Gaming Conventions That Need to Go! Pt. 1

This is the first of a series I will be doing in which I look at gaming trends/conventions/just little things in games that either don't make sense, are annoying, outdated, need to be done away with, or all of the above. Not all are big deals, some are very minor, so don't take this too seriously.

1) Dying in games. I was playing Dead Space, and what should have been a terrible moment (literally being ripped apart by a very fierce enemy) didn't really matter because I knew I'd be back 10 seconds later as though it didn't happen. I'm not sure what could take the place of deaths in games, but they just don't make any sense. You die dozens of times during the course of some games.....and it never really matters. Except in one game I can think of: Steel Battalion. In this game, if you die, your SAVE GAME GETS ERASED.

2) Pressing start at the title screen. Um, why? Flash the title then go to the menu or have the title imposed on the menu screen. Not a big deal just makes me chuckle.Especially when some games literally force you to press the START button. The A button won't even work.

3) QTE's. Hey, you just worked hard to get to this awesome looking boss. You could use the skills you have learned to take it out in some epic fashion......OOORRRR you could play Simon Says and see you kick it's ass out of the corner of your eye while you pay attention to the button prompts.

4) Exploding barrels everywhere. Hey guys, we're hding out here where the good guys are coming with guns and grenades. We should stock this place with explosive barrels, and stand near them!

DUR, OKAY!

And finally:

5) Locked doors. Let's see, I have a chainsaw, grenades, a rocket launcher, and an assault rifle....but I think I'll find the long way around........WHY NOT BLOW THE DAMN DOOR DOWN!

Alright, that's it for now. Stay tuned for more to come.

The Softer Side: My Daughter and My Doggies

The Ask an Atheist Project Website!!!

askanatheistproject.com

The project will be slowly migrated over to the site, and any and all new entries will be uploaded there going forward.

Tell your friends, atheists and theists alike!

Thanks a ton to PaladinSkye for getting the thing off the ground. Without his initiative, this would never have happened.

Christopher Hitchens Letter to the AAI

Dear fellow-unbelievers,

Nothing would have kept me from joining you except the loss of my voice (at least my speaking voice) which in turn is due to a long argument I am currently having with the specter of death. Nobody ever wins this argument, though there are some solid points to be made while the discussion goes on. I have found, as the enemy becomes more familiar, that all the special pleading for salvation, redemption and supernatural deliverance appears even more hollow and artificial to me than it did before. I hope to help defend and pass on the lessons of this for many years to come, but for now I have found my trust better placed in two things: the skill and principle of advanced medical science, and the comradeship of innumerable friends and family, all of them immune to the false consolations of religion. It is these forces among others which will speed the day when humanity emancipates itself from the mind-forged manacles of servility and superstition. It is our innate solidarity, and not some despotism of the sky, which is the source of our morality and our sense of decency.

That essential sense of decency is outraged every day. Our theocratic enemy is in plain view. Protean in form, it extends from the overt menace of nuclear-armed mullahs to the insidious campaigns to have stultifying pseudo-science taught in American schools. But in the past few years, there have been heartening signs of a genuine and spontaneous resistance to this sinister nonsense: a resistance which repudiates the right of bullies and tyrants to make the absurd claim that they have god on their side. To have had a small part in this resistance has been the greatest honor of my lifetime: the pattern and original of all dictatorship is the surrender of reason to absolutism and the abandonment of critical, objective inquiry. The cheap name for this lethal delusion is religion, and we must learn new ways of combating it in the public sphere, just as we have learned to free ourselves of it in private.

Our weapons are the ironic mind against the literal: the open mind against the credulous; the courageous pursuit of truth against the fearful and abject forces who would set limits to investigation (and who stupidly claim that we already have all the truth we need). Perhaps above all, we affirm life over the cults of death and human sacrifice and are afraid, not of inevitable death, but rather of a human life that is cramped and distorted by the pathetic need to offer mindless adulation, or the dismal belief that the laws of nature respond to wailings and incantations.

