Mass Effect 3: CollWHAT THE FUCK AM I EVEN PLAYING FOR ANYMORE

I don't have the strength to sum up my OVERWHELMING DISAPPOINTMENT WITH THIS GAME so I'll just let this picture sum up how I feel about the whole thing.

Womp, womp.

First off, you're gonna need to have bought either the N7 Collector's Edition or all the FIRST DAY DLC to take in the entire narrative experience of ME3, which is bullshit. It's not like the DLC just includes some extra characters that don't add on to the story line. No, it contains MAJOR CHARACTERS who are critical to the TRILOGY ITSELF. Also if you liked all the awesome shit you could do with the Normandy SR2 in ME2, DON'T GET ME3. Bioware literally took away all that shit. And if you got the game on PS3 (like I did), kill yourself. The offline lag makes the whole game feel very unpolished and the online lag has left the multiplayer straight-up broken. 

There is allot of good in this game, the problem is that all the glaring holes kinda distract you from the overall great experience it should be. So when I can get through my second round of playing this thing, without having to fight the urge to just pop in ME2 instead, I'll give it a proper review. But until then I can't even recommend die hard fans of the trilogy buy this game. Bioware has much to answer for.

Game Review: Superbrother's Sword & Sworcery EP

HOLY FUCKING AWESOME

Perhaps I should start over.


I got an iPad for basically one reason; I saw it as a future platform for indie game developers. There are certainly more indie games available for the PC and to a lesser degree, the three major console systems, but the first trailor I saw for this game, I knew I needed to get an iDevice. The iPad was really just a convieniant newcomer that didn't require me to upgrade my phone.


It was almost a year ago that I saw the artwork for the game that would become Sword & Sworcery, and again, I felt that need in the pit of my stomach. There was just so much awesome. A dude, clad with sword and shield...PIXELISED??!! Fuck yes!


Month after month after fucking month I waited for this game to be released. It was originally slated for a January release, but developer Superbrothers pushed the game back until spring because, as they put it, "we got a wave of inspiration and decided to add more awesome".


And now spring is upon us. It may be 39 degrees outside, my balls may be ice cubes, but I have this game to play! And boy, what a fucking game it is. There's nothing else like it out there. And while it's much more  of the adventure/puzzle genre than I expected (which was RPG, God I love my RPGs), it's still the best game I've ever played in my life.


You heard me right. The best game I've EVER played.


That's a bold statement, considering I've forced my girlfriend to accept that fact that our first child WILL be named The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, Ultima VI, Onorato. But Sword & Sworcery is that good. It's fucking brilliant. It reminds me of games like Loom, and Out of this World (or Another World, if you live in Europe). It's entirely pixelated, but it's gorgeous nonetheless. The music is incredible. It's all done by Jim Guthrie and it sounds like 1970's Doctor who music mixed with chiptunes and folk-rock.

The game is rather short, but it makes up for it by being a mixture of clever and impossible. It took me fifteen minutes just to figure out how to get from the main menu to the actual gameplay, because everything in this game is a puzzle. Like Out of This World, Sword & Sworcery does not give a fuck if you find the gameplay too hard. It does not give a fuck if you're confused. And it does not give a fuck if you're lost. There are only a couple boss battles, but they are so brutal and unforgiving, that until you figure out the pattern you're supposed to follow, you will cry out in pain. 


But it's worth it. And right up until the very end you're reminded why. Everything in this game is an experience you just can't get anywhere else. Sword & Sworcery makes full use of the iPad's touch, HDMI, accelerometer, and internet capabilities. According to the mysterious "Archtype" character, the game's outcome is effected by your participation in the social experiment. Almost everything you do or see, or have a conversation with can be tweeted.

This game is a must have. I don't have a rating system, but I'm officially creating one for this game. Sword & Sworcery gets five out of five Deloreans. 

3.20.2011 @ Bethlehem Brew Works

I did well considering that the MC accidentally gave me the light too early on.

As I've mentioned in a previous post, I'm not writing my bits the way you're "supposed" to write them anymore. I'm still writing to get laughs, but I'm also just trying to find my "voice". I'm beginning to sense that, when you have that voice it probably is already speaking before you even pick up a pen. But right now I find that the formulaic approach you're supposed write with requires so much attention and that for me it becomes too difficult to notice anything else.  So I'm going off the beaten path and heading for the brush to find myself. The only focus I have when writing now is that it be personal and important to me, even though you need to make the jokes something that the audience can relate to. The result is that my time on stage is a very, very, very graphic window into my personal life. One of the greatest things I'm learning to do now is not care about bombing. I'm also taking a nod from Louis C.K. and trying as best I can to never do the same jokes twice. At least for now. 

This video was shot by my dear friend and contemporary, comedian Glen Tickle. One thing to note is that the MC gave me the one minute remaining light about 2m and 30secs into my five minute set. That really screwed my flow up, and it definitely screwed with my composure and meant that I wasn't able to try out two other jokes.  But I think it all went well, even considering. As usual, the crowd at Brew Works were there to hear jokes, but not respond to them, but I think I held my own against them tonight and I was happy with the reaction I got.

