Thank you Obama on Iran

I believe we should praise our leaders when they do well and voice our concerns when they seem to steer to far off the path. I wish to thank President Obama on his stance on Iran. Before I get I get to deep into this I would just like to say yes, what is going on in Iran is frightening, horrific and even a little inspiring to see the public take a and and say enough is enough. Now with that said.

Anyone who has read my work knows at least one thing. I am and almost always against getting involved in other countries affairs.  The issue in Iran is at the very least an internal one best left to the people of Iran to figure out; and at most an issue for the U.N. to deal with. This is why we created it, granted we created the league of nations and this is evolution of that but that’s not really the important part at the moment.

truth be told when get involved we seem to do more harm than good. Now that’s not a jab at the troops I have nothing but the up most respect for them. I’m one of those things, you know, a coward so I respect those that are not. The thing is, it has already been stated by more than a few that are experts on Iranian affairs that due to the lack of U.S. intervention they can not claim this is a West conspiracy. Which helps bring validity to the claims that the election was a sham.

I just wonder why some are wanting the U.S. to get more involved in this issue? My theory is and it’s only a theory, is . That everyone is well aware that the we are over extended and can not fight three fronts at once.  I believe they know this and to be honest don’t really want to get involved either in a war that would more or less leave the the U.S. over there until the end of time or would require us to just leave and hope for the best. So since they know we wont go they have free reign to throw a fit and look good to their chicken hawk supporters.  Though this is just a theory, for all I know they do really care and are shocked that we are not doing more.

In any case ,thank you Obama in letting other countries deal with their own issues. At the very least you ahve gained a fan of this foreign policy decision.

Pet Peeve Political Policy

Once again it’s been a little while since I have posted; and once again I’m sorry for that. I have been house sitting for a little while now and just recently was able to get a computer that stays on for more than two minutes.  Now on to the crazy rant.

Out of all the great things coming down the pipeline in U.S. politics. The job creation that the President is working on can’t come son enough. Plus his handing of Iran so far is great as well.  I can’t help but be disappointed by one thing. Granted this is old news but I think we all have at least one pet issue that we all can get in a big tiff about. The big one I have is U.S. intervention/presence around the world. Now Obama said he was going to have troops come home in thirteen months.

Granted that seemed a little odd, I was not sure why it take U.S. soldiers that long to pack up and get to the chopper but hey whatever. Then it came out after he took office that he was going forward with removing troops from Iraq. So far so good. Well that “return” trip was a lot shorter than any of us thought. It turned out he was just moving troops to Afghanistan, and lobbing missiles at the Pakistan border.

The thing is, why do we the have military fighting small terrorist cells? Armies are great for either taking out another army, or destroying a country.  Terrorist for the most part are best fought with intelligence organizations and Interpol.

edit: I know that the U.S. should help when it can. I’m just sick of seeing a disproportionate amount of Americans killed. I’m sorry for whining, it’s just I’m sick of us being told by the rest of the world that we MUST protect them. Like the fact that we spend a lot of defense gines he right to everyone else to tell us how we must use that defense. Like I said I’m sorry.

Drag Me to Hell – Raimi returns to his roots

To me this movie shows us why Sam Raimi has such devoted fans. Even before all the notoriety he gained from the Spiderman franchise he was a cult god with the humors and slightly horror Esq movies The Evil Dead trilogy. Drag Me To Hell stays in that vein, though maybe with a few less jokes. The movies cinematography is very well done, helping to add to a foreboding feeling of what is to ensue to this poor woman.

To the movies credit it gets right to the vengence showing you just how dire it is to mess with a Gypsy. The movies pacing is good for the type of movie it is and the main actress does a great job at making you care what happens to her.  Alison Lohman does a good job at making you feel pity for this woman, from dealing with her fiances parents to dealing with her co-woker out for the same job.  The effects are great in the movie minus one over the top CG moment, but then again it would hardly be a Raimi movie without so cheese factor.

All in all the movie is a fun suspense peice. I would be hard pressed to call it horror film due to the lack of any real scares, but other than that if you are a big Raimi fan from the old days it is defently worth at least a watch.

UFC, Undisputed fun?

So I have finally had a chance to play a new game for a while. I sat down and logged a decent amount of time into the new UFC game Undisputed.  The game a grand total of six fighting styles. Though they are broken up between two categories,  your fighting style and a grapple style once you pound them into the ground.

 

So you can go for a amore traditional boxer to a Muay Thi fighter. The same goes for grapple as well. You can be a wrestler that just punishes people once they make the mistake of being taken down, or you can take the more defensive route of jiujitsu. With jujitsu you might not be able to pound all the blood out of your opponent but you  will never be on the bottom for long. With all the reversals you can do you shouldn’t have to worry to much by your lack power.

 

All in all matches are very fast, most I have seen only last two rounds maybe. With the achievement of a one hit knock out. Which so far I still only think it can be done with the heavy weight divisions. This game plays fast and brutal. To be honest this has been the best fighting game I have plaid in a while. The game has a very deceptive amount of depth in it’s fighting styles and grapples. 

 

I have to admit this has been one of the better fighting games I have played in quite a while. Without having to remember long chains to pull off combos I have been able to focus on quick brutal play over extended time in practice mode working on my timing. 

And I Show You How Deep The Rabbit-Hole Goes

The Matrix Online is about to loose all broadcasting powers come this July. It seems that Sony is pulling the plug for good. From the official message boards “Walrus”  stated that the game was coming to end in July though not before the team was going to have one more big event  before all ties to the outside world where closed and we all join the dream once more.

I have  to admit I was always a bigger fan of the world in theory and as film medium than a game one. In retro-spec I kinda wish I tried it in lieu of some of the other MMOs I have played. The world concept in my opinion was far more engaging than fantasy and even some of the sci-fi based MMOs.

Though not all is lost, the good news being that the team is moving on to hopefully the next big thing. They will be bringing their expertise to The Agency online. With not being bounced around from group to group the team just might have a chance to finally be appreciated for all their hard work.

TF2 Giving The Loyal Player The Finger?

Now before I get to deep into this I am not really down on the new way to unlock the weapons in the game. Though after reading a lot of comments on how the most vocal part of community I can see why they are irate over the new system. The big issue being that Valve has replaced a skill based achievement system with a time based sink system. 

Now as a company I see why they would change from the old system to the new one. With the new system you are able to appeal to a larger crowd, mainly the weekend warrior or the inept. Now as a whole this will begin to even out the playing field between veterans. 

The only downside to the new way is that it spits in the face of all the “hardcore players.” Though in the defense of Valve they have been tracking stats and seeing who is getting what. So I don’t feel to bad that they are trying to find ways for people to enjoy all the new toys they made.

Nine Inch Nails Just Giving Stuff Away

So you say you always wanted to see Nine Inch Nails, but either you didn’t have the time or cash to see them? Well that no longer seems to be a problem. You have a couple ways in which you can see a show or two for free.

 

If you happen to be a fan of Twitter and can alt tab fast you just might be able to win some of the free tickets Trent Reznor keeps giving away.  These are no nosebleed tickets, it turns out he went out and  bought some of the best seats in the house and is giving them away for free, plus if that wasn’t enough he’s handing out backstage passes with them. Not a bad deal for a fastest typer award. 

 

But if you’re like me and your typing speed is well, let’s just say typing was a fun thing to do in school but was not a “class” you where graded on. Then I have some great news. Nine Inch Nails seems to have become the Grateful Dead of live acts. Yeah you read that right the Grateful Dead.  On nin.com you can watch fan made videos of  live performances. Currently there are 24 videos to peruse. So it seems it’s now a good time to be a Nine Inch Nails fan. 

The Sims 3 New Home looks a lot like the TPB

The  Sims 3 has had something happen to it that rarely happens anymore to a  triple A title. The game  has been leaked on the web, now who did it is still left up to speculation. Was it an over zealous reviewer, or maybe it was a recently laid off employee with a grudge. Well that’s moot point now and is best left up to  EA’s lawyers now as they track down the person  who is responsible for the leak. 

 

With three weeks out before the game was going to launch the big question is how well will  the game perform on release? My prediction will be it’ll  sell the same crazy amount that everyone  has come to expect from the franchise.  With such a huge casual audience chances are that most of  the fan base have only heard about torrents from the news or maybe the “tech” guy at work. So this  will be an interesting test to see how bad torrents are when it comes to major games.

