Author: loserx - Page 24 - That Stupid Club

Can’t I just kill aliens and blow stuff up?

Bioware recently revealed Mass Effect 3 will have gay romance options for male Commander Shepard.

I have no problems with homosexuality in a computer game but given the seeming amount of effort and attention to detail involved it seems that it is at the expense of game play and storytelling. Worse when the relationship plots are so immature and poorly written. This smacks of Bioware trying to be edgy for its own sake which is stupid.

I hope it doesn’t turn out like another Dragon Age II which, to be fair, I have not played due to all the negative reviews and comments.

Oblivion Mod Impressions: The Blade of the Haunted

fear me, I've got glowy runes on my blade — Blade of the Haunted

A short but challenging quest. You won’t find quest markers to use as a crutch or hints in the journal entries on what to do next. The story fits with the official lore of the Elder Scrolls, which is something I like. The voice acting is mostly decent but jarring as quite a bit of dialogue is added to existing vanilla characters. Of course, you also end up with that sweet looking titular sword.

Highly recommended.

Find it at The Elder Scrolls Nexus.

Requirements: OBSE >= v0019

Not a Spinal Tap moment

Dream Theater will finally be revealing who their new drummer is in a series of videos posted on YouTube. The seven who auditioned are: Mike Mangini, Virgil Donati, Marco Minnemann, Peter Wildoer, Thomas Lang, Derek Roddy and Aquiles Priester.

From the first two videos, Mangini and Minnemann seem to be the front-runners for the job so far. Both of them are first-rate and will probably be good fits. From rumours going around the interwebs, it’s Mangini, but we’ll see I suppose.

This is a change that’s good for both Mike Portnoy and Dream Theater. As an old fan dating from the Images and Words days, I must say their output after Six Degrees has been generally underwhelming with what I consider to be less memorable songwriting compared to the earlier days.

Another big problem I have with the later albums is Mike taking a shine to some godawful rap/growl vocal stylings that he’ll stick somewhere on every album. I’m probably being petty, but I can’t stand it.

It got so that I preferred the various side projects the members participated in, such as An Evening With John Petrucci & Jordan Rudess, the Mullmuzzler albums by Labrie and Frameshift’s Unweaving the Rainbow (speaking of which, Henning, we want Frameshift 3). Hopefully playing with a new drummer will get their creative juices again, and here’s hoping that Mike finds himself interesting new projects too.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Edit: Mangini got it. I thought Minnemann would have given the band a fresher sound and am a little disappointed, but still, both are excellent choices.

Dog Days – Truth in Advertising

A pink and girly Chocobo...sorry I meant Cellkull

I was already regretting my decision to give this show any time at all before the OP sequence was over which is probably something of a record. The show itself did nothing to change my mind.

So, this show is about a mixed race Japanese school kid who gets summoned by the dog princess to be her champion in the battle against the cat people. The battlefield looks like an obstacle course which is perfect since our hero is a gymnastics otaku. The “fighting” results in no casualties, losers just turn into stupid looking spheres.

This is a dog of a show. Avoid.

FRESH POTS!

In honour of the new Foo Fighters album Wasting Light (it rocks), I present the Foo’s front man Dave Grohl in one of his finest moments.

Dave Grohl in FRESH POTS!

Eyes of the Killer (crocs)

As if the fucking shoes aren’t humiliating enough, now you can slap some cheap and colourful plastic on your face too.

Interestingly, the crocs eyewear collection is manufactured by a local (Singaporean) company according to the Hong Kong Optical Fair website.

Please donate to the Japan tsunami disaster relief

Hello, this is the owner of the blog. Regular readers of our blog (all three and a half of you, you know who you are) know we are just a bunch with no agenda beyond writing whatever we want to write about and having fun doing it. This would be the first time I’m writing about something serious.

I presume every one of you who might see this post knows about the situation in Japan. On the 11st of March, Japan was struck by a massive 8.9/9 magnitude earthquake and the resulting tsunami was devastating.

We have all seen the videos and the horrifying photographs of the aftermath, and if you have been keeping up, you know the news getting out to us is worse by the day.

I’m asking you as a fellow citizen of the world, please donate to the relief efforts.

Fellow Singaporeans, as of now (6:20pm UTC +08:00, 14th March 2011) our local Red Cross has finally gotten their permit to raise funds. I will be updating this post with information as it becomes available.

EDIT: all links removed in favour of Google’s crisis response page. Proceeds go directly to the Japanese Red Cross.

Macross Frontier YF-29 Durandal

The DX Chogokin toys from the second Macross Frontier movie were announced some time ago but I totally missed it. Proper photos have just been released though.

I got to say the machine is a little underwhelming. While it certainly isn’t ugly, it just looks like the VF-25 and the YF-19 from Macross Plus mashed together, only flashier than both in a bad way. A little too busy, perhaps. I quote:

In the production of Macross Frontier, the VF-171 was chosen as the main fighter of the New U.N. Spacy because it was felt that the previous main fighter, the VF-19 Excalibur, looked too much like a “hero” fighter…

This one looks more of a “hero” fighter to me.

The roots of the design is especially obvious in gerwalk mode. Compare: