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Blogger Archive: Mike Leon 
HALO an objective analysis.
Now that Halo 3 has been out for exactly 17 minutes and we've already seen the epic simultaneous ejaculation of approximately 45692984u51 people who have never played a FPS with a mouse before, I thought a completely objective analysis of the series was in order.
But then I realized I'm incapable of being anything close to objective. So here's my dismissive and sardonic overview of the Halo series brimming with witty cynicism.
For a long time, Halo was the only good game on XBOX that wasn't also on PS2 or Gamecube or NES. Then Halo 2 came out and there were TWO good games on XBOX. Of course, this caused a dilemma for people like me who worked in the video game retail business at the time. People couldn't figure out how to put Halo 2 in the system. I had to explain to droves of fatasses, ages 14-29, that the XBOX has a “disc drive” in which you can place other games.
Sadly, I was unable to help the guy who glued the Halo disc into his system. He just kept saying “that part fell out once” over and over. Poor guy.
As it turned out, Halo 2 was actually somewhat inferior to Halo. I'm not sure why, because I never got to play it. Microsoft never ported it to PC, except as a reward for buying their shitty new operating system that people hate even more than their shitty old operating system. They did this for two reasons; A) They need to suck people into their next POSOP (Piece Of Shit Operating System) somehow, and B) Because the first Halo was a massive commercial failure on PC.
Why was Halo PC a massive commercial failure? It's simple. When you take the smartest kid in the retarded class and put him in with normal kids, he looks pretty dumb. What's that Halo? You can wipe yourself? That's my big boy! You're a superstar!
PC gaming is that normal class. Console gaming is kind of like the retarded class, but more ghetto and less intelligent. It's sort of like one of Cincinnati's inner-city schools. It's full of low-income minorities who do crystal meth and leave used condoms on the sidewalk. Halo can easily rocket to the top of the class there.
Half Life 2, stop showing your wee wee to the other boys!
In the world of PC first person shooters, where it's actually possible to do moderately important things like aim your gun, Halo is still the kid at the back of the room who just shit himself. Seriously, what is up with a game where the pistol is a better weapon than the assault rifle? It even has a longer range. What genius made that giant leap of logical ability?
So, its flaws and the PC port whose mother wishes she had an abortion aside, Halo is still a great console game with cool monsters, a sweet sci-fi story and amazingly creative level design.
So, its flaws and the PC port whose mother wishes she had an abortion aside, Halo is still a great console game with cool monsters, a sweet sci-fi story and amazingly creative level design.
So, its flaws and the PC port whose mother wishes she had an abortion aside, Halo is still a great console game with cool monsters, a sweet sci-fi story and amazingly creative level design.
So, its flaws and the PC port whose mother wishes she had an abortion aside, Halo is still a great console game with cool monsters, a sweet sci-fi story and amazingly creative level design.
So, its flaws and the PC port whose mother wishes she had an abortion aside, Halo is still a great console game with cool monsters, a sweet sci-fi story and amazingly creative level design.
Oh, oops. Did I just cut and past the same bland comment about Halo's level designs five times over again? Ah, the irony.
Then, of course, after you run through five or six of the most repetitive levels ever designed, you have to deal with the stock FPS zombie parasite monsters. This is getting ridiculous. These things are everywhere. Doom, Half-Life, Quake; it seems like every FPS on the planet has to try and surprise you with some kind of recycled parasitic monster zombie creatures. I was happy with the covenant. Those guys had personality. Then the Flood came out of nowhere and I realized more than ever I was just playing a Doom clone.
Ultimately, Halo sold so many copies that I ended up with two, and I don't even have an XBOX. Halo 2 sold more. Halo 3 will probably not sell so many. Why? It's on 360. There just aren't enough systems out there to pull the kind of numbers the first two managed, unless people buy extra copies for their summer homes (wink wink, Atari historians).
Since the ending has leaked on Youtube, my prediction is that Halo 3 will flop. People only play first person shooters for the storyline, and now we've already seen how it ends. For the record, (and this is safe to talk about now because the game has been out for 20 minutes already) the ending blows hard. It's like a four hour funeral sequence for the Master Chief. There isn't much else to it. That's pretty gay. It just lacks the kind of subtle character exposition of games like Unreal Tournament and Counterstrike.
