Oh iPad...so sad....

I'm not going to lie and say I wasn't excited for the revealing of the iPad. I'd say that I was downright giddy when Steve Jobs called his little conference and began to introduce the iPad. I was giddy up until I saw it actually. And the more he talked about it, the less excited I became.

When I imagined the iPad, I had pictured this awesome slim tablet that had a camera and mic built into the front, Macromedia Flash capability, huge screen, multi-tasking and decent price point. What we all got was a giant iPod Touch.

There is actually little separating the iPad from the Touch. Key differences are the size and power behind it but it is no where near a computer. It has a 9.7 inch diagonal screen that will probably encounter more damage and cleaning issues that the iPhone or iPod Touch do. It utilizes Apple's groundbreaking multi-touch capabilities but it still has the same mini-dock and layout as its smaller counterparts. The battery on the other hand is amazing for the device; it sports a ten hour span for audio, video or just surfing the web and e-mails. Also, depending on whether you want just Wi-Fi or 3G + Wi-Fi is another matter, (AT&T I believe is the one doing the 3G plans separately.)

The price point I feel would be reasonable if it just had more...

Wi-Fi only

$499 - 16GB

$599 - 32GB

$699 - 64GB

Wi-Fi + 3G

$629 - 16GB

$729 - 32GB

$829 - 64GB

See? Not too bad but with the lack of current features I feel like the best idea is to wait until the 2nd generation of iPad is released.

LACK OF FLASH SUPPORT!!! Why don't you listen Apple? It works on your computers but you can't make it or let it work on your devices? I don't know how many sites I can't go to because there's no Flash on my phone. I could let go of all my other vices with this device if it had Flash. I would wait in line for two days if it had Flash support.

With a release date set in stone of April 3rd, I don't know what the initial wave is going to be like. There are always the typical Cult of Steve people who buy every device Apple puts out, there's the people who thoroughly enjoy Apple products and have the cash to nab one at the get go, there's the people who will get one when they have the dough so they look cool or the people like me who are horribly skeptical and question the product to make sure it fits my needs. In my honest opinion, I give the iPad a preview review of 2.5/5. Sorry Steve.

-Armand

Microsoft has done it again. No not in a bad way this time; they've actually done something I can appreciate as a gamer: Microsoft's Game Room.


It's an old gamer's paradise with titles from companies that rocked the late 70's and 80's such as Atari and Intellivision. It's design is similar to PlayStation's Home apartments where you can place furniture in an apartment or "space" and have friends visit. Its much better in the sense that you have multiple levels with possibly hundreds of ways to make your Arcade different from the next guy's. Even better than just visiting your Arcade your friends on XBL can actually play your games that you have displayed in your different rooms and try to beat your high scores.

Now we all know that Microsoft never gives us anything for free....or do they? They actual Game Room application is free to download to all and upon doing so you are taken to the "Showcase Arcade" which is pretty much like a new car show room; it displays the props and decor you can attain and they even let you demo the full version of all the games once. Upon entering you're given 20 Tokens which you can use for extra plays and such for the showcase and for your friend's Arcades as well. You get more Tokens by having your friends visit your Arcade so the more you have and the more enjoyable it is, the more likely you'll have a lot of tokens coming to you.

Like I said you can only demo the games once. What if you want to keep that game so you and your friends can play it? You have to cough up some good old MS Points. In all actuality, its a very decent price for these games; 240 MSP for owning the game on your 360's Game Room or 400 for owning it across all platforms. All Platforms? Yep, if you have a Window's Live enabled phone or even your Windows computer you will be able to play your games where ever and whenever you have your devices. Not too shabby MS....not too shabby....

But what kind of games are we talking about here? Most of us don't want to sit around playing Football in there all day long. Microsoft has answered that too. These are the games that I grew up playing in Manhattan arcades and my buddies' Atari way back when; day one released two game packs that had a total of 30 games ranging from some of my personal favorites like Lunar Lander, Centipede and Yar's Revenge to some such as Adventure, Night Driver and Sub Assault. Not only that but starting sometime late April, we're going to be getting about 7 new games every week!

Another great thing about the Game Room is that these are copies of the original games; there's no boost in graphics or sounds and no crazy modifications to them either. Keeping to the roots of the games was something I was honestly worried about but after playing all 30 of the games, I can say that I approve. The only thing I can see wrong with the Game Room though is that there is no "head-to-head" mode where you directly go against a friend. Also there are several two-player games but unfortunately, multiplayer is restricted to local only.

Customization is an interesting system in the Game Room. You start off with the same knick knacks that everyone has, the same themes for your rooms and the same layout. In order to get more items and themes you have to buy and play the different games to achieve different medals for each of them. The medals are all worth different point values and all contribute to your level. Bronze is 2, Silver is 3 and Gold is 5. Once you get enough to add up to 20, you *insert FFVII sound here* level up! all the way to 50 if you're tough enough. This allows you to receive a lot more items and let's you make your Arcade your own. You can place up to 8 game cabinets in each room and you have three floors with four rooms on them in a circular fashion (see picture above). Instead of just filling it up with cabinets you can add things such as jukeboxes or giant 80's sneakers and from the ceiling you can hang a disco ball if you want. That's only the 80's theme though, there's a "Lost Temple" theme, "Haunted Mansion" theme and more with props that fit.

From someone who grew up beating high scores on some of these games, I honestly thank Microsoft for bringing a simpler time back to us. Its good not to forget our roots or how difficult games were back then. I can beat Halo 3 on Legendary with every skull on in a day but landing a lunar module on the side of a cliff with 53 fuel left? Yeah, its hard. My verdict for Microsoft's Game Room is a 4.5/5, a definite must have for anyone who's a fan of the glory days.

-Armand

Farmville Gets Another One...

Ever been so addicted to a game that it made you late for work, school or date? Maybe stayed up all night playing and after a two hour power nap you were at it again? Maybe you were so addicted to it that you played it at work or school? Maybe you were so into the game that you got fired from a political seat of power....?

Yeah that's what I said. Fired. For playing Farmville during a meeting at work. Bulgarian politician Dimitar Kerin now has to write that on his resumé after being voted off the city council for the region of Plovdiv, Bulgaria's second largest city.

Although he was the only one fired, he wasn't the only one playing; when confronted about it, he pointed fingers at other members who play it as well. His main defense was that "he was only level 40" while one of his now ex-co-members was level 46 and "should be fired instead". But after member Todor Hristov commented that Kerin be removed because he "needs more time for his virtual farm" and a quick vote, Kerin is now unemployed. Man, that's weak.

-Source - G4TV's The Feed

-Armand

Testing

Testing out blogger from the iPhone....if it works I can do this on the run, be pretty nifty if I'm traveling.

Sent from my iPhone

8 bits of pure awesome!

So while perusing Kotaku today, I came across something that caught my attention: "Linkin Park's Video Game Doesn't Look Nearly As Bad As It Should". I did the proper thing and Googled it, getting to the website made by LP themselves:

http://linkinpark.com/profile/LinkinPark8BitRebellion

WTF? Linkin Park game? Check out the trailer yourself!



Wow, I'm actually impressed, it even has a funny little story behind it and seems well thought out. Even though its only coming to "iDevices" I think it'll sell pretty quickly, even to people who aren't big fans of LP.

One of the main features I like about the game is that there are going to be both 8-bit and full versions of LP's songs playing while you play the game. Another is the unlock reward system, in which you can get things to customize your space and character with.

On the downside, the release date for the game is "soon" which isn't very telling now is it? Hopefully they'll be able to port it out so people could play on their computers or even the XBL Arcade or PSN, I wouldn't mind playing like that at all.

-Armand

Im in ur PAX stealin' ur codez, btw not coming to court kthxbai.

Well, more often than not, when faced with a difficult decision, people seem to take the stupider choice. So is the case with Justin D. May, 20 from Delaware who didn't show in court today.

Well what could he have done you ask? May, attended the first annual PAX East this weekend where a multitude of avid gamers reveled in their geekiness and played demos and checked out company booths. While everyone else was taking in the sights and sounds, May was faced with a difficult decision: Do I act like a normal person and play the games I paid to play.....or do I attempt to steal the code for Atomic Games' upcoming shooter "Breach"? Guess which one he picked?

After staking out the booth where the game was being showcased, May picked the opportune moment to nick the code when the employee guarding the laptop containing the code had to hit the john. He then proceeded to connect his laptop to theirs and began copying the game code. Fourtunately there are observant people with common sense there and a tester noticed that May was hovering over the company computer with a cord running to his. Only getting his hands on roughly 14mb out of the 2gb of code he took off when he was confronted and later taken into custody.

Here he made a good decision; he didn't lie about attempting to take the code. But, he also made a bad decision, he attempted to bribe the cops with $100 if they let him go.....this guy would be perfect for the old mini-show "Good Idea, Bad Idea."

He was taken in under the charges of "larceny over $250 and buying, selling or receiving stolen trade secrets." The first brings either a $25,000 fine or five years and the second yields either a $500 fine and two years or five years. Atomic Games told police that the game code was worth an estimated $6 million but was later told that the exact price was unknown but was in the millions.

He posted his bail of $200 in cash and when he was supposed to appear in court today, he didn't show......bad idea. At any rate, if you have any info contact Boston Crime Stoppers at 1-800-494-TIPS (8477).

-Source - Kotaku.com

I really can't comprehend why someone would even try that? Why would you attempt to steal a GAME?!?! People like him are the reasons people stereotype gamers as dangerous or troublemakers. PAX is almost like E3, a time when gamers from all over gather to witness the next step in gaming, meet with developers, get and give insight and most importantly, have a good time. May's incident has probably raised flags in the industry and now we're probably going to have to be screened just to touch a demo controller now. Good Idea, Bad Idea man.....if you have to think twice about it, you probably shouldn't do it.

-Armand

Wow for WoW

Well I've been playing the "insanely addicting" MMORPG World of Warcraft for about a month now and its really....well kind of addicting. I say this not in the obvious "ZOMG I NEEDZ LVLZ NAO" way but I say it in the "Hmmm, this game is pretty fun when you play with other people from all over the world; I enjoy playing this on a semi-regular basis."

Like I said before I've only been playing for rougly a month and in that time I've completed roughly 250 quests and attained level 45. People who I talk to in game (normally when I'm running random dungeons) say that's very good and that their first characters or "toons" took them longer. There are some of people however, who say well good for you, this is my 21st character and spend half the dungeon telling you about their awesome armor and quests they've done and ignore the fact that I'm literally new and rag on me for being a "n00b". You run across the same kind of people in Battlegrounds which is the Player vs. Player part of WoW. Those kind of people make WoW a kind of hostile environment; some people aren't accostomed to having their body tea-bagged or danced on after defeat and may react harshly, (myself being an avid Halo player am very used to this).

With two expansions and a third on the way and literally thousands of quests and hundreds of dungeons and millions of players, WoW is definitely an interesting game that fans of the MMO style of play should enjoy. I particularly like the dungeons as they're my style of gaming: storm the castle, kill the boss and his flunkies and then get all the treasure. The questing portion of WoW which you really only have to put up with until level 15ish I believe isn't my schtick. I still do them every now and again but I've found they can be very, very tedious and sometimes annoying, (like when the creature you try to kill doesn't drop the items you need to progress). I do enjoy new area quests though; they let you explore terrain and creatures you haven't seen before and add a bit to the magic that is WoW's interesting story.

If you get a chance, read the story of WoW; it'll give you some insight into what the Hell is going on when you see a Night Elf and Blood Elf facing off or Trolls and Human's duking it out. Its separated by chapters and can be found here:

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/story/index.html

Its quite engaging although I doubt I'll ever be engaged enough to buy the books or the TCG (trading card game), its not that great.

But I digress, I bashed WoW and its players for almost three years, and upon playing it and paying attention to what was going on, I found it a thoroughly enjoyable game that I could spend a few hours a day running around in when my 360 needs a rest. It has an interesting storyline and great community of people who will help you so you can help others in the future. Try the demo yourself, its not that bad, I promise! http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/

-Armand

Earthquakes are bad mmmm'kay?

I wanna talk about a sort of touchy subject affecting the planet right now. Nothing too big, just the end of the world.

