Brent’s Thoughts

I had some pretty amazing pictures dropped in my lap this morning and I thought I would take the time to share them with you guys. I don’t really have much info on them, but I think they pretty much explain themselves. Also I have looked over them a bit and while I am no image expert they look pretty real to me.

Well at least I think it is. The upstairs bonus room is done now, with carpet and couches. The pool table has been setup and plays great as well. I think other than the yard not having any grass in it and the sidewalk not being layed I think everything is done. I am pretty sure that everything inside the house is done.

Why doesn’t someone just release a new version of this game?

I was messing with a dos emulator for linux and thought, “man this would be good to play Xcom with.” So I dusted off my copy and installed it. It didn’t really work that well since my computer is so fast that there is no way to catch aliens. They just move too fast.

So I started looking around to see if I could slow it down some and thought to go ahead and get a copy off of eDonkey. I installed it on Mirage and commenced playing. The graphics are terrible by today’s standards it still runs just a little faster than normal and it runs in a 640/480 window, AND I love it. It is such a cool game and so well done.

Someone needs to get their ass in gear and make a game that plays like this. The amount of people that love this game online is unbelievable and they keep trying to revive the line, but they keep missing the mark. They think that it is the storyline that made people play, but it isn’t it is the gameplay and the systems in it. They just need to update the programming to the newer standards, develope a new storyline and then go.

Original thread from my old forums

Not really sure how to title this, that was the best that I could come up with at the time.

Most of the people on here know that a while ago I lost my great aunt and that I was a little messed up over it for a time.

Well Monday I was working out at one of the elementary schools here and had the chance to work on a teachers computer. The teacher reminded me quite strongly of my Aunt for various reasons when I first met her over a year ago, so I was happy to help her with her computer problems.

She responded in a manner that was amazingly akin to the way that my aunt would have and for the rest of the day she kept telling me how happy she was that I took the time to help her out with the problem.

Tuesday, I was working in the board office when I found out that she had just died at the elementary school. Apparently, she had went to the bathroom because she didn’t feel well and had a heartattack. By the time anyone got worried enough about her to open the door, she had already pasted away.

Now I guess honestly it shouldn’t bother me that much, but it does. I think part of it is the fact that less than 24 hours before I was talking and interacting with this person and then all of the sudden she was gone. I know that another part of it is that she reminded me so strongly of my aunt. It is just one of those things that messes with your head I guess.

Original “Long” thread on my old forums

So everyone has pretty much carried the link to the new york post story on how evil Take Two Interactive is and how they are forcing children to kill people. For those of you that don’t read slashdot or penny arcade here is the link.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/12292003/business/14640.htm

First lets start with saying this is completely idiotic. People are stupid and gullible. I am not going to deny that, but to think that people have such a low concept of reality so that because they sit in front of a video game for a few hours that is going to cause them to go out and kill people is dumb. It is a new age version of “The Superman Syndrome” where it was largly reported that the original Superman television show was causing kids to jump out their window thinking they can fly. To date ZERO reported cases of kids jumping out of windows with capes on after watching that show.

That in itself is one rant and it is a huge one that is being pushed by almost all gamers out there, but there is a second rant that I would like to put here.

Penny Arcade attempted to counteract this blantant bad press to gamers, but having a charity event for a Children’s Hospital in Washington. The hospital was there because that is where they are. As a result they ask people to purchase gaming items from an amazon.com wishlist and the items would then be delivered to the hospital for Xmas. All in all people donated over $200,000 worth of items and just plan money to the cause. Here is a quote of what happened (pardon and language):

Penny-Arcade wrote:

The first time the news dumbshits came out to talk about Child’s Play, though they were clearly told who was responsible for it they excised one of the people behind it. I consider this a fairly minor issue, but they’re still retarded. When they came to the Children’s Hospital itself for the toy delivery, there was no reporter even down there with us. A cameraman got some footage and then (I believe) ran away. I thought I heard him say “Ghosts!”, but that’s neither here nor there. When this footage was aired, I learned something new: that the toys had been donated by a local catholic school, and were valued at nearly a thousand dollars. Understand this. A single bin of GBA SPs was worth four thousand dollars, and we had four such bins. That’s above and beyond the seventy GameCubes the other twenty carts of toys, which at our best estimates come to around $175,000. Then there was a check for twenty-seven thousand.

I myself gave them some cash, and I am rather pissed that it wasn’t even reported correctly and so the point was completely missed by these bad news hungry propagandist. They aren’t reporters. Reporters report facts and events, not shit they conjour up like these two news items.