So i think starting later this week I'm going to start a new blog series.  I have no great name for it, but in general it shall be called the "Media Consumption Digest Series."  That is to say, driving in to work today I realized I should probably do a digest of sorts of all the podcasts I listen to.  Then I thought of the few television shows I am nearly hopelessly devoted to, like Top Gear, Top Chef and (maybe) the Office.  
 
So here's what I'm going to do.  At some as-of-yet indeterminate frequency I will write a blog.  I'm thinking either once or twice a week I'll write a digest of what media I've consumed since my last blog.  I'll start with an introduction of some of the media I consume (non-game related) by category and my consumption habbits.
 
Podcasts:
This American Life
Bombcast
This is Only a Test
(Occasional) Splendid Table
EconTalk
 So listen to podcasts almost exclusively in my car on the way to/from work.  This adds an interesting twist as sometimes I don't get to This is only a Test until the following Monday (I work from home every other friday).  So, usually I have listened to This American Life Monday morning, the bombcast Wednesday morning/night, This Is only a Test either by Friday night or by Monday morning.  I tend to skip the Splendid Table, and don't know if I will or will not write about Econ Talk 

TV Shows:
Top Gear
Top Chef
The Office
 I've started watching The Firm and Alcatraz, and may check out "Awake" however these are the three shows I watch with regularity.  I didn't specifiy a location for Top Gear, read that as my non-acknowledgment of anything except the UK top gear.  It's like the newer three Star Wars movies.
 
Now, I suppose I should do a shortened version of what I intend to write on the things I've consumed since this weekend.  That would be a) This American Life and b) Top Gear

This American Life

Top Gear

So here is how this happened:
I wanted to play games on my DS.  My daughter magically lost my Super Mario Bros DS cart at my Dad's house (or more specifically: Somewhere in this plane of existence). I didn't really want to play Scribblenauts, because it's kind of fucking shitty to control.  So I heard that Super ScribbleNauts fixed this, and I heard the Layton games are also pretty good.  So I ordered Layton and the Unwound Future (or whatever the hell it's called) and Super Scribblenauts.  Put in Layton, was amazing.  Showed my Wife, she said "Oh I can play this too."  About 6 hours of the wife playing my DS later, I said "You know what, I'll just roll over to Walmart and buy you a DS, they're like $100 there."  DS bought, the first thing wife wants to play is Layton.  I pop in Super ScribbleNauts.  Sure it controls better, but still, Layton is so much better.  My inner racist takes over and I decide its that Layton is made by a bunch of Japanese dudes that make it so much better.  I walk into hell (gamestop) and buy a game called "Dragon Quest VI."  It looks interesting to say the least.  Also at the same time I order Curious Village and Diabolical Box off Amazon so my wife (and later I, after she's 100%'ed the puzzles in EACH game) can play them.  
Finally, all is well and I pop in this ancient JRPG, expecting the worse (I think JRPG's and turn-based RPG combat are so stupid).  I start playing the game, and after I get pretty tough and crazy shit starts happening (you time travel in a dream, you're in a dream of a dream of the real world, that's also really a dream, what?) I'M FUCKING SUCKED IN. 
 
Are all JRPG's made equal?  Seriously guys, where do I go next?  I kinda thought these games were shite, but I am totally loving this game, loving the difficulty of combat, loving the ramdom encounters, and loving the totally off the rails story.  It's not the greatest story, but it's off the rails crazy.  I mean, in the real world my character is a manifestation of the dream of a real world character, who looks like but not exactly like, me.  And my job is to find the real me and conjoin the real and the dream me.  That's Insane.

And none of you can fly the transport chopper.

All of you.  Well, there was one exception, but in general, this is a feat you don't seem capable of. This is sad.  People are still making the same mistakes as transport pilots they should have learned not to do 5 days into the game.

