Anyone with lame excuses about "combatting piracy" and "LAN is so last decade" should have their posting rights removed, be baned from GB for eternity, and have a squad of trained penguins sent after them to break their kneecaps and their computer, because anyone who supports this boneheaded move is going to give Activision-Blizzard reason to continue on their merry way stomping all over the things we love.  To start, the argument about combatting piracy is complete and utter bullshit, because pirates don't pirate games to play the multiplayer, they pirate it to play the singleplayer.  It is impossible for pirated copies to get onto Battle.net even as it stands today, it was impossible back when Battle.net was even created, because Battle.net requires a legit CD key for you to access it, which pirated copies of Blizzard games do not have.  If you're that worried about pirates LANning together, then make the LAN require a legit CD key to use as well, or if you must make internet access mandatory, like Half Life 2 did, then just use the internet to authorize the game, then allow people to LAN as normal.  Also, for those who say LAN is outdated with today's internet speeds, even the fastest connections will have 10-20ms worth of latency.  For the average person, this may be workable, but for professionals and tournament players, this is simply unacceptable.  LAN remains the only zero-latency way for two or more people to play together.  Taking LAN out is stupid, unnecessary, and it will fuel rampant speculation that Activision-Blizzard is gearing up to make Battle.net a pay-to-play service (which, if they do, I'm done.  Never buying any Blizzard game again.  That will be the final straw for me).

LAN isn't dead, it's alive and well.  I consider myself a fairly casual gamer, I rarely spend in excess of an hour or so a day playing games, since I have other things to do (work, school, commitments, band, friends, etc.)  However, every 3-4 weeks, a group of friends and I get together in one guy's basement, network our PCs together, and play some Starcraft, DOTA, Left 4 Dead, or some other game over LAN.  It's still relevant today, and until they invent a zero-latency way to play over the internet (which admittedly might be possible in the near future), LAN will be my favorite way to play with people.  Not only for the lack of lag, but also for the ability to take off the headset and talk with people right next to me, revel in their anguish as I destroy them, groan as they train me with a zergling rush and laugh in my face about it... I could go on, but the point is made.  LAN brings people together to play, the internet erects a barrier between them - which can never, and will never, replicate the closeness of playing a game in the same room as your friends.

Part of the reason this pisses me off so much is because this is Blizzard.  Along with Valve, I considered Blizzard above the machinations and evil scheming the other corporations get into (EA's attempt to take over the market a couple years ago, Sony and their stupid "Playstation Exclusives", etc. etc.)  When Activision bought them out I was really worried that something like this would happen, although I was more worried that the quality of games would drop.  Fortunately, this doesn't look to be the case (can't say for sure until we actually get Starcraft, but it's looking to be every bit as awesome as Starcraft 1 was).  Unfortunately, Blizzard is losing it's place on the pedestal of developers who not only make quality games, but make them while remaining ethically pure and actually caring about the customers.  Unless there's a fairly major turnaround, I might have to hang up my hat as a Blizzard fanboy, and rely on Valve as the one last remaining bastion of "good" developing companies.

I predict, however, that within the next 48 hours, the outcry from the Starcraft faithful, professional videogame leagues, and South Korea will be enough to get Blizzard's attention.  If Blizzard remains at it's core a company that cares about it's faithful, no matter how much Activision has warped it, it might still listen, and we might see LAN support in Starcraft II.  If not... well, there's always the internet.  A hack will become available in time.

But let me say this:  Blizzard, if you make Battle.net pay-to-play or have a subscription fee, not only will there be a LAN hack almost immediately, but the number of people using that and hamachi/garena will soar, as will the number of pirated copies out there.  You'll only end up hurting yourself and the paying customers.

/rant

Here's the old computer's specs and the new computer's specs for comparison.

The old Desktop, "Sparky"

Intel P4 3.0GHz single-core processor

Secondhand XFX GeForce 9600GT 256MB, DX9.0c compatible (upgraded last year from a Sapphire RADEON X300XT 128MB for cheap)

1.5GB DDR2 RAM

Onboard Sound

120GB 5400RPM Hard Drive (completely full)

500GB 5400RPM External Hard Drive (not very full, I intend to keep this and use this in college)

19" Widescreen LG LCD Monitor, default resolution 1440x900 (also upgraded last year, the only part of the computer I still like)

Fugly beige case w/ Apple sticker on the side (added by my friend as a joke)

Broken, barely functional Linksys Wireless Router (802.11g compatible

Windows XP Home Edition

4 years worth of random spyware, viruses, and other fun things that slow it down.

No Warranty

The new Laptop, as yet unnamed (Leaning towards Charlie Tunoku, open to suggestions)

Intel Core 2 Duo 2.0GHz processor

nVidia GeForce 9800M GTS 1,024MB video card, DX10 compatible

4GB DDR2 RAM

Still Onboard Sound (I don't care enough to blow the extra money on a sound card)

320GB 7200 RPM Hard Drive (plus the external equals 820GB of total storage, roughly 100 of which is currently used on the external)

17" Laptop LCD screen, default resolution 1920x1200 (makes up for the 2 inches lost)

Integrated Fingerprint Reader (by far the coolest part)

7-in-1 card reader

Built in Wireless, Bluetooth

BLUE-RAY compatible DVD/CD Combo Drive (YES)

TV Tuner compatible with Analog, Digital, and HDTV

Windows Vista Premium 64-Bit

Very Very sexy looking case, with no Apple sticker attached:

Total price for this: 1400$

What do you think, internet?  Good deal/bad deal/should I have gotten something else instead?

