FALLOUT 4 RUMORS! BOSTON!

I woke up this morning thinking that nothing particularly amazing was going to happen. This is pretty much how life is now everyday since I graduated from graduate school. On top of that I'm bored as all fuck. I don't quite have a job yet and my parents are breathing down my neck, but today... Today is good.

Today is good because of this.

Another rumor is flying around about Fallout 4 and this time it seems to be from a credible source. I've said before that we needed to find out where Bethesda was sniffing around to find out where the location of the next Fallout would be. Apparently, most of us were wrong with our predictions. Boston, Massachusetts is being investigated right now by Bethesda employees. 

Anyone as psyched as I am about this? Now I don't have to fight that Death Claw!

Teaching the Atomic Age: There's a reason why I'm not a professor.

In one week I am set to lecture my peers on a historical event. I have chosen to teach what I know and that is the Atomic Age, specifically the circumstances surrounding Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

For those of you who don't know this, I have a bachelor's degree in history. I know. Super useful, but I was raised in a family full of history buffs. It just seemed like the right specialization at the time, however, I did not get a teaching degree with my BA.

I realized early on that keeping me out of a classroom full of children who have their crazy parents backing them was probably a good idea. I have a bad habit of telling people who criticize me to "go fuck themselves" or to make some kind of sarcastic, passive aggressive comment. No seriously. I do. Also, I cuss when I try to talk about historical events, which is something that most parents would be unhappy about.

On top of that, public speaking scares the crap out of me. I have a hip flask that I keep full of vodka and it has been very tempting for me when faced with the possibility of public speaking to take a snoot full before getting behind that podium. But I have never actually done this because I get even more obnoxious after I've had a couple of drinks. This is why I usually drink at home in my apartment while yelling all kinds of profanities into my Turtle Beach Headset. (I often threaten to break off certain "sexual play things" in people's orifices if I feel that their assassination attempt was in cowardice.)

But now, I have to give this lecture to a group of my peers to complete grad school. This is the last thing that I wanted to do while here at Pitt and while I was encouraged to give it on something related to library and information science, I realized that I'm not passionate enough about anything in my field to actually give a lecture on it.

Anyone have some advice on how I can get through this without taking a shot from my hip flask before getting behind that podium?

Removal of Anonymous Commenting Abilities

Today, after much deliberation, I have decided to remove the ability to comment anonymously from this blog. Part of this decision was made due to problems with anonymous commenters making hurtful/lewd/inappropriate comments toward other commenters or members of this blog. I will NOT tolerate this. This is supposed to be a friendly environment where people can express their opinions and be heard out as equals. If you want to call someone a "fag" then don't do it on my blog. If you want to call someone a "fag" on my blog, then you better attach your name or a name to it because doing it anonymously makes you a coward. If you have a problem with someone TAKE IT OUTSIDE.

G4: Fallout 3 is number 75/100

G4 just ranked Fallout 3 as their number 75 greatest game of all time. This is out of 100 by the way.

Anyways, it got me thinking: Where does Fallout 3 rank on your list?

Personally it's in my top five.

Leave me your thoughts in the comments below!

GameSpy: Zenimax Online Boss: Single-Player Elder Scrolls Games "Are Still Going to Be Made"

GameSpy: Zenimax Online Boss: Single-Player Elder Scrolls Games "Are Still Going to Be Made"

As I was looking for news today about the next Fallout, I stumbled upon this little prediction. Stapleton says that he's shooting for a 2016 release date for the next major Bethesda game. I'm thinking that's a little too far out, but on the other hand I have to agree with him.

We are getting to the end of another console generation. With Nintendo's premier of the Wii U at E3 last week, the end is coming faster and faster. Still there has been very little confirmed on the next gen console's for Nintendo's biggest competitors, Sony and Microsoft. So I can see where Stapleton is coming from when he predicts the next big Bethesda game in 2016.

Does anyone out there have any predictions on when the next big Bethesda game will be released? The next one will probably be Elder Scrolls Online or Fallout 4, but that's just my opinion.

I'm on Twitter!

So to save some space I have decided to start a Twitter page. Now you can find out what I'm thinking everyday if you want to... which you probably don't... Anyway, I'm on Twitter now! You can follow me @WolfofFallout.

On a slightly related note, it looks like I will be taking a shit load of chems and fighting a Death Claw with my bare hands. Who wants me to record it and post it here?

Let me know!

Bethblog: A Sign of the Future?

I feel oddly disturbed by the state of Bethesda's Blog today. While Bethesda is obviously gearing up for E3 next week, they are mostly paying homage to other games like Dishonored, a new Skyrim DLC, and Doom 3 BFG edition. This has me a little worried. I feel that if Bethesda were going to make any noise about the announcement of the location of next Fallout they would make a teeny bit of noise on the Bethblog. Unfortunately, I see nothing. The last time Bethesda made an announcement about Fallout was in relation to some discounts on the PS Network. Troublesome... very troublesome.

