Sad

My feathered friend Chico was killed by a dog. Chico will be missed by a lot of folks.

Army of Screwed

I have been playing the new game "Army of Two"
Here my review and a warning...

Army of Two is a wonderful game with two flaws one of which is absolutely unforgivable and fatal to the game.
In Army of Two you play one of two former Air-born Rangers.
You and an artificial intelligent character or in online mode a real player will team up to save the world (of course) and make some money while your at it. The game includes a new gimmick called back to back. At certain points you and your partner will stand back to back and take on all comers who attack you. This is wonderfully done and is a fine new addition to gaming.
You may upgrade your weapons, buy new weapons, and change your appearance all by shopping in the in game stores.
The graphics and audio is very nicely done. The control are a bit complicated but the game offers so much it is understandable. The game is responsive and runs smoothly.
The single player campaign is a training ground for the cooperative play online.
Here is where the games fatal flaw lies.
There is no online play for US and UK players.
This is an intentional design feature.
There reason give is by EA Montreal's Reid Schneider, senior producer of Army of Two is super slow connections are what prompted the region blocking. Using a deterministic (peer-to-peer) network model enables the game's synchronized game play animation, but requires parity on both systems. If a slow connection is thrown into the mix, "the person with the worst connection brings down the whole group to his/her worst connection level," explained Schneider. "While not generally a problem for COOP (since most people play coop with friends) when playing in Versus mode 3 people can be highly adversely affected by one player with a bad connection. We use the region lock to minimize the likelihood of this occurring."

Mr. Schneider my words to you are...
BULLSHIT!
You game may be highly demanding of servers but let the players deal with that.
Most players sir are a far shot brighter than you give them credit for.
This problem exists on every online game there is. The simple solution is to ask the slow player to leave. Kick him or her out of the game. Or even offer advise as how to resolve the problems on your own or having your ISP provide the service they are PAID for.

EA's action show arrogance and contempt for the player and PAYING customers. You should at least have the fact of no US / UK play clearly labeled on the package.

This is a fatal flaw to the game.
Had I been aware of this I would have not purchase the game.
Any lie to make money EA?

Hopefully EA will develop a patch for the glaring and unforgivable problem.

Shame on EA for not having the patch ready on day one and shame on them on not alerting the customers about this problem.

It is my opinion that EA has done serious damage to there reputation in the gaming community. Any first year business student will tell you EA that a companies reputation can either make them or break them.

Consider your reputation broken.

Weather Or Not

Winter is fading fast. Summer with it dreadful heat will be here soon.
The air conditioner will be running and at some point break. The power bill will skyrocket.

It is in the forecast to stay in the mid seventies this week. I will enjoy the cool while it lasts.

My cell phone contract is up soon and my phone is getting old and tired. I guess I will invest in a new phone. One I like is with a different carrier and another I like is made by my current provider.
I guess I will make my mind up in the next few days.

I am back to playing Halo 3.

I have a bunch of games to trade in for Grand Theft Auto 4 when it is released.

Wars

My father is feeling better.
On Wednesday he finally went the the emergency room. They did a ton of test. He finally got checked in about ten pm. He spent the night.
It turn out he had a stomach blockage. When he was moving the heavy plants he somehow managed to have one of his hernias fold over his stomach and block his stomach. They decided to watch him over the night and then decide if they needed to operate.
However sometime during the night his stomach straitened itself out.
He came home Thursday and he seems happy to be home and have the cat bossing him around.
Yet another health war he has survived.

I bought Front lines Fuel Of War.
It is a single play first person shooter set in the near future. There is a world wide depression and a coalition of bad guys are hording all the oil so you must save the world.
The graphics and audio are very well done although there are some draw in problems.
The controls are very well laid out and easy to understand.
The battlefields are big and well designed. There always multiple solutions to any problem.
The one downside is there is no cover system. Even the system in Perfect Dark would have worked well here.

The political wars are in full force.
Barack Obama came to town and spoke for nearly an hour.
Hillery Clint has been here several times as well as husband and former president Bill Clinton.

The Republicans have seem to have forgotten about our little city. They all go on and on about how important the Texas vote is but none of the could be bothered to drop in and say hi. Extremely bad form.

On other wars it seems my doctor is running for congress. So if he wins I have to find a new doctor?

And finally Bill the cat has once again become embroiled in a war with another cat. Bill is scratched up but is doing well and is ruling the house with an iron paw.