TeamXbox Warns Readers Not To Vote Uncharted 2 as Game of The Year (Hilarious)
"Everyone Loves Me, Even Xbox Fans...The Power!"
Some hilarious and game-defining news can easily come from just watching the gaming communities. Well, on TeamXbox, members were asked to vote for the Game of The Year. Tons of seasoned Xbox members insisted that Uncharted 2, while not a 360 title, should easily win the award. TeamXbox issued the following warning, "Uncharted 2? Seriously people? What’s the name of this website? Fine, it’s supposedly a great game, though none of us have played it yet. We’re willing to accept that it’s a clear winner for best PS3 game of the year, but this is not TeamPS3. It’s cool to be into other games on other consoles, but we’re concentrating on the Xbox 360 here, folks."
Last night atSatellitewe were discussing the Acolyte(connecting with God through ritual, tradition, or disciplines) aspect of Christian spirituality, and my friendJoeshared about his use of aprayer ropeover the past couple of years. The repeated prayer, goes like this:
"Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner."
His story was encouraging to me. I like the idea of connecting/interacting with God in new ways.
So today, after my jog, I was trying this prayer on for size, repeating it, and focusing on the words and what they meant to me.
ThenMatthew 6:7popped into my head. So I thought "am I repeating this prayer so that I will be heard?"
Attempting to open my intentions like a book and read them, I was reminded ofProverbs 20:5so I took my time and asked God for wisdom and candor before answering my own question. Upon exiting the hot tub(I know, I'm spoiled!) a verdict had been reached.
I was not doing the repetition so that God would hear me. I was attempting to hear God. To open a space for Him, to surrender to Him. I'm going to make a prayer rope and spin this out further. God is worthy of that, I'm sure of it. Now, what kind of rope? What size? What color? Why that color/size? What does it mean to me?
I know it's a horrible cliche but Naughty Dog has created the first truly "cinematic" game experience ever, and it really does feel like the long-awaited follow-up to the original Indiana Jones trilogy(we all know Crystal Skull failed us there). The graphics are obviously the best available right now but, more importantly, the painstaking care which went into the script, voice/motion-capture acting, cutscenes etc. is simply astounding. There's a whole feature length film in here - roughly 91 minutes separated into 3-4 minute shorts, impeccably directed chunks of ruthlessly efficient story exposition and character development, and it's all great fun to watch and re-watch (hell, even slightly moving at times, which is not something I say often about storylines in video games).
The cinematic qualities extend far beyond the cutscenes, though, and the single most amazing thing about the game is probably that virtually every gunfight (or puzzle segment, for that matter, though those tend to be relatively rare in the game) feels dynamic enough that it could serve as an elaborate set piece in a really good action movie. Rather than just spawning a few generic soldiers in an open space and have the player pick them off one by one, developer Naughty Dog throws in a helicopter, a moving train, a rapidly collapsing building or just about anything else that will make the action come alive and feel like so much more than just another room full of enemies. The effective use of scripted events in action-oriented 3D games arguably began all the way back in Valve's first Half-Life game, but never has it been done this ambitiously and with such amazingly seamless results.
The jaded cynic in me I kept asking myself "well, when is the game going to run out of steam and devolve into a standard action game?". The answer is that it simply doesn't; Uncharted 2 is an absolutely exhilarating experience all the way through the game's 26 chapters. If this is not a reason to own a PS3, I don't know what is...
I know the anger he's talking about. I was at a very legalistic church on mothers day a few years ago(kind of an obligation, a relative invited us). The church has a bus route that picks up kids for their sunday school. They had encouraged the kids to invite their parents to mothers day service.
after "jokingly" talking about how fathers don't get enough credit(on mothers day, nice!), he started into a "true story" about a young woman who attended church for the first time, because her daughter had invited her. This woman didn't like what the preacher had to say and she left the service early. The preacher tried to stop her and talk to her outside, but she was so defiant and angry she told him off and left.
Then she went to the bar, and brought a guy home to sleep with. This "preacher" then went on to describe how the guy from the bar molested the daughter and murdered the woman and the girl.
He then says "Why did this happen? Because she rejected God. When we're out of his protection, awful things can happen!"
I was sitting next to a young woman who was obviously there for the first time because her daughter had invited her. She was black and everyone else was white. I cannot describe the feeling of anger for this man I had, and how my heart broke for this woman. To this day I wish I had followed my gut and stood up and yelled at him "who the hell do you think you are?" or turned to the woman and told her this was all BS. Instead I just looked at her, shook my head from side to side with an apologetic look on my face, stood up and walked out of his sermon in protest. I just couldn't listen anymore. Becky was outside with the kids on their playground equipment. Thankfully she didn't have to hear the worst "turn or burn" sermon since the 1700's.