So in summary, here is my idea of how to fly a transport choppa:

1. When you get below a certain unit of measurement, I think 15, the Altimeter flashes Red.  The Altimeter measures relative altitude, so this is a measure of how high you are off the object just below you, be it ground or a rooftop.  Red is good.  Think of red as your green light.  When the Altimeter is red, you are flying correctly.
2. Your passengers will not fall out the chopper.  If you take a turn at a 60 degree bank, nobody falls out.  If you do this at the right Altitude and the right speed, and for the right amount of time, the transport chopper turns on a dime.  People on the outside edge may complain because they'll think they're going to die and get a little motion sickness.  But they will not die or fall out of the chopper if you have the guts to follow through.  They may throw up on their computer, but that's not your problem.  So turn tightly, and use judicious banking.
3. It's nice how so many of you know how to draw a circle in two dimensions.  But can you draw a spiral, or a figure eight?  Can you use the aforementioned banking to stop your bird midair, losing half your altitude?  I didn't think so.  Try it out.  You might find flying in a circle fun, but so does the asshole rocketeer on the ground.  But if you start a circle at 40 altitude, bank 60 degrees or so and turn in hard, you'll do an about face, stop your circle and drop to 8-12 altitude and the rocketeer will lose you for a second. Advantage helo
4. You can get the chopper to move.  Again, your passengers won't fall out and you won't flip over.  Lean that bird forward as far as you can and step on it.  You might have to throttle the rotation a bit, but you can get moving pretty quick when you need to.  Again, sometimes you will find circling around your target makes you the target and you have to get out of there.  Use your rotations (banking left right and pitching forward and back) to increase your agility.  Otherwise you become a sitting duck.
5. Get passengers.  This is my biggest personal problem.  Make sure people get in your chopper.  There is not a category of points the 'transport' chopper goes to.  That sucks.  Get over it and help your team win.  A chopper of six guys is mobile, deadly, and winning.  You land to let the guys out when needed and let them get back in.  Have a repair torch in your inventory.  Don't bail on your pilot.  Unless the bird lands stay in the choppa.  Don't fly into a war zone without passengers.
6. If you are a gunner, and you are alone with the pilot, make him look good.  Actively switch between gunner seats so you give maximum fire coverage
   

And now a word on fighting the attack choppa

 The attack chopper is not as deadly as you think.  Sure, done right it's pretty deadly.  But that's also because guys on the ground are dumb.  Otherwise they'd be in a bird too.  So here's what you do

1. The lock on rockets are pretty shitty against most birds, except the transport chopper.
2. Most pilots of the transport chopper draw circles in the sky, they are easy to kill
3. A full 6 person chopper is deadly, so do this: get one early rocket hit, then reload the rockets.  Pull out your rifle and take down 2 of the 4 guys in the open bays.  Doesn't matter much if it's one on each side or two on one side. Hit the chopper with another rocket. Done right the chopper will be crashing. Back to guns, shoot the guys that jump then throw a grenade at where the bird will land.  They all die, and you look cool.
   

So what I'm not going to say here is that these are my goatee for 2011.  There are games coming out this year that I want to buy that I might like more than games I've played already.  Alright?   Alright.  Anyways, I was cataloging my favorite games this year, and the two that have engaged me most have one interesting quality:  Both sport what has been called 'bad gameplay.'  LA Noire and Deus Ex are my fav games so far.  Some games have come close but these (for me) take the cake.  And it's interesting that among games these two have  had the actual gameplay elements so universally disliked.  So is this my year of good storytelling in games?  
 
However, I must say, I do consider LA Noire's gameplay bland, but I liked the gunplay in Deus Ex.  That might have alot to do with me playing on the hardest difficulty and going for the super killer style play, so I spent alot of time and money upgrading my weapons and working out how best to use cover and use environmental weapons, so the gunplay was rather satisfying for me.  Anyways, this surprises me. 

