Merry Christmas For Real

You know what, enough of Santa Claus, the reindeer, the presents, etc.  Let's cut to the chase of why this holiday is as big as it is:

Luke 2:1-20:

In those days Caesar Augustus declared that everyone throughout the empire should be enrolled in the tax lists. This first enrollment occurred when Quirinius governed Syria. Everyone went to their own cities to be enrolled. Since Joseph belonged to David’s house and family line, he went up from the city of Nazareth in Galilee to David’s city, called Bethlehem, in Judea. He went to be enrolled together with Mary, who was promised to him in marriage and who was pregnant. While they were there, the time came for Mary to have her baby. She gave birth to her firstborn child, a son, wrapped him snugly, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the guestroom.

Nearby shepherds were living in the fields, guarding their sheep at night. The Lord’s angel stood before them, the Lord’s glory shone around them, and they were terrified.

The angel said, “Don’t be afraid! Look! I bring good news to you–wonderful, joyous news for all people. Your savior is born today in David’s city. He is Christ the Lord. This is a sign for you: you will find a newborn baby wrapped snugly and lying in a manger.” Suddenly a great assembly of the heavenly forces was with the angel praising God. They said, “Glory to God in heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors.”

When the angels returned to heaven, the shepherds said to each other, “Let’s go right now to Bethlehem and see what’s happened. Let’s confirm what the Lord has revealed to us.” They went quickly and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in the manger. When they saw this, they reported what they had been told about this child. Everyone who heard it was amazed at what the shepherds told them. Mary committed these things to memory and considered them carefully. The shepherds returned home, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen. Everything happened just as they had been told.


Starts out kind of lame, but it's Peanuts so yeah

And Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night...

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Also, not to steal from Jesus (that would be bad), but I also found this when looking for nativity pics:

I FOUND THE SOURCE, click here.

There's a Sonic picture for everything, I'm fairly sure.

Victory Road -- Free Daytona USA/Virtua Racing Indie Game

This most certainly isn't new, but if you have the time, check out this game.  I didn't make it, someone else did back in 2003.  It's free and it's not that bad for an entry-level video game design project...

http://www.victory-road.co.uk/

Click the link, then Get VR on the left, then the blue text that says "DOWNLOAD FULL GAME NOW!"  If you're using Vista/Win7, download the .dll patch too and extract it to your base folder.  Game works fine for me so I assume you can handle it.  Not that hard to install...I hope.

As for the game itself, it uses plenty of Daytona USA stuff, such as the car and the music.  The handling is similar to Virtua Racing in that turning causes you to drift, plus it uses the checkpoint music as well (TIME BOWNUS! *doodooteedoo*).  The Advanced and Expert courses are completely original and they're not that bad-looking...too bad you have to unlock them though (just win a race on the easiest difficulty, I think).

Oh yeah, you can also run over people and you hear this *blop* noise, lol it's stupid and incredibly non-violent.

Rockin Around The Christmas Tree

Alright, enough with the video game rants for a little while.  This one's about Christmas.  So we only have two days left.  So far, it's been rather uneventful.  Haven't really seen many Christmas lights.  The cold weather (which I actually like...I'd move up north if I ever got out of here) has gone.  Like you'd expect to see Christmas carolers, snow, shoppers with bags, Santa Claus imposters, candy canes, manger scenes, etc. but...not a whole lot going on.  Maybe because we're in a recession, people are less likely to go do stuff so I don't know.

So I decide to go run some errands which basically means spend a lot of money for myself.  Alright, we're at the mall again and there's quite a few people there, but I don't see traffic jams or congested parking lots, it's cool as usual.  So I take the time to play Crazy Taxi again and I only get two tries.  I up my best score to $7,700 with Gena which is good but I can do much better.  Just like Daytona USA 2, I have to play the heck out of it to learn the subtleties of it.  It's another self-taught thing.  You know what--I bet that the Crazy Taxi game will be taken away soon, just a hunch.  Not like I see anyone playing it, but since it's a lone cabinet off in the corner somewhere, they probably won't think of it.

Oh, and this is quite interesting.  I told you about the Help Wanted sign I saw before.  I was thinking about getting a job there just to make some extra money in a comfortable environment since I've got plenty of time on my hands now.  On this sign was a phone number to call to get information, presumably the owner's home phone number.  That sign has been up for a week and I've called that number ten times and left two messages with not a single reply.  Now the sign's gone.  What a bunch of idiots.  There's also a Help Wanted sign in Office Depot...giddy up folks.