Hawken Trailer

Game Review: Hero of Sparta 2 HD

It's common gamer knowlege that while good games don't necessarily spawn generic clones, blockbuster ones always do. In the past few years the gaming market has been wrought with countless God of War style games. Some of those games have been great, and some of those games have fallen short of their mark. And while all of these games feature the same basic combat system which is so iconic to GOW, they nearly all have a seperate identies thanks to their different storylines and environments.

I say "nearly" because one of these clones is not like the others. It is produced by Gameloft, a developer notorious for making game clones of EVERYTHING. Hero of Sparta is so generic, it's unbelievable. The title sounds like GOW. The setting is the same as GOW: unstoppable badass Spartan general defies the Gods at every turn. The weapons are the same. The enmies are the same. It's incredible to me that Gameloft got away with what they did, which is essentially God of War with terrible graphics.

Despite this, and despite non-repurposed everything about it's design, Hero of Sparta is great fun because it never takes itself too seriously. And so when it spawned a sequal, Hero of Sparta 2 HD (saying that name aloud feels like chunks of wet clay are falling out of my mouth), I was a little excited for better graphics and new gameplay.

Unfortunatly, the graphics in this game are ATROCIOUS. The voice acting is terrible, and that would be one thing, but since the character models don't have animated faces, they don't open their mouths during the dialogue. So whenever there's a conversation everybody just kinda bobs their heads around and waves their arms and you have to match it up with a horrible voice over. The gods are animated just like everything else and look ridiculous, except they're huge and occasionaly cause the graphics to take a shit all over the screen. Let me just say this right now; THERE IS NO COLLISION DETECTION SYSTEM IN THIS GAME. You are just as likely to go through an enemy's torso as is your sword. And the tutorial popups are a nightmare. There's no way to turn them off, and they won't go away by just tapping the screen. I actually don't know how you make them go away but I think that you have to perform whatever it is each tutorial is explaining how to do. This is fucking unbelivably retarded and frustrating thanks to the fact that the control response is as fast as a funeral march. Normally that flaw dosen't matter since it's a hack and slash, but when a game stops and asks you to perform exactly what it wants before letting you take control again, PRECISION COUNTS MOTHERFUCKER.

What really pisses me off at this point is how Gameloft marketed this game. First off, high definition is WHOLE different animal than graphics. And while this game is in HD, the graphics are still shit. And if you like your shitty graphics bright and well defined, then that's fine. But I don't see why Gameloft couldn't have stepped it up with the graphics. Certainly one of the best things about the iPhone 4 iPad is that they both can run some pretty impressive graphics, why market something as HD if you don't even try to make it actually look better? But this is Gameloft we're talking about here, so I'll move on.

All that aside, Hero of Sparta 2 HD is still an addictive and fun game. All the addictive gameplay that was there in the first game is here now. And just like before, the fact that this game can be played so well makes the graphical flaws seem less of a problem. It's like every Guitar Hero game ever made in the sense that the fun of the game is independant of the visuals.

If you liked the first one, you'll like the second one as much, if not more. Just don't be fooled by the "HD" in the name, because the net result isn't that impressive. If you've never played a God of War title, I recommened you do so before playing this one otherwise you problably won't be able to look past the stupid and enjoy the fun that is there to be had.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad, cuz I'm a douche

Game Review: Fable III

Microsoft Studios made the bold decision to declare that Fable III would "feature improvements such as eliminating the RPG system". What that translated into was that there is no more true RPG leveling up system, wherein you aquired XP from fallen enemies and used it to improve either your Skill, Magic, or Melee Combat attributes. What happens now is, you kill stuff, and you still collect orbs, but the orbs are only one color, and they all collect into a bank that represents your renown within the kingdom. This renown bank is also filled with XP you get from commiting good or evil deeds, as well as quests. Every so often when you gain enough renown, you are teleported to a location where you can open up various chests. Each chest requires a different amount of XP to open, and when you open it, you loose that much XP. Some chests unlock new spells and improvements to overall spell power, as well as melee power, and ranged power, up to a level of five. Other chests contain expression packs, dye packs, and oportunies to become profiecent in landownership and craft making. The downside to all this is that you can't really focus your combat skills in one particular area. Using, say magic, over firearms or swords in combat won't do anything to make you a more powerful magic user. This really waters out the whole RPG feel of the game.

According to Wikipedia some players were experiencing game breaking bugs, and that to date, Lion Head Studios haven't released a patch that fixed any of them. While I found no bugs that broke the game in any way during three play throughs, there are some bugs that are just irritating as hell. One of them is the teleportation system. The other, is the glowing trail you are supposed to follow on quests. Now that last one is broken, half the time it doesn't work, but still it's far from game breaking.

The end of the game is so lackluster I wanted to scream. And everything leading up to it feels so Microsoft it's borderline copyright infringement: Champion encounters a hive-mind species bent on eradicating all life as we know it. Champion then battles hive-mind species. Hive-mind species looses. Halo anyone?