Remember, if there is no announcement about a new Fallout in our future, I will take every drug I can get my hands on and fight a Deathclaw with my bare hands. You can bet your sweet ass on that one cause I am not fucking around here.

New Poll

I've added a new poll today. I want to know what you want me to blog about. If what you want is not included in my poll, leave a comment below or email me at blackwolfcries@gmail.com. Thanks ya'll!

E3 Starts a Week From Today

E3 starts a week from today and while I anticipate good things, how will we all feel if Fallout 4 is not announced at the annual convention this year? Well I don't know about ya'll but I will be so angry that I will:

I'm 100% serious on that one. I will be so fucking pissed.

Also, little update for you. If I can get more followers on this blog, I will hire a web designer to customize this thing. So do me a favor: stop commenting as Anonymous and follow this blog! I don't bite! Well... not all the time :3

Took a break and now I'm back! (Fallout 4 Rumors Cont) UPDATED

I did not know until yesterday that this blog has become a little more popular, especially among fans of the Fallout Franchise. I am ecstatic to see that my blog is finally taking off, even if it is in relation to just one post. I figured that it would be the most popular to begin with. One thing is bothering me though: if you are going to comment on a post, do me a favor and join the site! I want to get to know everyone!

Anyways, I know that many of you are excited about learning the location of Fallout 4 at E3 in June. We are less than a month out from the biggest video game conference in the U.S. and the rumors are running wild. I have kept my ear to the ground for any rumblings/rumors about F4's location. I thought for a bit there that Bethesda would be announcing it via their Twitter feed but unfortunately I was probed wrong when Bethesda announced "Dishonored" instead. While this was disappointing, I understand why they are being tight-lipped about F4.

Now I did see in the comments on FALLOUT 4 RUMORS! that one of our Anonymous friends claims to have a reliable source who claims that the new Fallout will take place in New York. While this is an interesting idea, I am going to take this with a big ass grain of salt.

It would be very interesting to have the next Fallout be in NYC. For those of you who don't know, I was born on Long Island, so the idea of seeing NYC as a hulking slag heap is a little odd. On the other hand I have to take into consideration the logic of another Anonymous friend:

This is a GREAT observation! The Big Apple is already showing signs of problems due to global warming. It is at a much higher risk of flooding due to its location than other U.S. cities. But if you look back to my first couple of posts about the last FNV DLC you will notice that Bethesda made a huge blunder in logic. For more info please see An Introduction: I just ruined Fallout New Vegas for myself and The adventures of Super Spaz! (I was right and now it's bothering me even more.). So I honestly would not be surprised if they repeat this blunder and make F4 in NYC.

Some of you also mentioned the possibility of the Midwest:

I forget, have any of the previous games ever mentioned Chicago, Detroit, or Cleveland? Chicago was mentioned in F3 by Scribe Jameson and Rothchild and it does make an appearance in Fallout Tactics but not actually in the game. There have been hints of an Enclave outpost there, so there is always the possibility of a similar scenario with a game in Chicago like there was in New Vegas. For example, two major factions fighting it out (again) with smaller factions present, but I feel that this same scenario is unlikely. Maybe they will bring back the Vault Dweller from F3 but the Courier was practically a revolutionary step in characters for the Fallout Franchise.

There have also been rumblings that the Fallout MMORPG would have taken place in Detroit. And of course there have been similar ideas about it. The motor city would have been in its prime if things had continued going the way they were in 1950 by the start of the Great War. There would be a lot of exploration of burned out car factories and more things would blow up there than in FNV. All of the burned out cars in FNV really put a kink in my style considering that I love to blow them up when fighting an enemy.  Anyway, the Fallout Wiki does show that some other boys and girls are talking about the possibility of Detroit.

There has not been much talk about the possibility of Cleveland though. If Pittsburgh was "the Pitt" (literally) in F3 then there is the distinct possibility that its proximity to Cleveland might also produce a highly irradiated hole in the ground. I really think that Cleveland is unlikely but I may be wrong! I have been before!

What's truly amazing is that they stayed true to the Pittsburgh skyline in this DLC. Love it! But this bridge should be yellow just like all of the other bridges in Pittsburgh. This is the South Tenth Street Bridge and it's yellow not green. Have to say that the dead bodies at the top were a nice touch. Also they were highly accurate with the layout of Haven except for the part where Pitt's campus is not DOWNTOWN. It's in Oakland which is up the Boulevard of the Allies. And yes that really IS the Cathedral of Learning. 

