Ramblings of an Irish Texan

4gifs: Video

Wed, 17 Oct 2012 15:29:29 -0500

4gifs:

Video

Probably one of the best views of the CM Punk incident that...

Wed, 10 Oct 2012 12:37:43 -0500

Probably one of the best views of the CM Punk incident that I’ve seen. Also, check out the kid in the background.

Photo

Wed, 10 Oct 2012 12:36:23 -0500

So...I remembered that this exists

Mon, 08 Oct 2012 11:46:23 -0500

Tumblr is blocked at my new job so that, plus being busier with HLS made me push this aside.

Thanks to the wonder of iPhone apps though, I’m hoping to get back into the swing of this.

Enjoy the random.

Looks Like Bioware Listened

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 10:46:12 -0500

Looks Like Bioware Listened:

Please don’t screw it up (again). Commit to your vision, don’t leave 100 holes, and I’ll be happy.

So...The Mass Effect 3 Ending

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 09:02:00 -0500

With a couple weeks of work-free life, I decided that my first order of business was to complete this game. I knew I was close to the end and would be able to get the “best” ending, so I wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

It’s hard to sum up my feelings on the ending. At times I was like “oh wow, didn’t see this coming”, but then at the end I just couldn’t help but have a feeling of “WTF?! This is it?!” Now, I think the majority of the outrage is very, very far overblown. That’s not to say I’m completed satisfied, but I don’t think my entire ME3 experience was ruined by the end.

With that being said, I’m going to go into a bit of detail of my thoughts on the end. This means that I’m about to spoil the shit out of the ending. Seriously, if you haven’t reached the end stop reading now.

For everyone else that’s finished, here we go.

The biggest issue that I had with the end came when I met the “Starchild” or whatever the fuck he was. To be honest, I was expecting something like this to appear before the end as ME3 was very, very heavy on making sure you understood that everything was cyclical and any time the Reapers talked, I got the sense that there may be something else at work. However, once this is finally revealed, Shepard, the hero that will talk anyone’s ear off and “Investigate” just about damn near everything is at the center of all the mysteries in the universe and he just accepts them at face value.

Seriously?!

It’s such a stark contrast with the final showdown with The Illusive Man too, which I thought was brilliantly done for the most part—except for that whole, “well if you played your Shepard even slightly gray, you have to go Renegade or it’s game over”.

Not to mention the final decision is HUGE. The way I played my Shepard, I wanted to get as much info as I could in order to make my decision. I felt like I was completely blind doing this one. It made the final decision mean something to me (at first), but I felt like my Shepard stepped far too much out of character in his final moments.

Now because I was so torn in my decision (I went with synthesis first, torn between that and destroying the Reapers), I replayed the ending sequence again. I didn’t expect much different to happen, but hey, let’s see what a new choice gives me.

Well, save for a clip of what could be Shepard supposedly taking a breath on the battlefield that is Earth, it was the same fucking ending. Joker is still running away, all the Mass Effect relays go bye-bye, parts of my crew, minus EDI would I also offed in the “kill them all” decision. SERIOUSLY?!

I understand that for Mass Effect, a lot of the choices you make eventually get you to the same point. That’s fine, but the journey you create still ends up giving you a unique story. In ME1, Saren will die, but what shape did you leave the universe in after? In ME2, how many of your crew survived and how did you handle the Illusive Man? For both of these games, such drastic differences were crafted and telling the story of my Shepard different from even those that went down the Paragon path that I did.

It was great, the results shaped ME3 in a very unique way, but at the very end at the climax in which Bioware themselves promised that after all of us spent over 100 hours into creating our unique Shepard story and, more importantly, our own ME universe, we all ended up in the same spot more or less. Bioware boasted that there would be multiple endings to reflect our stories, but that isn’t what we got. Bioware seems to be confused on the issue, but when I think multiple endings, I think Chrono Trigger, not what they gave us.

Like I said, I’m not so much mad about the end, but more disappointed than anything. While some of the stories in the game were so beautifully wrapped up, like the Genophage, the end just felt lacking in comparison.

And then there is the whole Shepard is indoctrinated angle.

