Once someone has made the suggestion that something may be wrong with the batch of food you’re eating, even when this is clearly disproven, there’s no going back. That taint remains.
Someone thought they saw mealworms in the batter of this Long John Silver’s fish. They were wrong, entirely so, but after the idea stewed, even after inspection under a magnifying glass it turns out the idea is always there.
There’s no rational reason, I suppose it’s just evolution. When we find out a big possible problem with something, we’re tend to assume the worst. Pat Buchanan’s a racist bastard, my girlfriend was banging 12 guys, Glenn Beck is insane. And it turned out the first one wasn’t really true, but the idea stuck forever. Maybe Larry Craig isn’t really even gay. Not that it’s an actual problem for most of us, but for his career and voting record, yes, yes it is. And the idea he is will stick forever.
All it takes is one herpes outbreak and you’re never interested in a girl again. It’s ridiculous!
How egomaniacal have we become? Must we be in every photograph we take, and beyond that, must it always be a horrid squeezed together “arm held out looking at the camera” angle? Is it too much to say “Hey, can you take a quick picture for me?”
Apparently it is. We’re so damn self-important we have to have a camera that shows the picture on the front so we can see every shitty photograph starring ourselves as we take it. At least we haven’t made the Myspace mirror shot an official standard yet, but I’m not sure this is better. Aside from enabling terrible photography and egotism, this makes the dreaded “fat girl angle shot” all the easier, and I think we all know someone with a regretted Myspace hookup due to one of those.
Maybe I should just give up on this whole “quality pictures on the internet” thing, but I really don’t think pandering to the lowest common denominator is ever a good idea.
Disclaimer: This review is based entirely on extensive demo play, which showcases the most important part of the game, the actual game. I have no knowledge of in depth season, career, and other modes.
You know what’s fun? Baseball.
Okay, well…it’s fun to play. And for a long time there were fun baseball video games on consoles, each of which managed the complicated structure in different ways. The Atari 2600′s Super Challenge Baseball had one button and a joystick, but everyone knew to hold a direction during the pitch to influence the ball, and the simple “point and click” method worked for throwing the ball.
Possibly the best baseball interface of all time, intuitive, simple, and effective, Intellivision’s Major League Baseball. Batting and bunting on the side buttons was simple, and fielding was even easier. Every position had its own key on the 12 key pad, correlating right to where it should be on the field. Control runners simply by pointing with the disc. Easy stuff.
Later consoles with fewer buttons would go back toward point and click, but add pitching options. Tommy Lasorta would put his name on a fair share of games, and we’d even go into sci-fi with Super Baseball 2020.
And yet like so many games, baseball has had trouble making the transition to the third dimension. The addition of swing locations really threw a wrench into things, but it started to get worked out by World Series Baseball 2k2. Mostly the challenge was making pitches visible enough for players to read, without becoming more obvious than they would be in reality. Anyone who’s spent 2 minutes at a batting cage knows hitting a ball is hard, but hey, if we can make reliable hail mary passes in football games we should be able to hit a fastball.
So now we’re 10 years past the first baseball game of the modern era. We’ve had the arcadey titles and the sim titles now, and the latest among them is The Show, Sony’s series. 2010 is freshly out now, and…well, it’s a downgrade.
The simplest way to put it is that it’s too inconsistent. What you do, what the AI does, what the crowd does, how the ball moves. Maybe I’m wrong here, but sports games should be past the RPG stage, and that’s just where The Show is.
At the plate or on the mound it’s obvious that there’s dice rolling going on under the hood. Sometimes a pitch goes wild for no reason. Not just a little, a fastball, dead center at moderate speed released at the sweet spot, will shoot far off to the side. Pitching also suffers from a poorly designed meter. The confidence meter is a good idea, as is the variably sized sweet spot. The problem comes in the form of the speed being very inconsistent. Speeding the meter up or down as a whole to show being shaken, exhausted, or somehow affected is fine, but the wind up and the release speeds can vary tremendously. The system is a three press system. Once to start, once to set a speed, once for the release point. Simple, it’s like most golf games. Meter goes up, set power, meter goes down, release.
