For various reasons, including the fact that I’m trying to consolidate my online accounts, I’m moving Lameazoid.com to Blogger.

If you’re subscribing to the Feed, please add this feed….
http://feeds.feedburner.com/Lameazoid
… in it’s place. I can update the Feedburner feed take anything no matter where I’m hosted so it’s your best bet anyway.

A few reasons I’m moving to Blogger over WordPress…

• I’ve actually always preferred Blogger to WordPress.  Mostly I like WordPress’ ability to create static pages.
• I have several other Blogspot blogs going now already.  This will simplify them.
• Blogspot is owned by Google so you get the benefits of Google with less work.
• I can map my Domain names properly for free as opposed to WordPress.com’s “charge you an obscene amount yearly” plan.
• Blogger supports Scripting in posts and the sidebar.  I can properly embed videos from non Youtube sources.
• Blogger lets you run ads, if I ever feel included to do so in any serious manner.
• Blogger gives you full access to the page code for Tweeking.   WordPress.com does not.

I’ve already imported all of the posts over to the Blogger location and will be updating the domain and feeds later today.  If you’re seeing this, this will be the last post on the blog in this form and for anyone using this RSS feed.  Anything else will push through Feed Burner.

There’s been a ruling recently by the FTC about how Blogs will have to be required to disclose if they are receiving compensation to promote products.  Compensation could include receiving things for free.

Here’s a link to the article.  I’ll probably also do a different style of post on this subject over on OSAF in the future.

Anyway, here’s my “disclosure”.  All of the reviews on this site are of crap that I bought and paid for with my own money.  However if some company (Hasbro, Valve, Nintendo) wants to send me games or toys to review I will gladly disclose that and put up an honest opinion of if it’s crap or not.  Seriously, how do you get on these lists?  I want to get some free review product going.  We get pretty good numbers here I swear!*

* 3-4k a month with infrequent updates, at it’s peak with daily updates 30k a month.

One of the staple features of the current generation of video game consoles, the X-Box 360, the Playstation 3, and the Wii is internet connectivity. While this was an optional add on for most of the previous generation (PS2 and Dreamcast had optional Network adapters, Dreamcast had a built in modem), the current gen all have this feature by default.

This has allowed console makers to provide continuous updates and tweaks to their console design and features through firmware updates. This si great in theory, the wii now supports larger SD cards, the PS3 added that Home deal, in general it’s a nice addition. But it also seems to be a bit of a curse. Recent updates to both the PS3 and Wii could potentially be fatal to your console, especially if you own an earlier iteration of the hardware.

First here’s an October 1st article about Bricked Wiis. I was talking to someone about this and they claim that the problem actually has to do with an update to the Boot system. Earlier Wiis are much more likely to be bricked by this new latest update. Fortunately you can probably just skip it since the only real change is “Nintendo killed the current version of the Homebrew Channel”. Why Nintendo bothers with this each update is beyond me. You’re irritating a relatively small “hardcore” audience for your console and the guys making the Homebrew Channel WILL defeat whatever blocks they make in each update. History has shown that “where there is a will, there’s a way” and in the digital realm, 1s and 0s can ALWAYS be cracked or hacked.

Now, latest news is that the latest PS3 Update is also bricking consoles. Don’t these companies test this crap out? They really should have a lab with every possible combination of hardware released in it where they test out each and every update.

then there is always the classic X-Box 360 Red Ring of Death.

Seriously shoddy job there folks… Get your shit together.

Pretty well done spoof trailer for a “live action” Mario Movie. Most of the characters are pretty believably well done though Peach seems a little off for some reason. I suppose they picked her because of her “Bikini abilities” not her “Being Princess Peach” ability.

Luigi should have been interviewed with a Wiimote instead of a television remote though. Oh well.

Ah the Spy.

The Spy has a bit of an odd history.  Before the Spy/Sniper update, the Spy was arguably the most difficult class to play effectively.  You were either a “Master Spy” and could devastate the enemy, or you were a “Clutzy N00b spy” who would get flamed up by every Pyro on the map.

Things have changed since that time, and not just because the Spy has gotten new weaponry.  The Spy’s original job was basically as follows, cloak and disguise, get behind the enemy, backstab as many of them as possible (preferably Snipers and Medics).  Secondary is the sapping of enemy turrets.

Both of these acts are pretty tricky.  Generally, Pyros will sit in choke points and “Spy check”.  Enemy spies will always burn even when cloaked or disguised.  Also, in the past, Spies were easier to pick out when disguised because they would always be wielding the primary weapon of the class.  Also, attacking will remove a Spy’s disguise.

Sapping can be tricky as well since there is almost always an enemy Engineer hanging around his equipment.  Sure, if you get in a Sapper war you’ll eventually win since the sap drains the equipment faster than the Engineer can repair it.  However while sapping you’ll likely have your back to the action meaning any enemy teammate can easily walk up behind you and kill you.

The new equipment and abilities the Spy has gained in recent months however make him a much more versatile class.  Also it makes him much more easily playable.  We’ll look at all of the Spy’s equipment first as well as some different “Types” of Spies you may encounter.

The Knife

This is the Spy’s primary weapon.  Sure, the Revolver sits in slot one but most of the Spy’s kills are from the knife.  The Knife is the only Melee weapon that does a low amount of damage on standard use.  All of the other Melee weapons do around the same amount of damage per hit.  The Knife however has a special case associated with it.  The knife, if hitting the opponent in the back, will, without fail, kill the opponent instantly.  This is called a “Backstab”.

It will kill even overcharged Heavies in one hit.  It doesn’t work on ubers of course but if you’re a good Spy, then you’ll have backstabbed that medic well before he has even deployed his uber.  I find, as a Spy, there is a general priority list of who to backstab.  Medics, especially if ready with an uber, should ALWAYS be the first target.  Ok, really, Medics should be the first target of any class, but Spies especially.  Secondary is generally Snipers or Heavies.  Heavies deal a lot of damage in a broad stroke and can absorb a lot of damage.  They can still only absorb a single backstab however, so dispatching them is much quicker for a Spy than say, a Pyro or Soldier.  Snipers are a priority mostly based on location.  The Spy’s cloak allows him to easily get back deep behind enemy lines.  The Sniper is most effective from this location and generally is always focusing his attention in one direction.  Beware of the Razerback shield however (more in a bit on this).

The Revolver & Ambassador

The Spy’s secondary weapon is his gun.  It comes in two flavors.  The standard revolver is quick and accurate but does less damage, the Ambassador is huge and does a ton of damage but it only accurate for one shot and it fires more slowly.  From what I’ve seen, once you have the Ambassador, chances are you won’t go back.

The Ambassador is almost as useful as the knife for surprise kills.  It’s also great against Razorback Snipers.  The Razorback will make the sniper think he’s spy proof.  The reality is, it only makes him Knife proof.  It’s extremely easy to walk right up to a sniper with the ambassador and plug him twice in the head (killing him).  So much for protection.

Unfortunately the slow fire speed and high reload time of both revolvers makes the Spy fairly useless for normal combat.  It’ll work in a pinch if you’re a decent shot but you’re not going to be assaulting anyone head on with it unless you have to or can ambush them.

The Cloak

This isn’t really a weapon exactly but it’s part of what makes the Spy a spy.  The Spy has the ability to temporarily become invisible.  Originally the spy had a normal cloak watch.  It would cloak you for a certain period of time before needing a recharge.  It would recharge any time it was not in use.  This watch has more or less been superseded by the Cloak and Dagger.

The Cloak and Dagger only drains while the Spy is in motion.  This means you can easily lay in wait to ambush the enemy and in time, easily pick your way all the way through the enemy forces.  This brings us to the idea of the “Defensive Spy”.  It’s something I’ve been experimenting with off and on, mostly on 2Fort.  If the enemy is regularly infiltrating a certain area, in particular to 2Fort these areas are, the Front Gate, either Sewer, or The Basement, you can hide in a corner cloaked and wait for them to come through then jump out and stab them.  This is also effective for forces crossing the bridge.  Basically, instead of making “infiltrating the enemy base” your objective, you make “killing enemies before they get to your base” your objective.

The Spy also has a third cloak, one that is less useful that tries to mimic an ability that the Spy had in the first Team Fortress.  The third cloak is called Dead Ringer.  It’s a watch, then when active, will drop a fake corpse and auto cloak the spy when he takes damage.  It also renders the spy temporarily invulnerable.  There’s a few problems with this.  Most experience players will realize the death was fake, especially if you die from one needle gun hit or one Heavy bullet.  Secondly, if a Pyro burns you, you’ll continue to burn while cloaked (meaning you’ll be visible).  However whipping out the cloak and dagger while burning will temporarily save your life as you still get the invincibility effect.

Third problem, the de-cloak noise is excessively loud.  I believe Valve has fixed this somewhat but a Dead Ringer spy decloaking can be heard all over the map and will cause all enemy forces in the area to go nuts (especially Pyros).

I find the most effective method of using the Dead Ringer is actually to cloak as a member of your own team, then charge the enemy forces.  This is useful for a few reasons.  Firstly, most People don’t even realize a Spy can disguise as his own team, so they don’t expect it.  Second, they will simply see themselves as killing a dumb idiot opponent who doesn’t know when to attack when they kill you.  For what it’s worth, to disguise as a friendly team mate, press the -/_ key when on the disguise selection screen.

Disguising

The other weapon in the Spy’s arsenal is the disguise.  The spy can take on the form of any other player.  Over time this has become more elaborate.  You’ll show the opponent’s name, you’ll show his health meter, you get a fake Ubercharge meter if you’re a medic.  All ways to make the disguise more believable.  You can also cycle through the weapon of the disguise by pressing “B” (of if you’ve changed it, the “last disguise” button).  This is useful for disguises like the Engineer or Spy, classes that tend to carry their Melee weapon over their main weapon.

A few things to consider when disguised.  Don’t run head first into the enemy and don’t hand around with your teammates (unless you’re disguised as a Spy, maybe).  These are dead giveaways.  Also, your speed doesn’t always match if you pick a class like the Heavy or Scout.  If you want to sap an Engineer’s buildings, don’t necessarily run up and sap  He’ll see you coming.  Maybe run past and around a corner, then back up into the room so the Engineer thinks you’re retreating from the enemy.

Most importantly, remember that you lose your disguise the instant you attack.  This means all opponents will see you and that any nearby sentry guns will shoot you.

Some general disguise choice tips by class:

Scout – This is generally a poor choice for a disguise.  Spies disguised as Scouts are not as fast as real Scouts, so they are very obvious.  Also Scouts generally are charging headlong into the enemy forces in a manner that’s even more “lemming-like” than the Pyro.

Soldier – This is actually a decent class to disguise as, though it’s a bit slow.  Soldier’s often don’t fire their weapons unless the enemy is nearby since they have limited ammo and slow reload time.  This makes your lack of attacking believable.  Also because it’s slow, people suspect a Spy less.

Pyro – This one is good and bad.  It’s good because the Pyro’s short range gives him an excuse not to go around firing his weapon.  It’s bad because most Pyros are maniacs who go around burning things anyway in the name of “spy Checking”.

Demoman – Probably one of the better classes to disguise as.  The Demoman has all kinds of excuses to be running around not attacking.  If anything it may be because he’s got a sticky trap somewhere that he’s babysitting.

Heavy – I find this is a good disguise in very specific situations.  One, if you want to attract a medic, it’s a good disguise.  Two, if you want to infiltrate an enemy Engineer camp, it’s decent.  Mostly people don’t expect heavies to be Spies as much because of the speed impairment.  Most Spies will not chose a class that slows them down.

Engineer – This is a great class and a terrible class as well.  First off, be sure you’re carrying your wrench (by pressing “B”).  Secondly Engineers are always running around doing who knows what in an enemy base.  No one understands what is going through their minds some times, they are nutty.  The curse however is that the Engineers themselves are almost always aware of who their friendly Engies are and will spot you from a mile away if you’re out of place.  Also the odds of running into “yourself” while trying to sap are high since the Engies all hang around their own equipment.

Medic – I find Medic to be reasonably effective except for one thing.  The medic Spy (I’m pretty sue) can’t carry a Medigun.  90% of all Medics always carry the Medigun.  Also most enemies will run up expecting to be healed, which means they won’t have their back to you and they will be suspicious when you DON’T heal them.

Sniper – This one’s pretty effective, especially when you’re standing where Snipers tend to hang out.  Opposing Sniper’s won’t notice their doppelganger since they tend to focus on the action with their scopes anyway.  Also Snipers don’t really run around the base shooting things.

Spy – Possibly the best class to disguise as.  Spies are always doing suspicious things, even friendly Spies.  So an enemy who sees a “friendly” Spy running around in an odd place is very likely to ignore him.  Also if you decloak behind someone, as long as they don’t see you decloak they are likely to just assume you were waiting for friendly support.

Sapping

Sapping.  Not too much to this.  Pull out, the sapper, place it on an enemy Engineer’s device.  It’s generally helps if the Engineer isn’t around as he’ll be able to easily remove the sapper.  If you’re quick (and generally if you’re behind the Gun), you can backstab the engineer then sap the gun before it kills you.  There’s been some changes recently, sapping a teleporter will sap both ends at once.  This is good because it means you can easily make more work for the Engineer.  This sucks because the engineer can repair it from the other end.

