Death Knell

Modern Warfare 2 has run it's course, Infinity Ward has had ample time to address their games shortcomings. A broken leaderboard, exploits and glitches, imbalanced weapons and perks. Killstreaks that break teamwork and encourage camping and soloist behavior. At the heart of every problem are the developers themselves. When you disect a game, and examine it's problems, you often find out just what kind of people the developers are, and how they like to play. In fact as a player, a small part of quickly mastering a game isn't so much the other players on your server, but sizing up what kind of people the developers are. They leave you clues in the game they created, little reveals here and there.

To me, those people most responsible for the finished product are in my opinion, timid gamers. The kind who don't wear headsets, the kind who hide off to the side, and have low survivability. If you take all the perks, map layouts, and killstreaks, you see exactly what they are. People who miss often, so they need their bullets to do more damage, players who can't find cover as they move so they camp, people who think high kill to death ratio equals indication of skill. Indeed, most of the team oriented modes are mere distractions, put in the game so people can solo and farm the team-minded. No penalty for those who wander off and act as an individual.

But Modern Warfare's time is drawing to a close. Today is January 25th, 2010. Tomorrow, mw2 will die, so that Massive Action Game may live on. It's death may take time to register, but make no mistake, it will be dead. Real players of FPS will finally have a true title to play.

I would call on all videographers who will be playing MAG fulltime, to make tutorials explaining the 256 player modes, as I will be. YouTube and other video resources on the internet are the first place people look before purchasing a title if they have even the slightest doubts. If people have the minor details explained thoroughly to them via video, they will get past the new user interface and begin to appreciate the gameplay mechanics. MAG will enjoy a surge of players on the first day, BUT the bulk of our community will come later. There will be those who rent and decide to buy, those who view YouTube and decide to buy, those who play at a friends and decide to buy. It will come in stages. Then there will be those who finally lay mw2 to rest and join us.

If Zipper Interactive is truly visionary, they'll have quarterly or bi-monthly tourneys. A title this big can't be hosted on even 1 dedicated ps3 server. So gamebattles is a negative for competition, but if Zipper hosts tourneys, then that won't matter.

Tomorrow I'll be posting a Bluray review, and a brief MAG review. Match replay uploads will begin on Wednesday, Jan 27th. I'll see you all online in MAG tomorrow.

In Anticipation of 1000 YouTube Subscribers

The goal of my channel on YouTube is to upload documentation of my skill level, and in turn qualify any opinion I may offer related to Videogames, BMX, Graffiti or any other subject. Those curious as to what a passionate individual feels about new releases, or new developments will have alot to look foward to.

As a player, I'm realistic about people and their responses. I spend most of my day getting the best of people in online multiplayer. Some who I often play with will regard me with respect as I do them, but for the most part the community hates me, lol. I mean, people play online to experience some kind of unattainable greatness, whether it be super-soldier or ace-pilot, or even racecar-driver, those who stand in the way of their aspirations aren't going to be on the christmas mailing list. So I don't think my channel will ever become super popular, I'm not sure that would be a good thing either.

There are people who are non-com's, not involved in the competitive gaming scene, who've sub'd me for whatever reason. Stick around, the match replays are mere character development for what's in store. But I'd like to speak to my other sub's, those who are involved. I consider myself to be an obsessed hardcore player, and I'd like my first one thousand subscribers to be legit.


