Funny live stuff

I have been playing on x-box live for a while now, and I have had some funny stuff happen happen. I just thought I would post them. Enjoy!

Kid(in a high pitched voice): Mom!!! make me some chocolate milk!!! Now!!! And the hot kind!!! NO!!! You make it!!!

Me: Um... how old are you?

Kid: 21.

Another time, I joined a game. My dog started barking, and the sound came close to the mike. The end result was that everybody in the game slightly heard my dog barking. For some reason, at that precise moment, everybody(seven other people) began screaming at me to shut up as loud and hight-pitched(everbody in that game was 5) as possible. Then i got booted and everbody filed complaints against me. Go figure.

Perhaps the funniest moments happen right when you join. So I join a 5/8 game, and one guy starts telling everybody( The game was Gears of War) that they should play this round without any violence. He did it in the round after that, the one after that, and the one after that.

but the funniest one's are the insults:
I am coming through the internet and out your mike to slap you really really hard!!!
I will eat you if you take my sniper!!!
Im gonna fart through the mike!!!
Shut up!!! Wait, who am I angry at?
You stupid lancer noob!!!(next round) You stupid shotgun noob!!!(next round)!!!(talknig to the host) You stupid weapon noob!!!
You stupip oob!!!( Not a typo. Some kid actually said that)

If I think of somemore, I will edit this post.

XIII first impressions

The first thing you will notice about XIII is the art style. It look's like a graphic novel,complete with little pop up windows and BLAM BLAM sound effects when guns are fired. They look a bit too rendered to really blow you away,but they are pretty nice. So XIII is an fps where your character plays an amnesiac assasin like ex-military thing. I'm not really far enough into the game to know what exactly he do's, be he seems to be ex-military. The basic gameplay is fine, even adding innovations into the mix. Your character can pick up chairs,broken glass, and bottles and use them to knock out enemies. It also adds a certain rpg-like stlye of play to the mix, with your character picking locks and healing himself through a somewhat easy to use menu.

One of the other things I noticed was just how real the gunfights felt. Some of them will really feel real, and you will end up playing exactly like you would in real life. One of the best examples of this is when your character get's in a room that cna't be forced open, and some enemies try to kill him. In a cutscene, they come and open fire on the glass windows to the room, but they are bulletproof. The cutscene ens, and they run off. I expect them to open the door and get a chair to use as a weapon, but no one comes. I equip my machine gun and run outside of the room. Immediatly I was cought in crossfire, and was taknig hit's from everywhere. I kill one of the gaurds with the gun, and run around and flank the other gaurd. In mot games, I would have just shot them both. But XIII has hit a sweet spot in the health. You will have to take cover, but not exxeecsively. If a gaurd manages to unload a clip on you, a qaurter or more of your health is gone.

And while I play XII, I realize that it only cost 4 bucks. And this is the bargain of the century.

Mlb slugfest:2004 first impressions

I'm no Baseball fan. I never really learned that much about the rules, and I never cared for it. So, I was confused as heck when I popped this game into my 360's drive(it's a backwards compatible game), as there was no tutorial. I hit the quick start button,picked a team, and went onto the field to play. I got struck out once, and had the other two out's when they caught my hits.

I had no idea what the heck the controls where,how to start a season, and how to do anything else. And, while I hope that these initial impressions are not my entire experience with this game, it's probaly gonna be like that. It seems like they wan't you to read the entire manual just to start. I wonder what the developers were thinknig when they decided not to include a tutorial. It was probaly somethnig along these lines"Who needs a tutorial? Everyone knows how to play baseball!" And while that may be true, you need a tutorial for the controls. They have got a billion control schemes and layouts in the manual, but who's gonna read that? I did, but still had no idea what the hell was going on.

I think I can fairly say that sums up my experience with Slugfest:2004 until now.

Bargain Bin

Just looking in my game store recently, and I went by the bargain bin. A TON of good games there for around 10 bucks. Sometimes, you can find some GREAT unkown games there. I,on that particular trip, got Circus Maximus, Medal of Honor: Frontline and Slugfest 2004 for 10 bucks.
And while I would not say that any of these deserve 10 out of 10 scores, they are pretty good. Definetly worth the money. So the next time your in a game store(or any store) check the bargain bin. You never know what you might find.

