TimeSplitters and Halo 2 are different types of Multiplayer.

May 3rd, 2005 | by Lothar

TimeSplitters is about fast trigger fingers and frantic action, and that is it. Halo 2 meanwhile, requires some amount to skill, you need to be accurate with your shots, know how to use the melee attacks, throw the (newly upgraded) grenandes and so on. Unless your playing Slayer on a small map, THEN it’s about frantic action :P.
So basically, you just suck at Halo 2. *Looks at a game where he got 80 kills out of 173 on team slayer*.

Also, TimeSplitters 3 is SHIT over Xbox Live, not because of the actual game, but because EA’s servers are putrid piles of Fernexian shite. You can go to Gamestyle.net to read my review of TimeSplitters 3 (or click here to go directly to it). I gave the game seven out of ten (well above average, remeber 5 out of 10 is average, fucking UK gaming mags acting like 7 is, wankers ¬.¬). It had a few flaws like ZERO enemy A.I in the single player story, but a decent game altogether. If the online multiplayer WORKED, it could have easily gotten an 8, maybe even a 9.

So in closing, Halo 2 multiplayer good, TimeSplitters multiplayer good (better if it would work over the net), Virus sucks at Halo 2.

Lothar

Guest Comic: Scott Vanderlinde – …WHO Is Supposed To Be Inside, Bedemere?

May 3rd, 2005 | by Virus

Eh, schedule swap. Guest comic today, my comic on Friday. I spent all day (fucking around instead of) working on assignments, but I have no Thursday night class this week, so I’ll take the Friday slot instead of scratching futilely at it tonight. Guest comic by Scott Vanderlinde. Um, if he has a link, I don’t know it, Lothar might be able to provide one. Thanks Scott, great comic! By the way, we still wouldn’t mind taking some more guest comics if anybody else feels so inclined. Details.

And now, my short review of Halo 2 multiplayer, which I played a little bit of at the weekend:

Quoted during play: ‘When does this game get good? What button do I press to turn it into Timesplitters?’

The end. Haha.

Virus

Guest Comic: Steven Szcytko – Nectar Of The Gods

April 29th, 2005 | by Lothar

Today’s Guest Comic is by Stevan Szczytko of Inky Blob Comics

Also, new regarding Silv. His scanner is fixed but he’s still busy with Uni work, so he still won’t be making comics for another few weeks. Again, sorry about no uploading any fanart for ages, I’ll get round to it eventually.

OK, I really, really do not get the show “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy”.

Actually, no, I get the shows premise. Get 5 overly gay blokes to make a heterosexual bloke more “attractive” by buying them expensive clothes and tidying up their homes. That I get. What I don’t get is how anybody thinks homosexual males are experts on picking up WOMEN.

Don’t get me wrong, this is nothing against gay people, but they know how to attract other gay people, not members of the opposite sex. And lets be honest here, the people they get on Queer Eye are just stereotypical gay bitches that we see on crappy sitcoms like Will and Grace (fucking hate that show). “NO DON’T WEAR THOSE TROUSERS, BAD MAN, VERY VERY BAD!” Jesus fucking CHRIST I’m surprised nobody has punched the little drama queens yet.

Also, I fail to see how dressing someone up in new clothes makes them more attractive. They’re still the same slobby git they always were, now they’re just a slobby git in a £200 shirt. Also WHO THE FUCK PAYS THAT MUCH FOR ONE ITEM OF CLOTHING? JESUS PEOPLE, IF YOU PAY MORE THAN £20 ON A PAIR OF JEANS YOU DESERVE TO BE SHOT RIGHT IN YOUR OVER INFLANTED AIR FILLED HEAD! I mean really, what’s the difference between a pair of Levis and some other no name brand? Oh that’s right, some ego-loaded shit licker along the line decided just up and decided one day that Levis were better than every other jean on the market and started charging stupid money for them. And amazingly, it worked! Fucking morons started buying Levis like they were sugar coated crack! Just because some wanker decided they were better. Honestly people, expensive clothes don’t make you a better person, they just mean you have more money than brain cells.

Also, then there’s the shit like getting the guys pedicures and hair cuts. How long before you think the guys stop going to the salon to get his nails done. How about right after the fucking show has finished. Same for the new hair cut. I doubt many of the men will continue to get the hair cut that way for much longer after it grows back. Especially considering the prices of some of those places, again if any of you men out there pay more than £7 for a haircut, please jump off the nearest tall building.

It also pretty damn undignified having 5 people just change your lifestyle for the sake of television. But for fucks sake man! Show some balls! You say you’re enjoyinh the new “you”, but in reality, you’re testicles are shrinking every second you’re on camera. You don’t have to justify yourself the pricks, you only have to justify yourself to yourself. Sometimes change is good, but there’s a difference between tidying yourself up and having 5 opinionated bitches change your entire lifestyle. Perhaps it doesn’t help that this is all arranged by other people for your “benefit”. personally if someone I knew did this to me, I’d start describing that person as a small rodent who feeds of the filth left by other, bigger rodents, who then proceed to defecate on you. But with more swearing.

Lothar

#096 – Ancient Multi-Purpose Items Rock!

April 26th, 2005 | by Lothar

This one was mostly written by Virus, but I thought it lacked some humour, so I helped improve it.

East suggested I talk about the new LEGO: Star Wars game (which is fun, if daft, but fun) but I really can’t think of anything to talk about at the moment, I’ll upload something later on today about it.

See you then.

Edit: Ok I’m back with something.

Like I said, I’ve been playing LEGO: Star Wars recently and it got me thinking about a specific part of Episode II: Attack of the Clones. Specifically the part where nobody says anything when Chancellor Palpatine decides to use the clone army against the Separatist forces.

In the first half of the movie, Obi-Wan Kenobi finds that a clone army is being made for the Republic without anyone knowing about it, he tells the Jedi Council and they tell the Republic Senate. Everyone is obvious rather concerned about this, but then they have to start worrying about the massive droid army that the Separatists are building. So suddenly, Palpatine says “Hang on, we’ve got this massive clone army, why don’t we use those?” In the film he gets some emergency powers so he can do pretty much whatever the fuck he wants and nobody in the senate can do anything about it. But not one person went “Weren’t we pissing ourselves because of this five minutes ago?” And the Jedi, being the wet blankets they are just said “OK we’ll lead these guys into battle, it doesn’t matter that we have no idea who made them or why they happen to be conveniently ready JUST as we’re about to go to war, we’ll worry about that later.” This cost them dearly in the end as they all die. Serves them right, fucking morons.

Personally I think it’s because of Mace Windu (Samuel L. Jackson) or as I like to call him “Jedi Master Jules”. He probably beat the crap out of everyone who argued with him, while swearing, a lot. “YOU DO NOT FUCK WITH CHANCELLOR PALPATINE! THE ONLY ONE WHO FUCKS WITH CHANCELLOR PALPATINE IS MRS PALPATINE!” He may or may not have had an afro and moustache during this speech.

Lothar

Guest Comic: Mysia Ri Proves That Some Animals Are Just Plain Scary

April 22nd, 2005 | by Lothar

Today’s guest comic is by Mysia Ri of our forums, who did not provide a web address to link too.

Also, if you have created fan art for us within the last 2 months, I’m sorry that I haven’t put it up yet, I’ve either lost it or just plain forgotten. Send any fan art to lotharhex[at]gmail.com and I’ll try and get it up within the next week.

And now, onto (I never knew if that was one word or two) the rant. A month or so ago the spin-off to the “celebrated” sitcom “Friends” started showing here in the UK. “Joey” starring Matt Le Blanc in the role that he will play until he kills himself, Joey.

Now I didn’t like Friends that much, as everyone liked each other too much, and a lot of the jokes just weren’t funny. The only times that I have ever laughed while watching Friends are the scenes where it was just Joey and Chandler (Matthew Perry). Now Chandler I liked because he was a sarcastic wanker, but even then he’s far too damn cheerful and could be very overdramatic. Joey was there for the simple “I’m an idiot” jokes, but had a clever moment every now and then. However, most of the jokes revolved around Joey doing something stupid, Chandler freaking out about it, them arguing, and then making up ten minutes later. That gets old after a while, but still considering they only used to take up maybe 7 minutes of the show maximum, it was spread out enough to at least get a smile.

