What a fine Monday; hello Destructoid! Looks like we have some blogs that were written today that need proper categorizing and judging. Who better to do so than the guy penciled in to do so on this day?!? WHOM? Nobody I can think of, in any case.

But what would Monday be without confusing and unfocused paragraphs about random things flying through the mcgeether, that I just happened to catch with a net on a stick?
The net is metaphorical. The stick is not.

Yesterday I may have procured a Wii U. Yep, I did. After a bunch of updating and charging, I finally did some other stuff with it, and I must say: I'm digging it. Anyone who knows me much knows that I was certainly excited about it, but I always have my doubts when it comes to certain things Nintendo. There's always that seeming catch when it comes to their consoles. With this one, it seems to be how they handled memory. But that's best left for another...blog.
For these isms, I'll just stick to the things I've personally toyed with.

-Nintendo Land. This is mostly what you'd expect: A sort-of tech demo to show off the things the Wii U can do. It's decent-looking, with a very simple style and Miis in place of "normal" characters. The color pops so hard it hurts, and it makes some of the minigames look amazing; The Metroid one especially. Oh and the 60 FPS future is glorious.
The games themselves are surprisingly addictive, especially if you can grab some buddies to play with you. The whole asymmetrical multiplayer" thing is something I really truly enjoy, and I hope more developers take advantage of the gamepad this way. (Zombi U does it, people.) There are plenty of lonely ways to play, as well, and a couple games I can see I'm going to be putting a lot of time into, specifically, Captain Falcon's Twister Race, Balloon Trip Breeze, and Yoshi's Fruit Cart. There is a nice learning curve that smacks you right as you're getting into the groove of each game. It makes me want to jump right back in to progress a little further.
One of the more interesting side features is the Pachinko game. It's a simplified game itself, but the system reminds me of the Coin Launcher in Smash Bros. You earn coins for every game you play, and you use these coins to play Pachinko. Every board you clear earns you a "?" block, which you touch on the gamepad to open. A nice touch. I said touch again. The blocks are seemingly filled with a random item to put in your park, with things like a jukebox, with all manner of Nintendo music, Nintendo-themed props, like Samus' ship, and other weird things, like a button that changes the time of day in the park. Commas. It's a cool reward system that keeps you in the park a bit longer than you might intend. Fun times.

-The online biz. Although it was very spotty day one, the online features are nice and efficient. You can bring up things like Friend Lists, the internet browser, the download manager, etc. without closing the app/game you're running. Very slick. And the browser is nice and fast.
Miiverse is a thing of beauty. It's like Xbox Live, but better. You can follow specific communities based on games or activities, post messages or doodles on those boards, comment on comments, favorite things, look at your friends specifically, add friends from there...everything you might want to. Your activity feed will just show you your whole timeline, like Twitter, if you wish. You can also seemingly add friends from here, or people you've recently played with. Speaking of which, you still need to mutually add friends, but it's not too bad because it's just a username of your choosing.

-The eShop. Technically part of the "online biz," but I thought I would mention it separately. It's clean and easy to see what's available. Whenever they get new games will prove whether or not it can stay that way. You can background download, which is nice, but probably standard now. They launched with 23 games availabe in the eShop, which is a huge step forwrd for Nintendo. Mostly retail titles, (another big step) but the 5 games that aren't retail are really something great. I hope this is a sign of things to come. Trine 2, Little Inferno, Chasing Aurora, Mighty Switch Force: Hyper Drive Edition, and Nano Assault NEO. Nice launch.
I got two of those games, Trine 2 and Nano Assault NEO. Trine 2 isn't new, but my god, it's still beautiful. One of the best-looking games...like ever. I have to say, the gamepad makes playing as Amadeus (the wizard) much easier. drawing boxes and placing things feels like it was made for the gamepad in the first place. Kudos to FrozenByte. As far as new content goes, (copypasta'd) it apparently has new options, difficulty settings and re-worked levels, as well as the "Goblin Menace” campaign that is now directly accessible as a continuation to the original campaign. So 6 new levels and 6 new skills all together, plus one brand new level made just for the Wii U. I'd say it's worth the $20 price tag. I think the new campaign is Wii U/PC only. Don't quote me on that.

