Back to Global Agenda
Been playing a good deal of Global Agenda again lately. Won't go into a whole long post about it, but they've made a lot of improvements with the Sandstorm expansion. If you're interested there's a 14 day trial I believe, capped at level 12. And should you chose to buy it, use one of these coupon codes for 15% off:
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Go!
Preseason game 1 thoughts
Thank god it's football season again! Even if it's just preseason, it beats the shit out of watching the 13831st game of the retardedly long baseball season.
Anyhow, random thought on player perfromances:
- Flacco looked sharp out there. He's clearly ready to play. Once we get our normal offense going (you know, when we actually run the ball as well) it should really open up our options down field with the pass
- Oher looked like garbage at LT. Allowed 2 sacks on consecutive series from a middle-of-the-road pass rusher. We really need Gaither healthy
- Zbikowski is the reason I'm not overly worried about Ed Reed being injured. He really stepped it up at the end of last season, and was an absolute beast last night.
- While I was initially against the picking of Mt. Cody, I found myself eating my words last night. When he was in he made a serious impact. Teams are going to plan for him just as they do with Ngata
- Dickson and Pitta look to be two very good, young legitimate recieving threats at TE who aren't afraid to block. With Heap on the downhill side of his career, these guys are very welcome
- Marc Bulger could be the most talented back-up QB in the league, but I thought he looked lost out there. New system, new team, but some of his throws were really off, and he seemed way too eager to throw it away.
- Troy Smith looked like balls out there. Stay in the pocket longer than half a second please.
- Barnes looked like he got a good deal quicker in the offseason.
Over all I'm extremely excited for this season. While some of our star players on D are up there in age, our front 7 on D is undeniably beastly. Our linebackers are going to have free reign out there with the sheer size of our line. Ngata and Cody, that is some serious beef up front.
As far as the offense goes, we've always known we can run on anyone. And now, for the first time ever, we're deep at reciever and TE. Boldin and Mason are going to really open up opportunities for Stallworth and Clayton to make some big plays. The only weakness you can point to on O is the injury to Gaither, and having Oher cover at LT. Hopefully that goes away, but the run should cover most of that weakness.
Also, how scary is our goalline package? With Ngata and Cody blocking for McClain, the smallest guy on the field is Flacco at 6-6 236lbs.
My beef with the SC2:WoL ending
Fine. I've accepted the fact that I'll probably be purchasing all of the SC2 expansion packs, even though I said multiple times that I wouldn't. But after completing the first in the series, I'm left wondering just how much Terran content is going to be found in the other two.
Let me break here to say that if you haven't figured it out already, this post is going to contain MAJOR SPOILERS FOR SC2. So if you haven't completed it, I suggest you stop reading here.
Now, after completing the final mission last weekend not only did I find it to be completety anti-climatic, but I'm simply left with more questions than answers. So here are my issues:
- Wasn't the entire point of the whole encounter with Zeratul about not killing Kerrigan? Sure, we didn't kill her, but she sure as hell isn't the Queen of Blades anymore. Seems to me we just completely fucked over the universe by undoing what the Overmind set out to do in creating her. Unless through some ridiculous plot device she still has control over the Zerg.
- Why the fuck does she still have that Zerg hair? Please tell me it's not for the reason mentioned above
- What about Tychus? Who actually "had the gun to his head"? Was it really Mobius? Were they acting outside of Valerian's goals?
- What happened to Arcturus Mengsk? We spent a whole lot of time trying to fuck him over, only to have that entire storyline forgotten the minute we stepped on Char.
- Was Valerian being upfront with us with his goals on Char? Was he using us for some other larger goal, besides one-upping his father?
I'm sure there's more I'm forgetting. But even if it's just those five, the only thing answered by the end of the game was the question "Can Kerrigan be cured?". And even still, it's not entirely certain. After all, she's still got those killer Zerg dreads going on.
So, are they going to dedicate time in the next two games to answering these questions? Seems like a whole lot of time to spend on Terran content in what is supposed to be the Protoss and Zerg expansions.
Cataclysm so far
Now between being busy IRL and taking the time to finish up the SC2 campaign I haven't spent a lot of time playing the Cataclysm beta thus far, but here are my impressions so far:
Warrior: So far I've only had time to play as Fury. I was going to go Prot right away and bang out some instances, but the dungeon finder on the test realms does not work. Bummer, but not surprising.
Anyhow, I went into beta thinking I was going to really be disappointed in the new warrior changes, but oh how wrong I was. Fury is a hell of a lot more fun now than it's ever been. I'm not sure there's ever a time you're not pushing buttons, unlike the current 3 button rotation. The introduction of Raging Blow (I think that's what it's called) and changing Cleave and HS to no longer be on-next-hit attacks makes fury a much more active spec to play.