“Joey” is basically the same as friends, but no other characters to distract from the fact that Joey is an extremely one dimensional character with only 2 things about him. He’s stupid, and horny. That’s Joey, and EVERY SINGLE FUCKING JOKE in the show revolves around Joey being stupid and horny. This is a 22 minute show where all the jokes are about Joey having sex and doing stupid things. IT JUST ISN’T FUNNY! When will American TV networks learn that doing the same fucking joke all the damn time does not make a show funny. In Seinfeld “What is the deal with…” and the fact all the characters were neurotic. Will and Grace was always “OMG HE’S OVERLY HOMOSEXUAL! AND SHE’S STRAIGHT! HOW WACKY!” Home Improvement? “Hey look I made a bench! *NUCLEAR EXPLOSION*”. This is not to say that running gags aren’t good, but there’s a point where a running gag stops being a running gag and starts become the entire premise behind a show. In Red Dwarf (the best comedy ever) they had a couple of simple running gags, my favourite being the “Space Core Directive” arguments between Kryten and Rimmer, but even then the show was pretty hard to predict. Though to be fair, being British (a.k.a. well-written, until halfway through season 7 anyway) and being set in a sci-fi universe did allow it to get away with a bit more.

The ONLY American sitcom have ever liked is Frasier, why? Because it’s bloody well written. though it had its fair share of repetitive jokes but it wasn’t always Niles and Frasier trying to one up each other. Plus it could also draw on the series “Cheers” of which it was a spin-off. Cheers I enjoy, but probably more because of nostalgia than the show’s actual quality.

Going back to Joey, it must suck to be Matt Le Blanc. Ironically his most lucrative and popular character is what’s going to stop him getting better roles. I remember going to see the film remake of “Lost In Space” when it came out at the cinema. And Matt Le Blanc could not pull off the character he played in that. After seeing him play Joey for 3-4 years in Friends at, it was hard to imagine him as a tough-as-nails space marine, or whatever the fuck he was. Though to be fair the entire film was a piece of shit, so that didn’t help. Now he’s back playing the same character again, but with no other “decent” characters to fill up the show and stop people realising his character only has two components to his personality (stupid and horny). I think Joey has now been cancelled, so now Matt Le Blanc has lost his most well known character. And because he’s been playing him so long, he won’t be able to get any other cos he can’t do any other roles. A bit sad really.

Also, Charlie Sheen’s newest sitcom started playing over here the same time as “Joey”. WILL PEOPLE STOP GIVING HIM WORK? CHARLIE SHEEN IS SHIT! HE’S ABOUT AS FUNNY AS MY LEFT TESTICLE! Though my right testicle is absolutely hilarious, it told this great knock knock joke yesterday.

Lothar

#095 – I’d Say That’s A Good Choice

April 19th, 2005 | by Virus

I see no bugger’s left a newspost again. They’re all fired. Let us see where my disjointed string of consciousness takes us this night, shall we?

Teh comic above for your perusal. Yay, Toaster. And ha, pink robe. Silversword wrote (most of) this’n. Silv, who is still an Unscannable. I hear that scanners break down if he so much as looks at them. And they spontaneously explode in a deadly hail of glass shrapnel when he touches them, apparently.

So the Powerpuff Girls are Sailor Moon or someshit now. Do they have to be? I think I liked em better when they were only a pastiche of anime. Now they’re gonna be all shouting out attack moves as a psychedelic piece of stock footage kicks in. And let’s have a sarcastically insincere ‘Hooray’ for gimmicky yo-yos, mallets, and bubble wands. Powerpuff Girls are teh win, FYI, but magical girl anime… is not.

Speaking of annoying anime, I caught a couple episodes of One Piece, which just started showing on Toonami here. They all have really big mouths. And really irritating voices. Geeks complain about dubbed anime a lot, but this time it’s like they went out of their way to make the voices as grating as possible. They left that pink haired kid behind now. Thank gods for that. Now I wonder if they can dump Luffy somewhere too. ‘Gum Gum Punch!’ ‘Gum Gum Rocket!’ ‘Go Go Gadget Helicopter!’ Just stop it.

What kinda name is ‘Monkey’ anyway? Who names their kid ‘Monkey’?

This has been a short and uneventful sleep-deprived ramble by The Virus.

Virus

Use the Toilet, Luke!

April 19th, 2005 | by Lothar

Well I did have a short rant Virus, but I forgot to type the bugger up before I went to bed.

I recently purchased Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords (Why dogames have to have so many subtitles/subheadings?) and I completed it on with the Dark Side ending. While playing it East noted that apart of it is set in an underground lair of one of the last Jedi, which is in an undergroubnd water treatment facility, yet there were no toilets. I took this one step further and releaised that in the Star Wars Universe, TOILETS DO NOT EXIST!

Think about it, in any Star Wars related media, a character has NEVER needed to use the toilet, EVER. All the movies, comics, books, games etc. were minus toilets, or toilets even being mentioned. This I find disturbing. People still eat and drink in the movies, so obviously they need to dispose of the waste after they’ve digested, so where the fuck does it all go?

Then I thought about Midochlorians, the tiny creatures that make up the force (hears hundrerds of Star Wars geeks cry out), and the reason why toilets don’t exist presented itself. Midochlorians feed on shit and urine. Think about it, no toilets, so these people HAVE to go somewhere, so after taking a dump/piss in the street, the Midochlorians immediately eat it. Jedi and Sith have a more private system, allowing the Midochlorians to live up their arses and feed on the shit and urine before it leaves their body.

I can’t be bothered going on about this anymore, as I’ve just woken up. Later.

Lothar

Perfectly Chaotic has moved

April 15th, 2005 | by Virus

Oh buggery, I had an empty newspost all to myself on Tuesday, and I forgot to mention this. Now I’m hiding under Harry’s big ol’ post.

Anyway, I don’t suppose it matters a great deal, since I never update the damnable thing… But my art site has moved. The old Homestead url no longer works, and now it’s located at the much snappier PerfectlyChaotic.com. Wooties, I have a proper domain. It’s all professional-soundin. Now alls I need is to redesign the site from it’s current three-year-old and decidedly un-professional crapitude.

Virus

Filler: “No Sir, I Didn’t See You Playing With Your Toys Again!”

April 15th, 2005 | by Eastwood

Yeah, I suck. But it was thrown together in five minutes. My desk has gotten tidier since when I took that, though.

And now, because nobody demanded it and I needed an update, my short review of KOTOR 2. With pictures! Oooh! Aaah!

This is just a brief, capsule review, so bear with me. Also, there are spoilers. But to begin with, I play Light Side because I prefer to roleplay and actually get a feel for a game, compared to the Dark Side approach of killing things and being an arse.

The good of this game? The cast, as a whole, are far more interesting than the last lot. Atton is a lot more likeable than Carth and has the advantage of being force-sensitive, and the “Moody Jedi Bitch” role is filled by both Kriea and the Handmaiden (Until she gets to know you). HK-47 is back and tends to talk back and make sarcastic comments a lot more often compared to the first game. T3-M4 actually has some uses and can kick serious arse (He takes down three Hk-50 units solo). Mira is pretty fun to use (What with having a portable rocket launcher) and is double the fun since she can be trained as a Jedi. The only characters I didn’t like that much were Bao-Dur (Who I never really got to know) and Visas (Who was a dull, dull character). G0-T0 wasn’t a bad character per-se, he was just very irritating.
Since I was a light-sider, I managed to get both the Handmaiden and Mira trained as jedi, and proceeded to apply whup-ass in large amounts. People may go on about how hard the End Game segments are, but I proceeded to kill everything horribly. Three level 20+ Jedi with Force Lighting/Storm and Master Heal tend to make a mess of everything, and to be honest, if they had been with me in Trayus Academy it would have been almost laughably easy. Due to a rather amusing glitch that allows me to max-out my level, I may go through again and try my luck at level 50. :D