Honestly, the theory does make some sense, but if you are going to mind-fuck your audience, do it all the way. Probably the most hilarious promise Bioware gave us was not to worry, everything would be explained and they wouldn’t end it like LOST. To be fair, they didn’t end it like LOST as they actually explained what the hell happened there, people just didn’t like the explanation. If Shepard is truly indoctrinated, and, based on the quick clip of Shepard breathing should you destroy synthetic life you can actually break it, why not follow through with it?

I could only imagine the “wow” factor of two people talking about their playthroughs and having one person find out Shepard was indoctrinated, broke it, and emerged victorious and the other being floored that their Shepard seemingly had an act of self-sacrifice to better the galaxy—and only through that conversation realize his ending was utter bullshit.

Probably would cause some similar anger, but that would be fantastic if this is truly the angle Bioware wanted to end their epic with.

I have no problem with Bioware crafting the game to end they way they want it. After all, they are the artists. The player is definitely allowed to craft their own picture, but they still have to color within the Bioware lines, nothing wrong with that at all. Just commit to it.

Now we have to wait for DLC in order to get “closure” as Bioware put it. Not that I’m against ME DLC, but if they seriously charge more money to explain a poorly written ending that didn’t resolve shit, that’s a crime. Such DLC should be free, no questions asked. Charge for that shit and I will be pissed.

Betting on Wrestlemania XVIII

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 16:11:56 -0500

This may just be the pinnacle of my gambling degeneracy, but much like a hilarious prop bet in the Super Bowl, I just couldn’t turn down taking a shot at predicting the winners of tonight’s PPV and trying to make a bit of money off of it.

So below are my picks for tonight and the lines at via Bovada. It appears that they took them down for tonight, so I am going to give the lines that I took yesterday on my picks. I won’t have odds on both for every match, but it should give a good enough picture.

Anyways, the picks, feel free to play along in the comments if you wish:

Kelly Kelly & Maria Menounos v Beth Phoneix & Eve

Pick: Kelly Kelly & Maria Menounos -400

Pretty easy pick here. Celebrities don’t get invited to Wrestlemania to job. Remember, Snookie won her tag match last year.

Randy Orton v Kane

Pick: Randy Orton -550

Orton isn’t too far removed from and injury so, to me, this match is just a way to keep him fresh in everyone’s minds. Orton is easily one of the top superstars in the WWE and will likely find his way back in a title story line soon. Kane winning and getting a push just doesn’t make sense.

Team Teddy v Team Johnny

Pick: Team Teddy +550

This match was harder for me to pick than the line showed. With Team Johnny well over the -1000 realm, it seemed like a no-brainer pick, but I’m not convinced. Ole Johnny boy would seemingly be the new Vince in the “no Vince on TV” era, but he sucks at it. He stumbles in his promos, watching him is unbelievably awkward, and he just flat out sucks. The anonymous Raw GM from last year was a better heel.

And no, this isn’t him getting genuine heat from me. This is coming from someone that thinks Vickie Guerrero does a fantastic job in her heel role.

Should the WWE want a GM or corporate heel, I think there are better directions in which they can go. Beyond that, team Teddy has some serious fan favorites that have seen some unlikely pushes in Santino and Zach Ryder. Santino had the crowd going nuts when he damn near took the World Heavyweight Title in the Elimination Chamber, resulting in a US Title win soon after. Ryder had his own US Title reign and after his love interest angle with Eve took a turn for the worst, he seems primed for redemption.

Perhaps I just love the team of underdogs, but I’m all #TeamTeddy for this one.

Cody Rhodes (Intercontinental Champion) v Big Show

Pick: Cody Rhodes -120

Rhodes started as a huge favorite in this match and then the Big Show came in at -120 right along with him by the time I bet on this. The angle here has been that the Big Show has done nothing but fail at Wrestlemania and Cody Rhodes has been rubbing it in his face for over a month.

I find it hard to believe Show will see redemption here. Rhodes is a fantastic heel and has managed to pull the Intercontinental Title out of obscurity. He seems to be the far better candidate for a push here.

Based on the angle, I think Rhodes will won, but not clean further pushing him as a top heel on the Smackdown brand which would also let Big Show save a little bit of “dignity” for an eventual rematch in next month’s PPV.

Daniel Bryan (World Heavyweight Champion) v Sheamus

Pick: Sheamus -350

Daniel Bryan has a great gimmick of being the luckiest man alive in finding a way to weasel his way out of every match to win, but that is going to stop short tonight. Sheamus is primed for a huge push with his Royal Rumble win and, from what I remember, hasn’t lost a singles match since. Easy pick for me.

