It was that time. I got tired of having to always be mindfulof what I write to be compliant with cNet's rules. That's not to say that they shouldn't be followed here. It's easy to follow them, and they give a really good reason to stay.

However, some discussions, rants, questions, and observations just aren't appropriate for here, and as such, I've made my own brand-new, slightly non-awesome blog. It's nice to be able to just shrug and say **** it. (Haha.. I won't say it here.)

I'll still be writing here, but the place where I can vent freely and be able to hit all my concerns will be over there.

So, my father and I have had issues with my brother. It's to be expected between him and me. The problem was that he would have trouble going to school, and in the end, didn't even manage a GED. After numerous fights, threats, and $200 worth of dental work (on my teeth), he was to be evicted from the home. Luckily, my mother in California offered him a house-sitting job. (Taking care of my half-sisters and the like.)

He left about three hours ago, and my father felt really bad for crying. I kept letting him know he should. He's raised my brother alone for a good long time, and it's not healthy for him to keep it in and such. Hopefully it'll work out. At least he's taking things a little more seriously now.

Time to bring you guys up to speed on a few purchases as of late.

The last thing I did was put a $20 pre-order on Metal Gear Solid 4. Usually I put 5, and gradually add more to it until release day, but there is one thing I didn't count on. MGS4 is supposed to be coming in a bundle with new revisions of 80GB PS3s. As such, for $15, I can put a reserve on a bundle instead. Of course, I need to talk to my father first and see what he thinks. The bundle itself is $500, minus a $200 trade in for my 40GB PS3. Downsides are that I lose $200 value on the old PS3, and I pay an additional $200 on the new bundle. The upside is I double my storage, and I get backwards compatability with PS2 titles. I was supposed to get a MGSO beta key with it, but at the time the guy that took my pre-order forgot to give me one, and when I went to go get one about an hour later they were out entirely from when I called (five minutes earlier) with five. It's really frustrating there, but at least I know I'll get to see the finished product.

After that, I bought a copy of Mario Kart for the Wii. It's... 'meh' at best, and flat out boring at worst. I was really looking forward to playing online with the possibility of not having to worry about these stupid friend codes. What if I (and I probably am) the only loser in my area to have a Wii? How am I supposed to "Make Friends" without actually finding people that like the type of games I play. (For example actually racing online with a few people that are strangers, only to find out they hate EA as much as I do.) The friend code system is absolutely stupid, and really dampens the online community.

I also bought a copy of Condemned 2: Bloodshot for my PS3 in an effort to grow my library there as well. I haven't opened it, but I did play the demo. I'm not sure if I should go through and finish the first one on the 360 though. I always get stuck on the second part.

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Something that really got me into a fit recently was EA's attempt to force Bioware's Mass Effect for the PC, and SPORE to not only require an initial online activation during install, but a re-activation every 5 days, with another 5-day grace period. This means that you install, you activate online (via SecureROM), play freely for five days, try and re-authenticate it again. If it passes, you wait another five days, if it fails, you have five days to have it succeed or you end up with an unplayable Mass Effect or Spore.This really burned me as it goes back to the "Treat your customers like the pirates." instead of Stardock's "Treat the pirates as not your customers." mantra. To make matters worse, you have clueless editors from places like GameCritics making broad remarks about how people that are concerned are a miniscule minority, and probably pirates themselves. Excuse me for wanting to be able to actually have a game that works when I paid the liscencing fee to actually play it.

The good news is that it was changed after the massive number of complaints. It no longer checks every five days, but the install limit of three is still there.
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I opened a blog for my 360. I'm just glad it's happy. Apparently it gets a little hungry often though.

There is no need to tell you that there is still a lot of heated controversy over GTA 4, ranging from the really insignificant MADD campaign to pull GTA 4 off the shelves, to the still minor warnings over GTA's adult content. While I have that gamer instinct to say "No, No, it's a game, leave it alone," I had ended up with only a few things left to do in Liberty City in terms of Single Player expenriences.

After playing through the campaign, and doing a few side-missions with a rediculous lack of interest in the more adult locations, I gave in and decided to see how bad they may be. While the clubs are a little more than I'd recommend for anyone under 18, it still isn't just as bad as the R-rated movies we see from Hollywood. What really got me were the the prostitutes. In previous versions of GTA all you saw was the car rocking, and audio cues to tell the adult gamer what was going on. Not so in GTA 4.

