Media Abstinence.

For a guy who claims he's been able to simply go "new media" free whenever he wants, I wasn't able to get the full 48 hours in we were supposed to for this assignment.

I probably could have easily done it earlier in the semester. What changed: Met people. I've dealt with social insecurities my whole life and will probably continue to do so. The relevance is if someone is willing to talk to me, I can't just turn off the way they contact me.

Plus, you know. Final exams week. Can't just not do research papers. The internet is too valuable a tool to not use it, and I was never very good at utilizing libraries to begin with.

During the 48 hours (which started Friday), my phone was buzzing the whole time with text messages from a new friend and no amount of points in a class is worth going two days not talking to this new friend. My soul is burning brighter than it has in awhile. I'm emotionally a wreck and emotionally uplifted at the same time. I really like this girl. It just figured I'd meet someone who's managed to flip my whole view on the world upside down the week I'm trying to do a project involving not accessing new media.

I guess the best I'll be able to do here is discuss times previously in my life I've gone new medialess, and talk about what my plans were before life threw me this (wonderful) curveball.

I used to have a facebook account. I was addicted to the site, really. I met all sorts of new and amazing people through various social apps. I've always been a collector of other people's stories and enjoy the company of outlandish and far-fetched folk. But, I came to realize over the years Facebook was not healthy for me. I'm sure I've mentioned a dozen times I've struggled with mental health over the years. I need to feel at the very least wanted, and if that desire isn't reinforced I get really grumpy and sore with people.

Constant contact with "everyone" I knew in such an immediate way drove me crazy. Girls I previously had crushes on and thought the world of posted about how wonderful their boyfriends were even when I knew it was simply them trying to tell the world their relationships were perfect to try and convince themselves the guy wasn't actually a total tool. Family would talk about their jobs and new people they hired while I languished unemployed and desperate for a leg up. I emotionally abused myself by surrounding myself with unhappily married women who utilized me as a sort of e-tampon for all their heartache.

After a particular girl I was truly in love with (one of three in my entire life) ended our friendship in a permanent manner, I was so distraught I thought about ending it all. I was on Facebook in the computer lab on campus and was talking with one of those unhappily married women and she was just trying to be a friend but I flipped out and raged at her so hard, she accused me of a lot of really nasty (and probably true) things. I snapped. I had deleted my facebook account multiple times in the past, but this time was different. I decided no more. No more dealing with 300+ people who didn't care about me. I opened the friends tab and literally removed every person from my contact list, one by one. Family was oddly easy to remove because they are family and are therefore actual fixtures in my life. The hard part was clicking away people I knew I would never have contact with again. I knew if I removed myself from the Facebook world, they would never try to contact me with my phone number I knew they had. It was just going to be the end. It was extremely difficult but I was so outraged at how disrespected I felt, I just did it anyway and they are all gone now. 

Then, I deleted my account. I knew with no friends on there, there would never be another reason to restart it. I would have to rebuild my e-life from total ground zero and I still don't have it in me. For the next week or so after that, I was the most productive I've been since attending DSC. My phone was dead for a large portion of that week and I didn't even notice. I didn't watch TV. I didn't own my own computer at the time. I just did homework and played my Xbox in offline mode. It's exactly what I needed at the time.

My plans for my media vacation was very simple: Guitar. Play more guitar. Play lots of guitar, and fast guitar, ane pretty guitar, and grunge guitar. I was going to head to a music shop and get a tabulature book of rock songs, or maybe just try and write my own thing.

Life overwhelmed me, though. The best laid plans of mice and men and all that. It's impossible to function in modern society without using new media. Impossible. You cannot succeed in life without the internet. 99% of jobs require you to do your application purely online and they don't even want to meet you face to face any more. Research papers that took weeks take minutes utilizing Google (and discretion.) And good luck attempting to date if you don't have text messaging. It just doesn't work. It can't happen.

So for all my bravado about being able to pry myself away from media and be "totally fine," I probably failed the spirit of this assignment harder than anyone else in the class. Go figure. I guess that in and of itself should be a great lesson to anyone attempting this in the future. Hubris is the downfall of many.

Vis Comm final project

Holy crap, Blogger changed their website and now I can't figure out my ass from my elbow.

I really hope this posts correctly.

Anywho, this is what I created for my VisComm final project. It's meant to be printed on standard paper then chopped up into 6 (hence why it's duplicated 6 times), so my friend Todd who runs the website can go stick them under the windshield wipers of everyone parked at the event.

Trying to fit the high quality photos my friend takes into a discernable way in black and white and that small is a difficult task (which I will be honest, I am not sure I succeeded in!) The reason I did black and white is simply because color would be too damned expensive to print en masse. I would have preferred it simply because he takes really good photos (go check out his photo blog where I got the golf picture from). Had to make it black and white though in order to make sure it'd print out okay that way.