 

One thing I  am curious to see is how EA responds to this on the consumer side.   To say that they got a cold response from gamers is putting it mildly. It became so bad that they changed the product.  The anti-pricey software was so strict that a family a four could not even make their own  characters. So EA will have to walk on the presuppose of a razor.   So how do protect your ip while not pissing off everyone who spent some hard earned dough on your product?  This will be the test and if handled well could be the turning point on internet piracy. OK that is most likely a lie but EA can always hope for a happy ending. To date the only way I know to come back form a leak like this is to have made a quality game. Let’s just hope EA brought their A game.   

The Queen of England’s Golden Toy

The Queen of England is used to getting lots of gifts for no real reason, and it seems that the tradition is getting more and more elaborate. The newest gift to most over-privileged woman in the world is Nintendo’s newest system the Wii.  

 

Now you might be thinking, yeah the Wii is popular and still hard to find around the end the year but does it really make for a royal gift? Well, it is if you gold plate it. No I’m not kidding the gift came from THQ along with a copy of their game Big Family. Though it seems that the Queen was not the first one to get this gift. The  new President of the U.S. was the first to receive this gaudy gift. 

 

To be honest I don’t what’s worse the idea of a gold plated Wii or the fact that the queen got sloppy seconds on this gift. All in all this seems to be a new low for gaming as a whole for all the efforts that have been taken seriously as a whole. Oh well, I guess it’s still  more creative than an ipod.    

The King Is Dead

 

I am sad to say that everyones favorite punching bag game finally has shut down.  Duke Nukem Forever will most likely never see the light of day. Granted it’s now gotten the point that only gamers in their late twenties and older remember the simple joys of blowing away space aliens and throwing money at strippers. Well in game form at least; I’m pretty sure non gamers have done the later while swearing by the first. 

Now even though the company that was putting out the game has folded and in a bitter legal battle with Take Two. The really odd thing that has been learned from the papers released online is that Take Two still has the right to publish the game. I’m not sure if anything will come out of this development though now that 3d Realms has crumbled under it’s own power, will Duke find a new home? If it will, who would want to make the game that killed a company? 

But before we just make blind guesses about what companies who we think can make the game in under a decade, the big question is who still cares? Now as recently as 2003 the game was one the top requested FPSs (first person shooter) when the public was polled. Now one big problem besides World of Warcraft to the people making the game was sticking with a engine. They seemed to have had a bad habit of jumping engines every few years or so. Creating an issue that helped them get to this point.

The big question will be who will take the throne now that the king is dead? With an ever expanding and sanitized market with no thanks to the wii amongst others. Can the game still be made? Only time will tell if the game will still be made by anyone else but it seems Take Two wants some green for bank rolling the longest game in development. 

I am sad to say that everyones favorite punching bag game finally has shut down.  Duke Nukem Forever will most likely never see the light of day. Granted it’s now gotten the point that only gamers in their late twenties and older remember the simple joys of blowing away space aliens and throwing money at strippers. Well in game form at least; I’m pretty sure non gamers have done the later while swearing by the first. 

 

Now even though the company that was putting out the game has folded and in a bitter legal battle with Take Two. The really odd thing that has been learned from the papers released online is that Take Two still has the right to publish the game. I’m not sure if anything will come out of this development though now that 3d Realms has crumbled under it’s own power, will Duke find a new home? If it will, who would want to make the game that killed a company? 

 

But before we just make blind guesses about what companies who we think can make the game in under a decade, the big question is who still cares? Now as recently as 2003 the game was one the top requested FPSs (first person shooter) when the public was polled. Now one big problem besides World of Warcraft to the people making the game was sticking with a engine. They seemed to have had a bad habit of jumping engines every few years or so. Creating an issue that helped them get to this point.

 

The big question will be who will take the throne now that the king is dead? With an ever expanding and sanitized market with no thanks to the wii amongst others. Can the game still be made? Only time will tell if the game will still be made by anyone else but it seems Take Two wants some green for bank rolling the longest game in development.