After having dealt with that little tidbit, I really have a hard time qualifying this game as "Mature", rather than "Adults Only". Suffice to say that it should not be in the hands of anyone under the age of 18, and thank whatever-diety-you-worship that a recent sting by the FTC shows an increase in retailer responsibility. The difference between the above and here is that in San Andreas, Vice City, or GTA, I would say "No", where here in GTA 4, it's along the lines of "No Way".

I'm really seriously concerned whenever I hear a twelve to fourteen year-old playing GTA 4 online, as he will eventually (if he hasn't already) played through the single player campaign. It's easy enough to avoid, yes. Seeing as how it was put off till last (not in the "save the best for last" scenario), but seriously, this is just too much for a game where I see kids clamoring for it, and wanting it and playing it.

That said, parents have the right to decide what their kids should play, since they are the ones responsible for their behavior. The government should keep it's hands out of this one, but at the same time, retailers really need to start removing the huge taboo over the Adult Only rating and realize that it's a valid market just the same. Keep a text-based list of the games on a wall, allow for people over the age of 18 to buy them.

I hate to admit it, but while Jack Thompson is an absolute nutter (as you can tell from my previous statements), he is right in the fact that there is just some content that should not be available to people under the age of 18. Whether that's to abolish the AO rating, and change the Mature rating to limit at 18 or not is irrelevant.

As you guys know, I bought a PS3 rather recently, and with which bought a nice set of games to start off with. I did my best to stick with PS3 exclusves, mainly because I wasn't ready for the daunting task of comparing and contrasting, which is what I've gotten into the nasty habit of doing a while back.

This is my first impressions with Heavenly Sword. Keep in mind that this game seems to be very rediculously short, and with only five hours of play or so, I'm already at the end-boss. That said, this isn't a final review.

The first thing that came to mind was the combat. I was very skeptical about the combat, having the bad belief that it was all about mashing the buttons as fast as you could in hopes of beating out the less-than-bright enemies. It later clicked about an hour into it that you are very reliable once you start timing them instead, allowing to pull off expected combos, and the like. This was very good, as the fights got to be a bit more technical and even (dare I say) started to have a bit of sthyle(sic) something I haven't had the fortune of getting Devil May Cry 4 to do.

The second thing that caught my eye was the cutscenes. While you can tell the difference between a cutscene, and a actual game-engine use just like you could tell the difference between Final Fantasy 7 in some spots, I was absolutely amazed at how well the facial work was done on all the characters. Bohan especially got my attention with his English way of speaking, resulting in a lot of mouth movements. This made his animations very interesting, as well as pleasing to the eye in terms of the sheer amount of detail.

While Kai is certainly younger, it is still amazing to see the amount of work they did with her facial expressions as well. She reminds me of a weird Johnny Depp look-alike. I'm rambling a bit, but suffice to say it is bloody impressive.

The third thing that caught my attention was the number of enemies on screen at once. This is primarily with the later levels, and while Armed and Dangerous started a bit of work with the "How many can we fit on there?" tangent with thier turret defence games, Heavenly Sword really beats it out as even out at the farthest distances, you can make out individual models. Simply amazing.

Aftertouch was a great use of the SixAxis controller, and an essential tool in a lot of stages (mainly with Kai). It felt almost natural (even though I got yelled at as a kid for turning the controller like this) turn things as need be. If you weren't a fan of it, you could turn it off and use the left stick, but it feels wierd doing so. Like the Wii, it just felt right in the end.

I didn't like some of the writing with some of the mini-bosses, mainly in terms of Whiptale, and Fox. They just seemed to try too hard to make them creepy, and while I can respect the attempts to try and make them memorable, the creepyness factor really wears out after awhile, and even when they leave the story (by unceremonious ejection), you still end up wondering what the hell happened with them.

I really enjoy it so far, I'm dreading the end though, with how close it feels to me.

It was reported today by various sources that John "Jack" Thompson was picked up by the ACLU to head it's lawsuits involving First Amendment violations. The ACLU seemed rather excited to have the prestegious and well-known lawyer among it's ranks and was very convinced that with everything said and done that Mr. Thompson would prove to be a very capable asset.

With Mr. Thompson's case history involving various litigation and suits, along with his outstanding tenacity, he has been more than happy to take up the position citing that the ACLU will help him with the resources he would need to continue his campaign to promote fair first amendment use.

ACLU President Nadine Strossen: