Call Of Duty & GameFAQs...Two Of My Favorite Things

You know guys, I'm at home with my family.  I'm feeling pretty good right now.  Super Sprint online is coming along nicely though I still got a lot of work to do.  So I guess that's why I don't have a lot to say for now.

I want to make this brief about Sonic & Sega Racing 2.  It's good we got gobs of info on the game so quickly.  Nice to see the fanbase (albeit, a small one) hyped up about it.  I suggest, against all disdain I have against GameFAQs, to visit the Xbox 360 and PS3 boards and post, post, post.  EDIT: Actually, no, there's too many typical GFAQs trolls, just don't go there, it's radioactive.  Though most of the current hype is directed towards Skies of Arcadia hype which really isn't my forte so I'm gonna pass.  Though there's some beautiful course artwork worth checking out.

Also kind of miffed that every time I view Reddit Gaming EDIT: including Reddit Gamernews (I also love the rage comics), you see jack about anything Sega related...except for maybe Sonic.  They're obsessed with Half-Life 3, Skyrim, and Mass Effect (as is basically every other gamer I know IRL) so what else is new.  At least Kotaku & Joystiq will occasionally talk about Sega.  Man, if it weren't for hideouts like the OOA GameFAQs board or the Supermodel 3 forum to get my Sega fix, I think I'd snap and punch a baby.

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But heck, that's not the point right now.  About a day or two after Sonic & Sega Racing 2's announcement, guess what comes up...the announcement for Black Ops 2.  The dam exploded and thus the gaming world's next big thing is upon us.  If you really want to learn more about the game, check out the Giant Bomb article.  Basically, it's 2025 and it's human versus robots.  The game'll also have a branching single-player which sounds a heck of a lot better than Modern Warfare's crap campaigns.  And it'll have more multiplayer options, horses, slightly better graphics while maintaining 60 fps, yada yada yada.

Frankly, as far as I'm concerned, I barely acknowledge Modern Warfare 3's existence at this point.  I just jumped from Black Ops 1 to 2.  Modern Warfare 3 was lousy and unmemorable to me (IN MY OPINION GUYS) -- it's only purpose was to conclude the storyline with Soap & Captain Price as well as the new Survivor mode.

But about Black Ops 2.  I'm seeing so many ads and promos for this game which seems unprecedented in my lifetime.  So many ads for a game that's coming out in SIX MONTHS.  Clearly, Treyarch & Activision are looking to crack the 10 mil copies sold mark again, maybe 20 mil!  And this is where I get scared.  This isn't just a triple-A title--this is a quadruple-A title.  I'm terrified that that these big, bloated run-of-the-mill mass marketed games with hundreds, maybe thousands of employees will take over.  How many game designers does it take to screw in a lightbulb?  Well, thousands I guess, assuming it's a damn polished lightbulb that costs $25 mil to make.

EDIT: Was scanning through TV stations when I saw the Black Ops 2 trailer on E! News, a show about movies, TV, celebrities, music, etc.  You're kidding me, right?  The line between video games and movies is being blurred more and more each day.

And Call of Duty has basically divided the entire gaming culture--you either like it or despise it.  I think Call of Duty is good (but not great) fun but I can't take the massive amount of weight that boggs down on the game.  Despite my interest in Black Ops 1 (hell, I'm 15th prestige and it makes me ill), I can't see myself getting hyped for Black Ops 2 at all.  Maybe if it continues the zombie storyline but other than that, forget about it.  I'm starting to err in favor of smaller games that feels specifically tailored to me.  One can wish...

Seriously, I can't be arsed into commenting about Call of Duty anymore.  Everyone gets their own personal victory out of ripping it a new one even though it doesn't mean jack s*** in the big picture.  Game'll still sell billions of copies and permeate the culture.  Watch as Activision laughs their way to the bank.  If you don't want to play the game, just ignore it and live well since that is the best "revenge."  Oh well, tell me about Burnout, Split/Second, EA, GameFAQs...I can't help but to talk trash--it's in my DNA.

Meh, I still wish we'd get a TimeSplitters 4 although Crytek (wait, where's Free Radical???) has squashed all rumours that have been floating around in recent times.  I'm pissed.