How Bethesda sees it.

How I see it.

Anyways, I love being able to see all of your interesting ideas! But tell me what areas would be featured in future DLCs if any of the aforementioned cities are picked for Fallout 4?

-Wolf

UPDATE

Rumors persist as E3 moves closer that Fallout 4 will be announced there as the long awaited Fallout MMO: http://www.techradar.com/news/gaming/e3-2012-what-to-expect-from-this-years-show-1082083

Halo 4 Release Date Announced: Start the Count Down!

To those of you who are interested, the release date of Halo 4 has been announced by 343 Industries just weeks after Bungie turned over the servers. To keep all ya'll updated on the wait, I have included the Halo 4 countdown ticker to the VERY BOTTOM of my blog. My HTML editing skills are shi- I mean limited so that was the only place I could squeeze it in. Enjoy!

Over Analysis: The curtains are no longer blue.

I'm sure that many of you who attended high school or are currently attending it, remember your English teacher and his or her over analysis of literature. I believe it was Stephen Crane, author of the Red Badge of Courage, who said of his writings that if one could find a deeper meaning from them then you must be on crack or something similar. For example:

As human beings, we are always trying to find a deeper meaning in EVERYTHING. (*cough* religion! *cough*) This often causes us to over analyze everything. As an information professional, I have read entirely too many papers where scholars demonstrate this terrible habit. Suddenly "the curtains were blue" no longer has the same meaning. Instead the curtains are a symbol of depression and attention deficit disorder with a theme of a ham and cheese sandwich on a sesame bagel being run over by a Prius with flame details. See? If we over analyze something then it loses its meaning and becomes useless to the reader. 

Today I read four papers by four different scholars, all of whom were describing the results of indexing for systems of information retrieval that were used for art and music collections. Riveting, right? One author presented the reader with an entity relationship model that was meant to illustrate how her system worked. And while looking at it made me want to punch a panda in the face, I was able to understand the basic workings of her retrieval system. But she chose to describe EVERY SINGLE STEP IN MINUTE DETAIL. About halfway through her paper, I realized that I was lost and the whole article had lost its meaning. See what happens when you over analyze? 

Maybe it was the way I was brought up through high school in honors English classes. I had a total of three English teachers during my four years of high school. The last one I had for two years in a row, and she was the queen of over analysis. And while I must thank her for her harshness in grading my papers (thanks for all the C's you bitch) because she has made me the writer I am today, she also made me the cynical bitch I am today. And by bitch I mean that I will come out and say exactly what I mean whenever I want. Often times, people are offended by what I have to say, but at least I say what I mean instead of beating around the bush.

I am calling for the simplification of speech and writing. Stop over analyzing everything. Say what you mean and be done with it. Then we can all move on, and I don't have to work so hard to get two-hundred and fifty words on a page for a discussion posting about your boring shit paper you bitch. 

The End.

10 Truths about grad school

As most of you already know I am a graduate student in the field of library and information science. The sad truth of grad school today is that everyone and their brother is going. Partly to avoid the bad job market, but also because a bachelor's degree has almost become the equivalent of a high school diploma.

Sadly, this is how some people end up in grad school.

I graduated last May from a state school with a Bachelor of Arts in History. (Although, my degree doesn't even list my major. It just says "Bachelor of Arts." So if I get Alzheimer's, I won't even be able to look at that to remind myself what I went to college for! "Why yes I went to college, but my degree has made me conveniently forget what for! All well!") And yes, I knew going into my major that I would be unable to do anything with my degree unless I sought even higher education. Honestly, my choices were 1. go to grad school 2. become a bum and scream at people that I went to college so I deserve their respect. I decided to go to grad school.

Now my program is unique. It is advertised as being a two year program, but in reality, they push you through in eleven months of trial by fire. When I pointed this out to my professors, they looked at my like I was crazy. "Well of course it's two years," one of them said to me with a smile. "You start one year and you finish the next year. Two years."

-_- No bitch. Two years is four semesters with a summer break in between. But evidently my iSchool (that is what a certified MLIS school is called, short for "Information School"), does not use logic. But I am actually very happy about being able to finish my degree in eleven months. I will get out into the job market quicker AND I will not spend as much money.

While here though, I have learned some ultimate truths about grad school. So let me teach them to you, especially if you are thinking of taking this crazy ride.

1. You will age.
   No one ever believes me on this one. And those people are usually the ones who get to know you DURING your time in graduate school. Unfortunately, this is one of the worst truths of grad school. You can kiss your youth good-bye if you are a traditional student who has gone with no or very little time between your undergraduate and graduate time. The amount of stress that one is dealing with is almost unimaginable, especially during the first semester. For those of us who start our graduate programs in the fall, most of us will say the same thing. The first month, September, is terrible. October is make or break and November... well you're pretty much screwed. When your first semester is over, you will not see many waking hours. Most of your time off in between semesters will be spent sleeping. Unless you decide to take advantage of the winter "mini-semester" if your program offers one. (If you do you should probably be admitted to the asylum.)