Speaking of the Halo 3 release, where are Peter Moore's sweet tats for this one? I thought of a great place he could ink another ringworld logo.
One man. Eight days. One darkened cable LED. Can he make it?
Last week I moved to a new house. Because AOL/Time Warner is the third most evil entity in the world, surpassed only by the Illuminati and Disney, I had to wait a week at my new house for the cable guy to come install the intarnetz. It was worse than Elie Wiesel's worst nightmare.
Outside work, I had to find things to do that didn't involve online connectivity. At first, it sounds easy, then the harsh reality kicks in and begins to eat at your soul. You don't remember what life was like before the intarnetz. It was horrible. I never want to go back. There is no Wikipedia to browse. There is no porn to download. There are no forums to troll. There is no RFGeneration.com - The Classic and Modern Gaming Database to wow your sensations. There is just nothing.
You know that part of the Bible right at the beginning; the part that's named after a Sega console? It's like before that part.
In order to keep myself from going completely insane I blew the dust off my Gamecube and plugged it in. I don't think I've played Gamecube since Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes came out. I happened to have a copy of Rogue Leader chilling in shrink wrap that I was saving for a rainy day, or a multi-tiered Hell of internetless savagery. I also have Halo and Mech Assault unopened and I don't even own an XBOX. Go figure.
So it turns out Rogue Leader is pretty much Rogue Squadron with better graphics. Even most of the levels are the same. It didn't matter. I kept playing it. When I got to something I couldn't figure out I went to my computer to look it up on Gamefaqs -only to remember that Gamefaqs is part of the intarnetz! AAAAAAGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Then I tried watching TV. I learned a lot from TV. Did you know that Valtrex can help prevent the spread of genital herpes? Unfortunately, it does not protect against other sexually transmitted diseases. Also, you should avoid taking Valtrex if you have an advanced HIV infection. That's the part that gets me right there. If you have an advanced HIV infection, why are you having sex with people? The answer I came up with was that they already have HIV too, but then why do they care if they get genital herpes? I'm pretty sure that's a drop in the bucket if you already have the gay cancer.
I learned quickly that the only thing worth watching on terrestrial television during the summer months is COPS. Sadly, COPS is only on once a day. This angers me. COPS has been on for like 20 years now. It was the first (and only good) reality show, for those of you who care. There are tons of COPS episodes. There should be an all COPS channel. If I want to see a fat, black, low-income person being tazed there should be a channel I can turn to for that all day, every day with no commercial interruption. Someone get on that.
I started going places by myself just to leave the house. I went to Jimmy John's for sandwiches. I got a plastic cup there with a bunch of company slogans on it. One of them is “Our delivery drivers are so fast, you'll think they're Russian.” I'm still trying to decide what that means. It could be an obvious pun like, Russian = rushin'. Or maybe, it has a deeper, more sinister meaning.
Then I went to Office Depot and bought a HUGE mouse pad. This thing is like Rosie O'donnel's maxi-pad big. It is basically like two regular mouse pads attached for extra horizontal space. The lady at the checkout asked me what I intended to do with it and I told her you can't afford to run out of room when you are wasting cyber-trash. She was a n00b.
On my way home I stopped at Wal-Mart and picked up a bottle of Mountain Dew Game Fuel. I figured with the Master Chief on the package it has to be good, right? Eh. It's better than Mountain Dew Code Red, which tastes like Benedril, and it's way better than Diet Mountain Dew, which tastes like someone peed in regular Mountain Dew. It is nowhere near the awesomeness of regular Mountain Dew or His sacred prophet most high, Mountain Dew Pitch Black, which will return before the final judgment in accordance with the prophecies.
When I got home, I watched Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life. Then I tried to extract my eyeballs using a butterfly knife. I'm not sure which was more entertaining.
All in all, I ended up playing Rogue Leader most of the time without intarnetz. I managed to get silver and gold medals in every level. Then I got the intarnetz back and learned that it is possible to upgrade your ships in Rogue Leader. This means I got silver and gold medals in all of the missions with none of the ship upgrades. Some of the online guides say this is impossible. So there you go. Even gimped and half insane, I'm still a gaming god.
Who else is ready to spooge all over GTA:IV? I know it's enticing me to take out a mortgage on a PS3. It's GTA with online multi-player. How could that be anything but mind-blowingly awesome? We'll wait and see though. Given Rockstar's track record, they'll probably find some way to screw it up. (Outside of cloning GTA over and over, what have they ever actually done right?)
