Old School Gamers

I went to the pre screening of Serenity. The Theater where I had to go was over 50 miles from my house, and with gas prices being in the $3 range, I can honestly say this about the movie… It was worth it!

If you have not seen the TV series, Firefly, you will not be lost. The humor is excellently timed, the action is fun, and special affects are superb. Even thought most of the time is spent on developing the Captain and River’s character, there should be no problem getting to know the rest of the crew just off of their actions. The actors did an awesome job, and they clicked together, they felt right working with each other, unlike the wooden and unconvincing relationship of Anakin and Padme in the Star Wars Prequels. Go see this movie, it will not disappoint you. I only wish the Star Wars Prequels were half as good as this movie.

The villain of the movie is an interesting person. He is the type of villain that believes in honor, but will slaughter a village if it will help him achieve his objective. He an operative/assassin that is tasked with protecting the secrets of the Alliance, and River may be a security risk that must be dealt with, one way or another.

The movie starts to get darker half way threw as the Alliance does what ever it can to try and flush River out. People die, and a dark side of the captain starts to emerge as he is pushed to the brink in a desperate attempt to survive. The fact that someone died really caught me off guard, and hoping for a Sci-fi cheat-o-death. Toward the end of the movie I found myself honestly wondering if any of the crew was going to survive their fight with the reavers and the Alliance.

It was a very well done movie, and I hope that it will be able to continue on with a second season.

Day of Defeat Source is out today for play by Steam. I just hope that it is better than Counter Strike Source. For some reason (less lag) the original CS is still better. I am just happy to finally get all that I paid for over a year ago with that silver pack that they sold when HL2 first came out.

Totally cool! I got pre-screening tickets to Serenity! So I will be watching it tonight instead of waiting until Friday!!! I am so stoked!

For those of you who do not know what the movie is about, here is their official spill.

Joss Whedon, the Oscar® - and Emmy - nominated writer/director responsible for the worldwide television phenomena of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE, ANGEL and FIREFLY, now applies his trademark compassion and wit to a small band of galactic outcasts 500 years in the future in his feature film directorial debut, Serenity. The film centers around Captain Malcolm Reynolds, a hardened veteran (on the losing side) of a galactic civil war, who now ekes out a living pulling off small crimes and transport-for-hire aboard his ship, Serenity. He leads a small, eclectic crew who are the closest thing he has left to family –squabbling, insubordinate and undyingly loyal.

I spent all weekend watching Firefly on DVD. I cannot wait!

Ahh, all the possable applications for the Revolution controller are clear now. I should have seen it with the DS game Feel the Magic: XY/XX , that they were going in this direction. Just add anime games for a video gaming "Revolution". Maybe it will not be that bad of a console after all.

I picked up a copy of "Firefly" recently. Considering that the show had only lasted one session on Fox, I was expecting something along the lines of a bad Sci-Fi Channel mini series. I watched the first show and I only have one thing to say to Fox. “You guys were on a GOLD mine, and you canceled it you morons!!!!” I guess they are so caught up in milking The Simpsons for the 35 season, or the Family Guy, that they cannot see anything else that is just spectacular!

This series is what I had only dream the Star Wars Prequels would have been like. In fact Captain Mal reminds me of a young Han Solo. When talking doesn’t work, shooting usually does.

The show is just brilliant. The special effects are pretty top notch, the cast has great chemistry together, the mixing of Wild West and high tech is cool, the timing of the humor is great, and the story line is actually pretty good.

I cannot wait to see Serenity on the big screen. Just based on the TV series, it should be a blast!

Well it looks like Nintendo is really serious about the Revolution. They demoed their new controller. Like most every other system they have made, this one made me step back and ask "WTF are they smoking?" It looks more like the worlds simplest TV remote. After reading the article it sounds like they are taking some of the gyro technology in presentation mice and some of the ideas from the Eye Toy for depth perception. It is interesting that they are essentially going from adding more buttons every generation, to having very few buttons. I wonder how well it will handle someone walking in front of the player. Having four people all trying to sit on a couch playing Smash Brothers may give the game a whole new aspect to the "Smash" part.

I am not sure how this will all work out. Hopefully this holds to the way most all their other controllers (with the exception of the GC) that even thought it is radically different than anything I have seen in previous game systems, it is extremely natural and comfortable to use.

The one thing that looks promising is that if you hold the controller sideways, it is an old NES controller. That is promising for the idea of having a NES library. It just looks like it may be too thick to hold comfortably sideways and the transmitter window will be blocked by the hand.

Some parents that make sense on violent video games. Parents that work in the video game industry have the right idea when it comes to kids playing games. Reading the ESRB rating, balancing game time, playing the games with them, playing inappropriate games when their kids aren't around, and talking to them about the game.