The plot is nice, too. The Exile’s story is slightly more plausible than that of Revans, and the nods and links to the end of Knights of the Old Republic are enough to give the story coherence. You do see Bastilla, and Carth, and Jolee has a few items name after him (And a great piece of dialogue – Talk to the Handmaiden about love, you’ll see). Canderous shows up for the party, and the droids are back. The only ones who aren’t referenced are Mission, Zalbar and Juhani, but a lot of people won’t care as aside from T3-M4 they are perhaps the most disliked characters in the game. ‘specially Zalbaar, stupid wookie.
The basic gist is after the Mandalorian Wars (Which Revan had finished pre-KOTOR), after the horrific final battle of Malachor V, the sheer amount of death and carnage wreaked cut you from the Force. As the sole Jedi survivor (The other Force users had turned to the Dark Side), you stood before the Council who sentenced you to exile, which you accepted. Now you’ve returned to reconnect yourself with the Force, understand why the Council really exiled you and to stop the rising Sith threat. By the application of whup-ass, Dominate Mind, a few credits here and there and a slave bikini from ROTJ (Woohoo!), you accomplish all these, as well as make yourself money, visit interesting places and influence people. And occasionally kill people in interesting ways.

The game tends to focus a lot more on the action and the main quest rather than side-quests like the last game, since the main side quests (The casts backstories) have been removed in favour of the Influence system. You say/do things a character likes, you gain influence. More influence you have, the further you can delve into a characters past. In the cases of Atton, the Disciple, the Haindmaiden and Mira, you can train them as Jedi if you have enough influence. Oh, and Bao-Dur too. Whilst it makes it harder, it does encourage a second run through to get to know your party better.

The problems? It’s not hard. I never died once throughout the whole game, and never lost a character (Except once, on Telos). Even the final “area” (Trayus Academy) is a walk in the park compared to the absolutely horrendous Star Forge in the first game. I will admit Darth Trayus is a bit tough, but no more than Malak was. The only difficult bits is knowing how to gain Influence with the rest of the cast. Know that, and if you play your cards right you can get a pair of jedi early on (Kriea doesn’t count, she has one hand). Get three Jedi, and there’ll be nothing in this game that can stop you.

The game is also filled with glitches, bugs and errors. So was the first to be fair, but this even more so. This is really not the devs fault, more the fault of LucasArt for rushing them. Since they were rushed, they left out a sizeable chunk of the game (The HK-50 “factory”) and with it, some hilarious scenes involving HK-47 playing interrogator (“Command : You will talk!”). This is really disapointing, as it would have led to more HK-47 based hilarity, but odds are it’ll never see the light of day now.

The final problems? The length. It’s short. Perhaps shorter than the first, perhaps because the final planet isn’t from Hell like the Star Forge. But the lack of side quests, the ease in which most enemies are killed (Trayus is the only enemy in the game that is difficult. Sion was tough, and so was Nihillius, but they’re very beatable) and the sad fact the only really difficult area was when you find the Secret Tomb, as when you’re Light Side your force points don’t regenerate and some of the battles are against large numbers of opponents, does make the game feel slightly rushed.
Something I did notice, that few worlds (Telos and maybe Nar Shadda) are as long as the counterparts in KOTOR 1. They seem to be about half to two-thirds the length. This is, of course, a bad thing.

The ending is a bit depressing as well, but if you’ve played through the game you’ll understand why it goes that way. What made it worse is apparently a substantial chunk was axed (Apparently a scene involving Mira, Atton, the Haindmaiden or Disciple and Visas going up against Darth Trayus only to have the snot beaten out of them) which does detract from the ending overall. Though I must admit, flying off into the unknown whilst Malachor V self-destructs has a certain style.

Overall? A good game. One on the level of Knights of the Old Republic, certainly, and in some ways is ahead of it’s predecessor. But if more time was taken, then perhaps the game would truly outrank its forerunner.

Eastwood

#094 – Pizza Topping Of The Heretic

April 12th, 2005 | by Virus

Wheej, it’s a comic.

Grim Darkness continuity info – Tyrus = God of law and order, Ahriman = God of wisdom and learning, Saint Arioch = I dunno, random saint.

And now, unconsciousness.

Virus