Interacting with Machines: Preferred Human Interface Devices

We were posed as a challenge in my New Media Applications class to come up with a "convergence" topic to talk about. This was literally right as commercials for the Galaxy Note smartphone started up and I was fascinated by the fact it was technically a step backward in terms of interaction with our computer devices. The trend is touchscreens for everything, right? We'd dealt with stylus systems for a significantly longer time, with old-school PDAs and artist tablet peripherals. It seemed like it was "old" news for them to now be releasing a new smartphone utilizing a stylus rather than it simply being a larger screen on a smartphone but at the same time, I've been saying for years touchscreens drive me crazy because they lack the same tactile response which you get from a keyboard and mouse or some type of analog input device.

Before you read further, DO ME THE KIND FAVOR OF FILLING OUT MY SURVEY. It's only 3 questions, but they get right to the heart of the matter: How do you prefer interacting with your computer media in today's world?

In the research I did looking up sales figures, the Note has sold pretty well despite being panned by electronics gadget critics, and has high user satisfaction ratings from those who actually consume it. My mother owns one, and the insight I've gained from her is she always felt regular smartphones had too small of a screen and she hated making typos from struggling to calibrate where her thumb naturally landed on the keypad of her old iPhone versus the precision controls the stylus offers. Plus, she enjoyed the ease of use of the photo manipulation programs offered on the Android platform in conjunction with the device's release.

It's interesting to me this is the case. It's not like stylus input was always that great. A comic example of this is a Tool-Assisted Speedrun of Brain Age for the Nintendo DS. If you enjoy silly things and people breaking video game code for comic effect, check this out. It just highlights the problem with handwriting recognition software. Let's face it: it hasn't always been that reliable in the past hence the shift toward touchpads in the first place.

But technology has come so far, is it worth revisiting mediums of old? Also, what does this mean for the future? I believe the future is in voice recognition software and things formerly viewed as simply input systems for the handicapped (things like eye motion sensors). The more people who have access to these devices and therefore the internet and social world at large, the better.

In my survey, I listed a bunch of electronic devices that all sell for roughly $399 dollars. It fascinates me how wide the gamut is on products that all serve a similar role and yet have such a huge disparity in processing power. Yet the early results of my survey (which I just posted to a bunch of friends and had them link on their facebook page before starting to edit this into more than a bunch of links!) shows most people at least in my social world prefer sitting at a desktop. You can't exactly do a lot with a $399 desktop, especially if you're a gamer like myself. The latest and greatest video card from nVidia, the GeForce GTX 680, goes for $499 alone on newegg.com. Yet still the folks I associate with still prefer using good ol' keyboard and mouse for their computing needs. This would explain why there are so many people who buy a tablet computer, and immediately turn around to get a keyboard accessory.

Now to share the data from my survey:

1. Which form of Human Interface Device do you prefer using for general computer interface usage?
	answered question		82
	skipped question		1
		Response Percent	Response Count
Mouse and Keyboard		72.0%	59
Laptop-style Touchpad		12.2%	10
Analog Input (joystick or controller)		0.0%	0
Stylus-touchscreen (i.e.: PDAs, Nintendo DS)		1.2%	1
Touch Screens (i.e. Smartphones and Tablet Computers)		14.6%	12

2. Which of the following devices do you own? (Check all that apply.)
	answered question		83
	skipped question		0
		Response Percent	Response Count
Desktop PC or Mac		80.7%	67
Laptop PC or Mac		74.7%	62
Smart Phone		65.1%	54
Tablet computer		27.7%	23
Current-Generation video game console (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 only)		42.2%	35

3. Which of the following would you prefer to own?
	answered question		82
	skipped question		1
		Response Percent	Response Count
64 GB iPhone 4s		31.7%	26
Samsung Galaxy Note		6.1%	5
16 GB iPad 2 (wi-fi)		19.5%	16
32 GB Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1		3.7%	3
A $399 Desktop or Laptop PC of your design		30.5%	25
X-Box 360 with Kinect		3.7%	3
Playstation 3 with PSMove		4.9%	4

If there is any one thing I want people to come away with is that there are devices out there tailored to suit your specific needs. With the prevalence of the current generation of technology, if you are dissatisfied with the input required to use it, go find something which you enjoy using.

------------
Links to back up my data and the key figures I retrieved from them, in no particular order:
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/03/galaxy-note-sales-so-far/
Key figures: 2 million devices sold in Europe, on pace to sell 10 million worldwide in 2012.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/benzingainsights/2011/10/17/what-do-the-iphone-4s-sales-figures-tell-us-about-consumers/
4 million units sold opening week, boasted 1 million pre-sales.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonykosner/2012/03/22/will-the-iphone-5-be-super-sized-what-a-bigger-screen-means-for-data-usage/
Hypothetical: Larger screens = more data usage = ???
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Firstmouseunderside.jpg
History of the Mouse (1962)
http://inventors.about.com/od/computerperipherals/a/computer_keyboa.htm
Patent of typewriters: 1868

Mass Effect 3 has the worst ending of any video game, of all time.

