Archive for April, 2008

Bite-Sized Story Time Vol. 1 (wee!)

In an attempt to maintain some kind of schedule around here, I’ve decided that I’m gonna hop on board the “themed posts for certain days of the week” bandwagon like another blogger I know (hi mom). From now on, Mondays will be “Bite-Sized Story Time” and Fridays are now “The F-Bomb.”

“Bite-Sized Story Time” is actually the result of something a friend of mine got me started on. Recently, a guy named lostpuppyofdoom and I started doing these 50-word exercises and it’s resulted in a huge series of bite-sized short stories. It’s a really good exercise for wanna-be writers, like myself, who want to improve their writing skills. I’ll only be posting my stories in the meantime as I don’t have the permission to post lostpuppyofdoom’s (and I don’t want to be kicked in the balls the next time I see him).

“The F-Bomb” is a weekend review of the usual geek news I keep up with as well as a swear-heavy rant of something most likely game related.

Now that we have that out of the way, it is time for the first edition of BITE-SIZED STORY TIME!

This first story is for a fantasy series I’ve been developing

1. The spirit smoke of the Halijahr incences all who embrace it. It elightens them and gives them guidance… but even with it’s aid, I was unable to meditate that night. “What is the matter?” my sister asked. I opened my eyes and let out a sigh… “I wish I knew.”

These next three stories are told from the perspective of a single character

2. The barrell glowed as smoke poured forth like water from a fountain. I stood there… staring at him. My enemy. I watched him quiver as he faced his own demise. He’s scared… and he should be. “Killing me won’t bring her back!” he cried. I raised the gun… “I know.”

3. Just as I was starting to like him, he opened his mouth again. “Y’know, I think it’s weird that you haven’t taken your sunglasses off. It’s past midnight and yet-” He was shocked. Seeing a vampire’s eyes for the first time has that effect. “Are you happy now?” I asked.

This is the only story I’m not satisfied with. It lacks context without a description of either the setting or the event that just took place.

4. “You’re special,” the voice whispered. “One day, you’ll bring about great change. What form that change will take rests entirely upon you…” I grew tired of this… There was always that voice in the back of my head showing me the way. But now it was more prominent. “Go away!”

This one is completely improvised… and by that I mean it’s not based on anything I’ve already been working on… and by that I also mean I pulled it out of my ass.

5. “You gonna pour us one of those?” He nodded toward the bottle of Scotch. “Yeah, sure.” I replied. Johnny and I hadn’t spoken in almost eight years. The last time we talked it got a little heated. I was glad to see him but I could tell he needed something…

Linked to the first story and told from the same perspective.

6. His weapon gave him a great advantage but without it, he was as helpless as a small animal. With fear in his eyes, he stood before me; my blade inches from his neck. “Careful, my friend,” I said. “You may find that my tongue isn’t the only thing that’s sharp.”

Based on an actual game of Team Fortress 2 that I played earlier that week. Couldn’t remember the guy’s handle so I just named him “Brian.” I was a Pyro and he was a Heavy. Pyro is my second favorite class.

7. I couldn’t wait any more. The longer I sat here behind cover, the more control those bastards gained. Brian was supposed to take out those sentries and clear a path. I heard an explosion and a severed arm landed next to me. “Yes! Brian, you-” No, wait… That’s his arm.

The game in question was Shadow of the Colossus and I was stuck on how to kill that damned Sandworm. I didn’t actually break the controller but I’m surprised I didn’t as hard as I threw it. I inevitably turned to GameFAQs but only after hours of failure.

8. Fragments of plastic and broken circuit board went flying in all directions as my voice cried to the heavens in a fit of rage. Never, in all these long years, had I ever suffered such a crushing defeat. Great, I thought. Now I have to buy a new fraking controller.

There is a lot more to this story than what’s presented but I still like it. And before you ask, yes, they were lovers.

9. Tonight marked the Fifth anniversary of Diane’s death. Melissa mourned in the same fashion she always did; with a glass of wine and a cigarette. To others, it seemed like a long time. But to her it was just yesterday. Five years, she thought. And that’s when the tears came…

—-

This week’s edition doesn’t include tonight’s. That will go up with next week’s.

I’ve still got some stuff in the works that I plan on getting up this week. I’m almost finished with my article on Prey and while I’ve decided it’s not necessary to write a review of Brawl, I’m still writing a rather detailed post on it. I know it’s taken awhile but it I’ve inherited my mother’s self-criticizing, perfectionist, OCD gene (thanks mom).

Now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s been a long day and I need to kill something… Heavy Weapon Style.

There will be BLOOD (and undead cowboys)

Ever since the original DOOM, the First Person Shooter has become one of my all time favorite genres. While DOOM was mainly about running from room to room and gunning down hordes of enemies, it also featured a pretty interesting back story: A teleportation experiment on one of Mars’ moons has gone horribly wrong and a portal to the Gates of Hell is opened. Having lost all communication with the base on Phobos, the military sends in a group of marines to investigate the situation. Unfortunately, when your team arrives, you’re stuck with guarding the ship. Later, you receive a transmission from your dying team mates that shit has completely hit the fan and that you are now the only squad member left. Now you are the only thing standing between the Forces of Satan and Earth.

Not the best premise ever written but what do you expect from a game made in the early 90’s?

As with most games of that era the focus was primarily on the game itself and how fun it is to play. Ultimately, the story is irrelevant and it’s all about killing stuff (demons to be specific) but that’s not to say that they didn’t put at least some thought into the story as everything in the game is modeled off of the concept. Two of the main inspirations behind DOOM’S premise are the films Aliens and Predator (and to a lesser extent, Evil Dead).

The concept of a lone marine (or a team of marines) fighting a Hostile Alien force that they know little about is something that translates very well into a game, and has resulted in many games (FPS in particular) that follow a similar formula while paying homage to the two films that started it all.

Lately, there’s been an over-saturation of these types of FPS games and its starting to get a little old. I’m sure that we can all agree that Aliens and Predator we’re both really good movies but not every FPS needs to follow in their footsteps.

Recently, my brother (in his quest for entertainment via youtube) sent me a video of a golden oldie that I used to own. It ditched the traditional sci-fi setting in favor of a dark Old West theme and pays homage to several horror movies.

BLOOD

Back in the summer of 1997, this game was the shiz. It utilized the Build Engine (originally created for Duke Nukem 3D) and was developed by Monolith. The game featured an aresnal of interesting weaponry and-as the title implies-lots and lots of BLOOD.

The game pits you in the role of a man named Caleb. At age 17, he had already established himself as a merciless gunfighter in the late 19th century American West. At some point, he meets a woman named Ophelia Price who happens to be involved in a dark cult known as “The Cabal” which worships and evil God know as “Tchernobog.” Caleb and Ophelia become involved and eventually they ascend to the highest ranking circle of the cult, known as “The Chosen.” For reasons unspecified at the time, Tchernobog informs the four Chosen that they have failed him and now must die. Caleb and the others are all like “Yeah, that’s grea- wait, what?

Three of the chosen (including Ophelia) are picked off by Tchernobog’s minions and Caleb is, supposedly, buried alive. Years later, Caleb is revived and awakens sometime in the early 20th century. During this time, the Cabal have grown in power. Their dark experiments are now being unleashed onto the world and soon all will be covered in darkness… But Caleb could care less. He’s really not very happy about being stabbed in the back and now he wants to exact his vengeance on the dark God and his minions wherever they may hide.

With it’s dark humor and over-the-top gore, BLOOD is easily one of the best FPS’s I’ve played. I mean, how many games allow you to play as an undead cowboy? Caleb is one of the most bad ass anti-heroes ever with his black trenchcoat, broad-brimmed hat and glowing red eyes. He’s a cynical and sarcastic sadist that spouts one-liners and laughs maniacally when stuff blows up (which happens a lot in this game).

Caleb’s journey takes him across the world to many Cabal strongholds littered with various enemies and dark creatures such as zombies with axes, flying Gargoyles, fire-breathing Hellhounds and robed cultists armed with shotguns/tommy guns. While the enemy AI isn’t all that great, they still present a bit of a challenge. Most enemies will rush at you full speed to attack and armed enemies fire almost constantly making them a threat even at a distance. However, like all good shooters you are given a wide array of weapons with which to kick tons of ass and the end result is usually bits & pieces all over the walls.

At the start of the game, your only weapon is a pitchfork which is actually pretty useful when you’re low on ammo. One of the first weapons you come across is a Flare Gun and, yes, it causes your enemies to burst into flames while running around screaming. In addition you also find sawed-off shotguns (slight nod to Evil Dead II), Tommy guns, a napalm launcher, a futuristic shock rifle, bundles of TNT, remote detonators, an aerosol can with a lighter to make a cheap flamethrower, and a voodoo doll. You gotta give props to somebody with the balls to put a voodoo doll in a first person shooter.