Back on topic, the only Christmas-y thing that I've done so far is prod my family into taking a drive around some nearby neighborhood with all these Christmas lights.  There were some good houses with lots of stuff.  I also counted about ten inflatable snowball Santas...take a while ball and put the hat, face, arms, and beard on it.

Also, my younger brother knows some rather wealthy friends from his school and he got invited to a Christmas party...just kind of sucks that I haven't gone to any social events either.

So, uh, I enjoy this time of year since you don't have to go to school and you get to to crazy stuff.  I wish I could put off Christmas for some time, but no.  I expect to get a few gifts like the Rock Band Keyboard and a digital camera, but that stuff's not too important to me.  I want my family to be happy.

I also thought about giving you guys something...not sure what I can do though I may have something fortunate for those who read my blog.

Anyway, hope you guys have a good one for now.

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Super Terrific Bonanza: This is two years old.  In case you don't know, I live in southeast Louisiana.  It never snows here, but when it does, all hell breaks loose.  This was back in December 11, 2008 which is the day of that infamous Louisiana snowstorm.  I was driving to school to take an exam, but then it snowed on the way there and I started to take some shots on my cell phone.  Hey, I was stuck in traffic...I had time.  Check it out:

One of the best days of my life!

A Festivus For The Rest Of Us

If you know me, I'm a huge Seinfeld fan.  December 23 may be Christmas Eve's Eve, but no--it is indeed Festivus.  See here; too bad it's an abridged version:



"The Strike" Season 9 Ep. 10, first aired December 18, 1997.

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Now for my personal Airing of Grievances.  I'm exaggerating here BTW so don't cry about it:

Sega, you didn't make that new Daytona USA game and I'm pissed!  As a matter of fact, you've done little more than piss on our childhood dreams!  All you do is publish games and take credit for it--you don't develop them!  Stop making games about urinals!  Also, try to build upon your old Dreamcast games rather than release they hackneyed ports that disintegrate in the bowels of Xbox Live Marketplace!

Toshihiro Nagoshi, you bum, stop hitting up the bars and tanning booths and make some good old Sega games from the old days!  No more of this Yakuza or Binary Domain crap, give me something Daytona-related!

Sonic Team, thanks for stabbing the Sonic franchise with a rusty shank all this time!

Nintendo, you're overrated and no one has the guts to say it so I will!  The Wii is a shovelware receptacle hinging entirely on the likes of Zelda, Smash Bros., Mario Kart, and miscellaneous motion control games!  Also, I will never forgive you for making the bikes overpowered in Mario Kart Wii!

Microsoft, the Kinect is a piece of crap!  Also, your little Xbox Live Avatars are incredibly ugly and seeing them makes me want to puke!

GameFAQs, your site is a good source of user-submitted guides, cheat codes, and reviews, but the message boards stink!  Your moderators are crazy and so are your little user-contests!  The Best Game contests are also lousy cause I can't take this Final Fantasy or Zelda crap anymore!  I also don't like in that "Rate The Song" contest on the Rock Band 3 board you posters gave Werewolves of London, I Can See For Miles, Foolin', Good Vibrations, and Rock Lobster (yes) crap scores while you gave Beast and the Harlot a good score (click here)!

Kotaku, you're turning into the G4TV of gaming blogs!  Stop pissing me off with your mis-representation of racing games, the miscellaneous science stories, dumb random crap, and all those anime chick pinups!

G4TV and Spike, congratulations on making me feel embarrassed to be a gamer!  X-Play is trash, Attack of the Show is lame, and Code Monkeys is the kind of crap my obnoxious WoW-obsessed Mountain Dew-drinking "accomplice" would like!

Game Informer, I'll never forgive you for that old OutRun 2 review where you gave it a 6.5!  Your magazine sucks and I hope you fail!

Activision, you are an embarrassment to the gaming community!  The way you slash and burn game companies--you do not allow any room for creativity or innovation!  It's all about the money, isn't it?

Namco Arcade in the mall, I'll never forgive you for taking away that Daytona USA 2 cabinet, regardless of the logistics behind it!

Forza 3 and Turn 10, I'm pissed at how the PI ratings are so screwed up that I can't play it anymore!  Perfectly good game goes to waste and now I can't play it anymore!

World of Warcraft, you ruined gaming as we know it with its grinding gameplay, crap graphics in which all the characters look the same, and turning everyone I know into zombies who use nerdy lingo and don't shower!

Midway and Raw Thrills, you suck, end of story.

All you people who don't read my blog, you don't know what you're missing so shame on you!

...I lost my train of thought, that's the end for me, I'm through.