And it has 5 distinct ways to all be terrible! (For the record, I didn't even know there was internet-wide outrage about it until I actually did beat the game. Turns out I am not alone in my disgust.)

Let me say this straight out of the gate: There will be spoilers, and lots of them. Despite that, even as a fan of the series, you should still read this anyway.

Mass Effect is a franchise that's all about choice, all about how your decisions impact the larger galactic scene. We were introduced to things in the very first game that come into play in the very last one, and yet none of it has an impact on the ending.

They pull a Deus Ex Machina on you. You run into this God-type figure and are presented with various choices. Literally. BioWare decided to close out one of the most deeply personal, choice-ridden franchises of all time with a Select-An-Ending mechanic, none of which take into account the thousands of choices you have to make over the course of the series.

I am frankly hurt. I spent so much time thinking about if not actually playing the first two Mass Effect titles. I beat each of them 6 times, with various characters who reacted to various situations in different ways. It was an interactive narrative, one I really enjoyed. Obviously. I felt like the various squadmates in the game were real friends. Garrus in particular is one of my favorite game characters ever.

And the way it ended? I feel cheated. I've been cheated out of year's worth of plotting and deciding and growing attached to characters. Every ending sucked. There wasn't a single one which ends in a good feeling, not a damn one. All of them basically end with "galactic civilization is completely null and void now, thanks for playing!"

I can think of a zillion ways to improve the ending, too. Make Shepard die in a meaningful way, protecting the people he/she loves. Give me a run-down of what each of the surviving characters do after the war ends. Remove the entire God mechanic thrown in literally last moment and make it so the Crucible does what you think it should do leading up to that point. Anything, really, that doesn't feel like I wasted the last couple years of my life in anticipation for this climax.

I am officially done with BioWare. I hate to say it. They were literally my favorite game developers of all time. Planescape: Torment and the Baldur's Gate series? Masterpieces. Knights of the Old Republic? The first one is easily the greatest Star Wars game of all time. I even loved Jade Empire despite it's plot basically being a Chinese version of KotOR. The first two Mass Effect games changed my life. The first Dragon Age was brilliant.

Then Dragon Age 2 shat in the face of everyone who loved the first one, and Mass Effect 3 had to drop the single worst ending in video game history. It's a shame.

Confessions of a know-it-all

My mouth tastes like feet right now. I really need to shut up in classroom situations.

But I just can't. It's my only social outlet. Yes, this post is another desperate cry for help and I know it'll fall on deaf ears (blind eyes?) once again.

I have this overwhelming need to try and entertain or exude confidence or impart knowledge. I can't turn those switches off. Believe me; I've tried. The only things I haven't done in the efforts to calm down my social neediness is drugs and alcohol.

I simply do not get the basic social needs a person requires in order to psychologically function in a healthy way. Humanity is social by it's very nature. We're brought into the world in a social construct of family no matter what, as it is physically impossible to not be birthed and still exist. All people have some inherent need for socialization.

And I simply don't get enough of it. Out of all the people in my life right now, there is only a single one who seeks me out to talk to me and it's via text messaging the majority of the time. I've felt like a societal outcast for so long, and the fact I simply can't find a job does not do me any favors in that area.

I have never, ever felt important. I have such crazy abandonment issues, it's unreal. I was always a disappointment to my father growing up because I never lived up to the things he wanted me to do. My only friend growing up turned to drugs around the age of 16 and we grew very apart. I was ostracized in grade school for being awkward and (I hate to admit it) somewhat of a bully simply because I didn't understand how to interact with other kids my age. Every woman I've ever cared about in a meaningful way never saw me as anything more than a friend and have all rushed into long term relationships or marriages with guys they hardly knew, and the vast majority of them are not happy in those relationships.

It doesn't matter how much I try and psyche myself up and tell myself that I am worth loving, because those facts all still remain. The evidence contradicts what I tell myself, even if I know that I am still a worthwhile person. I have missed class two days this week because when I got up and saw myself in the mirror after taking a shower, I was unable to convince myself someone will give a shit if they saw me that day.

I would kill to have someone, anyone, give me a call out of the blue just to say hello. It would mean the world to me to invite someone to go grab lunch or to grab a snack or something and have them actually accept it. I have a free meal down at Honolulu Grill right now as I filled out a stamp card, and I really want to take someone with me so I could be friendly and offer them that free meal, and I can't even find that.

This is what it's like to be alone. It's not because there is no one in my life, but because there are so many and I feel unwanted and invisible. I can't even apologize without making people more angry at me.

