Warren G. Report

Certainly any PC gamer with a pulse for the past decade has been salivating profusely over the prospect of playing Starcraft II, whose release date has remained a solid “when it’s done” since 1999. Time and time again you’d hear from the screeching and giddy mouths of avid gamers: “I can’t wait for this game to be released” and “I’m getting it the day it comes out” and “the suspense is killing me!”  The most anticipated computer game of all time caused an untold number of gamers to claw in vain at the fabric of time in the hopes of expediting the release date.

Earlier this year, the beta for Starcraft II had opened up after a drawing to a few hundred lucky folks throughout the United States.  This multiplayer beta was the full multiplayer game and Battle.net package, allowing beta participants to play every map, every unit, every race — the whole enchilada with nothing held back.  Only the single-player campaign (i.e., what’s fired up when everyone else is asleep or attending funerals) is inaccessible.  Essentially, this is thee final game.  Small tweaks here and there, but this beta is the real deal.  It’s not some broken piecemeal test; it’s Starcraft II!  The difficulty, of course, was being fortuitous enough to snag an ultra rare beta key — a statistical impossibility.

Lo and behold, Gamestop.com comes out with this deal a week ago: for the duration of the one-week sale, anyone who preorders a copy of Starcraft II gets a beta key.  That meant anyone and everyone could finally at long last vanquish the agonizing suspense, put an end to the yearning, and cease the pining.

And what of the response out of the Jerk Lab, who had for a decade howled for the release of Starcraft II? The same bunch who had glued their very eyes to mere preview clips of precious gameplay? “Meh.”  No one could bring themselves to put $5.00 down on a preorder for a game that they swear they would have purchased anyway.  Abraham Lincoln ultimately stood between them and immediately playing the virtual entirety of Starcraft II.  Five bucks can’t get you a value meal.  Bums on streets would scoff indignantly at only being offered a fiver.

It’s not like you lose the five bucks, either.  Those five bucks go toward the final purchase.

Well, enjoy the additional wait.  It could be months until the final version goes gold and hits store shelves.

But despair not!  On the bright side, those five bucks could earn you $0.25 in interest at the bank over the course of the next half year.  Unfortunately, you’ll need about double that amount to snag some M&M’s out of a gumball machine.

It’s official – the WGR has declared the PC version of Modern Warfare 2 to be resoundingly superior to the Xbox 360 version. To begin with, you can actually see into the distance. It’s like putting on a pair of glasses for the first time. No more guessing what 4 to 5 squiggly pixels might be (plant or an enemy? no idea!).  Not only is the resolution higher (1920 x 1080 versus 1024 x 600), but the distance is rendered with much higher levels of detail and clarity.

Second, the mouse means no more fumbling with an awkward control scheme that can boast nothing better than dual wild analog sticks.  I’d rather not use the same device that can pick up a stuffed animal out of this thing:

Reports of rampant cheating? Cheaters are here and there on both platforms (PC & Xbox 360).

On a side note, how could anyone make fun of the Wii with its 480P if Modern Warfare 2 on the Xbox 360 is displaying at 600P? Is that what it takes to go from “Standard Definition” to “High Definition?” One-hundred and twenty horizontal lines?

The hard concept of preloading clearly eludes (and how) the Steam digital gaming service (www.steampowered.com).  What Steam allows users to do is purchase games online and download them as opposed to having to fire up the gas guzzler and possibly get into an accident in the process.  At any rate, Steam allows users to “preload” games prior to their actual retail release date; that way, you don’t have to download the game as soon as it is released.  It’s ready to go the same moment that you’d be able to buy the game in a brick and mortar store.

Unfortunately, for the vast majority of the time, after people have already preloaded, by the time any game is actually and finally released, there is some sort of change that forces a complete re-download.  It happens time and time again.

Well, I’m sick of it, Steam.  So I’m formally filing a complaint as soon as I figure out who that would even go to. I mean it. I really mean it.

A blog is an abbreviation of ‘weblog’. To say “web blog”, you’re essentially saying “web weblog”. You might as well say “ATM Machine” – Automatic Teller Machine Machine. These kinds of silly mistakes not only bring shame to you, but also to your family.