I only really have one question. Why?
When I was a kid my family and I had Diablo 2. I either played by myself or with my family. When playing by myself sometimes I would get a bit bored by the game (short attention span) and edit my character for lulz. Recently I’ve actually started playing through legitimately with some friends through LAN. We opened up a Diablo port in the modem and went for it. I’ve never played on BNET nor do I intend to. Mostly because one, I’ve not had a legitimate copy until 2 years ago and two, we used said legitimate copy to install D2 on all the computers in the house so that we could all play together and going onto BNET would have invalidated all the other computers.
I get why you decided to go for “always on net” authentication for Battlenet. What I don’t understand is where the fuck you get off applying this shit to SINGLE PLAYER GAMES. Not only are you people so fucking stupid you couldn’t expect that half of the world was going to want to play this game the second it came out and you were in no way prepared, BUT BECAUSE OF THIS PEOPLE WHO DIDN’T EVEN WANT TO PLAY ONLINE COULDN’T EVEN START UP A FUCKING SINGLE PLAYER GAME.
In what universe is this intelligent? I have a feeling these are the people running your company:
I’m very seriously rethinking purchasing your game. I’ve been excited for so long waiting for this to come out and wondering how amazing it would be. You’ve taken my hopes and dreams and shattered them whilst giving no fucks. I’m so glad I didn’t preorder like I wanted to.
You people are the biggest fucking monkey-assholes I’ve seen since last time I looked at the Republican Party. I hope you realize what you’ve done.
I think I’ll wait for the hacked version.
I’m not a big believer in hype for hype’s sake. I read Twilight because people around me were reading about it and talking about it and hating it and loving it and I gave into the hype. I’ve found a lot that once you get passed the hype things are either worth it or extremely disappointing. Guess how I felt about Twilight?
To me Twilight, whilst being a money making MACHINE, was all about hype for hypes sake. I was working at an arcade gaming place much like Timezone (but not Timezone) and one of the girls I was working with was reading the twilight books AND LOVED THEM OH MY GOD. This was about 6 months before the full force of the hype struck. I didn’t read any of the books until just before the first movie was unleashed on society and by then it was mostly to find out why everyone hated it so fucking much.
Once you get past the obvious issues with Stephanie Meyers writing style (and by style I mean complete ignorance of the English language and its rules) and the SERIOUS problems with her portrayal of the centuries old mythology of vampires, a main character who is a TERRIBLE role model for your target audience and a generally bland person. You’re left with a basic formula story of forbidden love that is like catnip for women. Hence, hype.
My family came back from a trip to America at the beginning of March and noted that there is A LOT of hype currently surrounding Hunger Games. Its being touted as the next Harry Potter (highly unlikely) or Twilight (dear god please no). Its on every billboard, every television screen, every newspaper, magazine, EVERYTHING. As a person who hates hype (especially since the last thing that was this hyped by American media was a biblical plague, oops, I mean vampires that don’t drink human blood because they’re dirty hippies and sparkle with pixie dust) this really put me off seeing these films.
Mum bought my sister the books and she ate them up. She’s seen the movie twice so far and is going to see it at least once more before it leaves cinemas. A few people I follow on the interwubs who’s opinions I value (Phil DeFranco, Sourcefed, random internet facebook friends) have all said that the movie is a good watch and the books are really good. So this time around there’s no hatred and the hype may well be deserved.
I saw the movie last night and I have to say I’m definately a fan. Those of you that have ever seen an anime or read a manga will probably have heard of Battle Royale.
For those who haven’t its a very similar storyline. A classroom full of children are abducted against their will by a reality TV show which forces them all to fight to the last man standing. You’d be surprised HOW MANY TIMES this sort of story comes up in our society. Its something we’re afraid that we’re heading towards. I was a big fan of Battle Royale in high school. I had the first 10 books until they were stolen along with my school bag one fateful day in the city. But that is a story for another time.
Books/movies/anime’s that follow this seam of human entertainment have always fascinated me. Maybe because in my mind we’re so close to that right now, with reality TV only needing to take a few more steps to reawaken our Colosseum blood lusts. I think society will only remain afraid of taking that last step for a few more decades. But then again, people have been saying that for decades. Did noone else get forced to watch Running Man as a child?
While the story line in Hunger Games does differ to that of Battle Royale (Hunger Games exists in more of a Firefly-esque dystopia with the rich in the centre and the poor on the outskirts, while the poor are pretty pissed about it) and the background into why the games exist at all, is also quite different (being a way for the rich to keep the poor reminded of the fact that “don’t rebel because we could destroy you at any time and you should just be super fuckin grateful we don’t”, whereas Battle Royale was a reality show that had taken the next step, sprung out of a human desire to see people kill each other in gladiator style combat) the same idea charges both stories and being such a fan of Battle Royale makes me just as much of a fan of Hunger Games.
The TL;DR of this whole thing is I HIGHLY recommend watching, reading or getting someone to read Hunger Games too you. This series is one of the first things to come out of America that DESERVES the hype its getting. Go get a copy
P.S. For me nothing will ever replace Harry Potter (I was so happy when Hunger Games didn’t beat their opening weekend) but at the same time we need something to fill in the space while we wait for JK to get her ass into gear and write us something new.
