Gran Turismo 5 - The Long Wait is Finally Over... So Much That I Forgot This Game Came Out

Gran Turismo 5 finally arrived!... Last November! Yeah, I'm late to the party, mostly because I just got a 3DTV and I was looking for games I could play. The only one that caught my eye was GT5, and I was very surprised to see that it actually finally came out. Gran Turismo 5 is the first GT for the PS3, which is somewhat disappointing because the PS1 and PS2 each had two GT releases. The main reason it looks like GT5 will be the only installment on the PS3 is because of the ability for software updates; this game came out in November and it already is on Version 1.09.

It should be noted that I have not played a GT game since GT2, so my review may be somewhat skewed.

The selection of cars is extremely huge, bigger than that of the PS1 releases, very welcomed since the PS2 releases had to sacrifice car amounts in order to push the PS2 to its limits. The feel of driving these cars is as good as ever, noted by car experts as preserving the tiny differences between cars even if the differences are so small that even car experts don't really notice any difference in real life. No two cars drive exactly the same, but some cars do drive similarly, especially if the models were manufactured to be competitors to each other.

The graphics are great in most places, notably the cars and the race tracks. Things that stand out as looking awful are trees and people, which is very bad since a virtual Jeff Gordon appears to give an introduction to the world of NASCAR to the player and every time you win a new trophy, your PIT crew appears next to your car. Thankfully, your avatar never takes off their helmet, so you don't have to be punished with some ugly monstrosity the entire playing experience. One negative on your appearance though is you can NEVER change your racing suit or helmet color unless you erase your save data.

Two big appeals to GT5 for the ultimate racing enthusiast are the ability to use the PlayStation Eye to enable head-tracking so you can get better looks at the rear view and driver side mirrors and the ability to play in 3D. Like any racing game, you can also play with a steering wheel or a rig with a brake and accelerator. I'm not insane and orgasmic about racing games, so I'm just going to stick with the 3D.

A neat feature for me personally was that the Mercedes-Benz SLK 230 '98 is an unlockable car; I own the '99 variation. The only major difference between the '98 and '99 is that the '99 and up versions featured optional automatic transmission, which I have. The SLK 230 featured in GT5 drives basically exactly how my actual car drives since all MT cars can be played as AT. Every quirk including the silly way the SLK 230 accelerates from a full stop is included, much to my delight.

Story: N/A
Gameplay: 10/10
Presentation: 8/10
Replay Value: 10/10

Average Score:      9.3/10

The graphics of people and trees are pretty big distractions keeping the game from receiving a perfect score, but the cars and race tracks have unbelievable attention to detail. Thankfully, despite Top Gear having an inclusion in GT5, only the track and wacky challenges are included and not the hosts of the show who are so incredibly British that they make casually racist remarks on their show so frequently that previous guests on the show have criticized the show for being juvenile and protected by the BBC's weak apologies.

The Battle of the News Anchor Babes is ON!

I remember when CNN vs Fox News was about unbiased journalism against conservative propaganda. Apparently, most people want to hear news with a slant, so they love to tune into Fox's opinion based shows, Fox and Friends, America Live, Your World with Neil Cavuto, Glenn Beck, The O'Reilly Factor, and Hannity. That's a hell of a lot of opinion based shows for a network that claims to be "Fair and Balanced." Those shows are all at least an hour long, America Live being 2 hours long and Fox and Friendsbeing 3 hours long. That's 9 hours of conservative slant programming, but many of those shows are broadcast more than once per day. The total amount of biased programming on Fox throughout the entire day is actually 13 hours, more than half of our oh-so-dear 24 hour day.

So what does any of that have to do with anything? Well, in CNN's effort to increase their ratings, they've attempted to make their own opinion based shows, which all fail miserably.Their latest project, Parker Spitzer, failed so hard in ratings and in host chemistry that Kathleen Parker had to leave and now Eliot Spizer remains with his own show, In the Arena, which is also not doing so hot. One of the projects that did work for a while was Rick Sanchez as the 3-5pm ET timeslot host of CNN Newsroom. Unfortunately, Sanchez just had to make some comments about CNN's executives that were anti-Semitic in nature while claiming that he has had a difficult career as a Latino journalist in English media., even though he is a light-skinned Cuban who started their career in Miami, the easiest place for someone like Sanchez to get ahead.