If you can't be bothered to apply yourself to doing well at anything you spend time on, please unsubscribe.
If you pretend to be a champion of the ps3, only to run back to another console because bribes have been paid by them to receive DLC first, please unsubscribe.
If you pretend to play the ps3 and yet spend the bulk of your time on the rrod, please unsub.
If you think M$ft is an American company, please unsub.
If you think brawl or halo require skill, please unsub.
If you think you need to own all the consoles to have an opinion, please unsub.
If you think you need to play every game in order to be a better player, please unsub.
If you really think PurPwnage is staying true to their fans, please unsubscribe.
If you think Athn or Ipwr are cool, please unsubscribe.
If you think American Pie or Superbad were good movies, unsubscribe.
If you don't like white people, please unsubscribe.
If you honestly thought HD-DVD would win the format war, please unsubscribe.
If you waited for a price drop to buy a Playstation 3, please unsubscribe.
If you let your religion dictate your loyalty to a console, please unsubscribe.
If you don't like Arnold Schwarzenegger, please unsub.
If you've ever told someone to "Get a Life" or "It's Just a Game" unsub now.
If you honestly think the conflict in the middle east is over oil, unsub now.
If you think 9/11 was a conspiracy, unsubscribe right now.
If you've ever watched a full episode of Will&Grace, unsubscribe immediately.
If you hate the United States of America, unsubscribe now.


Now, whoever I'm left with after that filter has been applied, I can be cool with. Welcome and thank you for taking an interest in my YouTube channel. I'm prone to extremes so you're in for a wild ride.

Reasoning for The Online Player

I can only tell my own story, and hope that some identify in some small way. I'm sure there will be many commonalities between my experience and other players from my generation. Mine was perhaps the first generation to have videogames a part of their childhood, the Atari2600 when I very young, then intelivision, Commodore64 and Coleco. My generation was before the 8bit wars, in fact we kind of smirked at the 8bit consoles. They were just repeating what Coleco and C64 had already done, nothing really special. There was the Amiga series that great fun in the early 90's too, but I bought it for the video toaster. I took the high road and side stepped the 8bit wars entirely.

But in the mid 1990's there were two titles that caught my eye, GTA and Syphon Filter. All of a sudden, there was a reason to own a console again, so I promptly went out and picked up a Playstation. I was then in my mid-twenties. All of my buddies had one as well, and we had hangout sessions at each others houses, mini competitions. With the loser handing off the controller to the next guy, winning meant you got to play longer.

This was when players began to emerge. You see, in arcade standup's, the quarter wars were heating up. Fighting games and other competitive titles were going strong. In NYC at least, and I'm sure in other major cities, kids were wagering quarters on matches. When the ps2 hit shelves playing was already taking a very competitive direction. Being very good was in many ways a double edge. Every clique had maybe 10 players, and there was always 1 or 2 people who stood out. Being one of the alphas, I could tell you I noticed people getting bored of losing to the same person over and over again. I often found myself finding an excuse to hand off the controller early, even though I could've gone all night, if I hadn't people would've started to make excuses to go home. The oldschool version of a ragequit.

But there was resentment on both sides. Newbs hated losing to players, and players hated being resented for being good. There were sometimes tourney's at arcades but I wasn't into Fighter games, too much cheese in my opinion, and the quarter wars were mostly Street Fighter type stuff. Something had to give, and indeed it finally did, in the form of the internet. I had played alittle CS online, quake and doom never did it for me, you have to understand I had BMX and Graffiti growing up in NYC. Big city, women, cars, that was better than vids for me. But once the games could actually emulate dangerous living in somewhat good graphics, there was suddenly a reason to go online.

There had been a battle between consoles for interent community from 2003-05, I would say the PC won, because yes the breakbox had stronger cpu but their games were crap, and Sony had better games but crap outdated cpu, the PC had good selection of titles and great cpu, PC hardware was/is a scam though. But it gave me a chance to finally flex. I didn't have to be nice to newbs anymore, they weren't my childhood friends, I didn't have to LET them get a few kills to keep them happy. I could actually put my game face on a tear it up and wow you're leaving the server? You hate me because I'm good? Cool, someone else is looking for a match and you'll be replaced with a new victime in mere minutes. See ya!

But this killed the local LAN multiplayer experience, with beasts now kicking it up a notch, and unwilling to turn down the skill level, newbs huddled together for safety. I actually felt like the big bad wolf going from house to house. I wish there would've been more LAN tourneys for consoles back then, but honestly, looking back, I don't know how many more I would've gone to with the internet having such a hold on my playtime.

Something weird is afoot though. There should've been a progression on the competitive side of playing for this recent gen of consoles, but we haven't seen it. The titles that pass as tourney worthy kind of suck. It's almost as if there's a directive to avoid making a purely competition grade title. Developers could split their efforts, make a few kidsy titles for the lames, and one hardcore title to build the sport. But developers seem to shy away from making anything too skill oriented, they seem obsessed with balancing things out so that lames don't get destroyed because they suck. I mean, those who suck don't have to stay lame, they could apply themselves and improve, but it's simply not in their nature to do so. But developers don't want to go without their money.


So this is my reasoning for the online player, why local multiplayer can't satiate the beast, why players need challenge. We're in a curious place at the moment though. We haven't seen a developer step up and make a title that can really hang in competition. It almost seems as if a few players need to finally make the next step in evolution and ascend from beast player to developer...

Pandorum on BluRay

January 19th saw a few releases, my decision to make was between Pandorum from Overture Films, Gamer and Che. There were a few others but nothing noteworthy, I must admit though I used to follow foreign releases more closely, but haven't lately. It's on my list of things to-do, I'm sure I've missed some greats lately. So, not exactly a big fan of Castro or Che, and with RunningMan (an Arnold classic) being released on BluRay soon, no need to buy a market researched Gamer. Pandorum was my pick.


Of all the other releases, Pandorum seemed to be the only unique title to hit shelves. Sure, there are elements of earlier classics, but with enough twists to make it their own. There were alot of noir films made in the 40's and 50's using amnesia as it's premise, and to a certain extent it's how Pandorum begins. Man wakes up, unaware, confined, panick stricken. Turns out this may be the natural reaction to prolonged sleep induced for space travel, according to this film.

Ben Foster plays the crew member we're first introduced to, and we follow him for the next few minutes as he gets his bearings, which is an elapsed montage which has an hour or so pass in the film. In those minutes, he overcomes the haze of the sleep chamber, finds clothing, a work station, has some brief memory flashes as his mind fires up, and then... another sleep chamber is triggered.

Dennis Quaid's our second character, he has an easier time since Bower(Foster) is there to help him through his first steps, talks him through not only in an attempt to bring Payton(Quaid) to his senses faster, but to see if he recalls any information that CorpBower hasn't. We've seen this process of awakening in other films, even in television series, but they manage to make quick work work of scene, while doing justice to role play aspect, and they quickly move to the next subject. What would space travellers really do in their situation?

Having found a work station, they attempt to perform their appointed tasks, but things aren't quite right, hull doors connecting their room to the bridge and ship both aren't working. So, let's say there's a perfect gameplan for how an interstellar flight should go, this plan has obviously hit a snag, what to do? Bower takes the initiative and decides to circumvent the doors via access shafts, with Payton as guide from the workstation. So now we have a bit of adventure, there's a bit of action thriller thrown in, and we're introduced to what I can only describe to you as the main threat to their survival, which adds a horror element.

This isn't your typical space travel story, although for the first time I find myself saying a film may have rushed a bit and this film should've been a two parter. Why? Well, given that they've introduced a few new topics to the sub-genre (deep sleep space exploration) I would've liked to have seen more time spent on the ship itself, it's systems, it's functionality. The films namesake, a space-sickness is explained well enough, another twist that makes the story unique.

I'd have to say that all-in-all Pandorum doesn't disappoint, there's enough questions raised about practical spacetravel to keep scifi fans happy and thinking, there's enough action suspense and terror to keep your attention, set design is excellent, costume design // makeup was great. Stunt work was very believable, and if harnesses were used to achieve the high rate of travel displayed by some of what I'll only refer to as threats, you couldn't tell. The acting was on point, didn't have any problem buying into the premise, or being made too aware that this a film I'm watching, and with Antje Traue as Nadia fans of cleavage will be very happy, sexy accent she has, too.

But I do feel that the ending seems very rushed. The state of the ship at the end is too perfect, the story doesn't completly resolve itself, too bright and shiny. While there are already whispers of sequel, the kind of sequel it may be might not be my thing. But Pandorum on it's own is great, I'm glad I bought it.

