Waffle Squadron Omega

I’ve read this on a few sites, but I’ll start with some nested quotes from EvilAvatar:

From EG:

Quote:

Id Software CEO Todd Hollenshead has defended Doom III’s reputation, pointing out that the four-year-old first-person shooter is “the most successful game in id’s history.” Asked by Kikizo whether there were any ‘weaknesses in Doom III that need to be corrected’ for upcoming multiformat racing/shooting hybrid Rage, Hollenshead rejected the premise completely. “I think there are three people on the internet that keep making these posts that Doom 3 was ‘bad’, and they get no credibility from any other people… there’s some mass-misperception out there,” he said. “I get this occasionally - why don’t I think Doom III was successful? We sold over three million units! It’s the most successful game in id’s history.”

Read the full article.
How can 3 people create ‘Mass Misperception’? Sorry Todd… but I think Doom 3 was Doom 2 with new textures and real time shadows.

As I’ve said, I’ve read similar views on a few different sites in the past day or so.  Can anyone tell me where this is coming from all of a sudden?  All the people I talked to who played DOOM 3 when it was new agreed that it was a pretty frightening experience, though maybe it eventually becomes a little repetitive.  I remember reading all these articles about how revolutionary the graphics were and how they were actually attached to a good game.  Now all of a sudden everyone remembers it as being a festering piece of pewp?  I remember thinking it was the scariest game I’ve played in the dark at 2AM since Silent Hill.

DOOM 2 but with better graphics?  DOOM 3 had an actual story with actual characters.  DOOM 2 was just run-shoot-shoot-shoot-run-shoot-grab key-shoot-shoot-…oh, and by the way you’re now in Hell!!  Fun, but not really a completely immersive experience.  They felt like completely differnet games to me.  Is it just that I’m the only one with rose-colored hindsight glasses?

I found this among some Joss Whedon news… It seems that Mr. Whedon has created a new internet mini-series, namely “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog“.

From doctorhorrible.net: “During the WGA strike Joss Whedon started writing a three part musical series for the internet. Each of the three episodes will be approximately ten minutes each.”

You’re going to want to read more after the break… Read more of this fascinating tale, lads! »

Found this article on io9 linking to The Guardian, which explains that The Prisoner, a wholeheartedly WSO supported classic, will begin broadcasting on AMC next year.

It has also been confirmed that Sir Ian McKellen and Jim Caviezel (The Passion of the Christ, he was J.C.) will star in the new version. McKellan will play the role of Number Two, while Caviezel will play the role formerly pwned by Patrick McGoohan, the imprisoned Number Six.

The show will be a six-hour miniseries produced by the UK’s ITV, who produced the original show in 1967.

Found this great instructable with many different ways to open beer bottles. A few of them are actually pretty creative and useful! This instructable explains the following beer-reaping methods:

• The pry method
• The thump method
• The push up method
• Using a hook
• The empty bottle method

Of course, I typically buy twist-offs, so I don’t have this problem too often. But there are many brands that still use the traditional caps that make it all the more frustrating when there’s metal in the way between your mouth and delicious, thirst-quenching beer.

Also, check the comments for more beer-opening techniques, like the ball-point pen method. One commenter says that all proper beer comes in cans. Maybe on the moon, but not in America, buddy! The best beer comes in bathtubs!

So, after reading Wednesday’s awesome Penny Arcade and seeing that they used the Creature Creator to make a pretty convincing Deep Crow, I decided to finally go and grab the free demo. First off, it runs great at max resolution on my 1.7GHz laptop, which is a huge check in the plus column right out of the gate! My laptop is getting almost elderly by today’s standards so it’s nice to have a new game work so well.

It’s really easy to slap a passable monster together right away, and the Help feature clearly instructs you on how to make more detailed creations. Even for a free trial version of a demo of a full game, there are a whole lot of options at your disposal. There’s not really that many body parts to choose from in the free version, but you can customize the placement, shape, size and orientation of each one. The ability to sculpt, bend and stretch the main body mass also ups the variety potential. I’m sure you’ve seen (on Kotaku or wherever) the vast cornucopia of clever and risqué final products people are pumping out with this program.

Once you’ve sculpted, potato-headed and painted your creature, you can Test Drive him. In the Test Drive mode, you have a lot of animation options, most of which are pretty fun. Funny dances, emotions, etc. What’s really cool about the Test Drive mode is that you can easily snap screenshots, make animated GIF avatars or even capture AVI video! Not only that, but when you’re done capturing the video, a prompt automatically asks you if you want to upload it to YouTube! The video quality is so-so even at the highest setting, but it’s pretty darn good for such a user friendly integrated feature. It’s YouTube-quality video, so it serves its purpose admirably. Also, it’s free.

The full version of the Creature Creator is $10, and at this point that’s Pretty Hot And Tempting. If this is just a small taste of what we’ll get in the full version of Spore, I just might be buying my first PC game since Half-Life 2. In the meantime, please enjoy my latest creation…the delicious and refreshing, yet sadly extinct Purplesaurus Rex:

So, my Wii has been winking its long blue eye at me for a day or two now. Thankfully, I was lazy and didn’t turn it on before reading my daily gaming news. While reading Kotaku over breakfast (as usual) I came across this article. Long story short, that Twilight Princess Exploit Jack told you about a little while ago has been nixed by the big N.

However! The good news is that if you used the hack to install The Homebrew Channel then you’re still in the clear. It seems that The Homebrew Channel allows you to use homebrew apps on your Wii without running the TP hack every time. Being a fan of the homebrew scene on my PSP (and my DreamCast back in the day) I’ve decided that the time is now!

At Jack’s request, I’ll document the process with words and pictures (no video, since I’m already home and comfy…unless our sparse readership really wants to see me in my Duff Beer boxers). So, if you’re interested in trying this yourself, don’t update your Wii!!! and click the link below…

Read more of this fascinating tale, lads! »

Following up from my original Bacon Salt post, I am continuing to taste-test this wonderful seasoning on all sorts of different foods. Tonight I tried a piece of leftover sausage pizza from my local Pat’s Pizza shop.

Big ups to my local Pat’s on Philadelphia Pike in Claymont, DE. Anyway, Bacon Salt is absolutely fantastic on pizza. It’s like it was specially made for it! Soooo baconey and salty… it’s just so good! I imagine that this would make even week-old pizza taste great!

So yeah, that’s pretty much it. Thumbs up for Bacon Salt on pizza!

As a follow-up to this post, this week brings us another Venture Bros. themed t-shirt!

The current t-shirt is titled “Dr. Henry Killinger”. It features the Dr.’s signature red skull that is featured on his black coat, as well as on his Magic Murder Bag (not included). You can order the t-shirt from the AstroBaseGo webpage here.

While you’re at it, you might want to also check out a cool custom action figure page that I found, called Sillof’s Workshop. This guy has made his own Venture Bros. action figures, which look pretty darn cool. Also his site features other custom figures such as Dune, and Steampunk Star Wars.

This week, Apple announced the new iPhone 2.0 at the WWDC. While the addition of 3G is good (shoulda been there in the first version if you ask me), there’s a lot of disappointments:

No additional storage
No better camera
No camera on the front for videoconferencing
No additional RAM
No MMS
No bluetooth audio
No video capability
No turn-by-turn navigation
No copy/paste function

But… you get GAMES!!!11 Oh, and 3G is important, but not really a selling point since the data plan adds up to $45 to my existing $50 plan. Is it worth it? For some people, maybe. The drop in price will definitely convince a lot of people to buy the new iPhone. For me, I was hoping for some extra features.

Since I already have a Jailbroken iPod Touch, I have added a lot of neat software that gives me the ability to send MMS via email, and copy/paste functions. And, I’ve almost filled up my 16 GB storage. So what’s the incentive to buy an iPhone now? Will there be a SIM card slot in this new version? Maybe that will be a selling point for some people. I might consider it if it meant I can hook up my work SIM card into an iPhone and let my job pay for the data!

Incredible.  Perfectly executed.