After Sanchez's firing, CNN replaced him with Don Lemon initially, but poor Lemon has zero charisma and flopped hard. Instead, CNN tried the Fox News formula and placed frequent Sanchez guest Brooke Baldwin as host instead. While Baldwin has thus far tried to avoid having an opinion based show, there's no denying that her place on the network has become the other cornerstone that Fox loves to have: hot babes doing the news!

The host of America Live, Megyn Kelly (yes, that's how she spells her name...), is also incredibly hot even though her opinions are fucking stupid. There's little one can do about Kelly though, she is a former attorney after all. Even though Kelly is dumb as bricks in things outside of law (and that's debatable), she is super super hot and awesome to look at. Brooke Baldwin is a super hot redhead and is on only an hour after Megyn Kelly is off the air!

It's quite a dilemma really, what to watch, actual news with a fiery hot redhead or opinionated bantering with a blonde bombshell.

I really don't even care anymore, I just get my real news sent to me from Reuters and the AP.

Update: Apparently, Brooke recently missed almost a week of work because she was diagnosed with a very mild form of skin cancer and had the tumor removed from her nose. She returned to the airwaves today sporting the cutest placed Band-Aid I have ever seen, as can be seen in this video where Brooke acknowledges her predominantly male fanbase.

The 3rd Birthday - Aya Brea's Return

After a long wait, Square Enix finally delivers the long-awaited sequel to Parasite Eve 2, The 3rd Birthday. The reason the game is not titled Parasite Eve 3 is because SE chose not to renew the licensing fee for the name "Parasite Eve;" the first game was originally a sequel to the novel Parasite Eve. The 3rd Birthday takes place in 2013, a year after monsters known as the "Twisted" appeared in New York City and started the end of civilization, eventually constructing large Twisted factories known as "Babels" in several countries around the world. At the start of the game, it is predicted that human civilization will cease in two years' time.

Fortunately for us, there lies a trump card: Aya Brea. Aya was found by an organization known as the CTI, an offshoot of the FBI, back in 2010 with total amnesia other than her name. Aya possesses the unique ability to "Overdive," the ability to transmit her psyche into people's minds at any point in the past. Using her ability to Overdive, the CTI launches a mission to save the present by saving the past.

Obviously, this ability to Overdive is derived from Aya's mutated mitochondria as shown in the first two Parasite Eve games. During the game's story, Aya remembers more about her past and is shown to be actively changing the past and leading to humanity being saved. The ending of the game is what really ruins Aya's return though. I won't spoil anything, but the game's story was just fine until the ending had to mess everything up. It won't stop a 4th Birthday from happening, but it just makes this game's story that much less valuable.

Story: 4/10
Gameplay: 8/10
Presentation: 8/10
Replay Value: 10/10

Average Score:      7.5/10


Despite the incredibly awful story, the game's gameplay is fantastic and easily the best third-person shooter for the PSP outside of Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. The graphics are pretty good too, but there's a little too much cartooniness and emphasis on Aya being half-Japanese by essentially just putting a blonde wig on a Japanese woman rather than actually taking the time to design a mixed-race person.

Half-Japanese, Half-Caucasian people tend to look like this.

This is an Asian face with a Caucasian nose and a blonde wig, not what a mixed person looks like.

As far as replay value, the game can easily be completed in a few hours after the first playthrough during a New Game +. The reason for this ease of difficulty is unlocking bonus features, including the ability to watch the cutscene of Aya showering whenever you want (*wink*wink*) after completing the game 50 times. The game has really good gameplay and is a really fun and easy game to play while traveling where save points are plentiful and you can repeat old missions as often as you'd like to upgrade your weapons and abilities.

Really, this game's only fault is it's incredibly stupid story and it really is a shame.

Lakers vs Mavericks? No, no, no, it's really Jason Terry vs Matt Barnes.

Two days ago, the Lakers and Mavericks played an incredibly important game that would more than likely determine the future seeding in the Western Conference. The Lakers absolutely demolished the Mavericks, supposedly their strongest competition, by 28 points, while also holding Jason Terry to 2-10 shooting whereas Lamar Odom at one point scored 3 3-pointers in a row. During the game, Jason Terry shoved Steve Blake after a hard foul and the two had a minor altercation that was little more than barking at each other. Matt Barnes came in and tried to shove Terry, but was stopped a by a referee and later involved Brandon Haywood trying to stick up for Terry against Barnes. All four players were ejected, Terry receiving a flagrant-2 foul which allowed the Lakers an opportunity for 3 free throws. In the aftermath, Barnes was suspended for a game for escalating the situation.

