korolev

Post patch I'm liking it quite a bit. Hasn't made as much as an impact as MW2's, because it shares a lot of similarities. But it's definitely not bad, now that it's been patched. Pre-patch it was terrible. I got it for the PC. 
 
As for singleplayer.... it was alright. Bombastic, but still not as good as CoD4's story. But it was better than MW2's storyline, which was a mess. Yeah, Black Ops has some really stupid things in it, and as a cold war history buff, I find the historical allusions to be ridiculously stereotypical and out-of-date. For instance, the imprisonment of Russian soldiers largely ended after Stalin's death in 1953. Khrushchev initiated the "great thaw" after Stalin's death, and most people were released from the GULAG. Sure, camp prisons still existed in the 60's, but the large scale false imprisonments largely ended with Stalin himself.  
 
And the idea of US soldiers actually killing Russians on Russian ground? Hilarious and completely impossible. Both Russia and the US weren't stupid enough to take direct action with their own soldiers in other people's territory. The risk of nuclear retaliation would be too great. They usually paid other countries to do their dirty work for them.

They experimented, and they took a risk with a beloved franchise. While that should be encouraged, and while it can be successful, it can also result in a backlash. From what I've heard, many people didn't like the story or the new characterization of Samus. People wanted Samus like they want their Gordon Freeman - mute and heroic.  
 
It really comes down to a tough question - how do you handle female characters? if you make them ultra tough and silent and don't reference their feminine qualities in any way, you're accused of "ignoring the character's female aspects", but if you put too many feminine qualities into the character, suddenly you're accused of focusing too much on the feminine side. It's a really, really tough thing to pull off, especially since people's own views on sexism and female characters are diverse and fractured. Like with men, feminists disagree amongst themselves, vehemently from the arguments I've heard.  
 
I think Samus should just go back to being the mute, generic space hero she always was. Or at the very least, they should gradually introduce backstory and new characters, instead of dumping a whole lot of exposition and dialogue all at once.  
 
It's a tough thing to handle and the general consensus is that most people didn't exactly gel with the new direction Metroid has taken. I don't fault the company for taking a risk, I applaud them for willing to experiment, but they need to just.... do.... a..... better job? I don't dislike story in my games, I love Mass Effect and Dragon Age to death, it's just that the story in Other M, from what I've seen of  video streamed sections of the game, doesn't seem to be very good.

Pretty remarkable that it's 9 years. That's.... that's a long time. Now I feel old.  
 
Just imagine where we'll be 9 years from now!

A black hole shouldn't suck up all the matter in the universe or even Galaxy. To be sucked into a black hole, you have to cross the event horizon, or in other words, have to get close enough to it. If you're not close enough to it, it is relatively easy to avoid. And as others have said, eventually black holes will disappear thanks to hawking radiation. Of course, cosmologists don't know for sure yet, but the current theories predict that black holes, while lasting for along time, don't last forever.  
 
Black holes aren't even really "holes" - they have a mass and a compact shape. They're just called holes because things "fall" into them, they're round and they can't be seen because no light reflects off of them.
 
Interesting thing to think about anyway. 

It looked like he was playing the Xbox 360 version. Maybe he didn't find anything to complain about, but for anyone who got the PC version, there's plenty to complain about.  
 
PC singleplayer is fine for me. Everything on max, no problems, smooth as hell. 
 PC Multiplayer is a complete mess - the game literally freezes every 20 to 30 seconds. It's not unplayable, but it's not enjoyable.  
 
I know I said wasn't going to get Black Ops, but I got it for cheap from some Eastern European site that sold the steam codes (legit, too, just cheaper because they're in Eastern Europe). And I have to say that even at the cheap price I paid, I regret it. Simply put, the Multiplayer is not fun in its current state. 

If it's got a camera in it, it can be used for pornography. But I doubt Microsoft will support something like that, and besides don't people already do that on their computers with their webcams? Someone will try to use Kinect for Porn - hell, someone's probably tried to use the LHC for porn, but I don't think it will take off or accurately simulate any sort of sexual experience (then again, if you think porn simulates real sex, you're in for a shock). And how many people are shameless enough to watch porn in their living room? Actually.... a hell of a lot of people. Hm.

Giant Bomb is good - they don't post half the "news" that other blogs do, because to do so would be repetitious. They do post important news, but only when it's a big announcement or something they feel the community wants to hear about. I go to a lot of blogs, and while I don't necessarily mind the news on those sites, a lot of it seems pointless. For instance "this game is doing well in the charts" is not relevant to me, because I'm not an investor or money man. That news is on specialist business sites and has no business being on a gaming blog. Giant Bomb also don't post silly videos from YouTube that are only tangentially connected to videogames. Maybe it's because Giant Bomb is a bona-fide SITE and not a BLOG. Maybe that's why it's better than most.
 
Simply put, Giant bomb focuses more on the games, less on the Gaming culture. Gaming culture is all fine and whatnot, but it's the games themselves that matter to me, not the people surrounding the games. Giant bomb earns my respect by focusing on what matters.

Heck yes I'd like to see more political/religious statements or criticisms in games! It would make them far more interesting. Far more controversial, for sure, but also far more interesting.  
 
I don't think many developers would dare go there though. Imagine a game that criticised aspects of Islam directly or the GOP directly, for instance - few developers would be courageous enough to ever do something like that, because of the sheer amount of hatred/death threats/lost sales that would result. 
 
I hope they do it, but I'm not hopeful, if that makes sense.

There was this one game for the PC - it wasn't very well known, I don't think. It was a puzzle game in which you controlled a character with green suspenders and a green bowler hat, walking around rooms that contained death traps that were usually laser beams. You had to step on switches or move mirrors to redirect the beams, and if you walked into a beam, you'd be treated to a close up of you Character's body with a hole in it (no blood or anything, just a clean hole through the stomach), and then the character would fall over dead. This game was made in the very early 90's, I think. The main character was also a kid, and I think he was black, but I'm not sure about that. 
 
Anyway, it was a reasonable puzzle game but seeing my character being lasered to death repeatedly freaked me out when I was four years old.

" No.  I am not a savage. "