Via Geek Press

I found out last night that my cousin is in the ER from a Tylenol overdose, and now has extensive liver damage. They are not sure if he will live. Apparently he tried to commit suicide. I do not found out any details, that is pretty much it. I do not know how he got to the hospital. I had even talked to him the day before in the parking lot. He was telling me about the problems with his latest car, and was checking out my show car. I am hoping and praying for his recovery. If he does recover, he is going to have one hell of a hard time with a damaged liver. I have a feeling he will need a liver transplant, and I am not sure if they place suicide patience very high on the donor list.
The worst part is that this action does not surprise me. He would give up on things when they became too hard, and he always craved attention. Especially after his dad passed away and his mother remarried. I would see him doing anything to get his mom's attention. Dress goth punk, have small self-inflicted cuts all up and down his arms, pierce every part of his face, and drop out of school. I guess we will see if suicide will get him that attention that he wanted from her. I doubt she is even there at the hospital with him.
He was always pampered, getting what ever he wanted without having to work for it. He had this way of being able to weasel/charm his way into getting people to help him. He never valued anything, and would break, or loose anything that he got. I guess he didn’t even value his own life.
I am worried about his younger brother. That boy is obsessed with death and dieing; has serious anger issues, having threatened my sister with a baseball bat; and is known to steal from friends, family, and stores. He has been diagnosed as being bipolar, and autistic. He has been placed in a special program to help him interact with society. I hope it helps him out.
The mother has tried for years to dump them on their grandparents and other family members. She had written them off as hopeless and doesn't want them around to influence the new baby. I got news for you bitch; it was not due to my uncle's influence that they turned out like they did. They learned to manipulate people and situations to suit their whims from the best, they learned it from you. In time you will see that that new baby of yours will turn out just like them, even with a different father. I hope I am wrong, but I already see that toddler manipulating and following in his step-brothers’ foot steps...

Please take a moment to say a prayer for him, I may not care for him that much, but he is family after all.

It is kind of weird, and scary. Usually when a disaster strikes, or someone falls on hard times, I have no trouble making a donation to help out. Call it karma, a soft spot, or what ever; I believe that if I am able to help I should. For some reason when this Hurricane Katrina disaster hit, I didn't jump at donating. In fact I only just now made my first donation to help out. Why? Am I becoming callus or heartless? This is really bugging me.

I think one of the problems is when I though Hurricane, I thought of Florida. They get seam to get hurricanes on a monthly basses, and it does not seam to be a big deal. It was only after I saw aerial pictures of the city that I realized the existent of the disaster.

Another problem was the response I started reading and hearing. People were blaming the federal government for not doing enough before or the day after. What does the Feds have to do with an approaching disaster, when we have no idea how bad it will be? That is the responsibility of the state and local government. They are not making a big deal out of the hurricane, why should the feds? Why is the governor on the radio loosing it over the feds? He is the one that need to do his job, keep control, make decisions, and help his people. How can he do that when he cannot even control himself? Every disaster that I can think of in CA, the first responders are local and state. The governor is on the air encouraging and supporting the people. He is encouraging everyone to pull together and help pull each other threw this earthquake, mud slide, or flood. The feds show up a week or two later with a check, and if needed, more man power and equipment. Even in Sir Lanka, I didn't know a thing about the tsunami, until after New Years and our forces were still just responding.

The biggest problem that I see is that the news is reporting every thing that is going wrong, rape, murder, shooting, hijacking, looting, mass chaos; very little of the news is about the good that people are doing. I know they say that bad news sells, but when the only picture I get is people acting like thieves and barbarians, it does very very little to move my heart to make donations to help these 'victims.' Why the hell should I help a person that just looted a Wal-Mart for TVs and Nikes? I say f&ck them, I am keeping my money. Hell they just walked away with a bigger TV than I have and didn't pay a dime. Why should I care if that person may die of dieses when he is holding his TV that does him zero good without electricity? If they were walking out with food and water, my heart would be breaking.

I had to work really really hard at seeing threw all the politicians throwing mud, the media shock effort, and the human nature at its worst. I had to remember that there were still good people, people that are trying to do make the best of a bad situation and get back on their feet after loosing everything. These are the people that really need our help and our generosity. These are the people that that I had to remember are the victims and need our help.

Well I got one good game for the DS. Ok I guess two; Golden Eye is not that bad. I picked up a copy of Advance Wars Double Strike. There is not a huge change from the Advance Wars 2. They added a few new units, and some new COs. The touch screen can be used to command the units, which is a nice feature. If you have the Advance Wars 1 0r 2 game in the GBDS, you can access hidden maps and features in the store. Over all the game has made some nice changes, but nothing that just makes me scream, "OMG, this is so cool! Thank you Nintendo for the DS!"

The game I want to hear being announced is "Ninja Gaden 360, The Destruction of more Controllers."