Like I said, I also bought Nano Assault NEO. Why? Because Shin'en are one of my favorite smaller developer studios. They made some fantastic WiiWare and 3DS games, and will be doing more stuff for Nintendo. The things they did with the WiiWare's limitations are nothing short of magical, and their brand of sorcery has seemingly benefited themselves in the HD generation. It's 720p, 60FPS and so tasty to my eyes. And...it's only 82 MB. How the fuck that even works is beyond me. Anyway, the game itself is a twin-stick shooter mixed with Fantastic Voyage. It's got power-ups you can buy in-between levels. It's fairly simple, fun, and purty. Buy it if you have a Wii U.

That's a buncha words that just came out of my fingers, and there are more, but we should probably wrap and CAP. Cheers. See you next week when I emerge from my Nintendo coma.



* - The Destructoid Community Christmas Album. Oh my god; yes. Please, please participate! I will give you many kisses and hugs and ugly sweaters!

* - ignorantdenial wants to support his favorite developers and publishers, but it's a struggle to do so. Read this insightful blog about gaming in the piracy-laden culture of Malaysia.

A - I really love stories like this. It's what role-playing is about, I suppose. Read Brandon Dickerson's story of questionable justice.

A - Little Inferno looks like a fine way to get the arson urges out of my body.









R - oliverf1234 doesn't introduce himself, but he does review Limbo in a very short manner, then plug his Youtube page. Perhaps a proper intro later, yeah?

T - faviangraham thinks Elder Scrolls Online has amazing potential. I, for one, agree. It really does. A game that is basically just Elder Scrolls but populated by real people is pie in the sky shit, but please let it happen.

T - aileronroll vents a bit about FPSes getting all stale and whatnot. A bit of a tired subject. Cause and effect?

R - Marcunio88 has a damn good review of Halo 4. You should check it out.

N - The guys at Double Fine are some genious mofos. What is Amnesia Fortnight? How can you be a part of it? Click somewhere around...HERE, to find out. Thanks a bunch, Stephanie K!





R - That Silly Black Guy (never gets old) has something of a rebuttal to Jim Sterling's "Fake Nerd Girls" Jimquisition. Read on why these gals rustle his jimmies.

R - Fake gamer girls are a popular thing here at Destructoid. Wait...I meant...well, you know what I meant. TheKodu has quite a bit to say on the subject.

C - Some old copypasta but filled with nostalgia. Please, Sam Becker, stop and think before just dumping your entire blog onto Dtoid. We want your thoughts, but maybe some new ones, too. And an intro.

F - It's a link to a story made up of screen-grabbed tweets. You can do better, sir.

F - Hey I said take it easy, nerd.



FPotD

So how about that Wii U? Any of you grab that thing? Damn right some of you did, we even have some blogs down there about it! I saw a lot of folks on Twitter gabbing about it as well. Looks like a sweet system, but it's not grabbing me atm. Nothing screams BUY ME NOW! Looks like I'll be waiting awhile before I plunge into another Ninty console (besides the 3ds again).

What I've been doing instead of playing with a new fangled console, is diving more into FTL. I also unfortunately watched Total Recall today. Cool design (minus the ME3 lens flare), shit movie (Colin Ferrell never CLOSES his fucking mouth either!). Now, let us get back to the subject of FTL. I discovered the joy of modding the game and have been having a blast, playing with ships like this:



and this:



I've also turned the fleet off, increased events and encounters and maybe took a super op ship for a cruise. It's been a blast. The game wasn't even getting stale for me, but the minute I saw that Enterprise... hnnnnng.
All these cool things can be found here, along with instructions and the mod manager you'll need. Enjoy that.

What else have I been up too? Hrmmmm.... Well I royally fucked up the Cblog Fapcast, stupid recording program on my phone can't record more than 10m of audio, but I didn't notice that until AFTER we did the show. *FACEPALM* Now I must live in the fear that, at ANY moment, Strider will ninja into my house and strike me down.