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Now, about GameFAQs again.  This site sucks but on occasion, it does one or two things right.  There's one stellar Top 10 that's entitled "Top 10 Skeletons in Sega's Closet."  It mentions 10 games that Sega should've released with the #1 being a certain Yu Suzuki adventure game we all know too well.  Also takes pokes at Nintendo, hahaha.  But it's very comprehensive and deep so if you're curious, I highly recommend it.  Though I would've put Scud Race/Daytona USA 2 ports somewhere on that list cause I'm biased, lol.

But that's all the good I've seen thus far--now onto the bad.  First of all, these GameFAQs Private Message Board contests are getting way out of hand.  First, the barrier of entry was to make a good YouTube movie or picture and hope it gets chosen by some secret cabal (I ranted about this before).  Now it's simply "post on Twitter and a random person will be picked."  They're like t-shirts shot out of the cannon at sporting events--they mean nothing anymore.

Also, another thing, and this has to do with another fun contest that GameFAQs puts on.  GFAQs will do these "Name That Tune" contests in which a bunch of vidya game songs are posted and users have to submit a list of games that these songs are from.  Get the most answers right and win some free karma.  Who cares.

But anyway, May's list happens to be game over tunes (I'm not even gonna bother embedding this).  What, you couldn't include Sega Rally or Daytona USA?  Come on man, those are classic.  The list includes throwaway answers like Mario, Zelda, and Sonic so why leave it out?  Throw me the Sega diehards a bone for once.  The rest of the list surely includes a bunch of Square, Capcom, and Sony games so big shocker there.  I know this is a petty complaint but I can't miss the chance to know GameFAQs down a peg and feel that certain self-gratification that means nothing to everyone else.

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Anyway, this is one of the few posts in a long, long time in which I haven't used pictures or embedded YT vids.  This streak must outlast Dale Jr's losing streak so here's a picture of angry Glaceon which sums up my opinion on everything:

zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcba man that was hard

My Hurricane Katrina Experience (Six Years Ago)

Hey, be sure to read the slight updates in the VF/Zombies/EA post!!!  That's all, rofl....Now for

Now for serious issues.  This recent 5.8 earthquake in Virginia (and all the East Coast) wasn't bad...heck, the kids at the Little League World Series were playing through it, having fun which is good.  However this Hurricane Irene moving up the East Coast could cause some serious trouble...much more than that earthquake.  Please try to stay safe whatever you do.

Soooo....I did have my own little hurricane experience.  I was in Pearl River, Louisiana when Hurricane Katrina made landfall on August 29, 2005 (it's nearly the 6-year anniversary, close enough).  And then for the next four months, all hell broke loose.  I was a 17-year-old Senior at the time, but I didn't go back to school for about two months.  Gee whiz.

During that time, I had a laptop, a LiveJournal account (yes that's true but it's deleted now), and the obscene habit of rambling about everyday things.  One problem--NO INTERNET FOR MONTHS.  So I wrote journal entries of my observations and saved them to be posted later.  I've concluded that not all of these were written the exact day I observed them, but they're pretty damn close to when it happened.

The thing is, I forgot to post them...until I found them recently in a Wordpad file buried in my My Documents folder.  Please note that I wrote about more than the trials & tribulations of the hurricane but also about video games & stuff.  You see I talked about Daytona USA, Counter-Strike maps (click here to see what I was talking about), Advance Wars, all that nonsense SIX YEARS AGO.  So I haven't changed much.  I added a few little heads-up in bold italics to help clarify stuff.  This whole thing may be garblish for some of you but what else can I say...these were very hasty posts so I wasn't going for a Pulitzer's Prize here, heh.  Click the jump if you want to read more...

Disney World Trip Day 2 Pics (Thursday)

I greatly apologize for not posting this sooner.  Just getting all the pics sorted out was a pain as it is.  Let's recap the trip before I forget.  BTW, these are pics from my March '11 family vacation.


Day 1 (Wednesday)


WEDNESDAY (NIGHT):

I forgot to mention this part from the previous entry.  When we left Magic Kingdom, we tried to get into Epcot just to check it out.  We rode the monorail over and unfortunately, the Disney pass will only allow you in one park a day.  So we left Epcot and went to Disney Downtown when it started to rain and ducked into this restaurant called Wolfgang Puck's (not making this up).  Then we ate there and went back to our cabin in Fort Wilderness.

