Back of the Head

I finally stopped being a pussy and picked up a Rock Band instrument. I learned how to play the guitar in addition to providing vocals. I'd like to play lead guitar but Lance and Jeff cock their fists (different from when they fist their cocks) if you try to play lead guitar instead of them so I get stuck with bass. Like Token in Cartman's band, Faith + 1.

I like bass, though. It's generally pretty easy, especially on Easy. It's too easy on Easy sometimes. A lot of songs you just kind of sit around waiting for the occasional chord to strum. I could do my taxes while playing bass on Easy on some songs. I got competent enough on bass to settle in on Medium and peaked with 247 straight chords when we played "Orange Crush." Soon I'll attempt to play on Hard and make the whole band Fail, like every time Jeff tries to play lead guitar on Hard.

When you play Rock Band with us, you have to sing. Like the third rule of Fight Club, everyone sings. Period. Friends of Jeff's brother Alex who happened to stop by their house even got roped into belting out a Police song or two. Everyone has songs they're better at than others (but not 'good' by any definition of the word). I can sing The Police, The Foo Fighters, Smashing Pumpkins, Nine Inch Nails, and Stone Temple Pilots songs to the upper 90s percentiles. Lance has "Tom Sawyer" locked down. We have Rachel in the band now to sing The Police as well as chick bands like Garbage and The Yeah Yeah Yeahs. And then there's Hole. I'm "proud" to say I can sing "Celebrity Skin" better than Rachel. Take that, woman! All of us dudes have appropriately taken a stab at singing Radiohead's "Creep" but Jeff's version really makes you think.

Lance has had Rock Band since it came out. Sean in Miami bought it this past week and those two have been meeting online to rock out together. Me, I'm too cheap to spring the $150 for the game and there's no space to store a plastic drum kit and plastic guitar where I live. Also, I learned from my few pathetic attempts at playing Guitar Hero that I totally suck at it. Playing instruments in both games requires being able to hit multiple colored buttons in unison with the game. I can't fucking do it well enough. My hand/eye coordination for that sort of thing is just pitiful. So basically, if I wanna rock out with my friends, my only option is to go to Lance's house, pick up the microphone and provide vocals for our band, The Assholes. That's exactly what went down tonight.

First things first, the big disappointment: When playing online, you can't hear the vocals of the other person at all. That blows. Sean couldn't hear me or Lance singing and vice versa. We could talk to each other before and after songs in the load and results screens, but when I was signed onto Lance's Xbox Live account as a second gamer, we didn't even have that ability. Big letdown. Still, Lance and I had a lot of fun hearing each other sing our asses off.

The following is a forthright account of me as lead singer of The Assholes. I don't want to claim I'm the greatest front man in rock history, but I am the greatest front man in rock history. And by that I mean, I sucked as expected in the sense that I can't carry a fucking tune, but in the parameters of the game, I did all right. All you have to do as a singer is match the pitch required by the game. We were operating on Easy and Medium levels so it wasn't too challenging. The lyrics scroll for you to read but you don't even have to get the words right like in kareoke, just the general pitch levels.

With Lance and Sean alternating on drums and guitar, we started out with an old favorite 'round these parts, "Vasoline" by Stone Temple Pilots. That went all right. My vocal style, if you can call it that, is to growl like Eddie Vedder, which is appropriate since Scott Weiland sings just like Eddie Vedder. So I was in my comfort zone. Plus it's a short song, not too challenging. I did 98% on Easy.

Next up was Smashing Pumpkins' "Cherub Rock", a very favorite song from our high school days. I wasn't sure if I could pull that off and I was pretty shaky on the opening lyrics but once Billy Corgan's screeching hit, I found I was surprisingly right at home. We were on Medium here and I scored 100%. Felt pretty damn good. Maybe I should front the Pumpkins.

Even if that fevered dream of a madman were possible, I next learned I sure as fuck cannot front Metallica. The limitations of my limits and vice versa were made perfectly clear with "Enter Sandman". Started out with meager competence, but as soon as we hit the chorus: "Exiiiiiiiit, light, eeeeeeeenter niiiiight...!" my dying cat screeching completely fell apart. So did Lance's composure as he fell apart laughing. I immediately followed with the laughter. Tried to rally but as soon as words came out of my mouth, Lance broke down again and I followed suit. The song was totally lost. Lance's wife grabbed the mike and sang some verses while Lance and I tried to pull ourselves together, but again, I just couldn't sing that fucking song and we were too busy LOLing to salvage it. That was it for me for a while.