As far as features are concerned, I'm not sure BluRay gets more than DVD, other than HD signal which I like on flatscreen LCD. But $17.99 vs $27.99 usd, unless really like to see the sweat beading up on peoples faces, and every bit of texture on costumes and sets, I can't say that it warrents BluRay. They had the space to include much more, such as trailers, poster art, concept sketches and there is none of that. There are a few featurettes, some deleted scenes, commentary track with Alvert and Bolt, spanish dub, and nothing else. What really pisses me off, is the site providing information on the film has a gallery of stills and minigames, all things that could've been added to the BluRay, no problem. So while the film itself is great, the BluRay edition is not, may as well buy it on normal dvd.




Pandorum stars Dennis Quaid, Ben Foster, Can Gigandet, Cung Le, and Eddie Rouse, as well as Norman Reedus, Andre M. Hennicke, Friederike Kempter, Niels Bruno Schmidt with Marco Albrecht, Dawid Szatarski, Nico Marquardt.

Markus Haas stunt cooridinator, Michael Bornhutter fight choreographer, Matthias Gunther stunt rigging superviser, Angelika Honig choreographer.

Stefan Langel payton double, Oliver Juhrs bower double, Thomas Schubert gallo double, Kim Ruhnau nadia double, Alois Knapps manh double, Joshua Grothe hunter leader double, Nadia Hernandez child hunter double, Thomas Schubert shephard double.

Principal hunters were played by Lukas Johannes Aue, Romeo Schirmer, Dennis Dohmland, Kristopher Fuss, Alessija Lause, Josephine Muller, Bjoern Scheffler, Phillip Kohn, Mike Moller, Asuka Tovazzi, Stefan Frobel.

Directed by Christian Alvart

Exec Producer // Screenplay by Travis Milloy

Cinematography by Wedigo Von Schultzendorff

Set Design by Richard Bridgland

Costume Design by Ivana Milos

Resume and Documentation

When you begin your transformation from gamer to player, you start to do things, there are signs. For one, your scores start to get disproportionately higher than the rest of the server. You may be playing a title that's only just been released a few days earlier, and people begin to tell you that your name is in the top ten of the leaderboard. You would've known this yourself, but you'd been too busy playing.

You begin to screenshot and take digital pictures of your television screen to save an incredable match score as a personal trophy. You begin to record matches. You start to hit LAN tourneys and didn't care about the prizes you won, you valued the respect your peers, the player community cut you while there. You begin showing screens and vids locally, it blows your friends away. Girls like to come over to your crib and watch you wreck lives. Friends come over to spark and watch you, they say it's better than watching what's hot on TV at the moment. You begin uploading these screenshots and videos online.

That was my story, but there were other contributing factors which I'll cover in my "reasoning for online play." Although, I have to say, I wasn't motivated to post anything online until I started to see non-players exploiting our community for profit. This was something I wanted to put a stop to. To think, that if PurNwb or Athn had been genuine, had actual footage of match replays, did the tourney circuit, had the wins, I would've just kept playing, content that actual players were getting paid. But this isn't the case, so I have a battle to wage, one against ignorance. Somehow I have to shake up the masses, and make ethic count to at least a portion of our community.

But this concept of creating an online identity, documenting skills in the form of match score screenshots // photos, and from that making a resume to demonstrate skill level is what I'd like to flex first on the community. It's part of the transformation process anyway, you and I knew that we were doing better than most, and part of us was laughing so hard enjoying it, and another part half couldn't believe it, so we had to capture it.

I see a time, in the near future, where players with genuine resumes will be getting paid to do what we do. If you haven't started to already, I urge you to do so. If you are on another level in whatever title you play, you owe it to yourself to begin the documentation process. Then you will have to embark on the creation of your online identity, as did I. Our time is soon, be ready players.



