SCΛRECROW

0 comments by SCΛRECROW on May 30th, 2011

It's about 1:30AM and I can't get to sleep, so what better to do than write a blog post that you've been meaning to write for the past month or three...

First thing's first: Stargate Universe. Yes, it's already been a while since the end of SGU, and its cancellation is old news. But I'm just going to write an opinion piece on it anyway. If you remember,  after the first half of season one, I was still on the fence, however I thought the rest of season one and two managed to strike the balance between old-school Stargate episodes and the new style they were aiming for. I really enjoyed most, if not all of the episodes following the first mid-season break. But alas, it was cancelled. Firstly, I want to acknowledge the SciFi channel for their contribution to the longevity of the Stargate franchise. However, after their new vision and renaming to SyFy, I think things have gone downhill for good science fiction television, if it sounds like SyFy it's not SciFi.

I think that they were too impatient with SGU and messing with the TV scheduling did not help at all, I respect that they are running a business, but more risk, more reward. Ending SGU on a cliffhanger was a big mistake, SGU's third season would have been EPIC, that's right EPIC, but the flawed ratings system along with SyFy's insistence to air WWE, tacky reality TV shows and cheap TV movies ultimately led to SGU's demise. Now that SGU is gone, the hopes for an SGU movie and the SG-1 and SGA movies have also been dashed, sure there's always hope, but the reality is that these movies may never be made. I fear that Sanctuary will also suffer the same fate as SGU. What we witnessed was the untimely end of a legendary franchise and the death knell of good science fiction television.

So, in other news: Portal 2. Overall, it's a great game, it's quite impressive to see what they can do with the aging Source engine. The new gameplay elements such as the excursion funnels, hard light, and various gels do make things more interesting, but it mostly remains the same. I felt that the singleplayer campaign could have done with another level or two, but the co-op multiplayer certainly made up for it. Although the voice acting, sound and graphics cannot be faulted, level design could be better, by better I mean make it less obvious where to put portals. Having a small white wall panel against a big brown wall is way too obvious. As a side note, while I was listening to developer commentary (yes, I listen to commentary, sue me), they mentioned that most players said they didn't know want an emancipation grid was from Portal, so they had to modify a puzzle to make it easier on players. The most annoying thing were those damn loading screens, they just cause too much disruption in the flow of the game, especially during the first part of the game. The first DLC pack will be out pretty soon, and it will be interesting to see what Valve has to add.

Also, I'm planning to build a new PC within the next month or two. Proposed specs are: Core i7 2600K, ASUS P8Z68 Deluxe, Corsair 8GB Dominator 1600 RAM, OCZ Vertex 3 120GB SSD, ASUS GTX570 DC2 GPU, Corsair HX750 PSU, Coolermaster CM690 II Advanced and other components from my existing computer. It should come to a total of around $1.8K AUD. Any suggestions or comments on these parts are welcome.

E3 is coming up, I'll be keeping tabs on it as usual. Battlefield 3 looks really, really good, hence why I'm getting a new PC. Although, GR:FS was delayed. Again. And there's this Ghost Recon Online shooter coming soon...not sure what to make of that. Either way with or without more delays, I've got a stack of games on my "to play list".

Mid year exams are coming up, so it's going to get quite busy. And on that note, I'm going to stop rambling and get some sleep now.

SCΛRECROW

P.S.: if I'm incoherent, or if you spot any grammatical or spelling errors, forgive me, late night blogging isn't something I do on a regular basis.