Halo 2 Maps = $19.99 = Ouch!!

Read the new "Special Edition" weekly what's update last night.It seems obvious to me that Microsoft is being really careful about these new maps for Halo2.I knew that they were gonna charge money for the download(s), i just wasnt sure how they would go about doing it without pissing off the bungie community.Well lets see,i can buy the disc for 20 bucks and get all the maps ,some bullshit documentary and all the autoupdates,or i can wait until the end of the summer when they are free to download them.Well if i go the first route then I will be giving in to paying for something that i shouldnt have to (sorry frankie , but this game has sold upwards of ten million copies and most of them were the special edition,so i think that that much money should more than make up for the cost of development)or I can go the second route and wait,in which case by the time i do download them i'll be the only person on live who totally does'nt know the maps and probably get my ass handed to me repeatedly.Hmmm...quite the predicament indeed.Maybe if they included some new weapons / vehicles it would be worth it , but i think that they(microsoft not bungie)are just trying to find a way to make even more money off of this game.I may or may not purchase the disc when it comes out ,but either way im relly disappointed in this move.

PSP Problems Run Amuck

well I really wanted to buy a PSP on launch day,but I guess i'll have to wait.While surfing the net last night i noticed an awful lot of people saying that they were having problems with dead pixels on brand new PSP's.I even read a story about one person who had to take his back and exchange it 4 times!!Thats insane!There are even worse cases being reorted on Sony's own PSP website,one such story was this guy's PSP had so many dead pixels that the machine was unuseable and the forum mod locked the thread stating that the user was"trolling"or something like that.Uh-Huh.The really bad part is that Sony knows about the problem and is refusing to do ANYTHING to help(whereas i heard that nintendo has unofficially adopted a "No Toleranece " policy for its on Nintendo DS,replacing DS's with no questions asked).I also remember reading in the latest EGM mag where the pres of sony said"i believe we made the most beautiful thing in the world.nobody would criticize a reknowned archtects that the position of the gate is wrong.its the same as that."(this was said in regards to the many japanese PSP owners who were having problems with the square button sticking)Sorry Ken,but it is NOT THE SAME THING!Not even close.You are selling people a $250.00 potable gaming system(yes i know it does other stuff)that is littered with problems.Yeah,people might not complain if the position of the gate were wrong,but i bet you couldnt shut them up if they were paying $250.00 to get in and the damned gate would'nt open!!I just think that it is really unprofessional for them as company to just sit back and try to make excuses rather than address the problem.So i guess i wont be buying one until Sony steps and takes responsibility for it's mistakes and starts applying some fixes

Playing Gran Turismo 4 = Wanting to Play Forza Motorsport

I am a HUGE car guy , so when i bought gt4 i just new that i was getting the greatest thing since sliced bread,but now that im playing it,i keep finding myself wanting to plop in my demo of forza motorsport.I mean,dont get me wrong,gt4 is a great racing game ,it's just that it is the SAME game as gt1,gt2&gt3.Nothing has really changed much.It used to be that the gt series was the industry leader when it came to innovation,but now even mediocre games leave it behind with damage modeling,fully customizable cars,online play,etc.,etc.I mean,even the circuits are the same !!Now I was really impressed with the 1080i mode(although it is a little gimmicky since it only switches to that res right before a race begins ,and you have to manually turn it on in the options menu EVERY time you boot up your ps2),the graphics are beautiful.As you would expect the controls are perfect & the music is pretty good,but the ai still sucks unfortunately.So i as i sit here i realize that this game isnt really a driving simulator,but an automobile museum.The reason i say this is b/c it has cars in it that are EXTREMELY old , but equelly as beautiful to look at,hell i spent more time when i first put it in my ps2 just going to all the automakers and lookin at all the cool cars than i did playing th game.Oh well i guess i'll be playing this until Forza Motorsport comes out.

