Company of Heroes

Company of Heroes is the greatest real-time strategy game I've ever played. Campaign mode is challenging, graphically appealing, and so simple to control.

The problem arises when I try to get into multiplayer. Simply trying to login to multiplayer means I have to download a number of patches. These download by themselves. A few of them are huge (we're talking 1.8 Gigs for one of them), so they're slow to load. Once these are installed, I load the CD back in the tray to play. There is no option to PLAY the game! Only an Install button is available. I click Install. I get an error message saying the game is already installed. I try to load the game from the Start Menu, but there is no option available. I finally go to the install directory and try to find an executable file to click on or shortcut to. When I finally find it, it loads directly into Multiplayer and tells me I have to download that same 1.8 Gig patch!!! I've already uninstalled and reinstalled everything TWICE!

I go online to try to find a resolution. There is no link for Technical Support on the Company of Heroes website. I go to the forums. These are littered with posts from people having problems loading patches, joining multiplayer games, or dropping from the server. There are no real answers from anyone resembling Tech Support. Just a few random suggestions from people to try this or that solution.

Is it commonplace that a great game is often marred by technical issues that go unresolved? I have become so stressed out over this issue that I want to trash the game entirely.

Way to go, THQ and Relic. I won't be buying anymore games with your logos attached.

Sifted: 4/10 for compelling campaign but unplayable multiplayer.

How much will they pay Sam Adams' accuser?

I am curious how much Beau Breedlove will be offered to "turn State's evidence" against Sam Adams during this devious attempt to investigate drag another Democrat through the mud? How much will it be Beau? Couple of million dollars to sell out your ethics and ruin the life of one of your former lovers? Just how much is a gay man's soul going for these days?

I realize Beau is young, but I hope he has more sense than to sell his soul to the media and ruin another man's life and potential in the process. Only bad could come from that. It's certainly not worth any amount of money to bring about someone's ruination. If Beau is a good person, I know he'll realize that and turn down any offers. Lying about a relationship with a person as good as Sam Adams is simply evil.

Sam Adams is gay. He was involved with a younger man. So what? If Sam could get married, he probably would be married by now. But he can't, so there is no point in trying to discredit him morally when the man is obviously single and ready to mingle. I hate to be cliche, but quit hating the player and hate the game.

If Sam broke a law, surely it might involve the buggering of a 17-year-old gay man-boy (although it's possible that Sam was the one being buggered). It's my understanding that they never knew each other even existed prior to Beau being 17--which I'm sure the media are frothing to discover was actually 16, or better yet: 11. Sheesh.

I realize sex with a 17-year-old is illegal in the US, but come on ... really? Maybe Sam Adams should have married the kid first? In fact, none of this would be a problem if he could, right? Double-standardized Hypocrite Alert!

I, for one, am not buying it. And I won't be reading the Willamette Week OR Just Out anymore either.

If you are going down, Sam Adams, go down with some flare, will ya? Don't crawl away like a political lamb to the slaughter. Go out with court cases and courtroom drama, with lawsuits against every newspaper in the county, against the city, against the county--I recommend a good defamation lawsuit against the Willamette Week and Just Out, for starters. This kind of information is not newsworthy or of any benefit to the community. Mainly because no one cares what you do in your bedroom, Sam Adams. And the community needs to treat those who do shamefully, for this type of smear campaign is costly in money and human souls and it needs to simply end. It is the darkest propaganda.

We need to protect the children from watching this modern-day witch-hunt, to refrain from giving them any bright ideas, and to protect them from the wiley, wicked ways of the liars and false prudes who are pursuing the downfall of a gay man right before our eyes.

Linksys WGA600N - Epic Trouble

I bought this router because I wanted to speed up my Xbox 360 Live playing of one of my favorite games - Call of Duty 4.

It has several problems:

1. To install, you need to call Technical Support. The installation disk is completely useless. You may as well shoot yourself in the head if you expect it to work outside of the box.

2. Every operator I've spoken with at Linksys was probably born in Asia. This is not a bad thing, but expect some heavy accents and peculiarly spotty connections when you call them. Also, they don't seem to pay much attention to your actual problem. Expect to be on hold for random periods of between 5 and 15 minutes while the Technician reads manga or the Bollywood Informer. Plan on being on hold 2-7 times.

3. There is no such thing as Plug and Play when it comes to things like this. You will submit.

4. Once you get it hooked up, it will probably fail the XBox Live Network Tests. Not to worry, for some reason, it will sign you in just fine. Gameplay is vastly improved, but good luck having Tech Support get your Network Tests to work. It will fail DNS. It will fail MTU. It will fail ICMP. There will be no explanation as to why. This simply is.

5. Linksys will tell you to call Xbox, which will tell you to call Linksys. Linksys will tell you to call Xbox again. 15% of the time, Linksys will tell you to call D-link (your router company). D-link will tell you Linksys is high. Linksys will tell you they teabagged D-Link's girlfriend. Xbox will snicker wickedly in the corner.

5. If you want it to connect in the N signal (which is way faster than the typical G signal), good luck, you snivelling moron. You will submit to playing in the G signal. Submit ... bitch! Submit!

6. You will gain a level in Networking & Communications, making you a 9th level War Driver with a + 3 laptop and a magic Headset of Achiness.

Apparently, it's Okay if You're a Cop...

to do this.

Having Technical Difficulties

You might have noticed I haven't been posting much lately. My computer seems to have gotten bricked by a particularly nasty trojan. I've tried everything, and I do mean everything, short of just re-formatting the hard disk and re-installing Windows.

Shortly after booting up, my computer loads my personal settings, then hangs eternally, showing my background of Banksy art (incidentally, I never knew he was so prolific).