So last night I had to pause a cutscene.  My wife was watching me play and the Illuminati were first mentioned.  I had to explain how when Deus Ex first came out, building a conspiracy around the Majestic 12, FEMA and the Illuminati was not yet hokey or played out.  And I myself was impressed that in HR, this is not treated ironically.  It's as if the developers forced themselves to forget a decade of conspiracies being played out, ironic, and pathetic.  That was cool.  Even if ultimately a conspiracy about FEMA and the Illuminati isn't the greatest serious fiction, they are faithful to the material.
So I must say I love the way this game unravels the story.  I don't too much care for the boss fights, but I'm playing as a 'hacker/warrior' character, so the bosses aren't the most challenging.  I did take the killswitch however, and that sucked.  Wish I didn't do that.  Anyways, I'm very near the end of the game now so I have some further thoughts.
I learned more about Adam (yes i'll use the right name now).  His birth parents were not 'evolutionary' like Adam is, Adam is evolutionary advanced because he was experimented on in urtero.  That's cool.  Well, no, experimenting on unborn babies is not cool.  What's cool is that as I read the details, I remembered, this is the deus ex canon backstory.  The illuminati identified DNA that was the 'next step' in evolution, unlocking augmentation and such, and experimented on pregnant women until they got it right.  Eventually they get the 'perfect' specimen (the Dentons) and clone them, but Adam is a forerunner in this process.  I totally love the way this bit of story dovetails with the canonical back-story.  Also, the naivete of people at the very highest levels of these secret organizations blows my mind.  I mean, when I saved all the scientists, Adam's ex girl seemed to be willingly developing the killswitch device.  Because she didn't believe that was a designed use.  SO NAIVE.  The zombie stuff is kinda goofy, but I like how they take a situation of massive unrest worldwide, and make it worse by creating this worldwide hallucination for augs.  
Anyways, I am interest to play out what's remaining of the story and report back, but I've very much so enjoyed my ride thus far getting through Deus Ex HR, and looking forward to re-plays, especially if they sell me DLC that adds to the middle of the story.  
So as I begin thinking of playing my next game, I'm also thinking about what's next for the Deus Ex franchise.  More specifically, I'm wondering what's next for Eidos Montreal.  I mean, I think they're the ones in charge of the Thief 4 game, which I am quite excited to see where that goes, but I'm wondering if it's more of the Deus Ex franchise that I want, or just more of these games that give me so rich an experience.  Yes, the gunplay is not 'great', nor is the AI.  Although I have enjoyed all that, as there's enough story and hacking and sneaking and meat and variability (see my post on turret mayhem in  Picus) for me.  I'm also wondering what the 'difficulty' means in this game.  Most of the places people have complained about being too hard on the give me deus ex difficulty have been fairly easy or only somewhat challenging for me.  Which is odd, because every other game i've ever played (except the original Deus Ex) with difficulty settings give me challenge beyond the 'medium.'  So maybe what I want is more first person cyberpunk games with slow action and a good story.

Ok, so I've been having some... interesting ... experiences with Deus Ex HR, to say the least.  I really like this game (that's a preface so you know what you're getting into), and think I probably should try and catalog some of my thoughts and experiences so far.  So first some prefaces and warnings:  
I will spoil things revealed to me up to where I'm at.  Also, I have played Deus Ex and am very familiar with that fiction, and have read the published part of the 'bible' as well, so I understand the intended backstory.  As such, not being spoiled myself about the actual events past where I'm at in HR, I might spoil you if my understanding is correct.  So beware.  Also do your best not to spoil me if you're further along than me :)
 So here's where I'm at- in the china area where I just found out who the guy is who lives in the apartment the first boss sent me too.  I have to replay this last segment, however, because I followed my mass-murderer instincts as usual, killing the 5 police guarding the apartment, and turns out I screwed up and now the entire police force is after me. This is a big problem I have to fix, and will.  Anyways, some thoughts first on how this game makes me play (or the way I play given choice).  I feel like whenever I'm off a mission that nobody is watching.  So for example, while in china I stumbled on an apartment building with a girl in the hallway with a locked door across from her.  I executed her just so I could hack into the apartment, netting me nothing of interest.  This is pretty much how I have explored all of this game so far.  I'm not going on wanton killing sprees, I'm going on controlled execution style hits of what I consider to be 'valuable' assets.  I'm also trying to find every underbelly and seedy spot possible because that's where the sidequests appear to hide.
 So that's that, now onto the meaty (and potentially spoilerific) discussion.  Who exactly IS Alex Jensen.  More to the point, what is Alex Jensen?  I know the 'backstory' of Deus Ex 1 fairly well.  I know that the Dentons were part of a special breeding/cloning program and placed in foster care by the MJ12 to be specially raised so they would do MJ12's bidding in some sort of blinding patriotism.  And of course, the MJ12 were wrong and JC and Paul instead followed an honorable path, and did not bend to the will of a couple measly secret societies.  Sorry for the huge spoiler there if you didn't know, but that's what it is.  Anyways, at the end of my detroit set I found out that Alex is mysteriously adopted.  His parents' medical records are all but non-existent except for the ones showing how his mom was actually barren and how they spent alot of time and energy trying to concieve/adopt.  And that there's no record of anything happening except one day there not being an Alex Jensen and the next there being one.
So I'm suspect.  I'm actually fairly convinced of what I now believe to be the truth: Alex Jensen is a clone of the 'dna' set that eventually makes the Dentons.  Alex's father is a member of MJ12/the illuminati (the two were once one and split off as a result of this cloning business), and the secret societies guided Alex and his parents to raise Alex in such a way that he became a cop, and was guided to work for Sarif.  As for Megan, since she seems to be the one who suggested Alex, I can't quite say.  At the end of Deus Ex, you run into a girl who is a scientist and  daughter of Morgan Everett (one of the illuminatis who spit off from MJ12).  Anyways, she knows alot about Denton and is generally good, but mildly puppeted by the MJ12.  I'm thinking that Megan might have been duped into suggesting Alex.  I'm also still willing to believe that was a double ruse and somehow Sarif is behind Alex's hiring.  In any case, this leads me to another conclusion: Bob Page (from the beginning video) and a group of conspirators (MJ12, likely to include Sarif) are coordinating Alex's development so he becomes the first of a mighty superhuman army.  I'm also willing to believe the possibility that the group involved right now is the Illuminati, and this game is telling the story of the split between the Illuminati and the MJ12, with Sarif being on the 'good' illuminati side.
 Anyways this leads me back to my playstyle.  I find interesting the story trope of the clone being designed to be a force of good, but instead turns evil, killing many innocents and potentially even it's master.  I am playing Alex like he's that clone.  Like let loose on society, he's bloody, cold and brutal because he's not a person, he has no conscience, like a clone.
 