The game is split up into four episodes that range from 7 to 9 levels including a “boss level” at the end of each one. Many of the levels in the game contain direct references to cult-classic horror films such as Evil Dead and The Shining and it’s fun to play through and spot them all. In the first level, Caleb awakens in a tomb located in a graveyard of the “Morningside Mortuary” funeral home (a reference to the film, Phantasm). In one level of the third episode, you have to find your way through a snowy hedge-maze and later in the fourth episode, you’re taken to a camp located at “Crystal Lake” (if I need to tell you what film series that references, you need to be smacked in the face).

The game still stands out among other FPS’s even to this day but has, unfortunately, been lost in the sands of time as abandon ware but it can still be found if you look hard enough on teh interwebz. A sequel was made called BLOOD II: The Chosen but the less said about it the better… BLOOD is also cited as one of the key insipirations behind a Korean comic book series titled Preist and has recently been published in the US by TokyoPop (you can find more on that here).

If you’re looking for something different, BLOOD is definitely worth checking out (and, yes, it is possible to get it working on XP).

Batman VS Sub-Zero

My little brother asked me the other day “What’s the weirdest game you’ve ever played?”

I told him that he would have to give me his definition of “weird.” I mean, does being an Italian plumber in a fantasy world called “The Mushroom Kingdom” qualify as weird? How about being a Vampire Hunter that wields an enchanted whip and destroys candles to collect hearts that power (of all things) his sub weapons?

Video games and realism didn’t always go hand-in-hand like it does these days (due to the limitations of the technology at the time). However, realism is thankfully something that doesn’t completely dominate the gaming industry so occasionally we get something truly innovative (or at least different) as opposed to the same God’s damned tactical first person shooter over and over and over and over again.

Other times, we get the occasional odd pairing that makes you go “What the fu- WHY?”

Like this.

Let’s face it. Mortal Kombat has always been little more than an attempt by Midway to cash in on what’s popular in the fighting game genre, but in this case they’re about eight years too late. Marvel VS Capcom 2 was a pretty popular game and, as a result, is extremely rare to find (it also runs for about eighty bucks on eBay).

MK was created in response to the popularity of Street Fighter II with the blood & gore as an attention grabbing gimmick. Sure, we all liked it as kids but looking back on it today, we see it for what it is. With the exception of MK2, almost every game in the series has been little more than a shameless rip-off of other fighting games… with blood. MK4 borrowed elements from Tekken and Soul Edge. MK: DA and MK: Deception followed the tradition by borrowing even more elements from Namco’s franchises. Even the most recent title, MK: Armageddon (arguably the best of the 3D games) rips off Soul Calibur 3’s Create-A-Character mode.

I’ll admit that I actually liked Armageddon but their answer to SC3’s CAC mode is horribly broken when it comes to online play. Allowing complete and total customization of your character’s move-set may have seemed like a good idea, but it tends to unbalance the game if your opponent has equipped himself with every cheap-ass move in the game allowing them to pummel you in mere seconds with a stream of near unstoppable combos. Not to mention, when it comes to creating your own character, it’s unnecessarily time consuming to sit their and pick each and every single punch and kick for their move-set. Can’t I just select a predefined move-set like Kung-Fu or Tae Kwon Doe (and with a wider variety than just two)?

Not content with coming up with their own ideas, Midway is now hopping on board another popular bandwagon in the fighting genre: Crossovers. Capcom did it, Namco did it and even Nintendo did it. Marvel VS Capcom 2 still stands as the best and that’s exactly what Midway is trying to emulate.

I feel kinda bad for DC comics. Their characters are in dire need of some good representation in the gaming world but, so far, almost every game based on a DC property has tanked and Midway doesn’t exactly have a reputation for making spectacular games these days. Besides, the real crossover fighting game to end all fighting games should actually be MARVEL VERSUS DC UNIVERSE... made by Capcom… or Namco.

Y’know, I’m probably being a bit harsh on MK. I mean, the games haven’t exactly been bad but not really great either. And I did like Armageddon (the game, not the movie). Who knows? Maybe they can pull this off and it’ll end up on my “to get” list.

Liu Kang VS Green Lantern: Round one… FIGHT!!!

World of Grand Theft Auto-Craft?

When people think of “controversial games” the first title that usually comes to mind is Grand Theft Auto. Nothing concerns overly-conservative parents more than violence and sex in video games. Second only to the violence-in-games concern is video game “addiction,” and it’s hard to think of a game that gets more flak for this than the Massive Multiplayer Online RPG World of Warcraft.

Yesterday, GamePolitics reported on a new MMO in development that could potentially have media watchdogs and moral crusaders foaming at the mouth called… Crimecraft? Are you fraking serious? CRIMECRAFT???

Now I’m not usually one to judge a game before seeing it in action, but, seriously, CRIMECRAFT? I can’t think of anything more creatively bankrupt than adding “Craft” at the end of your game title. Gee, I wonder what game they’re trying to emulate? They mght as well have called the damn thing EverCrime.

From the Wikipedia entry:

It has been said that the game will include features such as:

- ownership of real-estate and cars

- possibility to run shops, warehouses, banks, productions

- fight over territories and clan wars

- combat system unique for MMO

- developed social system. Possibility to solve conflicts without a single shot

- a possibility to choose law-obeying, criminal or financial professions and changing of those throughout the game.

Assuming any of these features actually make it into the final product, it might be pretty fun. But, seriously… CRIMECRAFT?

Of course, whether the final product is good or not, this is going to end up getting a lot more attention than it probably deserves. It’s going to be Manhunt 2 all over again. The media watchdogs will, in an attempt to raise parental awareness of this new game that threatens to turn their kids into raving psychopaths, send out numerous press releases and make several attempts to try and ban the sale of the game all the while giving the developers free advertising and publicity.

We all know how Manhunt 2 turned out. The developers were forced to tone the game down from an Adults Only rating to a Mature rating (the American divisions of Nintendo and Sony won’t allow Adults Only games on their systems). Some people think this effected the final product but that’s debatable. The game was released to average reviews at best, gaining no higher than a 7.0 in most cases.

Their is a huge gap between the number of parents that were concerned about Manhunt 2 (I’m guessing in the thousands) and actual gamers that gave a crap about Manhunt 2 (five four). I feel sorry for those that actually bought it at a full fifty dollars. It’s probably collecting dust on their shelves as I type this.

It’s too early to tell whether or not CrimeCraft (I still can’t get past the title) is going to be any good or not but we can expect some mainstream media backlash in either case.

Seriously, CrimeCraft?

BSG Episode Review: Six of One

I’m really glad that Battlestar Galactica is finally back on air. It’s been quite awhile since the end of season 3 but it was totally worth the wait. I just finished watching the second episode of the new season which aired yesterday and I can honestly say that this is my favorite one so far.

*MASSIVE SPOILERS AHEAD! THIS IS YOUR ONLY WARNING!*

Twelve Cylon Models

Seven are known

Four live in secret

One will be revealed

At the end of last week’s episode, Starbuck is starting to lose it as they keep jumping farther from the road to Earth. Her miraculous return from the dead has everyone suspicious that she may be a Cylon, especially President Roslin. Pushed to the edge, she takes matters into her own hands and breaks into Adama’s quarters to confront the President… with a gun.

In this week’s episode, Starbuck makes a desperate attempt to convince Roslin that she has been to Earth and knows the way. She offers her gun to Roslin and asks her to shoot if she truly believes her to be a cylon. Roslin hesitates at first then picks up the pistol and fires… but misses. Colonel Tigh, Helo, Admiral Adama and a team of marines show up and Starbuck is taken to the brig while kicking and screaming about Earth. Adama confronts her later and he’s pretty pissed off at her. Kara delivers a bit of a low blow and he loses his cool. He storms out of the brig and she starts screaming again about how they’re going the wrong way.

Meanwhile on a Cylon Base-star, a conflict is brewing among the remaining models. The Sixes, Leobens, and Sharons are trying to plead to the Cavil in charge that the reason the Raiders retreated from the attack in the last episode is because they’ve discovered the Final Five among the colonial fleet. Cavil insists that the Raiders are thinking a little too much and reminds them that discussion of the Final Five is forbidden. Cavil thinks the best course of action is to lobotomize the Raiders so they can “go back to being Happy Warriors.” The other three are against it and Six reminds him that he has no authority to take action without a majority vote. Voting commences.

