Red Dead Redemption (Single Player) Review: Holy Shit, I Feel Like John Wayne

It’s no secret to anyone around me that I was stoked about Red Dead Redemption for months.  My friends and I had a posse formed a solid month before it came out.  I’m happy to say that the game lived up to my expectations.

You play as John Marsden, a reformed outlaw who is now trying to live a quiet life as a rancher with his wife Abigail and his son Jack.  However, he hasn’t quite been able to escape his criminal past, and now is on a mission to hunt down his former partners-in-crime.  Basically, it’s a typical Western genre storyline.  It could have gotten boring, but because it’s Rockstar Games making a sandbox game set at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, it’s pretty impossible that this game wouldn’t be at least somewhat enjoyable.

There is plenty to do around the large map.  You can hunt wild animals, search for treasure, capture outlaws, kill innocents, help out random strangers, play poker, blackjack, or horseshoes; patrol towns and ranches for crimes, duel at high noon, and clear out gang hideouts.  Oh yeah, and you can do the storyline missions as well.  Seriously, there is so much you can do in this game that it’s almost overwhelming, but it’s good for someone like me who gets ADD after about 20 minutes of gaming.  Any game that can hold my attention for 6 hours in a row like RDR has is a good game in my book.

The game itself is also very, very well designed.  The graphics are absolutely gorgeous, even on the XBox 360.  I once rode my horse Dusty Butt off a cliff because I was staring at how fantastically rendered a mountain was in the background.  There were only a few moments where the frame rate dropped, which is astounding due to the sheer amount of shit happening in the open world.  I never experienced some of the weird glitches that some people did, such as humans accidentally being coded as animals (flying people and cougar dudes).  The two glitches I experienced were close to the end and at the very, very end of the game, and I’m not even entirely sure whether one of those was a legit glitch or it was supposed to be like that.  I’d explain it more, but I’d spoil the end of the game if I tried to.  Graphics aside, voice acting was also pretty good.  There wasn’t any dialogue where I was like “LOLWUT,” but then again I often space out during cutscenes so it’s entirely possible, even probable, that I missed something.

I kind of have to pull at straws to find any negatives in RDR.  A few of the missions were a bit confusing as to what I was supposed to be doing.  In the game’s defense however, as I previously stated I often don’t watch cutscenes and I’m also a bit of a dumbass.  It was never anything that took me more than a couple of tries to figure out, however, so it’s not a major issue.  There were also a lot of scenes of nothing but riding a horse or driving a wagon and chatting with an NPC.  They are basically there simply for the sake of the plot, but at times they were a bit tedious and too fucking long.  Some of these you could skip, but that’s only if you were the passenger on a wagon.  Again, I’m really grasping at straws here to find negatives.

RDR is probably my second favorite game of the year so far, after Mass Effect 2.  The only reason it’s not my absolute favorite is because I’m a Mass Effect fangirl.  It definitely has the feel of GTA, from the save system to the map.  If you like GTA, westerns, sandbox games, or shooters, I can’t imagine you not getting at least some enjoyment out of RDR.

9.7/10

Good News, Bad News

Good News: I graduate in about a month.

Bad News: WTF am I going to do after that?  I have to go out and be a real person now.  I’m not sure I can handle that.

Good News: Finished my thesis.

Bad News: My advisor hates it.  My meeting with him on Friday may end in tears for me.  Dread central.

Good News: Things with Potential Love Interest appear to be moving in the right direction.

Bad News: Suddenly everyone else has a crush on me, too.  Dammit you guys, why do you wait until there’s someone I’m interested in?  Seriously.

Good News/Bad News: Donovan McNabb was traded to my beloved Redskins.  Seriously, WTF.  I spent years hating this guy, and now I’ll be rooting for him.  I was pissed for a while, but after watching McNabb’s press conference yesterday, I feel much better about the situation.  I think we may start looking like a team instead of perplexed five-year-olds.  Who knows though; the Redskins never fail at being the Offseason Champions, so we’ll have to see what happens in the fall.

Good News: Summer seems to have arrived.  It’s 90 degrees outside.  It’s also April 7.  WHAT.

Bad News: I’ve had a fever yesterday and part of today, so I haven’t even been able to enjoy it.

Good News: Have weened myself off of caffeine, so I can actually function without coffee or Pepsi.

Bad News: I am now addicted to Gatorade, which probably isn’t much better.

Good News: REC 2 is out somewhere.  I need to hunt it down and watch it.  The first REC is easily one of my favorite horror movies ever.

Bad News: Watched Paranormal Activity.  Did people really find it that scary?  All I got out of it was a lot of time watching people sleeping, listening to a woman drop f-bombs on her dumbass boyfriend who keeps saying “dude,” listening to random banging that was probably supposed to make me jump, and failing to feel any sympathy for the absolutely stupid and arrogant assholes who were the main characters.  TL;DR Very underwhelming for all the hype that surrounded it.

