So, I'm going to buy your game.  Because your Platinum and I think you're the sh*t.

But let's also get a steady stream of ports going yeah?  There are at least two other games I want from your catalogue in my collection again.

And if you want, you can release Anarchy Reigns too.  But the other two games are much, much more important.  I don't have a 360 any longer and I need these two again.  So do something about it, please! :3

Still, I get to fight the Desperado Elite!  That's pretty badass in its own right!

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$4 for one of these?

$14 for one of these?

The image on the inside of the mug is

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Reviewed on May 9th, 2013
Universal presents a film directed by J.J. Abrams
Screenplay by Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman and Damon Lindelof
Starring: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Benedict Cumberbatch and Simon Pegg
Running Time: 132 minutes
Rating: M
Released: May 9th, 2013

In 1966 Gene Roddenberry created Star Trek as a TV series and coincidentally this was the same year that director J.J. Abrams was born. The show was pitched as a space Western in the vein of Wagon Train, which was a Western mystery show set on the Frontier. Star Trek converged with the start of the Vietnam War. Roddenberry had already seen action as a fighter pilot in World War II. To counter Vietnam, his version of Earth was a society without conflict and in space there were galactic truces, race relations and a sense of unity aboard the ship the Enterprise. As with any good Western, there was moral code of ethics between men, no matter how pointy their ears might have been. Roddenberry believed in a disciplined society that could be unaffected by war or religion. Spock for example was said to be modelled on a police Chief he knew when he was part of the LAPD.

After many years as a TV show and dozens of films, someone decided Star Trek should be reinvented yet again and Abrams was hired to transform it into a glossy action film. As a filmmaker J.J. Abrams is somewhat of an enigma. One of his heroes growing up was Steven Spielberg. When he was a boy he was hired to repair some old film footage for him. Spielberg would later produce Abrams most personal film Super 8, a movie that typifies the director's career. Part of the film is a loving tribute to home movies and geek culture, while the other is a bombastic, overblown blockbuster, short of any personal imprint. He's a slick filmmaker, I enjoyed his TV show Alias until it became ridiculous, but he struggles to find the balance his idol has between action and character. Into Darkness is a better film than the messy 2009 film though. The best scenes overcome the generic, simplification of the action genre by retreating back towards the essence of the original show: a morally ambiguous grey zone, where the values of the characters and their races are tested. However, the characters are still bound by a rigid story structure, where at least ten elaborate set pieces take full precedence over the human and Vulcan drama. 

The most interesting aspects of the plot are when Spock (Zachary Quinto) and Kirk (Chris Pine) butt heads over their different beliefs. Kirk is tasked with tracking down a rogue agent named John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch), who is now essentially a terrorist bomber, causing havoc in London by using desperate people to do his bidding. This leaves a chilling, lasting impression, particularly when the film adds a layer of complexity, with Spock insisting that Harrison should be captured and trialled first. He's at odds with the order of the mission and Kirk, who wants revenge for the death of a colleague. Cumberbatch is frighteningly good in the film, a massive improvement over Eric Bana's villain in the first movie. The tension he brings through his menace, his arrogance but also his ability to cast doubts in the minds of the protagonists about who the baddies really are, is a magnetic quality that is hard to prepare for prior to seeing the film. What a terrific find he's become over the last few years. 

However, by ingraining itself in the structure of an action film, a lot of this ambiguity is undone. Whereas action and moral ethics fought and overlapped persistently in The Dark Knight, Into Darkness' rhythm is too discrete and foreseeable. The action is timed acutely to follow a stretch of exposition, dividing itself between moments of ideology and combat, and the emphasis on set pieces means the lines between good and evil become transparent again and remove the crucial shades of grey. Abrams also seems more interested in choreographing lavish action sequences than exploring the personal side of the drama. His imagination in the set pieces is limitless. He employs an array of frenzied techniques, including rapid cutting, tilting cameras, overhead shots and quick pans, to breeze through the action. Yet when the characters stop to face one another and talk his direction has none of the same flair or creativity. The actors sit or stand still, with the camera perched on their shoulders for dull reverse angle shots that don't heighten the tension. 

