March 7th, 2008
Best… Picture… EVAR!
Just had to post this hilarity. I dont know if its real or fake. I dont think I even care.
Latest Post
320 ViewsFebruary 18th, 2008
The Hobo Solution
Happy President’s Day!!
Whatever happened to celebrating Lincoln and Washington’s birthdays on different days? Back in my day, I remember when each man was given their own day of reflection. One year, as a class, we had to memorize and recite the Gettysburg Address. It’s kinda odd I’m choosing to reveal this now, but I used to do a puppet show in the 6th grade for the 1st and 2nd graders. Wow, I’ve totally chosen to forget all about that. It was really crappy, too! The majority of my act consisted of asking questions, making up some stupid answer, then yelling out “Next!”. My puppet was some furry, gremlin version of John Fogerty, so I developed a gruff, Bobcat Goldthwait voice, and part of my skit involved reciting the Gettysburg Address. Man, I was soo full of myself as a kid….
Today’s comic comes from the genius of Rob. Those of you familiar with Fox News, will be very familiar with Sean Hannity’s position on Hobos.
February 13th, 2008
Rock Band
The Pants Party Review of
Guitar Hero vs. Rock Band
Contestant 2:
Rock Band is EA’s reply to the powerful Guitar Hero Franchise. While it is essentially a beat/ music game with intense similarity in guitar highway configurations, the major difference is Rock Band includes drums and a singing function. Harmonix, the company responsible for the development of the game, split with red octane and its publishing partner Activision after Guitar hero 2. (Activision got involved at the time of the Xbox 360 GH2 port and later published GH 80’s edition) Harmonix decided to up the ante in music games of this type by giving the player the ability to play with a group of people simultaneously, giving the experience of a band. However, the level of detail Harmonix and EA put into the making of this game goes beyond an extension of concept.
When compared to the gross/ugly, bland, disorganized, and graphically lazy presentation of GH3, Rock Band is sleek stylish and organized. By this I don’t mean refresh rates or graphical resolution. Guitar Hero is higher rez and the refresh rate is noticeably better. Rock Band however just took what graphical limit they had and did as much as they could to make it look spectacular. The venues look like real venues, with physical objects placed in logical places, in logical realistic settings. The characters of which are almost fully customizable move with humanized animation. In other words they seem alive and vibrant moving with the flow and ebb of each song rather than a programmed animation pattern, which is what you’ll see in Guitar Hero. The band jumps and shakes, reacts to the crowd plays to the camera. The camera angles themselves are dynamic much like is to be expected from a real vibrant music video. Everything is symmetrical and artfully competent. Don’t mistake me; I’m not saying it looks REAL-real. It is cartoonish and wild, but nobody wants these games to be too real. Tapping into fantasies in the player is part of the purpose developers have for these secondary parts of the game. It’s simply, logically representative of a fantastic reality.
As far as game play, the single player of each instrument is not wildly different than GH3. A couple differing stats such as fans seem appropriate to the subject material. Band and city/venue T-shirts unlock at each area. (the un-lockable content is extensive) The Band play however extends the life of a player’s progress and interest in the game. Each separate member picks difficulty at each song chosen, letting people switch in and out of various song scenarios as they see fit. Inconveniently but maybe unavoidably many bands are started, due to each player has a different character for each instrument, and to continue a bands progression must have the leader’s profile present as that specific instrument. The Band game progression of songs is also a little unorthodox compared with GH3. There are a number of compilations of song a band plays, where often they don’t get to see the song list, which can be annoying or good depending on how you look at it. Also a band cannot progress very far without the band increasing their difficulty levels. This is due to the fact that a band must have a certain amount of fans to unlock songs, and a player has a fan cap for each difficulty. This is somewhat of a small thing. Overall the band progression keeps even the most easily distracted people interested.
There are other benefits to guitar hero, mainly social in nature. First and foremost in my experience, this is the first game I can think of that doesn’t repulse or bore women. Among my friends, it’s the only game where a girl has come over and said hey lets play rock band. And it’s most assuredly the only game that has kept their interest for a prolonged period of time. It’s got broad social appeal in other words. Another aspect that adds to this appeal is its difficulty spectrum. The guitar tracks is most definitely easier than the guitar on GH3 which is a detriment to hardcore players, but somewhat of a boon to casual players. On the other hand many aspects are still challenging enough to keep a more experienced gamer glued to his/her chair.
It should be noted that many people I talked to said they didn’t like the song list selections, but I didn’t have a problem with them, and the download-able songs seem way better compared to GH3. Anyways there are problems here and there in Rock Band but the game as a whole is good, really good. However, it is expensive and that fact may be the biggest problem with the game. The hefty 160-180$ price tag is hard to swallow for many gamers, but if you have a couple friends to go in with, worth it.