However, the devs are still holding rage nerfs over the warriors head. Maybe it's deserved, as there have been very few times I haven't been able to HS the shit out of every mob in my way. But it's certainly making me shy away from playing a warrior come release.
Paladin: Paladin is just broken as it stands right now. Half of the spells and abilities I'm supposed to have are nowhere to be found in my spellbook. Even abilities gotten through talents are missing, so it makes it really hard to judge where the paladin is so far. I will say that the holy power mechanic is interesting.
Death Knight: Another instance of missing key abilities, but for another reason. I can see them on the class trainer, but due to a bug I'd have to drop my professions to be able to train them. So I'll just be waiting for the next build to really test out my DK.
Mage: I haven't played a mage since vanilla, so I wasn't really sure what to expect with this class, but I'm really loving the fire spec so far (only one I've tried). The mobility the class has is just incredible. Having scortch cost no mana, and being able to cast it while moving is just insane. Combine that with dragons breath, a targetable blast wave, and insta-cast pyroblasts and you've got some serious kiting ability and firepower.
I'm enjoying playing this character so much that as of right now, I've decided I'm going to roll a mage at cata release to experience all the new zone content.
Shaman: It's really hard to tell where enhancement shaman is without recount. There are just too many numbers flying everywhere to get a good idea. But the synergy between searing totem and lava lash really has potential for some serious numbers. There were 2 things I really didn't like however, fire nova not working with searing totem, and primal strike being on the same cooldown as storm strike.
New starting areas: I won't go into a whole lot of detail, there are videos available for that, but I will say this: While the Goblin area is pretty cool, the Worgen area blows it out of the water. I really want to like the Goblin starting zone, but it's all just a little too silly, and the story just isn't interesting at all compared to the Worgen's.
I'll post more as I play.
The only good thing I’ll ever say about a Pats player
Laurence Maroney watches Voltron, and is incredulous that the reporters interviewing him don't know what it is. Awesome.
The gayest thing I’ve ever seen
Recording yourself singing A Capella. Knowing the words to the Pokemon song. Having a Justin Beiber haircut. Having an overall feminine look. Owning 3 or more V-neck shirts. None of these things alone make someone gay, but combine them all and you get this:
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
A testament to my awesomeness
And geekiness. I'm just so good people think I cheat. Here I am on my new warrior, Fartbox, tanking the Stockades. As you can see, this random hunter is incredulous at the sight of me completely carrying the group.
This is a common occurrence. I'm used to it by now. But I thought since I haven't updated this thing in a while I might as well pat myself on the back a bit.
Amon Amarth – Twilight of the Thunder God
Grab your spear and shield, it's time for some viking themed melodic death metal!
All aboard the internet bandwagon!
Listen people, I've said this in the past and I'll say it again here. Repeating the same tired jokes, and trashing people because it's currently fashionable to do so doesn't make you funny, witty, clever or original in any way. It makes you a giant cock.
The latest example of this is the inane comments about Scott Stapp's recent singing of the national anthem. Most of you probably know him as the lead singer of Creed or Alter Bridge. Yes, two of the bands the internet loves to bash the most, so you can probably see where this is headed.
Just read the comments in this blog post, and on the YouTube video itself. While it isn't the best rendition of the anthem I've heard, it's pretty fucking far from the worst. But don't take my word for it, watch for yourself!
He was in tune, he hit all the notes, and I'd say he did pretty well. Could have done without checking his ear piece 27 times, but whatever.
Aaaand I had a point I was going to make, but I got pulled away to do some work, and now I can't remember what I was going to say. Oh well.
Moral of the story: Think for yourself. Don't be a cock.
StarCraft 2 Initial Impression
So last night as I was pooping I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket. As I wasn't going anywhere any time soon, I checked it out, and turns out, it was my acceptance email to the SC2 beta. Cool.
Now let me start by saying I was never really a fan of SC multiplayer games. I could never stand the rush mentality, it just was never fun for me. I want to build an army, not build 4 zerglings and slowly scratch away at my helpless opponents base. Boring. I did enjoy the single player campaigns though. They were all very deep, and kept me wanting to get to the next mission.
That said, SC2 so far just seems like more of the same as far as multiplayer games go. The rush mentality is still there, and I still hate it. After playing a couple games against other people, I decided to do a couple private games against the AI just so I could build more than a couple marines before taking out my opponent.
There are a good number of new units. I've always been a Terran guy, and giant robots are awesome, so I was very happy to see the Thor. The new battle battlecruisers are much cooler than the ones in the original, firing multiple lasers at once. And the units that can transform from air to ground are awesome.
But beyond the new units and graphical updates, the game seems to be almost identical to the original. Which really is fine, because the first one was as close to balanced as it could be. But for someone looking for anything really ground breaking, I don't see it here.
Unfortunately the single player campaigns are not included in the beta, which is what I really wanted to see. So I'll probably be putting this on the side until it's released.