RIAA, thou hast brought about thine own undoing.

No doubt you are all aware of the idiocricy that the RIAA has been going on about for the past few years…suing college students, children, in some cases even grandmothers who don’t have computers for copyright infringement by sharing music through P2P programs and Torrents.  While I can understand them doing this for people “stealing” their music, asking as much as they are (in some cases as much as six-digits per song) is plain insane.

 And now, according to an article posted on TorrentFreak, they aren’t even paying out the dividends from the settlements to the artists who have had their work “stolen”:

http://torrentfreak.com/riaa-keeps-settlement-money-080228/

We all know that the artists get literally a few pennies on the dollar for every album sold, but this is just horrible.  The RIAA has been suing the pants off of people saying that the artists are not being rightfully paid for their hard work…and then keeps the settlement money all to themselves?  Come on…I haven’t been keeping track, but there has been at least $400 million in settlements that we the public know about…and the artists aren’t getting any of it.  Some of them, apparently, are even threatening legal action.

You folks had an opportunity to really cash in on music going digital, but instead you decided to run your organization as if the world isn’t changing.  Well guess what, it is.  You have every right to pursue litigation against those that have “stolen” from you, but at least pay the artists the money they deserve.  After all, wasn’t that the reason you started suing everyone anyway?  To protect the artists?

RIAA, it is my sincere hope that you go the way of MediaDefender, which is exactly where you belong…and for the same reasons.  Look at it this way: once you reach the afterlife for corporate giants that lie out of both sides of their mouths, at least you will have a buddy there with you!

Garfield without Garfield.

Saw this on Digg today:

 http://garfieldminusgarfield.tumblr.com/

Absolutely hilarious.  The idea behind it is to take random Garfield strips, and remove both Garfield and his “talk” (or “thought”, if you want to be technical) bubbles from the strips.  This leaves poor ol’ Jon talking to himself, acting clinically insane, and just plain disturbed.  Be sure to read the little blurb before looking at the comics.

Definitely one of the best things on Digg in a long time. 

Short-lived spawns

I always find it hilarious if I am resurrected in the middle of a firefight in Battlefield 2. Just last night, the following happend to me:

There is a MEC manning the machine gunner position right next to the train wreck on Karkand. I manage to move around and get behind him, so I rush up on him and slice him with the knife. 1 kill. I then run around the other side of the concrete barrier and slice up a sniper who had been laying next to him on the other side of the fence (and somehow didn’t see me.) 2 kills. I whip out my assault rifle and pop another MEC running down the bridge straight in the face with two three-shot bursts. 3 kills. Load up the grenade launcher attachment on the rifle, and take out a group of two MEC running next to each other across the bridge. 4 and 5 kills. By this time, four of my squad-mates have joined me in trying to cap the point…and I get sniped. Exhilarated, I sit back for a second…5 kills in a time span of ~30 seconds…I’m quite pleased with myself.

A medic revives me, only to have me instantly die from a grenade. Well crap, it happens. I spawn literally in the middle of a firefight near the large concrete ramp, in that little town square…end up getting teamkilled (i forgave the guy because his grenade got 2 MECs as well). I get rezzed, and get sniped. The same medic comes back and rezzes me. I take one step forward, and blow up a claymore. I respawn right next to the tracks this time, and before I can even move I get killed by an artillary strike.

I never took more than a step after respawning before I got taken out again. This went on for a total of 7 times. I had to disconnect from the game, I couldn’t stop laughing:-)

I’m Back in the Saddle Agaaaaaaiiinnnn….or, How Punkbuster Acted Like a Punk

So I decided to reinstall Battlefield 2 this weekend…I forgot how much I love this game.  Huge maps, very skilled folks that play it, not too many asshats, and great teamwork required to win.  I was also surprised at how well it performed on my aging system (2.2 GHz Athlon64, ATI x800 with a modded bios, 1 gig of DDR400 ram, resolution at 1680X1050 for my Dell 2005FPW)  I remember it being a little harder on the system…eh, whatever.

 Anyway….something else that I was surprised about was how much a punk Punkbuster is.  For those that don’t know, Punkbuster is a program to help prevent cheating and griefing…and for some reason, Punkbuster hates me.  The first game I got in on was a 32 player map, and the MEC was trouncing us.  I got sniped (by a hell of a shot, I must admit), spawn, and instantly die.  “Crap”.  Well, it happens.  Wait 15 seconds, spawn again, and again instantly die.  The bastards are spawn camping!

 I wait 15 seconds, spawn again, and once again instantly die.  Only this time, instead of spawning again, I get automatically kicked from the server by Punkbuster!  The reason?  Spawn camping.  Punkbuster thinks that I am spawn camping, even though I’m the one being camped.  What the hell is this?

 I move to another server…this one is knife and pistol only, 32 man.  Hilariously fun.  Just a bunch of people running around plinking and shivving each other.  Obviously, in this type of environment, friendly fire is turned off…after all, when you have a bunch of people all together in a moving ball of a crowd with knives, people are bound to accidentally knife their own teammates.  Once again, friendly fire is turned OFF.  I get in some good stabbings, get stabbed a few times myself…then I decide to plink away with a pistol.  I get four or five kills picking off the stragglers that are hanging around, and then I turn my attention to the main event.

