Terrorism is something that work on the mind much more than it works on the body. Terrorism isn't about being threatening. Terrorism is about making you feel that you are threatened. Misinformation is one of the tools of a terrorist.
Whether the claim is real or not, you think that it is, or at the very least that it is possible. That perceived possibility makes you think that a threat may be imminent, even when that threat is remote at best. Misinformation is also a tactic used by legitimate organizations. Namely, the government.
I've been sitting on this story for a couple of days because I've been waiting for it to develop more, but since it hasn't I'm going to give my opinion about it. According to a report on Ars Technica, Comcast is currently in discussions with Electronic Arts to allow some of EA's games to be played on Comcast's set top boxes via live streaming. The article states that this may allow some of EA's most high profile titles, including, according to the article, "FIFA, Madden, and Plants vs. Zombies" to be played on a normal cable box. While I think that such a service would be a good addition to Comcast's current service, I do not think that most people will be playing Madden on their cable box anytime soon. What will they be doing?
Electronic Arts owns PopCap Games, who are responsible for such games as Bejeweled, Peggle, and Zuma's Revenge. Games like this are ones you can easily jump into, get enjoyment from, and not require the user to manipulate a multi-button controller or keyboard. In fact, it can be reasonably said that you can control most of PopCap games with just a simple remote control, and that is how most people will be using this service. While some people may try to play Madden or FIFA with their cable remote, or possibly with their table computers via a Comcast specific app, most of the players of these games will find the experience too limiting due to the constraints of their chosen controller. However players of more casual games will not have a problem with the limit of their chosen controller, and may find being able to play these games from their couch, as opposed to sitting in front of their computer screen, to be a better experience. Madden via a cable box may never truly take off, but Peggle via a cable box has the possibility to be very successful.
On Tuesday, reports started circulating about Electronic Arts possibly allowing consumers to craft and distribute user generated content in SimCity. This speculation comes after a post on a Electronic Arts forum, which was taken as truth because everything posted on a forum is true.
In advance of this upcoming move, I am proud to announce the First Ever SimCity Giant Dick Challenge! The contest is simple: The first person to post user generated content in SimCity that is phallic in nature will be given a prize. That prize: 103,900 Zambian Kwacha!
Disclaimer: Prize is available to all residents of the United States of America, including all Territories and Military Bases. Actual prize value is USD $20. In order to win you must be the first person to deliver the requirement of the contest in person at The Official Offices Of The Redertainment Corporation Of America, 350 N. State St., Salt Lake City, UT 84114 Prize must be claimed by October 1, 2013. Actually, this is not an actual contest. This is a hoax. Submissions looking to claim the prize will not be acknowledged, unless submissions also include pictures of Carly Pope naked. Disregard that last sentence. Do not send any pictures to the address that was attributed as The Official Offices Of The Redertainment Corporation Of America, as sending pornography to the Utah State Capitol can be considered to be a crime. Please, no fat chicks.
On
Tuesday, the newest version of Electronic Arts's Sim City franchise was
scheduled for release. Millions of fans
of city planning simulations waited patiently online for the game to finally be
made available. At midnight, Sim City
was released, and almost immediately people started bitching on the world's
favorite place to bitch, Twitter. Rather
than complaining about the game, as most gamers do when anything is
released, consumers were complaining
about not being able to get the game.
These
complaints about availability are of a different nature than the complaints
made about most games. Electronic Arts
made the decision to distribute the latest Sim City game digitally. Even physical copies of the new Sim City did
not contain the game, rather the physical copies contained a program for the
user to download EA's digital distribution service, Origin. Other companies have utilized a digital
distribution method to disseminate major video game releases, and on paper it
works. However, it appears that digital
distribution of a major video game release is a concept that resembles
communism, supply-side economics, and politics: It looks good on paper, but
problems arise when it is actually applied to people.
On
Midnight of the game release, a flood of people tried to download Sim City at
once. The resultant overload of the
game's digital servers caused the servers to become unavailable to
consumers. Unavailability of the game
that they paid good money for caused many consumers to rage out against the
game's publishers, the distribution method utilized by the game's publishers,
the consumer's ISPs, random people on the street, and, for some unknown reason,
President Obama.