CM Punk (WWE Heavyweight Champion) v Chris Jericho

Pick: CM Punk -250

Punk is only a slight favorite in this match and this one was really hard to pick as well. I took Punk because I believe the WWE has shown that they are more than willing to keep the flagship title on Punk. Every angle Punk has been in has been intriguing, and this one has been pushed over the top with Jericho bringing in Punk’s family into the equation.

I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if Jericho managed to win to be perfectly honest, but I just can’t help but feel Punk has the WWE Universe in the palm of his hand right now. No reason to end it here.

The Undertaker v HHH, Hell in a Cell, Shawn Michaels special guest refere

Pick: HHH +650

Yes, I am very well aware that the “smart bet” is Taker to go 20-0 at Wrestlemania; however, his odds were damn near -2000 at the time of this bet, meaning I’d have to place large money to win anything of worth and I’m not willing to do so.

Besides, there are too many wildcards. HHH damn near beat Taker last year, this match is in Hell in a Cell, and HBK is the special guest ref. The unthinkable may just happen.

I’ve seen JR comment on Twitter that this would be Taker’s last match and the match itself is billed as the “end of an era”. I know they mean the “Attitude” era of WWE, but I can’t help but feel this could also be the end of Taker’s reign as the undefeated king of Wrestlemania. Perhaps for Taker to feel like he can step away, he will have to finally lose at Wrestlemania. I don’t know. Perhaps even HHH and HBK go all DX and screw the Undertaker which would position HHH as the new corporate Vince type character that Johnny failed to fill.

In the end, it’s either win pennies on Taker or take a chance to win big on HHH. I’ll take the gamble here.

John Cena v The Rock

Pick: John Cena -230

For me, this result seems rather academic in the end. John Cena is still the biggest cash cow the WWE has on the roster and having him lose to The Rock, who will likely be rarely seen in the WWE after this event, makes no sense at all. Further, The Rock’s time to shine is done, Cena is part of the new stable of young talent that will continue to carry the torch.

This reminds me a lot of Hulk Hogan v The Rock not too long ago. Hogan was actually an active WWE star at the time, but The Rock, like Cena, was part of the new era. Having The Rock come out on top of that match was an easy decision.

I have no doubt the initial genesis of this angle was to push Cena over as far as they could, even on fans that didn’t like him. Build the angle for a year, and have Cena defeat the man that his detractors would prefer to see on top and get Cena the additional push in respect. Somewhere along the line though, this match got legitimately personal, and the heat between Cena and The Rock has been something else as of late.

Even more surprising Cena has gotten the better of The Rock in the past month. The Rock was called out for having notes on his wrist by Cena and after that happened, The Rock stuttered through the rest of his promo. Since that time, The Rock’s best work has been pre-recorded or with notes in front of him. Cena has flat-out outworked the Great One on the mic and reminded me of why I used to like him so long ago instead of the awful PG persona he has now (and I say this as a HUGE fan of Rocky).

The only way I see The Rock winning is if some kind of crazy “Attitude Alliance” happens. Say Jericho cheats his way over Punk, HHH and HBK screw the Undertaker and then those three create some form of outside interference to push their attitude era buddy to a victory over Cena. This way, The Rock gets the win and his rare appearances can have the slack picked up for by the other three. A new heel stable is born and the WWE doesn’t bury their current superstar in Cena. It’s a faction the older fans of the WWE would back and bring some of those that have tuned out back into the fold, creating an almost nWo like type atmosphere.

I seriously doubt the above would happen though. But it is Wrestlemania and on April Fool’s Day at that, anything could happen. I’m going to take the safe bet here though and take Cena to win. This match should be damned awesome though.

Hell, the whole card is going to be great, can’t wait.

Mass Effect 3 Initial Thoughts

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 08:57:04 -0600

Figured before I got started on work today, I’d put down some initial thoughts from Mass Effect 3, a game that I was beyond excited for. Seriously, this was like old-school Final Fantasy excitement as a kid.

I’ve put around 10 hours into the game and much like the first two I have been sucked in and completely immersed into the universe of Commander Shepard. I won’t deliver any spoilers, but the game hits the ground running and doesn’t hesitate to let the Reapers live to their namesake. While the events of this game were set up quite well by the previous two games, the feeling of total helplessness and impending doom is completely beyond what I expected.