I hung up the microphone and Lance took over vocals while Sean played guitar. Just the two of them now for Rush's "Tom Sawyer." Which is when I discovered, amidst more laughter, that Lance's high pitched singing voice sounds exactly like Towelie's. "You wanna get high? Don't forget to bring a towel! I don't know what's going on." Holy shit, I almost burst an internal organ from laughing.

I got back on vocals after that. I don't recall the exact order of songs next but here's what we did:

"Epic" - Faith No More. Not bad. The rapping portion was fairly easy until I lost track of what the words were and had to scamble to keep up with the lyrics but I managed to get the pitch of the "You waaaaaant it aaaaaall but youuuu can't haaaave iiiiit" chorus all right. Definitely surprised myself. Respectable performace from the Assholes all around.

"In Bloom" - Nirvana. (Soon to be major motion picture. By 'soon', I mean gimme a couple more years to get my shit together.) Also went better than I thought. Again, once the screeching hit, I was comfortable but the monotone singing building to the chorus was pretty easy. Turns out "In Bloom" is one of the easiest songs in the game. Again, the 'not being able to hear the other guy online' thing really blew because Sean took a crack at the vocals of this later on and scored higher than I did. I wish I heard that. I suppose we all will when he's here at Christmas.

"Won't Get Fooled Again" - The Who. Had some trouble here and there and I lost my voice on the tail end of the big "Yeeeeeaaaaaaahh!!" towards the end but it came out better than expected on all sides. Why no "Baba O'Riley" in the game? I'd love to take a whack at that. Might not do it justice but it'd be fun to try.

"Sabotage" - The Beastie Boys. One of the themes of the OUR so-called SPORT television program in the mid-90's. Rapping's even less my thing than singing is, but I surprised myself here by doing a servicable job. I was sure I'd totally suck ass. I only mostly sucked ass. Yet another song with a big throaty yell in it. By now, my throat was sore as fuck. But the show must go on!

"Celebrity Skin" - Hole. One of my best performances. I had remarkably little trouble singing as Courtney Love because Courtney basically sings like a man. And while there was growling in the vocals, it was considerably less demanding than the three songs prior. The bump in the road were the lyrics themselves, with Lance cracking up and me trying to get through singing "When I wake up / in my make up / it's too early for that dress" without cracking up. Still, 100% performance. I'm like a male Courtney Love.

I should have taken a break to ease my aching throat but I kept on going. The crowd wanted more, damn it, and you can't disappoint the fans. Which we totally did when we attempted R.E.M.'s "Orange Crush." Holy shit, I was awful. I barely knew the song outside the chorus and I fucked up the lyrics and the singing pitch left and right. Meanwhile, Sean was dying on whatever instrument he was playing. He Failed, and Lance had to Salvage the performance to keep us going. He needn't have bothered because I lost control of the song and Failed the lyrics while Sean Failed a second time. I think we only got 33% of the song accomplished. Fuck R.E.M. I only like one of their songs anyway: If the game had "Man on the Moon", I think we would have fared a hell of a lot better.

Somewhere around here, Lance took over vocals for a bit while I recovered from the "Orange Crush" disaster and chugged down a lot of water. I forgot what he did in his Towelie voice but it was again hilarious.

When I came back it was for a familar favorite that I also wasn't sure I could sing, "Learn to Fly" by The Foo Fighters. Dave Grohl's voice isn't growly or grungey like Kurt Cobain's so I didn't think I could get the song right but it turned out a lot better than expected. By no means good, but it was no "Orange Crush."

"Blitzkreig Bop" - The Ramones. Another song I thought I couldn't handle and I mostly thought right, but again, not a complete disaster. It also really helped that "Blitzkreig Bop" is very short.

Song selection that I thought I could actually make it through on vocals started to get thin and I made us all suffer through "Wanted Dead Or Alive" by Bon Jovi, which turned out okay. I'd have preferred "Blaze of Glory" from the Young Guns II soundtrack. Lance and Sean would have preferred none at all.

"Black Hole Sun" - Soundgarden. I was rapidly losing steam here and I bungled the second stanza of lyrics but still managed to hold up to the chorus. Didn't quite handle the finish. Generally awful, but still etter than it had any right to be.

Before tapping out, the encore of the set was Nine Inch Nails' "The Hand That Feeds", another song I really didn't think I could do, especially not so late in the game. I was only slightly correct. It's not easy to match the soft/aggressive, angry/breathy pitch Trent Reznor sings in but I managed to make it through the song without it turning into a total FUBAR.

Rock Band's a really sweet party game and its song selection is pretty decent. But there are definitely holes in the collection. Where's Billy Idol? Where's Van Halen? Where's Guns N' Roses? (If this game had "Sweet Child O'Mine", I'd score 110%.) Where's Queen? Where's Journey? If you don't have Steve Perry, you've got nothin'.

All in all, we went though all those tracks I did vocals for and maybe three or four more between just Lance and Sean. That's a set of about 17-18 songs, the equal of a full length rock concert. I sure fucked up my throat. And let me tell you, be it singing, drums, or guitar, you're fucking exhausted afterwards. Of course, there were no groupies around to help us wind down and relax. Also, we played the game without booze. Won't make that mistake next time. Rock Band is a fun game but it ought to be a hell of a lot more fun drunk. And that means Jeff joining The Assholes, where he belongs.

Halo 3 came out two weeks ago. Myself, Sean and Lance Jr. (Steve Barnes, Jayne Cobb, and MrBukkakeJr respectively) have played quite a bit on multiplayer since the game came out. Not as much as some people without lives, but we've gotten in a couple of hours of quality play a few nights a week. We are missing an Asshole as Jeff hasn't been able to join us for online killathons. It's usually the three of us with a random ringer, who can carry us or screw us depending on how good he is, or it's just us in 3 vs. 3 action.

I forget the exact wording but during our awesome and dominant four-win streak at Halo 3 tonight, Sean said something to the effect of, "Our heads are getting pretty big." It's true, they are. And that's because we're actually pretty good. For the two years we played Halo 2 multiplayer, we never saw ourselves as particularly good. Our Halo 2 clan, The Four Assholes (Halo 3 did away with Clans and Clan names so we're only Assholes in spirit and if you get to know us), had hot streaks here and there but it never seemed like we were really all that capable at Halo 2.

We feel the exact opposite with Halo 3. We're not among the best players in the world by any means, but within our skill class, I'd say we're pretty formidable. The first week we played Team Slayer, we expectedly got clobbered a lot, but sometime last week, we started to get the hang of things. The first few sessions, on brand new maps with a plethora of all-new weapons (Bubble shield? Power Drain? Gravity hammer? What the fuck are those things?) and vehicles, we got smoked pretty good. Little by little, though we learned the maps. We learned how powerful the Needler is now. We learned that the Battle Rifle is more valuable than ever. We learned how to hide behind the Bubble shield and walk through it to beat down noobs. We learned to lay the smack down with the Gravity hammer. We learned to run the fuck away from the Power Drain. But most importantly, the three of us did something pretty damn novel that we didn't quite savvy during our Halo 2 sessions: We started working together as a team. And lo and behold, we started winning.

Who would have thought? Teamwork wins games. No more black ninja, every-man-for-himself, charging in solo and get slaughtered plays. "Live together, die alone" a wise man once said, and it's true. In fact, playing Team Slayer as a cohesive unit, watching each others' back, and sticking to the plan tends to net everyone more kills than trying to be the lone superhero out for himself. Steve Barnes, Jayne Cobb, and MrBukkakeJr stick together, like good waffles do. We even communicate a lot more, feeding each other info about where our opponents are, egging each other on, and of course, bragging about any Double Kills, Killing Sprees and other achievements we manage to pull off. Bungie made it possible in Halo 3 to mute the other team so you can only hear your teammates. While it eliminates the old trash talking of Halo 2, I really don't miss redneck children calling me a "nigger" or a "faggot." We can still trash talk in the totals screen after a game, but we've found things are a million times more fun when we can't hear the douchebags we're playing against. Without the trash talking, we can concentrate on watching each each other's backs, helping each other out, and avenging each other if one of us goes down.