Back to Galactica… Admiral Adama has come to terms with his son, Lee Adama, leaving the military to pursue other opportunities and a party is thrown in his honor among his fellow pilots with a frak load of ambrosia shots to go around. After the party, a drunk Admiral heads back to his quarters and proceeds to get even more wasted. Roslin tries to talk to him about Starbuck and things get kinda ugly.

Adama loves Starbuck like a daughter and probably suffered the hardest from her death. Roslin points this out and feels that his feelings for her is clouding his judgement. The discussion ends with Adama saying some rather harsh things that upset the President and she gets all emo. Oh, and her hair is starting to fall out as a result of her chemotherapy treatment (or “Diloxin” as it referred to in BSG).

Lee says one last goodbye to Starbuck before he departs for his new job and they have a tender moment together (awww). When he arrives at the hangar deck, most of the crew is there to offer him a fond farewell. Even Dee, his ex-wife is there and they end things on a good note.

Four of the Final Five (Tigh, Tori, Anders and Chief) continue to meet in secret and are debating whether or not Starbuck herself is the fifth cylon. Chief points out that Gaius Baltar was with Deanna (the Threes that were “boxed”) in the Temple of Five back on the algae planet in the middle of last season. Thinking that Gaius might have some answers for them, Tigh suggests that Tori try getting some info out of him (even if it means sleeping with him). She agrees to it but with hesitation.

Tori spies on Gaius in a cafeteria where he is joined by his new monotheistic buddies (who view him as some kind of healer). Gaius takes notice of Tori and they proceed to talk. She ends up sleeping with him. And she cries during sex. Also, Gaius is now seeing himself (not the imaginary Six he always sees, but rather the imaginary Gaius that Caprica Six sees). Yeah, I don’t get it either…

Back at the Cylon base-star the Cavils, Simons and Dorals agree to lobotomizing the Raiders. The vote is three to three but things take an unexpected turn when Boomer votes against her fellow model Eights; something that the Six states has never happened before. Cavil goes through with his plan and Six is not pleased…

Six later confronts the other three with two Centurions at her side. She reveals to them that, in retaliation, she as well as the Leobens and Sharons have removed the Centurions’ inhibitor chips and that they are now capable of free thought and reason… Oh, and she told them about Cavil’s unethical treatment of the Raiders. They seem pretty pissed off about that. The three futilely attempt to escape but the Centurions make swiss cheese of them.

On Galactica, Helo and a few marines take Starbuck out of her cell and escort her to the hangar deck supposedly to be executed. Adama is there when she arrives and she tells him that he’s making a big mistake. He has the marines remove her restraints and tells her that he believes her and that he can’t risk losing her again. The plan is to give her a ship (the Demetri; a sewage recycling ship) to find the true path to Earth. To the President and everyone else in the fleet, Starbuck will be dead and the Demetri on a mission to find food. Starbuck and Adama hug (double awww) and he wishes her good luck. End of episode.

As I said earlier, this is definitely my favorite episode so far. The scene of Lee Adama’s departure almost had me in tears and the rift created between Admiral Adama and Laura Roslin by Baltar’s trial (as well as Starbuck’s return) is really making things interesting. I’ll admit that Tori’s falling in love with Gaius due to his sympathy towards Cylons was a bit predictable but it’ll still be interesting to see where they go with it.

The story arc aboard the Cylon Baseship is probably my favorite part of the episode. It astounds me that the Cylons could be so oblivious to what’s happening to them. All of this talk about being machines and being perfect and they can’t see the obvious. They’re becoming the very thing that they’re trying to destroy. They’re becoming human. The tables have turned and now they have to deal with their own robotic rebellion. “All of this has happened before and all of it will happen again.”

Next Friday can’t get here soon enough. I frakin’ love this show.

Existential Mind Frak

Their are a lot of games I remember playing as a kid that I discovered mostly by accident. When my parents were still together we would go to blockbuster almost every other week to rent a couple of movies and a game. Nine times out of ten the game was of my choosing, other times my dad would pick one. I didn’t subscribe to any gaming magazines so I usually relied on word-of-mouth from friends at school and if that failed it was up to intuition.

I’m sure a lot of you who grew up in the 90’s have experienced the same thing so you understand that when it came to the selection at Blockbuster, it was pretty much hit or miss. Most of the time we were pleased and sometimes we could even get mom to play (Flashback immediately comes to mind). Then there was the semi-rare occasion in which one of us picked out something that looked like it might be good but turned out to be a major error of judgment (I’m looking at you, Terminator for the Genesis).

