made free after a certain length of time instead (which Lost Planet has since done).

Let’s face it: these days gamers move on pretty quickly.  If your game isn’t Halo 3 or COD:4, and fewer people are playing your game online (or offline in the case of added missions, cars and tracks) what is the purpose of keeping a high price on it?

If a gamer has a lot of downloaded content on their HDD that they got for free for your game, they may just keep it instead of throwing it away for a few bucks trade-in at EB Games.

When the game’s content is announced as being free it may very well revive interest in the game and propel a few sales (used or new).  Yes the game-maker makes nothing off a used copy sold, but any creator wants their creation used as long as possible, and this may keep up interest for an upcoming sequel.  It’s not as if they are making anything if nobody is paying to download the content anyway.

So what would be the drawbacks?

Well not everybody goes on N4G, Gamegrep, or the forums to find out about new initiatives like a game’s content being made free, so how would the good publicity reach the public at no cost?  Sure, the Microsoft (or Sony) Dashboard could advertise it, but otherwise word of mouth will be the only way people would even see the goodwill gesture and take advantage of it.

Then there is the worry that some gamers would just wait for the content to become free and therefore it would cost in download sales, though I doubt most gamers who really want the content would wait that long.

Still, these concerns aside, it certainly could be something besides the “deal of the week” idea to give added value to being part of the online service.  Some gamers still aren’t online with their consoles because they don’t play online games, but if they could get free content for their retail game they may connect more readily for the added missions or race tracks and be tempted to try online gaming.

The future of gaming.

Then there are the implications for the future of console gaming.

If future consoles, as is sometimes surmised, focus on digital distribution, as with the PSP GO!, then you may have a situation where prices do not reduce very far as there is no competition between retailers.

PSP GO: expensive digital distribution the future?

With the PSP GO! we have the situation where the retail versions of PSP games with full packaging and discs are more often actually cheaper than the downloadable version.  Digital distribution with consoles remains very fixed in pricing with only the “deal of the week” lowering the price of only a few items.  Will this trend continue in future consoles?

Yet the PC crowd can revel in digital distribution thanks to Steam, where prices drop often on a large variety of games.  This model is in stark contrast to the one with the PSP GO!.

If Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo and all the game-makers start winning the gamers over to digital content by adopting the ‘depreciation’ model and by giving all older content for free, they will be a lot more successful in winning converts (especially skeptics like me) to the concept of digital distribution-only consoles in the future.

They really should start by giving older content away now.

So what games offer “some” free content on Xbox Live Marketplace?

Well here they are:

• GRAW 2
• FORZA 3
• Gears of War
  
• Call Of Duty: World At War
• Halo 3
• Fable 2
• Batman: Arkham Asylum
• Call of Duty 2
• Call of Duty 3
• Left4Dead
• Midnight Club: LA
• FEAR 2
• Project Gotham Racing 4
• The Last Remnant
• Rainbow 6: Vegas
• Rainbow 6: Vegas 2
• Endwar
• Infinite Undiscovery
• LOTR: Conquest
• Timeshift
• Frontlines: Fuel At War
• Kameo
• Crackdown
• Civilization: Revolution
• The Darkness
• The Outfit
• Lost Planet

© 2009 David Hilton

I’m such a dork.  When Oblivion first came out, I was so excited by the commercials, that I actually bought my XBox 360 just for that game.  I spent soooooo many hours playing, my poor husband would just sit on the couch next to me and watch me play.

I learned two very important things.  Save.  And keep more than one save.  In fact, saves at key points should be kept indefinitely.

I decided I felt like playing again, much to my husband’s dismay.  It’s a great way to just zone out. Today I spent over an hour trying to complete the Sanguine quest where you cast the Stark Reality spell.  The spell causes all the guests at a dinner party to appear in their underwear.  It’s funny, but you go to jail and lose all your cool items.

And since I’m admitting to dork things, I’m currently reading World War Z.  Which, in case you’re unfamiliar, stands for World War Zombie.  And it isn’t nearly as dorky as it would seem.  When I decided to read it I had a much different idea of how the book would be.  Although the book deals with zombies, it’s a serious look at how people (government agents, normal citizens, scientists, etc) react to a world outbreak.  It’s really compelling.  I was expecting something more silly or a more traditional horror.  The book is horrifying, but not because it’s about zombies.  The book is actually on my local high school reading list (I didn’t know that when  started reading it, I actually picked it up because it was halloween and I had been reading all kinds of vampire stuff and decided to switch it up and erad about zombies).