Crafty little guy, that one is. He also has cyborg tiger. A Tyborger man! *shudders*

Hrmmmm what else..... Oh yeah! I've also been moving! Yaaay! Completely alone! Booooooo! Every damn muscle I have hurts and I still have about 1/4 of the way to go. 4 years in a house adds up, but I'm really happy about the whole thing. Moving to a bigger house, huge yards (DOGS AGAIN!) and most importantly: SAFER AREA. I'm so sick of all the craziness going on in North Highlands lately. People getting shot and robbed all the time. Apparently I time traveled back to Compton or Detroit in late 90s or something. So, so long ghetto! Hello, backstabbing suburban white people. Anyways, let's do some caps so I can go back to FTL.



*- DarwinMayflower will make your brain explode with this, but you should enjoy the ride.
*- One name: BeatBeat 'NUFF SAYD?
*- Anglorum gives us a very unique review of Hotline Miami, featuring Cyndi Lauper's corn spigut and some awesome masks.

P- These Granules.... I find them Scary.... Hm. Episode 3 of Scary Granules!
A- Brandon Dickerson takes a look at the Wii U and wonders how it'll fare.
P- An extrasode of Taco Tuesdays! IT'S NOT F**KING TUESDAY THOUGH! RAAAAAWWWRRRR
S- The next entry in Megakrang's awesome Ultima VII series.
A- SuperCrow dishes out a nice write up on video games vs movies, what works and what doesn't.
P- Cblog Fapcast Ep.5 - The Sorry Game (that I totally botched)



E- Dtoid Northwest family Thanksgiving reminder!
C- Fabio Diaz puts the Wii U in a hot sexy 3-way and sees who will hop on top.
S- Snealiv shares an interesting story of his girlfriends gaming black market adventure. Very good read.
S- Brother Kaif is a globe trotting gamer, with a story on region locking for dat azz.
I- EnoSachran says hello again and shares some Wii U impressions.

T- Jackal27 looks back at the Wii and gives us a personal top 10 of games for it. PLAY METROID!
T- Lord of Thunder's thoughts on handhelds this gen.
V- Mikki Saturn is super stoked to grab his Wii U, but dude, NO DRIVING AND LOOKING AT THE CAM! FFS
T- Segastardust looks back at this gen and it's contributions to gaming.



L- In honor of our Boner Lord's b-day, ReeceH92 brings us the top 3 chubs in gaming.
L- Epic-Kx also brought the birthday dick a present: Haikus that kick ass!
C- John Simone does a very short blog on episodic gaming. Fluff it out more next time John, please :)
L- Snealiv wants you to save a XBLIG in this entertaining video. Just a dollar a day people!
V- CarbonRevenges top 5 Machinimas
C- Grethiha with a short blog on the slowness of updating the Wii U. I would rather have waited for some more in depth thoughts and impressions.

F- A copypasta preview? Mannnnnnn FU!
F- Better than the one before it, but still copypasta and after the 'sneak peak'? I FAIL THEE!
S- Slow.... semi pointless and.... yeah. Sorry Devthegamer, I just don't feel you even tried.
F- How the f*ck did you post it twice?



Well that's all for this week folks. If any of you are interested in taking part in my next community chat on racism and stereotypes, hit it up here. I'll try to have that out by next week, no promises though. I'm a REALLY busy guy these days. Almost time to go, but I want to say, listen to the Fapcast and Low(er) Tier, be safe, enjoy your celebration of turkey and be nice on black friday. An old lady punched me once during that b.s. and.... yeah. Some peoples kids, eh? You folks take care. I'll be back to whisk away the gravy from your chins, next weekend :)



-PhilKenSebben

FPotD

As the podcast as a whole is on its way up, each individual episode is on its way down! I finished the RSS feed and sent it away to iTunes for approval. In a few more days perhaps, you can find our podcast on the iTunes store for podcasts! Of course, if you want to simply subscribe to our RSS without using iTunes, you can always use this. Oh, and I might as well use these posts to actually, you know, act like show notes.

We has a site!

Get in on it here!

In this episode...

Phil has been replaced by a robot, Strider is having girlfriend trouble, and Wrench is playing Mech Warrior! Also, Halo 4, Black Ops 2, and gem warfare! The community segment also has intro blogs, Kojima talk, and even a brand new community question!

This week's community question, or c-question if you will, is what games have you loved despite glaring flaws? Go ahead and answer the question via our twitter or even on our goddamn Facebook page! And also send other questions, suggestions, and other social interactions!