Rarely do we ever see these characters in their downtime either. Without any inner life they become ciphers for voicing conflicting moral ideas, like instinct against logic or law and these conflicts are often resolved within a scene of one another. After watching Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan recently, which Into Darkness borrow from, it's also fascinating that Kirk is viewed as an ageing man who has to start thinking about death and his legacy. In this film he's more on par with Tony Stark, able to bed two alien girls with tails at once. That amplifies where they're aiming this film at, in spite of the occasionally intriguing layering of the story. For a franchise that prides itself on going where no man has gone before, the Enterprise is starting to travel in circles.

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Hope everyone has been enjoying the nice warm weather in the Uk this weekend its been really nice unless of course you play on a PC all day like myself and end up melting into your chair due to the combined heat of the sun and a PC... it;s not nice

Anyway's as my title suggests it's almost my birthday AGAIN, seriously it can't be a year already since my 18th This year I shall be 19 on the 22nd of May. Already decided I'm tottally going to be seeing Star Trek Into Darkness for my birthday since the last film was epic. 

New Pickups.

This week I took the money I've been saving.. well some of it and brought myself some awesome stuff.

Fire Emblem Awakening. 

This was  35 from Grainger Games in my town centre, wish I preordered it and got the art book. I'm loving this game sp far since i don't usually enjoy grid based games such as this but its just fantastic. Only about 5 hours in just leveling up all my characters for bigger battles so I don;t just use one team for every battle.

Hitman Sniper Challenge

I brought this because it was 25p in HMV, havent had the chance to play it yet because my internet is down

Final Fantasy 7 PC 

It was 4.99 on the square enix store at the start of the week so i thought hell why not, still not tried the Pc version out because as I've already mentioned my internet is down

Legacy of Kain Soul Reasver 1 & 2 + Blood Omen 2 

Legacy Of Kain is a series I've been wanting to play again for such a long time it's been killing me I noticed the entire series was like 99p a game so I brought the ones i didn't already have for my Pc which made me really happy.... then of course my internet went down.... D:

Battlefield 3 Premium

Brought the Premium version of Battlefield 3 because Origin had a St George's day sale on and it was  21.50, I'm really enjoying it and the DLC is really good, I quite like trying to mow people down on a dirt bike

I don't know why but my internet went down last monday which really annoyed me, nobody has been in since friday so my dad rang and arranged for a technition to come down and fix the problem. of course that was yeasterday and nobody turned up There just being lazy due to it being a bank holiday weekend over here in the UK. I swear to god if it's not up by tuesday someones gonna die... 

Anyway everyone thanks for reading my blog and hope your all having a great weekend, I'm gonna go level some more on Fire Emblem  

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http://www.gamespot.com/users/RatedSTARZ

The reason I've decided to switch is because this profile has been active since 2006, and it is literally cluttered and messy, and there are a lot of inactive blogs/friends and it's just been difficult to manage. I think a fresh new gamespot profile would be better for the RatedSTARZ channel afterall .

With that said, I hope to see you guys on the other side!

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We waited with her until about 10:15am but she then insisted we leave to get back home where our 15 year old was looking after the 9 and 7 year olds! Just as we got home ( about 12 ) I got a text saying they were about to take her down. 

**UPDATE** Just spoke to one of the nurses and surgery is underway! Might not hear anything until 7pm ish though so a few more hours of this waiting

I'll be taking the kids to see her tomorrow afternoon

Think I might go and game for a while to try and take my mind off it.

Hope you all have a great weekend.

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Ashes 2009 has only license of Australia & England so correct name players and faces only for these two teams.

There is complete lack of tournaments in game. And you directly start in semi's or final.

Camera's:
Only 4 or 5 camera's available for reply which is disappointing.

Commentary:
Boring and repetitive which gets stale very fast.

Batting:
For me at-least it is very easy. you can score 4 runs on every ball or six and with the same shot.The game is unbalanced i.e. more favor for batting. The front foot and back foot shots don't seem to work many times.

Bowling:
It is useless in this game. No effect of any delivery.

Fielding:
The ratio of ground(stadium) to the fielder is ridiculous. The fielder has to cover thrice of its covering range which is impossible.The fielder only stops those shots which are within 5 spaces (left or right direction) of his footsteps.

AI:
AI is broken. Even the stimulation is broken scores at approx 6 run rate only when a player can score 18 or 20 runs per over.

Animation:
Not good. No sweep shots in the game. The animations don't seem to be swift. Limited number of animations for batting shots.


Tutorials:
they are good and challenging.

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He didn't pull me from a burning building or rescue me from a frozen lake. But when I was suffering from a depression that had me constantly on the brink of suicide, he was the man who kept me on this side of the abyss. 

He was my therapist, but that word is so clinical, and doesn't accurately describe who Dan was to me. Friend? Yes, even though I usually only saw him in the confines of the office of a mental health clinic in Warren, PA. Father figure is more accurate, I suppose, but whatever you call him, he was the one that convinced me that life was worth living. His office was the safest place on the planet. It was there that I felt most vulnerable, and most cared for. He is the reason I am still here today, rather than a memory, or at very least, rather than a human husk, withering away in a hospital for the remainder of my days. 

He shared with me stories that a professional therapist shouldn't generally be sharing with his patient, and yet it was exactly the right thing to do in my case. I would record myself playing Christmas music on cassette tape and give it to him as a Christmas gift. I went to a church where he was a guest pastor one Sunday and marveled that this man could radiate such kindness and generosity. I read about his exploits with his boy scout troop, and wondered if those young men knew how fortunate they were that someone like Dan could be in their lives. 

I also know that Dan was an imperfect man. But I wasn't prepared to discover that several weeks ago, this man responsible for me being here to share this story today went missing. Vanished from his house, his wallet and keys left behind. No note, no goodbye to his wife Penny, no sign of a break in, no indication that something was wrong. He was simply gone. 

The police have searched, and the Conewango Creek and local branch of the Allegheny River have been scoured. No one knows if Dan, at the age of 69, wandered off to take his own life, or fell into the river and was washed away. Perhaps he was discontent and troubled, and decided to travel where he couldn't be found and live out his last days in peace. Perhaps he simply went for a walk to some unknown place and suffered a heart attack, and hasn't been found in spite of the exhaustive search. 

But it doesn't seem that Dan is coming back. 

The last time I talked to Dan was a few years ago. He sent me an email entitled "The real story...for those with a warped sense of humor." It was a typical viral email that people might send, this one with pictures of fairy tale princesses as they might have ended up. Snow White with her several babies and a good-for-nothing prince sitting in front of the TV. An obese Little Red Riding Hood wandering through the forest, sipping on a Big Gulp and carrying a basket full of bread. It certainly wasn't the most socially sensitive communication, but it's what I have. 

I love you Dan. I hope that you are close to God now. 

Edit: My mom shared this YouTube link with me of Dan leading vespers in 2012. http://youtu.be/dmVaCIoxeI0

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I quit blogging on this site. I still blog, just elsewhere on the internet.

To everyone that liked reading my blogs, thank you for your time and kind words.

That is all.

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The New Student

Once there was a girl, cute as can be, that moved into a new town. Having lived her entire life in her previous town, she was delighted to see the wonders this new world would provide. And what better wonders to behold than seeing the school which she'd be attending from now on? It was a bright and cheery Tuesday morning when her mother's car pulled into the parking lot of the school. Once she went through the paperwork, the little girl would be free to continue the first grade in this new school.

"You'll like it here," said the principal. He was an old man with a wrinkly face and white mustache.

And of that, the little girl had no doubt! When she was shown to her new classroom, the teacher stopped everything to introduce the new student. As are all children of that age, they whispered amongst themselves secrets of curiosity as to who this newcomer was. Perhaps she came from a faraway land? Or perhaps she merely switched classrooms from another side of the school building?

"I used to live in a town way up there," the little girl explained to her new classmates. "Where it snowed lots and lots!"

"Then you don't have to worry about snow here," said the teacher. "It only snows here during Christmas time."