We've even come up with some basic battle strategies on some of the maps that have really worked in our favor and given us an advantage. We have a simple way we fight on the Snowbound map that ensures we aren't ambushed from behind and allows us to control much of the action that occurs. On the Construct map we hold the high ground, cover the angles, work together, fight ranged with grenades and battle rifles, and it works like crazy. And in the Narrows, Rachel (I'm incapable of not making it a quote from Batman Begins) we resist the urge to go hunting and instead hold down one side of the map and make our enemies come to the slaughter. We just this evening figured out that working together as a pack and grabbing ahold of that Gravity hammer = victory in Guardian. We also do pretty well on High Ground and The Pit, again by working together, trying to keep it so we have our backs covered from ambush. It works.

Only two weeks into Halo 3, we've come far and beyond what we were able to do playing Halo 2 for six months. Sean and I are ranked Sergeant Grade 3 and Lance is a Sergeant Grade 1. The highest skill level I've reached is 12 while Sean is a 10 and Lance is a 9. We're taking on Lieutenants and even a Major tonight of equal or better skill level and outplaying them. Woe be it to any lower ranked player who happens to get matched against us because we can pwn their asses pretty good. And we're always cracking jokes and keeping the humor up. (Except when we start losing consistently, then we never stop bitching and complaining.)

A couple of nights ago, we got matched up with a ringer whose gamertag was GE Lord Vader. Right away, we cracked the requisite Star Wars jokes, and then I started in on how much I need a new refrigerator. Lance took it from there and hassassed him with jokes about what it was like to own NBC. GE Lord Vader replied, "So this is the asshole team." Lord Vader was right on. We don't have a Clan and we're missing the fourth but the Assholes are alive and kicking.

Ah, Labor Day weekend. A rare case of three days where I have no place to be and no one I need to see. I decided to spend the last weekend of summer hanging out with my often neglected Xbox 360 and playing BioShock, the hottest game on the market currently. The demo on Xbox Live was enticing enough but the five star review from X-Play sealed the deal. If Morgan Webb and Adam Sessler sez it's good, it's good. And it is good. They don't lie. BioShock is a kickass first person shooter mixed with strong elements of survival horror and a pretty fascinating mystery to unravel.

Check out the underwater city of Rapture. Beautiful, isn't it? Like someone took Joel Schumacher's gay Gotham City and plunged it in the middle of the ocean (actually, I wish someone would.) It's 1960 and somehow my unnamed character survived a plane crash and ended up in the city of Rapture, where freaky dealies have been going on since the second World War. Inside this art-deco city is some sort of power struggle between its founder Andrew Ryan, some Irish bloke named Atlas who serves as my eyes and ears, a few other people who have different agendas. Everyone except Atlas seemed to be fucking crazy and turned the city into a living nightmare of genetically altered freaks. The denizens of Rapture include splicers, the former citizens who have been damaged beyond return from the genetic experiments, enormous nigh-invulnerable giants in diving armor called Big Daddies, and the creepy little girls they protect.

And there's me, a guy with no name. I don't even know what I look like. I sure as hell don't know how I survived a plane crash in the middle of the ocean or what the hell I'm doing in Rapture. But the second I arrived, Atlas has been using me as some sort of one man liberator for the city. Whoever I am, I had no hesitation whatsoever to plunge the luminous blue liquid called Eve into my veins and become genetically altered. This means I enable plasmids, which is a fancy name for superpowers. Currently, I can hurl lightning, throw fire balls, create cyclones, freeze people, use telekinesis, enrage enemies to attack other enemies, and control security robots. All with my left hand. I'd also come across the power to hurl hornets or bees at enemies, but gross man. I'll stick with this for now.

I also have weapons, precious weapons. Pistols, machine guns, handy dandy shotguns, grenade launchers, mines, all with explosive and variant armaments. And I have a wrench, which when all else fails I use to hit monsters with. The variety of weapons is pretty good, but the game could sure have used a better choice of close-quarter weapon than a fucking wrench. Andrew Ryan's kingdom for a samurai sword!