As always, there's a side note. Player resume's and documentation of skill are more then just pedigree's, they're qualifiers. How many arguments start online between an actual player, or truth speaker, and a pathalogical liar? The liar will make all sorts of claims to refute the players, yet the player has links to actual gameplay and documentation to backup what has been stated, the liar is merely hitting his keyboard, hollow keystrokes. This is another reason, just as important to create a resume, to cast aside the liars and deceivers.

Collection

Collection. Collectables. Collectors. Collecting.

Language, depending on context and user, often falls under scrutiny and requires further definition. When pertaining to Titles (real skill-based videogames, not market researched fluff) I like to employ the same rules I apply to Kino and Comics.

What you don't buy is sometimes more important than what you do buy. Buying anything that hits shelves, or buying something that sucks but has holographic embossed cover art is consumerism. Remember, gamers are consumers, gamers are not players, players are free thinkers. Just because it's exclusive doesn't automatically make it worth buying.

I've never thought of myself as a collector, I don't fit the profile, though I do have collections. But my collections are always the result of what's left over. After pairing down as we all do over years, after a company has released another console to replace the previous generation, what I'm left with becomes a collection. What has earned it's right to remain on my shelf. This is how I view my titles.

A special edition of a title, maybe, I mean can you tell someone not to love a title? To keep it unwrapped, not my thing, but hey that's cool. But to buy a game not worth playing, only for the figure, I can't see that. You've basically fallen into an industry ploy; pretty package trap.

To my fellow Sony enthusiasts, I would say this: Is Lair or Pain still on your shelf? If so, then why? Rainbow 6 Vegas and Fear are actually a part of your collection? Check yourself... You are what you play, be judged by what remains on your shelf, add value to your shelf space, require more of developers and hardware manufacturers. Be a player, not a gamer.



As a side note, I don't trade in games, because well - I try not to buy games, I aim for titles. But should I fall prey to bad advice of a trusted friend, and get stuck with a disappointing game, I throw them out. Why? Because I don't like keeping the cycle of fail going. You won't receive anywhere near what the items worth, and you're just victimizing the next guy. This practice also keeps me sharp, making me do my research thoroughly before a purchase.

I'm a player...

I'm a player, not a gamer. Players compete, players are higher thinkers; strategists and tacticians. Players are Logicians and cartographers. Gamers are consumers, they buy what's advertised most and what promises to be most popular, regardless of product quality. Gamers have no real world experience. Players excel ingame because they are streetwise in real life. Players own a PC and a Playstation3. Gamers own a rrod360 and a wii.

As you further your education, you will seek refinement, it's a natural progression. What you buy, what you eat, who you keep company with, what you say, what you listen to, what you view, what you play, all these everyday decisions contribute to who you are. As a player you strive to find the perfect title, avoiding games that ask you to adopt bad habits. A title, when properly factored is an aptitude test, on par with or greater than chess. Perfect title is a subjective term. Titles may be perfect for their time, or perfection itself; THE perfect game has yet to be made, so the search at present is for what is perfect for it's time. Once such a title is found, we as players seek to become masters of it.

Players are few, while gamers are many. One twentieth of one percent of a legitimate leaderboard on average, can qualify as players, which usually equates to the top one-hundred or five-hundred. Players will never be popular, or even admired by anyone other than fellow players and enlightened professionals in other fields; their only peers. Players spend their days and nights ruining the hopes and aspirations of gamers. Players climb leaderboards and tournament ladders by victimizing countless gamers. Every point of a players score can be directly attributed to the failures of gamers. Gamers will take every non-ingame opportunity to critique and slander a player, it's the only time they get to face the player without being returned to spawn.

I am a player...

2010: Out with the frauds...

Right, so in 2010 I made a resolution to turn my back on the frauds. I began by combing my YouTube account friends, subscribers and subscriptions, deleting all those who are guilty of being the following:



-Entertainers who have no vested interest in Playstation3, but say they do, to build a following.
-Those who hawk prize // reward sites that rip off gamers and web surfers alike.
-Those who try to establish themselves as spokesman for PSN, yet own all 3 systems.
-Entertainers who have no proof that they have any ingame skill, at all, not even alittle (lol).
-Those who have established themselves as game collectors.