One of my biggest gripes in the game are the weapons. You start the game with four basic weapons (rifle, pistol, hammer, sword) which were apparently left to you by the previous Hero, and will mutate according to how you use them. That's neat, but the problem is that these weapons become obsolete very quickly on. They do become more powerful, but only if you unlock chests based on the skill they require, and even then you will find weapons far more powerful even early on in the game. The net result is that the weapons will look fucking awesome eventually, but you'll do little more than stare at them, favoring the high power weapons you find and buy.

Like Fable II, Fable III has Xbox Live features, but I'll never get to use them as I have no longer have a high speed internet connection. And there are allot of features in this game that require you to be online. For instance, there are apparently a shit load of different weapons in the game, but offline you can only access a handful of them. You need to trade with other players to get the rest. All weapons (except the Heroic ones) can be powered up by fulfilling certain requirements, but many requirements are fucking stupid. I shouldn't have to be online and gift 20 Xbox live players just so a weapon becomes more powerful.

Now for the good shit. The combat system is FUCKING RIGHTEOUS. It's such an improvement over Fable II's system that it's hard to stress how great it is, considering how much an improvement Fable II's combat system was over the original Fable. Everything is better. Targeting in Fable II was, to quote Jimmy Hendrix, "a frustrating mess". But in Fable III, because you unlock everything in chests, means that you can almost right off the bat utilize better combat tequniques. Enemies don't have a glow surrounding them when they are targeted. In the third person mode, you just shoot your gun or spell, and the system just always seems to know where you wanted to fire. It's flawless. When you want to zoom in with a gun, you just hold down the left trigger and you go right into over the sholder mode, but now you can use the thumbstick to maneuver the sight over anything you want to fire at.

The magic system is brilliant. Fable III makes use of Gauntlets, gloves that the character wears to cast spells. At the beginning of the game, you just have one Gauntlet, but towards the middle you unlock Spell Weaving, enabling you to wear a gantlets on each hand, and further to combine spells. The result is mind blowing. You can cast swords made of fire, ice, and electricity, or create tornadoes of fire ect. It's just suburb. It's a shame that they did a way with some of the old spells from the first two games, but still, the magic system is awesome.

Fable III also does away with the health bar. Now as the player takes on damage, both sides of the screen become increasingly more red until the player is knocked out. You can still use potions and food during combat to avoid this, although there is now only one type of health potion and a few types of food. Also, you cannot carry more than one type of food with you, and there are only a few types of food now as opposed to the hundereds of varieties in Fable II. The Slow Time, and Raise Dead spells have been replaced with potions which do more or less the same things. The only real problem with all of this is that the game is much, much easier. Unless you are focusing on just melee combat, it's possible with enough potions to get through the entire game without ever getting knocked out.

The overall graphics and animations are much more smooth in Fable III than any of the other games, even Fable II. I don't know if it's because they had more time to utilize the 360 hardware or not, but everything just looks allot better. Even the Heros. In Fable II one of my gripes was that my chick character failed to look like a chick. Or at least one that I would want to have sex with. So I guess what I'm saying is that my chick character in Fable III is more fuckable. Also, all the humor from the series is present in Fable III, but now they've really cranked it up by having a great cast of voice actors such as John Cleese and Simon Pegg.

One of my favorite improvements to the series is the landowning system in Fable III. Buying and renting land was dogshit in Fable II, but now it's totally worth it, and depending on your morality, kind of crucial in the latter part of the main quest. One of the best things though, is how you can actually see your money. There's a room in the Sanctuary (an area that acts as your "super secret base") that consists of a giant dome. Your money, as it amasses, literally becomes a mountain that you can climb. It's just like Duck Tales.

Still, Fable III is too much like Fable II and Fable I in that the main quest is rather short, and the replay value is quite low. In all three games, you basically play your first time as one morality alignment, then try it again on the other. Fable III does have more meat on it's bones, so to speak, but eventually you'll get to a point where it's all been done before. This is really true for almost any game, but the difference to me is how long it takes you to reach the point of no return. Quality wise, Fable III should at this point be placed in the upper echelon of games, a place where such greats as the Assassin's Creed, Mass Effect, and Dragon Age series, as well as titles such as Borderlands and Morrowind (but not Oblivion) reside. But as an overall game it falls short. It is still the best in the series, but you will tire of it very quickly, and that is a shame. If you are a fan of the series, it is worth it, but buy it used, because the charm wears off very quickly.

Game Review: Two Worlds 2

Two Worlds was a game that I first heard about in mid 2006. It was described then as an open-sandbox style medieval fantasy RPG, much like Oblivion but even better. But it wasn't. And nobody knew how much it wasn't until we all bought our copies of the game in 2007 and experienced total game failure. Total game failure that I don't think had been ever been experience on (what where then) next-gen consoles. I could go on and on about how, Two Worlds was one of the worst games I've ever played.  Everything was bad. It wasn't an Oblivion killer, it was barely even a game. The graphics....oh Christ...the shitty...shitty..generic, repetitive graphics this game had. The generic story line. The horrible PS2 cut-scenes. The unrewarding combat system. The horse riding. The worst voice acting ever recorded. I officially stopped playing when I encountered a peasant with clothing so fucked up I couldn't tell if I was looking at chest hair and nipples or a design pattern. If not convinced of the appaling lack of anything great in Two Worlds, check out this short educational video.

So fast forward to a week ago. Or, actually rewind. Whatever. I'm looking for a new game to play, and I have so many options; Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood. Fable III. A bunch of other shit that's out of my recession budget. And then there's Two Worlds 2, available as a used copy (RED FLAG!), with a price I can afford.

They made a sequel? Wh-why?! 

It's true, there is a sequel. And I had known about it for awhile. And tracked it's progress. And was aware that in beta testing, the game was supposed to be much better than the first one. But I did not know what the reviews were, and so I asked a Game Stop employee for a back copy of GI. The reviews were somewhat better than mediocre. GI gave it a 7.5, which really isn't that bad, that's like a B or a B minus. And the review said that if you could look past the flaws, it was a decent RPG to play until Dragon Age II or Skyrim come out.

So I bought it. And apparently at Game Stop if you buy a used game now, you have a full week to try it and if you don't like it you can bring it back in for a full refund. I drove home with my copy thinking "I'm going to play the shit out of this thing and beat it like 70 times in about two days, then trade it back in and buy another game. WINNING."

I got home, popped that shit in, and..well...the opening scene looked really good. Then I got to the part where I created my character, and that's were the failure started. While the creation system is much deeper in Two Worlds 2, I fucked up about 2 times and had to restart the whole game because the controls are so backwards that instead of exiting out of a menu I would inadvertently end the creation process and start the game.

By the time I actually started playing I noticed that the graphics were....kinda better. But the voice acting was still shit. GI claimed that this was part of the game's humor, but I didn't find it particularly endearing, and it only served to reinforce my initial belief that this game was going to be garbage.

And I was right. Because after playing the game for about forty minutes, I realized that there were still some serious problems that were present in the original Two Worlds that Reality Pump left in the sequel. For one, like the character creation menu, the controls in the game were all fucked up.

Ok so I have my sword equipped and, oh shit! Here come some baddies! Ok this is where I start kicking some as...how the fuck do I swing with my sword? Stop swinging with your fists! What the fuck? My sword is equipped, it's even hangin from my belt and...I"M FUCKING DEAD. THIS GAME SUCKS.

Apparently the problem was that, even though my sword was equipped, I needed to hit the down button on the D-pad to take it out. And that's something that takes a while to get used to, and is also unnecessarily complex. And that's a feature that runs rampant within the game-play of Two Worlds 2. Need to teleport somewhere? Good luck. You're going to need to figure how to do that since the instructions are non-existent and the teleportation system is so confusing. Want to sneak past the enemy? Seriously, good fucking luck. I can't even remember how to do it. I think you hold down a trigger or something, and have to be standing still first, and hold the joystick down and in the direction you want to go.

Then, right when I had almost figured all that shit out, the sound cut out. All of it. And then the game crashed. And I just took it back and bought Fable III with the refund I got from Two Worlds 2. According to the receipt, I owned the game for an hour and sixteen minutes.

Rating: Not worth playing for an hour and sixteen minutes

Raw

Tonight was the first time I've done comedy in three months, because three months ago I nearly killed everyone in the front row for being the kind of cunts who pay money to go see comedy and don't laugh. But I don't even know if it was about that. It was partly because they weren't laughing at my jokes, and even though they were good ones I was tired of those jokes myself. Moreover, I was tired with what I had seen as a comedian; your friends become your competition, you constantly feel like you need to be working on something new, you get jealous of the people around you, and your failures always seem to outweigh your achievements. The comedy business is a ruthless bitch no matter what angle you look at it from. It is by far the hardest job I've ever done, just to bomb in front of drunks and people who expect too much.

I hated myself as a comic. I hate myself in general, but that's something I'm learning to live with the help of prescription anxiety medication and therapy (and alcohol and psychedelics). But I could never live with myself if I hated my comedy. And so I quit until I felt I could start again. So I did a show tonight, and it went allright. I wrote most of the jokes about 12 seconds before I went up, and improvised from there. It was all very personal material and very graphic, but I threw out the joke formulas on this one, and just talked about what mattered to me, as opposed to shit I thought mattered to other people.

And it worked. I'm listening to the audio now, and it's hard to tell what the fuck is working or not in a room full of drunks, but it sounds ok. It also sounds very real. Very, very real. And it felt that way too. It wasn't a killer set, but it was the most personal conversation I've had with a group of strangers that got laughs, ever. I'm really speaking from the heart the whole time I'm up there. AND I'M HOOKED. 

