All Your Base Are Belong To Us — The Kip Lange Homepage

Right, for those of you not addicted to the 24-hour news cycle — Michelle Obama got quoted saying that, due to her husband’s success, this is the “first time” she has ever been proud of her country.

Oh, man, was that stupid.

Here’s all she had to do — change the wording of the phrase to:

“This is the proudest I’ve ever been of my country.”

Or anything along those lines.

The 24-hour news cycle will guarantee this story goes away, but what the hell, might as well blog while the blogging’s still good.

I went ahead and added a little poll to the right sidebar, all the way down.

Whee.

Fidel Castro has resigned.

Oh frabjous day, Callooh Callay!

Just breaking, so not much to say about it right now.

Obviously, this isn’t really me rooting for a Dem to win the general. The question is…which one is easier for McCain to beat?

I think it’s almost a tie. If Hillary is nominated, you have a candidate who has negative ratings of 40% and up. The “I’ll vote for a toaster oven over her” crowd. Which includes me.

So, high negatives, good news for Republicans.

Then you got Barack. Obama’s weaknesses are clear — two terms as a state Senator and half a term as a real Senator. Although it also gives him a very limited voting record. But that cuts both ways. There’s no doubt McCain would beat him in experience, but can a 71-year-old fend off an energized Barack Obama?

The conservative base would certainly turn out more for an Obama general rather than a Hillary general, I think. Obama is just way too liberal. Likable as he is, I’d rather, if the Reps are defeated, have HRC in office than Barack Obama. Not by much, but by a smidge.

HRC may also suffer from “Bush-Clinton” fatigue in the general as well. You know, the curse of the plutocracy we’ve lived under for a couple of decades. I’m sick of it; everyone is sick of it. Give us something not named Bush or Clinton. I don’t care if it’s a moderate-sized rock. Seriously.

I think, on the balance, though, in the end, you’d want an Obama general if you’re a conservative. I don’t think the oratory can outmuscle McCain’s experience. Let’s not forget that McCain is not some nice, peaceful, serene guy. He has a temper and a long history of shooting his mouth off bigtime (he curses all the time as well). Guy does have balls. Obama will run more liberally than Hillary would. HRC would occupy the same “moderate” space on the Dem side that McCain represents on the Rep side. I don’t think Clinton fatigue gets you past that. Total inexperience, which Obama brings, might crop up quite badly in debates during the general election.

Although at the end of the day, it truly is a doubled-edged sword on the Dem side for Reps. And still a hard pill to swallow for conservatives with McCain the nominee.

I recently received a pissy email from someone who apparently thinks it’s my job or something to review games and was appalled that I didn’t offer anything beyond quick impressions after my vast 10 minute experience dabbling in the Devil May Cry IV.

So here…

Gamespot puts the game’s score as: 8.0 (“Great”) out of 10.

I would nudge it to an 8.5. On Gamespot it’s an 8.0 for the 360 and the PS3 both, although I own the PS3 version, so my comments are going to be more geared that way.

Devil May Cry IV is going to feel the same for followers of the series, control-wise. However, if you’re new to it – it’s along the lines of a game like Ninja Gaiden Sigma. You have sword repertoires you can learn, abilities you can boost – by picking up colored orbs left by dead enemies. The DMC series has always been — and DMC IV does not deviate — a lot of very fun hack and slash with a smidge of role-playing game mixed in and maybe one or two puzzles reminiscent of Resident Evil.

There is one issue to get to first — game installation. It takes 22 minutes on the PS3 for DMC IV to install 5 gigs of game data. Is this worth it? YES. The load times for DMC IV are some of the quickest I’ve ever seen on any PS console, any game…but the installation is guaranteed to annoy you.

DMC IV sets you up as…a guy named Nero, not Dante (at first), who doesn’t have the familiar “Devil Trigger” that pops up with Dante after taking enough damage, the one that turns him into an unstoppable force for a few seconds. To replace that, you’ve got a devil “arm” capable of delivering huge blows for Nero, big pile-driver smackdowns, grabbing enemies, and navigating certain areas.

Nero and his demon arm (click for larger image).

Note — for a full gallery of screenshots, go right here.

As I mentioned, as you proceed through the game, you will power up your skills and abilities with your weapons and in-general. For instance, it costs a good deal to get “air hike” – for non-DMCers, that’s like a triple kick in the air (you kick off of air once).

The graphics for DMC IV are very, very good-looking for a 3rd-person shooter. The settings are designed well, the characters move in convincing ways, and there are no real bugs – except for camera malaise. Parts of DMC IV allow a free-roving camera view, others lock you down into one particular camera view, making it difficult sometimes to deal with multiple threats coming from two or more locations at once.

The combat engine is well-done, as usual, and contains nothing that new, really – well, new moves, same idea. The more “stylish” and varied your attacks against your opponent are without letting yourself get hit, the higher your orb modifier goes up, meaning, kill with style and you’ll get more orbs, which in turn power you up further or allow you to buy items.

And don’t worry – you get to play Dante eventually.

DMC IV also allows the Capcom tradition, mentioned above, of replaying parts (or the entire) game as another character – once unlocked. Like many recent FPSers (although DMC IV is a true 3rd person slasher/shooter), it also has a system of rewards and badges you win (say, for killing 100 demons in a row).

Did I mention a story? No. There really isn’t much of a story here, I’m afraid. I mean, yeah, it’s there, but it’s weak compared to every other aspect of the game. The voice acting in the game is also a weak point, not really helped by the fact that this is a game really geared for a Japanese market first — Japan loves the weird demons (DMC) and the U.S. loves the zombies (Resident Evil). But if even some of the look of this game spills over onto Resident Evil 5 — we’re looking at a really great RE coming up.

To sum up, after playing it for a good amount of time now, I will re-grade (based on a scale of 10, which is pretty damn obvious) the two most important factors for me in a game:

Graphics: 9 (it’s PS3 eye candy; I can’t speak for the 360 version)
Gameplay: 8 (could be higher but it’s repetitive at points and the sometimes-fixed camera makes fighting difficult in certain areas)

That’s all I’m going to throw out there, plus the above admittedly short review. Again, there is the replay value for those who want to buy (although, in my humble opinion, shelling out $20 more for the “Collector’s Edition” is insane).

DMC IV is a good, solid game, and perhaps the best in the franchise in terms of gameplay, and most definitely way up there on the eye-candy scale (barring the annoying fixed-camera moments).

In addition, DMC IV comes with rumble support (works fine with the rumble controller I have; rumble is a little less energetic overall, though, I’ve found)

Now, whoever emailed me wanting a more detailed review – someone who seems to think it is my obligation to write more detailed reviews on a small, personal blog (I’m not exactly the Gaming News here) – shaddup. Hehe.

Bear in mind, first, that I love the DMC series, so I’m a little biased. But I will give DMC:

– 8.5 overall (out of 10)

– 9 on graphics

– 8.5 on gameplay (I’d give it a 9 but sometimes the camera gets annoying)

For all those who love the DMC series, like myself, you will surely want to at least rent this game.

I wanted to go back and say a little more regarding G.C.’s remark that had a black player with braids run off the field early, you’d have heard stories of him being a “cancer to the team” and stuff like that, whereas Belichick skips away without anybody pointing it out.

What I want to say is — I agree. Look at the awful death of Sean Taylor. Two seconds after the press found out, it was just automatically assumed that this must have happened because he was hanging out with the wrong crowd…because he was black…

Of course, it turned out that the NFL apparently didn’t sufficiently warn Sean Taylor about spending quiet, peaceful nights at home.

Or…look back to when Randy Moss mooned the Green Bay fans. He was immediately slapped with the hothead-misbehavin’ mantle. Give me a break! Personally, I thought it was funny. Even if it wasn’t, it didn’t deserve to be made into the big deal it ended up as, and the only reason it ended up as a big deal is because Randy Moss is black. That’s just my two cents, but I really believe that.

So I wanted to say that on this one, I’m 100% with G.C. There is still a double standard in the NFL (and in plenty of other sports) that will scapegoat a black player for “shenanigans” that a white player or coach could get away with.

I don’t like it, I don’t like it one bit, but the only good news is that the only movement is forward…a lot of people thought the Randy Moss Green Bay incident was way overblown. I think it will only get better and better, that’s all I can say. Racism still exists, and we can’t have an honest debate on racism until we all admit that fact (that racism exists), and, furthermore, that we will not see the end of racism in our lifetime. It will get better, but it won’t go away. Not in my lifetime, anyway.

But, in the plus column, we have a serious black candidate for president this time around (and screw Bill Clinton for that race-baiting he did, including dismissing Obama by comparing him to Jesse Jackson). That’s progress. A lot of progress.

You can only hope it gets better.

Here is the ACU’s list of ratings for everybody in the ’08 race.

Disgruntled conservative friends will still find this not enough, though, I know. Just trying to make the case…to the choir for once.

Really. I heard what I wanted to hear. No retreat in Iraq, no letting up pressure on Iran and other rogue countries, no flip-flop on his immigration stance, assurances that he will not elect activist judges to the Supreme Court…not bad.

Remains to be seen if the rest of my conservative brethren begin to embrace it…

No more Mitt.

Jimmy Crack Corn, and I don’t care. 😉