Speaking of teleporters, Spies can now take enemy Teleporters.  This is extremely useful for taking out areas that were previously “exploits”.  There are several places on several maps that were only reachable through elaborate acrobatics and teleporter drops.  These were great Sentry drop points since it prevented Spies from sapping them.  Now, the Spy can teleport up behind the Engineer and sap away.  This also means the Engineer is unlikely go get assistance in killing you.

So, to wrap up here I’ll mention a quick Spy vs Class rundown.  The Spy is generally highly effective vs Medics, Snipers, and Engineers.  The Spy’s mortal enemy is Pyros and to some extent the heavy due to the large area of fire coverage).  It’s probably the most complicated class to play and is highly useful in a lot fo situations that other classes aren’t good for.

I was originally going to avoid posting about this but I can’t resist it now…

Valve is pushing out a new update for Team Fortress 2.

Traditionally, the updates each focus on a class. This one is toting itself as the “Classless” update. Instead focusing on 18 new HATS and other yet unknown things…. The first day also includes the addition of Arena Offblast into the official map set. I’ve played a lot of Offblast on 2F2F. IT’s actually of of my favorite arena maps and it’s nice to see it added. Valve seems to love Arena maps as well even thought hey tend to be the least played. Not sure why, Arena is great.

Anyway, I still would like to suggest that we’re getting a “real” update here in disguise. Valve is notorious for it’s little tricks and plays on words. The last Sniper vs Spy upset was the biggest one yet. Why would a “Classless” update still update a class? Consider that “Classless” could mean someone without class, the Demoman, Engineer, and Soldier certainly fall into this category. Hell the only character in the game with any real class is the Spy (POSSIBLY the Medic). Sadly, the Sniper more or less blue away his classiness last update when he started tossing jars of piss on people.

Anyway, there’s some hidden files floating around that point to other possible outcomes for this update…

This first one obviously pertains to… the hats.
http://www.teamfortress.com/classless/hidden/hats/

So we’ll blow it off (thought he idea of a tower of hats is “hilarious”)…

Next is this one…
http://www.teamfortress.com/classless/hidden/barbary/

This pertains to a few possibilities. One, and most likely, the ability to trade hats (and weapons) will finally arrive. Not that anyone likely has a hat they want to give away. Two, possibly if you dominate/heatshot.melee/KGB a person (in the head), you’ll “steal” their hat. Considering how hard they are to get I find this unlikely as it’ll just piss people off.

There is also the possibility of a chance based “wager your hat” system for matches or 1 vs 1 dominations. This seems overly complicated though and could be replicated manually with straight trading.

The third page!
http://www.teamfortress.com/classless/hidden/advertisement/

Is your child able to work in a steel mill? This points me to one concept, the ability to upgrade weapons (possibly by grafting HATS on them… j/k). I’m not sure how much I really like the idea of weapon upgrades. It’ll either make each map loaded with a handfull of overpowered supped up guys or it’ll be so rediculously slow and complicated that it won’t be worth the effort (ie, upgrade your Bat to to +1 damage by combining 50 bats!)

Then there is the final page….
http://www.teamfortress.com/classless/hidden/enigmatical/

Two points of note here… Emphasis on Zeppelins and Cannons, which suggests some new junk for the Engineer (possible a flying, slow firing, sentry style weapon). I’m not sure how well this would work, if at all.

Second is the mention of toxins and poisons, which could also be something new for the Engineer, though ti could also be something for the Medic (possibly through a weapon upgrade). Remember, in Team Fortress Classic, Medics could infect enemy players, something I’ve missed in TF2 because it was fun.

So anyway, there’s my speculation. By the weekend we’ll likely have all of the answers.

This full eximplifies why I don’t bother to even try to write hilarious internet shit anymore.

I was pretty good at it like 5+ years ago but these days it’s easier and more productive to just link to someone who has said the same thing only in a better manner.

So here’s a link. It contains movie spoilers for Transformers: Revenge fo the Fallen…

Here are a couple of highlights to entice you….

And why couldn’t an Autobot translate these symbols?
Because Bumblebee is mute and the Racist Twins are poor black robots from the slums of Cybertron who never learned how to read. It’s a sad commentary on Cybertronian society. Like The Wire, actually.

A lot was made of how Shia the Beef’s hand injury was written into the film. How was this done?
Well, sometimes Shia had a huge bandage on his hand, and sometimes he didn’t.

NOTE: I was originally going to make one long review with a spoiler filled section of bitching following this segment. Unfortunately due to the somewhat random and incoherent nature of the plot, the spoiler filled section became very random and incoherent. In the interest of making some level of observations, I’m going to go with the non spoiler filled section here and sort out the rest later for a second post.