Super Smash bros reveiw

When I got a game cube, I had this game. I still played it a year after that.And the year after that. And I still play it now. It takes a rare kind of game for me to play it that long( The only other game that that replay value was Gears.). And that's exactly what Smash bros is. Not only is it of a dying genre on consoles, it's also nearly perfect in it's own right.

What makes Smash bros special is that it takes many elements and executes them nearly perfectly. Your chosen character fights in one of many arenas, each with it's own unique style( not many simple retexturings here folks- almost everything is original) and wins it by killing the most enemies. You kill a hostile by smashing him to point where he flys off the map, resulting in a spectacular beam of light shooting up from where he died.

How do you hurt enemies? Your warrior has attacks in every direction, executed by hitting A button( not any button. Only the A button on the controller. Its for the game cube) and a direction on the analog stick. It's not quite perfect, but it's easy to use. Your character performs more powerful moves,usually ranged or something different then a melee, by hitting B button and an analog direction. you can use more melee attacks with z stick, and once you master these, you have nearly mastered the game. Combine these moves with a z button grab, and you have a fairly polished fighting system.

But all the fighting system polish in the world could not save a game from mediocrity by itself.
And this is where Smash bros suceeds even more. Everything about the game is polished to the point where the world shines on the disc. You have many unique maps, a TON of characters, and a lot of different items and game modes that add a level of randomness to the game.
All in all, 9.5 out of 10.

New releases

I just wanted to inform you on some of the new releases that are coming out soon. I am using the site gamespot for this information, so you can get some more info on these games at that site:
(note: None of this stuuf is final. I have not even played most of the games here. So place one big IMO over this)
New releases:
Dirt
This offroad racer seems to be pretty good judjing from the demo, and early word from magazines seems to be pretty good. This could be a rental for any race game fanatics, and could quickly turn into a purchase.
Release date: June 19th,2007.

Band of bugs:
I don't know that much about this title. It seems to be a strategy game featuring...bugs? Know THIS is creative. It features a level editor, and I might buy this title( or at least get the demo) as I have a longing for strategy games as of late. You might see a reveiw here.
Release date: June 20th,2007

Transformers
Finaly, a licensed game that won't suck(sorry ridick!)! At leats not too much. It do'snt look like transformers will blow anyone away, but it seems to be solid in it's own right. I have not done a ton of research, but thats my impression of it.
Release date: June 26,2007

Hour of Victory
Unless this games core gameplay has changed since the demo, then this game is still pretty screwed up. While the gameplay do's not seem to have that much wrong with it, it's just not fun. Don't know why. Maybe it's just that everything needs mroe polish. I have no idea. Just,for your own sake, stay as far,far away from this miserable corpse of a game as possible.
Rlease date: Why would you want to know? Your not considering getting it, are you?

Overlord
Alas, the news is not all bad. This game lets you slip into armor of a Sauron like overlord. You control minions and direct them into combat. They will collect loot, and your character can gain spells. For more info on this promising gme, check my preveiw.
Release date: June 26,2007.

The Darkness:
Another good game, the Darkness sems to be pretty promising. You control darklings and send them after enemies. They will thne proceed to kill htme in gruesome ways. You then must recharge your powers by staying in the darkness. This game looks pretty good, and I may get some more info on it soon.
Release date: June 25,2007.

Not that much else, besides Rattatoulie, Bomberman,Carcasserone, Harry Potter, and The Bigs. Then you have got Kingdom under fire, but nata after that.

Half life two: The orange box preveiw

For those of you who beat Half life 2, don't worry. This orange box holds plenty more content. It's got portal,episode 1,episode 2, Team fortress 2, and not to mention an improved version of Half life 2. For those of you who are unacquainted with Half life, you can find some reviews of that game in my archives. In order to properly examine each of these game's, I will give each one it's own paragraph

Portal: Well, this game is certainly unique. it revolves around the concept of setting portals. Once a portal is dropped, you need to set another one. Anything that go's through the first one will emerge from the second one. And this concept, while deceptively simple, has many layers of complexity. While this game is a puzzler and is radically different then the rest of the Half lfie series, Valve has confirmed that the game will tie into the Half life plot.