Some
users took their outrage a bit too far.
On Day 1 of the GODDAMMNSIMCITYBEINGOFFLINESONOFABITCH Crisis, otherwise
known as Tuesday, a fire broke out at a grail silo on property owned by the
FLDS Church in Custer County, South Dakota. Although first reported by
members of the community to be the working of "An apostate who means harm
to our way of life", Custer County Sheriffs later identified thirty-one
year old Watford resident Hal Abell as being responsible for the fire. When asked for a reason for setting the fire,
Mr. Abell was only heard to say, "I paid good money to be mayor of
Simville, I want what I paid for goddamnit!"
It is
unknown when normal stable will be restored to the players of Sim City. We can only hope that a further outage
doesn't cause an outburst like the one seen when the Fox series Traffic Light was cancelled. We
don't need to see another revolution in Libya.
C.R.E.A.E.A.
As was
mentioned earlier, when Electronic Arts's latest version of Sim City was
released, the physical release included a physical disc. The physical disc, rather than including the
game, included a program to download EA's digital distribution platform,
Origin. It is through Origin, and only
through Origin, that the latest Sim City game is to be distributed. So why include a physical disc at all?
This
question was asked to Electronic Arts's public relations department. Rather than suppling us with a less than
adequate response, our question was given to EA's Green Initiative Director,
Gabriel Nelson, pictured above. When asked about why a
physical disc was included in the physical edition of Sim City, even though the
need for one is not really necessary, Mr. Nelson said:
We
included a physical disc with the physical edition of Sim City as an aid to our
consumers. Many of the people who play
Sim City are not as technologically adept as the typical hardcore gamer. It is to those consumer's benefit that we
include a physical disc with the physical edition of Sim City.
When it
was pointed out that many of these consumers could easily follow clearly
written instructions as to how to obtain the game digitally, Mr. Green said:
I
understand your concern, but my job is not to eliminate avenues for consumers
to obtain our products. My job is to
increase the amount of green that our company con obtain.
When
asked what he meant by "green", Mr. Nelson said:
Green. You know, the colour money is? Yes, money is of paramount important to
us. Cash rules everything around
Electronic Arts.
This Guy
Claims To Represent Me
On
Tuesday, it was announced that first term Utah Republican Representative
Christopher Stewart was tabbed to be the chairman of the House Environmental Subcommittee. In a
statement, Representative Stewart said this about the appointment:
The Official Redertainment Corporation Of America E3 2010 Recap Blog Post!!!
So I spent the last week being tried/sick/depressed. Because of this, I wrote only one thing that was good, but that thing was based on a joke that everyone made immediately after it happened. So I decided to recap all the major press conferences that occurred at this year's Electronic Entertainment Expo. Enjoy! On Sunday, Microsoft held an event to celebrate Kinetic, the new motion control device for the Xbox 360 that was named by choosing random letters out of a bag. This celebration included a performance from Circ de Soile. As this was the regular Circ de Soile show and not Zumanity, I knew that no epic pole dancing would be involved, so I was not motivated to care. Then I found out about the spaceponchos. That's right, spaceponchos. I think I've found my Halloween costume for this year. On Monday, Microsoft held their formal E3 Press Conference. At the end of this particularly overblown stage production, Don Mattrick unveiled the slightly smaller, slightly blacker, and slightly better ventilated Xbox 360 Slim. After it's unveiling, Mattrick announced that everyone in the audience at the Microsoft E3 Press Conference would be receiving an Xbox 360 Slim for free. This caused the internet to be flooded with comparisons to Oprah, and me to throw away the piece I had been working on. So, thanks jerkass! The next fucking event that happened was the fucking Electronic Arts fucking E3 2010 fucking Press Conference. During this fucking show, Epic fucking Games upcoming first person fucking shooter Bulletstorm was fucking presented. In this fucking presentation, several fucking swear words were fucking used, something that is fucking unusual for an Efucking3 presentation. Also, the trailer for the console release of The Sims 3 was unveiled. Included in this trailer was a montage of sims engaging in various activities, including two sims making whoopie. Joel McHale is a comedian who utilizes a ironic/sarcastic style in his act. When paired with a situation or a reality show clip that is in any way absurd, this comedic style can create pure gold. However, when this comedic style is paired with crap, it only serves to point out exactly what the material is. Crap. One of the games that was shown was Your Shape: Fitness Evolved, a game that received a better exhibition during Microsoft's E3 Press Conference earlier that day. Another game that was presented was Battle Tag. This is a game that is promised to bring an experience to home consoles that has never been had before The ability to simulate shooting your friends without harming your friends. That is something that has truly never been done before. Really. (Halo, Call of Duty, Battlefield: Bad Company, Team Fortress, Unreal Tournament, Counter-Strike, and so on, and so on, and so on...)