With introductions complete, the teacher assigned the little girl a seat in the middle of the classroom. If all were only as sweet and good as that morning, this tale would end right now. But there were some classmates that didn't believe the little girl. There were some classmates that were jealous of the little girl's popularity and attention. What's more, one of these classmates, another little girl with hair as golden as the morning sun, had the strangest feeling she had met this newcomer before.

So it was, that during recess, the golden-haired child approached the little girl. Perhaps if she took the time to speak with her, she'd remember where they had met before. After shooing away the other students surrounding the girl, the golden-haired child announced her reservations clearly.

"Are you sure you're from the north?" Asked the golden-haired girl.

"That's what mommy told me," replied the little girl. She herself wasn't exactly certain where she once called home.

"You're lying," accused the golden-haired child, pointing a finger at her. This caused other students around them to gasp, as pointing fingers was against the rules.

"Why do you say that?" Asked the little girl.

"Because you are! I know who you really are!" The golden-haired girl had finally remembered where she saw the little girl in the past.

Leaving the newcomer almost in tears on the playground, the golden-haired child ran back into the classroom. She asked the teacher to borrow the magazine she was reading, and took it outside to show the little girl. Inside the magazine was a picture of another girl, one that looked identical to the little girl!

"See? I knew you were lying," screamed the golden-haired child.

"But that's not me," said the little girl in her defense. "My eyes aren't that color."

Stunned by this proclamation, the golden-haired child took a closer look at the picture in the magazine. The girl there had eyes as blue as a ocean, while the little girl sitting in front of her had deep, dark brown eyes.

"So? You could have painted your eyes brown!" Claimed the golden-haired child.

"Mommy says you can't do that," said the little girl. Some of the other students began to nod, siding with the newcomer.

"Your mommy is a liar!" Spat back the golden-haired girl. This was the final straw, and now the little girl couldn't help but start to cry.

Upon hearing this, the teacher ran outside to see what was going on. When she came upon the little girl crying, she asked what was wrong. Against the rules, all other students in the area pointed at the golden-haired child, who stood frozen in place with the magazine in her hands. The teacher placed her hands on her hips, the stance that always struck fear in the hearts of children everywhere.

The golden-haired child explained, with tears in her eyes, that she just wanted the little girl to tell the truth. She pointed at the picture in the magazine, to which the teacher just sighed.

"If you had read first," she explained to the golden-haired child, "you'd have seen that this isn't the same girl."

The teacher pointed to the words printed next to the picture. There, clear as day, was the name of the girl in the picture. And the newcomer's name was not the same. Feeling terrible about making the new student cry, the golden-haired girl apologized.

"It's okay," replied the little girl. "Now we can be friends."

"Yes, let's be the best of friends!" Said the golden-haired girl.

So the two girls became friends. Best friends. Forever!

Share your thoughts on this tale in the comments below!

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I don't see the rules changing because they've already brought back tons of previously banned users. I don't want to see them get re-banned (because that's what would happen if the rules were changed back). I have started making blog posts on livejournal.com and I intend to be active on the forums of ummah.com, under the name 'drac16'. I'll still use this site for reviews though, so if for whatever reason you want to PM me, I'll probably see it relatively soon and will get back to you, inshAllah.

-Brent

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I wanted to write about this subject last week, but I had so much work to do on my Master's research.

I know that this subject will cause a lot of controversy. Please remember that this is my opinion, you may like and you may not, either way let me know what you think.

There are a few games and franchises, which I think are overrated or over-hyped. I am going to list them alphabetically and will state my reasons as well.

1- Bayonetta: Totally overrated. Weak story, poor graphics, and ugly voice acting. The action in this game is so fast that sometimes I had no idea what was happening on the screen. I didn't like it at all.

2- Brutal Legend: Poor graphics, tedious gameplay, annoying sound track and an unbelievable story. Totally overrated.