And it isn’t just the battlefields that produce this environment. Piratically every character in the game does it as well, whether it is from conversations you have with major characters or just walking around a heavily populated area like the Citadel and over-hearing the NPCs in the area or news reports.

I’ve only run a small amount of “Priority” missions thus far, which are the names given to events that advance the story. A lot of my time has been spent sidequesting and believe me there are tons. Upon my second visit to the Citadel, more areas opened up to me and my quest log went about 20 deep when all was said and done. There is just so much to do.

And some of these sidequests are simple “go scan some planets and find things”. Seems simple enough, but using your scanner in Reaper occupied systems will get their attention, represented by a bar while traveling on the galaxy map. Use the scanner too much and multiple Reaper ships will appear on the map ready to tear the Normandy apart, making you run like hell. Of course this is accompanied by that God-awful scary Reaper scream or whatever it is. So yeah, fetch quests can now be-edge-of-your-seat terrifying. The final touch to this is that you can’t go back into a Reaper-alerted system until you progress more in the story, which can more or less force you to get back on track. Nice touch.

I haven’t been able to see too many results of my decision in the previous games yet, but several of them have been alluded to in conversations. Right now the biggest ones occurred with Liara and Miranda whom wanted to know where I stood in regards to the previous relationships developed with both of them in the previous two games. Liara confronted my Shepard first about it very early in the game and before I ran into Miranda, causing me to decide to leave her on the hook. I did the same once I ran into Miranda—I’m sure this will likely end up in a hilarious clusterfuck of a love triangle at the worst possible moment, which I’ve never seen in a game before. Beyond that though, it’s amazing to hear old characters that I’ve damn near forgotten about reference my decisions from even as far back as the original Mass Effect. It just blows my mind.

One final note: the Kinect. Holy shit, do I love Mass Effect’s use of the Kinect. I wasn’t expecting much, but it is pulled off so well. Using speech for simple tasks like “Open” and “Use” are rather worthless, I can’t even pull it off in a role-playing state of mind that doors and such would be voice-activated—it’s just annoying, especially if the Kinect didn’t hear you right. Using the speech for conversations is a mixed bag, sometimes I like it, but other times, especially for “Investigation” topics it doesn’t make sense. For overall role-playing though, it’s cool to give Shepard your own voice for a bit.

But combat with Kinect. Holy. Shit. I am having a blast with that. Bringing up the power wheel to use abilities is just jarring to the flow of combat and you can’t map everything to a hotkey. I can easily say I have never used my team’s abilities so frequently before and the voice recognition is surprisingly good, even if I’m playing with rather loud volume through my sound system. I also have never used positioning commands as frequently as I do now. The dynamic of being a squad commander is just so incredibly satisfying with this feature. It isn’t perfect and I do have to repeat myself on occasion, but it has never changed the tide of battle or caused me to die.

Even something as simple as switching weapons for myself and squadmates is now so much more seamless. I usually play a commando role, so this is huge for me as I often cycle through 3 or so guns in many combat situations. Now I don’t have to worry about mapping only 2 guns to a quick weapon switch and screwing that up if I need another, everything is available to me. Also, saying “BOOMSTICK” to switch to my shotgun is so incredibly satisfying.

Game devs should take note, this is how you market the Kinect to the hardcore gaming crowd. I couldn’t imagine going back to using the power/weapon wheel ever again except to look up what the voice commands are or to map hotkeys (which are still useful for personal abilities or teammate’s abilities that are harder to get voice recognition). Mass Effect has truly made their game “Better with Kinect” and increased the immersion in the game.

If you are somehow on the fence on this game, jump off the fence and buy this. If you haven’t played the other 2, do so immediately. You will not regret it.

And now, a moment of gambling hilarity.

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 23:04:03 -0600

And now, a moment of gambling hilarity.

dammitpoot: 2 Months!!! #GameOfThrownage YES

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 11:28:16 -0600

dammitpoot:

2 Months!!! #GameOfThrownage

YES

fuckyeahcreedcosplay: Hipster!Rosa And my day is made. -AFK Oh...

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 14:48:52 -0600

fuckyeahcreedcosplay:

Hipster!Rosa

And my day is made. -AFK

Oh dear God, laughing so hard.