So Wizard World Chicago was last week, and there was a trailer shown for The Dark Knight, the upcoming sequel to Batman Begins. I hope Christian Bale does the same ridiculous Batman voice in this one. I laughed good and hard when I first saw Batman Begins. He sounds like the Ultimate Warrior talking into Skid Row's concert amp with the fx board set to “extra spooky”. Also, Katie Holmes isn't in this one. They got someone else to play the same part. That's always cheesy. The only way it could get better is if they announce it soap opera style during the film. I can't wait. This movie is going to be a riot.
It looks like the Chinese will be too busy gold farming to start World War 3. According to Kotaku, (http://kotaku.com/gaming/...chinese-mmorpg-290935.php) there will be a MMORPG set in or around the Romance of the Three Kingdoms time line.
Dear John Woo and Beijing Perfect World Co., thank you for postponing nuclear winter. I really enjoy not having radiation sores. You guys are great.
Maybe we should employ the same strategy in the middle east. Someone call Verant Interactive. I'm pretty sure those guys are looking for work since EQ2 went in the crapper.
When you die in an Iranian MMORPG do you go to a graveyard with 72 virgins?
Do the NPCs stop to pray five times a day in realtime?
LF8M for WTC. Need tanks and pilots. No healers. PST
Speaking of MMORPGs, there is a buzz about the Warhammer Online(http://www.warhammeronlin...om/english/home/index.php) game coming out next year. The word wowkiller is getting thrown around. I've personally heard people saying there won't be any grinding, and that level 1 players will be able to kill the highest level players if they are skilled enough. The funny thing is that some of this talk is outright denied on the website and the rest is, at the very least, not corroborated by any official statements concerning the game. The fact remains that this will probably not stray far from the standard “kill the same rat 5000000000 times” formula of all the rest of these games. I like the Warhammer universe and this could be a sweet game (or crap), but the vaporous concoctions floating around about it are fascinating to say the least. You know something is ass-backwards when the biggest attraction to an upcoming game is that it may actually require skill to play.
Skill? Is that the new Tier 8 raiding gear? I heard it gives +800 stamina.
It’s Monday, and you know what that means, boys and girls. It’s time for the usual installment of Entertainment Geekly!
What? On a Monday? It’s not usually on a Monday, you say? It is this week, bitch. If you don’t like it, I’ll have an abortion on your face.
Also, I’d like to point out that absolutely nothing happened last week. I suppose something may have happened in the middle east, or within the arena of global politics, but who follows that stuff? I don’t.
Instead, I’m watching The Hills on MTV. It’s the season premiere and LC just met a cute guy, but Whitney didn’t like him and LC probably only liked him because she was drunk. Also, people are saying that LC was in an “inappropriate video” with a guy from Laguna, but she says it’s just a rumor.
Meanwhile, I’m praying to everything unholy that someone with a brain will just drop a vial of VX nerve agent in the middle of their lavish Barbie fashion show magazine party. I want to watch them writhe in uncontrollable spasmic death throws as pox develop on their soft tissue and they vomit their guts all over their Vera Wang cocktail gowns. I would smile as the average IQ of California raises by 10 points.
Sadly, this will never happen.
But hey, the XBOX 360 costs less now. I can settle for that. And I was so surprised when I heard. Who expected Microsoft to respond to the PS3 price cut with a price cut of their own? It’s shocking!
Maybe someone will sue Rockstar this week and I’ll have something to talk about on Friday. Cross your fingers.
KAHN!!!!!!!!!!!!!
There's quite a stir this week for drooling Blizzard fan boys the world over. Early in the week, German geeks uncovered what appears to be a FAQ written by Blizzard for the next World of Warcraft expansion, which will be titled Wrath of the Lich King. It will introduce Death Knights, a hero class which is more powerful than the regular classes, but needs to be unlocked first to be playable. It's a class that revolves around slaughtering the innocent in the name of evil. Bring on the fap. I'm ready.
Is it true? Yup. It was all made official at Blizzcon this afternoon and the web address now leads to this nifty little block of commercial glurge.
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/wrath/
At least Blizzard comes out and confirms info after it gets leaked, rather deny it until the boxes are on store shelves (ehem, Sony). Now if they could just balance out the damn game as it is...
In other news, Guitar Hero 3 is shaping up. That looks to be of some serious quality. The song list includes songs by Slayer and Dragonforce. If only they would drop that agreement with Gibson, maker of the world's blandest looking guitars. Break out the B.C. Rich action.
Microsoft is STILL denying the 360 price drop, even though all of the major retailers already show it in their ads. Wow. Wait, didn't someone say this would happen last week? Oh, right. That was me. I'm infallible like the Pope, but better. I don't wear that gay hat, or lead an international conspiracy to molest young boys.
If you're into comic books, Wolverine finally killed Sabertooth in Wolverine, vol. 2, #55. No one seems to care. I can understand. It'll just turn out it was really a clone, or a skrull, or something. Or maybe the real Sabertooth will be regenerated by Apocalypse or Mr. Sinister. One way or another, it's comic book continuity. No one ever stays dead.
I'm talking about what happened in comic books. This is sad.
Eh, at least I'm not fat.
Geeks, what is YOUR profession?!!!
Collecting movies, video games, and other pop culture crap people with lives don't have time to worry about.
That said, 300 comes out on DVD this Tuesday (7/31/07) in North America. I'll be buying the 2-disc special edition. Anyone who hasn't seen this movie should go buy it as well. You'll see first hand just how much of a man you can never be.
The Simpsons movie came out this week, as I'm sure you all know. I haven't seen it yet. I heard it was okay. Maybe after this, they can finally cancel the series and let it rest in peace. Seriously, when did The Simpsons jump the shark? Everyone stopped watching like 58 seasons ago.
The San Diego Comic Con has been running for the last 3 days and is sorta kinda wrapping up a little. There was a teaser for The Dark Knight which is reportedly about 45 seconds long and doesn't show any actual footage of the movie, just some artwork.
There was some Iron Man footage shown, but nothing really serious.
Of course, the biggest buzz is over the mysterious Cloverfield project, which still remains unnamed. There were four posters given away at the ComicCon, which bear the same image with 1 of 4 possible words scrawled across the top. This is what the poster looks like.
http://www.uploadhouse.co...c3fd185962d90e8c0181e.jpg
The rumor mills are spinning hard about an XBOX 360 price drop to compete with PS3. My psychic powers tell me it will happen. They also tell me Microsoft will deny the price drop up until the moment the tags are changed in the stores and possibly for some time after. Microsoft will also vehemently deny that the price drop has anything at all to do with the PS3's pricing, citing that they just wanted to make the console more affordable for purely humanitarian reasons, as they are dedicated solely to helping people world-wide.
Speaking of socialist lies, Kotaku is running a story about Chinese government regulations to limit the amount of time citizens play MMORPGs. Games that allow workers to simulate capitalist ideals? We can't have that! Chairman Mao would be proud.
http://kotaku.com/gaming/...ng-so-smoothly-283559.php
Next they'll make everyone use the same average green gear.
They probably execute players who roll Paladins.
I could go on all day with this.
To Hell with it. I'm going to the McDonald's drive-thru. Eat that, you poor commie bastards.
Well, Boys and Girls, Harry Potter 7 is here. I know I'm pumped. Not. Of course you all know the big story in the nerd world this week was the leaking of the book onto teh intarnetz via BitTorrent. The hoopla surrounding this thing is absurd. There were actually people writing fake books, in some cases hundreds of pages long, and distributing them in place of the real thing. Almost equally disturbing, the proper bootleg copy was actually a set of JPEG photos taken via digital camera of each and every page of the book. Unholy Satan! Someone needs to get a job. You can have one of mine. I don't like them.
For those of you who don't already know, Harry dies. Hermione marries Malfoy. Ron is the last Horcrux and Snape is really Dumbledore in disguise.
Warning: there were spoilers in that last part. If you don't want to read them, skip it.
Next week the San Diego ComicCon is coming up. Interestingly, most of the comic related movies that were scheduled to be screened at the convention were pulled by Fox studios earlier this week. They apparently claimed the films weren't finished yet and refused to say anything further. It's fishy as hell and no one can even speculate about their real reasoning at the moment. One way or another, if you got tickets to ComiCon so you could see Aliens vs. Predator or Hitman early, you got screwed.
Also, for those of you who saw that bizarre, nameless movie preview before transformers (I mentioned it in this column a few weeks ago). Producer J.J. Abrams will be revealing the title of the film and possibly some more information at the ComiCon.
Until next week, I'll be crossing my fingers that great Cthulhu awakens from his death sleep to swallow the whole of civilization into his giant gaping maw.
This week we've heard cliché muggle pun after muggle pun from thousands of clueless TV news anchors around the globe. That can only mean one thing: I'll be sleeping through yet another Harry Potter installment. That's right. The pubescent wizard returned in the fifth franchise film, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Sadly, Emma Watson does not show her muggles at any point during the film. That girl can wave my magic wand any time she likes.
The 5th Harry Potter movie will be followed in two weeks by the 7th Harry Potter book, which analysts speculate will place J.K. Rowlings on the Forbes list somewhere between Bill Gates and God. God declined to comment.
As I predicted last week, the PS3 is now $100 cheaper, despite Sony's previous delusional claims to the opposite. Now a few more people on the aforementioned Forbes list will be able to afford one.
Aside from those things, this has been a really slow week for geeks. There hasn't been any huge gaming news, and North America's largest video game convention certainly isn't going on or anything...
Which brings me to E3. Bring back the booth babes. Really. I mean it. Guys who are into this stuff don't get to see beautiful half naked girls anywhere else. You've all seen the charts showing how the number of hours spent playing World of Warcraft is inversely proportional to the amount of sex you have. Please, developers, have pity on your loyal neck-bearded followers. Give them something to remember. Especially since nothing else you're doing seems to be catching anyone's interest.
Seriously, what is up with these games? A new Nights? The main selling point is that you can fly? Is that really the best they could come up with? Really? You could fly in the first Nights and nobody cared. Let me give you perspective: It was the mid nineties. All we had were 2D games. Sega made a game that was in full 3D in which you could fly with 360 degrees of freedom and no one cared then. What marketing genius green-lighted this newest debacle? I hope it was the same people who came up with the 32X.
Speaking of 32X, Nintendo sure is showing off some neat-o stuff. How about this steering wheel? They've literally just made a plastic holder for the Wii-mote. This is almost as dumb as the horizontal stand for the PS2 (I could write a ten page article on that stupidity, but I'll spare you). Peripherals like that are for people who refer to their games as "tapes". As in, "I have nine tapes for my Nintendo Wii."
There are a few promising games showing at the convention. The idea of online Mario Kart has potential. Assassin's Creed could be fun.
We'll see as E3 continues. Keep checking back with RFgeneration.com for the latest news.
Who else is pumped about the new Contra for the NDS? I know I am. I watched the gameplay footage earlier this week and when it started I thought I was looking at a port of Super C for a second. When I realized I wasn't, I got really excited. Games like this and Dawn of Sorrow are really tempting me to go out and buy a DS, which would be way better than the hole in my left pants pocket that serves as my current "portable system", if you know what I mean. There need to be a lot more old school games like this out in the current market. I don't know why there aren't. They can't possibly cost much to produce, and hardcore gamers (and scrub posers) eat them up like candy.
Transformers came out this week and, as with any major nerd event, The Evil Leon was on it. For those of you who haven't seen it, it's even more fun than shooting at your neighbor's cat. If you live in Ohio like me, that's A LOT of fun. Also, there is a trailer running before the film for a movie that has no name yet and, according to internet speculation, might involve Cthulhu.....or the Master Chief....or Gears of War....Godzilla...or something. Anyway, the trailer is pretty neat and you can stay and watch Transformers afterward.
The debate blah blah blah Manhunt 2. Blah blah blah blah ESRB. Blah blah "@%&@$%^**!!$*&(*@%*&^&%&@%^," says a representative at Rockstar, adding "!%^&&!%^&**&($^&*^@." We all know this story. Somethingawful had an amazing article about it earlier this week. Personally, I'd like to see what all the fuss is about. I've yet to see any specific content cited as being more offensive than anything in the last Manhunt -from any of the parties involved. Until that news breaks, it's pretty obvious somebody is caving to pressure from watchdog groups. Of course, by "watchdog" I mean "communist" and by "groups" I mean "bastards."
Everyone is talking about the PS3 price drop. Will it happen? Will it not? Well, Sony is denying the Hell out of it. If that means anything, you can be sure the PS3 will be $100 cheaper next month. Now we will only have to pay $500 to play horribly uninspired sports and racing games. I can't wait to get one!
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