Left For Dead - Or - Why The Republicans Let McCain Loose

As an avid horror fan and skeptic of Anonymous’ ability to behave itself, I had my doubts going into Left 4 Dead (or L4D as the young people say these days). Needless to say I was there when VOIP became a part of the online gaming experience, and I was welcomed with rampant teabagging and 12 year olds singing into their mic. Needless to say when it comes time to thrust myself into a horde of undead with three other strangers I had my doubts.

I am shocked that it works so well. Left Four Dead relies on that age old law of any group of people, social Darwinism. My associate Ben enlightened me, he reminded me that if someone is a stupid dick and wanders off to get killed, then they had what was coming to them. This is true, after several games it has remained true, which is fantastic. Isn't that the way it is in those cheesy horror flicks? I think it works well.

Griefers though, those sneaky bastards and champions of the teamkill on any server that has friendly fire turned on, what about those? Well you can only take so many hits, if team killing starts it will be finished when your fellow survivors reciprocate, or simply just let a Hunter do the job for you. After an exceptionally stupid person kept crossing into people’s firing arc we just stopped healing them, and made them our lowest priority. The Director only gives us so much HP, why waste it on them?

All in all, this has been a fantastic experience right out of the zombie movies I have always loved. In one scenario I found myself swarmed, the helicopter only feet away telling my compatriots to go on without me, to live their lives! Naturally they accepted such terms, and flew away leaving me to watch my grizzly death as hordes of infected beat me into a fine mist of pixels.

All in all, the mere fact that it’s a coop game that relies on people cooperating and punishes the mavericks in the world balances everything naturally. Just like those classic horror movies if you go off alone you will die. Moments designed by the “AI Director” are not only suspenseful but make you think in new ways to get through situations. Many times though it becomes more of a Hollywood simulation and less of a Zombie flick as you realize you clearly didn’t suck enough of the Director’s cock to get where you are. This usually results in the Director thinking you are doing too well and you will simply be repeatedly raped by hordes of dead for your lack of oral generosity to the omnipresent AI.

Spore

The Spore Creature Creator is as hilarious as everyone says it is. Barb and I are going to buy the full version because its ssssoooo goofy. I am sure everyone has heard about the dickmonsters, roaming the universe. Basically Maxis (EA) is using this to seed the universe with Spore creatures. During game play in the full version of Spore your creature will be able to go out and conquer planets, the inhabitants of which will be pulled from other peoples creations upload to the interwebz. One of the concerns is you will get stuck with bunches of dickmonsters in your game. I think the Ctrl Alt Del guy had the right attitude about it.

Needless to say though this game is hilariously fun, and when I get paid I am buying the full version which is only $10.

Barb and I are having fun just with the basic game which only lets you have the basic of each slot. So we have a set of “wings” but only one style. This doesn’t matter because you can change just about every facet of the creature. So far, we haven’t been able to make wheels out of the body parts but that has been our only limitation.

If you want to kill two hours I highly suggest downloading it, its free, its fun, and you can share your creatures. I heard a rumor that you will be able to pull stats from how your creature is doing in the universe from the Spore site. Different body parts add stats… I made a crocodily thingy with grass on its back so its all sneaky. See for yourself I guess…

Visit Spore.com

I Lol'd (Taken from Jack Thompson's Wiki)

Disbarment proceedings

In February 2007, the Florida Bar filed disbarment proceedings against Thompson over allegations of professional misconduct. The action was the result of separate grievances filed by people claiming that Thompson made defamatory, false statements and attempted to humiliate, embarrass, harass or intimidate them.^[127] According to the complaint, Thompson accused Cardenas of "distribution of pornography to children," claimed that the Alabama judge presiding over the Devin Moore case "breaks the rules, even the Alabama State Bar Rules, because he thinks that the rules don't apply to him," and sent a letter to Blank Rome's managing partner, saying, "Your law firm has actively and knowingly facilitated by various means the criminal distribution of sexual material to minors." Thompson claims that the complaints violate state religious protections because his advocacy is motivated by his Christian faith.^[128]

In May 2008, Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Dava Tunis, after reviewing 2,400 pages of transcripts and 1,700 pages of exhibits, recommended that Thompson be found guilty of 27 of the 31 violations of which he had been accused, including making false statements to tribunals, disparaging and humiliating litigants and other lawyers, and improperly practicing law outside of Florida. Thompson filed a motion with the Florida Supreme Court the day after the report was issued to strike Tunis' recommendations as vague for lack of detail. Previously, Thompson had attempted to have Tunis thrown off his case, and filed a complaint against her with the state Judicial Qualifications Commission, which is responsible for investigating judges.

How To Kill a Weekend, The Free Way

So this weekend between bouts with MST3K doing Raides of the Lost Ark, my girlfriend and our friend Ryan fought off cases of the doldrums. Instead of jumping on Direct2Drive and throwing away some money we decided to take a risk and surf the web for a free game. We ended up coming out with a nice little jewel of a game.

Nexiuz is a free FPS that started as a Quake mod. Totally free and completely legal it strives to put the death match back in FPS shenanigans. It does a good job, there were some issues with either lag or something on my computer but aside from that “free” is definitely a fair price. It takes some time to download but not too long.

So if you have a bunch of friends, and are bored I sincerely recommend this game. There is a level with this ring over the board with a sniper rifle on top, you get onto this floating circle (trying very hard to avoid the term “halo” but that’s what it is) by using a jump pad in the center of the level. So it turns into this king of the hill match, except in mid air.

The game also features a grappling hook that your character can use to get to places, and it’s possible to slingshot yourself, so this usually results folks hanging from a wall trying to shoot their friends like some cracked out Spiderman. Ryan would camp in corners and wait for folks to walk by, once we figured out his game though he was easy enough to kill.

Balance seems to be a huge priority in this game, no one weapon seems over powered. The sniper rifle is a little too accurate, in that it works just as well from the hip as it does when you aim. By far my favorite weapon is this fully automatic…rocket launcher…thing… this spinning wheel of exploding death is not nearly as powerful as the actual rocket launcher but it’s still very cool.

Seriously though, I recommend it. Completely free, and it’s a good way to dick around with some friends that don’t want to drop $20 on an FPS. You also don’t have to think as much as that damn CoD4 game.