ThrawnOmega Taints His Tag... Again

Enjoy the new video folks! I find it funny that these actually take 5x as much time as just typing up a blog. Oh well. They're fun. I have no problems making fun of myself. Those who can't make fun of themselves have no right to make fun of anyone else =P

Episode 1

Here it is. Video. Something I haven't done before, but would be up for doing as I think of worthy topics/ideas. Future posts will be more structured (and professional, I hope). Consider this a laid back experiment.

Unique Post Coming Tomorrow

I've started to fall off the blogging wagon lately, due mostly to tiredness, not any lack of desire. To make up for the lapse, I'm rolling out a very special blog post tomorrow. It's something I've never done before in this blog. Some of you will love it. Others will think I'm brain damaged (but a few people think that already =P)

We'll see how this goes. If my readership isn't utterly repulsed (LMAO) this could become an on-again, off-again addition to the random shenanigans I call a blog.

Ok, enough talking without saying anything. You'll find out everything 11/16.

Modern Warfare-itis

The Hand of Thrawn has been afflicted with Modern Warfare-itis. Three of the four of us have been afflicted. Scoring has slowed to a crawl. The gap between us and the top three teams grows wider. Only Patches stands tall, playing crap like Madagascar Kartz and Space Chimps.

It's hard to say how long the affliction will last. For me, until I finish the review. For Bishop and Sprinkles, who can say? MW2 is an incredible game. Far better than the other crap we play, so I can't blame them. I'm writing the review tomorrow for a probable Friday release. Once that's done, it's back to the whoring. Let's all enjoy the quality while it lasts... then it's back to the drudgery.

EDIT: Checked my friends list... even Patches has fallen. I'll give everyone a week to enjoy it before I actually start pushing everyone back to whoring =P

ThrawnOmega: Dinosaur Hunter

So, GSL 8 is under way, and contrary to some naysayers (We know who you are), this is a real GSL, and there's been some heated competition early. Team Montana has surprised me by throwing down almost 19,000 points thus far with just three people. It will be interesting to see how they fare as the season goes on. Hand of Thrawn is sitting in 4th at the moment with 11,775 points. Of course, all these numbers become outdated hourly, but you get the general picture. You can follow the GSL action HERE. I'm not sure if that link will work for nonsubscribers, but it's worth a shot.

Team numbers as of 11pm tonight:

1 Bishop024 -- 3325
2 Sprinkles x360a -- 3025
3 ThrawnOmega -- 2830
4 patches4711 -- 2595

I doubt the accuracy of my number, because all I've played so far is Up, Night at Museum, and Jurassic, for a combined total of 2,910... not 2830. At least everyone's start scores are right, so rectification of totals closer to the end will be easy.

I celebrated my first full day off of the GSL by finishing off the incredibly easy Night at the Museum, then went to my local Family Video to find a new target. Family Video rocks. This store has 3x the game selection my old blockbuster did, and game rentals are much cheaper. Plus, since I'm a new member, I get half price rentals for the next 30 days. I'll be raiding the crap out of that place, trust me. They had 1 copy of Jurassic: The Hunted, so I picked that up, reasoning I should go for the easy games they have the most limited stock of whenever they are available.



For a budget shooter, Jurassic is surprisingly fun. Hundreds of dinosaurs fell before me, and the 1000 points without too much fuss, though there were a few parts on the Hard playthrough that were a complete pain in the ass. If you come into it with modest expectations, it's an enjoyable weekend rental, though I wouldn't pay $40 for it. I believe this is the first game I completed in one calander day that is not Avatar or a 2k6 sports game... It's kind of funny how much the game 'borrows' ideas from Jurassic Park. Dilophosaurs have crests around their necks and spit venom, raptors sound very familiar, and there's one dino-on-dino confrontation that looks like a stripped-down rendition of a scene from JPIII. The plot it straight up B-grade fare, like something you'd see late at night on the Sci-Fi channel. I'll try to write up a full review tomorrow, but I'm planning on renting and blowing through Terminator first, then stepping out of the apartment for a while for a little fresh air and a social life. Gotta have that every once in a while, right?

GSL Goal: 20,000+ points
Currently: 2,910 (actual total)

Superboost Engaged

This weekend is a double XP weekend in Gears 2, and I'd originally meant to use the tedious horde grinding on Security, and as luck would have it, I got networked into a seriously hardcore group of guys who are boosting their way up to level 100 by using multiple accounts and boosting in public matches. Yes, I realize this technique is considered shady by many, but I'm not hacking, or doing anything on my end that violates the terms of use, so why not take the most effective route.

A couple of the guys are from my fair state of Minnesota, so the conversations have been pretty entertaining so far... which is what you need when you've agreed to boost together for six hours in one evening. I'll definitely pass rank 50, and I'm going to keep riding this pony for as long as I can. I'd never seriously considered shooting for level 100, but I might as well do everything I can for it while this opportunity presents itself. In our first 45 minutes or so, I gained 74,000 xp. In our second session, I picked up another 97,000 getting me to rank 46, and finally putting me over the XP total I had before I lost everything to the glitch. I might hit rank 50 tonight.

Thanks Lonnie for the hook up.

Fun With Hecklers

I've been away for a few days, you know, working 12-hour shifts, having an actual job, making money, that sort of thing. What everyone who doesn't get paid to write game reviews does. So I wasn't around to see any recent blog comments until today, at which point I saw the following comment to my prior post:

No offence but what is even the point of writing a review if it is not out day in date or within a day or two of a games release. No one is interested in reading a review of a game that came out a week ago. Anyone who is interested or wanted to get Borderlands has already read reviews on other sites. Either that or they just went and picked up the game anyways. I just don't see a point in writing a review when it is a week late and people are already done Borderlands and looking to games coming out this week.

It's the classic "Why do you even bother" post. Well, many large internet and print outlets get review copies of games weeks before street date, giving them the benefit of having the time to play the game and review it. They often have more than one person playing the title at the same time. x360a rarely has that. We usually have to get our games on street date like everyone else. Then, like everyone else, we play through them and offer our thoughts on the game. So, considering we're not paid for our services, and we actually have lives (WOW!) expecting us to plow through a game and write a quality review for it in that time frame suggests to me you have no idea how the process works, or the amount of time inolved. If a game comes out on a Tuesday (as Borderlands did) and I'm working 12-hour shifts that Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, am I really going to turn a review around it two days?

Then, of course, not everyone out there buys every game the day it comes out, plows through it in three days, and then goes on the the next game. By the way, I love how 9/10 bullshit comments like this are

A: Anonymous
B: Start with the phrase "No offense"

You'd be surprised the amount of hits my reivews get. That's a lot of "nobodys" out there. Of course, I'm fully capable of turning out a review within a few days of release, if that release happens to coincide with my off days, or I get a prerelease copy. I cite Dead Space
as evidence.

Okay, I've wasted enough time on a blog "nobody" reads so I'll get back to writing a review "nobody" is going to read.