The only thing that eclipsed getting to play a new game almost every weekend was going to the arcade. Whether it was the West End or the “now a Home-Depot” Bronco Bowl, pumping quarter after quarter after quarter after quarter into large cabinets with booming stereo sound and large screens will always be one of my fondest memories. With arcade games, it was easier to separate the good from the bad since you got to see it in action before wasting your allowance on it.

What these two experiences have in common is that occasionally you would come across a game that exceeded your expectations. Every once in awhile there was that one game you discovered misplaced behind the Street Fighter II box or that arcade game so obscure that it’s placed in the back in some abandoned corner collecting dust. You give it a go out of curiosity expecting something average at best and you end up liking it. You go and tell your friends about it but, to your surprise, they’ve never even heard of it.

Years later, while drinking your beer you look back on these fond memories and you start to wonder about titles like Steel Empire, Robocop VS Terminator, Shadow of the Ninja, Abadox and even the arcade Aliens rip-off Space Gun. Whatever happened to these games and are the developers still around?

After numerous searches on the internet wield little results you start to get a little frustrated. There fraking has to be somebody out there who’s played those obscure games besides you. Are you the only person that’s ever played those games? (It’s about here that the beer starts to kick in and your mind begins to travel into Jacob’s Ladder territory.) All of that was so long ago… Was it a part of another life? Maybe I’ve just been dreaming about someone else’s life. Did those games ever exist? Are they just a part of my imagination? Holy crap. What if I was in some kind of an accident and I’m in a coma. Holy CRAP. Is my life just one big episode of the Twilight Zone and a recycled plot device from just about every Sci-Fi television show in existence?

Then you stumble upon the links section of one of your favorite gaming websites and discover BlameTheConrolPad.com which just so happens to cover some of these games in great detail and suddenly all is good with the world. Yay, I’m not insane! :D

OMFG Conspiracy!

Anybody who keeps up with the gaming world knows all about the Miami attorney, John Bruce “Jack” Thompson and his unsuccessful attempts to destroy our beloved hobby. The man has been a serious pain in the ass for Gamers and his latest antics have done nothing to help prevent his eventual disbarment. I say “eventual” because it’s hard to imagine that the Florida Bar would at all allow him to retain his license to practice law after all of the false accusations of “conspiracy” and his highly unprofessional conduct.

For those of you not in the know, I will simply point you here to the man’s wikipedia entry because I really don’t feel like going on a huge tangent about why this man is a douche (that and I can’t really say anything about him that hasn’t already been said by others like me).

I will, however, share this very LOL worthy piece of news regarding Thompson and the FBI. Apparently even the Feds are getting tired of his shenanigans.

“Despite your forwarding this matter, Mr. Acosta, to the FBI, the FBI has done nothing and refuses to talk to me.

With all respect, either the FBI takes this seriously—the computer hacking, the criminal use of lunacy proceedings, the whole nine yards… or I and others will do what we need to do.”

You can catch the full story here at Game Politics.

A New Challenger Approaches!!1

NAME: Abadox50

GENDER: Male

CLASS: Gamer

RACE: Human

AGE: 24

INTERESTS: Writing, Lego building, Ninjas, Nintendo, Anime (sort of), First Person Shooters, Fighters, Shoot em’ ups, Beat em’ ups, Science Fiction, Fantasy and pretty much anything related to video games and the video game community.

SPECIAL ABILITIES: Telekinesis, Mad Ninja Skillz, breaking stuff, splosions, pwnage

Hello and welcome to my blog where I talk about my favorite hobby: GAMES! Here I will write about my favorite games, my views on games and the daily happenings of the game community (such as politics, the industry, user content etc). I will also be posting about general geek news as well like upcoming movies, books, comics and TV shows.

Something you might notice reading my entries is my use of the word “frak.” For those of you not in the know, Frak is a fictional swear word from the Sci-Fi show Battlestar Galactica (the new series, forget the old) and an excellent substitute for the word Fuck the F-word. If you haven’t seen it, then you’re an idiot.

I have a few articles and stuff in the works at the moment so I should have more crap up here by the end of the week (aside from the semi-daily updates). Among them are reviews of Super Smash Bros. Brawl, a freeware homage to Streets of Rage and an article on the under-rated FPS Prey.

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT!