A wave came crashing like a fist to the jaw saying Hey, this song's awesome!
My next installment in a Let's play series! Hope you enjoy.
I just read what must be the worst piece of literature I have ever experienced, and since it seems to contain all the faults I can think of, and a few I did not know existed, I figured I'd post this:
1:
A story generally has a beginning, a middle and an end.
The beginning has setting, characters and plot.
The middle has the characters furthering the plot in the setting.
...
Now that the honeymoon phase is over and the dust has finally settled many will advocate that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is the better game with its Michael-Bay-esque storyline and constant injection of action, but this is simply untrue. What is true is that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 was more highly anticipated than its predecessor as many believed Black Ops was merely a stop-gap title to bide time before Modern Warfare 3′s release. In any case, Black Ops was something special in the genre of first-person shooters, especially after Modern Warfare 2 and World at War. Its emphasis on story and character development is what drove this near-perfect blend of action, drama, and tension.
Black Ops takes
place at the height of the Cold War (indeed the title “black ops”
refers to the secret missions conducted during that era with many
operational dossiers “blacked-out” with heavy ink). In the game’s
opening our protagonist is strapped to a chair and tortured by two
silhouetted G-men for the location of a hidden numbers station. As such
the majority of the main campaign is told through flashbacks of SAD/SOG
operative Alex Mason between the years 1961 and 1968. This game is very
much a period piece, an aspect which is under-appreciated by modern
audiences especially after the release of games like Red Dead Redemption and Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood.
One minute you’re meeting John F. Kennedy face to face at the Pentagon,
the next minute you’re in Vietnam riding along the riverbanks to
Creedance Clearwater Revival’s “Fortunate Son”.
This game oozes nostalgia from every pore, from its soundtrack to its
locales. If its single-player campaign is exceptional then its online
multiplayer is what ultimately raised the bar for first-person shooters
(with the addition of split-screen multiplayer, new maps, and a
refurbished progression system). The voice-acting is some of the most
compelling in years with stellar performances from Sam Worthington, Ed
Harris, and Gary Oldman. Indeed Black Ops is one of those games that under-promised and over-delivered.
After six weeks of release Activision reported the game earned $1
billion in sales and it’s no secret why. If you’re one of those
naysayers that merely dismissed Black Ops
without actually playing it you’re doing yourself a great disservice.
Do yourself a favor and pick up this title as soon as possible.
Click Here to View '1001 Video Games You Must Play'!
[Originally posted on http://obsessive-geek.blogspot.com/]
The summer of 2012 is starting to look like a Summer of Impossibility. The Avengers (which
after three viewings is still one of the best blockbusters I've ever
seen) has somehow gotten the privilege of having critical acclaim and
record breaking box office numbers, something I haven't seen since Avatar. This
summer also is giving us several movies I thought once would only
exist in a parody universe, such as an action epic retelling of Snow
White, Edgar Allen Poe involved in a murder mystery, and last but not
least....
| Why do you exist? |
... a movie based on a board game.
Just think about that for a minute. There is a movie based on Battleship. Someone in Hasbro marketing said "You know what will make money? A Battleship
movie!" and everyone else agreed and didn't immediately think it was a
joke. They spent millions on CGI, cast Rhianna to boost interest in the
film, got Liam Neeson to waste a few days on set. And they're releasing
it the same month as a film with far more recognizable actors and was
advertised and teased for four years. Who in the f*%#$%& hell decided this was a good business decision?
Now that that's out of the way onto business: don't go see Battleship.
I'm not saying this as a review, as I haven't seen the movie yet. But
honestly, will I even have to? We all know what's going to happen:
( And no, I am not nor have I ever been anti-military. I've even thought
of joining a branch of my home country's armed forces, and still find
my heart taken away by stories of men answering the call to protect the
land they love.)
Now all of the factors above (save for the non-acting hot girl) could
all work if not for one factor: it is under the influence of the works
of MICHAEL FUCKING BAY.
Greetings to you lords and ladies of geekdom! Where is the one place
that all us fellow fans can get together and fraternize over a common
bond? Conventions! Whether they be for comic books, video games, or
anything in between, we all love a good con. That's why I give to you my
newest series focusing on just that, this is Con Men!
