I travel a lot for work so sometimes it takes me awhile to catch up on pop music. I heard this song (which I don’t even think was that new) and my friend told me Akon involved in its creation.
A few more things about Akon: Did you know nobody actually knows how old he is? And he doesn’t believe in conflict diamonds? More popstars need to have crazy-ass backstories like this. Born with 15 toes? Raised by bizarre Christian sectarians? Fluent in 15 languages? Absolutely.
Back to this song “Sexy Bitch,” which is really great. I’m struck by the questions it raises as it moves into the chorus. To catch you up on what’s going on, this guy goes into a bar (actually it’s probably a club). I guess he’s heard some girl there is pretty dtf. He sees her and it’s stunning. He can’t even talk at this point, so the lyrics are basically describing his inner monologue:
“The way that booty moving i can’t take no more…
I’m trying to find the words to describe this girl
Without being disrespectful”
OK. Fair enough. We’ve all been in a situation like this. Maybe. Anyhow, apparently David Guetta (and also Akon) are thinking pretty hard about what’s going on. Eventually they do find words:
“Damn Girl You’se a sexy bitch, a sexy bitch, a sexy bitch
Damn Girl You’se a sexy bitch, damn girl
Damn Girl You’se a sexy bitch, a sexy bitch, a sexy bitch
Damn Girl You’se a sexy bitch, damn girl”
So the main question: are these the non-disrespectful words they found to describe this girl? Or is she just so spectacular looking they just gave up and decided to blurt out whatever came to mind, disrespectful or not.
Personally I think it’s the former. It’s actually a pretty urgent plea and if somebody was that upfront about something like that with me, I think I’d be into it.
A 12 player, real time, online variation of the classic board game, Next Gen adds tanks, artillery, and ships to the quest for world domination. This game has everything: diplomacy, backstabbing, hilarious Europeans cussing you out in broken English. Did I mention battle on the high seas? Next Gen games are free, hosted on Battle.net through Warcraft 3 with automatic stat recording and a ladder on their website. Now the strategy game nerd and the competitive asshole in me are both satisfied with one game!
Jungle Style Pinball
While Gameprom’s last two iPhone pinball titles (Wild West and The Deep) weren’t terrible, they left a lot to be desired. Wild West established that they could make a sweet pinball interface, but the gameplay lacked any sort of challenges to keep you interested; you were pretty much expected to sit there and repeat the same task a million times to get the high score. The Deep aimed to improve on this with a slew of new challenges, but in the end it was a flawed effort with needlessly annoying sound effects and a game board that was clearly derived from the Wild West with only a few changes and a new theme.
Gameprom upped the ante with Jungle Style Pinball, a game that has a completely fresh interface including new features like spinning roulettes that determine whether you become trapped, release a multi-ball, or get a ball saver post, two mini-paddles half way up the board and a secret chamber with a mini paddle inside it, and missions that are fun and actually useful towards improving your score (like battling Tiki guards to defeat a giant gorilla or twisting the inlaid maze repeatedly to release the golden ball from inside). This game has kept me way more entertained than my last 99 cent visit to the App Store, thanks a lot I Am T-Pain app.
Heroes of Newerth
Remove everything frustrating about the now 8-year-old game Dota (laggy games, limited graphical interface, disconnects, lack of voice chat, no direct rating system to avoid bad games, etc.) but retain the great gameplay, and you have Heroes of Newerth. This game captures the essence of Dota and presents it in a more palatable form that gives the genre a fighting chance against future beasts like Starcraft 2. I love Dota, but it is time to move on and Heroes of Newerth is the awesome answer to that.
There is a lot to be thankful for in 2009, your father decided to put down the bottle, your brother decided that the sex change operation wasn’t such a great idea, your sister didn’t get to film the documentary about your brothers sex change, and District 9 was released. Great year for sci-fi indeed. Now we have one more movie to add to 2009′s limited sci-fi roster, Pandorum! Two decent movies for 2009! Lets get into dat…
According to SNK in 1993, a true American was one of two things: a blonde douchebag with a dog, or an enormous tatted-out, trailer-park, bald-as-balls neighborhood Big and Tall shopper (pictured below). And one whose best move is ass-blasting the shit out of his opponents with a formidable colon buffet. I’m relieved to witness that these Japanese sentiments have been kept alive by Capcom roughly 15 years later.
Fighting games’ plus size characters have always provided a nice break from the serious ninjas and in-shape ass kickers that you generally have at your disposal. I’ve never really been able to get into playing them consistently simply because when it comes down to it, a lack of speed just gets your offensively large ass kicked. Still, regardless of whether he’s a “good character” or not, Rufus looks pretty damn absurd to wield. I’ll be looking forward to this title even more now.