And so here I write. I have a bajillion big projects in need of doing, and I just can't lift a finger because right now my only companion is this blog no one reads called "Get Serious." I have had deeper and more meaningful conversations with a psychic blue alien chick with a tentacled head this week than with any real person.

SO IF YOU HAVE READ ALL THIS AND IT MOVED YOU TO CARE: I am even going to give you something we can do. Just give me a call or toss me an e-mail, and we'll go splits on a pizza from Domino's, and we'll just enjoy the pizza while watching TV. That'd be enough and I'd love you forever for it.

Dear Classmates, stop being stupid.

Confession: If I'm any schoolastic archetype, I'm the know-it-all. I don't try to come across as condescending most of the time, even though I'm aware I do. I genuinely thirst for knowledge, and part of growing intellectually is to ask questions and debate meaning.

I get a lot of flak from people for doing so. I realize I tend to take over conversations in a classroom setting and that can be annoying to people. But here's why I do it:

No one else tries.

If someone brought up a strong argument for how I was wrong, I'd sit back and ponder it. I do this on the rare occasions it comes up. But it never happens. People are so complacent to sit back and just let the class pass them by. I hate it. I hate it to my very core.

Today in my media law class, we were given take home essay questions. We then had a "study session" in which people asked the teacher questions pertaining to the essay questions, in order to try and clarify things. Half the people basically asked for the answers to the questions (at least one person had the courtesy and humor to literally ask so!) and everyone else asked just stupid questions.

The saying "There are no stupid questions" is bogus. There are stupid questions. If you are seeking clarification on something in which the person answering it can simply repeat the SAME THING OVER AND OVER, they are stupid questions. I was trying my best not to rip into people during class, and apparently my seething anger at the general stupidity of my classmates boiled enough to the surface someone else caught on and asked the teacher to let me out of the class early. Thank god. I about had it in there.

Do people not get it? I am not saying I try that hard at all when it comes to classes, but at the very least I don't attempt to make things more complicated than they really are. The task is to write an essay about X; why would I then go and find a Y and Z totally unrelated to it in order to confuse myself beyond task X?

Best Device writeup

For my New Media Apps class, we were tasked with looking into the future and trying to find the "next big thing."

Honestly, all my techie nerd friends and my own research didn't turn up a thing on the horizon people haven't been buzzing about for years. The iPad3? It's not new. I hate to tell people this, but the iPad 2 was not really a huge improvement over the original iPad. Yeah they slapped a camera on it. Big deal. Essentially it serves the exact same purpose: a bigger touch surface for people who want a little more processing power out of their smartphones. The latest and greatest in Tablet technology will still essentially be a tablet computer. The inherent functionality will not change; it'll simply have more bells and whistles.

The only, only, only thing I could find was unfortunately what our example was for the assignment! Google's HUD glasses they are working on are, to them, hopefully the next big thing. Basically, it'll be the android platform draped right over your eyes as opposed to a handheld device.

I have to say I see a lot of problems with this ever catching on. For starters, it'll lack the textile feel holding a tablet/smartphone/whatever has. I can't even fathom how the interface will work. Do you look at one of the displays as a button and blink twice to double-click? Voice activated, maybe? I imagine that would only end in tears as the inevitable rise of the evil AI soon takes over the world. Understandably, Google is very tight-lipped on the subject.

The only things we know for sure are it's going to look like a pair of Oakley's, and they are supposed to come out "sometime this year." (Too bad this is not in development by Valve, because then we know that'd mean they'll for sure hit the shelves by 2016.)

Let's get in to the rubric's talking points:
Convergence- Access seems like it'll be a tricky thing. It will run off the Android platform, though, so chances are it'll have 4g speed capabilities in terms of internet connection and interactivity. Considering an actual pair of simple Oakley sunglasses can run up to $210 dollars, I can't imagine Google glasses will be affordable to anyone but the most dedicated tech trendsetters. I suppose this ties in to fair value. As it's an unreleased product, any attempt to name the potential price is pure speculation and the entire question behind fair value (ie: is it worth the dosh?) is unanswerable.

The potential utility of the glasses is obviously why it would be "the next big thing." A New York Times article by Nick Bilton published just a few days ago on the 22nd mentions a few things they could potentially do with this technology. 1) Augmented Reality courses. Bilton seems to focus on this one quite a bit because I think the novelty appears to him, but basically it would display virtual obstacle courses for you to navigate, much to the hilarity of everyone not also wearing the glasses. 2) Google Goggles. If you don't know what that app is, in short, it's a thing that lets your smart phones/tablets display information on buildings and what not as you point your camera over them. In essence, just looking at something will turn on a google search for it's history. 3) Facial recognition. That cute girl you saw at Jim's sexy party and forgot to ask for her number manages to show up in your life again at some coffee shop, it would let you know you've seen this person before and potentially where at, and how many facebook friends you have in common.