As the heirs of a secular revolution, American atheists have a special responsibility to defend and uphold the Constitution that patrols the boundary between Church and State. This, too, is an honor and a privilege. Believe me when I say that I am present with you, even if not corporeally (and only metaphorically in spirit...) Resolve to build up Mr Jefferson's wall of separation. And don't keep the faith.

Sincerely,

Christopher Hitchens

Japan’s government, threatened with more haarp attacks, pays 60 trillion yen to feds. HAARP Causes Earthquakes? Oh, Really?!

Japan’s government, threatened with more haarp attacks, pays 60 trillion yen to feds.

HAARP Causes Earthquakes?

Oh, Really? 

Benjamin Fulford, a 'journalist' and huge proponent of conspiracy theories (Illuminati, bankers, world domination, starvation and mass killings, HAARP, 9/11, etc) has stated that the Japanese government has paid 60 trillion yen (around 680 Billion Cdn.) (lol!) to the American Federal reserve Board 'crime syndicate' (lol!) in response to threats that if they did not pay, they would be again attacked.

Yes, attacked, because the Japanese natural disaster...was actually, according to him (and others) coordinated and perpetrated by HAARP. Yes, the Japanese natural disaster of 2011 was, according to Mr. Fulford, a terrorist attack! Here's the link:

http://eclinik.wordpress.com/vital-issues/ben-fulford/japan%E2%80%99s-government-threatened-with-more-haarp-attacks-pays-60-trillion-yen-to-feds/

(Yes, that's a wordpress blog, and yes, that ad at the top by the author, Mr. Fulford, does say that you can 'Defeat AIDS and cancer in 90 Days.' Kind of sets this blog up nicely, doesn't it?)

Now, before we get into this, let’s have a look at some of the other claims this gentleman has made.

Ask an Atheist Project: PseudoEsteem (Pseudo on This Blog)

And here we have the latest entry into the illustrious Ask an Atheist Project, an ongoing project of mine which is kept going by the contributions of fellow atheists who submit their responses to a series of questions. This latest entry is by a friend of mine who goes by the moniker "PseudoEsteem" here in the crazy online world of the internet. (HERE is a link to PseudoEsteem`s Gamepad on Gametrailers, where you can find his blogs;  Psuedo is also an author here on The Thoughtful Gamers).

So, here is his submission. Read, enjoy, laugh, cry, recoil in horror, whatever and then feel free to comment, and let him know what you think, where you agree/disagree, etc. And thanks very much to PseudoEsteem  for taking the time to do this. Btw, if anyone reading this wants to see the other entries, and/or enter their own submission, please click the link above. Thanks. (For now, though, you can have a link to my (magx01's) entry (hey, I started the damn thing!)

Ask an Atheist Project: Crescent

And here we have the latest entry into the illustrious Ask an Atheist Project, an ongoing project of mine which is kept going by the contributions of fellow atheists who submit their responses to a series of questions. This latest entry is by a friend of mine who goes by the moniker "Crescent" here in the crazy online world of the internet. (HERE is a link to Crescent`s Gamepad on Gametrailers, where you can find his blogs, which are usually either rants, animé reviews, or rants about animé :)

So, here is his submission. Read, enjoy, laugh, cry, recoil in horror, whatever and then feel free to comment, and let him know what you think, where you agree/disagree, etc. And thanks very much to Crescent  for taking the time to do this. Btw, if anyone reading this wants to see the other entries, and/or enter their own submission, please click the link above. Thanks. (For now, though, you can have a link to my (magx01's) entry (hey, I started the damn thing!)

Ask an Atheist Project: Rick

And here we have the latest entry into the illustrious Ask an Atheist Project, an ongoing project of mine which is kept going by the contributions of fellow atheists who submit their responses to a series of questions. This latest entry is by a friend of mine who goes by the moniker "Rick" here in the crazy online world of the internet. (HERE is a link to Rick`s Gamepad on Gametrailers, where you can find his blogs.