Fortunately, my information has been sufficiently backed up. Now I just need to wait for the system disk to be shipped from eMachines. I won't even go into that. Suffice it to say, I'm paying $20 for a disk that should have been included with my machine when I bought it.

I've had Shaman (my desktop -- yes, I name my computers. I'm a dork) for around 2-3 years now, so I'm not surprised it finally had a mental breakdown. Fortunately, I'm not in the middle of any major projects.

And in a stroke of luck, my awesome fiance recently bought me a brand spanking new laptop (who I have christened Noirling). It was just in the nick of time, evidently; but it's not so simple to type on a laptop. I have to admit, I'm spoiled by my Microsoft ergonomic keyboard. Typing on a flat keyboard just seems alien to me now.

In any event, I should be back up and running within the next week or so, but will be posting sporadically until then.

-The Noir

Video: Iraqi Boys Race for Water

Gruesome Adidas Design

These are some ugly-ass fashion-challenged Adidas. T-Mac VI Allstar Colorway series.

From Kix Files.

For the discriminating baller. And preppy clowns.

I'm seriously disappointed in Adidas. I've always had a preference for their cutting-edge design, but this is just ... awkward.

Hack the Vote!

The voting process is officially defunct. If the Democrats win, they'll say the election was hacked. If the Republicans win, they'll say it was stolen again. In a system so dependant on voting, in a country so advanced that we don't even have to show up to the polls, why can't we get it right?

One thing is certain, voting third party for non-important offices will insure an eventual overthrow of those in power. It's not about toppling the ladder; it's about taking the ladder out from under them.

Hip-Hop Suckers Sip Ace?

Someone over at the Hip-Hop Game is breaking it down and giving us the 411 on Jay-Z's "Cristal Killer", otherwise known as Armand de Brignac, or "Ace" for short. Having never tasted the Champagne (and, in fact, having an aversion to Champagne, in general), I can't speak for its quality.

However, the product placement Jay-Z is executing seems to be suspicious. This stuff is obviously some cheap $40 rotgut that's been put in a shiny gold bottle with a nice logo on the front. It wouldn't surprise me if Jay-Z had partial ownership in the company, at this point.

The article does a good job of digging down into what's really going on with "Ace." According to the marketing materials, it's real big in France. But a few calls made to France and supposedly no one has ever heard of it.

Things that make you go hmmm?

Bottom line: Stick with Dom.

My XBox is Broken!

For the second time, my XBox has decided to defy me. Around 18 months after buying it, games started getting glitchy and freezing up on me. If I rented a newer game, the chance of it working was minimal. I cleaned the drive and checked all the connections; still, I was plagued by the nuisance that was unpredictable stops in gameplay. I did some research and discovered the problem stemmed from a cheap hardware issue. To put it simply, the disc drives in some consoles have a tendency to break. I wasn't the only person experiencing this problem, or the burden of an expired warranty. What bothered me most was how quickly it broke. I hadn't even put in 1000 hours of gaming, and already my disc drive was crapping out on me.

I went through all the pains of locating an ebay seller who could provide me with a new drive. I waited the week it took to deliver the item, then I went through the hassle of installing the drive (pretty simple, but annoying). Around this time, my fiancé was kind and loving enough to gift me with a PlayStation 2. That meant I had two consoles to play, and that I could divide the workload between them, respectively.

Now, it's been about 18 months, and my XBox is petering out, once again. Same problem. Games freeze up and die in the midst of my button-mashing madness, causing me to toss my controllers and break them too.

I expect hardware issues in consoles that have to clock my manic gameplay. Nevertheless, it's frustrating and, eventually, detrimental to the entire line of XBox games. Before, when I had the option, I would buy an XBox game before a PS2 game. Faster load times, better graphics, and the ability to play my own soundtracks kept me coming back to the XBox again and again. My PS2 was like an ugly stepchild, only getting attention from me when there were rentals to be played that were only available on its console.

Now things have changed. I am handicapped in a sense, and only able to review PS2 games until I get this resolved. What this means is Sony ends up getting my money by default. I am not a Sony fan. I tend to think they are more evil than Microsoft. Still, I have never had any hardware issues with my PS2 (crossing fingers). Not that playing on the PS2 is a bad thing. With releases like Bully and Okami, I have a few months of gameplay before me. While the XBox has pretty much abandoned its old console in favor of producing XBox 360 titles, the PS2 seems to be making a final full-court press.

I'm not sure which I want to get first: an Xbox 360 or a PS3. Way back, when I got my Xbox first, I remember cursing myself for buying a console that was second to market. The games were often painfully weak in comparison to the PS2's stellar releases. I told myself that next time around I would buy the first console to make it to market. I convinced myself that the state of the games themselves would make the decision for me the next time the opportunity rose to get another console.

I had a chance to get a 360 recently, but I had second thoughts. Would I be investing in shoddy hardware by buying the console relatively early? I mean, it hasn't even been out a year yet. And there have been several reports of problems with the hardware, yet again. None of this makes me want to shell out $400 for a new system. And frankly, $400 is the only option available. I wouldn't spend $300 for the hobbled version. It wouldn't even be fun, having to deal with load times, memory cards, and all that lameness that comes with not having an onboard hard drive.

So, for the time being, it's down to PS2 and PC game reviews. Sorry.

Maybe I can dream that some Microsoft exec will read my stellar game reviews and decide to send me a shiny new Xbox 360? Not that it would sway my judgement, one way or the other. Crap media and crap hardware will always be exposed on this site; it's a personal crusade. So maybe it would be a bad idea for Microsoft to send me a 360, after all. Because I wouldn't pull any punches, and I suspect the 360 is a punching bag just waiting to happen.