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Update from weddings and such when I’m not being lazy.

Today is probably the second most depressing day of my life, but I got 7 pages of sweet pictures from the Summer Nationals.

Click the picture to check them out.

Some pictures from Skip’s on the Cars page.

I added a wonderful image gallery plugin. Its awesome. The world can see my crummy pictures now.

Check out the Photos ‘08 link for stuff I have taken this year. More will keep coming.

PSXExtreme.Com Says: “But we all know that Gran Turismo 5 Prologue is a graphical madman, so how does it play? Well, like heaven, as you’d expect. Gran Turismo 5 Prologue offers two ways of playing the game - using the standard physics mode or the professional physics mode. Standard is more akin to what you had in Gran Turismo 3 or 4, where as professional is an all new physics code put together for GT5. Standard is still fairly realistic, especially if you turn off the driving aids, but professional pushes it just that much more. Professional is definitely my cup of tea; turn off the ‘hold-my-hand’ driving aids such as stability control, active-braking, turn down or turn off traction control (depending on the car), and try not to race with R3 tires - and you’ve got, arguably, the most accurate physics presentation of any racing game.”

That is a joke. It plays just like Gt, GT2, GT4, GT:HD, and GTP: Demo. There has been no improvement in feel at all. It still plays like a pretty arcade game with odd amounts of understeer and oversteer to add “difficulty”. If you expect any sort of “physics” here, you must have just fell off the Need for Speed train. GT5 is not a simulation. Its a game. Wake the fuck up. Who’s car has an X button?

Being a graphical madman, is a whole other issue. Cockpits are lovely, welcome to what other games were doing in the age before 3D. Aside from the weird pixels popping up in the cockpits from shadows and “smoke” they are quite nice though. The lighting is nice, and the replays look great, but all in all, its just GT3 in HD to me.

The series peaked right there. There hasn’t been a single improvement in how the game plays at all. Just how it looks.

See here:
GT1


GT2


GT3


GT4



GT5

So we have great visuals, the same too grippy, then sudden loss of grip handling, what about the AI, surely that can’t still be dumb as bricks can they?

You’d think there would be some improvement there. there has always been a huge gripe with that. Shockingly, there is. Not very much though. The only thing different now is that every now and then they come off the track a bit more often. You can still bounce them right out of the way with no issues.

Other than that pesky lack of damage issue. This is getting to be a joke. You can still ping pong off walls and cars with no repercussions. Oh, except a magic “short cut/barrier” penalty. That is great. What makes it even better is its use online.

WHAT A FUCKING JOKE. Don’t bother with racing online in GT5:P unless you like getting plowed in to continuously. Why use your brakes when you can punt the car ahead of you off track, so he can get a shortcut penalty and you can DRIVE RIGHT THROUGH HIS GHOST CAR. now thats a “Real driving simulator” if I have ever seen it.

I used to love this series. These gaping holes that have been there for 10 fucking years need to be closed. Then again, the market is for idiots, and graphical updates are all they need.

I almost forgot the menu system for the events. I like quitting to the main menu after every race. Its not annoying at all. Really. It isn’t.

I’m pleading to you Polyphony Digital, if you love cars and making games, make it how you know it should be.

I’m going to play LocoRoco Correcho and Bad Company, while I wait for the July update and hope somethings are better.

September 2002 I bought Battlefield:1942. Moving from games like Quake, the step to huge maps, seamless jumping in and out of vehicles (Driving an aircraft carrier rules), more focus on team work made for a great game, though not without its flaws like any other FPS. I stopped playing for a while once Planetside got its hooks in to me, but then I heard about the Desert Combat mod. I played that a lot, with Jax, IQ, and some other guys over at Worth1000. I wasted time playing on TV, Tech TV’s The Screensavers had a pretty sweet LAN party deal.

Then Vietnam came out. New weapons, new maps, and a nifty radio with not much real improvement.

I didn’t pay much mind to 2/2142, though I heard and read they were much improved, my interest in FPS games had gone by the wayside really. I still havent played much of any since I stopped playing planetside. Not counting HL2/Portal/HL2DM/TF2. The former are great single player games, and the latter are damn fun multiplayer, but I just couldn’t get in to them really.

Now Battlefield: Bad Company is a console FPS. I’ve never been a fan of any console FPS games. With a couple exceptions. Goldeneye. That is all I need to say there. Red Faction on the PS2 was damn cool for the time, destructable environments is pretty much all the fun in that. Boring through the walls with a rocket launcher to sneak up on someone was a blast and using the mining trucks in singleplayer to blaze your own path was a fairly unique experience. Killzone was a fun game, mostly because the AI wasn’t totally retarded.

I downloaded this Bad Company demo days ago. I forgot I did until I fired up the PS3 this morning. I heard it was damn fun. This maybe the FPS I’ve been looking for to get me back in to the Genre. Team work, large maps, nice visuals, and most importantly you can really just straight up destroy shit. Who else besides me hates it when you shoot something with a rocket launcher, say a shack someone is hiding behind, and all thats left is a burn mark? And the guy doesn’t even get hurt.

So I install it, and give it a go. As always I looked through the options that were available, changed my controls around a bit, and adjusted my TV. The menu is pretty straight forward and slick looking. Nothings really clunky, its all nice and smooth. I fire up the singleplayer campaign, first thing I notice is how nice it looks. It seems there may be a decent singleplayer hidden in there. After a short intro, and some humvee driving, the shots began to ring out. Trees falling over, windows, fences, walls being blown up by grenades, total hectic explody mayhem. Fucking excellent. Then the tank comes. Its hard to hide from a tank when it blows every damn thing up. After playing through the singleplayer part of the demo, I’m very impressed. It was lots of fun, and after some practice it will be on to multiplayer to get killed by 12 year olds for me. Looks like I found my next FPS, and game after finishing up my last few percent on GTA4.

EDIT: Multiplayer is damn fun. Though like everything else plagued with morons. I was doing some recon, and had a great spot, lined up at the enemy’s artillery. headshot after headshot every time someone hopped on. Then my squad mate knifed me. Also, no prone position? WTF?

That is right, it is two guys hanging from hooks through their ass cheeks.

“Duuuude, I just like totally got this wicked coooool idea maaaan. Lets make like a, uh, uh, CLOCK, that like talks to you and shit. It could totally say four twenty duuuuuude”

Seriously, what is the point to that? There is a reason why they were at Building 19 1/6. NOBODY WANTED YOUR HITLER LOVING WEED CLOCK.

Separated at birth perhaps?

So, I begin my blog again, for the third time since like 2001. I’d say I’m not interesting, or I have nothing interesting to say, but then I’d be a fat fucking liar. It turns out I am just lazy. This is another attept to change that. I could care less if anyone reads this, but I’m going to do it anyway.

After a struggle of getting my phone back in working order I’ve decided to post some pictures I forgot I had on there. 196 to be exact, but I won’t post them all just the best. I can’t forget the lovely stories that may come with them.

I shall start with one of my favorites. Its a piece of pizza that looks like jesus, its amazing. I forget where we were, but the wife made me take a picture of it and it was worth it.

And Here is Pukey McBag via AirTran.

And so it begins again.