Album Review: Bigger & Blackerer, David Cross

When this album first came out I only listened to the first couple tracks because they turned me off and I didn't have allot of time to listen to the whole album. Yesterday while I sat in traffic I decided to listen to the whole album. Because I love David Cross. LOVE HIM. The first time I heard him way back in 2002 I thought he was the reincarnation of Hicks. So excitedly, I put the CD in.

I wish I had not. Because if I had not done so, David Cross would still be a God to me.


Bigger & Blacker is, without a shadow of doubt, the worst comedy album I have ever heard. Ever. The jokes aren't funny. He actually re-uses jokes from other albums.  I don't know how to describe it, but David Cross has gone from being an edgy, political-social commentator, to straight up hack humorist.

@ This is an hour long album, but the first five minutes are of him singing. So if you buy the album or    download it or whatever, just skip that entire track.

@The next five tracks deal with Whole Foods, date rape, black people, and drugs. There is one joke in the track "black stuff" that is actually really funny; I'm telling you this because you'll want to cling onto this moment for dear life, because that's the last time you will laugh while listening to this piece of dog shit.

@The next three tracks, are about Republicans, health care, Orthodox Jews, and Scientology, and they are the most heartbreaking segments of the entire album. Cross has lost all his edginess and wit and replaced it with soggy impersonations and ridiculous scenarios. The joke about Scientology is so bad that I think the audience was confused about what the punch-line was supposed to be and just started clapping. It's so fucked up.

@Whereas the first portion is boring, and the middle is depressing, the final sixteen minutes of Bigger & Blackerer are FUCKING ENGRAGING. Some of the bits don't even sound like jokes, they sound like bits you would hear at a dead-open mike that becomes a comedy workshop.  There are a couple jokes that don't have anything about them that would even make them jokes, they're just obviously there as filler.


Then he tells a joke that he used on his last album....ffffffffuuuuuuuu.......


Now as a comedian myself, I understand it how long it takes to develop new material, and I understand that Cross has been involved in tons of shit other than stand-up since It's Not Funny was released. But it's been six fucking years, and it's not like he's been dead on the alt comedy scene since then, but that's what this album feels like, it feels like a guy who needed to fill a 60 minute gig with jokes, so he used a TON of shit that he hasn't really tested out yet, and then when he ran out of those bits, he threw in a bit that he used on his last album. That's complete bullshit. That's like a band releasing an album with old songs on it, only it's not a 'best of' album, it's a new album with old songs.

Soon after this bit, the album ends, and if you're anything like me, you will take out the CD and toss it into the Schuylkill which is where it belongs. David Cross: you are dead to me.

Google loves ADHDgamer blog!

I love you Google and even though you have failed me on so many occasions, my devotion to you never falters. You never got back to me regarding my application to develop android software. You put your name on the Droid Eris and I bought one because I love you, only to realize that it can't run anything above Eclair 2.1 and it has a max battery life of six minutes. Yet still I stay. Then I submitted an application to test drive the CR-48, and in that application I poured out my feelings of love and devotion to all things You. And you denied me then as well.

But Google...oh Google. Just look at you. I love you still Google.

And now the internets have given back; Google has given me an AdWords giftcard worth  $100! I can use it to buy advertising on the right hand side of Google searches! I would like to thank you Google, inventor of awesome shit that makes life easier, for this gracious bounty, which I accept wholeheartedly. And while I do wish that, like most gift-cards I've received this year, I could use the money on it for other things that would benefit both this blog and it's owner(an iPad Clam Case, money for the electric bill, socks, a Google tattoo) I am happy that you, oh God of the internets, have found me worthy enough to give me anything at all.

PRAISE BE TO GOOGLE!

Scranton is full of racist fudgepackers

So a bunch of comics (myself included) did a comedy show in Scranton two nights ago. BFF and hetro-lifemate Glen Tickle was also there, as he was the host. He has already finished his breath taking survivors account of what happened, and you can find it here. Read that if you want to know what happened in chronological fashion. Continue reading this if you want to know WHY we felt like we were in danger and WHAT a racist dude called a black guy (and can't figure it out).

It all went down at a bar inside a Day's Inn, a bar named "Clamdiggers", so it's not like I was expecting the fucking Borgada in the first place. You name your bar Clamdiggers when you meet any one of the following two conditions:

1) You are a coastal business, known for your fresh seafood.
OR
2) Dyke Watering Bungalow is already being used by the in-hotel bar at the Best Western.

I drove an hour from Pottstown, to meet another comic in Lehighton, who then drove me another hour to get us to a bar named fucking "Clamdiggers"; a seafood themed, redneck spawn point located inside a hotel which looked like it had been architecturally inspired by every ski movie from the 1980s.

You know that dive bar on your way to work or whatever, the one you pass all the time but are too scared to go in because it looks too shady to be JUST a bar? The one that actually makes you think "Holy fuck that place looks like it might be a front for a nest of pure evil"?

Duuuude....WTF. 

Clamdiggers is one of those bars. I wasn't aware that a coven of racist hillbillies could exist inside the bar of a family hotel. I mean how often does a hotel just let part building get infested with an entire cult of assholes? There were certainly moments leading up to the show when we were all thinking "There are two audience members, the microphone doesn't work and apparently no one but us gives a shit. I would leave if I hadn't just arrived because it's taken a fortnight to get to Scranton." But shit happens....the show must go on...never let the bastards grind you down...it's all about being professional....ect.

Take it from this guy; sometimes things fuckin' suck but you gotta do it live anyway.

I sometimes wish the other comedians would let me sit at the big kids table and let me do more than ten fucking minutes and open at every fucking show. Lately though,  I've just been trying to remind myself that I didn't have to be invited by anyone, and that I should be grateful that anyone I know thought I was worthy enough to do a show with them. I ended up being glad that I only had to do a ten minute set however, because I could barely finish it. I don't know if Glen and Tyler experienced this when they got up there, but as soon as I grabbed the mic I realized what was really going on.

All the cool comics. Obviously I am not in the picture.

Now I should let you know, in case you haven't had the pleasure of seeing my performance, that I thrive off of chaos. I love hecklers, I think they're just great. Anyone dumb enough to show up at a comedy event and think you can get one off on me, bring it. None of my jokes are anywhere near as good as the reaction I get from the audience when I feast upon your soul in front of your wife and spawn. Some comedians would consider this unprofessional, but the reality is that I have no choice. I need to eat souls to survive. The thing about the heckling trick is that each time you do it you risk a certain amount of backlash coming back at you from the targeted audience member. It could be verbal or, in rare cases physical, and almost never will the entire audience side with a dickhead who got what he deserved.

NOMNOMNOMNOM!

But there was no desire to make that foray into the unknown realm of audience bashing at Clamdiggers. My entire set was basically me just choking on the raw awkwardness secreted into the air by an several middle aged white men who looked as though they all had just lost their favorite kitten five minutes ago. Bandannas, cut off t-shirts, and mushtacios were the only things sitting in the seats. There was flannel FUCKING EVERYWHERE, and I'm sure it had nothing to do with the Old Navy commercials that say it's cool to wear flannel again. Every person upon entering the bar would glance at what was going on onstage for maybe a second, and then go right to the bar and face the wall, or go into some back room somewhere. The fact that we were doing a comedy show at their bar seemed to be the main problem...but there was more too it than that. I am not being dishonest in any way when I say that almost every patron at that place shot us looks of contempt and vilification the entire evening. It was almost as if we had intruded upon their time, and they were just waiting for us all to leave to they could put their robes and squid masks back on.

Well played old man, well played.

And then some white guy called the headliner, who was black,  the "N" word. The although this wasn't enough to derail the guy's set (because the entire show was a trainwreck),  I never realized how terrifying racism is when it's right in front of you until that moment. It's like when you were in high school and there was always that one kid who would flip off the algebra teacher and call her a bitch. Remember that feeling you got back then, the one that you would never have again after you graduated? The feeling of "Holy shit, THAT KID BREAKS THE RULES EVERY DAY! It's so exciting, yet so terrifying! He's like the Terminator of rule breaking! He has no fear of the principles office whatsoever. Threats of detention do nothing. He's fucking unstoppable!"

He's such a rebel. 

This is what it feels like to be a white guy, hearing another white guy call a black dude the "N" word for reasons other than comradery;it is kinda like being next to the kid in class who did all the things society told us we couldn't do or say. The difference is that in this situation, he's not fifteen, he's not cool, and he's being god-damned racist. I don't think I got paid for doing comedy, I think that they were either paying us to leave or I got money from my grandmother and the card got sent to Clamdiggers for some reason. The looks I got from some of the patrons towards the back of the bar as I left were so unnerving that I was only able to regain my faith in humanity by playing a game of Street Fighter II in the hotel lobby. START THE FUCKING CAR.

The dealership told me this is just how it starts up.

MineCraft Halloween Update released; Trillions lose jobs

I don't like using cultural phrases unless the situation readily permits it, but the MineCraft Halloween update is LITERALLY ALL THAT AND A BAG OF CHIPS.

So like um, now you can build a portal to hell, and shit. Also you can fish. Fuckin' win-win right there people. Fishing and going to hell; WHERE'S THE CTHULU AD-TIE IN FOR THAT GEM?! The update adds new content and enemies, as well as several bug fixes that make MineCraft even more rad.

Chris Avellone explains New Vegas's bugs, talks like hippe

According to Chris Avellone, Senior Designer for Obsidian Games, the Mojave Wasteland is so big it's trippy, and that trippiness causes bugs.


In an interview with ComputerAndVideoGames.com, Avellone ranted like a dirty hippie: "It's kind of like the bugs of the real world - the sheer expanse of what you're dealing with causes problems. Everything's copastetic, now if you'll excuse me, I have a hacky-sac to play with. Peace bro."  Avellone made no mention about how the Gamebryo engine made things worse, a smart move considering Bethesda keeps coming back to it like a crack addled whore. 


He did however point out that even the team of 300 testers used to bug test the game couldn't spot the all the bugs, a statement that is made true only when you realize that there are so many game braking bugs, that NO ONE TESTED THE GAME AND HE'S LYING.

Fallout New Vegas is broken masterpiece

So here's my review for the new Fallout game. It's almost perfect, however that "almost" is a real kick to the bojangles.

There are numerous bugs that will cause the console to freeze, but the big problem is the combat system. Holy fuck is it broken. Broken like nothing I've ever seen before. Basically anytime you get in a fight the controls lock up completely except for the analog sticks. You can't aim, you can't shoot, you can't even get into your Pipboy. So if you want to utilize the new aiming down the sights system, or shoot an enemy, or use the hotkeys to switch weapons, or reload, or do anything like that during a fight, you often can't. While this is all happening and the enemy AI are shredding your ass apart with gunfire (because you can't kill them), you may want to duck into the Pipboy screen and get some health.....but you can't do that either.

Basically, it's completely broken.

I should mention that when they fix this issue, the rest of the game is a masterpiece. I personally like it allot better than even Fallout 3. And I will talk about those things, when they release a patch to make this game playable.

Borderlands: Claptrap's New Robot Revolution (DLC4)

A confusing, sub-par experience.

Last October I was at a bar hitting on a fat girl, when one of my friends called me up to tell me about this new game called Borderlands:
"Yeah it's kinda like Fallout, but WAY fucking better. It's like Road Warrior meets Diablo, and it's got a huge multi-player element. You gotta get it like right now."
I had heard of the game mentioned at an E3 about a year earlier, but kinda forgot about it until my friend called me. Trusting his geek advice, I went out and bought the game.
I was not disappointed. Many, many, many hours of my life have been spent playing borderlands since that phone call. It is a true gamer's game; it's an RPG, FPS, and MMO with all the looting, leveling, and pop-cultural references you can shake a stick at. 


Also it had a little robot named Clap-Trap. And Goddamn do I love me some Clap-Trap. 


CL4P-TP, otherwise known as "Clap-Trap" is a little waste-can shaped robot with a nervous sense of humor who helps the player throughout the journey to the Vault through the first AND second play through ( You heard me right, there's second play through; I told you it was awesome didn't I?).
Over the past year Gearbox software released three outstanding expansion packs for Borderlands. And then they announced a final DLC in the summer, Clap-Trap's New Robot Revolution. More Clap-Trap. Fucking awesome.
Except it's not fucking awesome. It stinks.
While I was waiting for the new DLC to come out, I read a review of the game that bummed me out pretty bad. Among numerous complaints the game has been heavily criticized for essentially being a bunch of old missions with a new "Clap-Trap" finish, and for completely re-writing the some classic NPCs so that they have awkward new personalities. As I said, this really bummed me out, but I got the game anyway, hoping that these shitty reviews were the incoherent ramblings of fanboys.
So here's what I think. First the good news. While it's true that many of the missions are essentially re-hashed tasks you had to complete in the original Borderlands game and subsequent DLCs, I don't think you can really knock a game for being good at what it does best. The plot line is different, and the new missions aren't so noticeably similar to old ones to detract enjoyability of the game. Second, if you love Clap-trap, there's a whole lot more of him to love in DLC4.
Now for the bad. Unlike the first three add-ons DLC4 was outsourced to Darkside Games, presumably because Gearbox is hard at work on the next Borderlands game. I don't really mind when games are outsourced as long as the result still holds credibility to the original. DLC4 doesn't, and it's almost as though the developers at Darkside weren't original Borderlands fans. 
Part of what made the original game so great were the NPCs. There was some great writing that went into the creation of these characters, they seemed to have subtle personality traits that made them timeless and endearing. By harsh contrast, the same characters now seem to have just one overwhelming personality characteristic. Patricia Tannis, the archaeologist from the original Borderlands plot, was always slightly off her rocker, but now she's some sort of evil mad scientist. It just doesn't feel right. Marcus, the Mexican arms dealer, seems to have been voiced by a completely different actor this time around. Knoxx and Steele make a reappearance, but they seem like cheapened versions of what they used to be.
Another aspect of the new DLC that I found particularly jarring is the landscape. Not even the landscape really, just the background of areas you can't get to. In Borderlands, staring out into the distance invoked a sense of awe and beauty; the world looked vast and untamed. But in DLC4 it looks like shit. Literally, some of the backgrounds look like they were never completed. There are outcrops that aren't even the same color as the rest of the landscape and some that are just blocky. I once looked over a cliff into a vast gorge to see a river not flowing around a bunch of triangles. WTF.
But the most disappointing part of DLC4 is the gameplay itself. For one thing, Gearbox hasn't released the new software patch allowing over-leveling to level 69. You can still play the game, but if you're a level 61 character, it's a shitty experience because the enemies are either too tough in play through two, or too weak in play through one. Since you can't yet level to match the enemies level, you're either plowing through the first play through without dying or gaining experience on play through one (which sucks) or you can't get anywhere on play through two because your level 61 character can't even get the shield down on a level 63 enemy (which fucking blows). The only real option you have is to use a character that's around level 30 for the first play through, and not even touch the second play through until they release the new patch. WTF.
I can't believe I'm still listing the bad shit, but here goes. Randy Pitchford, Gearbox's CEO, described DLC4 as a game world where you could refight all the game's classic enemies as hacked clap-traps, but that's not what happens. The only clap-trap versions of enemies you will find are bandits, Hyperion soldiers (who, by the way, are no-where near as awesome as The Lance), skags, rakkKnoxx and Steel twice, and to make matter worse as you're fighting these bosses, they have CARDBOARD CUTOUTS OF ALL THE OTHER CLASSIC BOSSES LITTERED AROUND THE LEVELS. 