 Seeing as there is this mass of people running around trying to stick each other and friendly fire is turned off, I just aim my pistol at the crowd and start unloading mags.  After the third one, Punkbuster kicks me off!  The reason?  “Excessive teamkilling”.  Well double-yoo tee eff, em eight?  Friendly Fire is off, and you sure as hell didn’t care when I accidentally sliced someone on my own team with my knife (which, obviously, did no damage to them since Friendly Fire was off). 

Two servers, me not doing anything I shouldn’t be, banned from both by an automated Punkbuster script…has it always been this buggy?  I don’t remember it being so bad…

Ha, Who’s laughing now?

It seems like Microsoft is. At the beginning of the console war, people laughed at MS for going with a stand alone HD DVD player for their console instead of integrating it into their system like Sony had with the PS3 and its Blu Ray Player. Now flash forward a year and a half, just about every major movie studio has chosen Blue Ray as their next media format. On top of that, now NetFlix has chosen to rent Blu Ray movies and most recently Walmart has decided that as of the end of the second QT of this year they will no longer be selling HD DVD players. There are even rumors circulating that Toshiba (the Daddy of HD DVD) is even considering switching teams and creating their own Blu Ray players in the near future. The truth of the matter is, MS never truly bought into the HD DVD craze, and with its decision not to integrate it into their console can slide out of this fiasco with barely a scratch on them. Way to go Big Will.

Games they need to bring to the current gen

Ever played the game Black?  Released on the original Xbox and the PS2, this game had graphics that would make you think it was running on hardware somewhere between the 6th generation (Xbox/Ps2/Gamecube) and the 7th generation (360/PS3/Wii).  It really was astounding what the developers managed to coax out of the aging hardware…unfortunately, there were some things they had to sacrifice, such as adjustable aiming sensitivity (google about it…much too long a topic for this entry).

Not to mention that Black is one of the absolute best games to play with the volume cranked…the weapons sound super-realistic, and have a very heavy oomph to them.   They really should re-release Black on current gen systems.   They wouldn’t even need to redo any of the artwork…just release it on the newer (more powerful) systems, and have at.  The increase in horsepower would make the game run even smoother (it ran almost perfectly even when it was first released) and they could add some extra lighting effects to it. 

Holy Crapicola Ham, Batman!  Look at these Original Xbox Screenshots! 

A full blown sequel would work just as well…

Spore is coming…and so is Ninja Gaiden 2

So, we now finally have some detailed info on Spore…it looks to be rather insane!  Based on what all the major game websites are saying, it looks like Will Wright will actually manage to achieve everything he was hoping to accomplish.  Considering the size of his vision, this is truly amazing indeed.  I personally think that Will Wright will (once again) change the gaming world as we know it. 

 In other news, the release date for Ninja Gaiden 2 is getting closer and closer.  Slightly faster, WAY bloodier, and with new weapons/ninpo, it looks to be amazing.  Ninja Gaiden Black was one of the best (and hardest) games ever made…once NG2 is released, that’s all I’m going to be doing for a while.  Personally, I wouldn’t mind seeing a sequel to the PS2 Shinobi game released…the graphics were a bit meh, but the gameplay was crazy hard and exciting.  Not nearly as good as Ninja Gaiden Black, but still worthy of being called “great”.

EA strikes again

I read some disturbing news today.  Apparently, EA Sports has extended their NFL licensing deal until 2012.  For those of you that don’t know, a few years ago EA Sports signed a deal with the NFL making them the sole distributors of video games that are NFL Player and Team licensed.  What this means is that EA Sports is the only company who can legally release a game that uses real Team names and Player names.

 I more or less never play sports games, and would never consider myself remotely close to what is known as a “Madden Gamer”, but this is just plain sour.  EA continues to further their reputation as the bastards of the gaming industry by extending this deal.  While I can understand why they are doing it from a financial standpoint, it is a perfect example of how the video game business has turned into a business like any other…most games are made to generate the maximum amount of revenue while not giving a single bit of care to artistic merit. 

 Granted, there is only so much artistic merit to be had in an American Football game, but this really is sad news…it would be nice if we didn’t have to wade through 15 crap titles just to find one good title.  EA continuing their monopoly on the American Football game market is only contributing to this problem.  EA should be drawn and quartered for a lot of the stuff they have pulled in the past, and this latest travesty only adds to the spectacle.

Lack of updates, new author

Sorry for the lack of updates the past few days.  Brittnie and I have actually been housesitting for a coworker of mine, and as such I haven’t had access to my computer.  Tonight is the last night though, so things should go back to normal starting tomorrow.  We have a few great articles that are in the process of being written.

 One of those articles is being written by our newest contributing author, Brittnie’s uncle.  While he doesn’t have any kids, he is a grown-up nerd (he used to play D&D religiously way back when) with a super-interesting job.  Look for his stuff in the days to come!

Samurai Champloo, activate!

Brittnie and I are total NetFlix hounds…we have the “four out at a time” subscription.  Suffice it to say, NetFlix is not making a single penny off of us given how much they must spend on postage.  The latest series we are getting into is Samurai Champloo.  I had only seen two or three episodes prior to us starting to get the series from NetFlix.  I must say, if you have never seen this series, do yourself a favour and start watching it now!

Created and directed by the same fellow that did Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo conjures up an interesting combination.  The series is a combination of Cowboy Bebop-style humour and dialouge, the “feel” of Afro Samurai (one of the best series ever), and modern day styles of hip-hop and graffiti into 17th century Japan.  Once again, make sure that you add this one to the list of anime series that you have seen.  You won’t regret it.