THURSDAY, MARCH 10:

We're all going to Epcot which I was stoked for.

It's the Epcot Center!  It's called Spaceship Earth.  It's supposed to be a ride but screw it--we didn't ride it cause it sucks.

 Here is another pic of Spaceship Earth with big plaques with tiny names of people.

Lucky for us it was HGTV's Floral Month or something so there's grass statues of everything.  Here's Lotso the Bear from Toy Story 3.  SPOILER: Lotso is an a**hole, go to Hell Lotso, no one loves you.

Oooo look, it's Mickey Mouse!!!

It's Lightning McQueen!!!

We are in the Land of Tomorrow, not to be confused with Magic Kingdom's Tomorrowland.  This future land makes Tomorrowland look like The Jetsons.  WHY AREN'T ALL THE BUILDING HERE MADE OF CHROME, DAMMIT!!??

Here is the monorail zipping above us!  At 40 mph (64 kph), not very futuristic if you ask me.

This is a nice flower bed you could see while riding the monorail.  Freakin sweet.

It's the water-spitting things I remember a long time ago!  They are not as impressive as before--they spray randomly with not much accuracy--they don't hit the same exact spot always and it wasn't windy.

Nice friggin fountain.

We're now entering this mall called The Land.  This has to be the best name ever conceived.  Really, we're on land, it makes perfect sense.

Actually, I don't think there was much to do in here except stop at a few restaurants or go on a few rides.  But it looks big and impressive, I admit.

Inside The Land, we went on this one ride called Soarin'.  You walk down these long-ass hallways until David Puddy tells you to fasten your seat-a-belt and you watch a 5-minute IMAX aerial video while this machine lifts you slightly into the air.  Sounds great.

Ok, we get it, Land of Tomorrow is great, but what else is there?  Well, there's the World Showcase.  I had no idea how interesting this place was because there's a couple of acres room displaying the intricacies of a bunch of countries.  This includes buildings, restaurants, stores, and even employees from said country working there.  So it's like you're actually in another country, I guess.  Let's check it out.

Okay, let's start with Canada, eh.

Martin Short?  But I thought he wanted to go to Dinosaur World!!!

A little concert stage in Canada.  I presume they play Rush concerts every hour on the hour.  Otherwise, what else could there be...Dudley Do-Right routines?

This is the United Kingdom.  My mom is so fascinated with anything UK-related that it's ridonkulous.

A flower garden.  We would revisit this place later since we're were haulin' ass through the whole place.

It's the crocodile from Peter Pan with two birds walking by.  Perfect picture!!!

Now here's France.  Boooooooring cause you can't walk by the fake Eiffel Tower.  And it's nothing but expensive restaurants and perfume stores.  No thanks.

A closer picture of France.

Now we're in Morocco.  This is the token Arabic country.  Unfortunately, not much to do here either.

YES, we made it to Japan!!  LOL, I just turned into a weaboo.  I'm just joking.

Another pic of Japan; I would come back here later.

 Another cool Japanese picture.

Now we're in America.  Somehow, the Philadelphia State Hall comes to mind.  This is where foreigners come to learn about the Founding Fathers, the Constitution of the United States, GOD, GUNS, GUTS, AND WIDE OPEN SPACES!!!

 As we're walking, we pass by a miniature train village.  I love stuff like this.

GET ALONG LITTLE DOGGIE!!

We're walking somewhere.  I think this is Germany.

Yes, we're in Germany.  This must be where the fat bratwurst-eating kids go.  This is where I go to honor my white German heritage...as does 50% of all Americans belong, I'm so special.

If you go in the gift shop and pull a secret lever behind in the beer mug shelf, you'll discover a secret rave club gettin down to the house music.  We're all living in America, Coca-Cola, Wonderbra...

This is Italy.  Italy sucks cause it looks like Spain.  Italy also sucks cause there's no Ferrari museum.  And I don't want to eat pizza and spaghetti so screw it.

Look, it's Lady and the Tramp, lol!!!

And we're in China which I always thought was neat.  It doesn't have the video games that Japan does, but we still love it anyway!!!  Fortunately, no Tienanmen Square/Communist tank replicas.