9.25 out of 10
Very Good - Great
February 11th, 2008
A little competition never hurts…most times.
Happy Post-Grammy!
Hooray for Herbie Hancock! With a name like that, he was pretty much destined for Jazz greatness.
Speaking of upsets, today’s comic is based on true events. Drew has a roommate, who is also a med student, that is very, very competitive. Lately, the two have been going head to head to see who could get the highest score in Guitar Hero III. Drew got a ridiculously high score of 250,000, with his magic fingers dancing nimbly on the guitar neck. Oh yes, many a woman would gladly tell you about those famed appendages. A week goes by, and Ryan could not beat it. Finally, he ditched out on a whole day of work, for the sole purpose of mastering a fake guitar. When he finally gets the high score, the following scene unfolded.
A week or so later, Drew again regained the crown, sending Ryan into a deep depression filled with thoughts of suicide. Then came the Superbowl. If the NY Giants (Giants of all teams!!) could beat the Pats, then there was hope yet! Ryan has since found new life, currently avoiding all responsibility until he, again, is Numero Uno.
*note: there may have been some embellishment
February 6th, 2008
Guitar Hero vs. Rock Band!
The Pants Party Review of
Guitar Hero vs. Rock Band
Contestant 1: Guitar Hero
These two games have very seriously affected the game landscape in a way that a game hasn’t since Mario 64. Game players have been waiting for something of this innovative magnitude for some time. Many gamers had lost hope that drastic innovation of gameplay will ever happen again. Foolishness, and this trend emphasizes it. There will always be some new avenue of experience to exploit for these companies. The scope and magnitude of a truly ambitious game is infinite, at least to our limited human understanding. In other words, don’t worry; expect and look forward to awesome games that provide a different approach to gaming than what you’re used to. Demand it! Now I’m not saying that these two games are truly unique, that would be egregiously false. There have been others going back a couple game generations. They are more or less called beat games, and rock band and guitar hero don’t tarry far from that game formula.
But what gets people hooked is the subject matter coupled with ease of use, and how well the game envelopes you in the (fake) experience. Guitar Hero panders to all the secret desires to be skilled at something real. Part of the inherent self-loathing gamers have is temporarily subdued, because “hey I’m playing a guitar, that’s acceptable right”. Spending my time getting good at this actually DOES impress the opposite sex or so one might convince oneself. It may be a false connection, in fact it most definitely is, but it touches on that dream within the player, tickles it enough to garner interest. Go to your local Best Buy and see the guitar hero set ups, then just sit back and watch as person after person just gets sucked in like gravity. Something cool; something real; something I can do; something other normal people can be seen doing.
Guitar Hero 3 rehashes. It’s that same guitar hero proven formula redone, just good enough to not have anything important missing. However it’s rife with small and stackable problems. First and foremost I feel Guitar is Uglier than sin. By that I don’t mean polygons and the technical side of art, although it’s not exactly wonderful in that department. I’m talking art direction. Take a second to look at the menu, background, t-shirt, guitar, cut-scene art. It looks TERRIBLE. Obviously what they were trying to do was give the effect of a high-school notebook, much like the other guitar heroes. Intentional scragley-ness. Yeah that’s great, but in guitar hero 2 there was an ordered chaos feel that felt “cool”. In guitar hero 3 it’s just gross. I mean look at the drummer, is that supposed to resemble a human. How bout the frightening singer. Anyways, for a game like this it is forgivable to have less than stellar graphical interface, but I do occasionally look at the screen, and if the female players in the game are depicted as nothing more than twisted sexual male fantasies how can I show this game to a self-respecting woman and expect her to feel wonderful about how the video game industry views girls. For a game that really should be marketed to more than just the sub-mental teenage boy, it’s a real failure art wise.
Obviously people are willing to look beyond this flaw, as Guitar Hero has sold an astronomical amount to date. It’s definitely been able to establish a large base of buyers across 6 and soon 7 platforms, and from the production side it is a HUGE success. But I believe it does not bode well for future generations of GH, when there is virtually NOTHING new about this game. Battle mode is useless and online co-op is pointless. For those who want challenges however it does deliver. The last tear and a couple extra songs are extremely challenging. Many people however see this as a negative. The wider gamer base are not expert players, and shouldn’t be expected to have time to perfect the finger mangling difficulties this game dishes out. It is also worth noting that many people have complained about “how” the game has gotten harder. It is now easier to hit notes, in that you have a larger window for each note. Neversoft however decided that to increase difficulty, impossibly quick three note chord changes would do the trick. Or insanely fast long sections of continuous notes. This is as opposed to the more scale oriented GH2 hard songs. The difference can be likened to the FPS good AI versus respawning. In some FPS games, designers send an endless barrage of idiot troops, and in some (better in my opinion) FPS’s enemies attack with smart and resourceful autonomy. The second takes more time to hammer out, but ultimately is what makes games like Halo so good.