Good News: Started getting frighteningly good at Modern Warfare 2 multiplayer.  Like, my kill-death ratio was actually going positive.  Once I had the most kills on my team.  WHAT.

Bad News: Now all I want to do is play MW2.

Good News: I’ll probably be keeping the rats after graduation.  SWEET.

Bad News: It would be sweeter if I had a job and a place to live.

Good News: Looking into freelance writing and blogging as a career option.  It sounds like something I would absolutely love doing.

Bad News: I have to look at options like that because there’s absolutely nothing out there for history majors.  Worst major ever.  I should’ve stuck to something practical instead of something I just “liked.”

Good News: I’ve made some new friends.

Bad News: One of said “friends” is my ex’s new girlfriend.  I’m pretty sure she’s trying to validate that she is the better option for him.  She’s probably also threatened because he still talks to me and IMs me a lot.  I always try to blow him off, because A) half the shit he says is ridiculous conspiracy theory bullshit, and B) I stopped caring about him quite a while ago.  She should be concerned with him, not me.  Potential Love Interest >>>> Conspiracy Theorist Ex.

So yeah, that’s my life in a nutshell right now.  Pretty average, yet aggravating.  Growing up sucks, I’m going back to 3rd grade.

Mass Effect 2 Review: I Wish to Marry this Game

Anyone who knows me well knows I’m a total Mass Effect fangirl.  Like, seriously hardcore.  I own the soundtrack(s).  And actually listen to them.  I have serious issues.

My game arrived last Friday, just in time for a gaming weekend since both of my roomies were gone.  I finished it Tuesday.  About 36 hours of playtime, over 5 days.  When I realized this I cried a little bit, but wiped away my tears and vowed not to turn on my XBox until this weekend’s Snowpocalypse (seriously, we’re getting 2-4 inches of ice in addition to 20 inches of snow.  Virginia suddenly became Minnesota or something).

I don’t want to say Mass Effect 2 is better than the first, but I’m thinking it might be.  It’s definitely (and understandably) darker than the first, but I also found it much more humorous. The story feels a bit weaker than the first, but it’s sort of understandable because the player already knows about the goings on in the Milky Way, granted they played the first one.  There’s less to flesh out, so the story is more driven by the characters themselves. The characters are once again well developed and I found myself getting rather attached to my team.  It gives you more impetus to complete everything before your “suicide mission” in order to ensure everyone’s survival.

Upgrading is definitely different this time around.  You don’t have to worry about an inventory limit because you don’t have an inventory.  Instead, upgrades are received by doing missions, scanning planets for minerals and using said minerals to research new technologies.  I liked this system much better, if only because I spent an awful amount of time in ME1 sorting through my inventory.

Weapons are pretty badass.  My infiltrator owned with heavy weapons, but even the pistols aren’t too shabby.  Because I’m me, however, I mostly stuck to the Sniper and assault rifles.  I fucking love sniping, and the sniper upgrade is absolute love.  I do have one warning: for heavy weapons, be careful with the M-920 Cain.  Make sure you aim at enemies who are far, far away from you.  First time I tried it out I killed everyone, myself and my team included.

I really didn’t mind scanning planets for resources or side missions, but I know many people who absolutely despise it. The annoyance factor of planet exploration really depends on the player; instead of the Mako you scan planets, which I personally like because the Mako makes me so angry it’s not even funny.  The cursor is rather slow at first, but there is an upgrade that makes it faster.

The romance scene remains awkward and creepy.  My (male) Shepard hooked up with Tali.  It was bizarre.  It wasn’t explicit at all, even less so than the creeptastic romance scene in the first one, but there’s something really, really strange about it.  That’s all I’m going to say about it.

There were some graphical issues, but no game busting ones that I found.  Sometimes teammates would climb over an obstruction and suddenly be 20 feet above me.  Also, for some reason husks kept falling through the floor when they died and ended up just sticking out of the ground like daisies.  It was confusing, but my room mates and I lol’d pretty hard.  Otherwise the graphics definitely looked better than ME1, and it’s still an absolutely gorgeous game to look at.

Basically, I love this game.  I enjoyed every minute I played it, and my room mates enjoyed watching me play it (seriously, they gathered around like it was Project Runway). BioWare has never failed me yet, and I hope they never will.  I do recommend playing ME1 first, though, if only for the starting bonuses and to get a feel for the Mass Effect universe.  I definitely, definitely give this game an A.

Ah fuck.

Eye strain. Fuck.