WTF??!!


I really wanted to love DLC4, but I can't. It's so sub-par and confusing that it shouldn't have the Borderlands name attached to it. The only redeeming qualities are all the Clap-Traps. Maybe I will hate it less when they release the new level patch, but by then I'll be playing Fallout: New Vegas.


Score: 5 out of 10. Only buy if you really can't get enough Clap-Trap in your life.

Greg Giraldo (December 10, 1965 — September 29, 2010)

Greg Giraldo is one of the reasons I really started doing comedy in the first place. I thought if a lawyer can just stop being a lawyer and become a professional comedian, then I could do something similar. I figured I might not ever become famous ( so far this is accurate ), but if I could do something I loved and had always wanted to do and turn it into a career it would be worth it.

Giraldo was also one of the only comedians I know who was very public about how much he hated himself. He brooded over his mistakes until it drove him insane. He admitted that while doing comedy made him feel better, the best way to escape the pain was via drugs. I know the feeling, and as cheesy as it sounds to say it, Greg Giraldo has saved my life on several occasions. There have been times when I've been pretty fucked up and thought "What would Greg Giraldo do? Would he give up right now? Or would he do what had to be done, and then deal with the pain later?"


This is a shitty article. I'm sorry Greg, you deserved a better article man. Rest in peace dude.

AVGN Powerglove

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 demo "failure to create account" solution! (PS3 & 360)

It's no secret that the BF:BC2 servers were down for maintenance on Tuesday, but since then players around the world have been experiencing disconnection messages that read "failure to create account" when attempting to log into the game for the first time using their EA account. The issue has been reported to occur for all three systems, but so far EA has offered no solution.


But I found one!


This solution is written for a PS3 owner, but has worked for 360 owners as well (no word on if it will work for the PC yet).  Just substitute "playsation store" for XBL. 


Go to the Playstation Store and download the Fight Night Round 4 demo. Start it up and finish the tutorial, then go to the bottom of the main menu where it says "Sign Into EA". Click that and enter a password that you would like to use (I just used EA.com password for easy memory). It will create your account there. Then you can go back to the BFBC2 beta and you will sign in automatically.

Locke & Key: Crown of Shadows #3 is finally here!

I pitty the foo' who isn't aware that Joe Hill's is Stephen King's son! 

For real though he is his son. Anyway, L&K:COS #3 just came out on Wednesday, so get out there and buy that shit in paperback or fire up your PSP and download it from the comic store. Or steal it off of the internets.


I don't care how you does it! Just do it foo'!

The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom is out now on XBL! Rejoice!

The epic story of a man, his clones, time travel, and the quest...for pie.

 

The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom is a grossly entertaining and unique platform puzzler/action adventure. Set in a world straight out an Edward Gorey painting, your job is to guide a creepy little pie thief  in search of the elusive Chronoberry Pie.  The core game mechanic allows you to record your character and his actions at any point for as long as you wish. This allows you create clones of P.B. that you then use to interact with the environment to help you reach the goal of each level.

The awesome thing about this is you can interact with the clones themselves. So say for example, that there is a ledge you need to get to but is too high for P.B. to reach. You can record yourself jumping up, then jump on the head of your clone, and use the momentum gained from his jump to help you up to the ledge. Or you can just stack a bunch of clones on top of one and other and use them as a ladder.

The goal for each level varies from stage to stage but usually involves you figuring out how to interact with the environment so you can get all the pies on the screen. P.B.'s actions are limited to jumping and using his umbrella to glide in the air and hit switches and his clones. Hitting a clone results in him arching through the air, useful for reaching higher platforms and snagging floating pies. The clones are also able to perform all these actions on themselves, as well as you. This allows you to set up your clones in planned sequences to navigate obstacles, activate switches and buttons, jump on seesaws, hit other clones and recover pies.

There are so many attractive qualities about P.B. Winterbottom.  It's a shame that right it's now only available on XBL for the 360, because this game has iPhone and Wii written all over it. Hopefully Take-Two Interactive sees the potential and ports the game out to other  platforms. The full game features seventy-five levels of increasingly sinister difficulty. With a wonderfully inspired art style and soundtrack, unique game play, and the ability to solve puzzles in a variety of different ways that opens the game to a high level of re playability, this game is highly recommend.