Soulcalibur3 a PS2 exclusive?!?

im a little confused about the reasoning behind namco's announcement that sc3 will be a ps2 exclusive.If I remember correctly , the gamecube version sold the best of the three versions and the xbox version was heralded by egm and other mags as the best of the three.Hmmmm.I want to say that they are trying to do the same thing that they did with the dreamcast version bay making it system exclusive(b/c soulcalibur2 didnt look THAT much better than the dreamcast version),but even then it doesnt make since b/c at that time the dreamcast WAS the most powerful system out.Now im not saying that graphics and power are everything,BUT , it doesnt make a whole lotta since to release it as multiplatform and then come back and make it system exclusive on the weakest system available(and im not saying that to bash the ps2 , im just stating FACT).Thats not only unfair to the people who bought sc2 on their gc or xbox (and now wont be able to buy it b/c they are not willing or able to buy a whole new system for one game),but its also unfair to the people who own all three consoles , but prefer a specific version other than the ps2 version(like me:)).
On a more positive note,im really excited about the new features like creating your own fighter.
Im also concerned that nothing was announced pertaining to online,fighting games are the PERFECT games for online,i mean,the WHOLE game is multiplayer!!If you dont have someone that lives with you to play with or a friend thats over all the time then that game ends up in the "not being played stack".Now im not getting myself all worked up b/c:1.)i own a ps2 and therefore will buy that version if thats all there is. 2.)my best friend has the ps2 version and it controls really well with the ps2 controller.3.)if everyone remembers ,this is exactly what happened when namco first announced soulcalibur2,they said that it would be a gamecube exclusive(hell i was gonna buy my next system based on what console soulcalibur2 was on!!)and then a few months later they announced it for all systems.So hopefully the same thing will happen here,and if not then i guess i'll be buying the ps2 version.:)

How Political Parties Have Destroyed Our System of Government

Ask anybody you meet these days what is wrong with this country and your likely to receive one of two answers: it's the conservative Republicans or it's the liberal Democrats. The days of members of each party disagreeing on day to day issues, but understanding what our core principles are and sticking to those are long behind us. Politicians disagreeing obviously isn't anything new, it goes back to the beginning of our nation and beyond.

But back then, the founders, even founders that disagreed, still understood what our core tenets were.

As a self proclaimed historian, I believe that our founding fathers got it right and that the Constitution is a document suitable for all times and situations, but only when used as it was intended. The Constitution very clearly lays out exactly what powers are delegated to each branch of our government. It then says that if something isn't specifically delegated to the federal government, then it falls to the states and the people. Sounds pretty easy to understand right? If the Constitution doesn't specifically give a certain power to the federal government, then it can't do it.

But the problem is the manipulation of the Constitution. The Constitution has been manipulated for decades now by Presidents and politicians, all in the name of interpretation. They claim that they "interpret" the Constitution in a different way than others might have. This is a total and complete fallacy. There is no "interpreting the Constitution", there is only reading it. It says what it means and it means what it says. When you get pulled over for say, running a red light, you don't tell the officer, "I'm sorry officer, but I interpreted that as meaning to stop only if there's traffic", or something along those lines.

With each passing day the division in our country becomes greater and greater. But Why? How did it start and where did it come from? Well, unfortunately the answer goes very deep and it would take an entire book to really flesh out what all of our problems are and where they originate from, so I'm just going to go straight to the source: political parties.

Political parties are the bane of our system of government. The biggest problem facing our nation today is that we have an overly bloated, overly intrusive, and over powered federal government. If the founders could see our nation today they'd be overwhelmed with feelings of sorrow and failure. This is not what they intended. Democrats and Republicans hate each other. There's no nice way to word it, they HATE each other. Just read any number of comments on political stories on any number of websites. But it's not supposed to be this way. And it's not like we weren't warned.

Here's a small snippet of what our first president, George Washington, had to say regarding political parties in his farewell address to the nation:

"All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels and modified by mutual interests."

"However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion."

So here we have George Washington, one of our nation's founders and our 1st President of the United States, telling us that political parties would be bad for our nation and our system of government all the way back in 1796, talk about foresight. He spends a good deal of time pointing out the dangers of political parties in his Farewell Address because he truly believed that it posed a very great danger to our republic.