All in all, I don’t think anyone was overly disappointed by GH3, but the excitement of Guitar Hero 2 was dampened and muted and players may see the same thing happen to GH that happened to the other Neversoft IP, Tony Hawk. A slow and painful sequel spin-out, running it right into the ground.
7 out of 10
Solid
February 6th, 2008
Happy Ash Wednesday!!
In honor of the beginning of Lent (for you non-heathens), I am reposting our Ash Wednesday comic. Yes, I was too lazy to make a new one. But not anymore! For Lent this year, I’m giving up laziness. I wonder if I could get sponsored by Starbucks or Full Throttle?
—Carlos
February 4th, 2008
Curse of the Ladder
Greetings!
When it comes to girls and dating, the label that best describes me is “The Nice Guy”. Admittedly, it is my own fault that the end result is always the same. For some odd, cosmic reason, I am one of those guys that a girl feels comfortable talking and sharing intimate details about her life. What am I supposed to do? Cover my ears, yelling, “La la la la, can’t hear you!”? (The majority of male readers are probably nodding their heads yes, that is exactly what you do.) I don’t know any better. So, I listen. And shut up. I’ve turned into a horrible conversationalist. Or maybe the greatest. Shut up, listen, and ask the occasional question. God has given me incredible patience, which is put to the test on a regular basis. By the way, this post and comic is not meant as a rant. I am perfectly content with bachelorhood, and am not looking for anything serious. I have come to terms with the decisions I’ve made in the past. Female companionship would be nice, of course, but I have full confidence that whoever I’m supposed to find, I’ll find her. And how will I know? When she starts asking me questions, and letting me talk.
For further reading, I recommend The Ladder Theory. It can be summed up in this poem.
Drew recommended an alternate ending to this comic, where the girl ends with a thought bubble saying “I’m gonna go hook up with my ex-now”. I should be given a medal or something for the number of relationships I’ve probably helped out with.
February 1st, 2008
En Guarde! Its the return of the CMFOTD!
Well friends, bored people at work, and those who just decided “oh man, i wonder if theres a pantsparty.com?!”, it is in fact the return of the CMFOTD. These facts tend to reflect the current service I am on at the hospital, and since I am on newborn nursery (yes they let me near newborns, the system is officially broken), todays CMFOTD reflects that. So enjoy our extra cute edition of the CMFOTD!
You know when a baby is first born, and you touch its hand with your finger and it so very cutely grabs on to your finger like its saying “hey nice to meet you! now change my diapers and put a nipple in my mouth!” Well that moment would be much less cute if you knew thats just a primitive reflex the baby has. He/she doesnt care what the hell you put in his/her hand, if the baby feels something on his/her palm, it grabs on for dear life. Not as endearing huh? Sorry to burst your bubble of feeling loved. This reflex dissapears a few months into life
The Next fun one is the Moro (or startle) reflex. This one is performed by letting the baby’s head drop just a little onto a soft pillow. This causes the baby to enter into a posture i call the gangsta “What now motherfucker?!” posture as shown in the picture. This usually causes the babies to cry as well, furthering my beleive that they are pissed the hell off and gonna pop a cap in my ass. Luckily babies arent that gangsta and are easily pacified by giving them a “binky” as my girlfriend calls them. This reflex also dissapears in the first few months of life.
The last one I’m gonna talk about is my favorite, and it is the one i referenced in the title of this post: the dreaded fencing reflex! This is performed by turning the baby’s head to one side, causing them to do exactly what is shown in the picture, flex one arm and leg and extend the other putting him in a distinct swashbuckling position. I feel this is much more appropriately named the “rockem sockem baby” reflex by me. (dont act like you dont know what im talking about) Sometimes i get two babies in a crib and turn thier heads back and forth against another med student until on of the baby’s heads pop off. (dont worry they reattach nicely!)
There are just a sampling of the reflexes we test on babies at the nursery to make sure thier central nervous systems are working. I end this post with another fun fact about the nursery. There is a proper way to wrap a baby, and it is shown in the picture to the left. This type of wrap is affectionately (and quite aptly) called the burrito wrap! Awesome… Anyways friends i hope you found this informative and entertaining. Now I am heading back to the nursery; they cant find one of the babies there. I swear I saw him right before i had my breakfast burrito this morning… Peace ya’ll!
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