Microsoft said today that they're having some issues with their transaction system, to which they say could cause some difficulties for people who want to recover their account, make a gamertag or simply purchase things.

So that's probably the reason how I ended up spending well over 90$ on Microsoft Points, when I only wanted to spend 12$...

I kept getting the same error, booting me back to the page where I select how many points I want to buy. Seeing that the points didn't add up as if I didn't buy anything, I retried for about six times. Then Xbox Live went down completely for a moment, and suddenly I see I have 7200 MS Points.

Well...
Atleast I managed to get the map pack for Call of Duty: World at War during the downtime.

It took me roughly 45 minutes to get married, get a child, set the bitch her budget on 5 gold coins, get complained at and then I ended up killing my spouse. It then took me four more minutes to repeat the same thing I just did. What does that make me?

This game is such a tutorial for domestic abuse.

In a nutshell: BLARGELLARGERBARRR

In a slightly less nutshell way: Resident Evil 5 is a combo between John Woo, and crippled old people. It's a combo between John McClane and My Little Pony villains. It's a combo between Clint Eastwood and a Mercury Cyclone. It's completely badass, but comes with something that is so damn clunky and so unnecessary that the creators should be tortured by having to watch The O.C. for a week without sleep.

And if I have to explain myself with the randomly picked analogies; John Woo makes the most over-the-top "This is how America rawls ^-^" movies with bullet-time and insane moves Jackie Chan would get a hernia from. Imagine a flick of his with the cast being 70 or over. Imagine John McClane slaughtering ponies, it has potential but we'd prefer him to blow away pissed off Germans in FOX Enterainment buildings. Think Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino, but instead having to do all that shit for a '72 Ford Gran Torino, he does it all for a just-rolled-out-for-the-1970s-energy-crisis Mercury Cyclone. Just doesn't work.

I'm not making much sense here, am I? Resident Evil 5 packs alot of heat for a Japanese game(most of their games tend to roll slower, with entire movies worth of damn cutscenes and stories that could only be written by someone who lives entire life-times on Pixie-Stix) and holds the bad-ass flag pretty high. BUT, and yet, the shameless excuse for "I am not done bitching yet, mkay?", the inevitable but: Due to 'tradition', something alot of wise-ass game developers live on as "innovation" makes them shit their pants and sit in a fetal position for five fuckin' days... Due to their tradition as a "over the shoulder" third person shooter; They had to make the combat as clunky as it could be.

The tradition of having to stay put while shooting as a seven foot tall pissed off African comes charging your damn way with a big-ass motherfuckin' chainsaw.
The tradition of enemies that suddenly stop as soon as they reach you, give you five seconds to blow their skulls off and then they swing their home-made hatchet at you.
The tradition(in general for many developers) of having to cram a clunky, unnecessary, half-working and forced co-op system in your game.
The tradition that is quick-time events. Fuck me sideways.
Inventory management. 'Nuff said.

The game hits all the right buttons with boss-fights, tension, and story. But for the love of all that is holy, stop living with your head so far up your copyrighted Resident Evil©'s ass, and allow us to strafe. After-all, they made it easier for us to stand still, and pop heads cause enemies come to a sudden halt a foot or two away from you before swinging their bats/blades at you. In my opinion, it should be the other way around - You being able of side-stepping and enemies just charge into you without pulling over. But who the hell am I for saying such a thing, most people who read this now simply tag me off as a hater of the RE series and wave bye bye.

Anyway, the co-op... It's a plague. Nearly every single game has to meet the standards of "online gaming", so developers force a co-op mode into the game so they get to choose two easier options instead of the "WE HATE U!" cries that roam the interwebz. Those choices are;
- Chickenshit out of having to build a multiplayer mode.
- Get happy faces for "it being there anyway".