I've seen some weird things in my life, been able to piece them together to form a logical explanation and reason for them. All except for this. There are literally dozens of earthquakes happening every day. Yes, that is a well known fact, and most of them are minor shakes that don't even wake babies, but lately there have been more and more powerful quakes that; like in Chili are devastating heavily populated areas. Aftershocks are getting more and more violent, people have got to be noticing something is amiss.

I monitor silly things sometimes like CNN and websites that cover world news and events. Ones that cover natural disasters like earthquakes:

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Quakes/quakes_all.php

Now, if you look at this and check out CNN or anything, you'll see that there's an alarming amount of quakes occuring on every continent. I don't have any crazy 2012 theories but I honestly think something is going on downstairs that is very relavant to us the the surface.

But hey, I could be wrong (6.4-magnitude earthquake strikes near Andaman Islands, in the Indian Ocean. http://on.cnn.com/bDfRwF -CNN's Twitter @1345ish)

Well Infinity Ward.....

Today is a big day for Infinity Ward. Their debut map pack for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 has been released and well....lets just say it hasn't been pretty so far. 1200MSP price point for three new maps and two that are remakes of two Modern Warfare maps is pretty ridiculous. I heard from some friends that downloading it this morning was a chore and now from what I gather, the maps won't even render for you to play on. High price for something that doesn't work....I don't know if this is a hiccup on Microsoft's end or if IW is getting sloppy. It makes me wonder what's really going on over there at IW. I can only assume it has something to do with the Activision fiasco.

I'm going to assume that you all haven't been keeping up with Infinity Ward's news so here's the information before the opinion:

Sometime March 1st, 2010 according to sources close to IW, a "bunch of bouncer-types" just showed up outside IW offices without reason and when confronted by IW staff, they virtually said nothing. It turns out that earlier that day Vince Zampella and Jason West; two bigwigs down at IW had met with their good friends Activision and hadn't been seen since. Things were supposedly tense between the two companies for a while.

According to an SEC filing earlier that morning, Activision claimed "breaches of contract and insubordination by two senior employees at IW." In fact, later that day a shot surfaced of Jason West's Facebook page to say "Jason West is drinking. Also no longer employed."

- Source for information: G4TV.com's The Feed Blog.

Alright, now that you know the facts, here comes the good stuff. What the Hell is going on? Why would Activision all of a sudden practically punch IW in the balls when they had just released the highest selling piece of entertainment in the U.S. ever? The only reason I can even comprehend what could make them do that other than money. Infinity Ward is entitled to some pretty substantial royalties from the sales of the game. Knocking out the top two of IW studios would sure as Hell save Activision some money....not like they need to. But they still did put two of their own as top dogs to replace West and Zampella so something tells me this was a long time coming.

At any rate, the two shafted Studio heads still have stake in the MW2 magic and thusly are probably the reason that the Map Pack is having some issues...... not really. Infinity Ward wouldn't be the people trying to sabotage a perfectly good game's progress *cough* ACTIVISION *cough cough* for selfish gain. At any rate there's something deeper running here that we don't know about yet but I hope this gets resolved and quickly; in situations like this the gamers are the ones who end up with the short end of the stick. And anyone will tell you when gamers get pissy, the companies don't do so well and it'll cycle like that for a while until someone working there get's their head out of their ass.

Infinity Ward is an amazing company with some very talented people working there producing some of the best games my generation has seen. I've bought every COD they put out day one and DLC (downloadable content) to boot; but in this current state where Activision is pulling the strings, I don't know if I could continue doing that.

-Armand

South Park at 3 in the morning...

A great way to start a gaming/tech/news blog...awake at 3 in the morning watching old episodes of South Park.

Any-who, yeah, this will be a blog voicing my opinion of current events in the real world as well as in the gaming universe. I thoroughly enjoying all aspects of gaming so look for me on XBOXLive (Gamertag: FYRE 300) and the PlayStation Network (PSN ID: BurningJoker). So have at it, I'll be updating this all the time, sometimes multiple times a day, look for all sorts of articles quotes, links, videos and such, it'll definitely be as informative as I can make it without resorting too much to my well known knack for profanity.

Thanks for reading in advance,

Armand Doobay