22
Mar

10 Things I Learned From Smallville

By StalkerB 0 Comments
Categories: tv

In an unique set of events where I write a blog post that doesn’t involve some sort of marketing talk and that I can be bothered doing, while watching several seasons of a TV show I bring to you now ‘10 things that I’ve learned from Smallville’.

  1. People get knocked out if you so much as look at them funny
  2. Amnesia genuinely happens every other week and isn’t just a lazy plot device
  3. Lex Luthor has ‘resources’
  4. Relationships between teenagers and billionaire friends are so complex it’s often best just to forget about what’s happened last week and keep the same level of tension for years at a time
  5. Also, if you do something bad whilst ‘not being yourself’ it’ll be awkward for 10 - 45 minutes and then it’s all water under the bridge
  6. Even though the meteors have given 100s of people powers the government and general populace are blissfully unaware
  7. Kryptonite which should have an area of effect on Superman actually only kicks in when he also has a direct line of sight
  8. Borrowing £50,000 from a billionaire is like borrowing £10 from your normal mates and it’s always given without expectation of getting it back
  9. If you work on a farm and are struggling to make ends meet you’ll always still have enough money for a brand new truck and to replace that beam in the barn that people habitually fall through
  10. Regardless of the height you fall from Clark Kent’s arms are so soft it’ll cushion the impact sufficiently that you can just walk away afterwards
23
Aug

A bunch of reasons why achievements suck.

By StalkerB 1 Comment
Categories: games

Things that aren’t an achievement

Almost anything that’s online/ranked. I don’t say this just because I let my Live! Gold membership slip, but because it’s too reliant on the skills of others and is subject to boosting.

Things that just require you playing loads. Gears of War Seriously achievement, where you had to get 10,000 kills for example.

Playing through a specific way/ replay to get an achievement. Mass Effect with certain characters, HL2 Defiant, Bioshock Good/Bad. This simply shows people how you played the game, not that you’re any good at it.

Anything that requires you to scour every last inch of a game. Lost Odyssey Seeds.

Things that are just luck. Virtua Fighter items.

Completing a game on easy.

Completing the game as player 2. Gears of War Dom, Guitar Hero 3 Bass.

Things that are just fucking ridiculous

Guitar Hero in general. 20 gold stars on expert, button masher, buy a guitar already, 5 star every expert song, 5 star all co-op expert etc, etc.

Anything that requires you to beat everyone else in the world. Burnout Revenge Celebrity status, DOA 4 SS ranking, PGR 3 tournament qualifier (I imagine this’ll be a bone of contention and some may say they’re the only true achievements on the Xbox).

Beating everything the game has to offer 1,000 times. Virtua fighter arcade clearances.

Things that seem ridiculous but aren’t.

Hexic. Grand Pearl poobah, there’s a system. I can’t do it though.

Things that should work but don’t (usually).

Complete a game on the hardest setting not unlocking lower difficulty achievements too. Conflict Denied Ops.

Missing something and having to play the whole game again to get it. Assassin’s Creed, Conversationalist.

Getting achievements just for completing the game unavoidably. Fight Night 3 (at least King Kong tried).

Other annoyances

Not being able to delete a game from my gamercard. Let MS keep the details but I don’t want my 0 score from a shitty demo I downloaded cluttering up my gamercard. 

What achievements should be.

You vs. the game - Take the best the programmer has to throw at you and beaten it.

Progress chart - I can put up with completed stage 4 etc.

 

So, this is the start of my new blogging regime. It was hasty and not fully developed, but this is my opinion on achievements and you’re free to disagree. In the future I may make a list of the best and worst achievements or develop my ideas on what achievements should be further but for now I’ve written about something that bothers me and expressed myself. I encourage all bloggers to do the same.

23
Aug

The Art of Blogging

By StalkerB 0 Comments
Categories: websites

A while ago I wrote that the secret to blogging was to do a little, often. However it’s not quite been a mantra I lived by. Twitter has come along and made it even easier and for many posts bite sized chunks may be all that’s needed, however it’s not often that somebody makes significant money through blogging or Tweeting.

I then discovered Facebook, after keeping clear of it for a long while, and decided that the future of blogging lay in apps. Lots of short updates on many things. To some degree I still think it is, but I think there needs to be a dedicated CMS to such a thing, where you simply go into a back end and update your day, with where you’ve been and what you’ve done. I knowsome people manage to do that without a structured CMS but I think a gap is there for those that want to blog, but can never think of something to write about.

Third part of blogging is to write something people want to read. Some popular blogs are just about that person’s life, however I’m socially aloof and don’t engage with others in that sense. What I would read about is that person’s thoughts on various topics that has engaged them during the day. So I don’t care if work was shit and allyou want to do is hit the pub, however I would care if you read something in the paper and put your own thoughts on the matter down.

To that end I think I’m going to start blogging much more properly. Every time something interests me I’ll make a note of it and then write it up after work that day before I go home. I fully believe that if one person feels one way about something (in this instance about what people would like to read) then there are others out there and a market can be created for it.

So, I’m going to write up a piece on Xbox Achievements next, because it’s annoys me how crappy some achievements are. Then I’ll write up numerous science related pieces, perhaps give my views on some movies I’ve watched or games played, but what I’m not intending doing is just giving a chronicle of my life any more. Well, not that I wrote often enough anyway.

21
Aug

Most Awesome Marketing Video Ever!

By StalkerB 0 Comments
Categories: funny and games

The classic Microsoft joke of “it’s not a bug, it’s a feature” is taken to the limit with EA’s latest video.

YouTube Preview Image

« Previous Entries