Can't say they're wrong for forcing it in the first place, but it's... It just feels forced. As if the game is some pissed off father, worried about his daughter, it forces you to look after some senseless fool that is... there. In the same sense that Army of Two has coop. "Its made all about coop", but ends up you having to drag the other's ass around. I'm talking in a circle here... I simply mean, the game can be handled alone. It's not impossible to play solo. Hence why it feels forced. I mean, if there's no-one online who could play with me, Sheva ends up being a second inventory for me and for the rest of the matter is just there.


*note, all of this is judged on the demo, footage specials from GT/YouTube and reviews. I'll be damned if I buy the game just to bitch on it. Wait......

Ahh yes. This new style the website has going is just... great. Putting the two biggest flaws aside, the HUGE feed(Even while everything is on private, this big-ass list just remains to be there.) and the fine sidebar next to my blogs keeping me updated on the rest. Someone thought it was a bright idea to let the user scroll down the feed that came straight from Hell and FINALLY find the links to his/her friends' blogs.

For the... four people who still are active enough to put their hands on the keyboard and tack up a witty comment,  for you a small update on life. And to the other... six people who read this stuff and can't be assed; Hai.

Anyway, I kicked back a little on this website for two reasons. One being mentioned above, the wall of incoherent crap. Two, I'm on my ladyfriends' laptop as my delighted PC died for the 14th time. Dutch people and technology. We could've caused the Big Bang if it weren't a theory, we'd simply claim we were trying to bake interstellar pies.

Nonetheless, the ladyfriend is turning into a stereotype pregnant woman. As if life doesn't torture me enough as it is for not using one of them things. Now I have to endure mood swings the size of Hurricane Katrina and I currently work as the feeder of Munchzilla. But being the man in all of this, I guess I have to be simple and just take it. Just like I have to drive to this specific Chinese restaurant all the way down in Brooklyn, to get her a truckload of chinese food. JUST to drive back to Jersey, to find out I went to the wrong place and that I have to drive another six miles from Jersey back to Brooklyn, to get the same meal, from another different place that sells the same crap.

If there is a God... Which I doubt, considering I called 555-SMITE-ME-NOW-YOU-OLD-TWISTED-BASTARD a dozen times...

... Is HUUUUGGEEE. It shares size with Rosie O'Donnell's gurdle, the Kuiper Belt and has the length of the Interstate 10. Sweet Jesus, is this my punishment for being active? :(]

I was listening to this dude the other day, and at a given point he started to ramble about video games and how they affect our personality in daily life. Y'know, the "GTA turns your hellspawn into bastard hellspawn" talk. And the dude had a point... If only I paid more attention, I would've gotten it all. But I didn't, so I'll keep it with the basics.

People simply use violent video games as a scapegoat in court because you need to work your ass off to be considered mental and send off to the Looney Tunes House. So, rather than saying I R UNGUILTY BITCH STABBED HERSALF!; They plea guilty, and sir schmuck of a lawyer redirects the FBI/CSI/DEA/INS/LAPD/LOL/ROFL to sir's house and points at the gaming console with a copy of GTA nearby, with a big grin on his face. Silently whispering "i haz another success on mah recawd".

Court session two gets started, evidence gets rolled up to the judge, some dumbfuck of a D.A. has to point out that GTA allows the player to virtually simulate modern day American genocide. Suspect pleas guilty, feels inspirated by GTA - Suspect gets a discount on jail time, lawyer has another mission success and the developers and especially the publishers have to fetch a cab home as their Jaguar worth six grand got repo'd by the bank cause they are making so-called crime sims.

Was I basic enough for you?

TL/DR: Violent video games don't make little Johnny grab a gun and jack a Taxi Cab. Violent video games is a court term for "Teenager + Gun + Violent Video Game - (YES THATS A MINUS) The forty hardcore Die Hard/Lethal Weapon DVDs he's been watching = PROFIT!".

Now, the point is...
Yes there is a point. Strange eh?

Anyway, the point is; If a game like GTA can be used as a easy way out... What's next?