Yeah, and I'm blogging. It's seriously from my laptop though. I was reading that monitor refresh rates below 70 Hertz or so causes a lot of eye strain. So I'm like, oh great, I'll just change it to 70 or 75 or something. BUT NO. My laptop does not allow me to change it to anything other than 60. FFFFFFFFUUUU... Hence, I am on my desktop with my 75 Hertz of refreshment. I hadn't booted this shit up in a good 3 weeks, and I forgot how awesome desktops are. It's over 3 yrs old now, but good ol' Spartacus has done well. Other than sometimes refusing to communicate with the monitor properly, but even then it will reboot itself and start functioning again. I know, weird.

I know there's got to be a way to tweak my refresh rate on the laptop. The problem is, I really don't want to fuck it up. It's already been through some shit (HP's shitty hard drive exploding randomly one day. I'd only had it for 2 months, too). Plus that's $1200 of beastly hardware and if I somehow screw it up (which is inevitable if I try something like this) I will probably cry a bit.

Also, I'm sick. Not swine flu though, which is always a plus. It's a head cold, basically. Actually it's starting to feel like a sinus infection. Lovely, but I'll take it over any flu variant anyday. My head sort of feels like a balloon right now.

I'm also keeping track on Ghost Adventures Live. My mom always watches shit like this because she's a sci-fi nerd like that, and passed along that trait to her kids. One of my roommates and I were watching one of the episodes before the live one, and basically just making fun of it. Not because we're skeptics, but because the guys on the show are such bros. Seriously, they are just a few popped collars away from true bro-dom. We are now going to call each other "bro" all the time, and utilize phrases such as "Dude, bro...." "Oh, bro...dude..." "BRO...DUDE, BRO!" Excellent.

I love how my parents still hone in on every health issue of mine. I can't really blame them, with all the shit that happened a few years ago, but the amazing speed at which they respond to Facebook status changes is legendary.

Speaking of which, I've never really understood why some people are so afraid of their parents on Facebook. I think it's a combination of 1) my mom's fuckin cool and wouldn't really give a shit, 2) my sisters and I don't do anything that would be embarrassing, 3) I don't have to worry about friends putting up anything stupid. I just don't do stupid shit. Hell, I can't get drunk for medical reasons (1 oz. of wine every week really doesn't do anything, lol), and it's not like I'm sleeping around with tons of dudes. There's really nothing I need to keep secret from my parents. And hell, a good chunk of my family is on Facebook as well. Again though, I think it's just the situation I'm in. I'm sure if I were in someone else's shoes I'd feel much differently.

Sleepytime tea fuckin rules, too. Just throwing that out there.

So I found this website, King.com, through StumbleUpon (which is my new addiction, BTW). I don't know if it was intentional, but if you say "king-dot-com" out loud it sort of sounds like "kingdom come." This is the sort of thing I figure out when I can't sleep at 3 AM. Anyway, it's actually pretty shitty, but oddly addictive. As a free member you pretty much are just doomed to mediocrity, because they only let you play a few levels/minutes of each game, therefore there's only so many points you can get. Excellent strategy though: have addicting games like BeJeweled, give incentives to play such as "building a castle" and "earning jewels," tell people they have to pay for moar awsum features, ????, PROFIT!!! I refuse to give in, though, because I'm already paying $50 a year for XBox Live and that's way cooler.

My other roommate is on a night hike. My maternal instincts are freaking. Especially because there are only four people, apparently. I am not okay with this. I probably won't be able to sleep until she gets back.

I am still highly confused about Adam Lambert. Do people really freak out over him? I don't know anyone who actually knows who he is. The few friends who do watch American Idol are like, "which one is he?" Then I go online and see all these women going apeshit over him. I do not understand. He's not bad, but he seriously sounds like a million other artists out there. And he has a ridiculous album cover that reminds me of the Lisa Frank backpack I had in Kindergarten. It had baby seals on it, along with rainbows and stars and other Lisa Frank goodness. I digress. His "glam" also fails pretty hard. He should get lessons from Dir En Grey or one of those other Japanese visual kei bands. That right there is some serious modern glam. The lead singer of Dir en Grey also mutilates himself onstage, and I can't decide whether that's fucking awesome or fucking worrisome. Adam can leave that aspect to him.

But seriously, it's like there's an entirely different world out there of pop stars and actors and whatever, along with their rabid fanbases. Actually, now that I've mentioned Adam Lambert, I wonder if some random fan is going to come here. Then again, why the fuck would they, because like, this is a clearly insignificant blog and probably more of a waste of bandwidth than a lot of things. YET I KEEP TYPING.

