Merry X-mas, Im not dead.

Hello everyone! And I do mean, every one. Haven't blogged lately due to sports and exams but my break started today! Here's a nice link dump for all one of ye:

Shawn Elliot's Symposium (Fantastic stuff regarding games journalism)
Shawn Elliot's Twitter feed (More vile than 4chan)
Auditorium (MUST PLAY)
Baby (Shawn Elliot thing)

Enjoy! If I don't post again, say, like a review of Left 4 Dead, merry xmas!

PS: Im not a weird pokefreak or anything, but for some reason I got a yearning to play one of the old games. So I broke out Pokemon Yellow version last week before exams started. Which was a major mistake. Playing through that was oddly addicting, and also very preventative of studying. Oh well. I do have Articuno, Zapdos, and Moltres. So, I consider myself a success.

Happy Zombie Day Everyone!

Today is World Zombie Day! Remember, hug a flesh eater.

Went out with some friends last night and picked up Brothers In Arms: Hell's Highway. I have to say, am so far unsatisfied with it. Game play is just O.K., nothing special.

Also picked up Cloverfield and Shoot 'Em Up, having already seen the latter. Blockbuster bargain bin FTW. I enjoyed Clover, and didn't mind the ending. Although everyone I talked to hated it. Oh well, gonna go watch some TV or maybe Shoot 'Em Up, I'm a Clive Owen fan.

Breaking News.....Umm.

Woo, update time! Lots of Zombie news. I recently pre-ordered L4D and even scratched up an extra $20 to buy the hat. I'm a merchandise whore like that. My review for ZP!S is currently in the editing stages and will hopefully be up this weekend. Plus, CoDWAW has announced a co-op zombie gametype.

In music: Have had a techno craving and have been listening to some Daft Punk as well as Deadmau5 recently. Me likey.

One last thing, VG Cats put me on to these animations, one embedded below. I put all of them on my iPod immediatley.

Gomensai!

Sorry all! Got my new PC and have been a little busy getting used to Vista and getting the programs and files I could not save from the old PC onto this one. I love my new PC, I am getting 120-60 fps on almost all the games I play with graphics maxed. Might even bump that up if I install the 8600GT I have sitting in the old CPU.

Have been checking out the newly hosted source mods on Steam for the second time, I had already played them all before Valve started hosting them. I think it's great that these mods are getting some mainstream exposure, they deserve it. They and playing through CoD4 again to find the intelligence files (I didnt know to look the first time through, DOH) are keeping me from going crazy as the clock ticks down to L4D. Especially since Kotaku dropped this tasty tidbit a few days ago. I had already figured there would be some sort of pre-order/play early/demo type deal like the one they had with TF2, but this makes it seem much more tangible. Anyway, I'm gonna go play some Zombie Panic: Source. Look for my mod reviews soon, will probably do reviews for ZP:S, Age of Chivalry, and Insurgency in the coming weeks.

PS: Didn't like ending setup, too corny and stupid.

L4D

Just a quick update, was looking at the Left 4 Dead site today and saw that the posted release date was November 19 which is my birthday. You didn't have to get me anything Gabe Newell, but since you already made it...

Needless to say L4D is my most anticipated upcoming game. I am a fan of alot of zombie flicks and when I saw my favorite game development company was making one I almost squeezed out a man tear of joy. Fanboy ramblings end here.

(New way of ending blogs being tested below, thought it would be cool to have the same format each time but switch up end of it. You know, like The Simpsons intro video)


That's my opinion, if you dont like it(Regular format): There's a red X in the top right corner of your window. At least, it's on the right if you are using a PC. If you aren't then please proceed to punch your Mac until your fingers break through the Apple logo on the other side. (End statement changed each time)

First Real Article

http://kotaku.com/5059192/sarah-palin-in-video-games

Surfing around Kotaku this evening and what do I see? republican VP Nominee Sarah Palin photoshopped onto some of gaming's famous "femme fatale" characters! Interesting to say the least. Seems that ever since recently disbarred lawyer Jack Thompson turned gaming into a political standpoint we have been seeing more of this sort of thing. Even though I believe it brings a certain maturity to the hobby that has been lacking for a long time, this mixture of gaming and politics doesn't quite end up being that "chocolate and peanutbutter mix" for me. You know, like Reese's.


