After just placing my pre-order for Mass Effect 2 on Amazon.com, I scanned the headlines of my personal favorite internet news site Digg and my eyes caught the headline: “Youtube will start charging for videos”, and I was instantly distraught. Here’s one more internet mogul,I thought as the headline ruptured the part of my brain that keeps my Hulk cells stable, trying to pick up a few bucks by charging its gigantic user-base a fee to use content that they’ve become addicted to while it was offered for free.
Basically, its like crack dealers giving everyone in the world free crack for 3 years and then as soon as year 4 rolls around they start charging for the crack, knowing that people will pay for it.
As concepts of Youtube boycotts formulated in my head the page loaded and I began to read the article.
Turns out Youtube isnt planning on charging users for it’s already free content, instead Youtube will begin hosting independent films (aka “Indies”) on their site and charge users a fee to view them.
Now THIS, is a step in the right direction.
Forever Indie directors have struggled to get their works noticed with their very small wallet to use on publicity. Now with the aid of YouTube’s seemingly endless amount of viewers, Indie directors can cheaply (how much does it cost to upload one movie one time?) distribute their work worldwide.
Youtube is claiming that each movie will be available for around $5.
This is a great idea, and I plan on using this service frequently.
Hopefully Youtube keeps the system fair and honest and doesn’t try to rip-off the artists in anyway because this could bring in an entirely new demographic for Youtube to advertise to.
Here’s a link to the article – “Youtube will start charging for videos”
Also, don’t forget to check out www.digg.com daily for the latest in all popular news articles. Sign up to be able to “digg” your favorite articles, and then add me, tmaniac, and see what articles I’ve dugg.
Last but not least, the final trailer preceding the Mass Effect 2 release (Seriously, it’s better then most movie trailers):
That last link contains Conan’s official statement. The humorous comedian does not let even a grave predicament like this one damage his strong sense of humor as Conan opens the letter with, “People of Earth:” and signs off “Have a great day and, for the record, I am truly sorry about my hair; it’s always been that way.”
Jay Leno has lost ALL of my respect. There really isn’t anything I can think of saying here about him that wouldn’t have me sounding like an angry 14 year old who likes to cuss, so I’ll just say: Jay Leno is a jackass for making a move like this. He needs to retire, and play with his cars, and keep his chin out of everyone else’s business.
To whatever network picks up Conan O’Brien: I will watch.
As tradition for the past 3 years, I am starting this year’s postings off by going back over the year and giving a quick update to set the time frame so in 20 years when I’m at my dead-end job I’ll have something to laugh at.
The past two years entries are, “Unclench your fist and extend a hand” and “5 Days of Freedom”, go check them out first, I think its funny and interesting to see how much things have changed in 3 years.
Economic/Political: The war in Iraq is still going down. Obama’s been in office for a year and as far as I’ve heard nothing has been set in motion to end that conflict anytime soon. Slightly disappointed in that. The Economy still is pretty bad, started seeing a few restaurants and stores close around here, though nothing too bad. It takes about 55 bucks to fill up my truck now. Many places are starting to hop onto the “go-green” bandwagon, it’s about time. Global Warming has been overlooked this year mostly due to the ridiculous “Swine Flu” terror that swept the nation last spring and summer. People and the media went crazy about it, and nothing happened. Thanks for raising everyone’s blood pressure Fox News.
Entertainment: Avatar just came out in theaters last month, that movie will echo on longer then this text will, mark my words, Avatar will be a classic. Its combination of story telling, characters, and audience immersion technology will forever alter how movies are made. Michael Jackson died this year, I’m not really sure what killed the King of Pop. Currently my local theater is playing: “It’s Complicated” “Alvin and the Chipmunks 2″ “Sherlock Holmes” “Avatar” “Did you hear about the Morgans?” “The Princess and the Frog” and “The Blind Side.”
All right, that about sums things up. As for me I am sitting here typing this in my room on my Dell computer, AIM is running and I’m not talking to anyone at the moment. My Xbox is on behind me, beeping to let me know my friends want to play Call of Duty with me.
Last year I said, “…my new years resolution has been to give up soda and fast food, and I’ve not caved in yet, wonder if I’ll be able to say I’ve not had either in the next one of these.” I lasted to mid-May with the soda, you see Mountain Dew released a “World of Warcraft” orange Mountain Dew…Orange Citrus and Cherry goodness. Well, that broke me as far as soda goes. As for fast food, …I did it!! I went an entire year without stopping at a single fast food place. I dropped fast food December 22nd 2008, I rewarded myself on December 28th with a Whopper and Fries (no soda.)
So, now I’m fast food free as of December 28th 2009. However, I’ve successfully killed the cravings that used to come with seeing any fast food logo, so I might drop the ban as long as I keep my consistent exercise routine up (this years resolution.)
I’m reading a book called “Splinter Cell: Conviction” a Tom Clancy book based on the video game. I love the entire series, games included.
I think im going to play Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 now.
“Epic!” – A great looking game. “Cool.” – Solid mechanics and physics. “Eeh…” – Repetitive missions. “…Bleh…” – Headache inducing cameras.
Sometimes on my way home from work at night when there are no cars on the road with me, I like to pretend that I’m the only person left in the world after a zombie apocalypse, I try to imagine what it would be like to know that right over the next hill a swarm of the undead could be waiting for my headlights to awaken their primitive minds with the promise of fresh brains behind the wheel. I pretend that I’ve got machine-guns and rocket-launchers rigged onto my truck, and a simple button on my steering wheel will set off the turbo-boosters allowing me to accelerate ridiculously fast and easily ramp off the hill and soar over the zombie fiends.
That’s normal to think about while your driving, right? Right??
The folks at EXOR Studios took all of the above and produced Zombie Driver, a game in which you control a vehicle of your choosing and go around rescuing survivors of a zombie apocalypse that are stranded throughout the city.
Just seeing that the game was called Zombie Driver had me expecting very little from the game. I really thought I was going to get three basic things from the game: 1.) Fast cars 2.) Running over Zombies 3.) Weapons for my fast cars.
Check, check, and check. But wait, there’s more.
Not only do you get fast cars, you get environmentally invincible cars. That means that you can be going 100 mph and slam straight into a wall and take no damage. Of course the zombies will beat the bejesus out of your car if they get a hold of it, but this removes the added stress that would undoubtedly come from trying to obey traffic laws, thus increasing the arcade-y feel of the game by a lot.
If you take the time to slow down enough to look around you will see nothing but great looking environments, the graphics in Zombie Driver are surprisingly well done for such a simple game. It seems a shame that because there is no need to slow down, except the few times when you are picking up the stragglers, the only time you see the scenery is when it’s a blurry streak passing you by at 85 mph.
Speaking of blurry, if you get the slightest bit of motion sickness from anything, Zombie Driver is not for you. There is something about the movement of the camera that was just giving me a headache, and I never get motion sick from anything. I could only really play Zombie Driver for about 20 minutes at a time with a short break in between to avoid getting too dizzy. Perhaps a top down camera angle wasn’t the best choice, it seemed too…claustrophobic. Like, I couldn’t really see past the edge of my screen, and in a city full of zombies I think seeing where you are heading is a pretty important thing.
If you are expecting me to go deep into the story of the game, well I’m going to disappoint you, not because I like to disappoint you, but because there really isn’t a story. There is a bit of narrative during the loading screen to each level, which makes it seem like some sort of story was attempted, but it just kinda got old reading the same sort of “go rescue these people” message between each level. I stopped reading the briefings after the third level. The developers might have just been better off sticking with a “just rescue the people at each level” overall message, then try to correlate it all into some sort of plot.
Zombie Driver is a straightforward vehicle based zombie-slaying arcade game. If you think running over zombies with a limousine and a flamethrower attached to the top of your limo sounds like fun, well then head on over to: The Zombie Driver STEAM download page and download it! It’s only ten bucks, too!
Final Grade: C+
PS: While writing this article I came across a video of a “Darkness Mod” for Zombie Driver, it makes the game happen at night and the only lights are coming from your car’s headlights and wherever there is a fire burning. It looks really impressive and adds a whole new feel to the game.
*According to new blogging regulations I must tell you that the kind folks at EXOR Studios provided me with a copy of Zombie Driver which I based my review upon.*
A National Geographic photographer traveled to Antarctica to photograph some Leopard Seals. On the expedition he ran into what his Canadian guide could best summarize as “Bloody hell, that’s the biggest seal I’ve ever seen! Time to get to the water, ehy?”
About as often as a UFO is seen over somewhere in Mexico there is a video game commercial being broadcast that really makes me want to give up playing video games. The reason being: I see these commercials and I’m not a fool, I know enough about advertising to see what kind of demographic something is being marketed to. So when I see some flashy background pulled right from a Fox News segment and some guy with an unnaturally gravely voice starts telling me what’s so good about the game being plastered onto my television screen…it’s kinda of embarrassing.
But, then there are those those few commercials for video games that are just so good they could pass for movie trailers. Commercials like the widely popular Halo – ODST trailer or the intense Resident Evil 5 trailer. Last night I saw a trailer for Assassins Creed that really impressed me.
The commercial shows the faces, notably the eyes, of people frozen in shock. Then it cuts to one familiar face that then blends into game footage, revealing those people with the looks of horror frozen across their faces were the victims of Enzio, the protagonist in Assassins Creed 2.
Epicly cool trailer.