Episode 1: While I have not experienced this game yet, I have heard positive things about it from many sources. It do's not seem to differ from the standard Half life formula much. And while this game is out(It's an expansion pack, I have not played it cause my computer is crammed full of !@#$) it will make it's first appearance on console with this release.

Episode 2: Not that much is know about this episode, but it seems that it will feature more antlions(crap,those sections were wicked hard) and more vechicles.

Team fortress 2: This seems to be the only game here that has nothing whatsoever to do with half life. It's a team based, battelfield style - fps. One of the most interesting things about this game is the art style. It proves that you don't need fancy shmancy hdr and hd effects to have kick a major amount of ass.

Serious Sam: The next encounter

Well this game is a blast from the past. Well, not just a blast. It hit hit me with a fair amount of laser beams, Uzi shots, and an overwhelming amount of hit from double dessert eagles. This game is,like Overlord, one of those games that's really gonna make you laugh. From over sized ants to... well who knows what the heck I just shot?

Lemme tell you a bit more about this game. It's a standard fps. You get a gun and some ammo and shoot,laser blast, or chainsaw anything that moves. Then you get another gun( usually a shotgun) and repeat. While this formula always provides some fun, it will run thin after a while. So most fps's will implement something unusual. In the case of serious Sam it's over the top comedy. The gun's are ridiculous, just like the enemy's. Your characters lines are ridiculous. And if I go on like this, I wail l end up calling everything about the game ridiculous.

Which would be entirely true. And it's this " its just for fun" element that really gives serious Sam it's edge. And,while this edge may not make you overlook every one of this games flaws, it will definitely keep me playing for pretty long.

And while speaking of these flaws, Serious Sam has plenty. Repetitive level design washed down by the same shooting formula sop the list. But once you get past these flaws, you will really start to enjoy this game. I did.

Note: I wrote this reveiw for the gmecube version of the game. Im not sure if it's on any other consoles. But the games should be same.

7 out of 10.

glitches

I have seen too many multiplayer games ruined by glitching to sit down any longer. I simply can't stand when some moron with no skill thinks " if it's in the game, it's not cheating" and do's some glitches to make up for his lack of skill. It do's not matter if it's in the game, it's been confirmed by most developers that it's cheating!!! I don't mind it in private or custom game's, but doing it in ranked is just wrong.

Lets say your playing a ranked fps onlie. You see someone running towards you, faster then he should be and think " Uh oh. he has the speed boost power up." But then you remember that it only lasts thirty seonds. You hide in a corner and follow him. After thirty seonds, you fire on him with a shottie to the back. This should kill anything. But no. Since this guy is using some glitches, you can't hurt him. Then you think your lagging, and that was just an isolated glitch. You point blank him again, but the shot go's vright through him without doing anything. Then he turns around and kills you with a psitol with one shot. This is due to glitching.


I thought glitching would become impssoible to do with the rise of patches, but it seems that publishers are more content with shippnig woefully incomplete game's and maknig you pay for stuff that should have been in the game to start with. You sit down and game with the expectaitons of having a fun time,right? Well that's next to impossible when some imbecile with a pistol and unlimited invincability kills you with one shot that didnt even hit you.

Great illustrated classics: war of the Worlds book reveiw.

This book caused a pretty big inicident when the author read it over the radio to the entire nation. See, this book is so good, most people thought it was real and panicked over nothing. The characters and events in the book were so plausible that even normally calm people got scared. Now, it takes a rare kind of book to do that. H.G. Wells made so many realistic characters, and his places seemed so real, that, after reading this book, you may panick as well.

Wells leads a normal enough life, until he spot's mysterious bursts of flame coming from mars. These bursts turn out to be canisters. One lands in a park nearby him, and it's hollow. When the top starts to unscrew, people begin to worry. Sure enough, martians are inside. Everybody scrambles out the way, but it's not quick enough. Martians fry everybody. Our hero barely makes it out alive.

And while that quickly sums up the first 50 pages or so, there is much more to be said for this book. It also start's to follow his cousin, which is very cool. And while I'm not going to spoil anything more(what I told you come's in the book early), you can be assured that War of the Worlds is that kind of book that your really going to enjoy. 10 out of 10.

Noobs

I, as many of you people know, play Gears of War pretty much daily. But I have as yet to collect many of the acheivements. Recnetly I picked a random ahceivment of the list and went for it. It happended to be the " kill 100 hundred enemies with the pistol in ranked matches. I wnet into my first match thinking" This is gonna be easy. It will take a while, but it will be easy." How wrong I was.

In that first, 1 quarter of the players quit in the first 3 rounds, another quarter would steal my kills, and EVERYBODY went for a certain weapon. We had an extremely good sniper on our team, and this one noob gonig for the sniper acheivement kept stealing it, eventually costing us the match.So I thought" Maybe this was just a match with more bad eggs then ussual." Once again, I was dead wrong.

The next match went a little better, with less weapon stealnig then the first. The match tied out because EVERYBODY on the other team quit. At this point, I was just getting pised off.I still had a shred of hope in me, so I joined another match. Everything seemd to be fine( No high pitched voices screaming for the torque bow) until one team member follows me around with the lancer. The weapon I was using at the time was the pistol, which is incapable of killnig someone outright. It could only down them, leaving them to be finished with a melee or three mroe shots.

It was rather hard getting kills with the pistol. The teamate that was following me around finished off my kills, maknig it impossible for me to do anything. I left him some negative feedback and continued playing. Since I hapen to be able to play nice, when ever my team outnumbers the opposition two to one, I quit to even it out. I left that match due to the fact that, yes, the other team was grossly outnumbered. Now I was about to throw my controller dwon in disgust. But instead of that, I ran over to this computer and wrote this.

Have you had any bad experiences with other people on live? This blog allows annoymous comments, so post em.

OverLord preview

The way I see it, there are three types of games. There are dark and serious ones,
like Gears and Prey. And then you have one's that are not overly serious, nor are they overly comedic. These tpyes of games, like Super Smash Bros and Mario, are mostly from Nintendo and sometimes other publishers. The third type of game is not serious in any way, and it go's out of it's way to openly mock it's subject matter. This is the catergory Overlord falls into. And, while I have n ot played the finished product, I really like the vibe it's going for.

From the opening scene ( in the demo. I have only played the demo, and that is what this preview is for) where you are being vicously dug out of the ground, exactly like Lurts or whatever his name is from the Lord of the Rings. While you are being dug out, it feels really cool, until one of the goblins- I thinmk they are goblins, could be demons- says" put some acid in his eyes, that will clear um up". And it's from that point on that you know that this game is going to be really,really,fun.

You are introduced to the game by a wise-goblin, and he shows you the controls and so on. The controls are very good, and I really felt like I was in control of my hore of things. You can send your goblins to any point with the right trigger( this game is for the 360) and then you can sweep them with the right thumbstick. You cast spells with x and make your character attack with a. You can lock on with left trigger.

One of the innovations of next gen gaming has been moral choices. They litterally beat you over the head with them in spinter cell: double agent. They are a bit more subtle in bioshock and oblivion. Overlord features it's own moral choices: You can be evil. Or you can be extremely evil. If you choose to be just plain old evil, you will walk along the countryside, gently beating the living daylights out of anything that looks at you.

If you choose to be really,really sinister and devious,not to mention evil, you should employ a more long term plan. I think your goblin advisor say's it best, so I will qoute him:" A good evil empire needs citizens. More specifically, LIVING citzens." So you have to get on the good side of everyone you meet. And only then can you gain absolute power!!!

New features

You may have noticed some new features on Tgh (tgh=the homeschooling gamer). Particularly, some polls, a new greeting feature, a chatterbox, and some other stuff. This content was made using html, which I am learning. About the chatterbox. It has some adds, which I can't disable without killing the chatterbox. So don't click on them, I have no say on them, and they may lead to objectionable content. I am currently looking for an ad free version.

I have also added a hit counter. Once again, this has an ad.Nothing bad on the site it leads to, it's a link to get a free hit counter. I also added vid of the day. Now, I did not make those videos, and as such, have no control over them. I may post some videos that have rap songs on them, but I will try not. Just be ready to kill the volume if a video has qeustinable M games, be ready to exit the video.

There are also some newly added polls. These will change out nlow and then, but I can only make 20. So you may see the same polls if you read this site reguarly. That about covers it for now. Just remember, while I will try not post things that are innapropiate, they may work there way onto this blog. I will delete anything that I find overly obscene though.

Good games

I have been surfing the net way longer then I have been blogging and as such I know some really good games on it. Here are just some of the cream of the crop:

Tabletop Defense
http://www.handdrawngames.com/DesktopTD/
This is a real fun and addictive game. You have to build towers to defend your desktop from creeps, which are just little dots with smiley faces on them. You have several types of towers at your disposal, and many of them are imaginative. But for thouse of you with little time on your hands,beware! This game crack into that just one more game mentality, and you can't save!

Dofus
Just google Dofus.
Besides having a stupid name, this mmorpg has many other distinctive features. You get partys, buy gear, collect loot, and level up. And while it may not be the most original game ever, it is worth a look.Note: You will have to download some files before playing, so clear up some harddrive space.

Runescape
www.runescape.com
This game, while not too good, is a good introductory rpg. If you like this style of play, you will love Dofus.

Stinkoman
www.homestarrunner.com
Oh man is this game fun. It openly spoofs Mega-Man, with bad translations, funny cutscenes and enemys all while being 10 times better then the Mega-Man series. Like, seriously.

the homeschoooing gamers

Starting today, I am inviting several more Homeschoolers to post on my blog. I have also changed the name of the blog to The Homeschoolnig gamers from The Homeschoolnig gamer. Also, this site is the number 1 hit on google if you search for the homeschooling gamers.

Murphys law

Anything that can go wrong will . This is Murphys law. And, as I just found out in a play, it is 100 percent true. Now, this play had been practiced and rehearsed again and again. Besides a couple of line fumbles, not much had gone wrong. But, come opening night, Murphys law came true. Now let me explain what this play is all about. It is a play about Nick and Tickle, and they are detectives. Someone is stealing vital objects from many fairy tales. I know this is a silly premise, but it's a comedic play, not something even remotely serious. so anyway, my parts in the play are as following:

Jack, from Jack and the beanstalk.
Woody, a depressed tree.
And Father Bear, from Goldilocks.

So anyway, Here is just a list of some of the stuff that went wrong:

Screw up 1: My cue to go on as Woody is for Nick to finish a big monologue he has. Someone told the baby birds to go on, and they stumbled through the curtain way before the monolugue even started.

Screw up 2: My Woody costume. it was extremely floppy, so the top part continusly fell down. That, plus It was immpossible to stand up once it was used.

Screw up 3: The birds. Now, as Woody, I had several baby birds ( the younger actors) at my feet throughout the performance. Now, the bird parts were miniscule. So miniscule, they could be learned in 10 minutes if needed. It was due to this that all the actors that were birds kept putting off learing the birds part until the opening night came around. In order to make up for this, I had to study the parts of the script they should have known while backstage. Then, to get them to remember their cues, I told them that I would prod one of them with my foot when they missed a cue. And while this sounded pretty cheesy, it turned out to be REALLy funny, seeing a foot fly out and kick a baby bird.

Now, while there are many more mess ups in the play, none of them were as major as those ones. I have had other experiences like these ones, in fact far too many to count. So, the next time you are doing soemthing critical, remember: Anything that can go wrong will.

Pokemon Pearl reveiw

Note: This should cover Diamond, as they are pretty much the same.

My thumb hurts. Not because of natural causes, not because I hit it with a hammer repeatidly yesterday, not because I am typing this. It hurt's cause I scrolled through a tidal wave of text while playing my copy of Pokemon: Pearl. Like, half the time you play that game is spent hitting the a button. Not to say Pokemon Pearl sucks, but that particular button is useed far too much.