Also, I have gotten so many messages about the Sims 3 blog post I did in June. This is another thing I don't understand. How are these people finding my blog? Why are they all Sims 3 fans? Honestly I forget the game even exists sometimes. Pretty sure I haven't played it since July at the latest. Console gaming is just way more fun. I like talking to and playing with my friends. And I've become an achievements whore. Maybe Sims 3 people are looking for stuff on the expansion that's supposed to come out and looks sort of lame. No seriously, I used to get so fucking excited about Sims expansion packs, but now it just feels like they're pumping out the same shit. What is this one, "World Adventures" or something like that? I liked it better when it was called Bon Voyage/Vacation. I'm sure there's something that differentiates it from the other two but I still just can't get excited over it. They should've made a Nightlife/Hot Date type expansion instead. I'd much rather they give you more options in the current neighborhood.

Odd as it sounds, I think I'm going to do some homework. I AM THAT BORED. And hell, might as well utilize this time.

Random thoughts of the day.

• Some guy was singing Bel Biv DeVoe's "Poison" outside of my window five minutes ago. And very well, I have to add. I am confused, intrigued, and a bit in love. Thank you, neighbor.
• Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 on Legendary was not nearly as difficult as I thought it would be. I feel slightly disappointed. Or maybe I'm just intensely skilled. Doubtful.
• John Winthrop made me want to pull my eyes out. I had to read a biography of him for one of my classes and holy sweet Moses, that was the most dry, grating thing I've ever experienced. Now the next time I hear someone say "a city on a hill" I'm going to become blind with rage.
• Took a test for my American South class. My test had 40 questions. There were supposed to be 50. My awesome professor, who I've had for 3 classes now, just graded what I had, so I got an A anyway. BOOSH.
• Found that everything is better if you listen to Dethklok whilst doing it. "Duncan Hills Coffee Jingle" is my normal coffee run song, but I didn't recognize the power of the Dethklok. Took the most brutal shower ever last night. Sort of hard to headbang while shaving my legs, and I can't recommend that part.
  
• A friend from high school committed suicide on Monday. Very, very strange. Definitely the last person I'd expect to do that. Hadn't talked to him in at least 3 years, but apparently it went downhill pretty fast. I've not been feeling very well for the past few days, and the emotions that it brought up just made it much worse. Right now I'm just depressed and ill. So many questions that no one can answer. Way too many emotions right now.
• Fall break starts tomorrow, which is good. However, I will be spending most of my time working on assignments so I don't even consider it a break. More like, "extended weekend."
• Reading around Idletard/Vote for the Worst, astounded that fantards still care about any of these contestants, especially Adam Lambert. I never hear a thing about American Idol anymore except when I go on those sites. It's a relief, but it's weird that people think he's a household name and going to be super successful or something. He probably has a better chance than most, but I wouldn't hold my breath. His rabidly insane fans will ruin whatever success he has anyway. The one person I know that actually keeps up with that shit was turned off of Lambert because some frauen kept harassing her about not being a "real fan" because she can maintain an objective view whilst liking someone. A slow clap to you, ladies.
• Apple tech support is awesome and it makes me angry that more companies do not have the same emphasis on customer service.
• Redskins didn't lose on Sunday. I wouldn't call what they did "winning." Jason Campbell made me sad that I own his jersey. Very close to selling it, because he looked fucking terrible. They apparently hired someone to help out the offense, but this guy also calls bingo, so I don't even know. Dan Snyder, I'm looking for employment opportunities when I graduate in May...
• Attempting to watch the news makes me angry and depressed. Already have clinical depression and a short temper, so I read HappyNews.com instead. Because fuck you, mass media.
• Speaking of which, I tried to take a survey about television the other day. It asked me what shows I'd watched in the past week. The only time I turned on the TV was to play video games. The 'x' in the corner of the window was clicked. I don't know if I've watched any TV in the past month.
  
• Trying to catch up with my friend Ben in Xbox Live gamerscore. Gamerscore gets you nothing, but I like swinging my e-penis around. Speaking of Ben, I need a power hug, stat.
  
• About to make myself filet mignon for dinner. Because fuck you, campus dining service. I actually eat healthier now that I make most of my own meals because I know that the meat will be properly cooked and the vegetables won't be smothered in fucking lard. Only in the south...
• Didn't realize how happy MST3K makes me until I watched it for the first time in a few weeks yesterday. Instantly brought my mood up. Thanks guys.
• iTunes is getting a major cleanup over break. I have 13,994 songs. This is a bit insane, and I bet a good bit of those are duplicates. Also I need to stop being a music whore.
• Dear God I really want that filet mignon. Bye.
  

Sims 3 Updated Review.

So I've been playing Sims 3 for over a month, and the discussion in the comments in the other post (HOLY SHIT why do people read this shittastic "blog") compelled me to do a slight makeover of my viewpoints.

First off, I still don't like the game that much.

