Fuck This New Generation of Gaming

Fuck this new generation of gaming and all the fools who defend it as something worthwhile. Why are people stupid enough to continue pre-ordering games that will almost certainly be fuckin broken on release? Why are people hell bent on making these new consoles out to be so much better than the steaming piles of shit they are? I've actually had a staff member on x360a openly tell the forum members they should add me to ignore because I'm bitching about XB1 too much...in "the official bitching thread" for XB1! If you go against these fanboys, it's like you're speaking in tongues. You might as well be standing in a church on Sunday morning trying to talk people out of that religion bullshit. See my other blog for more on religion. On to the subject at hand...

It started with PS4, didn't it? Then MS rushed the new Xbox, announced a bunch of excessive DRM and TV features, and were promptly told to fuck off by all the real gamers out there. However, the same stupid fucks were still in charge and had a fancy UI designed based on the plan of ramming Kinect down everyone's throats, and just expecting gamers to just sit back and eat it. Again, they were proven wrong. What are we left with? Nearly every game that releases has some kind of issues and ridiculously huge day one patches, essentially making the discs worthless to collectors who actually intend to play them 20 or so years down the road and forcing people to connect online as the DRM would have anyway. Well played, assholes.

That wasn't bad enough though. They put all the money into the bullshit Kinect hardware and couldn't even put halfway current tech in the box itself. Hell, they made the thing the size of a VCR (again) and STILL couldn't put the power supply inside, something Sony has been doing successfully for 4 fucking generations now. All anyone cares about these days is "oooh pretty graphics!" No concern for the fact that the shit planning, obsolete storage tech, and poor software devlopement makes everything just as slow as last gen. Arguably, it's slower, since blu-ray causes every disc to require full install. Flash media is cheap enough. Why not put the games on flash memory similar to the way cartridges used ROM back in the day? Funny thing is Sony is likely profiting somehow from MS using BD tech. Ok, so we need to install the games. Fine, but giving everyone an internal drive that they can fill up with like 10 games, plus it's slow as all hell because they couldn't even be bothered to use an SATA3 chip on the goddamn motherboard!?!? In case you missed it, SATA2 was new tech around the time 360 was fucking new. It's horribly obsolete, and 5400RPM drives have been around even longer. Those drives need to fucking disappear. It's sickening that anyone still chooses them over the 7200RPM that's been standard for 10-15 years or faster tech. Where were we? Oh, yes. Games are still slow. Even using a good USB 3.0 drive doesn't always help. USB also requires extra CPU overhead that SATA doesn't, from what I recall. I remember reading some speed comparisons a while back showing some games benefit from faster storage and some really don't, proving the developers are still at fault as well.

The developers fail at every turn lately and everyone wants to forgive them and just patiently wait for patches to shit that used to work properly on day fucking one 99% of the time. You don't buy a car and wait a month for some dude to come and update your radio so you can use it. Why accept a game that only partially works? Even when they fix things the updates this gen are ridiculously huge. Are they not compressing anything!?!? Don't say it's about the graphics resolution. First, title updates are supposed to fix bugs in the program code, not add new videos and hi-res fucking textures. Second, Even if you're not a programmer/techie, you have to see that games going from being 4GB-8GB for 720P on Xbox360 to 25-60GB for 900-1080P on XB1 is FUCKING INSANE! The updates for XB1 games are bigger than entire 360 games for fuck sake. Not everyone has FIOS to get them done in 5 fucking minutes. I live on a 150 acre farm out in the country and the only thing available is DSL, and I spent 11 years stuck with dialup before that was even made available. I have a bulging disc in my neck along with back problems. I shouldn't have to move to get decent internet, but this is the world we live in. Back on topic...

Why isn't there more outrage over backward compatibility either? All those Xbox Live Arcade games people paid for and you can't bring them to XB1. What's the real reason behind that? The non-tech savvy folks may not realize this, but Microsoft is playing fucking games here. The original Xbox (where Halo and many MS fanboys started) was built with an x86 processor. That's a PC processor. The Xbox360 has a PowerPC processor. Those are Mac processors. Think about that for a minute. MS built a game console with the same type of processor Apple puts in Mac computers. Now where did XB1 go? Back to a fucking PC processor (x86)!!!! Therein lies the biggest issue with backward compatibility. They were able to make some original Xbox games work on 360 because the 360 was actually a substantial enough upgrade over the original to handle the extra emulation required to run the old games. So essentially, MS not only built a weak ass box, they also switched CPU architecture to fuck us a little harder.

