TV and Crazy People

Here is the message I tried to leave on Netflix's blog bu couldn't because apparently you have to have a Facebook account:

"It galls me to see the sense of entitlement people have.  Netflix is a business.  They offer a product for the price of their choosing.  If that product for that price does not satisfy you, then don't buy it.  Those people saying they will do that in a rational manner, you are fine.  People who are freaking out about this calling Netflix "greedy" need to calm down.  A few years ago you didn't have this service at all.  You had to pay 50 to 100 dollars a month for cable or satellite and only got to watch what they put on the air.  You had to pay 5 or more dollars for a SINGLE new release at a video store.  Our selection today via services like Netflix and Hulu is huge and instantly available.  For me they have completely replaced cable in my home.  Even at 16 dollars a month I can watch more movies and TV shows than I ever could before, and they add more content every day.  It sucks that costs a little more but it's still well within tolerable levels for me."

I never fail to be amazed at how pissed off people get over stupid shit like this.  Netflix for 8 dollars a month is not some inalienable fucking right handed down to you by the founding fathers.  People are acting like Netflix killed their mother!  Get over it.

The 6 Most Ominous Trends in Video Games - Cracked.com

This is a great article on the future of video games.  It's mostly pessimistic, as you can tell from the title.  He's editorializing a bit but I found this to be one of the most thoughtful articles on the topic that I've read recently.  I'm a bit more optimistic than he is but I agree with a lot of what he says.

Art Part 3

Part three of my Black Ops emblem gallery!

Dead Man's Hand

(Aces backed with eights)

I made this one a couple weeks ago and forgot about it.  This was the very first idea I had for a Black Ops emblem but I didn't have all the parts unlocked that I needed so my first emblem was a lamer version of this with just the A, 8, spade, and a club.  I kind of wish I had saved this because I actually like it better than the Death Card emblem. That's OK though because tonight I made a new emblem...

Ghost Recon

As simple as this looks it actually took me a while to figure out.  I'm not really a long time fan of the Ghost Recon series, but recent developments have given me a vested interest in it.  I think it's cool that you can duplicate the logo for a more-or-less competing game and nobody gives a damn.  Well there's probably some lawyer or bureaucrat who's chaffing at it but they haven't been jumping on people for this kind of thing as far as I know.  It makes the industry feel more like a community when everyone gets along.  GRFS represent!

Art: Part 2 and Black Ops Tarot

Time for more Black Ops emblem fun.  First up is an idea that came to me one night lying in bed trying to sleep, as the best ideas often do:

The P0wn Shop

(Open for business)

I was pleased to no end when I got that one to work!  I also had the desire to make a more aggressive emblem that would put forth the enormity of my bad-assedness.  But I wanted to do something a little more high-brow.  Then I thought of this:

Death

Look familiar?  It's my interpretation of the Death card from the classic tarot arcana. "What the hell is that"? you might ask.  You can read about it here.  Each tarot deck has a little different image for each card but all of them are variations on the same theme.  Basically this depicts death trampling a king, and shows that death comes for us all.  Now that I've made this I kind of want to do one for each major arcana.  I'm up to level 29 first prestige so I've got plenty of cash for a project like that.

Why Brink Sucks

1. Implementation of menus:

They really tried to reinvent the wheel here.  My biggest problem is that it's too hard to figure out what's going on.  In campaign mode if you are at the mission select screen you can see little dots next to each mission.  If they are filled in it means you completed the mission.  That's great but there is nothing to tell you what difficulty they have been completed on, which is important since they put an achievement in the game where you have to beat every level on hard or in adversarial.  The challenge menu doesn't even tell you which challenges you have beaten.

2. Speaking of challenges:

In order to unlock any weapon or weapon related attachment you have to complete challenges.  Each challenge has three difficulty levels.  Levels one and two unlock weapons and attachments while level three will unlock the privilege of being on the leaderboard.  Wow, I get to be on another leaderboard where I can be 349745th?  Sweet.  That's a great incentive to sit through this frustration.  The challenges are punishingly hard.  You really have to level up your guy a lot before you can do well in them.  That's not the stupid part though.  Brink is a game designed to be multiplayer co-op.  The challenges can be played with friends and are much easier if you do so.  But you don't unlock anything unless you play solo!  What the hell.

3. Multiplayer implementation:

Playing the game with other people is actually fun.  But getting the game set up right can be tricky.

Here is how the rest of the world does it:  Start a multilayer lobby, invite your friends, pick a map/game mode, the game then matches you with other parties and individuals, play the game.

Here is how Brink does it:  Pick a map/game mode,  load into a match, bring up the lobby menu, hit the "invite party" button, realize that you are already in a full game and your friends can't get in, back out to the main menu and try again.

4: Bots.  Oh sweet Jesus the stupid, stupid bots:

This isn't a problem with just Brink.  A lot of team based multiplayer games have this problem.  You need bots to fill in when you don't have other people.  Bot's are great at doing exactly what they are programed to do, which never includes strategy or thinking intuitively.  This is a problem in a "thinking man's FPS" as Brink likes to style itself.  FYI bots, if I'm sprinting towards an objective to get there before the enemy does and you are supposed to be escorting me, it might be a good idea if you sprinted too!  And I don't know, maybe get BETWEEN me and the enemy while I hack the door or whatever, you know, so I don't get shot?

Brink isn't a bad game necessarily but it's designers made some decisions that were questionable at best.  I do enjoy and applaud the character creation.  It's deep an well executed.  I was running into a bug though were my friends an I were seeing default models instead of our own for about half the match.  Even so, well done on the characters.

Art

I've been meaning to post some Black Ops emblems for a while now.  Here are two that I made.

I was rocking this one for a long time.  I didn't set out to make it, it just kind of sprang fully formed onto the screen.

Donky Kong

This is the one I'm using now.

DJ Barebones

That one also just kind of came together out of no where.  I have some great ideas for future emblems.  If and when they come to fruition I will post them here.

Oh I Almost Forgot...

...I am now employed in the game industry.  The next step on my journey to total awesomeness has been taken.

I think I'm now at TOTA.  Only 12 more steps remain.