Demo Review: Left 4 Dead

Yes, I am reviewing a demo. I havn't even played through all of the demo's features. BUT, I simply can't resist. When Left 4 Dead's demo unlocked today, and I began to watch the intro video, I had to pause it and change my underpants. Yes... I nerd-gasmed all over the place. The intro video is so fucking cool that I couldnt contain my sexual reproductive organs which instinctively wanted to mate with my computer so that our robot babies would have the coolest genes in robo-preschool. Unfortunately for Left 4 Dead, an AMAZING non-gameplay intro movie is not enough to garner a positive rating from this blog. FORTUNATLY, I played through the entire first demo mission and much of the second mission and the gameplay is really freaking sweet.

Valve did an amazing job of creating a truely tense and frightening atmosphere in their new game (I expected no less from one of the most brilliant game companies out there). The zombies' AI is extremely well designed. Zombies generally sit around and do nothing, but once you call attention to yourself, the undead hordes mobalize into massive stampedes. This creates the necessity for teamwork and tactics. The zombies' movements can instantly transform a secure situation into a tense action sequence reminiscent of the remake of Dawn of the Dead.

What also sets this game apart from other zombie survival games (aside from the great co-op dynamic) is the inclusion of the specialty zombies. These sinister creatures turn a normal zombie scenario into a terrifying, death defying, fear fest. Simply hearing the sounds of a nearby hunter is enough to put you on edge. The discusting feeling of being vomited on is quickly surpassed by the fear of not being able to see as you get swarmed by every zombie in the area. Watching Bill get strung up by a smoker while Frances is holding off a massive horde with his shotgun and Zoe is busy healing herself creates a very tense scenario.

My only complaint would be that in the demo levels are pretty easy, but I would guess that thats the point. I am excited to feel the fear of running out of ammo, but that will have to wait until November 18th when the full game comes out.

If this demo is any indication, the final product is going to prevent me from obtaining my diploma. But I don't really care, because Left 4 Dead is amazing and recieves 634 missing undead thumbs out of 635 missing undead thumbs.

Dream theatre 2000

Welcome to dream theatre 2000, here I will present to you a recent dream in hopes that you, the reader, will respond with an accurate psychoanalysis.

This dream was dreamt during sleep on the morning of November 2nd 2008:

The dream begins with the United States of America using a tactical mini-nuke on a large hotel in Australia without the consent of the Australian government. The attack is justified by the U.S. government's claim that, according to intelligence reports, there were terrorist suspects maybe in the building. In the dream, I become outraged and my outrage is enhanced by the fact that nobody else seems to care. I then am on CNN with Frank Sesno and Bill O'Reilly. (Yes, I know) Bill O'Reilly is defending the decision of the U.S. and I am screaming at him. After this, I find myself in Australia after being given a free flight. I am at the site of the attack (surprisingly no radiation) and I fall to my knees at the foot of the ruin. I then begin to weep uncontrollably on the ground. For some reason, Josh Benjamin and Scott Backer (Scooter Bagelman) are present and attempt to console me. I respond with more outrage at the deaths of countless innocents. I continue to weep uncontrollably until I wake up.

Weird fucking dream, huh!!!

As per the last post

As per the last post, here is the list of 25 people who I would hit with waterballoons:

1. Aly Seeberger
2. Medha Gupta
3. Sarah Orton
4. Josh Benjamin
5. Bill Reitz
6. Whitney Ewing
7. Evan Chiacchiaro
8. Leah Isaac
9. Pat Hanley
10. Anne Coulter
11. Jason Zick
12. Dom Degaetano
13. Ashley Huffman
14. Matt Berk
15. Katie Ross
16. Ellen Barr
17. Scott Backer
18. Mike young
19. Tony Fowler
20. Kenny Langer
21. Steven Azar
22. Steff Rainess
23. Nick Rizzo
24. Tim Mckenna
25. Dan Isaac

I would hit more people, but I believe that 25 is enough for now.

Anonymous chaos making: why the internet is great

Today, I was reminiscing about all the great times I spent with some older computer games. I was remembering all of my exploits in one game called counterstrike. In counterstrike one team plays the role of terrorists and the other team is counter-terrorists. The goal is to kill the entire other team, a simplistic game, yet still extremely fun. But the most fun I had in all my years of playing counter-strike was fucking with other players. My partner in such cyber-douche baggery was my friend Ben Esposito. We came up with many wonderful ways to screw with the world and inject a great ammount of chaos into the internet. These included clan-hopping, clan-baiting, false recruitment, and more.