These are the games that stand out from the pack for the simple reason that they are just fun.These are weighed on a scale that measures beyond the sum of the parts for that elusive fun factor that comes only from sniping some grub’s head, chomping on some pesky man flesh or ordering your team of 12 die hard followers to bunker down in the middle of the parking lot across from three raging Russians sitting on massive gun turrets.I’ve put this list in no particular order.
Jump Man – oldest school DOS Tandy 800, one floppy floppy – This is the game that led me to ruin.All my wasted hours spent playing games can be traced back to this life drain.Purpose of the game?Run around the screen collecting large X’s while avoiding autonomous 4 pixel bullets.Awesome.
Gears of War – The reason why your game sucks is because it isn’t Gears of War.I’ll probably get a lot of heat for this one, but only from small little boys too intimidated to hazard their hand at controlling some of the manliest, most like-myself (no one can handle myself
like…myself) characters ever created in gaming.This game is so good that as soon as I finish some other game, Gears goes right back in.Co-op Gears is probably the pinnacle of gaming.The game looses some of it sheen in verses when you say hello and are immediately greeted by two very angry kids yelling at you to suck their massive cocks and to fuck off.Uncalled for to say the least.And I only said hello, imagine if I said I had just fucked their mothers.Which I did by the way, but I didn’t tell them that.
On Friday Weezer released the music video for the band’s new single Pork and Beans off their new self-titled “Red Album” which comes out June 3rd. I have pretty much fallen off from giving a rat’s ass about Weezer’s new stuff since the Green Album shat all over my expectations circa my senior year of high school. However, I’m posting this music video, which is set to a fairly mediocre song, since it’s outright awesome – especially if you’re an internet nerd and on a first-name basis with all the miscellaneous YouTube stars such as afro ninja and Kelly.
When big internet phenomena started around ten years ago or so (or at least when I started noticing them) they always seemed like an underground experience limited to a small group of people who had way too much time on their hands in order to look up flash animations of dancing bananas. As we all know, the internet scene is now far from its origins, with extremely popular distribution channels used by virtually everybody spreading new hits like wildfire.
I always considered these internet “stars” as separate from mainstream film, television, music and video games. The first time I started to recognize that they were leaking (for better or worse) into said media was when the Juggernaut in X3 exclaimed the popular internet voice-over line “I’M THE JUGGERNAUT, BITCH!!”
Just plain ridiculous.
Not only did X3 take a huge step back from how great the second installment was (Brett Ratner blows goat ass), they also got cheap cheers from inserting a line made popular by the internet. Suffice it to say it blew my mind that something I considered on the same level as Peanut Butter Jelly Time (no offense PBJT, you’re awesome but have no place in a movie) made it into a major motion picture. Since then, another notable internet-Film/TV interaction that comes to mind is a Season 12 South Park episode mocking the Writer’s Strike.
Weezer’s video uses largely the same means as the X3 scene but achieves a much more kickass end by not cheapening the original but rather bringing the internet community into their video in a personal way. As super lame as that sounds, I think we’re going to see a lot more of what Weezer has done, whether it’s in the form of music marketing and presentation or so far as entirely new sites dedicated to getting new artist content on a free forum for listener exchange of thought (think MySpace music but more interactive to the user).
Smash Bros. Brawl is great. But why does the online interface have to be so bad?
1. No voice chat
We’ve mentioned this before and it’s a no-brainer. I don’t want to have to call someone on the phone to talk shit every time I crush them with Kirby. My phone bill would be huge.
2. Six ports to forward on your router
In order to host games on Nintendo WFC for your friends to join, your router must forward the following ports to your Wii’s IP address: 28910, 29900, 29901, 29920, 80, and 443
To do this, go to http://192.168.1.1/ on your browser to access the router settings, then enter name/pass (default is no username and pass: admin). Then go to port forwarding and enter the ports. You must also know your Wii’s IP address on the router (for me its 192.168.1.105). Your final configuration should look something like this:
That was a lot of effort. It was easier to connect via TCP/IP for a game of Warcraft 2 when I first gamed online 10 years ago. Why is Nintendo making things so un-user-friendly?
You can’t be logged in to your friends list while you’re Brawling locally (offline) with friends. And you can’t play locally while being connected to Nintendo WFC. This makes it inconvenient and unlikely for impromptu matches with people on your friends list to occur. Sure this is less server traffic for Nintendo to deal with, but cutting this corner just makes their product so much crappier. And I didn’t even mention the twelve digit friend code. If only we could play this game through Xbox live…
Alright, alright: I haven’t written in awhile. But the truth is, I haven’t gamed that much. You know, “life” – it gets in the way of things sometime, blah blah. Maybe that’s just a pathetic excuse that I throw out to make myself feel better about lack of time spent sitting in front of the TV. Needless to say, my reservations about Smash Brothers multiplayer were true. It wasn’t fun. I sold it back. Yeah I was horrible at it, but at this point in my gaming career, I’m valuing just a few things:
1)”Pickup and play”-ability: On a scale of 1-10(high) – Fun had while playing/Time taken to learn (or in some games’ cases – unlock Sonic and Solid Snake). If this number is even close to 1, i’m not going near it. Later Smash.