Follow me
as I discover the latest and greatest conventions that this world has
offer, in this series you'll find interviews, sketches, and whole lot
more!
First up is Fan Expo Vancouver:
{"video":"
...
Sacha Baron Cohen is back, this time as Admiral General Aladeen, ruler and dictator of the African Republic of Wadiya. After being threatened by the rest of the world to stop oppressing his people, Aladeen travels to the United States to speak to the United Nations. But he is forced into a life of American mediocrity when his right-hand man Tamir (Ben Kingsley) attempts to murder and replace him. Aladeen now has to rise back to power and stop his beloved country from becoming a democracy.
I think Cohen is a very talented comedian. He does a great job in every movie I've ever seen him in, no matter how bad the movie itself is. But he's one of those people who is only able to deliver other people's lines well. His own material, for the most part from what I've seen, just doesn't work and is not funny. It especially doesn't work in a standard comedy format like this. The reason Borat worked was because it was a mockumentary. The jokes work most of the time because the people are reacting to real situations, and when it is staged they kept to the same film style and at least faked it well. Here it's just lazy, unfunny improv wrapped around a very thin plot.
This movie wants so desperately to offend, but because of how desperate it is being, and because we've already seen this done a million times (by Cohen himself even), it just doesn't work. It backfires and feels as desperate as it is, like they weren't trying as hard to make funny jokes but just say offensive things. There are several moments where lines come out of nowhere, without anybody's lips moving. It's incredibly obvious when they just dubbed in a quick joke, none of which ever work. There's a reel of lines and scenes they didn't go with that play during the credits and none of them are any funnier than the material they actually used, leading me to believe they just didn't come up with very good material. And it's kind of hard to come up with material when its on the spot like that, which is one of the reasons I'm slowly coming to really hate improv artists.
I can't think of anything about this movie that works, really. I think Anna Faris, who played Zoey, a woman Aladeen befriends in New York, is just as good as she ever is. That isn't to say she got any good jokes though. I like Faris, but she has nothing here. Nobody does. Chris Parnell shows up in this as a news anchor and I like him too but his scenes in this movie are just worthless. In fact, there are a number of scenes in the movie that have absolutely no reason to exist and jokes that just go nowhere. I do recall, early on, chuckling at a couple of things. I can't for the life of me remember what they were now, but I do remember it happened. After that though, I just couldn't wait to get out of the theater. The only reason I don't hate it is because it doesn't deserve my hate.
...
Album review of Shadows Fall's new album "Fire From The Sky", released 5/15/2012. Please check out my video review on youtube here:
Please comment!!!
-Lucky
When I'm not watching movies, playing video games or funny third thing, I research A LOT about space. I was one of those kids who lay on the grass (when I had it) looking up and pondering about those little sparkling dots in the sky. Whole stories played out in my head. Sometimes I was an explorer coming to grips with the wide black surrounding me. Other times I was on a star ship, observing for the first time a super nova at a closer distance. Over time, these day dreams (night dreams? Would they be normal dreams?) faded. Not because I stopped thinking about space, oh no. If that happened, this article would end here and that would be that. I'm not letting you all off so easy.
As I got older, I got answers for most of the questions I asked. Some of it I didn't understand. The vernacular would throw me off, and since I suck at sciency stuff to begin with (love it, but unless there's a layman's way of explaining it, I'm left there waving a little flag going "yay science!") I'm unable to explain a lot. But I LOVE this shit! I wasn't going to give up so easily!
Eventually, I was able to figure out a lot of stuff. There are great web sites and podcasts to learn metric SHIT TONS of stuff about the worlds outside our world. The funny thing is that there's a place where the knowledge stops and scientists have to skirt around a few issues to do other science things (like finger bang Alf I guess). In time, they'll probably figure out what's going on (or perhaps their kid's kids will...like how exactly one finger bangs Alf), but for the moment they have to utter the dreaded "I don't know".
This doesn't mean that science gave up. They just don't know. Some of the shit they come across is just way too interesting to give up on. Sticking to it solely would distract from other things like, faster space propulsion, extra solar weather...finger banging Alf (that's it I swear! At least until I find it funny again). Here's a short list of some of the strange things in space that have baffled scientists:
...