AC: Revelations DLC

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 10:55:38 -0600

Because I needed a reminder that I need to finish AC:R’s multiplayer while I’m hooked on Star Wars: The Old Republic and still have Skyrim to play through.

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150481375648068.375824.6119163067&type=3

THERE ISN’T ENOUGH TIME!

Photo

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 13:52:21 -0600

Rocksmith

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 17:09:29 -0500

So I had two games arrive at my house today: Battlefield 3 and Rocksmith. The latter very much intrigued me when it debuted at E3.

With music games pretty much hitting the wall as far as new releases, Rock Band 3 wanted to boast having “pro modes” to actually play all notes of a song. With special controllers, you could do just that. I’ve messed around with it before with the Fender Mustang controller and enjoyed it a bit. However, it was a far fry from a real guitar and playing any song took quite a bit of effort in the pro guitar modes.

Rocksmith wanted to take a different approach. Make a game that any level guitar can play and allow the use of any guitar with a standard output port. Songs would start out at a basic level and automatically progress as you learn the rifts and, if you’ve never played before, how to play period.

So during my lunch hour, I took out my electric and saw how well this was pulled off.

The game starts by calibrating itself with your guitar and making sure it is tuned. After that, it goes through a quick tutorial on how to know which string to play and which fret to press down on. It was surprisingly intuitive and easy to follow and a huge improvement over what Rock Band offered.

You then start your “journey” to rise the ranks as a guitar player. The goal is to rehearse selected songs and learn them well enough to preform them in front of an audience and hopefully preform well enough to have the crowd request and encore. You then unlock larger venues and newer songs.

The first song on my list was the Rolling Stones classic, “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction”. For me the difficulty started off ridiculously easy, but after going through some of the riffs the first time, they continued to get progressively harder. However, the biggest shock was how easy it was to move to the harder levels on the fly. Ubisoft did a great job of making the difficulty jobs very logical: the easy levels work on your hand positioning and very basic parts of every riff. Then, when more notes are added, they fit right into the hand positioning and fill in the missing notes piece by piece.

It doesn’t stop there either. Additional techniques such as hammer-ons, pull-offs, bends, slides, palm mutes, chords, and even harmonics are added. Each technique has their own symbol and it’s all very easy to follow. If you do have trouble though, there are lessons and tutorials to help with each technique and they all have their own challenges and even arcade style games to practice.

I can already tell that I’m going to put a ton of hours into this game. As a guitar player, I am really only proficient in chords for the most part. I had a few lessons, but never had the time for more and I could only teach myself so much and really struggle in trying to teach myself songs. It was very rewarding to pick up the game and be able to bust out the main riff of a Stones song after just playing through it a couple times.

The library of songs is great and I, while I doubt the download library will ever rival Rock Band’s, I hope that even more great content will come down the pipe.

I’d definitely suggest picking up the game if you happen to play or want to learn how.

briandascenzo: ndeddiemac: occupyherbstreit: Notre Dame...

Thu, 13 Oct 2011 13:13:43 -0500

briandascenzo:

ndeddiemac:

occupyherbstreit:

Notre Dame thought Charlie Weis was Too Big To Fail

Zings

FUPA

We have a winner.

jeneypeney: pforprocrastination: afternoonsnoozebutton: Battle...

Tue, 04 Oct 2011 10:51:41 -0500

jeneypeney:

pforprocrastination:

afternoonsnoozebutton:

Battleship shots!

THIS IS BRILLIANT!!!

My birthday is on Monday. Who’s in?

I need to do this.

dammitpoot: motherjones: Laughed for a good three minutes...

Tue, 27 Sep 2011 13:20:55 -0500

dammitpoot:

motherjones:

Laughed for a good three minutes about this.

EDIT: Yes, I meant to send this to my personal tumblr. Again.

Hahaha Just perfect

Fantastic lol

dammitpoot: HELL FUCKING YES! SW:TOR Release Date! Later life.

Sat, 24 Sep 2011 09:42:50 -0500

dammitpoot:

HELL FUCKING YES! SW:TOR Release Date!

Later life.

New magic number: 11 Defend the pennant.

Sat, 24 Sep 2011 09:42:11 -0500

New magic number: 11

Defend the pennant.

Rangers Magic Number

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 12:41:30 -0500

Rangers Magic Number