Blogs highlighted this week

Andy Lonn - My Second Blog

Earthfield - Introduction Blog

mystakin - They Bleed Pixels teaches without a classroom

Perfidious Sinn - I Suck At Fighting Games: Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown

MisterDonut - 007 reasons Hideo Kojima needs to make a 007 Game

siegarettes - DRIVE. OUTRUN.

Panzadolphin56 - Realism Vs. Fantasy - Who Wins?

Keep writing everyone. And thanks for listening!


~ StriderHoang

Hello friends! Has everyone been having fun playing the new Halos and/or Calls of Duty? I've been avoiding those games, since first-person shooters don't really do anything for me (unless they're filled with humor and a cartoony style, a la TF2 or Borderlands).

Instead, I've been playing quite the opposite; I picked up The Unfinished Swan, which is a first-person paint-thrower. It was a lovely game with an interesting premise, but I felt like they could have explored the possibilities of the paint-throwing mechanic a bit more. You really only use it in the first chapter, and from then on you use a water balloon-type thing, which creates a splat that disappears after a bit. It was kinda cool using the water to grow vines, which helped give shape to some of the blank areas, but it wasn't quite the same.



The first chapter was the most jarring and different from anything else I've played before, wandering around in a completely blank setting, trying to figure out where I was, what was around me, and where I needed to go. It took me out of my comfort zone, and I kinda liked that. The rest of the game felt more like a typical first-person puzzle game, and I was back to playing something that I was familiar with. It was a cute game, and I enjoyed playing it, but I wish they had done more with their initial idea.

Anyway, speaking of unfinished things, I should really finish up these recaps already. There were lots of reviews and lists of things today, but there was still a lot of great writing and passion to be found! Enjoy!

* - Panzadolphin56 thinks hard about realism vs. fantasy in video games. Which can be used to create a more compelling story?

* - Secret Moon Base episode 26! Featuring SuperMonk4Ever, the man with strong, rough hands and an infectious laugh. Huehuehue!

* - Conor Elsea would like to thank the Dtoid community for giving him company and places to sleep during his cross-country journey with Mr. Gobbldigook. The awesomeness of our community never fails to amaze me!

A - A personal retrospective of Harvest Moon; AKA: Revenile's lifelong quest to play every Harvest Moon game!

A - TroyFullbuster lists some of the most difficult levels he's played in video games. It seems he forgot to list EVERY ICE LEVEL EVER.

A - Jonathan Holmes has been working on a list of his 100 favorite Wii exclusives! It's an impressive list as it stands, but I'd say he has his work cut out for him if he plans to do a write-up of each one.





I - Say hello to SillyReaper! She was named after a Power Ranger!

F - Friday Night Fights on the PC + Final Fantasy MMOs!

F - Friday Night Fights on the PS3 + Capcom hate!

F - Friday Night Fights on the 360 + Game Grumps!

F - Friday Night Fights on the 3DS + Changes?

R - Review of Dead or Alive 5. Could probably use more boobs and punctuation, but it was Tyler Sedrick's first blog, so we'll let it slide this time.

R - levelseeker reviews Assassin's Creed III: Liberation for the PlayStation Vita.

R - Earthfield gives us a very thorough review of Splatterhouse.

R - A review of Skyrim by newcomer John Simone.

R - Another review by John Simone, this time it's a review of Saints Row: The Third.

$ - November 16th UK releases and bargains!




Also, unfinished cocks!

R - burningsoup plans to camp out and try to claim a Wii U without a pre-order. Anyone else in the same boat?

C - Capm Trevo lists his backlog.

C - Konnery follows the trend and lists his backlog as well.



No fails today! Woo!



- bbain

FPotD

Another week, and another recap from your favorite loathsome degenerate Manchild. These weeks are going by too fast. But unlike most of them, where the only thing I have time for is sandwiches and farts in between all the other stuff I have going on, it was a slow week. I did basically nothing I was supposed too, disappointed people left right and center, and generally spent a lot of time watching old IPL matches of Starcraft 2. In other words, it was a productive week for a fat neckbeard, and not so productive for a fat neckbeard who isn't particularly proud of being such.