3- Call of Duty (franchise): Don't get me wrong, I loved Modern Warfare when it first came out, but since then, every call of duty is the same. The same engine, the same mechanics and even the same plot over and over. What bothers me the most, is that reviewers use COD as a standard for comparison. Every FPS is compared to COD in some way, and every time COD has to win. I am telling you COD is not even that good. Many FPSs were underrated because of it, andthat is wrong. I know the game has a massive multiplayer mode, but that's it. Battlefield and Medal of honor are better franchises in my opinion.

4- Dead Rising (franchise): Poor concept, repetitive gameplay. You kill zombies and save civilians. That's it. Overrated.

5- God of War (franchise): This franchise is so overrated and over-hyped. I know, I know, God of War III was a technical achievement; the graphics, the scale, but that's it. The other games in the franchise are the same, the only difference is the boss encounters. Why would reviewers compare every action game to GOW, I have no clue. Why is it considered as a standard, I have no clue either. In my opinion Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, and Dante's inferno were better than GOW3. Both were compared to GOD3 and then underrated.

6- Prototype: Where do I start? I don't think this game belonged to this generation of consoles. It should have been released on the PS2 and the XBOX. The concept of the game is very good, but it was delivered poorly. Graphics belong to the past generation, gameplay is tedious and confusing.What really bothers me is that inFAMOUS was compared to it in many reviews, while there is a huge difference between both games.

I would like to continue, there are many gmes that I would like to mention but Idon't wantthe blog to be long and boring. If you liked this blog and would like to read more about overrated games,please let me know.

Please remember, this is my opinion. Some of you will agree, many will not. Either way, please let me know what you think and why?

Are there any overrated "over-hyped" games that you would add to this list?

Thank you for reading.

Peace!

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Madden NFL 12

In the newest iteration of Madden, EA introduced a revamped scouting system that precedes the NFL draft. During the season, you scout players every 4 weeks to learn a certain set of attributes. Then, at the combine, you get to learn a different set of attributes (speed and strength, in particular). Finally, you have pro days (which reveal yet another set of attributes) and then a very small number of individual workouts, which reveal all a players' ratings. Armed with all this information, you go into the draft and work your magic.

Player progression then depends on their overall potential and their playing time, with players seeing very rapid development in their first few years before levelling off and then declining in their 30s.

What Madden Gets Right

Player progression. Well, perhaps I should amend the heading to "sorta right." Player progression in Madden is superior to FIFA, for instance, because improvements in ability follow a true-to-life path: big leaps forward in the first two or three years in the league, gradual improvements for the next two or three, and then a plateau before age-related decline. FIFA, in contrast, tends to have players steadily gain 2-3 ratings points a year until they reach their plateau, which should strike anyone who watches the sport as unrealistic. Every year, we see a Lionel Messi, Eden Hazard or Mario Gotze blow up on the world stage and attain a rating 6-8 points higher in the next year. On a less extreme level, players tend to blossom between 18-25, with large and rapid gains in development during those years.

Why, then, does Madden only get progression sort of right? The game is plagued with the typical problems of the genre:

1) Insufficient performance-related decline for veterans: underachieving players between 26-32 stay at their plateau setting, regardless of in-game performance, until they suffer age-related decline.

2) Too much progression for bench players: if you aren't getting playing time, you shouldn't be improving as much as someone who's in the game. Madden adheres to this principle to some extent but doesn't get the magnitude right. If you draft two players who are 80/A at the same position in one year, the one who plays will gain 5-6 points and the one who doesn't will still gain 3-4. The gap should be larger than that and should worsen the longer a player stays on the bench. In some franchises where I've been overloaded at a position, a guy who never plays has grown to 95-97 overall while the starter plateaus at 98.

Madden is also pretty good at personalizing created players by attaching an actual, human photograph to them. (Sometimes this leads to problems, as the number of photos is limited and you will see face "twins" pop up in many draft classes.) This is a small touch but really makes you feel better than being in Year 10 of franchise mode and having half or more of your players being blank spots on the screen.