Here is what he had to say about why it wouldn't work:

"It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another."

"There is an opinion that parties in free countries are useful checks upon the administration of the government and serve to keep alive the spirit of liberty. This within certain limits is probably true; and in governments of a monarchical cast, patriotism may look with indulgence, if not with favor, upon the spirit of party. But in those of the popular character, in governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged. From their natural tendency, it is certain there will always be enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose. And there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be by force of public opinion, to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume."

Sound familiar? This is exactly what we are experiencing today, and have been for many decades. Political parties only serve to separate us in times of trial where we should be closer than ever. The political party serves as the engine to one of the oldest war tactics in history, divide and conquer. Turn us against each other so that our enemies may more easily triumph against us.

We have lived under a two-party dictatorship for almost the entirety of our union. Has it worked? I would say a resounding "no" properly answers that question. Every four years Americans go to the polls and vote for either a Republican or a Democrat, a conservative or a liberal. These titles, Republican, Democrat, Conservative, and Liberal are tools used to turn us against each other.

So what's the solution? A good starting point would be to remove party affiliation from the ballot box. List only the candidates name. Removing party affiliation would force voters to actually learn about the candidates instead of just walking in and voting for whatever party they belong to. To maintain a truly free nation it would be unwise to simply outlaw political parties, so the next step would be a more gradual but ultimately more rewarding outcome, which is to create a general consensus that political parties are bad for our nation.

We need only to use the previous two hundred years, from the beginnings of political parties to the current day, as a shining example of the treachery of party. Party serves only to divide the people, to bend the nation to the will of the party, to allow control by satellite nations. Party serves to create fear, angst, prejudice, and hate between the patriotic citizens of a nation. I fear that in the end it will be the political parties that are our nations ultimate undoing, because any other threat that befalls us will have been made possible by the cancer that is political parties.

Randomness

So I haven't been blogging as much as I'd like to lately, mainly because I got some shit going on and it's fuckin' with my gaming/internet time. Certain unfortunate circumstances have recently caused me to be broke as hell, so I haven't been able to pick up any new games lately, which really sucks because I really want to play Crysis 2.

Ok, that's not entirely true, I did download Crysis and Crysis Warhead from EA Games for like $25 (couldn't pass on that deal). It sucks because the license I got with each game doesn't work on Steam and therefore I can't attach them to my Steam account. I even e-mailed EA asking if there was any way to get a Steam compatible code, in which they sent me a new code that also did not work with Steam, WTF?

I've been playing a lot of PC games lately so I haven't been on my consoles as much. I went to turn on my 360 earlier and it didn't connect to Xbox Live, when I try to connect it says there was a problem renewing my subscription (I pay monthly), so I had to select my credit card again, which still didn't work and ended in me having to go to Xbox.com and fix it, which pissed me off.

So anyway I figured I'd point out a few things that have gotten me excited lately:

Kratos in Mortal Kombat!!!!!

So I downloaded the demo for the new Mortal Kombat off of PSN this past weekend and played it with my son for a while and we both loved it, feels very much like old school MK. After playing the demo I was already planning on getting this game but after seeing this Kratos gameplay video I am 100% sold on it, I mean, Kratos fits this game like a glove, everything just looks badass.

Resident Evil 4 and Code Veronica coming to PS3 and 360 with HD makeover!!!!

I just read this news on the front page of 1up today and I gotta say, this is huge news for me. RE4 is one of my favorite games of all time and the idea of getting to play through it again on 360 or PS3 with HD graphics and achievements/trophies has me very excited. I just wish they could makeover Code Veronica with RE4's viewpoint and gameplay style. The news story said that there are comparison screenshots, but I've yet to find them.

Edit: I found the comparison screenshots. Looks like a straight up "up-res", but it still looks great, I'll definitely be buying these. Check 'em out:

Anyway, that's all I got, I promise to try and write a real blog soon along with more time playing games.