When I came home from my first semester, before I walked in the door, my parents were under the impression that I was going to go back to my job at the grocery store down the street. But when I walked in the door, my mother was shocked at how terrible I looked and my dad actually said to my face "Wow you look like crap. Did you age by five years or something?" My mother patted my shoulder and told me to spend the next two weeks doing whatever I wanted. I spent the next two weeks sleeping as much as possible and playing video games while crying in the mirror about my appearance. I have really aged. I don't even get carded anymore.

My boyfriend started grad school with a lot more hair. He finished grad school in December with a highly noticeable receding hairline. People have told him that he looks like he is at least forty. He turned twenty-four in November...

Still don't believe me? Believe it.

2. You will be hungry.

  Now while I do have a job that pays, the university finds every way possible to screw over its student workers. Pay cycles are once a month. Now I have been lucky that I have a partial scholarship, so I get back about half of my loan money that goes into a savings account for my third semester. But I try as hard as possible not to touch it. Unfortunately, the fact of the matter is that I have not been given a full paycheck since I started back this semester. The way that the pay cycle is here makes it next to impossible to be paid regularly, a full paycheck, every month.

So in the meantime, you are left wondering how you are going to afford to feed yourself. You find yourself constantly haunting the halls, looking for receptions that have leftovers so that you can descend like a common rat, stuff yourself and your school bag, and then run off like a thief in the night. If you ever see a grad student with a guilty look and a packed school bag that they are cradling like a baby, you can almost guarantee that they have just raided someone's reception leftovers.

Let me say again, you are 100% going to be hungry at some point during grad school. Do whatever is legal to get a job and get money. Honestly, I have at least one classmate who has applied for food stamps and gotten them.

3. You will think about dropping out. Many times.

  I have contemplated dropping out and going home on several occasions. While the prospects of getting that Masters Degree is attractive along with all of the extra money that it can potentially bring you, this journey does not come without bouts of depression and hopelessness. Several of the people that I started this program with have succumbed to their demons and dropped out already.

 Basically, it's a lot of money, time, and effort that you put at stake. You take an expensive risk in hopes that your life will ultimately be better later on for it, but during this risk, you often wonder if it was the right risk to take. There will be that assignment that is so terrible, so truly awful, that you will be in tears, begging your professor for more time/help, and they will tell you no. For me this was my breaking point. Me and half of my classmates sat in class the day that an assignment was due weeping and begging for more time and help. We were given none. For me, if one of my classmates had not taken pity on me and helped me out, I would have failed the assignment and dropped out.

You will run into this assignment/task eventually if you decide to go on to grad school. And I am going to sound like a broken record here but you have to stick with it. If you do not, you will end up regretting it forever. And the shame. The shame will be unbearable.


4. You will take abuse with grace and not even notice it until later.

  Honestly, most of grad school is abuse. You're hungry, sleep deprived, over-worked, under-paid and under appreciated. If you have to teach while in grad school, you will take a lot of abuse from your students and not even notice it until after the fact. Undergrads are more likely to not respect you if you fill in for a professor to teach a class or lab. And while you are deserving of their respect, you will not think so until later on. Remember, you already HAVE the degree that they are working toward, but this will not make them anymore inclined to respect you. Grad students are like a joke to undergrads and sometimes professors will treat you the same way. Your students will bug the crap out of you to grade their papers/tests along with your professor. You will do so with grace, not realizing until later that you have been abused.

And this is all perfectly legal. It's simply part of academia. Undergraduates are just like children and so are professors. Graduate students are kind of the old people of academia. They want respect, but are not likely to get it very often. So take the abuse, but do so with grace. Do it with a smile because all of this will be over soon.

5. You will continuously wonder how the hell you got to grad school.

  I wonder all the time how in the hell I got to where I am. I would like to say hard work and studying, but I really have a hard time with that. Let me illustrate my point:

This is how most of us spend our four years as undergrads. We are told to read something and decide that it means there is no homework. Unless there is written work, you often times refuse to complete reading assignments. We get to class, having not read anything, but end up dominating discussion anyway. THOSE are the people who end up in grad school. We got to grad school by bsing our way through our undergraduate work. 

And when you get to grad school, you will start to have to read for homework. There is no more bsing your way through a discussion. If you do not have sources to back up a point, you will be eviscerated during discussion. So you will keep asking yourself "how the hell did I get here?" Well you got here by bsing your way through the last four years, but now you have to get into the REAL work.