Consumerism-
Choice: We still only have theoretically what these glasses will look like, but I can't imagine Google would be simpleminded enough to not release multiple looks and styles. At the very least, colors. The thing about eye-wear is that it's even more of a fashion statement than the bejeweled rhinestones adoring the back of your tablet's gel covering and ignoring that would be folly. Also, chances are if this comes out at the time Google hopes to get them out, they will have the monopoly on smartvision (or whatever you'd want to call it) for some time as to my knowledge, Apple or Facebook or Microsoft or Sony do not have any plans to create something similar.

Convenience I imagine is one of the strong points of this potential product. Imagine this scenario- Stick on my GoogleShades, walk down the Boulevard looking for a place to eat. I could just eyeball every building I passed and get how the community rates the food joint, discover historical facts about landmark buildings (as many as we have here in St. George), and discover services I didn't even know existed because of all the little tiny hole-in-the-wall stores that dot that particular street. I personally think that'd be pretty cool, and a helluva lot easier than trying to do this using the Internet. Or perhaps it'd give me a 3d layout of my truck's engine and help me pinpoint problems within it. Or a million other practical uses. I'd be all over something that helped me understand the world I live in a little better.

Performance is difficult to judge. Again, unreleased product. Still, Android phones and tablets seem to work fine and I can't recall at any point in my life using a Google product or service which was launched prematurely to the point it wasn't as ready for public consumption as it needed to have been. Funny thing what a bajillionty dollar corporation can do eh?

Interactivity:
Individualism will be an interesting idea when it comes to these glasses. Will it have one standard display for the HUD, or will there be many? Can I switch between how the Terminator sees things vs. how Tony Stark does in his Iron Man suit? What colors does it come in? Where exactly can I stick my "Team Jacob" stickers?

Controls for now seem a bit goofy. I recall when people first started using BlueTooth headsets and seemed like they were talking very loudly to themselves. (This reminds me of a time this crazy dude with dreadlocks was browsing the store I worked at the time talking to himself and I actually had to peak to see if he was wearing a headset. He was not. Guy was just talking to himself for reals.) It was new, and people didn't know how to react to those utilizing the new tech. Imagine now seeing a guy with a hoodie and shades, tilting his head about, dodging invisible objects, and issuing verbal commands at nothing. I hope it ends up being as creepy to utilize as it seems on paper because it would be worth it to me just so I could act like a crazy person and a creep and blame it on my glasses.

Security is an interesting concept to look at in terms of the digital age in general. Applying it to this specific product, though, I am not sure there's anything to say beyond what any other ditigal internet-ready device already has to offer. It's Google. I imagine having a thing on your face to allow their mind-aliens to sorcerer away your every thought will be just as bad as utilizing Google Chrome. What do you expect? It's the internet.

FINAL THOUGHTS:
I see this product being kind of a failure. I know a vast number of people who dislike wearing glasses in general, let alone ones that actually add more crap for your eyes to process. I can't help but wonder if it's worth the R&D. Are people really going to switch their touchpads for a device which requires audial and physical motion to use? I don't see it. If anything, the Google glasses will have a much more limited market than smartphones and tablets. I can see it being developed more for a military type environment than for the every day consumer and I fully expect that's what will end up happening to it. I think at this point, consumers are not yelling "speed up and give me more" but "slow down and let me figure out the thing that came out 3 years ago so I can figure out the thing that came out 2 years ago."

The "Art" is in the making

I've always been fascinated by art not necessarily intended as high-brow art. What I mean, is stuff like the street vendor doing a bunch of tricks to wow the passers by into buying his wares, or re-purposing children's toys or garbage into really neat things.

That's all the introduction I'm gonna give. Without further ado:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/retinence/6787051822/in/photostream

Guy made a Gyrados (a type of Pokémon, for those less nerdly inclined) out of LEGO blocks. Pretty damned incredible.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukyDrkwvJXQ

Dude makes candy art. Street vendor in China (I think). In this, he makes a caramel lolipop Dragon thingy. It's so cool.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Noble_and_Sue_Webster

These people don't just turn trash into statues: they use them to still look like garbage heaps but the images projected onto a surface behind? That is art. This is such an Inception-type way of doing things. Pretty freakin' amazing.

I am disgusted with South Dakota.

Did you know children are kidnapped in a federally funded foster care program in South Dakota?

And did you know the vast majority of these children are native american?

A good friend of mine linked me to this article today. It's an NPR article written by Laura Sullivan and Amy Walters about perhaps the most fucked up thing I've heard about in years.

I don't even want to sit and comment on the article. Go read it right now, and you will be disgusted. And the worst part is, I'm even more disgusted at the rest of the country for the things they get offended by now. An ESPN article on the New York Knicks is under attack by the Asian population in this country for the headline "Chink in the Armor," feeling it was a derogatory comment toward Jeremy Lin as it was the first loss the team has had under his miraculous unexpected bursting on to the scene.