Though yes, seeing politics show up in gaming does show that the set age for gamers is rising considerably as time goes on is a great thing. But having that newfound maturity soiled by the underlying layers of radical immaturity hiding just beneath is an unfortunate struggle the hobby is in right now. For example, the fact that politics show up in the gaming medium is great! But reading down the list of comments on the Kotaku article crushes that newfound joy quite quickly. In case you would rather not slip down that page and read through some of the more animated comments, I will provide a few here:

mufasa95: UUUUGH!!
The first one looks like a total transvestite!

AvidAbey: The GTA one was awesomely hilarious. No joke.
Now we just need an equally inflammatory gallery of images: "What if Barack Obama was in..."
And this gallery would display Obama's head photoshopped onto any number of middle eastern or african baddies from video games getting smoked, or blowing away soldiers. Yeah, that would be cool.

maskedaprentice: Last one, just made my pants a twinkie


And those are just a few. So now you see what I'm talking about (I hope). It's great to have a political opinion, no matter what that opinion may be. But combine that with the anonymity of the internet today and vulgarity runs rampant. If we as gamers want more mature products and fulfilling gaming experiences as a whole, then we need to stop crying like children and start discussing like adults. If my disjointed writing made any sense shoot me an E-mail.

Bad Luck

Wow. Well I got home this afternoon and my old Dell Dimension E510 finally broke down on me. This had been happening for a few weeks so I had an idea it was coming, but I was hoping I would have time to backup my files all the way before it kicked the bucket for the last time. As it stands I was able to save my favorite music and photos along with some important files to a couple discs. Good news is I have already ordered a new Dell XPS 420 with a ATI 3870 so once it gets here I can play TF2 and CoD4 with better graphics than before and a more than decent framerate. In fact, in many ways this is a blessing. Once Left 4 Dead (Valve Software product) comes out later this year (November 20) I will be absolutely set computerwise! Bad news is that my blogging will be a little more intermittent now that I can only use an old laptop on occasion.

In other news, wanted to go ahead and open up to E-mails now. If you want to ask me a question or contact me at all, feel free to shoot me a message at Ironwolf220@yahoo.com. If you've read the first post you might be starting to see a pattern. The blog is called AM Opinion afterall, so I was hoping on occasion to give an opinion on a topic I didn't think up. Got to go for now, might post later, might not. Remember to hit that Follow button people!

First

I hate writing down starts to things. It seems so unnatural to have to explain myself to anyone, especially the unknown legions of users out there that will stumble upon my humble writings. If these writings even continue. To be truthful I want to have a blog, I can think of many instances in my daily life where it would be advantageous to publish my thoughts and feelings simply to get them out of my head. But I am a busy person. Well, I am busy, but more just lazy when it comes to keeping up with things like this. I know it's terrible form to discourage any readers from paying attention to my blog in the first post but that is the kind of guy I am. Ah! There is a place to start!

I am a guy. A man, male, dude. There, that's out of the way. I am straight, since that is connected to my first statement about myself, that will come next. I am a football player and wrestler (not WWE, the real kind of wrestler). So two of my three seasons spent each year in school are filled with some sort of sport. The third I take off as a rest season. But I am not interested in sports in the general sense. I can't tell you who the top running backs in the NFL are, I can't name stats off the top of my head. I play football for my school in the fall, and I watch Carolina Panthers games on the weekends. I also am an avid video gamer, mostly on the PC which means I am bitter and resentful to alot of console video gamers. You know the ones, the college frat boys (who are often neither in college nor frat boys) who haunt every HALO forum and Microsoft sponsored voice channel on Live and spew their elitist bullshit (not that this rant isnt elitist bullshit) on how my platform of choice will be dead in 3 years. I suppose I like to assume the difference between my elitist bullshit and theirs is that I know its bullshit. Anywho, I play most of the Valve games on PC (for readers who don't understand any of this, please hold on it will stop soon). Which means I am on STEAM so if you would like to add me there please do under the ID Ironwolf220. I will be talking alot about video games on this blog so be forewarned. Now that I have at least satisfied some of the criteria for an up and coming blog by introducing you, in measure, to parts of my personality and interests, it is time for a break. Whew! More to come later.