Anyways, I shall report back just as soon as I figure out this police force issue.

Ok, so another little rant-post on tech support.  Not the standard 1-800 number kind, but I'm talking about the kind of support developers probably should lend to consumers after they made a game and said game has gone to market.  Over the past month or so I've hit a few things:
1) a wage of nostalgia for certain games
2) regret I had not played other games
3) game spending sprees on steam and other sites
 
Which has all led me down some interesting paths.  Some have been positive, such as when I purchased Deus Ex (already talked about) and spend like 4 hours modding the engine to look not so old- that was fun and I am enjoying the results.  Now while doing this, all the work has been 100% community based- which makes sense.  This game is old.  Then I've also purchased Duke 3d off of apogee's website.  Interestingly, what they were selling was as close to the orig duke 3d as you could get.  So it didn't run by itself.  Further interesting to me is that Good Old Games sells the same thing already set up to run on modern windows machines.  In any case, setting up the eduke thing wasn't all that hard, but needless to say I was a little miffed that I could simply have bought the same thing from good old games that I got from apogee and it would have worked.  
 
Now, things get more interesting.  I had some credit from amazon and was a little bit remorse over how I've never played bioshock.  So I bought it (price was right).  Anyways- the game didn't even remotely work out of the box.  It took me a while to identifty the issue- made worse by this game not being all that old but still not being supported.  (I can't really blame irrational/2k that much, because I think this game is probably on the edge of the statute of limitations for when developers need to support their software still).  But it was rather frustrating to me that the 'google first' fixes were all to disable a major component of the game (sound) and were not to fix the problem (bioshock sound engine would not load on my computer).  Anyways- I identified a few issues: the usb sound thing I was using was crap- so I got rid of it and uninstalled the software.  Turns out that fixed problems I was having with source engine games (framerate slowdown) so yay!  But still the game would not load.  Finally I worked out that the mere presence of a sound render program on my computer (blue ripple for Dirt3) was breaking bioshock.  Uninstalling that software works like a charm.
 
Of course, dirt3 doesn't work if you leave it uninstalled (at least for me because I have it set to 'hardware' sound).  So I keep an installer handy.  And this leads me to my tipping point.  See, I had owned dirt2 for the xbox 360, and it was awesome.  Really good. I had also heard that the dx11 items made the PC version look just that much better.  So when dirt3 came out a couple months ago- I bought it for the PC.  And all was good.  It ran great and looked awesome.  Then over time, the game would periodically lock up on a loading screen (entering or exiting the main menu system to/from a race).  And I read something that the blue ripple sound I was using wasn't up to date- so I made it up to date.  I've played dirt3 a little less frequently than I had initially, but really have dug the multiplayer (esp hardcore mode), so I pick it up every once in a while just for that.  Of course it would lock up like every 3 races.  So I did some digging around online and got the impression that codemasters was 'ignoring' the issue, but if you force the game to run in dx9 (still looks good- though some problems, more on that in a bit) it wouldn't lock up.  Totally true- runs fine.  Of course, all of the 'track' textures now have a dopper effect because some of the dx11 render stuff doesn't hide it and that looks bad, but other than that the game is alright.  Still this upsets me, I have a gtx570 with the new i7 sandybridge dude, plus 8g of ram.  So there's no reason I shouldn't be able to play this game maxed out.  So this morning i decided to do some light reading over on the codemaster forums.  And found (much to my surprise) that a community manager had created a sticky post for helping work through the issue.  Here's the central problem they were having 'fixing' the issue:
None of their PC nor any of Nvidia's PC's could reproduce the issue.  So they were having people upload dump reports and stuff- that's actually cool.  So I read through all 20+ pages of the thread and here's what I've gleaned: ever since Codemasters has started using dx11 features, their games have had 'lock-up' issues that they have not 'addressed.'  By addressed I mean that I don't think they've acknowledged an issue, except now for Dirt3.  The other thing I noticed- and this is something i think of specifically in relation to the way this website handles tech problems:  of those 20 pages of replies, there are about 6 actual posts from codemasters.  The thread covers about 20 days or so- so that surprises me.  I mean over here when a site goes down, Dave or someone is all over it on twitter and such giving status updates.  People move, people act and end-users are notified.  So I guess that's just all I had to say.
 