Ok, Revenge of the Fallen. Transformers 2. In case you missed it, my Transformers 1 review can be found here.

This movie is certainly an action flick. Lots of running and shooting and explosions. Still, it’s based on a kid’s property and is made to push toys so there isn’t much blood or gore. Ok, not much blood or HUMAN gore. Several of the robot death scenes are actually kind of gory, particularly the final one. If you’re making your robots fluid and organic, it makes their deaths a bit more organic than say, the Power Rangers get shot and sparks fly.

Also, as I mentioned,t his is a movie based on a kids property so there is of course lots of swearing. I don’t think there were any F-Bombs but there were several “Shits” and a lot of “Asses”. Speaking of Asses. The Transformers Universe is also populated solely by women who are all “The Hotz”. Sam’s college dorm room apparently is on the all hot girls floor because other than his roommate I don’t recall seeing any other males on the floor. Though in a later scene Sam screams like a little girl and then proceeds to get called a girl by Megan “The Fox” Fox. Considering all fo the suggested Gay/Bi jokes/overtones concerning Sam’s roommate, it’s likely that they are in fact not in a Coed dorm but simply assumed to be girls and placed appropriately.

Anyway.

This is supposed to be the short non spoiler part. The movie is large and violent and slightly confusing. It has several irritating plot holes. It’s made “for kids” but is not particularly appropriate for them. At the same time it’s slightly embarrassing to watch for anyone who is older than say, 25. Basically, the ideal target for this flick is High School Kids and Frat boys, though there was a surprisingly large number of chicks in the 4 sold out theaters, many of which were NOT “drug along by their boyfriends”. If you loved the first film, you’ll probably like this. The plot continues the first movie’s plot reasonably well, which is a plus. This movie will own the box office even though it’s slightly crummy. I imagine with repeated viewing I’ll grow to hate it as much as I hate it’s predecessor.

If you were hoping for better characterization for the bots you’re going to be massively disappointed. The cons are even MORE confusing in this film as they die and come back to life and all seem to be in 3 or 4 places AT ONCE. Also we see the unexplained return of Blackout (who supposedly is now named Grindor*) and in at least once scene Bonecrusher drives by. If you don’t remember who Bonecrusher and Blackout are then that’s no surprise since Bonecrusher had maybe 60 seconds of screen time and Blackout maybe 5 minutes in the first film.

* According to the toy but never named in the movie

There are plenty of new bots and several returning old bots. The new Autobots include Arcee, Skids, Mudflap, and Sideswipe. Someone told me after the fact that a bot I mistook for Ironhide at the very end of the movie was Jolt though I don’t remember him showing up ANYWHERE else. Skids and Mudflap get a reasonable amount of character, assuming by reasonably you mean “They are black… ish…” though they look very “rednecky”. Arcee and company never say anything and mostly just zip around shooting things. I think Sideways gets one line in the entire film with is one less than Jazz got in the first film.

The Cons, as mentioned get the worse end of the stick. Sideways isn’t named ever and has less screen time than Bonerusher got in the first film (50% of his screen time is shown int he movie’s trailer, the other 50% in the Preview clip we got involving Sideswipe). The Constructicons seem to be everywhere all at once including merged and unmerged. They way over use the whole “falling from space” gimmick which makes it seem like there are even more of them.

Even Bumblebee, who was the costar of the first film does almost nothing here. He drives Sam around, he drives Sam and friends around, he drives Sam’s parents around. Basically he drives people from place to place a lot and stands around in the background. Then there is Optimus Prime, who is supposed to be the leader of the Autobots but spends next to zero time around them. Basically he’s been watching a ton fo Rambo between this and the first movie, he pretty much always fights his battles solo.

The real starring bot of this film is probably Starscream. Starscream gets a lot of fleshing out and Megatron somewhat along side him. Sure, neither are quite exact replicas of their older counterparts but they don’t need to be. I accept that this movie is it’s own deal, I don’t expect everything to be “like it was”. What I do expect is that I should give a crap about these people. Hell even if they blow off the cons I’d love it if the Autobots were more than just a band of Red Shirts.

To wrap this up. This film has me very torn. Is it a “good movie”? It depends on your definition of good. Does good mean a perfect Transformers homage and experience? Then no, this movie sucks. Does good mean intriguing plot and deep characters? Then, once again, no, this movie sucks. Does good mean an action packed popcorn flick that had lots of explosions and shooting? Then yeah, this movie is excellent. Just be sure to screen it before letting your kids watch. If you were offended by things like the Masturbation talk abd pissing scene of the first film then don’t bother with this as it contains that and more.