Halo: Combat Evolved HD REmake Wishlist

With all the rumors surrounding a supposed 10th Anniversary Halo: Combat Evolved HD Remake, I thought it would be fun to create a list of things I would like to see, and maybe a few that I wouldn't. So without further ado, here we go:

1. Brand New Graphics Engine Don't get me wrong, even to this day Halo: CE is still a beautiful game to look at, but if I'm going to buy it again I want a complete overhaul. The first rumor that pointed to the game running on the Reach engine is the optimal situation for me. Having it be the first Halo game not developed by Bungie is bad enough, having a new engine made by someone else seems even worse. I say use the Reach engine because it was made for Halo, it looks beautiful, and it's already there waiting to be used.
2. Achievements Considering that it would be an Xbox360 game, this goes without saying, but I would like them to be unique. Halo: CE was filled with Easter Eggs that players could find if they were determined enough. I say that would make for some great achievements. Legendary runs, co-op Legendary runs, stealing the Banshee and skipping the last half of Assault on the Control Room (or getting the Banshee in the part of AotCR right after you get the tank, but before you go underground, that part's pretty tricky), shooting Captain Keyes, or killing Zuka 'Zamamee in the elevator on The Maw would all make for cool achievements.
3. Online Co-op This is a must, in this day and age having co-op that isn't online just doesn't cut it. It doesn't have to be more than 2 players, although if it ran on the Reach engine everything would already be there to do up to 4. Either way, I want co-op and I want it online, make it happen Microsoft.
4. Theater Mode We don't need all the modes from Halo: Reach like FireFight and Forge to be in Halo: CE, but I would love to have the Theater Mode. Saving films of awesome games is a mode worthy of any game.
5. Online Multiplayer It has to have this. No excuses, online multiplayer had better be in any remake of Halo: CE. That's the one thing that the original didn't have and that's the main thing that those of us that still love Halo: CE want to see. No online multiplayer, no buy.
6. Halo PC Additions Halo PC was really the definitive version of Halo: CE as it featured everything the Xbox original did, but it also had online multiplayer, higher res graphics, the Banshee, Flame Thrower, Fuel Rod Cannon, a new Rocket 'Hog in multiplayer, and 6 new multiplayer maps. I would love to see all of these things in a Halo: CE remake, especially the maps. The 6 Halo PC maps were some of my favorites, especially Timberland and Infinty.
7. Continuation of the Single Player Campaign Now I know that this one is a long shot but it would still be awesome. The 3rd Halo novel titled, "First Strike", picked up directly where Halo: CE left off and told the story that took place between Halo: CE and Halo 2. There was some great stuff happening including the Master Chief returning to a glassed Reach and finding members of his Spartan team still alive, as well as introducing us to the SMG and the Battle Rifle. There is also a huge fight on a Covenant docking station that includes Brutes, all things that were introduced in Halo 2. Like I said, I know it's a long shot, but this would be so friggin' awesome if they did something like this.

Things I don't want to see

1. New Guns I don't want to see anyone trying to inject weapons from later Halo games into Halo: CE, it just wouldn't work. If they added some new single player missions after the main story then great, add newer guns, but don't try to shoehorn them into the original storyline, it just wouldn't work. Same goes for vehicles.
2. New Controls One of the things that makes Halo: CE so great are the controls. Halo: CE's controls had a very ..... organic feel to them, and they still feel great to this day. So please, whoever (if ever?) is making this, don't fix what ain't broke.
3. New Music/ Voice Actors Now I know the gut reaction is to say that they would never do this, but still, anyone involved in remaking the original Halo should be warned that 50% of what made Halo: CE great was the Music and voice acting (in my opinion).
4. Alterations to the Original Storyline Again, seems like a no-brainer, but we all know how people love to put their mark on things. So here's to hoping they don't screw up the single player campaign by adding or changing things.

Well that's all I got for now, let me know what y'all would like to see or not see in a Halo: CE remake.