Some of the cuts were hard to make, but when you see their behavior isn't changing, you have to do what's right. Who did I cut? Well, I'll be vague about it, as to not give them any more attention. One tackles trees, another pair appeared to be the biggest ps3 supporters until they bought mw2 for another console, and another - well she just couldn't stop asking people to go to this website pyramid scheme, or another site scheme.

There are others who I didn't need to delete, because I had never visited their channel. Sure I had seen them mentioned here or there, but they're the types who you can fully predict without having any interaction. You know, people who mug for the camera and argue endlessly. That's not, nor will it ever be my thing.

PSN doesn't need leadership. We all pretty much established ourselves as free thinkers by purchasing the Playstation3. In my own personal experience, the whole year of 2006 was spent answering, "No." when asked if I owned the console that breaks, and again, "No." when asked if I planned on buying one. Puzzled stares, recusals, so much bullshit. Locally I'm like a guru, if something is about to hit stores, people ask me if I'm getting it, etc. Even when it came time to buy my Playstation3 in 2007, I had to argue with Gamestop clerks for like an hour, they wanted me to buy another brand... Wound up driving 3 blocks and picking my 80gig ps3 up from BestBuy. We really don't need anyone telling us what to buy or think.

I still see a few subscribers with site avatars that hawk stuff, am currently asking them to change it, if that doesn't happen, round two of cuts will weed them out.


MAG beta is over. There's actually a contest now, with an amazing prize package awarded to the player who racks up the most points by Sony. Some kind of dream entertainment center, tv, ps3, surround sound, the whole nine. But the objective doesn't suit my play style. In MAG I'm that dude who is mercing enemies as they leave their spawn, I'm between them and objective. Typically in MAG you get the most points for killing enemies who are at an objective already, or you kill them while you're standing in close proximity to an objective. The whole attacker // defender thing. That's cool and all, I just experience a higher rate of success for myself and my team when employing my strat, point farming is too risky unless you have a good team everytime who can afford to gamble. Best of luck to those competing though.

With MAG beta over that leaves like 14 more days till we have the finished product on shelves. I'll probably spend that time finishing up my Valkyria Chronicles battle playthrough, and Demon's Souls playthrough (I still need to beat it also). What will you guys be doing with those 2 weeks?

Till next time...

First !!

Yes, A1R5N1P3R is branching out. This will be where A1R5N1P3R posts league and miscellaneous competitive gaming results, release dates that matter, possibly review material, and travel schedule. All this will make sense in due time. I have no plans to promote this blog until it's purpose is fully realized.

I should also say that any mention of A1R5N1P3R on Twitter is false, there are people infringing on A1R5N1P3R's name on Twitter, at least 2 of them, trying to steer people to a scam site in england. I have no plans to use Twitter what-so-ever. To me, Twitter is a fad, and lacks the ability of YouTube, DailyMotion, Vimeo, Flickr, SevenLoad and Blogger to communicate in a multilayered fashion to a massmarket more effectively. So beware immitations.

2010 promises to be THE year Playstation 3. While 2009 was nice, with Valkyria Chronicles, Gran Turismo 5 prologue, and Demon's Souls, but Killzone2 was a major disappointment, I can't lie. Sure there were multiplatform games, but they never properly tap into the power of the Playstation. I often suspect that multiplat's do it on purpose, sad thing is, I'm probably right. 2010 will be the year of Massive Action Game, God of War 3, 3d Dot Heroes, ModNation Racers, Heavy Rain, Gran Turismo 5, White Knight Chronicles. Of course some decent multiplaform titles will launch in 2010, like Alien Breed (an old Amiga hit), Final Fantasy XIII, Nier Gestalt, and Star Ocean.

I'm attempting to reach players from Germany, Netherlands, France, Spain, Scotland. If that's where you're from please try to contact me. Would also like to hear from players in Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Romania, Estonia, Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Hungary.

That's all for now...