Now I’m watching ESPN and this joker commentator is talking about El Kabong.  You know, like Quick Draw McGraw.  Really.  The guy said something about some guy and his team El Kabong-ing the competition.  Wow!

Nothing will be as fun as my favorite football commentator, Mr. Turducken himself, John Madden.  I love watching any game when Madden is commentating.  But my favorite quote ever was him saying something about his favorite sight (or the best site, or there’s nothing better than the sight) of a young tight end on the field.  And I could not agree more.  There’s not many football sights nicer than a young, tight end on the field.

In a similar vein, I have to be a 12 year old boy here, the commentator just said something about the best unit out on the field.  Hahahaha, he said unit!

There’s a lady who walks
The road of sweet painful thorns…

She knows herself and she knows the world
But knows not what there is in the heart of Him who made this world

Headed she is to a stairway of emerald and gold
That assures the Promised Land of old…

Leaving behind her heart and her soul for us to take care of…
While she sets of on a quest without which she would be better off

The road is beautiful and bordered by flowers all round…
The skies are blue and birds are everywhere to be found…

Its out there somewhere, just beyond sight and reach
The one she is looking for the destined beach…

She can smell it now she knoes its there…
But behold! She left her heart for us and knows not how to find…

Lost she is in her own paradise…
Nowhere to go…nowhere to hide

The sun is smart and the air is wet…
But her doubt appears through a nervous sweat

Fatigue and apprehension keeps nagging
But on she goes her determination keeps her going

Her friends look on in vain helpless against her will
Waiting for Him to stop playing with her heart and her poor soul…

Going she is…Marching like a warrior unmatched…
To a place we havent seen nor want to catch…

Going she is…Leaving everything we knew about her behind…
To guard while she goes searching for the Truth He wants her to find…

Gone…Gone and gone…
Wait…wait and wait we will…

oblivion

Two add-on .esp files for the Knights of the Nine expansion to Oblivion

Knights Essential: overrides the switching off of the essential flag on the knights, making them unkillable*
Knights Companion Quarters: adds a cottage, sleeping two, to the grounds outside the Priory. Also adds kitchen area to main priory building.

DOWNLOAD from ElricM

DOWNLOAD from Planet Elder Scrolls

*Sir Thedret is set to remain essential until the end of QuestStage ND10 (the end of Knights of the Nine). I couldn’t find the flag that removes the essential setting AFTER ND10, so the advice to the player is to be careful with Thedret after the end of the KOTN main quest and avoid placing him in danger.

For some reason in my game one of the beds in the cottage appears as a double bed, though it is definitely a single bed in the construction set.

Minor landscaping for the cottage might create issues with other mods using the same area. Changing the load order should repair any strangeness.

The soft silence of the dead yields to the
Whispers of Lethe: her lazy streams drift
Through low-swirling shadows like rich, lovely
Honey poured by the hands of the Mousai.

Her movements are as slow and careful as
Her trickling streams. Her liquid eyes smile
With gentle promise; as though her dusky
Bed holds all the secrets of this dark world.

Music hums between her pale fingers, quiet
Enough not to disturb the shades that trail,
Silent as Thanatos himself, in her
Wake. She shines with life in this place of death.

She glides, feet skimming her streams, to the lake
That lies where her waters end. She reaches
Out to kiss the goddess that waits; her lips
Brush Mnemosyne’s, soft as oblivion.

Another pair of fortnights, another new column!  Futurismic have my 21st Blasphemous Geometries column entitled “The Mechanics of Morality : Why Moral Choices In Video Games Are No Longer Fun”.

It is a little bit longer than my usual BG columns but I felt that I had quite a bit to say about this issue.  I am particularly proud of what I am calling The Clarkson Effect :

In order to be fun, transgressive behaviour requires the existence of a strong moral code to transgress against. However, when the transgressive opinions and behaviour become an accepted and recognised way of being, the behaviour ceases to be transgressive and thereby ceases to be fun.

http://www.platformnation.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/mass-effect.jpg

I like video games a whole bunch. I don’t discuss them too much here. I like to think I’m a sort of casual/hardcore gamer. Okay that doesn’t make sense. Basically, I don’t play night and day, but when I get a few hours of down time I like to sit back and play the one game I’ve been playing for the last few weeks or so.

I have a general like of shooters. Mostly because some of the best games that have been made in recent years have indeed been shooters (Halo, Call or Duty 4, Bioshock). Halo, while being a muck of an overall story, does indeed have the best shooter engine and physics ever. That’s the reason the multiplayer is so beloved, it’s just so fluid and telling. COD 4 meanwhile is such a wonderfully immersive game, with great goosebumpy moments. And Bioshock is my favorite, not much replayability, but such great art design and some really story/thematic points to boot (it’s a criticism of Randian Objectivism, perhaps it was made just for me).

