R.I.P. “The Rev”

This is a shout-out to James Owen Sullivan, the drummer for the American rock band Avenged Sevenfold. I’m sure that like me, fans all over the world are devastated to hear that he is no longer with us. He was found dead in his home on December 28th, 2009. Rumours say he died of a heart attack.
This is all very strange, and totally unfair. The man was 28 years old for God’s sake! He didn’t deserve this!

James Owen Sullivan was undoubtedly one of the best drummers the world has ever seen. My heart bleeds for everyone in the band and for James’ family.

I only just got a signed A7X T-Shirt for Christmas too. And because of this tragedy, it has automatically become of collector’s piece! I shall cherish it for as long as I live until the day I die.

The first, and last time I ever say Avenged Sevenfold live. They had the flu and only played 4 songs, but I was still there as a loyal fan and I’m so glad I went.

I only just realised…

*Checks IMDB*

True Blood (2008)
Jennifer’s Body (2009)

Megan Fox, you devious, copycat, machiavellian little bitch!

Console ports

By today’s standards, when a game comes out it is released on more than 1 platform. e.g. PC, Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, etc. Most of the time, the game looks and performs exactly the same on every platform. But sometimes, a game is ported. This means that a game is developed for one specific platform and then slapped on top of all the other platforms.

The latest example of a port is Bayonetta. It was developed specifically for the Xbox 360 and was then ported to the PS3. The result? Washed out graphics, less vibrant colours, a lower frame rate and ridiculous load times.

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It’s still the same game, but porting it has really hurt the overall experience.

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Surely the developer could have designed each version specifically for each platform? Porting games just seems a little old fashioned these days, what with the technology we have now. I mean just look at the second Bayonetta picture. What the hell is going on with those PS3 wall textures!?

Another example of a recent port is the critically acclaimed Batman: Arkham Asylum. According to IGN in their Head-To-Head of the game, the PS3 version has screen-tearing and the Xbox 360 version is more detailed and has richer colours. But if you look at the comparison pictures they provided…:

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…where is the screen-tearing on the PS3 picture? I can’t see any. In fact, the PS3 picture looks significantly better than the 360 picture.

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The character models are clearly more sharper (ha, ha) on the PS3, and yet IGN says that the 360 version’s graphics are better. Tut tut.

It seems that nearly all games are developed for the Xbox 360 and then ported to the PS3. However there is a less successful game that was released on the 360 and PS3, and the PS3 version reigned supreme:

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That’s right, Mirror’s Edge. Why is it that all the big budget games look and perform better on the 360 but the PS3 gets the better version of a low budget disappointment? Anyway, the PS3 version of Mirror’s edge is a lot brighter, has far more vibrant colours, a higher frame rate and faster/less load times…

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(360 on top, PS3 on bottom)

…and better anti-aliasing.

Apart from Bayonetta, none of these ports are really that different from one another. Mainly because they’re on the same generation of consoles. It’s the previous generation consoles that suffer the most.

A perfect example is Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory. Oh dear Lord…

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Need I say more?

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No bump-mapping, no normal-mapping, inferior lighting…

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…less world objects and detail, less complicated level geometry, I could go on and on and on and on and on. It is by far the worst port I’ve ever seen in gaming history. I almost screamed when I purchased my PS2 version, started the first level and turned on Sam’s night vision goggles. It was just abysmal.

All this begs that same question – Why not develop games specifically for each platform instead of just porting them?

Rage Against The Machine is Christmas Number 1

Well, it seems that Hell can freeze over.

Joe McElderry’s response: “Fair play to the guys who have organised the Facebook campaign – it’s been exciting to be part of a much-hyped battle and they definitely deserve congratulations. This time last year I never thought for one minute I’d win The X Factor, never mind having a single out. I’m just delighted to be in the charts.”

“Fair play”? What he doesn’t realise is that that campaign was formed because they hate him and everything to do with The X Factor. I bet Cheryl Cole’s crying her eyes out… again. Merry Christmas!

The X Factor/Rage Against The Machine controversy

For those who don’t know (everyone outside the UK), X Factor is basically an exact copy of Pop Idol. For those who don’t know what Pop Idol is, it’s where people from around the country audition in front of a group of judges to become a pop star/singer/band, etc. Over a series a weeks the best acts are selected and they must perform live on stage in front of the judges and the nation votes for their favourite. The winner then gets a record deal.

Anyway, right now, series 6 of The X Factor has just finished. The winner was a boy called Joe McElderry who sang Miley Cyrus’ song “The Climb” (*shudders*) and is now apparently going to be this year’s Number 1 Christmas single (just like every X Factor winner).

But what’s this? Many people don’t want that. What a surprise! But now, some people are actually doing something about it! Yes, they’re buying/downloading Rage Against The Machine’s single “Killing In The Name“. I can understand why. I mean, every person that’s won The X Factor can’t sing and are just dreadful to look at. But why RATM? They’re even worse.