6. You will seriously wonder whether or not you belong in grad school.

 I am one of the youngest people in my program. Most of the people that I entered the iSchool with have been out of school for a couple of years and have worked in libraries and have a better knowledge of what they are getting into than I do. This ultimately made me wonder how I got to grad school and whether or not I belonged here. They all seemed so much more motivated and knowledgeable than me. I realize now that it's just because they have more life experience than me and they have to work harder to get back into the study groove.

So yes, you're going to wonder whether or not you belong in grad school. The reality of it is that if you were accepted, then whoever looked over your application sure as hell thought so and that's a big deal. AND if you are lucky enough to get a scholarship from the school, then you definitely belong because they are SPENDING money on you. That means they want you for something. They see potential and you should see it too, but all too often, we as grad students do not.

7. There will be books, articles, etc. that you will read and not understand even when your professor explains them.

  My first two weeks of grad school were terrible. I was reading books and articles that I did not understand and my professors were not helping. In this case, you should not panic. This is going to happen from time to time. You are not going to understand everything you read, and sometimes I think that professors do it on purpose to knock you down a few pegs. It's okay. As long as you understand other books/articles that you have been reading, it's okay if every once in a while you do not understand a few things.

If you don't understand it, try to listen to your professor's lecture on it. And if you still don't understand, ask for clarification on the subject later, maybe during office hours. If you still do not understand, don't worry about it. Just let it go.

8. Your adviser is virtually useless.

In grad school you are assigned an adviser, just like you were as an undergrad. Remember how helpful you thought your undergrad adviser was? Yeah well you can forget about your grad adviser. They are often too busy with everything else they have to do as professors to meet with you. Last semester, I asked to meet with my faculty adviser only to find that she was less than interested in discussing my career goals with me. I never got to meet with her in person because she was "simply too busy to see me." So she asked me to send her questions via email. Even then she was less than helpful.

But remember something: Professors are very busy. It may not seem like it, but they have full schedules. And, believe it or not, you are an adult capable of making your own decisions. I know, it's mind blowing. So don't worry about your adviser. If you need to see them, insist vehemently that you must meet with them in person. If not, don't worry about it. Make your own decisions, but remember that if you screw up you have no one to blame but yourself.


9. If you get even a day off, you will use it to catch up on homework NOT sleep.

The amount of work that grad students are expected to complete in a timely manner is ridiculous. I'm not saying that you should use every waking minute of everyday on homework, but on your days off, you may be forced to do so. So, when you get a day off, make sure that you use it catching up on homework instead of sleeping. This will ensure that you spend the least amount of time possible cramming the night before an assignment is due.


10. Alcohol is your best/worst friend.

If you are not a drinker now, you will be once you start grad school. Alcohol may be expensive, especially in PA where I live because of the drink tax, but sometimes, it is more important to you than food. I have written my most brilliant papers while completely snockered off my ass, with perfect grammar, spelling, and citations and just the right amount of cynical sarcasm to make it interesting. Liquid inspiration.

But this is a healthy median that is difficult to reach. This is the thin line between being a brilliant scholar or a sloppy, pisspants drunk. This is what I mean by your worst enemy. If you drink even an ounce too much, your paper will ultimately end up terrible, or you may end up forgetting about it in your drink induced fog and decide to take a nap, have sex, get arrested, destroy public property, etc. So yeah it can definitely be your worst enemy so be VERY careful with your timing on papers. I like to start mine at least a week an a half before they're due so that if I screw up the first time, I have plenty of time to fix it and make it right.

These are the ten truths of grad school. I am not AGAINST people going to grad school. If you wanna go, great! All the more power to you! But these are the things that I wish someone had told me before I went. I could have been better prepared for the inevitable.

FALLOUT 4 RUMORS! (UPDATED)

Hey ya'll! I want to take some time today to discuss some recent rumors about Fallout 4. This morning I was told by a friend that it will be taking place in San Francisco! I know right?! It's freaking crazy!

Has it been officially announced by Bethesda? No. A quick check of Bethesda's website this morning shows no news about Fallout 4. The most you will hear about there related to Fallout is the recent release of the FNV Ultimate Edition on Tuesday.

So how do I know that it's in San Francisco? Weeeellllllll a teaser trailer has been floating around on YouTube. Now there is some argument that it is user made, but I have to say that if this was user made then this user should be WORKING for Bethesda. Anyway, this video has the Bethesda logo. It's been up since January 2011, and if it were fake and were using Bethesda's logo without their permission, I'm sure that Bethesda would have demanded that it be taken down. But you know, Bethesda is a little funny about things like that. They do defend their name and their licenses like rabid animals, but this... from a copyright nerd's point of view, I think this is real. Considering Bethesda's past fights in the copyright world, I think this is real.

Also, since the release of Skyrim, I think that leaks of information about Fallout 4 are inevitable. And since Bethesda has neither confirmed of denied the validity of this trailer, maybe we should take it as truth with a grain of salt.

There is an argument that Bethesda would never revisit places that have already been featured in previous games, but maybe it's time that we revisit them. Think about it. The first Fallout takes place eighty-four years after the Great War of 2077. Now fast forward to Fallout 3, the year is 2277, exactly two-hundred years after the Great War. FNV takes place in 2281. That's a lot of time between the original and the most recent games. A lot may have changed between now and then in San Francisco. And very little is known about the area as of 2281. It is not mentioned in FNV. It has not been mentioned since F2. Maybe it's time that we find out what is going on there?

So I want to know: what do you think my friends? Is this real? Is it fake? If it's fake, where do you think F4 will take place? Because if this is fake, then I am out of ideas on F4.  

UPDATE

http://fml-mlisn.blogspot.com/2012/05/took-break-and-now-im-back-fallout-4.html

Today is the day! FNV Ultimate Edition hits stores!

Well, the wait is over today in the States with the final release of the Fallout New Vegas Ultimate Edition! And while I will not be purchasing it, I'm sure that sales will initially be excellent as more patient gamers pick up the completed New Vegas today.

This edition of FNV has the original FNV but it also has all of the DLCs (Dead Money, Honest Hearts, Old World Blues, Lonesome Road) and of course the content add ons (Courier's Stash and Gun Runner's Arsenal). This edition is reminiscent of the Fallout 3 Game of the Year Edition from a couple years ago which also included all of the DLC's. Honestly though, who can wait for that?

So for those of us who are super nerdy, this would make a great Valentine's Day present for that special someone, especially if you have a gamer girlfriend/boyfriend!

Also, I found this little tid-bit the other day and it is completely accurate: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G__TiVl9xME

And those of you who are female gamers out there, you know it's true. We all say these things! And we do them too! Who HASN'T played video games on the toilet or angrily eaten Doritos while screaming into our mics?

And guys, I didn't leave you out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=310-Fdu4qHk

Fallout 4 and things it can learn from Skyrim

I came across this lovely little article today on IGN and I think that some of my readers may enjoy it: http://ps3.ign.com/articles/121/1213479p1.html

I'm not done yet but let me offer my insight anyway: The Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword

I love the Legend of Zelda series, but Nintendo has not put out a good LOZ game since Ocarina of Time (I am completely discounting the Water Temple there). So when they came out with Skyward Sword, I was pretty freaking excited, except for the fact that I was lacking a Wii.

I had decided after the disaster that the Game Cube was that I would not purchase another Nintendo console EVER. After the Game Cube, I felt betrayed by what had been my childhood friend, and I couldn't possibly bear to feel that betrayal again. Also, while working at GameStop in 2008, I decided that a console that had THAT MUCH HYPE had to be really terrible. I also was not impressed with the idea of "family gaming." For me playing video games had always meant sitting in a dark room by myself for most of the day while occasionally scuttling out to forage for food and use the bathroom if you weren't too lazy to do it. And the idea of doing that with my family or even "friends" filled me with a strange kind of anti-social dread. I just wasn't interested. Now Halo was a different story because Xbox Live allowed me to sit in a dark room by myself while playing games with friends OVER THE INTERNET. I didn't have to be in the same room with them so I could end up looking like this and no one would care.

Nope, I could still sit in a dark room by myself:

Also, after the Wii came out, I realized that it was practically PRINTING MONEY for Nintendo. I mean Nintendo could put its name on a toaster and sell it for $10,000 a pop and people would stampede over one another to buy the damn thing. CAD is perfect for illustrating my point here.

Anyways, when Skyward Sword came out... I WANTED IT! I had to have it, but only because it was part of the Zelda series! Unfortunately, I am a poor grad student and between buying a Wii and food, I chose food every time. While I could probably live off of the fat stored in my breasts for about a month, I was not willing to give them up to play my favorite childhood game. No. I had to be able to eat.

So I did what I do best when I don't get what I want: I sulked. Every time a friend would mention how much fun they were having with it, I felt the dark cloud of depression descending over me. 

Whenever I really want a game, I start losing sleep over it. I dream about playing it, cradling the controller in my sweaty hands, and whispering sweet nothings to my console while I tell it how much I love the new game we're playing. Okay maybe that's an exaggeration, but it's true that I do get a weird itch for it. And the itch won't go away until I make that game mine.

So a little before the holidays, my boyfriend started acting funny about my birthday present, which left me guessing until the end. I HAD NO FUCKING CLUE WHAT HE WAS GETTING ME. I'm kind of nosy so I tried to weasel it out of our friends. But they had all been bro sworn to secrecy. I decided that I would just have to wait.

And I did wait, until my boyfriend showed up in Pittsburgh for our normal weekend adventures with a big box wrapped in colorful paper. Now he's not the greatest at wrapping presents, so when I went to open it, I was greeted with this on the wrapping paper:

It was sweet because I knew that he had tried really hard to wrap it. I almost didn't want to unwrap it because I was so touched by how hard he had tried. But that was for like five seconds before I ripped off the paper and was almost floored by what he had given me.

It was a Wii with a copy of Skyward Sword.

Me: OMG YOU DESERVE SO MUCH SEX FOR THIS.

Boyfriend: I'm glad you like it. Don't tell your parents cause they'll kill me.

Me:

So later that day, I delicately set up my new Wii, and popped in Skyward Sword.

Now I have enjoyed the game so far, but I am not too impressed with the way that the story is set up. It seems like a small remake of Windwaker in its set up. And I FUCKING HATED WINDWAKER just like everyone else. Part of the problem was that we were promised one thing and given something else.

So instead of being in the middle of a vast ocean, you start on a rock in the middle of the sky. "Da fuck?" I thought as the game taught me to use a giant red bird to get around. And what baffled me even more was that Zelda is your childhood friend, who of course would never think of you as anything more. You are friend-zoned so fast that it's not even funny.

Compared to previous Zelda releases, the world of Skyward Sword is VERY VERY small. There is Skyloft where you live, a forest world that doubles as the water level, a volcano, and a dessert. "Da fuck?" I said again when I realized this. I had been hoping for a big open world like the one we were given in Twilight Princess, Windwaker, Majora's Mask, and of course Ocarina of Time. But no. You're given a small world to fiddle around with and each area of the map is recycled so much that as the game picks up, it becomes less and less challenging because of your familiarity with each map. THEY EVEN REUSE ONE OF THE DUNGEONS!

"Okay," I said to myself, "it's been 25 years of Zelda. Maybe they were trying to... WHO THE FUCK AM I KIDDING?! THIS IS NOT UP TO SNUFF!"

The game also over uses the Wii Remote. In fact, it practically gouges out your eyes as it shoves it in your face like "REMEMBER THIS ASSHOLE?! REMEMBER HOW REVOLUTIONARY THIS WAS?! LOOK AT HOW REVOLUTIONARY I AM!" The Wii-mote waggling is ridiculous. And what is even more annoying is that you have to waggle it to use your sword and there is an obvious delay between you frantically waving the thing around and your sword being frantically waved around on your tv. So the monster you're fighting has just enough time to shove their weapon up your bum before you can even attack them.  

But what probably bugs me the most, and probably bugs only me, is that Epona does not make an appearance in this game... I know, super lame thing to be unhappy about, but it made me upset. Also, Ganon is not the villain. "Wait... what?" I thought when I realized it. "DOES NOT COMPUTE!" And the explanation for it was pretty bad: http://wii.ign.com/articles/118/1184014p1.html

Also, the main villain is an emo, super man-fabulous freak. He reminds me of a villain from Jo Jo's Bizarre Adventure. At one point in the game, Lord Girahim tells you that his "heart was full of rainbows." "Da fuck?!" I exclaimed through a mouthful of Doritos and Mountain Dew (breakfast/lunch/dinner of video gaming champions). He's seriously creepy, but in a way that is entirely too hilarious:

Anyway, other than the few things I mentioned above, I have been enjoying it. I always love adding a new chapter to the Zelda timeline, which now exists by the way! How long have we been calling for it? Oh wait, yeah, now I remember, TWENTY-FIVE YEARS! If you wanna see the damn thing, click here! Unfortunately, it's complicated and it seems like after years of us poking them with a sharp stick, Nintendo decided to suddenly throw some crap together and call it a timeline. Pfft.

Don't get me wrong, I LIKE the game, but I feel like the last installment was better. I liked the darker story line of Twilight Princess better (it after all was the first Zelda to get a "T" rating). Also, Fi pisses me off. She is the worst assistant ever and you thought Navi was bad? NO. This pretty much sums it up:

So those are my thoughts on Skyward Sword. I like it, but it could be better. Also... NO HORSE! :c If you want a review comparing it to Ocarina of Time, which is what I was originally going to do but decided that that was too much work... well then bite me. IGN did some voting on which was better and I have to say that personally Ocarina of Time is still hands down my favorite. To the 113,000 people who voted in the contest on IGN's Versus... you're retarded. I think that it was really really biased considering that we have had Ocarina of Time to fool around with for almost fourteen years compared to the few months of play time with Skyward Sword. So ya'll can kiss my butt. I still think Ocarina of Time deserves the Zelda cake of awesome and no this cake is not a lie. Here's IGN's review by the way: http://wii.ign.com/articles/121/1212220p1.html

So long and thanks for all the fish!

