2/26/2008 

Facebook

Like most people these days, I have a facebook account. I would bet though, that unlike a lot people, I signed up for mine before it was a public site. When I signed up you needed a valid college email address in order to become a member. The general public and even high schoolers were moderately restricted from joining. I say moderately because I suppose one could just fake an email address or use a friends or something along that nature but I digress. Back in the good old days face book was kind of sweet. They had useful features like teacher ratings and the ability to select what classes you had enrolled in for the semester and then the ability to see all other students at your school who had signed up for the same class. A useful feature to see if you knew anyone in your 300+ person class. Another reason face book was better back then was the total lack of the applications that run rampant now.(more on that later)


I didn't get into facebook until a couple years after it was created. The big site at the time was myspace, which I never signed up for because, well its lame. Anyone could have one, even 13 year olds who have no business doing the things on there that they do. They also all look like shit mostly because users could totally customize their own layouts, which might sound cool, but take into account that most people aren't web/graphic designers and what you got was a bunch of unreadable, impossible to look at without having a seizure, pages. Facebook had a regimented layout that was the same for everyone, clean and uncluttered, that actually focused on the person. (gasp I know)


Then came a terrible day. Facebook opened its doors to people with high school emails and shortly there after, every one could sign up. On that day, useful features like teacher ratings and the class list disappeared. Then came the shenanigans. Applications. Some one some where decided it would be a good idea to create/let people create a whole mess of things and be able to add them to your facebook page. If that wasn't bad enough they left the process totally uncensored and unmonitored. Now, it seems that whenever i check my email, I have 5 from facebook saying so and so wants to do such and such to you, click here to find out more. Or if I bypass my email that day and go right to face book, I get notifications there. Its really annoying. Almost as annoying and the "Look at me I'm a self-centered loser with no friends so I have to take this picture by myself" picture pose that half the chics on that site use.

Sorry Eberhart. But in this pic you can clearly see what I'm talking about. The girl on the right of the pic is also the one who took the photo as illustrated by the outstretched arm in the bottom right of the picture. You can also note that she is the only one smiling because the other two persons in the photo were not prepared for the shot. Most likely, the girl on the right, feeling alone and left out, ran over towards these two people she may or may not know and took the picture to make it appear as if she has friends when in reality, she sucks and no body likes her. Its your traditional myspace pose except this one happened to involve some innocent bystanders.

It's almost gotten to be too much. I finally had to delete some of my "friends" because the constant application and other assorted nonsense got to be too much. God forbid if you remove some one from your friends list though. Its like the end of the world or something. People place too much emphasis on trivial shit like that. I suppose I could just delete my whole account, and at this point, I am contemplating doing just that.
On the other hand, maybe I'll just start spotlighting ridiculous pics and quotes from people on there. That sounds like a better idea don't ya think?

8:11 PM | |

2/12/2008 

H3 vs COD4

As a healthy american male, I love video games. Some of you might say (especially the women), Cam, you're gonna be 25, time to grow up and stop playing games. Well, the average game player age in America is 33 and its not just men who play video games either. Thirty-eight percent of game players are women and women age 18 or older represent a significantly greater portion of the game-playing population (30%) than boys age 17 or younger (23%). No I'm not making any of this up either. Here's my source, the Entertainment Software Association.

Technical mumbo-jumbo and statistics aside, lets get to the heart of the matter. Generally speaking, video games can be broken down into 3 main categories. Role playing games (RPG's), sports games and Shooters, either first (FPS)or third (TPS) person. Its hard to compare games in different genres, just like its hard to compare music and movies of different genres. For this article, we're going to talk about two FPS's:
Halo 3 Call of Duty 4




Both of these are available for the Xbox 360 and I have played them both. While this is the first Call of Duty game I have played, I have played both Halo 1 and Halo 2 and have long been a fan so as much as I'd like to remain impartial, I will have some built in, unavoidable bias.


Halo has long been one of if not the premier shooter of this or any generation. Its kind of the gold standard title that all subsequent games are compared to. Every so often another game will come out thats gets touted as a "halo killer." Most often these games end up being awful and a waste of time and money. For several weeks I had been hearing how awesome Call of Duty 4 was, how much better than Halo it was and how I needed to play it. It looked good based on the TV commercials I had saw so I borrowed the game from Tos.



Even 2 games of the exact same type, in this case FPS's, can be totally different. The halo series are of the futuristic sci-fi nature and the Call of Duty series tend to be more realistic and based in the past or present. That said they both operate under the same premise when you boil them down to their cores; you control a character and your objective is to shoot, hit, stab or explode the enemy. In Halo, the enemies are aliens. In Call of Duty its other humans. The qualities of the game we as players look for remain the same though:

  • We want a good combat engine


  • Pretty graphics


  • Intelligent AI


  • A satisfying single player storyline


  • Excellent multiplayer
Combat Engine


Have to give the edge to Halo here. Both games allow you to alter your thumbstick layout in identical manners but halo allows for much more button customization. The fact that the controller bumps reload/switch grenade types in Halo is such a better system than COD's x-button reload system. Yes I know the first 2 Halo's used that system but that was on a different platform whose controllers had no shoulder bumps. Halo's system is so simple and easy to pick up and it feels totally natural. Call of Duty felt bulky and awkward.


Graphics


Both games have stunning graphics. The Ghili flashback level in Call of Duty really stood out to me and overall the game looks good and plays pretty smooth. Halo has such attention to detail
but suffers from a slower frame rate and the draw distance is kinda crappy. Plus the resolution loss in split screen mode is a huge drawback. The lighting in halo is rather impressive though as is your interaction with the environment. Final verdit is a tie. Both games do different things well to and other things not as well while looking and playing good.

AI

Hands down Halo wins this category. Not only is the enemy AI very smart, creative and unpredictable, but your allies are just as cunning. In COD, your allies never really help you out that much and the enemies only seem to focus on you, which can make for some pretty ball busting moments.




Single Player

I thouroughly enjoyed COD's campaign. It had some innovative features and moments like when you're in the AC-130 gunship using the thermal cameras to protect your allied squad, another mission where you provide support from a chopper and the aforementioned ghili suit level. My only complaints were that it was kinda too short, and I didn't like having to play as 2 characters only to have one of them die. Halo's campaign was a bit longer than COD and at least made up for the short comings of halo 2. Since it was the final installment of a trilogy it was sort of predictable. Guess I'd give the slight edge to COD just on the basis that it was new, even though I like Halo's story line much more.

Multiplayer

This one again halo wins hands down. They have perfected the art of online multiplayer. Not only that but Halo allowed for co-op, in system link, split screen and online, up to 4 players. Their level design is supurb, weapon balance excellent and matchup/ranking system near flawless. Plus it just plays better. No special bonuses to a player based on how much they've played the game. It truly tests your skill alone.

Conclusion

COD is a good gamebut it's no Halo. In fact I have yet to see a game that is as complete and sound as Halo. And since this post has taken me the better part of a week to write and I'm sick of it that's it, I'm done.

10:50 PM | |