But most of all I love RPGs. I’m a sucker for story and immersion. I just am.

I particularly love the final fantasy series. Yeah, I completely understand that the series has a real particular set of flaws, most stemming from the fact it is uber-japanese themes and eastern storytelling, but they’re awfully unique even in their samey qualities. And they have the scope not just of a novel, but an entire series of novels. Outside of the FF series, I also have particular love of the elder scrolls series (Oblivion!) and their other revamp of Fallout 3, which took the same exact engine as Oblivion and managed to make a completely different feeling experience. Fallout 3 is just fantastic.

Which brings us to Mass Effect and it’s RPG/shooter hybrid shittyness.

First note, I’ve played Bioware games before. I’ve played the KOTOR series and thought they were pretty good-ish. It definitely lacking some of the organic qualities i loved in the eldar scroll and ff series, but it was essentially interesting storytelling. Then again I tend overvalue any star wars property and grade it a full letter grades above where it should be. When you like everything about a particular universe it’s just more fun. What can I say?

So I was very excited for Mass Effect, I’ve gone a long time without getting and heard some very good things … and now, having beat it… I am very, very, very disappointed. I seriously have no understanding of how it got that kind of love. It’s exceedingly repetitive. Go here. Find this base. Kill this thing. Seriously, the side missions are especially meaningles. People complained about Oblivion and those missions were terribly unique compared to this stuff.

And don’t even get me started on the sameness of the design. Lazy. Lazy. Lazy. Every cave, every planet, every mine, they’re all the exact same. Seriously, THE EXACT SAME MAP. Sometimes the same exact box layout. It makes every mission a paint by numbers exercize. And believe me, I’m a completionist when it comes to my gaming so it’s very, very boring.

In terms of story I didn’t give a shit about anyone, usually Bioware is a tad better than that even with it’s generic clunkiness. I could tell you every story beat right before it happened.

This hilarious chart is completely accurate.

I’m sorry, but it’s true. And Bioware doesn’t seem to get it either.

Look, I know and understand Cambellian Hero Story analysis just like everyone else whose been in high school. It’s great and is responsible for so many great stories. But it’s not a lame excuse for paint by numbers storytelling. With this generation it’s become the most lazy storytelling exercise in the world, because they just make a beat for beat version of Star Wars and claim it’s the Cambellian Hero Story! No it’s not, what makes those stories unique is originality of detail and way you make the story seem as if it’s different, not how strictly you adhere to it.  There’s virtually no distinction in HOW you emphasize those story telling points anymore and it Mass Effect was the best example.

What stinks about that is that the scope of Mass Effect is great, the sheer idea for building a fully explorable universe has just fantastic possibilities and the shooter aspect was actually pretty well executed, which makes the fact that it’s eventually a boring, pointless game all the more annoying. Look, I understandd how much it took to build something so big in scope, but when it came to subtle execution in giving each little corner it’s own distinction (and HELL a reason to even go there!) all we get is long semi-amusing paragraphs written about the planet. And for character? You ever hear of show don’t tell? Well instead of getting to see that character’s story in some fashion (you get in FF) or have it play into the story in some fashions (KOTOR, Elder Scrolls), the character’s background is just explained to you in the most boring dialogue options. Tali’s plight made me want to shoot myself in the face.

I’m sorry but it’s a lazy, lazy game in the end.

Compare it to the Final Fantasy series where the whole thing strings along in a fluid series of vignettes and starkly different looking environments and goals, and employs weird reality-dream-bending methods of storytelling… Some people don’t dig it and think it’s weird and I totally understandthat , but the last thing you can accuse the story telling of being is lazy.

I get it’s a matter of taste and what not, but COME ON. Bioware just keeps making the same-ish sort of game. I don’t get the universal adoration. Hell, Fallout 3 used the same exact engine as Oblivion and it managed to feel exceedingly different, all because of the nuance of detail. Even recent shooters like COD4 and Bioshock felt more like interesting stories, because they were organic, fluid, and detailed. The details are everything in video games and Mass Effect opted for the sparse boring map. Anytime a RPG gets shown up by a shooter is a big warning flag to me.

And look I’ll eat my hat if ME 2 improves on any of the repetitive qualities and the entire game was excuse to build an engine, but seriously. I don’t get it.

The ability to say something sarcastic in every dialogue option, does not a great game make.