Level 12

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/02/20/internet.records.bill/index.html

Honestly, all I can say is wow.

Stupid old men who have no idea what these darn com-pu-tar things are ONCE AGAIN try to get on their little “think of the children” horse and attempt to pass pointless, impossible legislation. I mean, that image just screams “I know what I’m doing” doesn’t it? Its not only the fact that this bill infringes on privacy rights and is an obvious PR scheme, the bill itself is IMPOSSIBLE to carry out and enforce. Look at this:

“Each contains the same language: ‘A provider of an electronic communication service or remote computing service shall retain for a period of at least two years all records or other information pertaining to the identity of a user of a temporarily assigned network address the service assigns to that user.’ ”

Are you serious? Do they know absolutely nothing about how impossible that is? Even if this passes (which it probably won’t but I have a right to be pissed about this anyway) I’m sure has hell not going to record the name, mac address, DHCP configured IP address, and contact info of every person I let use my wireless. This is even less feasible for places like airports and colleges that offer free public wifi, it is simple not possible to record every single person who connects and follow what they do.

Sometimes I wish senators didn’t have to pander to stupid people to get votes. From securing millions for some inane project in their state to being seen as a “crusader for the children”, these senators are more concerned with their own job security than they are the welfare of the country. Those other things like Afghanistan, the economy, and the health system are so much less important than this, right?

Whatever. This won’t pass and I hate talking about politics anyway. Also, I could have made a joke about “Republican senators”, but I feel I’m above that.

I’ve worked at the same supermarket job, in the exact same position, since I was 15.  I’m not going to lie and say it’s a good job; I’m just going to go right out and say that it sucks.  Yes, working at a supermarket for over two and a half years sucks. I hate being a bagger, it’s one of the most worthless, unrewarding jobs someone could possibly have.  I know I don’t have any experience anywhere else, but after dealing with my 3000th horribly bitchy old lady on Sunday, I just need to complain.

I guess a supermarket isn’t a bad place to get a job at 15, it’s not like many other places will hire at that age. But from the start I knew this job was going to suck. I work on what they call the “front end” which is the area with the belts and cash registers. Basically, my job is to stand at the end of the register and put the food that comes down the belt into the bag. Yes, that’s it. I get to repeat this same task for six hours every Saturday and four hours every Sunday. I do get to do a few other things, sometimes they will tell me to go out into the parking lot and collect carts while dodging cars and delivery trucks. Sadly this is the highlight of my workday, sometimes I even ask for the privilege to render my cart-pushing skills for the good of Hannafords Store #351. Pushing carts is basically just a time to let your mind go completely blank and automate everything you’re doing. I mean I can spend 45 minutes in the January cold and have it seem like only ten.

I guess you could ask me why I just don’t quit if I hate my job so much. I mean I AM 18 now and can probably find something at least a little better. I would love to honestly, but there are a few major things keeping from moving up in the world. First, I’ve worked there for so long that I actually make a whopping $1 above minimum wage, something I would probably have to give up at a new place. Secondly, with the way the economy is right now and all those people out of work it’s near impossible to find a new job anywhere. Just yesterday I looked in the “Help Wanted” binder at my local mall all only four places out of the hundred in the mall were hiring, and all for manager or assistant manager positions. I can’t just quit and go jobless either, how then will I fuel my horrible video game and chicken-flavored noodle addictions?

The worst part of the job has to be the customers. Seriously, it’s like people just decide to leave everything that makes them decent people at home when they come to shop. Not all people are bad of course, but one bad customer can really ruin the whole day. There are three major kinds of problem customers: The Genius, The Grandma, and The Victim. I’ll go over all three in detail.

• The Genius - I’ve been bagging a long time, way longer than I should have. While this is nothing but a giant drain on my life, it has taught me how to bag pretty well. This kind of customer is the one who can bag far better than you can, and just has to let you know it. They look over every little detail of your work, scrutinizing each thing you put in and exactly where you put it. I know from my eons bagging that yes, you can put a loaf of bread on top of a carton of eggs and it will not do any harm. You can also put a few cans in the designated “cold-bag” and to everyone’s shock and surprise it will not do any harm. This kind of customer needs to have everything bagged exactly their way, and will get up right in your face when you do it even slightly wrong. One time someone even reported me to my manager just because I put the hamburger buns below the hotdog buns. All of these people are idiots. I can accept that they may want something bagged a certain way, and this does not apply to everyone like that. It’s the ones who have to insult you when you make a slight mistake or don’t follow their vague directions exactly to the letter.

• The Grandma - Ok, I don’t have a problem with old people shopping. But it’s the ones who are a good deal past 80 and still thinking that they are fine to go out shopping on their own without some form of assistance who bug the hell out of me. I know these people don’t mean to be annoying, but by God they are. With these people you have to basically put every single item in its own bag so they can carry it, making an order that would take three bags instead take eight or nine. Really, bring someone at least a little younger along with you that can lift more than four pounds, seriously.