Despite all the newness (of which there is a lot) I have been sticking to League of Legends. I've had an account for a long time, but was a little too intimidated initially to play more than a match or two. But lately, I've been studying the mechanics of the game and watching matches in order to get a feel for things, and I have to say it's coming much easier to me now. Playing a carry probably wasn't the smartest thing being as inexperienced as I am, but the LoL community has surprised me.



Here's the thing about MOBA games, this one specifically; people CAN be really nice. There is an opportunity for cordial friendliness. But you can usually expect a huge turn around if you make too many glaring mistakes. If you are a feeder, people will hate you. If you don't back them up properly or do your part, they will hate you. But up until you start screwing up badly, they can be fairly decent and helpful. I have run into a couple of guys who were initially totally assholes, yet who as we played, grew to be more tolerant of my newbieness. Honestly, I don't expect much. I play because I really like the game; if I ever get to a level of any reasonable skill, I'll probably find a team who I am comfortable with, since that really does seem to be the way to go. Playing with randoms has to suck after you put a lot of time into it.

We are recording another podcast today. One of the things that was briefly mentioned was the presence of a guy named Karutomaru. Smurfee was specifically against giving him any attention, and I agree to some extent, but I also want people to be aware of just why it is we despise him so much, and why he is getting the short end of the stick this recap while I rake his dummy account, Anti-Dixon, over the coals.



This is a community. In a very real way, I consider many of you to be "the friends I'll never meet." Destructoid is actually fairly unique in that it is sort of a refuge for folks who are really into gaming, yet who actually enjoy speaking to one another like mature adults in a creative setting rather than children on comment boxes trying to constantly beat down other peoples hard work and ideas in a competitive attempt to raise up their own. I come and read blogs here everyday, blog here occasionally, and do the recaps every week because I love getting into your heads. Like the brain worm in Wrath of Kahn, I want to get all up in your grey matter, and find out what makes you tick, because it helps me to find out what makes me tick, as well. A good majority of my own writing has been inspired by the thought provoking things I read here, and in that way it's sort of a beautiful thing; we can all play off each other, be inspired, and celebrate this thing we love together without all the anonymous nonsense that comes with less reasonable corners of the world wide web.

Karutomaru was a guy who didn't want any part of that. He was repeatedly nasty in both the way he communicated and in the ideas he shared, and after countless corrections, he was eventually banned. Now, he makes more work for the community team by constantly making new accounts through which to harass, and even made an account name called Anti-Dixon to passive aggressively jab at our community manager and beloved cock mongerer, Andy Dixon. All he cares about is trolling, but here's the thing; reacting in anger as some of us often do is not the right way to handle him. As a practical ghost here who is doing nothing but to create work for others, he doesn't deserve that much attention.

So from now and until the end of time, I will no longer be responding to, or acknowledging, either in comments or in my recaps, the existence of Karutomaru AKA Anti-Dixon, or whatever future name he chooses to use. He was banned for a reason, and is better off choosing a more appropriate venue. I just won't do it anymore. This is the last time, and if you too feel annoyed everytime you see him pop up, I suggest doing the same rather than the futile, aggressive approach which will continue to feed his ego.



I dunno. I actually feel kind of guilty doing this. It feels so exclusionary. And for the most part, this is a positive place to come and feel welcome, to write your heart out, and to involve yourself in one of the nicest, coolest communities on the internet. But it's the handling of the odd rotten apple that drops from the proverbial tree that makes that possible, even if it is occasionally a nasty experience. This member has no intention of listening to feedback, or ever becoming a real member of this community. He has demonstrated this many times before. I have made the mistake in the past of commenting on his posts, which is giving him the attention he so desperately seeks from us. That was a mistake.



No more mistakes.

To end on a lighter note, congratulations to Andy Dixon on his new broodling! Babies are fun, especially when they figure out that farts are funny. I fart in my daughters face all day, and she laughs every time. So all in all, we have a pretty healthy environment here, if you try not to think about all the baby pink eye going around.

* - glowbear writes about a game that is apparently a simulator of every tuesday night for me, ever.

* - This is an amazingly cool blog. I don't want to ruin it for you, but the pictures alone are worth the price of admission...which is free by the way.