2) Multiplayer – Rock Band has confirmed the type of multiplayer gaming I enjoy and its the kind where I sit with friends on the couch. Talking over the internet is one thing, but personally I’d rather game with people and have a laugh. Or in the case of Pro Evolution Soccer, continually get my ass kicked as my roommate and I unsuccessfully attempt to win the European Championship with Portugal. We’re so bad that we had to call Luis Figo, Rui Costa and Pauleta out of retirement and we’re yet to advance past the quarterfinals. Rock Band side note for today: I picked up a mic stand and let me tell you, there is nothing better than rocking the Boston pack with that mic stand.
I’ve always been a big proponent of the Midnight Launch whether its in movies, books or games. I suppose this fits in with the type of multiplayer gaming I enjoy: there’s something that’s always exhilarating about grouping together with a bunch of other people in anticipation for the same new experience, even if X-Men III is inevitably terrible.
This week was a good week for Midnight Launches. Saturday night was Mario Kart Wii. I was surprised when I learned my local Game Crazy was doing a midnight launch for this, but I decided to check it out. My roommate, Robert, who has been victimized by many a Midnight Launch during his friendship with me, got dragged along again and it turns out we were the only ones in the store. We talked to the guy, Ken, behind the counter and he complained to us that Game Crazy only had 6 preorders for Kart but word came down from high that they needed to do a midnight launch. I picked up the game and an extra Wii Wheel and went back and hit it up. Mario Kart and I have a long history together and though I was a little distressed by the lack of Boo from the outset, the game is awesome so far. The wheel’s fun to use, though it is a bit weird at times, but here’s my review for the game: Its freaking Mario Kart. Enough Said
Update:
On monday night it was back to Game Crazy for the launch of GTA IV. As I explained to Robert, who was again along for the good times, GTA provides some of the moments that I can directly point to as turning points in my gaming career. I mentioned here before (link) that I bought a PS2 to play GTA III, but never before have I been struck by the total experience of the game world that Vice City threw at me within the first 10 minutes of playing. “I remember doing one of the very first missions,” I told Robert, “and you have to pick up this car in an alley. It was raining and you jump in the car, which was a piece of shit and the radio starts playing. It was Billie Jean and right at that moment I knew: this game was important.” Loads more people were at the Game Crazy for this one and I didn’t get out of there for 45 minutes.
One midnight launch that I didn’t make it out for was Iron Man, though I did manage to see it on Friday. Not much to say there. I suppose it was a good time, but it actually made me less excited to see The Dark Knight. The superhero movie is becoming more and more tired with every incarnation and at this point it seems impossible that any of these movies could do anything new.
For me, “doing something new” is never a criteria for having a good time whether its playing a game or watching a movie. Example: the two games this week, which are what they are because of a formula they’ve created and stuck to. But it’d be nice to get an injection of new with that balance of old and in the movie theater, as far as comic book movies are concerned, there is none of that these days.
Well, not literally in my back lawn but almost as good – the police got this kid in my own sunny San Diego. Not satisfied with virtual police pursuit alone, Dennis Richard Fiel allegedly sprayed several unfortunate Mira Mesa Gamestop employees with a can of mace, grabbed a couple copies of GTA IV (released on Tuesday), and bolted.
Instead of laying low for a while to dodge some pigs like we all know GTA’s protagonist Niko would, Fiel decided to go celebrate his heroic exploits at his favorite local Japanese BBQ joint. Bad move – the cops, who had been searching for him on the ground and in the air, nabbed him almost instantly. They found the can of mace and the games still in his truck.
Unfortunately this act is classified as a felony, or else we could all be making Grand Theft Grand Theft Auto jokes for years to come.
Landon Donovan is the force behind the LA Galaxy’s “sucking less than last season” campaign, with a hat trick last weekend in the Galaxy’s 5-2 win over rival Chivas USA and two goals the previous week (including MLS goal of the week) and two goals the week before. The man is on fire. What’s also amazing is that he finds time amidst his professional sports career to game. Thats right, according to the interview below, he’s been enjoying virtual sports such as Fifa and Madden for “like twelve years straight”. Unfortunately that doesn’t stop him from taking an apparent drubbing from some tub with a shit-faced grin. It’s unnerving how intent that guy is on e-shaming Donovan (instead of basking in the man’s veritable awesomeness). Seven goals in three games. Holy shit I’m glad he’s on my fantasy team.
