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.

Graw 2 first impressions

Just rented Graw 2, and I am officially impressed. The game do's a great job of making you feel like captain Scott Michel. I t also, like many tom clancy titles, do's a good job of making the enemies realy feel alive. They will flank, use distractions, and in general be effeceint. You sqaud will get kills, and they sound like real people to.
That's not to say the game do'snt have its fair share of flaws, but the only really major one is the look sensitivity. It is really,really slow. If I have a sniper, and you are out in open running, then I should be able to shoot you! Besides this frustrating flaw, Graw 2 ( Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2. kind of a mouthful, is'nt it?) semms to be pretty good. I mght get a reveiw up later in the week, but as stated earlier, I" m renting the game.

Redoubt, chapter 2

I was in a white room. At least I think it was a white room. There were not any walls or floors oc ceilings so I don't know what you would call it. What is this? Suddenly, I felt a rising wave of panic inside of me. This was not good. Okay, okay calm down. What happened? How did I get here? I remember dyi.. Is this heaven?

"NO."
What the? Who said that? Panic overtook me. " What is this place?" I screamed to nobody.

" THIS IS REDOUBT"
What the hell is that? Who is saying that" I shreiked, but there was no answer. Suddenly a syringe appeared in front of me. I wanted to grab it, but I did'nt. I don't know why I did'nt grab it.

" DO NOT PANIC. STERILIZATION IS ALMOST COMPLETE."
The voice was... wierd. It did not sound to be of any gender nor had any accent or any emotion. And what was it talking about? I don't have any what sterilization means but it do'snt sound good att all. The syringe in front of me began to fill up with green liquid. It began to slowly move towards me, the green water pulsating within it. I tried to run, but found my legs unable to move. the green syringe depositing it's liquid inside me. And, for a split second, I saw something terrible.


I was inside a tube. I was bleeding all over the place. Many more were inside tubes inside this stange white area. Most of them were lying in this sort of chair. Other's were bleeding as badly as me. Some were in strange uniforms. This was not good.

Then, as soon as the vision started, it was over in a flash. But not before I could see something horrible. A strange, crippled creature was moving along empty space, holding a wicked looking device tht was sucking up blood.


And, for the first time in my life, I was truly scared.

redoubt

This just some sci-fi I made, just for the heck of it.


The roar of muskets was unlike any thing I ever heard. “ Harper, fire your weapon!”. My commanding was talking to. “ I can’t see em” I yelled back, trying to keep my voice heard over the muskets. “ Just shoot it!” he screamed at me, and so I did. I loaded my musket and fired into the smoke. I was getting my ramrod unhinged when I saw my first rebel. Well not one. An entire brigade, charging us with their bayonets. Then, I fired. And again. And again. And I kept firing until I heard my officer yelling at me to retreat. Thois time I obliged, as the rebels were no more then 100 feet away! Then I saw the smoke clear from my rifle. And I was shocked. More then half of the men in my army had died. My god. “ Run you fool! Get as far away from here as you can!” ordered sarge. But I could not tear my eyes from the sight before me. People were laying all over the place, some still alive. What happened here?
“ Get hell away from here, private! That’s an order!”. I knew I should be goibg. The rebels were no more then 10 feet away now. But my legs felt like lead. Then it happened. A rebel stabbed me with his bayonet. Immediately I fell, dying and gasping for breath. And then I died.

Rise of nations reveiw

You hear the sound's of battle as your troops swords collide with those of the enemy's. Trebuchets fire their payload and huge rocks hit enemy building's. Then you realize tht your infantry are being beaten by the enemy's. You let them keep fighting and begin pulling out other troop's. But it is too late. You infantry are killed and you retreating troop's are cut off anbd slaughtered by the enemy. Your invasion is a failure.

Skip foward a hundred year's or so. Your troop's now have gunpowder weapon's. You have made peace with the enemy by bribing their officials before they march on your capital.
But that old conflict erupt's when the enemy ( Ottomans ) attack your allie. This time you have the advantage. That last attack hurt the enemy. He do's not have gunpowder weapon's. You use this to your advantage. You create a horde of infantry and charge past their initial defenses at the border and slaughter their swordsmen in their streets. Cannon fire on their base. Many men are killed. You take out their barracks and stables first, denying them military power.

The rest of the battle is childs play, with you large force killing any survivor's they encounter. You quickly capture all the enemies cities, and sack their capital. The day is yours. For Now.

All this and much more can happen in Rise of Nation's, a rts from big huge games.
In this game, you take one chosen civ from spear's to nukes. Throughout this you will crush empires, destroy armie's, forge and break alliances and possibily trigger or survive a nuclear armegeddon. That, plus your army's ussually have a lot guy's ( around a hundred ) make for some high qaulity rts action unlike any other game's.

At it's most basic level, Ron (rise of nations) unfolds like this:
Emperor noobface hates you. Emporer noobface declares war on you.You train some units. Their is a big battle. It is a draw. Emporer noobface retreats. You counterattack him. He wants peace. You denie it. You destroy his capital. He loses. You win.

At it's most complecated level, ron plays like this:
You assighn villagers to mine and chop wood. You protect their camps with a series of towers and entrenchged military units. One age later, Emporer noobface declares war on you. Your scouts confirm he is going to come through the narrow valley pass in the backdoor of your base. You set up some defensive positions and assighn troops to spring a trap. A easily killed by melee cavalry unit of archers is deployed at the bottom of the valley pass. several units of counter cavalry or counter tank units are at eather side of the valley. once the attack arrives, the trap springs killing many cavalry in the process. You reset the trap, but this time set the bait for oneother unit type. This time, the entire enemy army attacks. But there is a problem. The enemy is one age ahead of you! His troops are extremely effective, your's are extremely dated. Luckily for you, clever tactics win the day.

Emporer noobface negotiates for peace, and you accept nkowing that it is beneificial for both civs. Now what I just described is noly a glimpse of the gameplay of ron. All this good tactics and diplomacy and strategy make this game on that, while not perfect, is still extremely great and cannot be missed.

8.5 out of 10.

Updates: Good or Bad?

A new practice has emerged from the industry of gaming. Since most pc's are connected to the internet, developers have begun patching games on the Pc. Now, this is ussally a good thing, but certain games ( I'm looking at you dark messaih ) have shipped before they are done. Dark messaih of might and magic, when it shipped, did not have some of the promised game modes for mp. Many a great game have been rushed, and the publisher simply said to ship it, regardless of whether it is ready or not. The developers then had to patch the game, but they could not patch in ton's of planned content that may have been planned.

On the other side of the spectrum, the dev team can patch up a game once it has shipped, fixing any glaring imbalances or glitches. A particulary good example of this is what happened with Gears of War. That game's mp was rushed, and once it shipped the game was rampant with glitches. Said glitches put off many players who liked the single player game. Even though it took a while, Epic game's eventually fixed almost all the glitches, or made them next to immpossible to execute.

And now this practice has expanded to the console market, which is rapidly going online. Will publisher's continue to force dev team's to ship game's before they are ready, or will they use patches like Epic?