* - Some really thought provoking points. Of course all are made moot by the fact that most girls aren't playing games because they're too busy MAKE SANDWICHES HAHA LOL. Just not for me, though. Because, you know, jaded mysoginistic douchebag asshole...they don't like that for some reason.

* - Super Metroid was, and still is, a really special experience.

A - pedrovay2003 has some concerns about the Wii U. So do I...I'm concerned it won't be in my house at Christmas time, and that I'll have to murder my family as a result of their incompetence.

A - Left 4 Dead 2 has been Left 4 Dead. My cousin is on Steam like, every other day playing it still. I feel left out for not having a chance to try it yet.

A - A primer for Guild Wars 2. Pretty helpful if you are into the lore and the story, but the nearly abysmal plot fails to outline any of it well enough for you.

I - Uh, I guess this is an introduction, at least as much as me crashing my car through the wall of my first AA meeting was while piss fucking wasted out of my mind. SillyReaper needs to elaborate and introduce herself next time, but for now, welcome to Dtoid.

T - I really hate these sorts of limitations. Competitive gamers should be allowed to be competitive, and synthetic limitations such as this are about as fun as having dinner at my house. You know, all the cat poop everywhere and you are trying to eat your meal and I'm staring at you with my lazy eye and rubbing your crotch with my foot under the table.

T - Nobody likes freemium games. Or they quickly like them and quickly move on when they laugh at the fact that Zynga wants them to pay for more water with real, humon money. EA gotsta reconize.

T - Elsa manages to do the fucking impossible and find a fun Kinect game. Activision manages to do the usually possible and fuck up Blops 2 on the PS3.

R - ctate95 shares a timely review of Red Dead Redemption, also known as "fuck why haven't I played that game yet?" in my house.

C - Copypasted from another blog site, this is a blog about which FPS was most popular on that ancient dying brick of a console from centuries past which few men yet remember.

C - Just some tips when writing new blogs here; make sure they are broken up a little more, and pictures are always nice. Z3R0GRAVITY1902 talks about Halo 4.

F - This is the last time for me. If someone else wants to recap this guys blogs, be my guest, but I won't have any part in acknowledging a phantom blogger who just won't disappear.

F - Okay I lied. THIS is the last time.



FPotD

It's that time of year again. The time when the leaves turn brown, the air gets chillier, and another Call of Duty releases and is challenged by another FPS upstart. Ironically, the challenger is the granddaddy of console FPS games, Halo.

It's been a vicious cycle for both games every time they come out. I'd play the game's campaign first, stay on its multiplayer for nearly a month, and that's when a final verdict comes out. Either I'd keep playing because it doesn't make me rage and it's fun or I shelf it permanently or worse, sell it and recoup the money. At least with good single-player games for me, I'd be inclined to replay them to relive that fun. But for a multiplayer game, it's not enough to design a game to be fun. It has to be balanced in a way that it doesn't make me rage.

My big gripe on Halo was that in head-to-head competition, there is a big focus on controlling power weapon spawns. You can do well with the basic marksmen weaponry like BRs or DMRs but get your hands on a shotgun and prowl around a high traffic area and you'll pull ahead. Really hardcore people can memorize weapon spawns after the initial spawns like a science. And it really grinds my gears when someone gets their hands on a sniper rifle or rocket launcher and throw the flow of the match in his favor. A display of skill? Sure. But memorizing weapon spawns in order to win isn't my idea of fun.

But it sounds like Halo 4 remedies this problem by dropping power weapons in with ordinance drops and highlighting it for everyone to see on their HUD. In addition to that, Dominion sounds like an expansion of Reach's big objective maps and the further away from direct power weapon control strategies, the more wacky and fun Halo becomes. Thrashing people in warthogs, smacking fools with the Oddball, and of course the good old fashion fun of Infection.