Where is the Vitality Sensor that I was so looking forward to sticking my penis into? Robin is very much looking forward to Playstation Move. She won't tell me why. Finally, the Redertainment Corporation Of America held a press conference on Wednesday. There is was announced that The Black Robin Christmas Carol, the next book by Hunter Red, would be made available for free at Redertainment.com on Monday, November 1st. As is typical with the work of Hunter Red, no one cared. Tear.
Heavy Rain First Impressions I bought Heavy Rain on the day it was released. The first thing I needed to do upon putting Heavy Rain into my PS3 and starting it up was to download an update. If this was a 360 game and I was dealing with Live, this process would have taken just a couple of minutes. Unfortunately this was a PS3 game and I was dealing with PSN.
The first time I tried to download this update the download started but stopped and didn’t get started again for seemingly no reason at all. The second time it stalled before even starting the download for, again, seemingly no reason at all. The third time the download started and kept on going, but the speed at which it was downloading was unacceptable. I was able to watch an entire episode of The Dish in the time it took to download the update. Once the update was downloaded the next thing to do was install Heavy Rain to the PS3’s hard drive. Unlike other games where they give you a progress bar or Old Snake to look at, Heavy Rain actually gives you something to do. Included in the package with Heavy Rain is this square piece of paper. During the installation process, you are given instructions on how to turn this piece of paper into this. By the time you are finished crafting this piece of origami, the installation should be complete. This whole process, infuriating at first and somewhat rewarding at the end, took about an hour. An hour I could have spent playing the game. Let’s just hope the actual playing of Heavy Rain offers more rewards than just a paper artform to put next to my Modern Warfare 2 night vision goggles.
Shawn I remember happier times with my dad. In the backyard playing helicopter and airplane with him and my brother. Watching him draw buildings that people could live and play in. Even him comforting me as I mourned the loss of my pet bird are things that I look back on fondly now.
After the accident that took my brother away, my dad never seemingly got up. He looks depressed, isn’t maintaining himself the way he used to, and even walks around like he doesn’t quite have a handle on how to do so fluidly. He doesn’t even eat well, not that the microwaved chicken is anything to salivate over.
I know he means well, I can see the remorse for his failings in his eyes as he tucks me in at night. Perhaps one day he will pick himself up and find a way out of this perpetual downpour. At least then he might shave off that short scruffily beard he’s grown.
