Suboptimist
I’m not quite a pessimist. I’m more of a suboptimist.

I thought I would give you an update on my experience with my shiny new Playstation 3 so far:

The games: I own two games right now: Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots and Ratchet and Clank: Tools of Destruction. I’m impressed with the latest installment of the Metal Gear Solid series. It brings together the best in each game. I am starting to learn about what happened to some characters from earlier games (Meryl, wtf?). MGS4 is also slightly more open than previous games. While the game stages are pretty linear, requiring you to get from point A to point B, you have the option of deciding just how you will do so. While the game still focuses on sneaking, you can sneak any way you please, including my favorite method of sneaking: blending in with local militias. It’s easier to clear a path that way. The latest installment of Ratchet and Clank doesn’t do anything new to the franchise, but it’s still very enjoyable. It’s considerably more difficult than previous games (maybe I’ve just lost my edge), and platforming action has been reduced. This game makes me wish the platform was less powerful. One of my fondest memories of this franchise on the Playstation 2 was blasting the hell out of enemies while watching my frame rate stutter as the massive amount of bolts come flying toward me. It’s more rewarding than it sounds.

I rented Burnout Paradise from Game Fly. I’m a big fan of any game that promotes reckless driving. Online play is great, too. It’s a seamless transtition from cruising the game world offline to cruising it with several other players. Everything bonuses you find in online play gets saved locally. It’s really like you haven’t made any transition. I’ll probably keep this. Next up on Game Fly is Resistance: Fall of Man. All things considered, the PS3 is starting to develop a respectable software library

The interface: The homescreen is intuitive and simple, even if it has a terrible name (Xross Media Bar…I can’t pronounce that). I would like to see the XMB (similar to the 360 dashboard) in game and easier access to the Playstation Store. I think it’s all being adressed in the next update.

Visually: I play the system on my LCD computer monitor. It may be tiny, but I want to play it in HD, and the monitor can push it up to 720p. The last few nights, Dan’s and my parallel gaming nights, where we each play an MMO at his house, have been replaced by me bringing the PS3 down to play on his 1080p capable LCD HDTV. It looks amazing.

So, two posts in one day. I just picked up a copy of Entertainment Weekly with a bunch of top-50 lists of the best movies, books, TV shows, musicals, and games. I am going to list some of the game highlights that I either agree with or deeply disagree with.

1 - Tetris: Don’t get me wrong, Tetris is great and deserves to be on the list, but it seems silly to me to be put at number 1. It’s almost as if the writers made the rest of the list, couldn’t think of a number 1, and decided that Tetris was like, the first game ever made or something. Whatever.

2 - Super Mario World: See, in my opinion, this should be number one the list instead of the falling block game. Nintendo called the Wii the Revolution. Super Mario is probably a better fit.

7 - Super Mario Kart: I would add to this, “Ever Mario Kart game ever made, especially Double Dash.”

8 - GoldenEye 007: This game belongs here. I fondly remember the days of GoldenEye tournaments after scouts and church. This will also go down in history of one of the three (3) good movie games in history.

9 - Grand Theft Auto IV: I’m not entirely sure why they chose this particular installment of GTA for the list. In my opinion, the original GTA III would have been a better choice, as it started the ball rolling on the open, engaging, and interactice crime-noir goodness that is Grand Theft Auto. Then again, I haven’t actually played GTA IV yet. I have it in my GameFly Q.

10 - Metal Gear Solid: I think the entire MGS franchise belongs here. Not only did it invent the stealth genre, but it remains one of the few games to have actually pulled it off. The others would be Splinter Cell and Thief. If you can think of others, I’d like to hear it.

11 - Halo: Combat Evolved: I actually don’t understand Halo or all the Halo hype. I don’t know, I would say the Halo 3 marketing campaign was more interesting than any Halo game.

17 - Sim City: Yes.

18 - Half Life: The summary in the article is best: the great legacy of this dystopian epic is how it pushed subsequent FPS’s to focus on story and character.

21 - StarCraft: This game should be higher up the list. Among my all time favorites.

23 - Deus Ex: I am unsure there is any game on the face of the planet that could be loved by me as much as this. I hate to say that I discovered this game by accident, as it was bundled with a video card that my dad had bought but never used. It was love. I knew the game had won my permanent affection when it forced me to make the decision to betray my employers (UNATCO) and broadcast an NSF transmission. It was exhilarating

24 - Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2: Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 launched the extreme sports genre, so why did they choose Pro Skater 2?

28 - Bioshock: This game is an experience. Should be higher.

30 - Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic With it’s Star Wars IP and complete user control of the character’s alignment, this game belongs on any list.

I’m a bit tired of writing this, but I’ll mention a few others I’m glad made the list: Psychonauts, WoW, Elder Scrolls IV, and a bunch of others. Find the list and read it.

This post gets more serious as it progresses.

I never thought I would be proclaiming to the world that I have purchased a Playstation 3 computer entertainment system. Happy birthday to me.

Actually, I did assume that one day I would have a PS3. The PS3 SKU I bought was the Metal Gear Solid 4 bundle released to coincide with the game’s release. I had been waiting for Metal Gear Solid 4 since the credits after Metal Gear Solid 3 started rolling. The package itself was a great deal, too. In the box you get the high-end 80gb model, the game, and the dual-shock SIXAXIS controller all for the price of the standalone 80gb system. This, coupled with Blu-Ray becoming the standard for HD video in the near future, made it seem like the right time to break down and get the console.

I was unfortunately reminded that buying a console is almost never just buying a console — you also have to get required accessories. Given all the stink people made about the Xbox 360 not debuting with HDMI functionality and the PS3 coming with HDMI standard, you’d think that Sony would bundle an HDMI cable with the system. The only AV cable in the box was the standard composite cable. I mean, wtf? Even my Xbox 360 came with a component HD connection. Good work, Sony.

It really is worth it to go out and find an HDMI cable, though. When we plugged it into Dan’s HDTV, we witnessed the Playstation system update in all it’s beautiful 1080p goodness. As if it could get any better than that, we watched the Metal Gear Solid 4 install loading screen in 1080p. Seriously though, once the hour it took to actually start playing games had passed, I started to wonder why it took me so long to take the plunge. The game really looks amazing in HD.

It was a real pain trying to get a hold of the bundle. I have always been a proponent of visiting gaming retailers when purchasing gaming merchandise. I was reminded why that’s a silly policy. No Gamestop had the bundle. I called possibly every location in the Salt Lake Valley, but to no avail. Apparently, the largest exclusive gaming retailer in the world was out of the game system I wanted. The Target across from the Gamestop in Centerville had three systems available. I have also heard a lot of news about a bunch of stores being constantly sold of Nintendo’s Wii console. Every time I’ve been in a Gamestop over the last year and half, somebody has asked if the store had Wiis in stock only to find out they didn’t. When I think about it, every Target, Best Buy, Circuit City, and Wal-Mart I’ve been in over the same period of time has had several available. I could probably write an entire post about this. In the meantime, I am going to consider purchasing all my gaming wares at Target.

Somewhere over the last year or two, I have noticed a dramatic shift in the Deseret News. Once upon a time, I would have called the Deseret News editorial page “moderate.” This is no longer the case, as it has shifted dramatically rightward. I’m not going to go into a lot of depth on this, since I never seem to shut up about it, but I swear the Deseret News only picks the most inflammatory, right of center letters to publish and chooses the least eloquent and thoughtful columnists. Too much Krauthammer, not enough Buckley (or whatever his living equivalent would be). I should take count of how many letters a day are published calling Obama a socialist or (as he was called today, a Marxist).

It seems I fell off the face of the earth. I’m sorry. I’ve returned. Let’s catch up.

First I want to talk briefly about a cultural quirk of Utah: alcohol, tobacco, (not firearms), coffee, and tea.

Actually, I’m talking more specifically about alcohol, more specifically commonly-held views about alcohol in Utah. For the out of state readers, Utah is known to have often silly laws governing the distribution of alcohol and the management of bars. For one, all alcoholic beverages with alcohol content of greater than 4.0% ABV must be sold in state-owned liquor stores at an 80% markup, in a restaurant only with food, or in a private club. The private club system requires that patrons buy a temporary or annual membership. The state is considering doing away with the private club membership requirement. Naturally, the Deseret News/Tribune comment boards are going crazy.

The Word of Wisdom is the dietary law followed by active Latter-day Saints. Certain parts (abstinence from alcohol, tobacco, coffee, and tea) were made mandatory for baptism in 1921. When the Word of Wisdom followed by active Mormons coupled with the tremendous political influence Church headquarters has in this state will almost certainly determine the fate of the private club membership. Additionally, the non-drinking Mormons in Utah tend to think in terms of the ‘evils of alcohol’ rather than the ‘risks of alcohol.’ There is a misunderstanding that the moment somebody drinks, they will immediately get drunk, drive home, run over a baby, and beat their wife. There is another misunderstanding that Utah’s strict liquor laws are the reason Utah’s DUI rate is so low, although looking at the DUI rates in areas with much stricter laws, say Pennsylvania and D.C., seems to indicate otherwise. Finally, some people have interesting ways of justifying their desire for even stricter laws when they are no longer secure with their original religious motivation:

When I look at the brain scans of a drinker. I feel that is enough proof to ban Alcohol let alone tighten some laws. If anything our liquor laws should get MUCH MUCH MUCH more strict. They are not enough as it is.

[...]

This brilliant neuroscientist seems to to on to something. Oh, wait, no. Yes, frequent binge drinking can reak havoc on the CNS, but common social drinking doesn’t. Moderate alcohol consumption doesn’t do enough damage to the brain to justify an all-out ban. Most of the world’s greatest intellectuals have been drinkers.