After all was said and done, Chris Webber took an opportunity to dig in to the Mavericks and lambast them for being such a soft team that their 6th man, a Guard, had to be the one to show physicality, but it was when the Mavs were losing by 20 points. Because of Terry's awful shooting night and the Mavericks poor performance, it was easily viewed that Terry was incredibly mad that he and his team were vastly outplayed and outclassed with no hope of ever defeating the Lakers in a 7-game series. Later, Kobe responded to a comment Jason Terry made about Kobe not being able to keep up with Dallas' younger guards. Kobe responded along the lines that Terry's hopes of becoming a TV analyst are over after making such a ridiculous statement.

Of course, Jason Terry didn't learn how to shut up and decided to just fan the flames. Terry publicly called out Barnes and said, "I call Barnes the Charminator. You know what that is? That is a guy that's soft as Charmin' toilet paper. It's not only that he's a Pac-10 guy and he's a Bruin, and so you know we hate those guys -- us Wildcats, we hate Bruins. I don't care who you are. Whenever you don that uniform, I can't stand you, other than Reggie Miller. Barnes, I remember you when you were at Golden State, you're a journeyman. You put on that Laker uniform and you turn into Jerry West, Kareem, and Worthy, and Magic. Those are the real Lakers, not Barnes."

Barnes' response? "I'm not worried about what he's talking about. In Golden State we showed how to beat Dallas. You take it right to their chin and they back down. I don't see that nothing's changed since then so hopefully we see them again."

In case you have forgotten or are not aware dear reader, the #8 seed Golden State Warriors defeated the #1 seed Dallas Mavericks in the 2007 playoffs to become the first #8 seed to ever defeat a #1 seed in NBA playoff history.

tl;dr

Jason Terry is extremely butthurt that Dallas was shitrolled by the Lakers, so much so that he has to let everyone know how much his ass hurts.

Jalen Rose Experiences MAJOR Karma Backfire

Pictured is Jalen Rose's mugshot from his DUI arrest 3 weeks ago. Well that's ok, it's not the first time someone involved in media has been arrested; the same happened to Charles Barkley a little over a year ago. However, Rose failed to report his DUI to ESPN, a serious no-no since ESPN has a policy of anchors, reporters, and analysts to report anything that might become embarrassing in the future immediately so that ESPN can deal with it in private. The DUI arrest happened around the same time as Rose's "The Fab Five" documentary was aired, which received unbelievably negative reviews for portraying the Fab Five as a much better team than they really were and for Rose continuing to call black athletes at Duke "Uncle Toms," including current Phoenix Sun Grant Hill.

Because Rose failed to report his DUI and the story was broken by TMZ, ESPN decided to pull Rose off the air. This news is absolutely fantastic because Rose no longer gets to do the Pre-Half-Post Game show, spewing his absolutely ridiculous opinions. Unfortunately, we still have to deal with Jon Barry, who infamously claimed that Kobe is too old for the Lakers to win and is now eating his words with a giant spoon.

Stuart Scott is also dealing with cancer, so he is out of action (at least for the regular season) so that's 2 down, 1 to go to get the Pre-Half-Post Game show to be decent! Now I'm not wishing any ill will towards Scott, I hope he makes a full recovery; I just wish his recovery to be as slow as possible so that he stays away from television as long as possible.

NBA Playoff Push Begins!

It's almost time for the playoffs, but for teams it seems that the playoffs have already begun. In the #8 seeds, the Indiana Pacers and the Charlotte Bobcats are in a fierce battle in the East, and the Memphis Grizzlies and Houston Rockets are duking it out-out West. There's a few contested seeds in both conferences, which will determine which team faces whom during the first round. This is critically important because upsets almost always happen and there's more than a few teams in both conferences who look very ready to Cinderellas in the first round.

But the biggest stories for the beginning of the playoff push are the Spurs, Lakers, Mavericks, Celtics, and Heat. The Spurs have suffered two injuries in a row, to Tim Duncan and then Manu Ginobili which garnered them an extremely unimpressive 5 game losing streak, causing them to only be ahead of the Lakers by 2 1/2 games now, caused lately by a very unimpressive loss to the Boston Celtics.

