Army of Sythbane

Fortiscule and I played Army of Two: The 40th Day all last weekend to complete the campaign and prepare our review.

Take a look on Techcetera!

Applause for Avatar

I just took my family to see James Cameron's Avatar, and it is magnificent beyond superlatives.


As I told a friend, Avatar is so good you won't believe it. You'll BELIEVE IT, which is why you won't believe it. It is so well-done, it kicks you beyond the "wow that's an amazing special effect stage" to being unaware that you're watching a movie and being absorbed in the story.

The story works at many different levels -- sci fi speculation, historical allegory, contemporary political tale, and individual psychological/spiritual metaphor.

Go see it.

Best video games of the year

Our annual video game gift guide, which is our list of the best games of the year, is up on Techcetera.

Big contributors this year are my reviewer apprentice Fortiscule and Mrs. ArcDream.

Fortiscule also handles the review this week on DJ Hero. Check it out!

You'll find a roundup of my reviews and recommendations (which include Fortiscule's reviews, of course) on my al.com profile page.

Are you playing any new games for the holidays? Let me know about it! Email me at Sythbane@gmail.com and let everyone know what you think of the game. We plan to see Avatar this weekend, and we'll be playing the game afterward.

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Old girlfriends in Mass Effect 2

A G4 blog post says that your old girlfriends from Mass Effect might show up in Mass Effect 2, which is interesting. Then the blogger goes on to say he doesn't even remember who his girlfriend was in Mass Effect, Liara the blue alien, or Ashley the regular human lady.

Oh, for crying out loud! How could you NOT remember who you hooked up with in Mass Effect?? A BLUE alien chick with TENTACLES on her head is memorable. Either you remember that you DID hook up with her, or you DIDN'T, which means it was the other girl (unless you ticked her off). How could something like that not leave an impression?

Oh, these jaded gamer youths, for whom romance with a beautiful blue alien is mundane and forgettable! If I meet a sexy blue alien woman, I'm going to write it down.

Dads talk about profanity in MW2

I've posted a column on Techcetera that's a series of letters between me and another father about parenting decisions and video games. He had inquired about the intensity of profanity in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, because he was considering whether to get it for his son for Christmas.

My son Fortiscule and I both love video gaming. We share a lot of fun gaming together, like some dads do with baseball, watching football or fishing. Many of my friends in the Xbox Live community are parents like me. I hope y'all will feel free to chime in with your thoughts as well.

The column is called Dads discuss profanity in Modern Warfare 2.

Spartans On The Ground

Here's the trailer for Halo Reach. This looks absolutely awesome and gives me chills.

Halo Reach first look gives chills

The new trailer for Halo Reach that was shown on Spike TV's VGAs gave me goosebumps.

I'll post it here as soon as it's available somewhere. In the meantime, here's the first trailer, which has a goosebumps moment in it, too.

Halo Reach - Halo Official Site

Furlough from MW2

An e-mail letter to Sythbane Squadron, from our friend Fartknockker:

Sythbane,

I will be taking a break from Modern Warfare 2 for a while. Not because of problems with the Javelin glitch, but terrible respawns and lag have elevated my frustration level with the game to a point of walking away.

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Above, Fortiscule serves as an example of a frustrated gamer, like Fartknockker has become lately.

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My theory: Respawns have been programmed to increase the chances of payback kills. As a result you tend to spawn closer to enemies more often than in previous COD games. The other day I was playing Team Deathmatch on Wasteland. I respawned, turned around and there were three enemies 10 feet away. I am not saying this has never happened but it seems considerably more prevelent in this game.

Lag -- seeing an enemy pop in a window for a second and then getting shot by that enemy in that same second and then watching the killcam and that enemy having a full 3 seconds to draw sights, aim and shoot. I have a 6M down and 1M up net speed. This should be sufficient. In my book, that's not fair.

The misuse of tactical inserts to acquire a nuke is another deterent from my play. A player on team A will get a friend to be on team B. The player on team B will equip a tact insert and keep spawning in front of the player on team A at a predetermined spot on a given map that is not traveled very often and out of the way, so as not to be noticed. (I believe these spots were intented to be safe areas for players to operate killstreak rewards and call in airdrops but are now being exploited) The player on team A can get a 25-kill streak very quickly by killing the player on team B over and over because on the tac insert, not to mention the killstreak reward player A acquires for the tac insert kills. I have no patience for cheaters.

I will be working on Left for Dead 2, Borderlands and Call of Duty Classic until I have stored enough patience to return to MW2.

Fartknockker