More isn't Better DC Comics

The other day I was in the local comic book store and noticed there was a new Flash Comic out. I always liked the Wally West Flash so grabbed it thinking he got a new series. Well nooo this is about Barry Allen who returned to life or escaped the "Speed Force" in DCs last Crisis series, Final Crisis. So now we 4 flashes running around and I personally have no clue what the hell is going on.

Flash #1: Jeff Garrik who use to be in an alternate earth but is now on ours (this happened in one of the other Crisis series but I don't remember how)

Flash #2: Barry Allen, the Silver Age flash and probably the most well known flash. This guy apparently died in Crisis of Infinite Earths but was really just trapped in the Speed Force thing but just escaped so guess what he's back.

Flash #3: Wally West, use to be Kid Flash but become the Flash after Barry Allen died.

Flash #4: Bart Allen, who is apparently related to Barry Allen but from the future or something stupid like that.

The whole rational behind Crisis on Infinite Earths was to clean up the complexity in the DC universe and restore some manageable sense on continuity. This was a necessary and good thing as concept of all these parallel earths with slightly different versions of the same heroes was dumb. However, compared to what they have now it was clean and logical. Crisis on Infinite Earths sold very well so they had to have more Crisis crossovers and more Crisis Crossovers till you have a completely messed up earth with 4 flashes and I don't even know how many Supermen. DC has officially lost me as a reader, Batman RIP disenchanted me and now the results of Final Crisis have just pissed me off.

Of course I still haven't forgiven them for making my favorite hero at the time, Hawk (Hank Hall) the Monarch.

More Left 4 Dead Stuff

So, keeping in line with Darcy's last post, I thought I'd share a couple of things about this great game (I hate Boomers too).

First, I love this video about Francis, sums up his contribution to the game perfectly. All the characters in the game have great personalities, but Francis is worth a special mention; he's miserable and complains about everything, plus, his back and forth with Bill is usually worth a good laugh. When I play I generally go as Bill, never fails to amaze me how, no matter what happens, Bill never drops his cigarette, and I've seen him get hit with a car (not "by a car", "with a car").

 

Only other thing I'm going to add here today is a little tidbit I recently picked up during my online searches. We are going to be getting some new content for the game released on April 21, this is taken directly from www.left4dead411.com:

The free Survival Pack adds the new Survival game mode, where players are given time to dig in before fending off unceasing zombie hordes in an attempt to survive as long as possible. Survival Mode is played on 12 new maps--11 being sections of existing levels and 1 created especially for Survival Mode, Lighthouse.

The Survival Pack also brings Versus mode to the final two co-op campaigns, Dead Air and Death Toll. This release coincides with the release of Left 4 Dead: Critics Choice Edition, which contains the original game plus the Survival Pack. 

As stated in the first line, this is going to be free for everyone who already owns the game, I hate having to pay for DLC. I'm really looking forward to the survival mode, but I am a little disappointed that we're not getting any new scenarios, especially considering this video depicting a level matching the mall in Dawn of the Dead. How cool would that be?

Boomer!!!!!

I played some Left 4 Dead with my buddy Rob this weekend. He already reviewed it so I'm not going there but someone explain to me how this monstrosity keeps sneaking up on me.

Really he makes loud disgusting noises, one can hear for at least 5 minutes before he appears out of no where so you know he's coming, and he's at least 400 pounds so should be easy to spot. Yet the stupid zombie boss known as a Boomer consistently barfs or explodes all over my toon, usually Francis, blinding me and making me the primary target for the zombie horde. I hate you Boomer!

LCARS Interface Screen Saver

If you know what the title of this blog means then you're probably already getting excited, although, to be fair, if you already know what it means you've probably already got it; for the rest of you, here's what LCARS is. Having said that lets get to the meat of today's topic, a really cool screen saver.

Sometime early last year I downloaded a copy of a program from a torrent site simply because the title intrigued me, Star Trek Screensaver. I thought it was going to be some sort of a slideshow featuring pictures from the series or at best some star ship designs; I figured I'd check it out, maybe get a new background for my desktop. Anyway about five minutes later the download finished, I ran the exe and was presented with a GUI straight out of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

The screensaver doesn't run for long, maybe five minutes before looping back to the start, but while it runs it shows you detailed information about star charts, some Enterprise E schematics, and a bit of technical data. One feature I really like is the fact that if you run dual monitors you get a different display on each monitor, not just the same thing mirrored, but two different sections of the program run. On top of that it actually has a really good chart of the galaxy giving you the locations of all the different powers in the galaxy, the Borg, the Romulans, the Klingons, etc. One more thing, it comes complete with Star Trek sound effects, makes it sound like you're sitting on the bridge of a Sovereign class starship, that's right, I know my Star Trek, almost as well as my Star Wars.

I use this on all of my computers, after a year I still haven't gotten bored with it. As I said in the beginning I got it from a torrent site, but after a little research I found that it's a freely available program for use by anyone. It works on both Vista and XP PC's and even comes with a Mac version for all you people who like having Steve Jobs tell you how to live your life. Oh, one last thing, you can get the program here.

Leisure Suit Larry

Ah, so many wasted hours on these games, trying to figure out the right sequence of events to get that poorly pixilated loser laid, but to be fair if I hadn't wasted my time on this I would have found something at least as dumb to waste it on (and, judging from past experience, probably even dumber). So you're asking yourself, what brought up this bout of video game nostalgia? The fact that the franchise is still alive and kicking.

The newest member of the Leisure Suit family was released yesterday. In case you haven't been following such things the franchise was first introduced in 1987 and carried through into the mid nineties, after which things kind of dropped off. Then in 2004 the first console version of the game was released, Magna Cum Laude; five years later we have Box Office Bust and from what I can tell the franchise has gone completely bust.

I haven't had a chance to play Box Office Bust yet but the reviews I'm seeing aren't positive, and to be honest this is what I was expecting. It was stated from the early stages of development that they were going to take a deviation from Magna Cum Laude, citing poor customer response. Well I don't know what those customers were thinking because I loved the game.

Which brings us to the real point today. Being that the Magna Cum Laude was cross-platformed I figured I'd try it on the Xbox but actually ended up playing it on the PC; I could claim it's because I wanted to maintain the PC legacy for this game, but it's actually because I managed to get a no-censor crack and therefore got all the nudity opened up. Ah, animated boobies, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I can't say I was enthralled with the game from the start but it did have a compelling story line, seeing more boobies, so I stuck with it. The game is actually classed as an adventure style but it really boils down to minigames, some of them make you money, some of them give you confidence, and some of the actually work to getting you laid. You play the original Larry's nephew, Larry, who is trying to get onto a dating gameshow, and in order to do so he must seduce a series of girls, each more difficult than the last, and produce trophy's to validate Larry's ability to play the show. Essentially simple and the games aren't backbreakingly difficult, but that's what I liked about it, it appealed to the casual gamer in me. I could get in and play a few minigames and then walk away, rarely getting frustrated over not being able to get past a certain point. Plus it kept me coming back because I wanted to see the next girl, for instance Bilzarbra: 

I'll try and provide a full review of Box Office Bust but in the meantime I would highly recommend this game to anyone who is looking to kill a few hours, although it's more rewarding if you don't have to worry about the censorship.