The Lakers have been absolutely steamrolling their competition, only losing once to the Miami Heat since the All-Star Break. Last night, the Lakers and Mavericks battled for the #2 spot in a game that has been widely viewed as the deciding game for the #2 and #3 seeds out West. The game wasn't even close; the Lakers won by 28 points and even exposed the Mavericks for being an incredibly soft team with zero physicality. The Lakers proved with their latest game that no team can defeat them in a 7-game series and they are almost guaranteed at this point to win a 3rd straight championship.

Although the Mavericks have been the most consistent team of the decade in the regular season, they're once again showing their true colors and will likely choke in the playoffs again. After their loss to the Lakers last night, Chris Webber called out the Mavericks for being incredibly soft and having no physicality for the cheap shot Jason Terry took on Steve Blake. Although Webber was a fan of the foul in essence, he did not agree with shoving a player when you're losing a game by 20+ points and have had an absolutely atrocious shooting night. This sent the message to everyone that Terry has a short fuse when he does badly and also that the 6th man (a Guard at that) rather than a team leader had to instigate something. Webber went on to say that this was the game for the Mavericks to prove they were the real deal and shove it in the Lakers' faces, but the opposite happened and now everyone is writing off the Mavericks since now everyone knows it will be impossible for the Mavericks to defeat the Lakers in a 7-game series.

The Celtics have been on a downward spiral since the OKC trade, and it's only gotten worse with Nenad Krstic out with a possibly long-term injury, while Kendrick Perkins is playing for the Thunder. This trade with OKC has been disastrous for the Celtics in multiple ways and Danny Ainge will most definitely be fired if the Celtics fail to reach the NBA Finals. Lastly, the Miami Heat have been fairly average compared to their season, but two games stand out in particular. Miami needed an overtime to beat the 76ers, the team they are likely to face in the playoffs, and the Cleveland Cavaliers finally managed to beat the Heat by double digits, the first time this entire season the Cavaliers have won by 10+ points. The Cavaliers may have crafted a blueprint of success for teams facing the Heat, as it allowed the worst team in the NBA to beat a team known for demolishing all the bad teams.


The NBA Playoffs begin 2 weeks from now.

Dr. Phil Has No Idea How to "Fix" Generation Y

Dr. Phil McGraw is a retired psychologist, known for making many appearances on the Oprah Winfrey Show and hosting his own show, Dr. Phil. Dr. McGraw has come under fire over the years for his psychological approach, which is viewed as being far too simplistic and usually ineffective. Just to make things even more complicated, he has received criticism for his own show over the years because of how he has recruited guests occasionally. Of course, just to put the icing on the cake, despite him being an outspoken critic of all pornography, whether it be softcore or hardcore, his son Jay married one of the Dahm triplets, one of the 3 Playmates of the Month in the December 1998 issue of Playboy.

Clearly, Dr. McGraw is not the best psychologist in the world, nor was he capable of raising a son with the same values as him.

Here though, I need to discuss Dr. McGraw's latest shortcoming which has been getting constant attention on his show. McGraw has long criticized "Generation Y" (or as I prefer, the Nintendo Generation) for having an inflated sense of entitlement and lack of ambition. Despite McGraw usually blaming parents for badly raising children, lately McGraw has been criticizing 15-25 year olds for their own behavior without consideration that times have changed. The most noteworthy case on his show has been "The Dr. Phil Family," a family originally at odds over the oldest daughter misbehaving, doing drugs, and having unprotected sex in high school. Since McGraw originally featured the family on the show, the daughter has gotten progressively worse, having 2 children with unknown fathers, losing custody of both children, and being addicted to meth at one point. Being hypocritical, McGraw has never blamed her parents for raising her to be a bad child, rather focusing on having her correct her own actions.

That in itself is part of McGraw's inability to understand Generation Y. McGraw criticizes our generation for being too self-entitled and unambitious, yet he expects a product of that generation to solve their own problems after being raised by the hippie generation.

The main problem with my generation is our parents. Our parents grew up in a time of uncertainty; a war was being fought in Vietnam for seemingly no reason, the President could no longer be trusted, violence was erupting over race, and women were fighting a losing battle for equality. Growing up in that era, our parents instilled us with their values, just as their parents had done for them. Except this time, we would learn to mistrust the government and all authority figures, accept casual sex as teenagers, and know that marijuana usage would not face severe consequences.

In short, Dr. McGraw blames parents for misbehaving children, but once the kids start being sexually active it's all their fault. Makes perfect sense.