Bethesda and Interplay: Death of Fallout MMO?

This morning as I was trying to find a way to check my brain out of a lecture that I'd rather now sit through, I started browsing IGN looking for recent news on the Fallout Franchise. For those of you who don't know, Bethesda who currently owns most of the rights to Fallout has been in a fight recently with Interplay over a Fallout MMO that Interplay was trying to develop back in 2009. Interplay was the original developer of Fallout 1 and 2 back in the 1990s (along with the ill-fated Fallout Tactics) and for some reason or another, with Fallout 3's recent success causing the rebirth of the franchise, Interplay decided that it wanted a piece of the pie.

Well Bethesda got its panties in a wad about this and sued Interplay for the exclusive rights to Fallout saying that if Interplay did develop and market the game that it would cause irreparable harm to Bethesda's bottom line. I have been hearing snippets about this argument for the last couple of years. Frankly, since I am not a PC gamer (I feel like adding that to my normal gaming routine would really confirm how super nerdy my life really is.) I was not too excited about the proposed Fallout MMO, but I have to say that it does kind of pain me that it may not happen now. This is about as much information as I can get about the settlement between the two companies: http://pc.ign.com/articles/121/1216148p1.html

As per the settlement, Interplay will be allowed to sell the original Fallout games until next year, but after that? Who knows. Will Bethesda start to sell them even though it did not develop them? Also, will Bethesda pick up where Interplay left off with the Fallout MMO and finish developing it? I highly doubt that last one considering that Bethesda makes most of its money off of console game sales. But it would still be a lucrative venture. As long as it was GOOD they could make a killing on it, especially after the success of Fallout 3 and then Obsidian's success with FNV, as buggy as it was.

What do you think? What are your projections and what's your interpretation of the consequences of this settlement? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.

I'm starting to feel like this and I really shouldn't...

It's too early in the semester for me to start feeling like this:

Unfortunately, after a great night of sleep and waking up this morning to buy an $80 textbook, I am starting to not give a fuck about my scholarly duties. 

Don't even get me started on work:

I know it's wrong, but I'm exhausted. I just want to hang out and do nothing for a while. Why is it that when I do have something to do I end up complaining about it and vise verse?

The Standards! There are too many!

I recently started back at the iSchool for my second semester of grad school. One down, two to go! Woot!

Anyway, I am taking a class on cataloging this semester, which is considered the "Holy Grail" of the Library and Information Science world. The inner workings of a library tends to revolve around cataloging books and items to be added to the library's collection. But what is most annoying about cataloging just happens to be the "standards." It goes something like this:

I'm sure that this applies to all fields of science, but this seems to be especially true in the Library and Information Science world. Just this morning, I was reading about a relatively new standard called "FRBR" or Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records, which seeks to make the rules for using certain terms in cataloging more concrete. I thought that they were concrete the way they were. 

And with every new standard comes confusion and arguments within the community. For example, we have been switching from AACR to AACR2, and now I hear that they are working on AACR3? I dunno, it seems like a huge rumor that may not even be true, but seriously? Why do we need so many standards? And then there's MARC. I hate MARC records because they are so arbitrary and difficult to read. I have to admit that it is helpful to learn out to read them but still... do we really need another standard for cataloging? 

So step back FRBR backers! Also STFU and GTFO because I am sick of all of these standards. Also, it makes library school a whole lot harder so STFU and GTFO and keep your new "standards" to yourself.

Communist Art?

When I was in high school I was an exchange student in Germany for three and a half weeks. The area that I was sent to was part of the old East Block. During the time I was there I was horribly homesick and I felt like no one could understand what I was going through. I experienced terrible culture shock that only my move to Pittsburgh has been able to rival since. I was sixteen and in a country that was completely and utterly alien to me. It all seemed culturally backwards to me. There is only so much that high school German can prepare or NOT prepare you for.

But what I now wish I had paid attention to was the Communist art that I saw there. I want to go back to that I can contemplate them more deeply.

The purpose of Communist displays of art is to motivate the people, however, the images portrayed are usually of strong societies where people are working happily and have plenty to eat. These are often complete and utter lies.

I like Communist art for its irony.

Honestly I've been doing a lot of thinking about oppressive totalitarian regimes lately with the death of Kim Jong Il. I was hoping that things would start to change in that country with the move of power to his son, Kim Jong Un, but unfortunately, it seems that things will be staying the same for a while. I may not see the end of totalitarianism in North Korea in my lifetime and this worries me.