Pokeomn Pearl ahs good parts and bad parts, and it switches between these quite frequently. One second you will be runnig along enjoying yourself, and the next you will be uttering things that I cannot and will not utter here. Usually this is because of the fact that the weakness and resistance systen is never very clear, and some pokemon, while appearing to be quite strong, are actually useless peices of dirt.

Then that useless pokemon will evolve into something unimagibly powerful. Like, into a slightly bigger form of it's self. of course, it will learn some good moves, and it will be overpowered till it gets nerfed again. Besides the rapidly changing level of enjoyment, Pokemon Pearl is remarkably similair to ruby and saphire. The layout is basicly the same- who am I kidding , it's the same thing. The teams behave the same way, the citys are the same, and the only thing that changed are the pokemon.

The formula is still the same. You wander around till something happens. You take care of that soemthing while levelnig up your up your pokemon. Wneh your pokemon are high enough level, you fihgt a boss. These battles are easy enough, assuming you have at least one pokemon thats is super effective. Then you can evolve pokemon, buy items, get in contests and that evens out the game.

All in all, Pokemon gets a 8 out of 10.

Same old crap, new graphics.

The video game industry is under seige. Not by the cost to build a game, or by anti game laws, but by mindless sequels. I just purchased Medal of Honor: Frotnline. Now, it's a good game ( reveiw coming soon), but I also own Allied Assault. I just got Frontline yesterday, and I am about one third of the way through it. Almost all the gameplay so far was ripped off off something. I know it's a series and the gameplay has to be familiar, but the entire damned mission is the same! Add that to the fact that there is only a small change in graphics, plus Frontline has the same everything, and you have more of an expansion pack then a 50 dollar game ( I got my copy for three bucks though).

And not only MoH is doing this. The only difference in madden is that now you have to pay for standard features! No like seriusly. Everything that came standard is now downloadable content that you have to pay for. Many games are now feeling to similair. Now while these games are pretty fun, there is really no reason to buy them. Even Pokemon is guilty of this crime! The city layouts and map are the same in Diamond and Pearl as the ones in Ruby and Sapphire! Sequels should introduce NEW gameplay mechanics, not make you pay for old ones!

Acheivments: Yay or nay?

When the 360 lanched, there were not many breaks from the norm. It had improved graphics, and better online play. But the one thing that Microsoft DID break away from the norm with is Acheivemts.

Previously, one gamer would lose a match of Halo or something like that. Then he would blame something broken like " You spammed grenades to much, noob!!!". When this failed, said gamer would throw out something like " I once beat the ENTIRE campaign on legendary using only melees." Of course, this is ridiculous. This claim would be denied by the winner, and could only be settled by a soda drinking contest. Well, Microsoft put aan end to that with acheivements.

Lets say you beat a game on super hard without any outside help. On the 360 this would net you an acheivement. This acheivement would boost your gamerscore. Your gamerscore had no value, exept bragging rights. And while this seems all nice, there are some pitfalls.

In Gears, you can get acheivments for killing 100 hundred people with the torque bow. Due to this, it is quite commonplace to come into a game only to hear three high pitched,sqeaky, and extremely annoying voices screaming " I will !@@#&*% EAT the !@@^)&# who teks my !@#$#%*%^&% torque !#!$#@!%$! bow". Then these voices will get into a shouting match witch sounds like this

Noob1: Stay away from my torque bow!
Noob2: Shut the !@#@ up!
Noob3: No you shut up!
Need I say more?

The other downside comes in the from powerbosters. These guys, much like powerlevers, will boost your gamerscore for a hefty fee. Hopefully anyone who does this enjoy their fake noob points.

Redoubt, chapter 3

" Wake up! Wake up! Them damned rebs are coming! I was lying in a field. There was a union soldier talking to me." All right all right I'm up! Now whats going on? I got up as the old soldier explained the situation. " Dem damned rebs are coming. Dey have killed all the people in my sqaud. And they are charging this position! We need to get-" he was interupted by the roar of cannons and some explosions nearby. Well, more accurately very very close by. I heard the battle cry of the rebs and loaded my musket. Then I saw them. Thousands of rebs. It was like a tsunami, but made out of men. But that was'nt the bad part. The bad part was what came next.

In a moment I will remember for the rest of my posibly very short life, I saw men in strange uniforms, even stranger creatures, and weapons of many,many differnent forms. and they were all charging at us. But the union soldier next to me was not scared. He fired his weapon, but instead of bullets coming out, lightning shot out!

The lightning hit a strange four legged creature. That creature slumped to the floor, killed instantly. Suddenly, a man in a strange green uniform fired a rifle-like weapon at me. The effect was astounding. Instead of one bullet shooting, thousands did! Then a small, green object landed near me. Ten seconds after that, it exploded.

The union soldier began to scream, and I realizeed that one of the rapid foring bullets had hit him." Git out of here,boy, less you wanna end up like me" said the soldier, in a raspy voice. And I did. I ran and ran and ran until my letgs felt like lead. And then I crawled, desperate to get away from that horrible scene, the sounds of battle still ringing in my ears.

DO NOT BE AFRAID> VISIONS OF THIS TYPE ARE COMPLETELY NORMAL IN REDOUBT. It was that voice again." What is place? Why am I here?" I screamed in the general direction I thought the voice was coming from." Where are you? Who are you?!!!" I AM HERE. " But where is here?!?!". HERE IS RIGHT BEHIND YOU.

What? I whirled around, only to find the union soldier behind me his wounds healing.
" You should be dead!" I exclaimed at him. NO. The voice was coming from him, no doubt. But his mouth was'nt moving. " Your... your not real, are you?"

DEFINE REAL.
My god.

Pokemon rant

Dammit! This was my initial Jack-Bauer like reaction when I learned that my pokemon deck had been banned. Not one or two cards in it. Like, half the deck. Even the energys. Luckily, my freind had a cell phone and called our ride to pick us up. Then we went to target for the notably cheaper decks and upgraded them.

Now let me give you the full story on this. My friend just got into a pokemon league and invited me to come with him. Soon we were beating everyone in sight. Well, until yesterday. The card shop had canceled the league this week, and both our decks were horribly dated and we could not participate in this official tournament. So we went to target ( cards are cheaper) and updated our decks. Now they're better then ever, and we are both ten bucks poorer.

Most trading card games will ban certain cards. This is fine, as it really only affects big tourneys. It usually happens when a certain card dominates every deck, and for the sake of keeping things fresh, they ban it. No one complains, but the rule is not enforced too much in casual games either.

Pokemon USA went the next step, and banned every card that had not been released within a year. This move comepletely alienated anyone even thinking of joining competitive play with a somewhat old deck. In order to get a really competitve deck, you may need to spend well over a hundred dollars. And this really sucks, not because of the price, but for old times sake, everybody wants to use an old card or two.

Now what would have been better is to graually increase the strength of new pokemon, making it harder to play an old deck in a tournament. This would have created the same effect. But no. They had to ban thousands of cards. And then remake them in the new sets. And while this makes a lot of money, it pisses off a hell of a lot of people. Including me. Lame.

Hour of Victory preveiw

The Hour of Victory has arrived. Well, about 20 minutes of it. after numerous delays, the demo has hit marketplace. Perhaps it is apropiate that I am listening to the song Let The Bodies Hit the Floor and the thing that I enjoyed most about Hov. Killing a hostile will result in his body going AL over the place. And it is really amusing. But that is more then I can say for the rest of the game play. While I have not played the final game yet ( preveiw ), everything but the ragdoll deaths in this game are uninspired and unimaginative.

The one thing ( besides the deaths) that is origanal about HoV is the characters. You can play as a sniper, a commando, or a stealth killer. They each have a couple of special abilities, but most of them are just stupid. I mean, the commandos ability is to pick up stuff. What the hell? I mean you have got the sniper running up to people and bashing their heads in with the butt of his completely useless sniper rifle, but he can't pick up a damned chair? Lame. Just like the fact that, in this game, the knife is ten times better then a sniper rifle.

In conclusion, stick to Cod for or Medal of Honor Airborn for ww2.