Obesity?

"I'm overweight and I don't like it."
"... LEMME GUESS. It wasn't the food you munched on, huh?"
"I blame PAC MAN! THE GAME SAID I HAD TO EAT OR GHOSTS WILL GET ME! :("

Hell, think of all the people who played Tetris. DID THEY SUDDENLY START BUILDING WALLS ALL AROUND YOU?

And seeing as I'm on a roll - What about the people who played Mario, did they suddenly fly to Amsterdam, shroom up and started jumping into toilets while kicking turtles? What about World of Warcraft, do people nowadays get in their car, drive to another state, yell "FOR THE ALLIANCE!" and club fat people to death? Does Left 4 Dead want to make you shove a 12-guage underneath every single hoodie-wearing guy? Should you have played Burnout Paradise, does it make you wanna drive fast and smack headfirst into a wall once you get into your stuck-in-2nd-gear Ford Pinto? Does Resident Evil 5 burn a fiery hatred for Africans in your mind, and makes you wanna smash closets for items and shoot every single thing that is black and has a heartbeat?

Stop blaming the so called inspiration. Let's face it; You pulled the trigger. You ate all the food. You shroomed up and started kicking turtles. You should stop playing WoW. You should not get back at me for the horrible Left 4 Dead one. You should not get back at me for the Burn...Fuck it.

But in the end, the law always requires a reason. There's no suspect without a motivation. And gaming, it still being new and twice as violent as most modern day movies - It's a loop hole for jail time reduction, and if he doesn't get time reduction, his crimes will be forgotten as the press dives all over the named game like a horny teenager on free porn. And aswell... A clean opportunity for those obsessed lawyers to get a solid case that can't go wrong no matter what.

No idea whether there was any hype for this game to begin with, but for a 1200MSP pricetag it must've been... something. So a semi awkward No Love for Hype Rule number mid-twenty-something.

So yes. A 1200MSP Xbox Live Arcade. That's 15$. In other words, a whole lot more to justify. The usual 800MSP arcade can barely live up to the 10$ tag, this game will have to go that extra stretch. There's a couple of 1200MSP games out there, Puzzle Quest and Castle Crashers for example. Both have a ton of depth, and in the end justify the extra 5$ you gotta shell out...

Death Tank, however?

Well, it's best not to talk another paragraph together for something that can be told in four lines.

Price -/- Content: Fail.
Price -/- Hype: *sigh*
Price -/- You having played Scorched Earth: Semi-pass.
Price -/- General: Facepalm.jpg.


I enjoyed the game. I truely did. It's far from horrible. Hell, it's alot of fun and it has superb graphics. But that's it. There's not much more than wasted potential here. It's, like Castle Crashers a multiplayer game. Ment to be played with seven others. And the price of the game has killed the true reason of why you should buy this game. No-one's gonna fall for the 1200MSP price when there's barely enough to justify a 800MSP purchase.

And it seems like no-one's falling for it. I only had 23 kills and I already jumped from rank 5000 to 3000. There's barely anyone playing this game. And while it's fun to play against bots while you wait, or just play nothing but matches versus bots. There's certainly not more to it for you then. Playing a ment-to-be MP game, alone. It's like playing Call of Duty 4 Multiplayer alone. With or without AI, the game is and will be better with human opponents.

In the end...
Good game with alot of potential screwed it self extremely hard by thinking it's on the top of the food chain.


SCORE:
Graphics - 9: Zoom option needed, ktnxbai.
Sound - 8: I guess...
Gameplay: 8: Once again, I guess.
Multiplayer: 3: Hurr hurr hurr.
Compiled score of all the bullshit I typed above: 2.5: Read it, damn you.

Randomly generated sum total: 5/10.
Last tips: Unless half the planet suddenly decides to buy this game, refrain from buying it. The chance of people suddenly wanting to buy this arcade is about as big as hell freezing over with a twelve inch layer of ice.