Anyway, I’m really tired of talking about that. I’ve been considering managing two blogs, and before you laugh and remind me that I can barely keep up with one, let me tell you the reason. I’d like to keep this blog academic and talk about linguistics and the kind of stuff I just talked about. I’d like to have another blog to talk about games, specifically MMOs. It’d be nice to get some ad revenue off of the blog to maybe put gas in my car. In the meantime, let me give you an MMO update:

LotRO: I’ve been moving slowly in LotRO, taking several nights off in favor of spending time with my non-gaming girlfriend. My minstrel is level 31, and I am traiting him out to be versatile enough in the endgame to be main healer or to provide AOE DPS, depending on the situation. I really enjoy playing the character, the game world remains compelling, and I now get to look forward to the game expansion, which opens up Lòrien, Moria, uses environement-aware AI, and creates a new ‘world-changing event’ mechanic. It seems Turbine is trying to show that it has the development gravitas to develop toward the core market and separate itself from WoW.

EVE Online: The Empyrean Age is interesting. Unfortunately, I’ve had more fun reading about it than I have had playing it. I just haven’t had the time to commit to EVE outside of skill training (I’m working toward a covert-ops/battlecruiser character to patrol low-sec belts and fight Caldari militia).

In other MMO news, I downloaded Vanguard and intend to play the free month to see if I like it. I remember looking forward to the game a long time ago, and promptly forgetting about it after I heard what a terrible launch it had. Apparently they’ve fixed the issues, and it’s a pretty fun game. Sort of like what Everquest was supposed to be. What originally induced me to try the game was the world size and the class system. The world is apparently FFXI big. If you’re familiar with FFXI, you know just how big that is. It can take two hours to get from a city on one continent to a city on another. This sounds really annoying, I know, but if you have the same kind of world-size fetish I do, you understand why that’s so exciting. As far as classes, I want to try something a little different thant what I usually play. I’m thinking of playing a Bard. Interestingly, the bard can open a can of whoop-ass.

I honestly have, like, seven updates half written. I just can’t manage to complete any of them. Dammit.

So, the Friday Fatwa didn’t last very long as a Friday-specific feature. Frankly, I’ve had too much to deal with the last week or so to bother writing in my blog. Get over it.

I’m having trouble deciding which of the two local newspapers in Salt Lake frustrate me more. Not the newspapers themselves, really, but the the comment boards. The people who frequent the comment boards occupy the extremes only, though each board tends more toward one. The Tribune has more annoyingly angry liberals who think they’re funny and smart, while the Deseret News has more self-righteous gasbags who think they’re rational. Today, I am only giving one example from the Deseret News:

Hollywood’s morals are reflected in the works it produces, and it’s always been that way. That’s why law enforcement officers are often portrayed as idiots, family men as morons, and stay-at-home housewives as stupid subordinates, while sexually promiscuous and irresponsible characters are shown to be adventurous, open-minded, kind and virtuous. Many people locally were upset by the nudity in Titanic, while I think they should have been more upset by the unfaithfulness of the woman who ditched her fiance and bedded a shipmate during the journey. If you want to see Hollywood continue to spread its brand of morality, continue patronizing movies that show decadence as good and chastity as evil.

Rich

I’m going to leave the subtle misogyny aside. Are law enforcement officers portrayed as idiots? Probably no more than some already are, and they are often also portrayed as heroes. Just watch any crime drama or buddy-cop show. Family men are hardly portrayed as morons, housewives aren’t all portrayed as subordinate, and if you’ve seen Desperate Housewives, for example, sexually promiscuous, unfaithful people aren’t shown in the most positive light. I don’t understand the paranoia some people have about Hollywood. This is the kind of attitude you hear from people who hear a lot about the supposed moral degeneracy of Hollywood, but don’t actually watch much of its product.

Alright, time for less frustrating topics: cell phones.

I’m kind of a cell phone geek. I’m always interested in the newest phone out there (though I rarely have the money to blow on it). Currently I am using my dad’s old iPhone (he acquired an AT&T 8925). I intend to hang on to the iPhone until a viable Android-based handset is available and my current contract allows for an upgrade. Here are my preliminary views of the iPhone.

Pros: The interface is sleek and intuitive. It doesn’t beep at me for unknown reasons, and the phone syncs seemlessly with iTunes. Having a full HTML browser is a nice thing to have. The applications are all very well designed and thought out.

Cons: EDGE network. You would think that Apple’s revolutionary phone would operate on the revolutionary 3G network. If there are various Wi-Fi networks in the area, the phone gets confused about how to connect to the internet leading to very slow downloads. Also, the phone is black. WTF? Sorry, but tech manufacturers should be shot for making black devices. I have to clean my screen twice a day and every little scratch and smudge is noticeable. I ordered a Zagg invisible shield/screen guard for the phone, but now I have to find a free 12 hours to let the phone sit.