• The Victim - This person is the worst. These are the people who think that everything you do is just to spite them. They think that you are bagging their groceries in a (within their own twisted minds) wrong way. Just Sunday I had someone report me to my boss JUST because I for a moment put the ice cream they had in with a large can of diced tomatoes. They complained that it was going to break the bag, when I tried to explain that I had done this before and tried to promise that it wouldn’t they just started yelling at me. They told me that I was terrible at my job and was doing this just to them. The worst part is that right after I bagged the rest of their shit as fast as I could to get them on their way they went right up to my manager and told them just how bad at my job I was, and that I should be promptly fired. Luckily, all that happened to me was a two minute berating from him that I needed to try to respect people wishes and all that garbage, you could tell he did not really care.

Not all customers are terrible, many are very nice actually. It’s a bit of a special treat when someone comes through the line with a laughing baby or cute toddler who try to play with all the buttons on the card scanner or even try to talk into the cashier’s microphone. Hell, some people even tip. Please though, just have a little respect for the people bagging your shit, they really will appreciate it.

On Monday, Capcom announced Dead Rising 2.

Fuck yes. Dead Rising 1, while it had many major flaws, was a great game. On top of all that, it’s coming out for the PC (hopefully at launch).

This is probably as good a time as any to mention that I absolutely love zombies. Maybe it was the fact that Resident Evil was my first real console game series, or just the sheer thrill of charging through packs of 200 walking dead at any one time swinging an electric guitar around my head. I honestly don’t know why I love it so much, but I don’t care. The last big zombie game to come out, Left 4 Dead, sucked me into its iron grip for a whole week. I logged over 30 hours and got all but two achievements in that short time.

Bragging aside, the news really made me think about what I wanted from Dead Rising 2. I hadn’t actually played the first one in a little over a year, so I dug it out of the closet and fired up my oft neglected as of late 360. The game is really just how I remember it. It’s still awesome, but playing it again has really made me remember just how flawed the game is in some aspects. There are lots of things about this game that just make you want to tear your hair out in frustration and rage. So many little things that you think they would have found annoying in playtesting just really irk me.

My major complaints are:

• Amazingly stupid survivor AI. The survivors you rescue try as hard as they can to make rescuing them impossible. Some you can give weapons while others need you to either hold their hands or carry them. The latter of these is actually the preferable choice since the AI pathing is so ridiculously bad you wish you could just tell them exactly where to go. For example: at one point in the game you meet two Japanese tourists hiding in a bookstore. These are two of the survivors who you can’t carry, so you think giving them weapons would be a good idea. Wrong. They will seriously run right into packs of zombies hungry for their flesh while you weave in and out mashing the “call” button. I tried this four different times, and I finally only managed to rescue one because I had to bash the others head in with a sledgehammer when he decided it would be fun to run off on his own and get zombified.

• Zombies respawn far too quickly. I know this game is all about being surrounded by hundreds of zombies. But when you leave an area that you just completely cleared just for a moment and to come back to a full room of zombies is very frustrating. I swear I cleared that warehouse with the elevator up to the roof at least 150 times during the course of the game. Why couldn’t they have added even a short respawn timer? It doesn’t make sense that you can clear an entire enclosed room and come back to 20+ zombies less than 30 seconds later.

• Small text. Anyone who has played this game can tell you about this. Every time Otis calls you, you have to run around in a circle holding a radio to your ear while you try to see the size 4 or so text at the bottom of the screen. You can’t even defend yourself while you’re listening to him. The game takes place in a mall, couldn’t Frank find a wireless headset?

• Weapons. When this game was released one big thing about it was that you could supposedly pick up pretty much anything and use it as a weapon. Well, you can, but about 60% of the items you can pick up are completely useless. Even when you do find something amazingly cool (like a sword or a battleaxe) it breaks after about 15 or so zombie kills. Why not reduce the number of weapons you can use, and make the ones you do have more durable? I’m getting sick of having to defend myself with coat hangers. Another annoying thing is that guns are hard as hell to aim. Shooting should not be an afterthought in a zombie game.

Even with all its faults, Dead Rising had a few really amazing points. For one, the bosses are some of the most awesome I’ve ever seen in any game (psycho clown with two chainsaws? Fuck yeah.). The camera, level-up, and multiple endings were also really cool as well. While I remember being a little dissapointed about the game when it came out, it was still a very solid action/survival game, and I was hoping for a long time to see a sequel.

There isn’t really much info right now on Dead Rising 2, but from the screens I can find it looks very awesome. I have a few questions about it though. Who is this new hero? Is there no camera in this game? How will you level up?

From the looks of things so far the new guy is some sort of dirt bike racer or stuntman. I guess that would make sense seeing as the game appears to be set it some sort of not-Las Vegas. But will he be as awesome as Frank was? Can Capcom fix all the annoying problems that plagued the first game? I guess we’ll find out.

And so help you god do not even think about buying the Wii downgrade of DR1.

Today I  overheard a conversation between this kid and his friend, which made me really think. He was talking about how people 50 years from now will consider games like Call Of Duty 4 and Halo Wars (which hasn’t even been released yet) classics. What disturbed me was that they were completely right. Those games WILL be considered the classics of this generation, as hard as that me be for me to accept. Why do I make such a big deal about this? Aren’t they good games worthy of remembrance? Well I can’t speak for Halo Wars, but yes, Call Of Duty 4 is a good game. In fact its easily one of the better games in the FPS genre released this gen.