But the release can be three times as fast as the windup, completely disabling the ability of a player to get any sort of timing down. Naturally, the AI pitchers are unaffected.
There’s also the apparent use of batting averages to determine just how bit someone’s swing influence is, but it’s never properly shown. The size of the representative circle doesn’t change, but players with a high average will often swing well outside of the zone players aim for, to the extent that a completely missed swing, if player influence is any factor, can be a home run.
Now, it’s expected the stats of the real players are a factor, but they’re only that, a factor. A player making bad plays should pay the price, and vice versa for good plays. It just never seems to work that way, though. Throws routinely go high for players, runners stumble, fielders drop a ball. There’s a real bias toward the AI in The Show, particularly in terms of the umpire calling strikes. It’s even more obvious with the power hitters, who get clear favoritism from umpires, at least on the AI team.
None of this is helped by the awful controls for baserunning, or how non-responsive the swing controls feel. There’s also the poorly thought-out mechanic for swing checking, where you simply let go of the button. Sounds great, but in a video game where you can’t really see the proper depth or direction of a pitch, or where we’re used to just tapping the button to swing, it results in a lot of strikes or a lot of unchecked swings that you wanted to stop.
Stealing bases, going for extra, or just leading off, all of those require odd combinations of buttons and stick presses, easily done improperly or just not quickly enough to save a play. So you set the baserunning to automatic, but that results in players often NOT running when they should because of AI errors.
The camera angles just never quite work for the batter. It needs to be up or down a little to provide some idea of depth perception, rather than memorizing the timing of a pitch. They also never work for the fielding, often switching to an angle that reveals where a ball is going too late to react properly. The fielder selected is often counter-intuitive, leaving players to turn on assisted or automatic fielding. Another part of the game slips away from their control.
The sad statement of MLB 10:The Show is that it’s at it’s best when players do the least. If it played the whole game itself it’d be pretty damn good, but frustrating batting and pitching, the core of the game, just provide too much trouble. The fielding is fine when it’s working as it should, but when something goes wrong, and it often does, it’s just a frustration.
There are, of course, bugs aplenty, usually related to clipping planes. The screen behind the plate to save fans from getting a Liberace blocks balls (this website is classy) and nothing else. A pop-up foul straight back can go up and over the screen, dropping back right behind it, where most of us would call it “out of play.” But not The Show, or the catcher, who can and will stick his gloved arm right through the screen. Does he go through a gap at the bottom? Does he have superhuman powers to allow himself to shrink his arm to fit through the wire mesh? Does he have superhuman strength? Judging by the throws he’s made to stop a base stealer, I’m going to go with the shrinking thing.
Players routinely run through each other, both teammates and opponents. I’d complain about umpires, but to be fair they’re supposed to be out of the way. Still, for a simulation, once in a a while one should take that hit. The home plate ump does sometimes, but apparently it’s based on a forcefield he wears. Replays reveal that the ball’s impact on players, umps, bats, and fences is around three or four inches away from the actual object. Maybe everything is actually made of rare earth metals, it’s just a magnetic effect we’re seeing. That would make sense, right?
There are plenty of miscellaneous complaints to be had, really. Players don’t look like their real life counterparts, the animations are terrible to mediocre, particularly when it comes to errors, and there’s absolutely no clipping planes in the game. Balls often move right through the backs or sides of gloves to be caught. Sometimes they even make 90 degree turns to the left, moving two feet into Jeter’s hand, clearly visible both live and in the replay.
Balls will bounce through the fans, be that the fans leaning over the fence to catch a foul or the ones in the stands. No kidding. It just passes through them. Sometimes a ball can hop over the fence on a bounce and nobody moves at all, but the ball bounces like it’s hitting a trampoline. Again, I’m going with the “rare earth supermagnets” theory here.