However, I think that's due more to the fact that I've gotten into shit like Fallout 3 and Prototype. Also I now have my XBox 360 so I hardly ever use my PC for games anymore. And even with that, I don't have the fucking time or money to really spend a lot of time with video games. For instance, I got the Broken Steel DLC for Fallout 3 when it came out, like 2 months ago, and I just picked it up and finished the first level two days ago. And I'm a total Fallout fangirl.

Anyway, Sims 3. I'll just go through all the previous points.

The Good

• Seamless neighborhood is still nice.
• Traits are enjoyable.
• Voice customization is...a bit pointless, but fun nevertheless. Create a style is still meh.
  
• Graphic effects are nice, especially now that I can fucking see them on my new laptop.
• Moodlets still fine.
• Jobs and the new interactivity is still a good change.

The Bad

• Still could have done with more base items. However, the modding community is starting to figure out how to create their own objects (EA made it fucking difficult this time) so I doubt I'll care anymore. Not that I really give a shit because as I've said before, I rarely play.
• Lack of body shop goes somewhat with the above bullet. EA really wanted to curb people making their own free items and force them to buy from their damn store.
• I still hate their faces, even if I can get them to look less round. Also, they did something with the facial structure models or something because you have to fiddle a lot to make a Sim that looks vastly different than everyone else. Or just download a slider hack.
• Motive system was off until I discovered mods for it.
• Behavior is still ridiculous sometimes, but again, MODS.
• Community lots still rabbit holes. I hope this will change in an EP or something, especially the way people are bitching about "OMG I CAN'T TAKE MY SIMS TO THE NIGHTCLUB AND PICK UP CHICKS."
• I stand by my statement that this is really not a sequel to the other two. It really stands alone as a game.

The WTF EA?

• One neighborhood shit is still stupid, but that's been fixed by hackers, so no more complaints from me.
• Storytelling mode was fixed by the Awesomemod, and then 3 weeks later EA shat out a patch. What happened was that when you tried to disable storytelling mode, it really didn't disable and therefore caused the random Sim disappearances.
• The store still pisses me off, but people started pirating that shit almost immediately. Unfortunately, none of it even looks good enough to illegally download. Again, the modders will step in and create free shit. I mean, why would anyone pay $20 for a damn set of pixel-furniture? Binary dolls are not worth that, unless they can come to life and fix me dinner.

My main problem is simply this: the game really doesn't seem like it's worth the amount I paid for it. I'm probably (fangirl alert) spoiled from Fallout 3, where you can easily spend 100+ hours wreaking havoc in the post-apocalyptic D.C. area with good replay value. Plus, the DLCs for that have all been spectacular, and add on even more playtime, objects, and people to interact with/kill. Even games like Mass Effect, where you can play once through, then play again as the same character without losing anything and with the ability to kick way more ass.

Also, my other problem is that I'm having way more fun with my own life than with a binary doll's life. I've started to feel sort of weird watching Sims interact with other people while I sit somewhere alone, staring at a screen. Changing interests. If I want to play a video game, I want complete "this is so implausible" escapism. Again, this is all my own fucking opinion, and based on an activity I spend <5 hours a week on.

Anyway.

Basically what I've been doing with my life is knitting, reading, working, watching random movies, and sleeping. Doesn't sound like fun, but I'm an extremely boring person and therefore enjoy such things.

I have knitting patterns and other reviews to do, but they're for other posts. I basically just wanted to get that Sims 3 shit out of my system, even though the game itself is collecting dust right now.

Double Review: Prototype and The Room Rifftrax

Prototype

If this game were a man, I'd marry him and bear him at least 3 children. He's only mildly attractive but when you get into him you're like OH HOLY SHIT.

What I mean by that is, the graphics aren't that great, but the gameplay makes up for it and more. You play as Alex Mercer, who wakes up on a morgue slab just as he's about to get autopsied. He has no memory of who he is or what happened to him, so you're figuring this out as the game goes on. Also, Manhattan is being overrun with a virus that is turning people into zombies. FUCK YES ZOMBIES. Also you have a shitton of kickass powers. You can shoot a blade tipped tendril out of your arm (or shoot a whole bunch out and destroy everything within radius of you), run up fucking buildings, glide through the air like a sugarglider, consume people and become them whilst gaining their knowledge and energy, and TURN YOUR WHOLE FUCKING ARM INTO A GIANT DOUBLE-EDGED BLADE. HOW CAN YOU NOT LOVE THIS?!

I'm only about halfway through right now, because A) I like having a life, and B) shit is fucking hard at some parts. Seriously, there have been times when I just have to turn off the Ecks Bawks and meditate so I don't explode. Even though you have all these kickass powers, each enemy has a different weakness, so you're constantly changing which power/move to use depending on what you're fighting. Also, you're often fighting both the (virus) infected and the military, sometimes simultaneously. Because of this I normally use a hit and run tactic like the chickenshit I am. Jump from a high area, kill some dudes, then run away and let my health regen/consume bitches. It's how I roll.

