I couldn’t help but write the review early so I could share my thoughts on it. Gets a thumbs up from me

As usual, you can find the article on the pages.

Now that I have your attention, may I direct your attention to the promotional material for EA’s latest Need for Speed title. And afterwards, you can take a look at why EA chose to pull the ad.

As a hot blooded virile heterosexual male, I do appreciate a good helping of tittehs. I think the models are quite hot in a blonde, empty, "this is the only face I’m capable of pulling" way - I certainly wouldn’t push them out. Sure, we have all of these social constraints and taboos in place so we don’t strut around in public letting the wind caress our various appendages. But hell, everyone sees breasts at least once in their life. I don’t see the big deal with flopping out the milk balloons every once in a while, since we’re seeing male models prancing around in underwear on Rio TV ads.

But is it right in this particular context? EA has made a gross stereotype - if you have fast cars, you need hot scantily-clothed chicks to accompany them (bonus points if they’re buck nekkid). And where else can you get better chicks than from a gentlemen’s magazine?

This was a cheap ploy to boost interest for all the wrong reasons. Sex sells and EA used tabloid softcore representatives to showcase their product. Now when I buy the game, I’m expecting to see mammaries pressed against my driver’s side window every time I win a race, followed by a lesbian oil rub. Instincts and censorship laws tell me that there is a slim chance of this happening.

Now that EA have backpedalled they’ve got a whole mob of testosterone fueled pubescents saying, "ZOMG EA SI EPIC FLAIL LOLOLOLOLOLLOOOL YUO ARE PUSSIES BRING BACK TEH BEWBS", because EA didn’t go with an ad that was essentially an excuse for softcore porn. It doesn’t matter that most gamers nowadays are above the age of 21. It was not socially acceptable. It had little to no relevance to the game itself. It was just a cheap fucking ploy to try and generate buzz for some shitty remake of a remake. The promo material should have stayed next to the Kleenex box, where it belongs.

If people think otherwise, then I’m sure it won’t affect them too much since they’ve got a big list of thumbnail galleries to go through online. Don’t forget to take plenty of zinc supplements for the faps.

(And yes, I know old news is old.)

Of course, with my luck, everything had to happen on the last week of work. Next week.

Meetings. Presentations. Juggling handovers and answering the question of "So who’s going to finish what you started?"

I like to think I care. I enjoy entertaining the idea that I’m looking out for my company’s clients and that I want the very best for them. But I’ll admit it’s getting harder by the day as I near that golden date, the 7th December. This will be an incredibly long 9 days.

Apathy, my only friend.. 

I found it hard writing this review and trying to express how I actually felt about this game…I still don’t think I expressed myself as well as I would have liked.

Anyway, I’ll let you people be the judge of that.

Okay, this ghosting issue with my monitor is starting to piss me off a bit.

At first, I didn’t even really notice it. It was just a brief flicker that barely caught my attention.

Then it began to manifest itself in one game. Then two. Then pretty much any game where a light image was moving over a darker one. Namely, all of them.

Sometimes, when I’m really immersed, I don’t even notice it (like in Assassin’s Creed, for instance). But when I do, it’s all I can see.

I’m this close to returning the bastard and going back to my faithful Viewsonic.  

I woke up to the sound of rain today - it was all I could do to keep from resuming my strange dreams.

Anyway, only a few for today…I want to make some headway into this work.

• IBM have made a patent that introduces ads into DVDs you rent. I mean, we IBMers love the patents…but this one makes me wretch violently. They think that we would be willing to look at their shitty commercials to save a few bucks? Ain’t gonna happen with me.
• Deus Ex 3 is in the works. Trailer in the link. Woo.
• New achievements may be in the works for PC TF2ers. I’ve hardly made a dent in my list…
• The upcoming Xbox 360 update will have a social networking-like component. Goddamnit, the 360 was my last refuge from this damned fad. Is nothing sacred?!

I was playing Assassin’s Creed pretty much all of yesterday…my favourite moments so far are countering sword attacks with extreme prejudice, fleeing the scene of an assassination by free-running my ass back to the Bureau, and taking out the last fleeing guard after a fight by running up behind him and pouncing on his back while driving my assassin blade into the base of his neck. It’s all so friggin’ seamless.

And I must say that the targets I’ve taken out so far are bastards. They had it coming. It makes all the prep work seem worth it.