When players are angry, they all look exactly the same. Their noses flatten like they’re shihtzus, they all have a kind of snouty-pig look, and appear to stretch and become two-dimensional, which is a constant problem with the game’s FOV anyway. Some players look like middle-aged men for no apparent reason.
The real shame is that at first, the game is fun. And sometimes there’s an urge to play, but not at the price of buying in. The demo is long enough and provides enough content to just play it. At least that way when a bug causes you to lose you didn’t pay for it and long term, it doesn’t really matter. It’s fun for about 30-45 minutes, maybe for 8 innings (aka, two full demo plays), but after that, it’s just gotten frustrating.
It is, ultimately, less of a sports sim and more of a baseball RPG given the constant stat-checking under the hood and the fact it’s better to just let most functions automate. There’s plenty of bells and whistles and extra touches. It’s nice to have the replays, the player reactions, the fully realized stadiums, but with the core game having the deep flaws it does, it doesn’t really matter. It’s a budget title promoted as a flagship.
I came up with three or four ideas for posts while I was playing Final Fantasy 13, one of the few of the series I’ve actually liked.
Naturally, I forgot them all minutes later, excepting for one.
I’m really sick of every Friday night being crime night in Phoenix. No kidding, every damn Friday night between 1-4 am, helicopters go circling. Can’t belligerent drunks and gangbangers vary things a little? It’d really be nice, just a little variety in my paranoid door-locking nights. For example, sometimes it could be a Thursday, or sometimes, no stupid middle of the night crime sprees at all! That’d be totally awesome, in fact, and probably work out better since the cops will instantly know the suspect at night. Why? Because people don’t go hopping fences in the middle of the night shirtless generally. A little more crowd to blend in with during the day, so…you know, try it out guys.
But much like yawning, you’re about to have an evolutionary trigger hit.
I hate when I think about breathing, and it switches over from involuntary to voluntary, and I have to think about doing it until a little time passes and I forget, so it goes back to my medulla.
You’re thinking about it now aren’t you? Now you’re having to do it yourself, I bet you’re taking more sparse, deeper breaths than normal too.
Sorry.
And writing this doesn’t help the process either for me, but since it just happened…well, not much option but to whinge about it. That’s what I do, I get annoyed, I whinge for all to see.
Watch some Lady Gaga, you’ll forget quick enough. Then you’ll see a Lady Gaga video and think about breathing, and it all starts over. I think that might be when we die. When we’re out of memories that don’t make us think about breathing. We can’t switch it off, we fall asleep, and bam, dead in 10. Until then…
Today, I went to Pizza Hut. I was picking up a pizza for my father, who’s undergoing chemo right now. Unsurprisingly, getting something that even tastes okay is a challenge, so when he thought that sounded good, I jumped.
I also spent my only $5 I’ve got for my own pleasure this month on a delicious 4 pack of Stuffed Pizza Rollers, which I haven’t had in ages, but have not forgotten the joy of.
Upon my exit from the store, a woman in a dirty white t-shirt with large gold hoop earrings stopped me. “I was going to ask the guy inside for help but I’m going to an abuse shelter in the morning with my kids and my grandmother. We’re staying in a motel right now and don’t have any money for food, can you order something please?” My first instinct was disbelief. I’ve spent a lot of time around people who are making up stories, afterall, from my retail work in the ghetto. You learn which people are really on hard times and want some food versus who needs a little crack money fast, especially when they try to sell you a Banquet frozen dinner.
But, I’m not omniscient. I could be wrong, and while I had no spare money, I knew I didn’t NEED the pizza rollers. A little sadly, afterall, I’m a fat guy who had a tasty treat, I handed them over. She ran to her truck, parked just a space from me and handed them to someone on the other side saying “Here, save these for the kids.” I would have liked a thank you, certainly, but maybe she had other things on her mind. I probably would, and she ran into Pizza Hut immediately.
As I pulled out, I saw a guy on the other side of the truck. “That’s a guy!” my brain said. “And he looks like an asshole! And he’s just glaring at me, you can at least give me a “thank you” courtesy wave or nod!” It was followed by “Fuck, I bet she was just trying to con me for a meal. Well, she told him to save it for the kids, anyway. If they can’t afford something for them that’s fine, but they shouldn’t be lying about it.”