Honestly, I was not all that thrilled about NXE when I first heard about it, because it really sounds like Microsoft is trying to rip off the best parts of the competitors' interfaces and mold them together into some weird Frankenstein-Monster hybrid.  As we all know, ripping off other consoles is Sony's job (please dont kill me PS3 fanboys), and I thought NXE would be needlessly complicated, pointless, and overall bad.  However, I downloaded it yesterday, spent half an hour tinkering with it, and I can say... it's okay.

Call me nostalgic, but I liked the Blades, and I still do.  I don't mind NXE, but I do wish having the option to return to the Blades format was in there somewhere.  Once I tinkered around with the interface, bought a "premium" theme, tried it out, promptly removed it in disgust, and pimped out my avatar with a neat hat, monocle, and handlebar mustache, I was getting the hang of the new format.  It's fairly intelligently laid out, is basically the Blades in 3D, and I'm sure I will live.

Miis, sorry, Avatars aren't bad, but they're kind of pointless.  I understand some games will use them in the future, but right now it's only a couple crappy arcade games, none of which I bought, so right now my avatar kind of just hangs out on my dashboard and looks cool.  The clothes options are extremely limited, and the lack of a black suit or a top hat for my avatar is very annoying, hopefully they'll come out with new clothing options soon (if we're lucky they won't charge for them, but knowing MS, it's kind of hope against hope).  Really though, the avatars... tell me why we need Miis in an Xbox.  Miis work on the Wii because you use your Mii a lot in Wii games (Wii Sports, Mario Kart, etc.)  The avatars feel too cutesy and weird, and they should have been optional.

The new store is definitely an upgrade, and I can't really find a reason to fault it at all.  I was not able to check out Netflix (I don't have an account), but from what I've heard it works fine.  Boo to Sony for pulling their movies from Xbox Live though.  That ain't cool.

"Premium" Themes are a complete joke.  Don't buy them, they're totally pointless.  I compared my old Portal theme to the new Gears 2 "Premium" theme I bought, and the only difference is the changing of the Friend background icon thingies.  They're kind of a downgrade, to be honest, since instead of five static background images, we get one static background image.  Hooray?

Overall... Meh.  It's not necessarily bad, it just feels a lot less like an Xbox and more like Microsoft pandering to the legions of people that surely want to be Xbox fans but can't because the Blades are just so ugly, man.  Right.  Maybe I'm too hardcore, but I want a game console to look like... well, a game console, not some weird cutesy "friendly to everyone" thing that also happens to play games.  At the very least, Microsoft should have left us the option to switch back to the Blades, rather than forcing us to use a pointless, overhyped and annoying dashboard update.

My thoughts on the game were... it's decent.  Maybe something I'd buy, or get for christmas.  However, Gears 2 and Fallout 3 right now prevent me from giving it the time it deserves.

I had a great experience when 3 buddies and myself tried (and repeatedly failed) to beat the game on expert.  Even the times we fucked up and got completely wiped out were hilarious.  On the other hand... every single pick-up group I played in either had a teamkiller, someone who hoarded all the health and let everyone else die, people who have flat-out refused to help me up, or just people who refused to work together, ran off to play Apocalypse Cowboy, and got everyone killed by shooting a car or pissing off a Witch.  Not fun.

The game itself felt easy on every difficulty up until Expert, where it suddenly bent me over and violated me in ways I had never thought possible.  Tanks on Expert are hell... we never figured out a way to kill one without losing at least one guy.  Maybe if we'd had pipe bombs...  The other bosses all went down pretty easily, the Witch was an issue until we figured out a way to beat her - stand in a line like a firing squad, get someone to toss a Molotov on her, then just make it rain bullets.  Boomers are annoying as hell, and the AI director should know better than to spawn them in small, enclosed areas.  Bad AI Director.

This would be a good time to say the AI Director, at least to me, feels like it failed to deliver.  All it seems to have done is changed around which bosses spawn, where the horde shows up, and where weapon dumps are.  This is all fine and good, but there seem to be maybe a dozen noticeably different combinations that it's used at most (changing one boss from a hunter to a smoker does not a difference make).  So replayability is spotty at best.  The reason games like TF2 are so replayable is because the human mind can think up infinite different ways to play such a game, and when you get up to 30 people together playing, no game plays out the same way twice, ever.  The AI Director tries, to be sure, but I feel like the game will maybe last a month or so before the Director completely runs out of ideas and is just throwing stuff at me that I've seen before.  Versus mode, however, might alleviate this somewhat.  We'll see.

The weapons are nice... auto shotty feels a little overpowered, hunting rifle a little underpowered.  Maybe it's just me, but taking a precision, high powered gun with a slow firing rate into an area with hordes of fast but weak dudes waiting to kick your ass seems stupid... maybe that's how you kill the tank, now that I think about it.

The zombies are good enemies, I like how theyre portrayed more as 28 days later than Night of the Living Dead... it makes for a more frantic, fun game where teamwork is so much more key.  People aren't kidding... Expert requires precision teamwork to survive, which I fucking adore.  In most multiplayer games, teamwork consists of "Medics heal, protect the flag/oddball guy, kill the other dudes."  The only issue I have is mentioned above - because teamwork is so key, asshats and teamkillers have so much more potential to ruin the game, and unfortunately, they already are.  A functioning headset is also critical.

So, there you go - if you are fairly confident you will always have three or more friends to play with, I wholeheartedly recommend this.  If you can get seven, I predict Versus mode will be one of the greatest things ever.  However, if you're hoping to just play pickup groups with random internet people, I wouldn't recommend it.  You will only be disappointed and frustrated.

VERDICT: BUY IF YOU HAVE FRIENDS.