Seriously, a kickass game. There are some people who bawl about it not looking great or being too similar to other games or not having a deep storyline, but they can go fuck themselves. I game to fuckin' destroy shit, not to get Schindler's List in high-quality game format.


The Room (2003) + the Rifftrax of it

Oh hi, Danny. I'd heard someone mention The Room about a year ago, but I never thought to look it up until about 2 months ago. Sweet Jesus. This movie may be worse than Manos: The Hands of Fate and Plan 9 From Outer Space. Seriously. The writing is atrocious, the acting is stroke-inducing, and you can FEEL the incompetence surging through your screen as you watch it. It garnered MST3K + Rocky Horror midnight viewings in which people throw spoons whenever the mindboggling framed picture of a spoon appears on screen, shout "FOCUS" when the film goes out of focus (and this happens quite frequently), reenact scenes at the front of the theater in costume, and fake walking out of the movie. I really need to attend one of these.

The plot...is nonsensical. The main plot appears to be a San Francisico-set love triangle between Johnny (Tommy Wiseau), a banker of indeterminate foreign origin (I think it's Latin Amerifrenchkoreansomalian), his future wife (NOT FIANCE) Lisa (Juliette Danielle), who is BEAUTIFUL (not), and Mark (Greg Sestero), who we know through at least 3000 lines of dialogue is Johnny's best friend. Then we have Lisa's mother, who comes in for 3 minute visits, introduces a whole slew of possible subplots that never get mentioned again (Lisa's mom: "I got the test results back today. I DEFINITELY have breast cancer." Lisa: "Don't worry about it. They're curing stuff like that every day.") There is also Johnny and Lisa's college-aged neighbor/surrogate son Danny, who seems like he's supposed to be slightly mentally challenged but no one ever says so, and who for five minutes is a drug dealer. Oh, and he has a crush on Lisa for the first half of the movie then just gets over it, I guess. There are also some other characters who do absolutely nothing and do not further the plot at all. Other than the main characters, I mean.

There are so many notable, shitastic things in this movie I don't even know where to begin. It's clearly not much more than Wiseau (who, as well as starring, directed and wrote this shit) masturbating over himself. The way he protrays his character as an innocent victim leads me and pretty much everyone else to believe that this is autobiographical. I'd love to know what this real life woman thinks now, if she does exist. The best part of it all is that he clearly made it to be a completely serious drama. When he found out that people were laughing at it, he did a 180 and claimed that it was intentional, and that the film was meant to be a black comedy. And thus thousands of Bullshit Detectors sounded.

From the games of football, which consist of tossing a football back and forth whilst standing 3 feet from each other, the laughable dialogue including "YOU AH TEARING ME APAAAAAHT, LISAAA" and "It feels like I'm sitting on an atom bomb that is going to explode," and the characters that come from fucking nowhere, this film is unintentionally a masterpiece. I'd heard that you should first watch this movie with others, but I watched it by myself when I was sick and STILL had a blast. I laughed so hard I vomitted.

The worst thing about this movie are the sex scenes. There are 3 in the first half hour. Now you may be thinking, "FUCK YES, SEX!" but I assure you, watching these scenes will make you wish your genitalia would cease to function. There is NOTHING remotely sexy about any of it. And the shitty softcore R&B music just makes it all even more vomit inducing. I don't want to think about it anymore.

So, the Rifftrax. I was super stoked when I saw on Bill Corbett's facebook that they were doing this movie. And in my very biased opinion, they did a fucking superb job. The movie makes me laugh just by itself, but there were moments when I was literally crying with laughter with the Rifftrax. They completely nail Johnny's ridiculous accent and the constant "Oh hi, *insert character's name*" greetings. When Bill compares Lisa to "the bloated corpse of Britney Spears" I was immediately sold. The one thing I wasn't very fond of was that they do little sketches during the sex scenes so that they didn't have to try to riff that shit. I completely understand that, but the sketches aren't that great. The rest of the riffing is so good that this becomes a mootpoint, however.

So if you want to buy The Room, guess what! It's only $8.99 on Amazon (or free if you're a pirate)! Then buy the accompanying Rifftrax for $3.99. If you're not convinced of the sheer greatest of this shit, here is some YouTubage.

Sims 3 Review

So, being a Sims fan since it first came out, I was pretty damned stoked for the third installment of the series. Okay, I was fucking ecstatic. When I sat down to play for the first time, I was giddy with joy and the excitement of something new. However, over time that has mellowed out to "meh" and in some cases, outright disgust. There are great new aspects, but the cost of new things seems to be some of the old that were loved by the gamers and part of the reason why so it grew so huge. Without further ado, the super awesome review.

The Good

• Seamless neighborhood. Seriously, anyone who doesn't like this is a fucking fool. Those goddamn loading screens everytime I wanted to go to the park...grr.
• Traits. I enjoy my excitable, kleptomaniac, inappropriate, friendly vegetarian.
• SOME customization. You can change the Sims' voices, and create a style for interior decorating has killed many hours for me. I'll explain why I say "some" later.
  
• Some cool graphic effects. The light changes gradually throughout the day, instead of "Hey, it's 6 PM! BAM PITCH BLACK OUTSIDE." Also, plants move and sway, and according to some people you can see birds, but I'm not that observant and/or my comp sucks too bad for that.
• Moodlets. Again, just adds a sense of realism. Watching a good movie does make you happier, for at least a while.
• Jobs. I like the opportunities, or little projects that your sim can accomplish outside of work like reading a book, giving a speech, or delivering something to city hall. They boost job performance. While working, you can also choose how your sim spends their time. They can meet their coworkers, hang out and socialize, work hard, or slack off. Pretty nice.

The Bad

• Hardly any base game items. The ones that they have either don't look good or are obvious rehashes of those in Sims 2. But the obvious reason for this will be discussed later.
  
• No Body Shop. Yeah, you can't make your own clothes, hair, skintone, eyes, etc. without going in some roundabout way. Excuse me if I'm wrong, but I thought that was the reason why Sims 2 did so well--the vast options to customize our pixel people. But that just gets ripped away.
• Round pudding faces. Everyone has the same damn facial structure and double chins, even if they're the thinnest sims you can make. I readily acknowledge, however, that this may just be because I'm so used to Sims "You can make the eyes bigger than your goddamn head" 2 and I'll get used to it.
• Motive system seems off. While Sims sleep for fucking ever and are hungry all the goddamn time, I've only had to tell mine to pee twice. Um...if that happens to someone in real life they should probably see a doctor/drink way more water.
• Ridiculous behavior at times. After Woo-hoo (sex) they just go back to their "relaxing position" (stretched out on the bed with their arms folded over their torsos calmly) and chat. At least in Sims 2 they cuddled, and in some instances congratulated their partner (I'm not kidding). When feeding babies or toddlers, the bottle is pulled out of thin air, and when finished, vaporizes again. Also, all it takes to change a diaper is to toss the child up in the air spinning like a fucking top and they are instantly clean. I WISH THIS SHIT WERE POSSIBLE IN REAL LIFE. But since it's not, and this game prides itself on realism, and the other two were more realistic in this aspect, I don't understand why it would be so hard to put it in this game. Again, I readily accept that this is just something I'm being picky about and may get used to.
• Community lots. All of them, save for parks, are "rabbit holes" (meaning you can't actually see the interior. This makes since for workplaces and schools, but restaurants and stores? Honestly? Part of the fun of them was seeing your other Sims dining or shopping and having them interact together. I guess this means no hilarious shenanigans at nightclubs anymore, either.
• It's a whole different game. Fuck all this "it's simply a more realistic Sims 2!" Most of the features from Sims 2 ( and by that I mean "all of the good ones") are gone. It plays nothing like it. Playing feels like playing a game that was meant to be on a console ported to PC.
  

The What the Fuck, EA?

• Only one neighborhood and no option to make your own. In Sims 2 I never played the pre-made 'hoods except when I was learning how to play and trying out the new features. Why? Because I like creating ridiculous neighborhoods filled with mentally unstable pixel people and seeing the binary sparks fly. Shit is awesome. Plus I hate pre-existing storylines. I want my Sims to be the most ridiculous soap opera ever. Like Twilight but without all the suck and fail.
• Storytelling mode. This is the thing that has made me rage the hardest. In previous Sims games, you played one family at a time and all the other families were stuck in time, or limbo you might say. You would go back to them later and they'd be doing the exact same things as when you left. Now, however, they all continue living. Meaning they'll grow up, die, get jobs, meet new people, fall in love, wed, AND EVEN FUCKING MOVE OUT when you're not paying attention. No, seriously. I started a nice, charming little family and moved them into a house. After getting them accustomed I switched to another house. The Sim there was reading a newspaper that popped up saying that the other family had moved away. I went to view the neighborhood, and sure enough, the family's house was now occupied by a random family that I did not create nor put there. Needless to say, I was pretty fucking livid. If I create a damn family it's because I want to play them, fuckers. Further, I've also left a sim in a nice, stable spot, and returned later to find her pregnant and nearly broke. She'd apparently gotten knocked up some random townie and went on a book shopping spree.
• The Sims 3 Store. This is just fucking hateful, and what I think is clearly the reason why there's hardly any objects in this thing. They want you to pay more money for their crap! Yes, in this economy with a nearly 10% unemployment rate in this country, they expect you to pay $20 for a fucking binary code furniture set that still looks like shit, on top of a $50 base game. YOU HAVE TO BE KIDDING ME, EA. How fucking greedy are you shitheads? Not to mention a high number of Sims players are teens and young adults, meaning we don't have that much money to spend. We got you to the point where you can boast that you have the highest selling video game. You should be paying us, because without us you'd still be making Sim Ant or whatever the fuck, you fucking twats.

Going off of that last statement, I think EA is just treating their customers like shit in general. When they started putting SecuRom on their disks, which is a copy-protection program that has been sued numerous times for being potentially harmful malware, they tried to silence anyone who lodged a complaint on their forum. They had also started the Sims store shit then, which was not popular, especially since regular players always had better looking stuff, and for free. So it seems like they're trying to force it by making customization much harder and not putting a lot of material in there. And I understand it's a business and they want a profit, but dammit, they've never had a problem before and they seemed to be doing as well as ever before they started this. After...I don't know.

I know I'm not the only person pretty disappointed. Just taking a cursory glance at some forums I see that many people have the same complaints. Many more people are just not buying it. EA clearly didn't understand the concept of "ain't broke, don't fix it." I think I'm going back to Sims 2.

A break from finals.

Dear god, I need a break. It's only Monday and this week has already kicked my ass. After tomorrow things should be a lot better though. I will have had my final project for my Museums class done (I had to create a museum and all its inner workings, which is surprisingly fun), and my U.S. Labor History final out of the way. The Labor History one and my Greek one were the only ones that were actually exams, the rest are projects or papers. I guess it makes it rather nice, because I really hate studying.

I called my work this morning to ask them if I could come back to work when I get home. They sounded ecstatic to get me back, and relieved. I saw they had posted ads for hiring, so I figure they really need the help over the holidays. I could've worked over my Thanksgiving break, but I said to myself, "FUCK THAT." It was awful enough on Virginia's tax free day, I don't even want to know what that place looked like on Black Friday. So at least I know I'll be earning some cash over my break, which I desperately need.

After a few of my friends have had troubles with their ex boyfriends, I feel I need to thank my ex for being awesome about things. He's still one of my good, close friends, and he really showed maturity which he needs to teach a few other guys. I swear, sometimes guys create more drama than girls do.

I also think it's great that when I'm pissy, the only person I'm not angry at is my roommate and vice versa. It's like, "I HATE EVERYOOOONNNNEEEE. Except for you ! :D"

I actually physically hurt myself while playing Rock Band 2 last night. My friends and I created ourselves and our awesome band, BROWN THUNDER. We saw Disturbed's "Down With the Sickness" and just had to play that shit. If you haven't heard that song, go find it on last.fm or somewhere. At the beginning, the guy does all this really strange gutteral screaming, which as the lyrics say, "OOH AH AH AH AH....AWK AWK....AWK AWK." I did this quite accurately, but my throat still hurts. I need to work on my screamo yells.

Anyway. Break time is OVER. I've got to get this shit done and stop being a slacker kid.
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Now playing: Astronautalis - The Wondersmith and His Sons

And...I still forget I have a blog.

So Valentine's Day is coming soon, which means old memories will be brought up. Ugh. You know how there are times that you forget 50 weeks out of the year, but then for about two weeks it hangs on you like a damn monkey on a tree? Yeah, that's my life right now. Not going into details, though.

Still playing on Vote for the Worst. I finally got a t-shirt too, but my timing was maybe not the best with all the election stuff happening now, haha. It's been sort of annoying trying to explain to people what VFTW really is.

Speaking of election shit, Bill Clinton visited my college today to campaign for his cyborg wife. I had the option of skipping class and going, but I really fucking hate Hillary. Bill, didn't mind too much. But her, GOD I hate her. Also, there's a cutie in my Greek class and I like my eye candy. So screw the Clintons, I'm waiting for Obama.

Also, Crysis is a fantastic game. I bought a new video card simply for that game. That's how much I love it.

Saturday night I went to this place in Maryland called Glen Echo with my swing dance club. It was a fucking blast, but my legs still ache. Hey, you try dancing in heels for 4 hours straight. However, my legs will look great if I continue such a workout. Basically in swing dancing, as the female, you are thrown all over the dance floor and have to stay on your feet and, if your lead sucks ass, figure out what the hell your partner is doing. Some of the guys were really fucking good, and for some odd reason the Asian men in particular. Dudes know how to get their swing on. On the way back we got coffee and chips, and listened to the Beatles. I can't wait to go again, it was so fucking awesome. I'm such a swing nerd, LOL.

Anyway, my typing is probably annoying my room mate who is trying to sleep, haha, so I'd better get off here. Adios.

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Now playing: Jeff Buckley - Dream Brother
via FoxyTunes