The fact that we were able to piss so many people off without them ever knowing who we were was insanely pleasurable and gave us a sort of high. But does this reflect human nature? If there was no way of getting caught, would we constantly Fuck with our fellow man for no reason? My answer is a resounding yes! i have recently taken to a new insult in which I tell someone that if I was armed with waterballoons, they would be soaked, and if I was armed with infinate waterballoons, they would be soaked forever, and the second they were about to dry off, I would hit them again. Now when I say this to people, it is usually a lie. Not because I like them, but because they would probably just hit me, and I bruise easily. BUT, if I were able to carry out my moist attacks anonymously, I can think of at least 25 people who I would hit just now, just to lol all over them afterwords.

In conclusions, the only viable foreign policy is deterrance. The only way we can keep anyone from messing with us, is by threatening to mess with them. So until I finalize my invisibility cloak, I will have to get bye on making fun of losers on the internet.

a documentation of my life between the hours of midnight and 2 am

Almost every night, I return to my room somewhere between 10:15 and 11:30 P.M. and I tell myself "Steven, go to bed, for you have work in the morning and you will be tired!" Unfortunately I rarely heed my warning. Normally, I go to bed after 2 A.M. What follows is a detailed schedule of what I do at these wee hours of the morning.

12:00 - 12:15 A.M. - Go to Gelman to locate an encyclopedia which may contain some simple biographical information on Thomas Paine. After 10 minutes of failure, I begin to look for famous science fiction novels that I have not read. I select Neuromancer by William Gibson, number 10 on the top 100 list of sci-fi novels which i find on google. (number 1 is Ender's Game, I approve)

12:15 - 12:30 A.M. - go to the 6th floor and find Whitney, who I will be working with at 8:30 A.M. tomorrow. I sit and read a chapter at which point I tire of the reading and tire of distracting Whitney from her schoolwork

12:30 - 12:45 A.M. - run into marissa and eddie on the way home, say hello, then proceed home.

12:45 - 1:45 A.M. - sit on AIM sporadically talking to chich and eb, while looking for somthing interesting on the internet and trying to decide if i want to blog anything

1:45 - 2:00 A.M. - write this blog that nobody wants to know (TMI), then note how lame it is.

I give this night 1 thumb up out of 32 thumbs up, and combined with the overall day, This day is at negative 23 thumbs up (23 thumbs down).

Finding fun on the interweb

I spend most of my time scouring the internet looking for things to keep me busy. Usually, I fail, but recently I was rewarded for my extensive efforts by this beautiful gem of a website known as Amazingsuperpowers.com. Now I have seen a huge number of webcomics in my day, and I like the occasional XKCD or Pennyarcade comic but the comics on AmazingSuperpowers are almost all TOTALLY FUCKING HILARIOUS! The comic shown above made me LOL all over my computer, my floor, my roomates pillow, and finally into the toilet.

For anyone looking for hours upon hours of lolz, this is the place! I spent a number of good hours, hours that on any other day would have been spent playing video games, going through every comic on the site. To the people at Amazingsuperpowers.com, I love you and intend to buy one of your T-Shirts when I can. keep up the good work, and if you ever need anything, (recommendation letters, sexual favors, etc.) just let me know.

Amazingsuperpowers.com gets 18 out of 18 thumbs up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

hope vs. defensive pessimism

In the recent election cycle we, the people, have been force fed the concept of hope at record levels. Not only the democrats and their king of wishful thinking Senator Obama, but even the republicans are running on the fact that we can all hope for a better tomorrow. I was under the impression that the republican party was based on the concept of 'don't let the government do too much because they will eventually fuck you over,' and 'when shit goes wrong make sure you have enough guns.' I MEAN C'MON!!! HOPE?!?!?!?!?!?! Hope is gonna get us all killed!

Now defensive pessimism is the way to do it. Defensive pessimism creates a constant win/win situation. Americans should go into the next four years anticipating a total shit show. That way, when John McCain wins, then dies, and Sarah Palin becomes President, and she places Tod Palin into the new position of Grand Moff (leader of the TOD SQUAD), and then Palin dissolves the congress and replaces them with the upper level membership of the NRA and makes herself queen of America for life, and then gives her crown to track or trig or whatever on her deathbed, when that happens, we wont be too upset, because we knew somthing like this would happen. And on the other hand, when Obama wins next week, and we find out that he is actually Jesus and we are all being judged positively and going to an eternal existance of bliss and peace and love, it will be a nice pleasant surprise.

SO COME ON AMERICA, they say that it has hurt McCain in the polls to go negative... I say go negative, that way when the world goes to shit we arent too upset, and even the slightest positives will make it feel like our birthdays. But then again it doesnt actually matter, we all are going to have cancer from our bluetooth devices anyways.