Cut to 20 minutes ago. I experimented in the kitchen with pita bread and cheese, attempting to recreate the lost tastytreat. The first attempt was too crispy, but had a good flavor. The second was closer in texture, but the flavor wasn’t as good and it was too wet. Mentally, the thought popped up “God damn it, I really wanted those. That was the last five bucks I had for eating out, she’d fucking better have been battered!”
A few moments passed. Of course, much like REM sleep it probably all happened within the span of a second, but it sure seemed like a long time in my mind.
I knew what I’d just thought, afterall. And then the next thought popped up. “Wait, that’s horrible. I think I’d rather have just been conned for five bucks.”
For once, I really hope my charity offering was just me being a sucker. I didn’t ever think I’d think or say that, but there it is. I also know there’s an insensitive prick in my barely-conscious thoughts now, but I kinda figured he was there a long time ago, having moved in as a response to my habit of dating emotionally draining/abusive crazy women with severe personality disorders.
But I still hope I was just a sucker this time, because I just had an awkward moment in my own head, by myself. I didn’t know that was even possible.
Forever, really. Every year Valentine’s Day comes and goes, and every year I see ad blitzes for romantic comedies, overpriced teddy bears, and pajama deliveries.
Nobody actually likes the day. People in relationships hate the pressure it adds. Single people hate the reminders of being anywhere from an extra wheel to a second class citizen. Valentine’s is when you remember you are very much alone, that you were passed over for a promotion because you weren’t married and the other guy had a wife to pay for (true story for me and several friends), and that one chick decided instead of spending the day with you as planned she’d go spend the weekend with a guy she met the night before. Or that the woman you went on that fantastic date with will talk about how she doesn’t want a relationship with anyone.
It’s a crappy day for everyone who isn’t selling flowers. Although to be fair, more and more companies get in on the act. Even Sony is offering Valentine’s promotions on the Playstation Network, and NHL 10 has gotten Valentine’s related in-game ads. Really, I find the in-game ads most puzzling, the demographic least likely to celebrate Valentine’s gets the most intrusive ads.
But nobody ACTUALLY celebrates Valentine’s. People just get depressed on it over never living up to expectations. Even Christmas manages to come out as a better day for most people, even Thanksgiving which has two fights built in. There’s no real romance to the day, it’s “Hey, look what I’ve got and you don’t” at most. It’s a damn near objectivist holiday. A purer form of consumerism than Christmas has become, and how better to celebrate the martyrdoms of two Saints named Valentine? Buy some crap you nor your partner will like. A cheap paper sentiment, chalk flavored candy with illiterate scrawling, some bad chocolate, and according to the commercials, sit in adjacent tubs while your resurrected erection goes to waste after popping a pill.
I say to hell with it, it’s time to recognize this day as the blight of a social obligation it is, wherein you’re forced to spend exorbitant amounts of money on shit, or be reminded that nobody will ever love you.That if you buy less than the next guy (and let’s be fair, it’s usually men who have to buy all this), you don’t love your partner as much. But you can ask a Walgreens gift advisor for help fixing that! Buy more mylar balloons! Buy more bags of fattening candy that’s somehow worse than candy corn, but is purchased anyway because of the heart shapes! Enjoy the continued ad blitz wherein every break is composed of Vermont Teddy Bear, Cialis, Pajamagram, Cialis, Vermont Teddy Bear.
It’s my belief that we must immediately begin calling Valentine’s VD. Clearly it IS a disease, leading to poverty, depression, and self-injury, so the moniker is appropriate. Beyond that, given time, it should acquire RAS (redundant acronym syndrome) syndrome, as with PIN number and ATM machine.. Soon everyone will call it VD Day, and perhaps, given the unpleasant connotation forget about it entirely. Nobody’s going to buy a Vermont Teddy Bear or Pajamagram (which, by the way, are part of the same company) for VD Day.
