That’s right, folks! This show was too big for 1 show so it was split into 2 part. Part 2 will be up tomorrow morning — same Bat Time, same Bat Place.
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Last time, Dax had a great point about how busy we are and staying focused. I want to expound a bit on that.
Baseball season has begun and so time has become more squeezed for me. But my busy schedule isn’t what I am going to rant about. Instead, I am going to complain about something that has reared it’s head in society and in video games: On Demand.
If I were to turn on my XBOX at this moment I could get any of a hundred games on demand, movies on demand, video chat on demand, chat on demand, music on demand and who knows what else on demand. We log on to our computers and expect to get information on demand and cell phones allow people to get a hold of people on demand.
That’s fine.
However, just because you can get all your needs and desires met online and in video games does not mean that you can expect real people to be the same way. I must give a story about this.
One night gaming recently, I recall that Brandon, aka Jonny Tango, was playing a video game, either Dragon Age or Mass Effect II, and I was a little annoyed that he had the nerve to NOT join Chris and my game. I sent numerous game invites and text messages until he finally joined. Looking back on that, I realize I was expecting HIM to join MY game on demand and frankly that is rude.
This past week I have dealt with a dozen people who have expected me to do something they want done for them, done by me on demand. That has really bothered me all week. So I want to apologize to Brandon for that behavior and remind everyone that behind the gamer tags are real people who have real life and they ARE NOT ON DEMAND.
So I saw a story somewhere about the xbox 360 getting a 250 gb hard drive in Japan and I had to ask myself why Microsoft has to keep bending us over the barrel. I mean seriously, they push these demos at over 1gb each, a ton of games, movies, television shows and if you even buy a few of these items POOF! Your xbox hard drive is full. Add in the ability to save your game to the hard drive so you don’t have to hear that stupid disc drive spinning and you have a full hard drive with nothing you can do about it. You can’t hook up your external hard drive, a thumb drive — anything but microsoft products. So in our lament we watch as the 250 gb hard drive floats over to Japan and the EU cuts the 120 gb model price but what do we get … JACK!
Not that I am not used to getting bent over. The avatar marketplace, the only place to spend my odd number of microsoft points, doesn’t even have Notre Dame outfits. Shame on you Microsoft and you should be thankful there isn’t a viable alternative to you.
One of the sweetest part of Modern Warfare 2 is the customizable classes which allow for almost endless combinations of game playable classes.
Today I began playing Army of 2 and found myself fumbling through the control scheme again for another shooter. There are some basic controller setups as with every game….you know, inverted, tactical etc. Instead of just jumping in and playing, I had to learn the control scheme (which was a lot like Gears of War) to even make it through the first level.
My frustration is that the game developers don’t allow me, the user, to change the controller the way I want. It cannot be that hard as it is simply a UI software issue. This is why PC Gaming is so rewarding…because it is very customizable and you can set up your keyboard the way you want. The game becomes personal and you often set up the keyboard and mouse the way you do for every other game. So why is it that I can’t set up my controller the way I want? I call Shenanigans.
