Robs Word Reboot

So there are couple of words that I like but don't have a good use for them anymore, so I figured why not give them a reboot:

1. Fort: Now to be fair I've been using this one for a few years, but this is going to be the public unveiling of it. No one really uses forts anymore, but it's a good name, it implies safety, refuge, and strength. That's why I no longer have a home office, I have a fort. No need to really narrow this down much more than that, it's a place to store collectibles, computer and networking equipment, and generally kill things from. Home office == fort.

2. Communist: Having been a child of the 70's and 80's communism has always had connotations of evil and bad. To be honest I miss calling things communist, so just last week I decided to start using tit as a general derogatory term. Don't like someone? He's a communist. Don't like that car? It's communism on wheels. Don't like supper? It's communistic. The word just rolls off your tongue, and the best part is it's not profanity so use it whenever you want.

That's about it, but what more do you need? If you get too many new additions to the vocabulary they lose their effectiveness.

Go forth and use your new found words with passion and commitment. I do.

Remembering ROM SpaceKnight

Every once in a while I bring up the comic, ROM SpaceKnight. I totally remember paging through issues of this baby as a kid yet no one else seems to recall ROM.

ROM was a cyborg travelling the universe saving it from the evil of Dire Wraiths. I suspect it was kinda lame but I still remember it fondly. After reading the wikipedia post I didn't know he was started to support a toy franchise. I totally want a ROM action figure

Bikini Samurai Squad

Well, as mentioned in my last post I just had to try this game; here's the cover again, simply because I love it:

What can I say about this game? The gameplay is nothing less than unremarkable, it's a button masher of the first order; the enemies are by and large pathetic, old school zombies, sometimes with guns, and a few other creatures like birds; the bosses are laughable, just pound away on them and jump around a bit; and the settings are mundane, a cityscape, with the odd graveyard thrown in. The only real question that must be asked is, if it's so bad why did I play it for almost 3 hours straight the first time I put it in my 360?

In case you have forgotten about the cover art, may I please point your attention to the top of this article, that says it all. The opening cinematic is nothing less than breathtaking, watching her take a shower and then get "dressed", and I use that term very loosely. Watching her bounce, and I do mean bounce, around the screen with blood spraying and bodies dropping was enough to keep me going for a few hours, and it'll bring me back when I have some more time to commit to gaming.

Last time I said that you don't need to spend money on developers when you get that kind of cover art, but I have to modify that statement as I firmly believe they did spend some money on development and, more importantly, physics. The boobie giggle in this game is absolutely amazing, you find yourself using mainly jump moves just so you can watch those girls move. It must have taken most of their budget to get that one part of the game working correctly, and they did it well. God bless the Japanese!

You want a challenging game with great villains and an interesting story? This game ain't for you buddy. You want to watch mostly naked Asian girls jump and hop around while spraying blood on the camera? Pull up a seat because this game was made for you and me buddy!

Robs New Must Play Game

Bikini Samurai Squad

Yesterday I walked into my friendly neighborhood video game store to peruse the stock and ran across this little gem. Just looking at this I knew it had to be a horrible game, and the reviews I have since read have backed that up beyond all question. Still, I gotta say, that cover art made it mighty hard for me to walk out of the store without a copy, price tag and cranky wife be damned.

Why spend money on developers when all you need is good cover art? Gotta get me copy, and right quick.

I'll leave you with that thought and one screenshot from the game:

Deadliest Warrior Part 2

A few weeks ago I wrote about the show Deadliest Warrior and gave it a grudging approval. I thought today I would revisit this idea and give a more comprehensive picture.

First off let me say that I watch the show religiously, or at least as religiously as I watch anything on TV; I just can't get into most of the crap that passes for TV in this day and age, and don't even get me started on "Reality Television". I actually watch TV more for the commercials than anything else, I've always appreciated a well written commercial, but I digress.

Deadliest Warrior tries very hard to give itself legitimacy and, to be fair, to the untrained eye they succeed. For those people who are used to accepting whatever TV spoon feeds you and accept it as fact, then this show is a freakin' forensics textbook. If, on the other hand, you are used to drawing your own conclusions based on fact and knowledge, they tend to fall short. You need examples you say? OK, lets start with this:

Problem #1: Scientific Method is completely ignored. This is by far my biggest beef with the show, they have no procedures for their testing. If you want to test item X and compare its results to item Y you need to maintain procedures. For instance, with the Green Berets vs the Spetznaz, they had the Spetznaz drop a grenade into a Washing machine with a closed lid; they then had the Green Berets throw their grenade into a Plexiglases box the size of a closet, complete with dummies and furniture. Based on this they decided the American grenade was more powerful. It doesn't work like that, you need to keep the test conditions static to compare results. Whats happening here is they are running these tests and not liking the results so they run different tests and publish the ones they like. I don't think so Tim. You need to either put both grenades in a washing machine or a plexiglass box, preferabbly both!

Problem #2: Reality is ignored. In the episode the the Shao-lin monk and the Maori Warrior they had the Maori test his club/spear on the spine of a cow, not the carcass, the spine from a de-boned carcass. They even went so far as to say that by removing the muscle and tissue around the spine you are getting a true test. Bullshit! The muscle and tissue are what holds the body together, without it I have no doubt the Shao-lin monk could have broken that spine with his own staff. If they had hung a full side of beef, muscle intact, and let the Maori break its spine I would have been impressed.

Problem #3: The infighting. OK, this isn't a problem with scientific method or facts, but it really bugs me. Most of the episodes have the opposing experts fighting and bickering like children about who is better; is a little professionalism too much to ask for? Obviously they encourage this and I wish they would stop, I almost stopped watching the show a couple of times because of it. In the Pirate vs the Knight episode it got downright sickening, but I have to say the Green Beret vs the Spetznaz impressed me. These guys were professionals who each thought they were better but they also had respect for the other guys, I admire that. There's nothing wrong with thinking your good, but your only as good as the last guy you've beaten, and these dudes knew that.

Problem #4: The warrior: Again, not a problem with scientific method, but still a big problem, they ignore the man using the weapons too often. They test these weapons and decide which is stronger and better using their bullshit methods, but they often ignore the person holding it, how strong were they? What kind of discipline did they have? How intelligent were they? These are things that can be very hard to measure, thus they largely ignore them. I think the Yakuza would have beaten the mafia, not because of their weapons, but because of their discipline.

Let me also just say that it is possible to put a successful show on TV that actually pays attention to the facts. I'm not saying that Mythbusters does everything perfectly, but they take a lot time and pay attention to a lot of detials when they conduct experiments and, as a result, it's hard to argue with the fatcs they come up. Not impossible, but hard.

So, after reading that mini-rant, you wonder why do I keep watching the show. Well, just like I said last time, the final fight is worth the price of admission. I sit on the edge of my seat, enthralled by the drama of mortal combat that they actually do a really good job at. I always have me decision made on who'll win before the show even starts, but bloodlust is bloodlust, and those fights deliver the blood.