MY problem, is that even though that even though these are indeed decent games, they represent a great shift in gaming as a whole to me. This gen has been the great shift towards casual gaming. I don’t have anything against families sitting around their Wii playing Wii Music and Wii Sports, nor do I have any issues with the fratboys and screaming 12 year olds who populate the online communities of popular console FPS games. They are free to do what they want and enjoy what they want. The problem is that the games they enjoy actually hurt the rest of gaming as a whole.

Why should I think they are hurting gaming? Isn’t the huge increase in the number of people who enjoy games a good thing? Well, its a good thing for the devs because they are selling more games. But its a bad thing for everyone else because the new generation of gaming consumers cares more about flashy graphics, gore, straightforward gameplay, and things that are little more than electronic family board games (for example pretty much any game with “Wii” in the title and the massive amounts of shovelware released for the DS)  than they do story, immersion, and the advancement of gaming as a whole. Devs obviously see this, look at what Ubisoft has put out for the DS and Wii over the past few years. Go on, just look. It’s about 500 or so Imagine and Petz games and only a few “core” games like Assassin’s Creed and Rainbow Six Vegas.

The shooting games this gen don’t help at all either. Gone are the days of FPS games that made you think like System Shock and Thief. Today all we get are watered-down bulletfests which take no more than the brain power of an ant to play. Why does everything need to be about big badass space marines and bigger and bigger guns? Look at the  Halo series, the gameplay boils down to nothing more than “run at you enemy holding down the fire button and melee when you get close.” What happened to depth? What happened to making the player think? Whats wrong with expecting the player to want to use his head?

It may seem like I hate this gen as a whole, but I don’t. I’ve enjoyed a lot of the recent games and still shell out half my weekly paycheck when the next big title I’m interested in hits the shelves. What I hate is that the vast majority of these games just don’t live up to what came before. Shouldn’t gaming be moving forward, not back?  As graphics get more and more advanced, why does gameplay have to suffer?

Maybe I just think about way too hard. Screw it, I’m going to go play Thief again.

Over the past few weeks I’ve been going back to a lot of the games I knew as a kid; games I was too young to appreciate fully at the time. I remember I would play the same demos over and over again, exploring every possible inch and every combing over each area as best I could. The games I did have would be abused for hours every day after school. I would get home at 6pm from the after school program and literally play until my mom or dad wrenched me from the keyboard. It’s probably due to this that I’m the wonderful, anti-social geek my family knows and loves to this day.

I didn’t actually own many games as a kid (I’ve since spent a hell of a lot of money buying every console from the NES on up, but more about that some other time) . My options were limited to the few games that interested my dad and the various demos I mentioned above. Of the games I did have, I remember most fondly Duke 3D (which remains my favorite game of all time to this day) and Shadow Warrior along with Roller Coaster Tycoon and Descent 2. I don’t really know how to describe these games as anything but pure bliss. Whether it was jetpacking my way through hordes of flying Pigcops wielding an RPG or digging a pit, setting up bathrooms with $10 entrance fees in said pit, and dropping unhappy patrons inside; this was my childhood, and I wouldn’t trade it now for the happy days in the sunny backyard tossing the football back and forth with dad that seems to be what most boys did at my age.

Video games are my life, there’s no denying that. They not only influenced the way I grew up, but have completely set my course my life is headed now. It’s because of all these games that I want to be a programmer. I’ve told everyone I know that I want to do Computer Science in college to learn how to someday maybe work for Google or Microsoft coding drivers and word processing apps. That’s all mostly a lie. I do want to learn how to do some things like that, because even at this stage I know it’s a bad idea to try to get a programming job when all you can do is code sprite collisions. But I can’t help it, I honestly can’t see why someone would want to be an accountant or businessman, sitting in conference calls all day when you could be sitting behind your computer actually CREATING something people can enjoy. My dream job would be to work for some company like Valve or a small 3rd party company; thinking up game ideas and trying them out over and over, trying to find out what works and what doesn’t. I know it’s a stupid, childish dream; but is it really more far-fetched than some kid who wants to be an astronaut?

I don’t know, maybe it is a stupid dream. But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to try hard as hell to make it a reality.

Can’t blame me for trying I guess.

While I'm not entirely sure why I spent my last $28 setting up this site, I might as well put
it to use. 

I've spent the last 4 hours cutting and pasting the code from different free Wordpress styles
together, trying to get this shit to look nice. It doesn't really help that I have no webdesign
or CSS experience. I'm still trying to get a large image banner, but I can't seem to find the
code for that stupid little grey bar right under the title. Anyway, I'll worry about all that
shit later and list some ideas I have for this blog of mine. 

I'm thinking ill sort of use it as a dump site for ideas and my own shitty game reviews
and rants. Maybe ill even post my horrid attempts and making games in DirectX if you're
all lucky enough. I'm hoping I can get the motivation to update at least twice a week,
maybe three times if I'm feeling oh so scholarly. 

Welcome to my site. I hope it doesn't suck as bad as I bet it will.