This is Norway.  I'm not terribly interested in Scandinavia & vikings in general so there wasn't much to do here.

And this is the last country on the list, Mexico.  Finally, we stop and eat some overpriced tacos.  If you go inside this pyramid, you enter some Maxican villa/marketplace

At this point, I think our family decided to split up into pieces and just walk which way.  All I know is that I went back to Japan to check out the store.

Wow, holy s***, I gotta tell ya I was a bit stoked to come here.  OMG, Pokemon toys, Naruto t-shirts, Hello Kitty stuff, WWWEEEEEE!!!!

Up until this point, I hadn't by anything with my money.  So I saw all those Pokemon plushies and started grabbing some of them.  Okay, so I kind of do like Pokemon, but not THAT much (I haven't played any Pokemon games besides Red/Blue).  So I get a couple of Pokemon--Snivy, Palkia, Ho-oh, and some other guys.   Then I looked for Sega-related stuff.  There was just a few Sonic-related items so I grabbed a hat.  As I take this to the cash register, the young man behind me made an interesting comment:

GUY: You've got good taste there, my friend.

ME: Ehh, not enough Sega stuff here.

GUY: I hear you.  You like Pokemon?

ME: Not that much.  I figured I'm not going have the chance to buy these Pokemon toys in a long time.

GUY: Yes, I got the new Pokemon Black/White, etc. blahblahblah I forgot....

I think I could've talked more, but I don't know...I was just buying a bunch of Pokemon toys, I felt like a bit of a loser.  The nice Japanese lady at the register said thank you and bowed for me so I bowed back...yeah, better get used to hanging out with actual Japanese people if I want to chill with Yu Suzuki and make the new Daytona game.

But this store didn't carry just anime stuff, it also had samurai swords!  I have no interest in swords, just gimme a gun or a ballistic knife or something.

I scoured the rest of the store looking for anything else Sega-related but there was nothing...you can buy more t-shirts, kimonos, mats...uh, and some pocky.  Hey, I'll just stick with the Milky Way bars.

So I'm hopping from country to country with my dad and we stop by the Chinese museum...wow, the Terracotta army...this place is both FUN and EDUCATIONAL!!

Then we go back to Germany and look at the shot glasses they had there.  Wow, they had a lot of shot glasses (no pictures, sorry).

We go into the Mexican pyramid and here's an entire village of Mexican stuff.  Arriba, arriba, andalay!!  Jump da border!!  Via con Dios.

BUT WAIT, THERE'S EVEN MORE!!  There's another cool ride in Epcot called the Test Track.  Okay, now you know anything car-related makes me giddy.  Let's go check it out.

This is the entrance to the Test Track, brought to you by Government Motors (GM)!

You get inside and it's like a crash test facility.  Only instead of test dummies, they use real people, I think.

After we're taken into a room and forced to watch a video of some clipboard guy who'll subject your car to grueling test, you get in the six-seater car.  What a lame-ass car.  No steering wheels to hold on to.  Hardass plastic seats.  If this is the car of the future, I'm gonna be pissed.

We're in the car and we're ready to roll!

This is the last picture I got with my camera before I flew out and beaned an unsuspecting ride attendant in the face.  JK.  This is the ride on YouTube (not my video):

You go at 70 mph (113 kph) for about ten seconds at the end, making it the fastest ride in Disney World, apparently.  Lame, I wanted to ride in a stock car at 180+ mph.  I mean, I drive 70 mph on the highway, the only difference here is that I'm on rails and there's no car roof.  Didn't change the fact that it was fun.

After the ride, you're deposited into this Shameless GM Self-Promotion Room with fuel cell cars!  Yes!

A Camaro, NICE.

I don't know what car this is but it looks hella cool.

Damn, look at all these cars, just like freakin Gran Turismo...

Before you leave, you have to check out the 9 pm fireworks show.  There's a big lake that all the countries border.  All this crap blows up in this island out there.  Terrorist attack in Disney World!!!

And then out comes this illuminated globe.  Apparently in praise of the United Nations which hasn't done anything to change the fact that more than half of the world's countries are totalitarian hellholes.  WTG, Disney.

And then there's an assload of fireworks.

Then we go back to our little Fort Wilderness cabin.  The end, will post Friday/Saturday real soon.