This game has some issues. I just started playing it on Hard cause ya know, I'm pretty good at games and stuff but uh... the mission to liberate Parker is just frustrating. Ya know, that mission where you get in a truck and have to run over 12 sensor towers. It's frustrating for a couple reasons. The vehicle handling isn't particularly good, your truck takes a whole lot of damage once the plasma bolt spamming APCs show up, and you're also getting rammed all over the road by APCs crashing into you. You can get out and try killing em but they just keep respawning so that's pointless.

The other big issue I have is with the ammo capacity for weapons. For some reason, the assault rifle is only able to hold 3 magazines. 120 rounds. Now, that's insanely low for a shooter where you have EDF forces spawning all the time. Especially cause it takes about 10-12 rounds on Hard to drop a soldier. So you run out really quickly. That's just not fun. Why would you only be able to hold 3 magazines? That's not nearly enough. I was expecting an upgrade to increase it to 6 or 8 magazines, but I don't think such an upgrade exists. That's a real shame.

So uh, Jeff's a pretty big wrestling fan. Or, rather, he seems to be, cause he knows stuff about wrestling. Kinda a rarity in this day and age. I think that's fair to say. I mean, cmon... wrestling? Who gives a fuck about wrestling these days? More people care about the World Wildlife Fund then about the silly shenanigans of some grown men in spandex touching each other. Anyways, him talking about wrestling in the recent Quick Look about that wrestling game that's like... WCW Extreme Versus NCAA 12k or something... it got me thinking... about realistic wrestling games. You probably have no idea what I'm talking about. That's cool, we'll walk down this path together.
 
Wrestling's fake. Well, at least the wrestling that's portrayed in these wrestling games. Everyone knows this. 
 
Video games are also fake. However, their fakeness is vastly different from the kind of fakeness in Wrestling. Video games are fake but can present a realism that's not possible in real life entertainment. Thus, wresting video games... they don't have to be fake in the same way as wrestling in real life. Yet, would people want that, or do they want fake realism in their wrestling games?
 
Just think about it. In real life, wrestlers don't actually punch each other. They pretend to punch each other, while stomping the ground with their foot to make the impact sound. Or they'll slam chairs into each other, but only hitting their meaty back, where they won't inflict any actual injuries to the other person. Instead of actually punching and drawing blood, the other guy simply hides a small razor until the opportune moment and then cuts himself with it. This is the sort of stuff that real fake wrestlers have to do in order to deliver their unique brand of entertainment.
 
Well, now let's look at video games. Wrestling video games don't have to worry about any of those limitations. They can actually animate wrestlers' ingame models punching each other and making contact, using chairs on any part of their opponent's body, etc. But then, that wouldn't be an authentic wrestling game, would it? It would be much less of a simulation of the "sport." So should the developers strive for realism in simulating the wrestling? Actually model a tiny razor blade in the character model's hands? Do you want to see the ingame player surreptitiously cut himself on the forehead during a match? Should the wrestler models actually be punching air and stomping with their feet in order to simulate an actual punch inside the game? That's a double fakeness, isn't it? It's the fake sport, actually being protrayed in an realism manner, inside a video game, which is fake. That's kinda mind boggling. I don't play any wrestling games, so I dunno how they deal with this in current games. But it's an intriguing concept.

Has anyone else noticed that PC versions of multiplatform games now always seem to have release delays compared to their console versions? We had the delay for Batman Arkham Asylum, which was chocked up to the addition of PhysX effects. That seemed a little bit plausible. Kinda. You could sorta see it as a reason. Fair enough, right? Red Faction Guerrilla also had a substantial delay for the PC version. Street Fighter 4 and Resident Evil 5 obviously had lengthy spans of time between their console and PC releases. Though I suppose in their case, it's more the Japanese developers not giving a hoot about the PC market then actually trying to delay the games in an effort to combat piracy. Two of the biggest hits in recent years, Assassin's Creed and GTA 4 were both released on PC long after their console versions. Borderlands PC is going to be delayed 3 days, ostensibly because they're "optimizing the PC version which takes a few days longer than expected." Which is frankly absurd. Optimizing code takes a bit longer then 3 days, most reasonable people can agree.
 
Now we've gotten word that COD Modern Warfare 2 is going to have a 2 week delay for the PC version. Mind you, I don't really care, Call of Duty 4 was a pretty big disappointment and I have no plans to get the sequel. I mean... it looks like more linear scripted sequences every ten feet, more infinite respawning enemies, now with unrealistic dual wielding? C'mon, that's a no brainer. But uh, it's just another in a growing trend of delays for PC games compared to consoles. Obviously, I think it's getting pretty clear that this is just the industry as a whole trying to combat piracy and has nothing to do with polishing/optimizing the game, adding weird PhysX effects, yadda yadda yadda. It's just adding a delay to give more incentive to buy the game on consoles. And even if you take out the piracy component, there's just a benefit to selling someone a 60 dollar game as opposed to selling them a 50 dollar game.
 
I can't help feeling that this grand strategy is going to backfire. These uniform delays are going to just make people bitter and actually convince them that the game companies are turning against them on the PC. One might even say it could serve as an impetus for higher rates of piracy, just to spite them. Seems like an alright idea, if you think about it. They're screwing us by delaying the release on the PC, we'll screw them over by pirating the game. It's a vicious cycle, one might say.

Yea. I'm really happy for you. It looks like a great television serial. Now, it's not just a world. Or a solar system. It's an entire universe of possibilities. Universal appeal. Universal ideals. I mean, Atlantis? Those were just the undersea exploits. That's small potatoes compared to the entire universe.

A universe, that's bigger then a galaxy. Bigger then a nebula, even. Kinda like how the Galaxy class starship was bigger then the Nebula class starship on TNG. Wonder why they never built a Universe class? They seemed to think a Galaxy class was big enough. Didn't wanna get too cocky, too ambitious with the universe.

I didn't actually watch it, but my friend did. Said there was about 30 seconds of... Lou Diamond Phillips. And I said, "Oh...you mean... La Bamba." That's what that guy's gonna be known for, for the rest of his life. Not the guy in Courage Under Fire, not the father figure in that Aquaman pilot... not even as the guy in Stargate Universe. Just La Bamba. They're gonna have to carve that into the guy's tombstone. "The Actor Who Played La Bamba."

I don't see it lasting 7-8 years. The Stargate series are now like Power Rangers series. Have you noticed that? They last a short while before changing. Permutating. Lots of permutations. Remember how Power Rangers would turn into Space Power Rangers, and then Power Rangers Full Auto, and then Power Rangers Galaxy Police, etc? It was insane. I think it's an apt analogy. Well, ya know, those Power Rangers shows changed every season. The Stargate shows last a bit longer. But it's cause kids have shorter attention spans then adults. And a kid nowadays, wouldn't even remember the original Stargate movie. I hardly remember it, heh.

Who knew the Stargate franchise would last so long? At this point, think about it... Stargate's almost got as many tv series as Star Trek. Just think about it. We have a name for Trek fans. Who knows what the name of a Stargate fan is? Gaters? Gators? No, that's some sorta football fan in Florida somewhere. They've got alligators down in Florida, not crocodiles. Maybe a gar or two. Gars are those freaky ones with the really long narrow jaws, right? Has anyone even come up with a name for Stargate fans?

So Robert Carlyle is also in it. Hopefully he can redeem himself for that performance in 28 Weeks later. God, that movie was terrible. Did I tell you how much I hated that film? It was awful. And ya know, I liked the first movie. 28 Days Later was quite good.

I recently bought a 360 and started noticing some peculiar features in the games. They all seem to want you to press Start at the beginning, right after the game loads. Why is this? I really don't get it. It's also showed up in a lot of recent PC games that were ported directly from the 360. There, you have to press a key to start. It's kinda off-putting. Why should I need to press Start to start the game, when I've already signaled my intention to start the game by putting the fucking disc into the tray and closing the aforementioned tray? Or, if Autoplay is turned off, I've already started the game by selecting the Play Game option from the console's Dashboard. Why this extra burden? Is it just to justify the existence of the Start button? That can't be it, cause the Start button's also used to pause the game while in the middle of playing, sending you to a nice options menu. 
 
Frankly, I'm sick of pressing Start to begin. You already know I want to start the game. Do you just want me to look at your  pretty game logo, so you force me to press Start to get away from it? That's unnecessary, dude. Just load up the game, show me the logo for a couple seconds, preferably no more then 3, and send me directly to the main game menu. There shouldn't be any prompt for me to press Start. I already started the game from the Dashboard, that should be enough to convince you I wish to play the fucking game. Is it some sort of warning to me, just to see if I'm having any second thoughts about initiating interaction with the game? Do you want to know if I'm really ready to leap in without careful consideration? Should I go back and do some research between the time that I launch the game from the Dashboard and the moment the Press Start screen shows up? What's up with this reluctance to actually launch the game? It's like a multi-tiered decision I'm making here. This isn't like a nuclear submarine, where we both have to turn the keys at the same time. It's just a game. There's no need to force me to press the damn Start button.

You know what I actually would like? A damn "Quit Game" option. All these console games just don't have any way to quit out of the game. As a PC gamer, this is infuriating because I'm used to being able to exit a game. Here, it's like I'm trapped, forever stuck inside this game. Of course, then I remember I can press the Guide button and exit to the Dashboard from there, but it's a hassle. All game developers should really just put a Quit Game option on their main game menu, just like with PC games. Are they really too lazy to do this? What's up with the contradictory signals? First you're programming in this asinine "Press Start to begin" screen that we don't fucking need, then you won't actually give us an "Exit game" option that we could actually use.