I'm shocked that a company which makes a mass-market product and a company which establishes an internet presence for interacting with it's clients can't be bothered to do just that.  I'm further shocked that codemasters people posting are 'community managers' which leads me to believe their duty is to be that communication vehicle.  I don't know, I could be totally wrong in how workflows are allocated for community managers- but in my line of work, if there's something that needs focused on, we tell someone to basically drop what their doing and focus on that.  Why wouldn't they just assign a community manager to that thread (since they deemed it important enough to engage this massive crash dump reporting operation- cool QA move btw), to give regular updates or such?  I don't develop software or come from that world, so maybe I just don't understand how this all works.
 
Ironically I haven't played the game in a while.  Non-ironically each time I think I want to go play it, it pisses me off I can't run the game in dx11 and I go play something else.

So truth be told I don't understand how this site's karma works.  Except when I see a spam post that's just sitting out there and click flag- I can't.  not sure what I did but I definitely fucked something up so that my Karma doesn't allow flagging.  Meh.

So I have no clue why- maybe it was the four hours it took me to get bioshock running (turns out the game's audio engine doesn't work with the weird creative audio usb sound card I was using- stupid me, and also doesn't work with realtek sound if another game installs a virtual driver on your computer- like Dirt3 does) or maybe it is the summertime, but I've reinstalled Deus Ex.  
I've applied the HTDP, New Vision Mod, that enb thing and a dx9 renderer, played with my config settings so they all work nice and have it going.  Of course, every so often the graphics model crashes and I  have to alt+enter to windowed mode to restart the graphics driver- but that's only a minor headache considering Deus Ex in modded form looks actually pretty good.  By comparison- there are small effects in Deus Ex (Unreal 1 tech) that actually match the effects in DNF- not that DNF is a great looking game, but that's more to point out when that game should have come out.  
 
If you don't believe me find a waterfountain in each game.  No way they should both look the same- but they do.
 
Anyways- I love Deus Ex.  THat's really the point- playing this game reminds me of the many times I have played the game- reminds me of the many times I have re-installed the game.  Also reminds me of the crazy things the story does to you the first time you play.  And so, 12 year old spoilers ahoy!
 
Anyways- now I tend to do all the things I know to do in every level- instead of slacking off on exploring.  So when you first get to hell's kitchen, I always visit the MJ12 facility- something you can do on your second visit, which is a really cool experience- especially how there are different goings on each time.  And, of course, ironically so, a mission played out totally different this current playthrough than ever before.  So yeah, this game is pretty damn good.  And with all the mods written for the game's look, it holds up relatively well.  So I guess some of you will go re-install the game .... again, but if you do- take the time to play it and upgrade the look.  it's totally worth the while and for me, brings me back to the depth games can have.  
 
 
Makes me excited and worried about DXHR all the same- I mean i'm hearing this game might be pretty crap or pretty much like Dx2, which would suck alot...

Damn good old games and their interplay sale until July 4th.  Of course I'm also relieved this actually lasts until July 4th because I'm currently in a re-run of Deus Ex with all the crazy upressed textures and levels of some of the neat mods out there.  Trying to fix a bloom problem atm, but having fun.  So damnit you old games service and your convenient pricing and your ability to sell games that actually run in modern windows 7 environments!!!!
 
 
ffffffuck.  Anyways- just wanted to say this- and god I loved me some descent.