So, here is his submission. Read, enjoy, laugh, cry, recoil in horror, whatever and then feel free to comment, and let him know what you think, where you agree/disagree, etc. And thanks very much to Rick  for taking the time to do this. Btw, if anyone reading this wants to see the other entries, and/or enter their own submission, please click the link above. Thanks. (For now, though, you can have a link to my (magx01's) entry (hey, I started the damn thing!)

Charlie Sheen Show/Tour Is Shit. DUH! You Morons.

Here's an excerpt from a news article detailing some of the happenings at the opening of Charlie Sheen's show....uh.....thing. (Whatever the fuck it is supposed to be)

Ask an Atheist Project: Venomous

And here we have the latest entry into the illustrious Ask an Atheist Project, an ongoing project of mine which is kept going by the contributions of fellow atheists who submit their responses to a series of questions. This latest entry is by a friend of mine who goes by the moniker "Venomous" here in the crazy online world of the internet. (HERE is a link to Venomous' Gamepad on Gametrailers, where you can find his blogs and his fantastic game reviews (he's a professional (magazine) game reviewer).

So, here is his submission. Read, enjoy, laugh, cry, recoil in horror, whatever and then feel free to comment, and let him know what you think, where you agree/disagree, etc. And thanks very much to Venomous  for taking the time to do this. Btw, if anyone reading this wants to see the other entries, and/or enter their own submission, please click the link above. Thanks. (For now, though, you can have a link to my (magx01's) entry (hey, I started the damn thing!)

The Grand Design Book Review

Note: I don't normally do book reviews, and I am consequently not well versed in the art of producing them. Nor do I desire to be. This is as much an overview and discussion about my experience with the book as it is a review.

Ask an Atheist Project: PaladinSkyeGodEatr

And here we have the latest entry into the illustrious Ask an Atheist Project, an ongoing project of mine which is kept going by the contributions of fellow atheists who submit their responses to a series of questions. This latest entry is by a friend of mine who goes by the moniker "PaladinSkyeGodEatr" here in the crazy online world of the internet. (HERE is a link to Paladin's Gamepad on Gametrailers, where you can find his blogs, such as his blog about Homeopathy, or his examination of Pantheism (a blog on which I believe you still owe me a comment, buddy ol' pal!) both of which i enjoyed).

So, here is his submission. Read, enjoy, laugh, cry, recoil in horror, whatever and then feel free to comment, and let him know what you think, where you agree/disagree, etc. And thanks very much to Paladin for taking the time to do this. Btw, if anyone reading this wants to see the other entries, and/or enter their own submission, please click the link above. Thanks.

Crysis 2 Review

Note: Don't consider this an 'official' review from me; just an approximation of one. My true reviews are more involved than this, and I don't do them until I have at least completed the game. While I am quite close to the end, I have not actually completed the campaign in its entirety.  (I have since completed the campaign). I also only focus on the campaign here; the multiplayer doesn't interest me and is not discussed to any detail.

IGN's Top 25 Xbox 360 Games is BULLSHIT

IGN's Top 25 Xbox 360 GamesList : http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/104/1045042p2.html

Back in April, IGN listed their top 25 Xbox 360 games. I missed this article, which is not surprising since I hardly ever visit IGN anymore, but happened to catch it today, and I would like to rant about it but before I do so, here are the games they selected, followed by the review score (in brackets) given them by IGN:\

The Gaming Community Is an Embarrassment.

The Gaming Community Is an Embarrassment.

The gaming community, of which I self identify, is quite often an embarrassment to me. The fact that the word “troll” exists is one piece of evidence I have to support this. Another is the fact that several major gaming boards have had to ban versus (vs.) threads/topics.

Think about that for a second....

A user on a message board/forum of which the subject is video games and video game systems cannot post a topic about one game, or one console, being superior to another. In a community that is primarily made up of people between the ages of 15 and 35. What. The. Fuck. Is. That. Shit? People are so sensitive, so defensive, so emotive, so reactionary, so immature, so.....fucking retarded, that the playground monitors needed to outright ban topics like “Saint's Row is better than GTA...Agree or Disagree?” because for some reason, such a topic causes some people to go into a spasmodic, blind rage.