Aquafina is tap water?! My whole world has been shattered? What’s next? Will Soylent Green turn out to be people? Oh, wait…
Archive for July, 2007
The inability (or unwillingness) of some game developers to fully implement compatibility with Windows Vista is driving me crazy. The latest fiasco? Bethesda Softworks and their game Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Yes, I know I wrote a lovely review of the game a little while back, and let it be known that I still love the game. Amazingly, it works perfectly fine on Vista. I’ve had no problems…until now.
It all started when I discovered some downloadable content for Oblivion. There were a few interesting things there, most of them for fairly cheap, so I decided to buy a few of the content packs. I paid and downloaded the install files only to find out that they all produced an error message and quit. Confused, I looked around the Bethesda Softworks support forum for an answer. It wasn’t a good one. Apparently, none of the downloadable content packs from OblivionDownloads.com will install on Windows Vista. There was a note on the page before I confirmed my payment, but it appeared to mention only 64-bit versions of Windows XP and Vista. Too late did I realize it meant 64-bit Windows XP and any version of Vista. So I’m out $6.76 and there are four useless installers sitting on my computer, waiting for the day that Bethesda pulls its head out of the ground and fully supports both Oblivion and its addons on Vista.
I mean, why on Earth would those installers not work? It’s maddening. Not the loss of seven bucks, but rather that some game developers still aren’t catering to the Vista portion of their consumer base. Sure, there are a lot of Vista-ready games, but those are generally developed by companies close to Microsoft (Halo 2 and Shadowrun, anyone?) or on the bleeding edge. I know Oblivion is a fairly old game. I know that patching it won’t magically make things better. But considering that Oblivion works on Vista (at least in my case) why shouldn’t the addon packs?
The site says something about the “secure downloader” for the content packs not working with Vista, but that doesn’t make any sense. The forums are no help, either. They just resort to telling people that Bethesda doesn’t support Oblivion on Vista and that downloadable content won’t work. No work arounds, no hints as to when a fix might be in order, no help at all. I guess this means I won’t be putting shiny armor on my horse any time soon…
Sphere: Related ContentFor once, I couldn’t think of a clever title. Oh well. This one’s straight and to the point. Anyways, as any long-time fan of Harry Potter knows, the boy is pure evil. You heard me right. He’s a wizard and he goes to a school devoted to teaching witchcraft and wizardry. That makes him evil. Why? Well, somewhere in the Bible (I have yet to find where), there’s a passage saying that practicing magic in any form is a big no-no. Why? Well…er, I don’t know. Having not read the passage, I can’t really say why, but I bet it has something to do with not invoking power through God. Come to think of it, that really may be the reason. I once wrote to some lady who was on a vendetta against Harry Potter and her email back said something to that effect. But with more “Repent lest ye be damned!” and such. Apparently, daring to question someone who has (or thinks they have) God and the Bible on their side is even worse than reading about Harry Potter.
While I can kind of understand how some religious people can see magic as being “bad” (if only because their religion says so), I don’t think they quite get the big picture regarding Harry Potter. Heck, I highly doubt most of the hardcore anti-Harry folks have even read the books. See, Harry Potter is all about the dichotomy of good vs. evil. Sound familiar? Yeah, it’s in the Bible, too. Good wins, evil doesn’t. Old hat. So why does magic throw a wrench into the whole deal? Yes, Harry Potter practices magic. But do you see him using for anything other than good? Okay, he’s lost his temper a few times and performed a forbidden curse at least once, but that’s nothing compared to guys like Voldemort and his crew of Death Eaters. Does Harry murder? Does he torture? Does he inflict unimaginable pain on wizards and Muggles alike for amusement? No, of course not. Because he’s good. Voldemort does do these things because he’s bad. See what I’m getting at here?
Continue reading ‘Harry Potter is not evil’
Sphere: Related ContentCall it the Snakes on a Plane effect. Something gains immense popularity based solely on hype. Everyone thinks it’s going to be amazing, but none of those people have any actual evidence of that something’s awesomeness. Good examples are the movie Snakes on a Plane (much ballyhooed by teh Interweb but sucked massively), politician Ron Paul (acts like a libertarian, but is just as anti-everything as the next Republican), and the recently released iPhone.
Surprisingly, the iPhone didn’t (completely) succumb to the SoaP effect. Yes, it was being hyped way before it was even officially announced in 2004, but the hype appears to have been justified. I mean, this is Apple we’re talking about. Look at how successful the iPod is and you’ll see what I’m talking about.
Continue reading ‘The hype is right’
Sphere: Related ContentRight when I was getting to enjoy Flickr, I ran into their 200 viewable image limit. There goes uploading all my pics to one easy-to-use place without paying for it…
Sphere: Related Content