What they should've have done was build a new console on the same architecture that could handle 1080P at 60FPS solid as shit, load everything faster (making full installs actually worth doing in comparison to last gen), and still run the old games. Plus, give us dedicated fucking servers for all online gameplay, and controllers that won't wear out so goddamn easily. Why throw away everything about 360 that worked? It took them a year and a half to add voice messages to fucking XB1! I wasn't a fan of voice messages to begin with, since 98% of them are stupid fucks sending clan invites, but the point remains. They spent all those years honing the 360 dashboard to lets say a 9.5/10 then piss all over us with this joke of a new console and new UI. So we're supposed to wait 5 years or more for them to make it good again? Get fucking real.

Plus, we still get stick drift and lame controller issues. They dumped all their time and resources into Kinect and DRM shit and failed to make solid controllers with good components, so we have the same problems we did on 360 instead of actually improving things. Oh, the idiots redesigned the standard mic for no reason and made a fancy proprietary plug though! The 360 started out with unique mic jacks, then abandoned them for standard plugs.  Now they go back to weird proprietary shit? WHY? What was the point of spending time and money redesigning that shit? The default 360 headset was fine, but the XB1 one sucks horribly. All I ever wanted for with a 360 headset was a wireless one EXACTLY the same as the wired one but with no wire. I hate those stupid little bluetooth earpieces.

PS4 fails too, but not as hard. Where do I even begin? Well, I'll give Sony props for keeping the PS3 UI and just updating it instead of completely fucking it up like MS. The only other thing I can praise is Earth Defense Force 4.1. It loads missions almost instantly and handles tons of action on screen while keeping the frame rate smooth as hell. Looks pretty good too, IMO. Now the bad. Why the fuck are there still no USB ports on the back of the unit!? And why are the ones in front right against the goddamn optical drive!? Certain USB sticks could block discs. Hell, the way the shell is formed, my Patriot USB stick wouldn't even plug the fuck in. Nice job, idiots. And what the blue fuck is this trophy syncing bullshit every time you go to view them!? They don't update to the online servers unless you go view your trophies to make them sync? That's a level a fail I didn't even think was possible. It's actually worse than XB1 only popping achievements online. At least trophies fucking pop though. I've heard other games still have shit load times. The HDD is the same 5400RPM junk that's in XB1 and probably plugged into a fucking obsolete SATA2 chip. The controllers still suck, still have bullshit built in batteries, and they changed the type of USB plug on them from what PS3 controllers used. $60 for a fucking controller and you don't even get a cable with it. Then they refuse to offer a cheaper wired model without batteries and fucking bluetooth. Fuck the touch pad and bullshit light bar too. You really can't turn off that battery draining shit!? The mic included is also ridiculously cheap and garbage. It looks like the one that came with my LG flip phone about 12 years back. Way to go Sony. Ram wireless controllers down everyone's throats, but don't include a wireless mic, you cheap fucks. At least the console is flat so you can set other consoles on top of it. The PS3 designs were fuckin stupid.

What about PC gaming? Let's see. Half the games now are being ported from console and don't run any goddamn better. I definitely saw some nasty shit about Dead Rising 3 when it released on PC. I gave up on PC gaming around the time Halo 2 released on PC. This was partly due to taking a liking to achievements on 360 when Halo 3 finally released, and partly due to being completely fed up with Windows, DirectX, and Microsoft's stupid shit. When Halo 2 was released, it was one of the first games to pull that "Vista Only" shit. The hacking scene told MS to fuck off and made Halo 2 run on Windows XP anyway. Alas, PC gaming still sucks. Linux support is growing, hopefully more so with the Steam OS and Steam Machines coming. The developers tend to favor one video card manufacturer over the other and optimize shit to run better on those cards, if they optimize anything at all. I question why the video cards themselves are quite that intertwined with how the game actually runs, but whatever. Then you have shit go on where "oh, the game doesn't work on these drivers. You need the nVidia drivers from 6 months ago. Those work perfectly." Fuck off. Again, the fucking video card should not have such bloated fucking drivers that are breaking things all the goddamn time. Then you have the Windows version bullshit I mentioned before. Don't forget about DirectX though. That's about as bloated and fucked up as it gets. I'd swear every time I installed something I'd get some bullshit about the game or program needing a specific DirectX DLL from a specific month of the fucking year to function. Just having DirectX 8, 9, etc was never good enough. No, you need that DirectX DLL version from march 2011 for this program to function. Got that? Ok, now you need some bullshit Visual Studio runtime library that's probably 4 years old and definitely should've been included in Windows in the first fucking place. What's wrong with OpenGL? Oh, that's right. Microsoft didn't make it. Everyone has to use Microsoft's bullshit. Here's hoping Valve is on the road to ending that circle of terror.

Fuck Normal

I'll be 33 in a few weeks, and I've never actually dated. I'm a nice guy (usually). I'm not terrible looking or anything. So what gives? I was always quiet and a little shy, I guess. I'm just lost on the whole thing. I always end up the friend. When I was younger I was too shy to approach women. Now I'm older, and not much has changed, but it seems 10x harder to actually meet anyone. That's partly due to the fact that I don't fit in with normal society. I got fed up with college. I got fed up with working. Moreover, I got fed up with life in general. Anyone you meet, the first question is always "what do you do?" Mostly, whatever I damn well please. I have back and neck problems now that keep me from working, plus depression and a little anxiety.

I don't really go anywhere or do anything. I'm a movie fanatic and hardcore gamer. I may be boring, but I have a big heart. Sure, I might be willing to try some things, but at the same time I think a lot of things are fuckin stupid. You couldn't pay me to go to a sporting event or concert. I could see going for a comedy show, but it's not something I'd really go out of my way to see, especially since George Carlin is dead. I used to bowl and shoot pool, so that's cool. Not something you really go do alone though.

I look at dating sites now and then, and everyone just seems nuts. The world is shit. Everyone is working multiple jobs, going to college, and possibly raising kids all at once. When the fuck is anyone supposed to have time to socialize anymore? I'm not looking for the psycho who's working 2 jobs and going to grad school. I'm looking for the one that knows how to divide her time and isn't busy 7 days a week. Part of me would probably be content as a hermit, but I really need to try the whole girlfriend experience once in my life.

Fuck PC Gamers

For a long time now, I've been pissed about the direction RPGs are going and that most MMORPGs are the same. All the developers have strayed away from classic turn based RPGs, because they're too slow. However, the battle mechanics in newer style RPGs are always complete shit. Ever try to play Oblivion? Why the fuck did everyone love that so much? I don't care how great the graphics were for its time or how deep the story was. The combat mechanics were complete fucking trash! Why can't we get an RPG/MMORPG with combat mechanics like Devil May Cry / Bayonetta / Onimusha? Because those wouldn't work on a keyboard and mouse! FUCK PC gamers! Fuck this slow paced, half assed, clunky battle style that almost every RPG and MMORPG is using. Yes, a mouse might be more accurate than a controller for shooters, but they're no substitute for a controller in a fast paced action game. That's why we can't speed up RPGs. The assholes won't make them with combat mechanics that are only good for controllers, and it's bullshit.

Bungie tried to make Destiny sort of an FPS-MMO. They failed miserably, but at least the idiots tried something different. Destiny is shit, however, because they made all the same mistakes they made with Halo Reach (see my 343 blog). They arbitrarily cap the earnings (100 marks per week). They force co-op down everyone's throats. On consoles, that's especially stupid. Not everyone wants stuck with random teammates or wants to have a game they can't access half of without 6 friends online at the same time with hours to play. Fuck that. Third, they award idiots in PvP with exotic equipment for doing fuckall. p.s. Running around that tower trying to find this merchant and that merchant is fuckin stupid.

Moreover, fuck the people who write trainers for PC games nowadays too. I'm not registering on your bullshit fucking site so you can get an extra hit for your ad revenue and spew adware/spyware/malware. Write a program that works without requiring registration, Java, or any other retarded shit to use. Why is that so goddamn complicated!? The save modding scene for console games is just as ridiculous. Oh, I have to be registered, like your post, AND give you thanks for posting a half assed little tool to edit money and fix the checksum? FUCK YOU! I started messing with games in the good old days when actual cheat devices on consoles were big (Game Genie, Gameshark, AR, Codebreaker). I made 1000s of codes along with fellow game enthusiasts. I know a guy that made Mario walk on water. Nobody had to jump through hoops to access our fucking mods!

Fuck 343 Industries

For those who don't know, 343 Industries is the developer in control of the Halo franchise. Bungie created it, but it was left to 343 when Bungie abandoned it for other bullshit projects. The last Halo game Bungie made was Halo Reach. Within 6 months or so of its release, they left it in the rather incompetent hands of 343i.

343i didn't fix any of the problems in Reach, and they even managed to copy half of them into Halo 4 while taking a giant shit on the franchise copying ideas from Call of Duty. Halo 4 is an abomination, but that's another subject entirely. Halo Reach suffered mostly from the same thing a lot of other games do: complete and total assholes abusing it with zero consequences. People boost matchmaking, betray you when you pick up the weapon/vehicle they wanted, idle co-op (Firefight) for free credits/XP, grief in co-op, and hide in co-op to complete the commendation for completing rounds without dying.

What does 343i do? Not jack shit. They could take complaints on the assholes and reset/ban them, but they're too fuckin lazy. They're also too fuckin lazy to patch the XP output in firefight to keep people who don't participate from being awarded anything. They're even too fuckin lazy to tweak the number of voting rounds in firefight so there are enough to get the maps we want every time. Boosting in competitive multiplayer is also stupid easy to solve, but they won't do that either. All they have to do is stop letting people take parties large enough to control the entire lobby into matchmaking. Limit it so no more than a full team can search each playlist. Simple, yes? Apparently, not for them. "Oh, but what about clans and friends who want to play against each other?" That's what customs are fucking for, assholes! Fuck clans.

About a week ago, stat tracking on Reach went down completely. No kills, deaths, wins, etc count. Has 343i addressed this issue? Nope. They haven't even acknowledged this issue!! I'd go so far as to speculate that they did it on purpose. The game is set to go free for the Games With Gold program later this month, so they obviously don't give a fuck about it anymore. People have posted on 343i's Halo Waypoint forums numerous times the past week demanding answers and getting nothing. We had a similar problem a couple years ago (late 2011?) where the commendations in the game would freeze after you earned a specific amount of XP each day. They tried to raise the daily credit cap, which was fucking retarded in the first place. They had no business ever limiting the progress of legitimate players. If I play 16 hours a day, I want my XP for every motherfucking match! Plenty of people did play the game to that extreme too. This was one of those mistakes I said they carried over to Halo 4, along with the XP payout to people who sat in co-op doing nothing. Anyway, that commendation freezing problem took them THREE MONTHS to fix! MONTHS! To fix something they fucking broke because of something that was bullshit in the first place. Nice fucking job Bungie and 343i.

Hell, 343i can't even program an internet forum properly. The dumbasses set their browser cookies to only last 4 hours. I've had sites keep me logged in for 4 YEARS! That's the whole fucking point of cookies! To remember your goddamn login! Not hassle you every 4 fucking hours! Who the fuck do they think they are, NASA!?!? The email notification of forum replies hasn't worked in years either. Plus, when they ban you from the forum you have no access to your private messages. I find this funny since the staff always sends you a private message rather than emailing you, so you can't read what they said until you're unbanned. I was recently banned for posting "discriminatory" comments and flaming, simply for screaming about the problems still occurring on Reach. I couldn't figure out what they even meant by "discriminatory" until I posted again on something completely pointless and mentioned that I thought the fact that sprees don't reset after you hit the last one was retarded. Yes, they actually banned me for saying a random aspect of the game mechanics was "retarded." The even edited the word "retarded" out of my post. This time, I'm banned until the year 4752. I also have a new private message that I can't read until the ban expires. These guys are a special kind of genius.

If they would put half as much effort into policing the game, as they do their bullshit forums, the game would be a much better experience. That's alright. I only put 6000 hours on the game. What the hell do I know? Just ban me because I used the word "retarded" on the forum dedicated to an M rated adult fucking video game. Excellent job guys. Can't wait to play Halo 5 next year.

Fuck Restaurants - Part 2

More restaurant gripes today. Why is it near impossible to get a meatball sub with normal puree sauce instead of that marinara chunk bullshit!? It's not a fucking taco. I swear bacon is never actually cooked when they put it on sandwiches either. Are there any sub shops for people that do NOT want health food? Fuck Subway. Fuck Jimmy John's too. How the fuck do they stay in business offering only ONE goddamn kind of cheese on subs!? Fuck your fucking Provolone!

Why does everyone try to put cherries on sundaes? What percentage of people actually like cherries? Fuck your decoration. Give me my sundae without that red thing. Also, why the hell don't more places have awesome whipped cream like Outback Steakhouse? It's kind of odd that a steakhouse has better whipped cream for their desserts than a goddamn custard stand. Don't you think?

I've also noticed that it's extremely rare to find a cook that can do over medium eggs properly. Why is it so goddamn hard to give me eggs that aren't runny or fucking burnt? They rush the damn things, and people don't complain enough to get it done right. Then they drown your fucking toast in butter. I like butter as much as the next guy, but I'd like some goddamn toast with it. Who the hell wants soggy toast?

Back on the steak joints... I find it funny that a place like Texas Roadhouse has cheap, local diner silverware that hurts my hand. Outback has nice thick silverware. Too bad they can't cook for shit anymore. I really miss Outback bread. It's been down hill ever since they started that wood fire grill shit though. They apparently don't know how to cook chicken the old way. Who's dumbass idea was it to default the chicken to the wood fire grill, anyway? All it does is dry it the fuck out! Then they don't put any seasoning on anymore even when you say you want it the old way. They used to practically batter that shit in the seasoning, and it was always nice and moist. It melted in my mouth, and I never needed a knife to cut it. Now I hurt my fuckin hand if I try to eat it with just a fork.


Another thing I can totally do without: hard chairs with ass imprints. Why the fuck do they make these chairs with this stupid outline for you ass? Do they serve a lot of retards that don't know which way to sit on the fucking seat or something??? It sure as shit doesn't make the chairs more comfortable. A hard wood fucking chair is a hard wood fucking chair, assholes.

Fuck Microsoft

Microsoft is such a fucking joke. They've always been a software company, but their software in recent years has been nothing but bloated, busted ass shit. They had to kill Windows XP support to get anyone to move on to newer versions of Windows because nobody liked them. Their forums, website, and web store are all total shit. The online store goes down every year on black Friday because it's an inefficient piece of shit that they subcontracted to a team of idiots.

Their Xbox forums are atrocious. As if censoring half the words you hear on network TV isn't bad enough, they still ban you for using them. That, or they don't like me telling them to fuck off when they require edit notes for fixing a fucking typo. I've NEVER seen a forum require "edit notes" for regular users to edit their posts. It's retarded. Of course, they can't even tell me what they keep banning me for, because they don't have private messaging! Why does everyone insist on using these half assed homebrew forums instead of things like vBulletin and phpBB that actually work!?

The forums on Halo Waypoint, which is owned by Microsoft, are even worse. The assholes that wrote those don't even know what a browser cookie is for. They log you out every 4 fucking hours. Other sites let me stay logged in for 4 months or more, including Xbox.com itself, and that uses the same account! I'm so tired of every forum on the internet trying to cater to fucking family rated content and shitting on the adults that actually pay for their own shit. Forums dedicated to M rated game are even censored to hell. Fuck off.

Here's an idea. How bout keeping little kids from playing the M rated games online with me!?!?!? Why the hell do we have no control over who we get matched with in online games? Xbox won't even give a proper blacklist option to avoid the trolls. They know damn well there are people you run into who you NEVER want to see again, but they don't give a shit. Their rep system is utterly worthless, and the developers could care less about properly policing their game once they get your money. They ban people that quit too much in Halo, but they won't take reports against the assholes that cause half the quitting! They won't fix co-op to only give XP to those who participate, removing half the reason to idle. It would've been a very simple patch for Halo Reach, but they spent months writing and testing an update to nerf a bullshit armor ability that should never have been in competitive multi-player (Armor Lock) instead.

Now we're getting a new Halo game (well sort of new) in a few months, so I have to get their garbage new console (Xbox One) to play it on. A console that has game updates that are bigger than an entire 360 game. Most game updates on Xbox360 were less than 10MB, many less than 1MB. On Xbox One, the updates are commonly in the gigabytes. I've heard of a few games that had 15GB updates. It's ridiculous and borderline retarded of developers to waste that kind of bandwidth/space on updates! I think Microsoft is mostly to blame. I heard the initial update for Sniper Elite 3 on XB1 was 10GB, while the same update for PS4 was only 400MB. What. The. Fuck. Wait, isn't MS a SOFTWARE company? Sony makes fucking TVs, but they somehow made the better console this generation. Interesting.

When you make a new product, it should be finished when you release it. I'm not paying an arm and a leg to be a fucking beta tester, but that's essentially what early buyers are. They left out half the options we had on Xbox 360, even the simplest things. Apparently, you can't even choose to globally disable controller vibration on Xbox One. You have to rely on developers to include the option in the game itself. Of course, those assholes don't even know what options are anymore. You know options? Those neat settings we used to be able to customize everything about the game we're playing? If FPS devs had half a clue, they give us the option of playing with a working reticule all the time (Halo style) or using those shit iron sights that Call of Duty games keep pushing. An option to NOT zoom out when being hit would be nice as well. I'd rather keep exchanging fire while scoped than get knocked out of aim entirely and die because of it, or die because I was trying to zoom out manually and zoomed back in, etc.

I still haven't seen the dashboard on Xbox One, since the system of updating the console itself is retarded too. When you buy a new device that requires software updates, it should do them all at once without being fucking retarded. When I first booted my Xbox One, I was treated to the expected notification that an update was required. Ok, fine. I left it download through the night. Now I get up the next morning and find that it wants to update AGAIN! WTF? Am I supposed to download 6 months or more of separate monthly updates one at a time!? That's fucking stupid. Update the son of a bitch and be done with it! Holy shit the people that write this software are stupid. This is just as bad as game updates on Xbox360 kicking you out of party chats and offline completely to get a tiny little update for one fucking game!

I can't wait to see how cheap the controllers are made this time around. I lost count of how many I wore out playing Halo on Xbox 360. Keep failing, Microshaft. Keep failing. I think Sony still has double the amount of PS4s sold as Xbox Ones. Is it any wonder why gamers are defecting to Sony?

Fuck Infrared Remotes

What is it with this ancient fucking technology that electronics companies are too stubborn or too cheap to kill!?!? This the the 21st century. I should NOT need bullshit fucking "line of sight" to operate my goddamn blu-ray player. They do apps, streaming, 3D, 4K/UHD, and connect to your fucking smart phone, but they won't use a bluetooth or RF remote. WHY!?!?! Where's the innovation!? Where's the advancement? Where's the progression of technology in this hardware? Everything is about to go HDMI 2.0 and all this happy shit, but it's still made with garbage IR remotes. PS3 is the only device to have a bluetooth media remote at this point. We had a satellite dish when I was a kid, and the receiver had an RF remote that worked anywhere in the goddamn house. I didn't even need to be in the same room to change the channel! 20 years later, where are we? Going fucking back asswards like most of the world. No forward thinking unless it's to save a buck or worth advertising.

Same reason so many TVs still have such shit input lag compared to PC monitors. With all the technology currently available, there's no excuse for a screen to be absolute shit for gaming even in "GAME MODE!" Now with 4K, it'll go downhill again in terms of performance until that tech is in its prime. Then we'll need something new and they'll start fucking it up all over again instead of honing the tech until it's perfect for everything. At least Plasma is finally dying. We didn't need that shit cluttering up stores anymore. How many different types of TV tech do we really need? Hopefully this bullshit 3D fad is on its way out too.