I mean grow up, people. Oh noes, they used the word chink and this star happens to be of oriental heritage! Clearly this is racial insensitivity and not someone using an extremely common figure of speech referring to weaknesses not visible to the naked eye!

Man this makes me upset. I'm going to go bash my head into my keyboard as I play Dota 2 the rest of the day now.

I made a font.

This was an assignment for class, but it was fun. Decided to make a font with a sci-fi feel to it. This is what I'd use on the cover of the novel I've been kicking around in my head the last decade or so.

I apologize for the crappy quality of the picture (took it with my phone) and am planning on digitally cleaning it up. I'll add that in here once that gets finished.

Trying to classify this font is difficult, as it's not entirely traditional. It's not the type of thing you'd use for an extended lengthy writing of any kind because it'd be very difficult to read. That said, I'd claim it to be a sans-seriff font. There are lots of bells and whistles and detail throughout each letter/number, but they are not "stroke" details. They are like added bonuses rather than something which looks like it originated in cursive. The letters are asymmetrical, but I attempted to keep lines and extra bits in an orderly fashion to match up with how they'd look on any other given letter (the lines on "b" and "d" for example). If it belongs to any style of font, it'd be modern, due to the contrast between thick and thin parts of the lettering.

As I mentioned, the goal was to make something sci-fi. I wanted to incorporate an alien feel into it, so I made they as crop circle-adjacent as possible while still remaining legible. There's also a uniformity in the lack of uniformity. It just looks spacey, don't you think?

addendum:
Here's the "new" version in which I just used the paint tool in GIMP to go through and help define the letters/numbers a little better.

This is why we can't have nice things.

I feel like my patience as a gamer is completely gone. I have none at all any more when it comes to certain types of games. First person shooters, especially, are not the type of thing I will display any sort of patience toward. The reason being the genre is extremely limited, and if it fails on some basic things it really doesn't matter how "inventive" the act of running and shooting other enemies are.

I bought "Gotham City Imposters" last week, and was really happy with it because of the art aesthetic and general silliness of the presentation. Then I tried playing it. Rage immediately set in.

Fun thing about playing games through steam: I can tell how long I've had a title open for. In this case, two hours. I can also tell you in that two hours, I've maybe played three total matches and only one of them was completely full while the others were both lopsided with 4 on one team and 2 on the other. The rest of the time was spent searching for a match.

That's right. The matchmaking process takes significantly longer than the actual play time.

This is criminal. I want to go to that dev team and slap every single last person who worked on this game in the face. They failed the single most basic need of every successful video game: playability. If you can't utilize the verb signifying the act of using the product, you failed. You cannot sit and play, because most of the time is spent sitting and waiting. Doesn't matter how much "fun" the actual gameplay is if the player can never really access it in a reliable way. In fact, knowing there are some fun, inventive things in the gameplay makes me hate this game even more.

So this review, I am not going to tell you about the graphics, the sound, the neat features and any of that. In fact, I feel I would lack journalistic integrity if I commented on the contents of this game. It is a waste of your time to read about features you can only ever dream about playing, right?

Gotham City Imposters gets a Not Playable out of 10. The devs have already released a statement saying they plan on a lot of "cool features" in the upcoming "free DLC" next month, which include (get this!) improved matchmaking, joining into matches already in progress, and the ability to mute players.

That is not DLC. Those are basic gameplay features required to create an enjoyable experience. You've already lost me, Monolith. Trying to tell me your game update to gameplay problems is "free DLC" rather than a bug fixing patch AND it's going to take an entire month from the date of launch, problems any good video game developer would have encountered and fixed with any sort of playtesting whatsoever, makes me think you're a team of incompetent developers.

Mass game reviews: Heavy rage incoming!

I am an avid Steam fan. Steam is the digital video game distributor of choice for me and last I checked, the vast majority of PC gamers. Among the many, many features of the app is a "recommend" button, which allows you to use something like 500 characters to write a short blurb that all your friends can see if they ever view a game's store page.

I figured I'd just go copy/paste all the ones I've written so far down here, and I'll even go a step further and lump them into good, mixed bag and just plain bad categories.

Let's start with the good stuff.
These games are good!

Everyday Genius: Squarelogic--
Ever do a KenKen puzzle in a paper? This is basically KenKen on steroids, because there's all sorts of extra modes that aren't available in print formats. If you like logic puzzles, and are capable of basic math, you'll be enetertained til the end of time. I wish I was joking. There are more puzzles than I could ever possibly finish in it, if you REALLY want to finish them all.

Mass Effect 2--
Mass Effect 2 is easily in my top 5 games of all time. It took all the boring, re-hashed, pointless RPG elements out of an already stellar title, streamlined the combat, and still has all the FUN parts of RPG games (that is being the most badass space captain of all time), making it seriously one of the most well-developed, fun, replayable games ever made.

Delve Deeper! --
WE MUST DELVE DERPER.

In all seriousness, it's a pretty fun game. It seems like a board-game concept that simply would have been too hard to set up in person. If the online support worked better, I'd make everyone I know get it. As is, it's a little slow but still quite enjoyable.

Dragon Age: Origins--
Dragon Age: Origins is the spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate, one of the greatest game series ever in my humble opinion. It starts off pretty slow, but once you get out of the starting city, it's hard to set it down. Get the Ultimate Edition that has all the DLC because it's not worth the price to get the DLC seperately. There's a reason I've beat the game at least 6 times start to finish.

Torchlight--
This game really needs multiplayer because it's a streamlined Diablo clone. It does itemization right. It does graphics right. It does endless dungeoning right. Fantastic buy.

Jamestown--
Remember when games were awesome? Yeah this is like those old-school times.

Battlefield: Bad Company 2--
BC2 is great for the same reasons that all the battlefield titles are great: teamwork matters. It's got a lot of balance issues, though. For starters, there is no cover. Everything is destructable, so engineers can spam rockets all day long and you suddenly never have anywhere to hide except behind the massive amounts of dust covering everything. It's a step backwards from BF2142, easily the best title in the franchise in terms of balance and gameplay.

Peggle--
It's amazing a game seemingly so totally random is so amazingly fun. Yet again, proof simple is best. I've spent more time with this Popcap game than any of their other titles.

Killing Floor--
Killing Floor is a pretty simple game: kill zombies, get money, defeat each wave, buy bigger guns, kill more zombies. It's a blast to play with friends, and the difficulty is just right. Not too hard you get frustrated, harder difficulties mean you have to try but you can still ravage if you know what you're doing.

King's Bounty: Armored Princess--
King's Bounty: The Legend is good. Armored Princess is great. It streamlines a few of the minor hickups with The Legend, has better combat, tons of units so there's nearly endless versatility to your army choices, and is more of the Heroes of Might and Magic battle goodness you love.

King's Bounty: Crossworlds--
King's Bounty: Crossworlds contains a reworked King's Bounty: Armored Princess and is worth picking up for that alone. The extra modes are fun and challenging, although not terribly long. The gameplay depth is there (seems like hundreds of different types of units), and I for one love the undless customization. If you remember old-school Might and Magic titles, it's a must get.

Dawn of War II: Retribution--
Do you like Starcraft?

Well you're wrong. This game offers more depth, and an inherent deeper level of coolness. Space Marines are hulking monsters with chainsaw swords rather than some weird future version of the Confederate States of America. Orks are inherently cooler than your typical fantasy orcs, because they spell it with a K. And leave it to the Warhammer universe to make elves cool rather than emo forest faggots. And there's still 3 whole totally different unique races left (Chaos Space Marines, Imperial Guard, and Tyranids for the record.) And it's all fairly balanced!

Plus, Last Stand mode is a whole awesome experience in and of it's own rights. It's like Tower Defense except fuck towers. They are for pussies. Real men fight off endless waves of unkillable ultimate threats to the universe with their own bare hands.

Trackmania Forever--
This game is ridiculously fun. And it's free? Seriously? Awesome. Download it. Now.

Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale--
Without a doubt, this game totally captivated me. At first, I was sucked into the Rouge-Like style dungeon crawling, and then I was totally enraptured in the business selling part of it, and then I loved the combination of doing both. Only qualms is the controls on Keyboard are not so great; I recommend getting a controller.

Bloodline Champions--
This is seriously the most fun with a F2P game I've ever had, and I am a sucker for anything I don't necessarily have to spend a dime on. Take your typical MOBA game (think Dota or LoL or HoN) and then remove everything but champion on champion combat. It is like Diablo 2 PVP if there weren't items or levels or other monsters to kill. I'm seriously hooked, hardcore, and the best part is unlike other MOBA games, it's a lot easier to get into due to it's straightforwardness of combat.

Cave Story+ --
Like one of the major publications that reviewed this game, I agree if this was released back on the NES, it'd be considered one of the classics of all time. It's that good. It ranks up there with Metroid and Zelda and Mario, except it's not buggy like all those games were. Fantastic story, fun gameplay, and a memorable experience.

Batman: Arkham City--
I am re-writing my recommendation for this game. It is seriously awesome. I still love it despite having lost maybe 10 hours of my life re-doing stuff I'd done previously on a save file that just up and vanishes. So I will give you this warning first: MAKE SURE YOU BACK UP YOUR SAVE GAME FILE EVERY SINGLE TIME YOU EXIT THE GAME WITH YOUR SAVE INTACT.

Despite that one major glaring technical flaw, the game itself is already in my top 5 of all time list (Baldur's Gate 2, Mass Effect 2, Final Fantasy Tactics, BF2142 and now this.) It is every single possible thing you could ever want in an action adventure game. There's mental puzzle solving, twitch reflex combat, a great plot, fun challenge modes, and a significant amount of gameplay time. And you get to be Batman, in a very visceral way. You honestly /feel/ like you're Batman, because you do the sleuthing and the kicking of ass and the sexual tension toward all the women in your life.

Dungeons of Dredmor--
This is a delightful Roguelike. It's just the right amount of challenging. Remember, the goal isn't to win. The goal is just to do better than you did the time before. In terms of the aesthetics, it's very reminiscent of old Monkey Island games (and references them a ton). I laugh constantly at all the little nerdy references in it, like random creatures taunting me with "you n'wah" or how starting with Archaeologist gives you a Fedora and every skill in the tree is an Indiana Jones reference.


Sonic Generations--
Probably the best Sonic game to come out in the post-Genesis era. They realized what the strong point of the franchise was. It's not the super fast thing which keeps people coming back, but replayability through good stage design. My only beef is the game isn't optimized terribly well. I can run the classic stages just fine but the "new" style Sonic maps eat my processor.

Fortune Summoners: Secret of the Elemental Flame--
Fun and cute little side scrolling RPG. It's got some flaws (the controls aren't as tight as they should be, the pacing is kind of bad) but the combat is fun and some of the gameplay concepts explored are well done.

Pineapple Smash Crew--
This game has the best music ever. It's also quite fun. I am amazed at the high quality of games designed by a single guy, while games with huge ginormous dev teams end up being crap so often. It's mind-boggling.


These games are okay!


Team Fortress 2--
I really hope you like MMO mechanics at work in your first person shooter. I miss when TF2 was about playing as a team to overcome objectives and beat the other guys. Now it's about logging in the longest and getting a bigger hat than the other guys, all while playing horrible unbalanced maps that favor cheesy tactics.


Atom Zombie Smasher--
The game is fun, but it's rather confusing. It took me more or less completely failing 6 times to get the hang of how to play, but I still got smoked all the time. I was playing on a simple difficulty too so it's either I don't get it, or it's inherently too difficult to play.


Alpha Protocol--
Fantastic game with one major flaw: the gameplay. If I could do all the espionage stuff without having to deal with the horribly buggy AI, unfair enemies, really poorly concieved bossfights, I'd be enjoying this immensely. Obsidian pisses me off. Some of the best dialogue and roleplaying in their games, but just trashy programming. It's a damn shame.

These games are bad!

Magic: The Gathering - Tactics--

Yet another one of my non-recommendations: This game is fatally flawed. I have encountered two bugs in three matches which forced me to quit the game because the match locked up. Considering this has actually been out a year, these kinds of fatal flaws are inexcusable.

Defense Grid: The Awakening--

Why did I pay money for something I can do for free on nearly every imaginable flash games website known to man? There is nothing new, unique, or exciting enough about this title to differentiate it from every other tower defense game.

Terraria--

To be honest, I don't get the appeal. I thought I'd like it at first, but after a half hour of having no aim and drive to accomplish anything, I haven't booted it back up since. Not to mention the fact it relies on the archaic direct IP address connection method, meaning good luck doing the multiplayer if you're as network illeterate as I am.

I am fairly certain it's an autism simulator, appealing to people who want to see how many colorful shaped blocks they can line up in a row.

DC Universe Online--

I don't really care how it plays, or what the end-game content is: This game was ruined for me by the time I finished the starter quest. Why? I spent an awful lot of time and thought into creating my character, just to find out each piece of gear alters the look of your guy. So my dweeby-looking guy without a shirt, wearing just a cape and skinny pants? Already didn't match how I wanted him to look maybe 30 minutes into the game.

Counter-Strike: Source--

There is nothing redeeming about Counter-Strike. What a horrible franchise. You can't tell when your bullets connect with the enemies. There's a nonsensical buy menu for guns, meaning the better team stays on top the entire match because the other guys will be stuck with Glocks as the others charge around with M-16s and AK-47s. But you all know this because it's been around since 1998.

Blood Bowl: Legendary Edition--

This game makes no sense. The tutorial doesn't even explain the basics to you, and ever after reading how you're "supposed" to play it on tutorials online, I lose every single round by 5 points or more. It fails the basic test of being understandable to those without a PH D or an entire rulebook in front of them. I want to like it but I cannot.

Gotham City Imposters--

AVOID AT ALL COSTS. The matchmaking is player to player only, which means with a total player base of less than a thousand people (the peak is 895 over Steam, for christ sake), you will never actually get to play it. Worst $15 bucks I ever spent.