Heavy Rain Second Impressions Video games tend to follow a similar basic structure: Level, level, boss, level, level, bigger boss, level, level, bigger boss, level, boss, bigger boss, final boss. Nearly every video game does this. Mario, Metroid, Mega Man, Zelda, Metal Gear, Final Fantasy, World of Warcraft, and on and on and on. Before its release, Heavy Rain was talked about not being a video game. I don’t know why this is because Heavy Rain follows basic video game structure, it’s just presented differently. Inner monologue, dialog between characters, fight scene, discovery of a plot point, discussion of the plot point, fight scene, character development, plot development, fight scene. I’m not saying that this is a bad thing. This kind of basic video game structure can produce a challenging and compelling video game experience, if it is done well. Heavy Rain appears to be utilizing this structure very well, so far…
Heavy Rain Review Among the shows that I watch on a regular basis are Rescue Me, Burn Notice, Skins, and Mad Men. These are dramas with deep rich characters, multiple slow developing plot lines, and performances that are nothing short of brilliant. These shows stimulate a part of my brain that craves smart, funny, romantic, and, most importantly, adult entertainment. These are shows that I would have found absolutely dull as a teenager. I look back at the shows I watched as a young teen, compare them to the shows I watch now, and marvel at how much different they are. I'm truly embarrassed by that which used to entertain me compared to what now entertain me. Heavy Rain is the kind of entertainment I would have found dull when I was a teenager but find enthralling now. Exposition about how they feel about minor things in their environment, subtle facial ticks that give away true feelings about someone or something, and contextual swearing all serve to create a deep and compelling narrative for those mature enough to appreciate it. If you're not mature enough yet, Heavy Rain can serve to teach you about what storycraft is. Heavy Rain: A
A New Evil Empire Emerges Amid the devastating earthquake in Chile, the ongoing healthcare debate, and the hype surrounding Quantic Dream’s Heavy Rain, one story went unreported this week in the general media. A tactical military strike took place on several military bases in the South American country of French Guiana on Tuesday, March 2nd. As previously reported on The Four Stars Blog, French Guiana is the headquarters for the military wing of Electronic Arts. Previously the EA Army has butted heads with the Church Of Scientology’s Sea Org. In the days following the military strikes, speculation was that this attack was a first strike by the Sea Org against the EA Army. This speculation disappeared after a post on Megalomaniacal.com was made public. This post was attributed to Bobby Kotick. The post reads as follows:
“The military strikes carried out in French Guiana on Tuesday were not the acts of the Sea Org, the US Military, or even god. These attacks were carried out by The Great Empire of Activision. The Great Empire of Activision is asserting its dominance in all things in all ways. Anyone that stands in the way of The Great Empire will be crushed. We easily destroyed a part of ourselves, don’t think we won’t do the same to you. Quote the Kotec, nevermore.” There has been no response from Electronic Arts to Activision’s attack on their military headquarters in French Guiana. This was to be expected as EA has never publically acknowledged the EA Army. No one knows what the next move will be from The Great Empire of Activison, although the presence of a panel truck with the Tony hawk Ride logo on it sitting outside the offices of the Redertainment Corporation of America does concern me.
Take your normal superhero origin story. Guy gets powers, guy realizes he has powers, guy goes out to save the world. Now factor this in: the guy has a score to settle.
Everybody wonders what it is that makes them who they are. The Hawk thought that question was securely answered. However a meeting with a boy in a hospital causes him to question everything. Why he is, who he is, what he is, and even if he is.
Eleven years after the events of Consequences Of Mayorust, The Hawk finds himself dealing with many of the same issues that many of us deal with: A less than satisfying job, co-workers of variant annoyance, and a romantic life is unhealthy at best. Thrust into all this is Madison Medina, a well meaning woman who's adversarial relationship with The Hawk morphs into a kind of friendship. Madison, in addition to learning more about herself and her abilities, help to reveal deeper problems inside the organization both she and The Hawk work for.
In every workplace there is a person. A person who doesn't talk to anyone, has walled themselves socially, and seems openly hostile to everyone. Every workplace has this person, even if you don't know of such a person, they're there. The Black Robin Christmas Carol is the story of one of these people. It delves into who this person is, why this person is, and how this person can change for the better.
There is a story. A story of pain, a story of loss, a story of unspeakable horrors, a story that has not been given it's proper attention. Some are ignoring this story. Some are unaware of this story. Some know of this story but are complicit in it's darkness. This is a story that must be told. Told so that the good can stop it and the bad can feel shame for it.
When I thought up thig blog, the name I first thought up was "Random Bullshit". Quickly I recognized that this name would put some people off. Then I thought of the name "Random Bull****". That seemed to be to much clutter. Then I was inspired with the name that dons this blog today.
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