I’m gonna get a little philosophical on this one. It won’t be pretty, and you’re encouraged to disregard this entry entirely.
Why are we betrayed by our subconscious? Why does the conscience completely wither in some, yet others are driven to self-destruction to save others?
It seems to happen backwards from what you’d think, in fact. People born into a functional, normal family tend to be content to live and let die, to cut their losses when things turn to bullshit. Those who should learn “I’m on my own, and so are they” thanks to drunken stepfathers and molesting grandmothers don’t, instead they often end up martyrs rather than sociopaths. Drawn to the very chaos they consciously seek to escape, recreating the childhoods they don’t want back, yet find a sort of familiar comfort in.
Expert psychologists have described the human psyche as “totally fucked up, dude.” We’re supposed to learn from bad experiences. If you get burned as a kid, you stay away from fire. If your dad is an alcoholic, you find a man just like him. What separates things we learn from from things we recreate?
What makes us decide just who to help, anyway? There’s a strange thing within the US especially with this regarding health care. On the left, you have people who are pro-choice and pro-universal healthcare. On the right, pro-life and anti-universal healthcare. On either side, once you’re born, your status is flipped. And both sides do tend to claim religious doctrine in their favor from the same book, though the right seems to be much more apt to claim said doctrine and ignore the parts within that are pretty clear on Jesus helping the poor and insisting his followers be among them.
Of course, in the interest of full disclosure I might be a little to the left of Castro, somewhere around the Huey Freeman political doctrine, so my opinion here is biased.
That said, it all ties into the great inconsistencies with who we feel for. The same people who will cheer someone on Oprah who overcame an addiction won’t spare a dollar for the man on the street currently fighting it. That same person who doesn’t tip at a restaurant will show up at an ex-girlfriend’s home at 3 AM because she had a fight with her boyfriend. Again. And her husband got involved in it too.
But recognition for having not had three illegitimate children and a crack problem? Doesn’t seem to be much. Come back after you hit the pipe a few times and forget to use a condom, says Oprah! Or at least fake it in a book before coming on the show.
We swear up and down to avoid becoming or dating our parents, then we do anyway. If you’re raised by a heroin addict who humps bears when he’s coming down after running to a bathhouse (uh, do I need to clarify I mean the ursine type, not the gay man type?), against all odds that’s who you’ll end up dating, swearing never to do it again, then thinking about how great that person was to you, when they were awful.
Everyone seems to have that little voice that leads them into trouble, into emotional trauma and repetition, and nobody wants to admit it. That little voice is certain it’s always right, does no wrong, and makes every decision in the span of seconds. It’s like we all have a teeny tiny George W. Bush in our minds, telling us that it’s totally cool to invade Iraq (Visit your ex) because even though we were attacked by people in Afghanistan (a history of molestation), Iraq is way more important than the economy or local issues (this metaphor is stretching horribly but let’s say “your self esteem”). Except for the gays. Those are more important than anything (The metaphor just snapped in the middle, like the broken condom it represents now and the morning after pill you wished you took, except the economy was broken so you thought it might fix it?).
I think I’ve just proven my George theory with that awful series of broken metaphors, and I apologize. I also invite you to replace George W. Bush with Sarah Palin as your inner voice’s gender prescribes.
I’m just going to chalk it all up to the greed of that little voice, that it’s convinced no matter how bad it’s gone before, it’ll totally be awesome this time. You’ll get laid and this time she’ll totally realize the mistake she made by not staying with you (and going to Iraq instead)! Who cares if she freaks out when a relationship gets stable (too much success in Afghanistan?), and goes and cheats on you (uh…here’s that Iraq metaphor again, shit).
And if your boyfriend gets drunk and beat you, it’s just because you didn’t fix dinner right (find WMDs). But you can SAVE HIM (Distract everyone with Iran).
Okay, okay, I’ll stop with the tortured (waterboarded metaphors). Ha, did it again! Just like your ex!
And on that note of bad relationships and metaphors, I think I’m starting to understand why Twilight is so popular.