What Madden Gets Wrong

Scouting is terribly broken in Madden, and is both too easy and too hard. It's too easy, because of certain cheap exploits that remain in the game. When you're scouting players, and sort by "Potential," the game will order players by their potential even if those ratings are all locked as "?". Thus, you have a free and easy way to see which late-round draft picks will have A potential and be most likely to develop into stars, leading to horrifically unrealistic drafts where you can routinely grab multiple 80/A players (who will develop into 90+ stars in two years) in Round 3 or later.

On the other hand, scouting without exploits is too hard, because the game does not give you enough scouting information. In particular, you can only discover the speed and strength ratings of 20 players via the Combine. This is patently ridiculous -- the hard thing for scouts to uncover is knowledge of the game, play recognition, and technique, not raw physical abilities like speed and strength.

Scouting would be more realistic if the series introduced significant error to scouting evaluations, particularly of hard-to-evaluate traits such as potential or play recognition. Thus, while players' physical abilities would be known (with a high degree of accuracy), players' potential would be evaluated by scouts with some margin for error. Thus, a player who has 4.3 speed and a scouted potential of A would almost certainly have elite speed, but their potential could vary anywhere between A and C.

This would also give the computer a fair chance in the game. Over time, by exploiting scouting, you can develop a 95 OVR team while everyone else in the league regresses to 84-86 OVR. This makes for an unrealistic experience where the talent level around the league is extremely diluted with the exception of a concentrated pocket of superstars on your squad. Exacerbating this trend is the fact that the game does not incorporate holdouts or salary disputes, so if you lock up your late-round draft picks to 7-year deals (for 230K a year), they often develop into 95+ superstars while making the rookie minimum.

FIFA Soccer 12

FIFA's another EA product that received a revamped player scouting and development system this year. In the newest iteration, you hire scouts. The scouts then go on trips to various countries around the globe to find players between 14-16 years of age and develop them in Youth Academy. Once they reach 16 or 17, they must be signed to the senior squad and then receive playing time to develop. Progression is somewhat slow and depends more heavily on performance, so the only way to achieve stellar progression (e.g., 4-5 rating points in a year) is to play a young lad constantly and also insure that he's performing at his peak on the pitch.

What FIFA Gets Right

Very little. It's a new system, so I may be a little harsh on EA, but the new Youth Academy is pretty poor. One thing that I approve of is the fact that the system appropriately tailors progression to performance -- only stellar work will earn a player quick progression to star level (which is far too easy to achieve in a series like Madden, where you can become an All-Pro-caliber starter while riding the bench).

Another is the mechanics of scouting. Sending a scout to a specific country, and then having players from that specific country, accentuates the global reach of soccer.

What Fifa Gets Wrong

The game's two biggest problems are:

1) The new system simply does not produce enough high-quality players. This is a huge problem with a lot of sports games: in Year 1 of a manager mode, how many players are rated 85+? Quite a lot, though not an overwhelming number. In Year 20, how many are 85+? Much fewer. At a minimum, games should insure that youth development continues to produce talent on par with what currently exists in the world. After all, how likely is it that in 20 years, the world supply of elite soccer talent will diminish? If anything, given the increase in population, training and sports science, one would expect more and more talents to crop up (particularly from developing parts of the world that are currently under-scouted).

2) Development relies too much on first teams. Barcelona is famous for its well-oiled development machine, which includes not just its legendary youth academy but also its Barcelona B team (which plays in a lower division). It makes no sense for Barcelona to scout in FIFA 12, because it is rich enough to just buy talents when they are fully developed, and the cost of developing talent itself is to give first-team starting opportunities to players who are far inferior to the rest of the roster. The best players I've ever seen coming out of the Youth Academy are rated 69 or 70 as 16-17 year-olds, and would not be good enough to player for a world-class side until they are 20-22. However, they will never develop sufficiently between 16-17 and 20-22 unless they have somewhere to play. In the real world, this development occurs with B teams or with de facto loan partnerships (e.g., teams in other countries that have very good relationships with elite European clubs who will take their young players on loan to develop them). FIFA does let you loan out young players, but it's only part of the equation, and is not enough to account for all the ways in which real clubs are developing high-caliber talent.

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Thank you for being interested, reading and commenting here on gs. Hope to see you at my new blog everyone!

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