Joe McElderry has responded to this. He says, “They can’t be serious! I had no idea what it sounded like. It’s dreadful and I hate it. How could anyone enjoy this? Can you imagine the grandmas hearing this over Christmas lunch? I wouldn’t buy it. It’s a nought out of ten from me. Simon Cowell wouldn’t like it. They wouldn’t get through to boot camp on The X Factor – they’re just shouting.“
“Just shouting”? Are you serious? If you think that’s shouting, you should try listening to some real rock music. Or even better, some heavy metal!

Although I guess it would be hilarious if it did actually beat Joe McElderry and become Christmas Number 1. I’ll eat all the green ectoplasm that I’ve been spewing out this past month if that happens, and then snort it out through my nostrils in glee.

Even ghosts can get sick

Well, it’s been an interesting couple of days. I’ve had a terrible cough for several weeks, been vomiting multiple times a day and was sent home from college on Tuesday because I was half-asleep, my entire body ached, I could barely walk and I felt like I was going to vomit all over the teacher’s face. I went to the doctor’s today, had a blood test (for some reason) and am now on a 3-pill-a-day prescription.

I guess I’m not 100% dead yet then.

Uncharted 2 Platinum trophy

I’ve finally done it. After hours of frustration of beating the game on Crushing mode (MEGA hard mode), killing 200 people with the GAU-19 and finding the strange relic, I have got the Platinum trophy. It will go very nicely next to my Platinum trophy for the original Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, along with all my others.

People that join foreign multiplayer servers

Why do people from Bulgaria, or Russia or somewhere else in Europe/Asia feel the need to join an EU/US server and speak their first language? Nobody can understand them, they can’t understand us and it’s fucking annoying! We try to tell them what our tactics are for the next round, but since they’re overseas they just ignore us and run off on their own. What happens to them? They get killed almost immediately, and then start complaining in their outlandish tongue and shouting abuse at us.

Of course then it is all put to a stop when we all votekick/voteban them and think, we didn’t accomplish anything in that round did we? People like this should just piss off and stick to their own servers, instead of doing stuff like this on ours:

> Camping
> Grenade spamming (mostly done by the Germans)
> Using snipers at close range (mostly done by the French)
> Bunny hopping (Hungarians, Iranians, Bulgarians, Russians, etc)
> Flash grenading their own team mates
> Annoying us with their gibberish

PS. On a completely unrelated note, I’ve fired my only other author on this blog due to inactivity. Am I going to tell him? Hell no! Sorry, THBam.

America Online

Don’t worry, I’m not bashing the American’s again. Unfortunately they’ve plagued the Internet with their retarded spellings already.

I’m talking about America Online. Or as it’s more commonly know, AOL, the internet provider. I’ve been using them for several years now and I have to say, they’re absolute crap. AOL is a totally untrustworthy internet provider: they don’t provide anti-virus protection even though they say they will, they record your AIM chats and can therefore use it against you if you’re up to something, they cost far too much, their tech support is annoying, persistent, and doesnt solve problems that well, and they constantly keep fucking around with your connection and DNS settings for no apparent reason. That last one is so relentless that I’m lucky to be writing this blog post at all. Some nights I can barley get online for longer than 2 minutes without getting disconnected.

My next door neighbour however, has no problems because they use a different internet provider. I don’t know who provider that is, but I’m sure as hell gonna ask him about it so that I can switch to it and be rid of the monstrosity that is AOL. They even said they’d offer me 20MB broadband. But what did they give me? 8MB that can only go up to 2MB – Bastards!

All I have left to say is, AOL can shove it up their disconnecting, unreliable, American arse!

America has made the world fat

America is the fattest country in the world, followed by Mexico, the United Kingdom, Slovakia, Greece and many others. It’s all America’s fault with them introducing the “Drive-Thru” (Look at that, they can’t even spell it correctly!). Whatever happened to the good ol’ fashioned night out? Where you go to a nice restaurant or pub with a couple of friends, sit down, have a chat, eat a meal and enjoy yourself. It wasn’t really a “night out” as such, it was an event.

But now, thanks to America, all we do now is slob in our cars and order food from a metal box. How depressing have our lives become? All those American TV shows where people drive up and shout “BURGER!” into the box and get bombarded with Big Macs before being asked at the paypoint, *exaggerated American accent* “Dya waaant Friiieees with theeaaat?”, have poisoned our minds. It makes me physically sick.

I must be one of very few Brits left that actually enjoys a decent pub lunch and still eats in restaurants. Whereas everyone else hasn’t even seen a restaurant and most of them think pubs are just for getting pissed in. I envy this country, I really do. God only knows what it’s going to be like in the near future. Statistics show that roughly 1 in 3 people in the UK will be obese by 2012. Well I can assure you, I’ll be one of those 2 other people.

PS. Any comments disagreeing with any of this will either be edited or deleted. Now I know that that may be infringing your human rights. But to be quite honest, I couldn’t give a flying fuck.