Motorstorm: Apocalype, Lawyers, Lots Of Stuff, I'm Cryin'

First, I'd like to say that I feel somewhat distraught by making quite a few negative posts lately, especially one aimed at Daytona USA 2001.  I don't know if anyone's interested in this stuff--I get very little feedback.  For one thing, it's more "fun" to write negative material than positive, hence why you have people like Angry Video Game Nerd and Maddox the Pirate who constantly rip things a new a-hole.

But the main reason I brought up Daytona USA is because I genuinely care about the franchise...I could treat it like Blur or Split/Second and just gash it and go away, but I really want it to be good so I tell whoever what can be done to make it better.  Like if you ever have children, you want to correct and discipline them because you care and want them to be good.  I guess I criticize the state of racing games for that very reason.  I just hate how so much energy is put into so much junk and whatnot...

That concludes this message.

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I talked about Motorstorm: Apocalypse a while back in my violent/depressing video game rant and well, it rears its ugly head again.  You want me to come on here and criticize it--well, let's take a look at this six minute video:



Found the video from this Joystiq article.

Ok, so you can drive monster trucks, dune buggies, muscle cars, sports cars, ATVs, chopper bikes, whatever.  You and your gang has fun driving around an abandoned city as you dodge falling buildings, derailed trains, and pits of boiling lava (I made up that last one).  So it's like the last Motorstorm--just drive around, don't die, take multiple paths to the exit.  Oh yeah, and there's a few military contractors in the city trying to mow you down.  So not only do you get to crash and burn but you also get to run over people.  Sounds great!

I can't help but think I'm watching Michael Bay: The Racing Game.  It's Split/Second's bastard child.  Yes, it's obvious that these people put a lot of time and effort into making sure the game's good, but I think they missed the point...

See, most every racing game is on some extreme.  You got games that are "boring old sim racers," like Gran Turismo, Forza, Test Drive Unlimited, iRacing, etc.  Then on the other spectrum, you've got "OCD-blow-up stuff-in-your-face-crap" like Burnout, Split/Second, Motorstorm...  It's like there's very few games in that medium.  That's where the good Sega racers are--not too over the top, but not boring.  They're professionally-made games.  I think Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit may fit in this category too, but since that was made by Criterion, I'm not too certain it what's I'm looking for.

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When in doubt, sue someone:

Harmonix (Rock Band dev) sues Viacom (ex-Rock Band publisher).
Infinity Ward sues Activision who sues Electronic Arts over Medal of Honor/Call of Duty.

I don't know about you, but I sure as hell wouldn't touch a big company like Activision or Viacom and expect to come out alive.  Hey, check this out.  New Call of Duty for 2011 announced.  This one's not by Infinity Ward (they're dead, remember?), it's by this new studio called Sledgehammer Games.  Who the hell is that?  Anyway, I really like Call of Duty, but it's going to get run into the ground eventually (if it hasn't already).  I'm really worried.  That and between Activision's habit of gashing game studios like that, I'd be afraid to work at Treyarch.  BTW, Black Ops just made $1 billion, so no, I don't think Activision will cut back in the slightest.  At leat the $15 DLC map packs will have four MP maps as opposed to three (including the obligatory zombie map).

Speaking of Activision, look at Guitar Hero (I'm jumping around a lot here).  Guess what--Guitar Hero is officially dead.  So while Rock Band gets gobs of DLC on a weekly basis, Guitar Hero gets like two or three songs a month.  And this month, Guitar Hero gets three Kiss songs, two that are playable in Rock Band (Detroit Rock City and Calling Dr. Love) and one in GH: Smash Hits (Rock and Roll All Nite).  So what's the point?  Combine that this year's GH: Warriors of Rock abysmal first month sales of 86,000 and there, it's dead.  Once again, Guitar Hero fanboys should thank Activision very much.

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I want to end this now, so I'm going to throw in three more quick links:

Gran Tursimo 5 Gets a 600mb Patch  - Adds some new features for online play such as stat tracking among others.  Hey, sounds great...waited all that time and they still need to fix it...doesn't sound good for Polyphony Digital.

Gears of War 3 Maps Will Be "Brighter" - Article goes on to say that the most popular GoW2 maps were the brightest and most colorful.  Hmm?  So people are getting tired of the grey, brown, and crimson red?  Now there is no 100% way to confirm that the color is the sole reason those maps are the most popular (it could be because those maps have better layouts, etc.) but still...cut the crap people.  We don't want to play this depressing garbage anymore.

Some Guy Talking About Sega Racing Classic - Old and nothing really new, but if you know little about this, read it.  Old Daytona USA cabinets needed to be repaired, some needing parts that aren't made anymore.  Daytona license costs too much.

The end.