While Halo 4 had a small head start, Black Ops 2 releases to surprising scores. Jim fucking Sterling comments on the surprising open-endedness of the campaign. One thing I've always liked about CoD is that feeling of independence from the rest of the the game's mechanics. You pick a gun and it's your gun. You pick a loadout and it's your loadout. The only thing you need to worry about on the map are power positions like a particularly good overwatch or spawn controlling position. But you don't need to specifically worry about the guns your enemy is using. It will also be unique with it's own strengths and weaknesses, just like my own gun. Of course, there's always a gripe and mine for CoD is the feeling of being thrown into the grinder when someone gets on a snowball with their killstreaks. Think back to Modern Warfare 2 and how you'd get annihilated by a Predator Missile, respawn while the Pavelow is working your team over, and die over and over again as the AC-130 or Chopper Gunner tramples all over you repeatedly. This is before mentioning my own trouble at maintaining my own killstreaks when they're only awarded to you when you scores kills and not when you play the objective like Domination or CTF.

So Blops 2 remedies that with a method that has already been explored in other games: scorestreaks. This sounds like a great idea in theory. I mean, instead of relying solely on kills, you can also play the objective like capturing a Domination point. And if you defend it from an enemy while capturing it, then that means more points for your precious scorestreak. Of course, I haven't played either game yet, so I don't know how I'll personally fare in these new environments and it's just my luck that these games lock the multiplayer out of people who rent the games. I've seen google search results returning forum topics about how difficult it is to keep scorestreaks going.

I'm seriously considering Blops 2 though. It's something I'm familiar with. I was never fond of Halo's weapon spawns and Firefight is ok but not great but then there's Zombies for Blops in addition to what else I like about CoD. I mean, Halo has Infection, but it's just not the same as Zombies. It says something when I've played Mass Effect 3's multiplayer for so long and also enjoy CoD's long running Zombies series. I can always kick back onto something co-operative when I'm tired of getting facerolled by some obsessive 14-year-old who's ignoring his homework to build his clan rep.

On the Fapcast front, I basically spent all morning working towards building it up. So you know we have a twitter and maybe you know we have a web page. But did you know we also have a Facebook page? Or that we've been making strides (Striders?) towards getting on iTunes. I spent way too much time staring at html code in order to get our RSS feed up to snuff to submit to iTunes. To be perfectly clear, I hate html coding. It's long, prone to mistakes when you're not paying attention, and is just long strings of words that are supposed to mean something in computer language. I know html but just the amount of time spent on debugging html makes me reject the idea of learning more complex forms of coding like java or C++. Hell, CSS drives me up the wall as it is, so what's learning C++ supposed to be like?



So you know, don't be afraid to submit your feedback, regardless of whether it's good or bad. It's good to know something about all this work. And don't be afraid to share it around too. God, is this how Chris Antista feels?

* - Personally, I just like P Sinn's series on sucking at fighting games, now Virtua Fighter. Of course, jumping across several quickly is like jumping back and forth between a jacuzzi and cold pool every five minutes

* - Quest De Le Cartier 2013: La Femme de Metroid

* - Andy Dixon just had an Andy Dixon Jr. and that's no poop joke

* - Actually, mystakin's use of successive images probably took a lot of time and effort. And they effectively show us what he's talking about as he talks about They Bleed Pixels' teaching mechanisms

* - Gobbldigook's show on new comics of the week? If you like comics, it's worth a look. And be sure to check out New X-Men you plebs!

A - Coffee thoughts and stuff on the Wii U's weird launch campaign

A - Nekobun gives Halo 4 it's fair shake with what it tries to do to move into a new age of FPS

A - MWNN offers little credence to the idea of applying labels to people. There's always the idea that labels are just useful for organization of thought though...

A - Eye Divine takes us on an interesting trip through comic legal mumbo jumbo to explore how a Silver age prequel to Arkham City would be possible

A - OH NOES! Maxwell has a backlog! Whatever shall he do!?





I - Wrenchfarm, don't read Earthfield's introduction. It might get your blood up.

T - Andy is a lost and naive blogger with a love of GTA after an apology

T - Shadow ventures into Revelations 2012. The worst game ever or the best ironically hilarious game ever?

D - Jordan's extremely ambitious game idea for letting your app enabled device turn a walk in the park into a day of slaying dragons

T - Esteban wants Brothers in Arms in an HD rerelease. Sure, why not?





V - CountZero brings us part 3 of his Nintendo Power retrospective!

F - Google Chrome told me this was Indonesian

F - Why must Timesplitter be in fail? For shame Monkey News!

F - Everybody gets one chance to show off their stuff. Don't push it Jordan.


~ StriderHoang


FPotD