The other issue with the weapons and the plasmids is how quickly I run out of ammo and Eve. I'm always scounging around for the stuff, having to buy them from the creepy vending machines littered around the city, or I'm forced to rob corpses I kill for some cash and whatever else they have in their pockets. Robbing corpses I killed in an underwater city... what kind of man am I, whoever I am?

As I wander through Rapture guided on missions by Atlas, I see the city is really just a chamber of horrors. Corpses are everywhere, many of which I didn't even create. It's very unnerving; the atmosphere, sound, and graphic design of the game are really first rate. Whatever Andrew Ryan did, he has opposition within the city and this created a fracture that ruined the lives of thousands of people. What they're arguing about is the genetic experiments that created Adam, the power source of the plasmids, and Eve, the fuel that activates them. The hosts of the Adam are freaky little girls who have some sort of delicious Adam filled slug inside of them. There's a moral dilemma set up in the game where I have to choose whether or not it's right to murder these girls for their tasty Adam or spare their lives because... well, I don't know what happens if I spare their lives. It hasn't been much of a dilemma for me. Listen, I've routinely murdered every single creature I've come across and robbed their burnt husks of corpses (I throw a lot of fire), at this point snapping a little freak girl's neck and sucking down the sweet, sweet Adam inside them isn't gonna make me bat an eye. With more and more Adam, I grow more and more powerful and can wield better plasmids. Since I'm for some reason the faceless, nameless, liberator of Rapture, I figure all that power is gonna be best off with me.

Getting to the freaky little girls is no easy feat. They're protected by the aforementioned Big Daddies, and they're so far the toughest customers in the game. They take a lot of punishment before they go down and it usually depletes my powers and my arsenal to beat one. I've beaten three or four so far and it's always been a living hell. One good thing about the game is that any damage you inflict on a Big Daddy is cumulative. If it kills me, I end up in a nearby Vita-Chamber recouperating, and as soon as I get out, I can come right back after the Big Dummy, which has forgotten all about me. Oh, that's another thing about me, whoever I am, I have no qualms about launching a grenade or three at someone's back. Also, I love to hack robots. I hack gun turrets and security robots all throughout the game and make them fight for me. Every now and then, I'll hack two flying helicopter gundroids and have them follow me around and shoot at my enemies while I hide behind something and throw fire. That's a third thing about mysterious me, I'm pretty lazy.

I've put in maybe 16 hours of game time so far. I'm not sure where I am in the game or how much longer I have to stay in Rapture. I don't want to consult any game guides or websites. That's gay. (But if I really get stuck, I won't hesitate.) It seems like I've made serious progress. Sure, I accidentally got Atlas's wife and children killed, but it seemed like the game had no way around that. Atlas doesn't seem to hold it against me. Atlas just shrugged. I've wandered around and fought through quite a few parts of the city, and most recently, I saved the biosphere forest of city from being contaminated by Andrew Ryan. Ryan seems to be the end of the road; he likes to get on the citywide radio and call me an asshole for being a thorn in his side and ruining his dastardly plans, whatever they are. He and Atlas don't like each other very much. I've also run across a couple of other prominent city fathers of Rapture, none of whom seem to like Andrew Ryan much. Or each other, come to think of it. And they don't seem to like me much either. In fact, except for Atlas, the one thing Ryan and his detractors seem to agree upon is that they want to kill me. But why? I'm such a great guy, whoever I am.

Well, whatever is going on here in Rapture, I'll get to the bottom of it. That's what I do, apparently. And I better do it quick, because Halo 3 drops in three weeks.

If you could play as any current WWE Superstar and guide his career to WrestleMania and beyond, who would you be? John Cena? Triple H? Batista? Rey Mysterio?

Not me. I've been playing as Trevor Murdoch. That's right, Trevor Murdoch, one half of the gay cowboy/ugly redneck tag team of Cade and Murdoch. He's got mutton chops, no muscle tone to speak of, and looks like he spent his youth pounding his face into tree stumps and jagged rocks. That's the guy I want to play as. (Well, I really wanted to play as Finlay, hard fightin', leprechaun tossin' Irishman from Belfast, but the game didn't give me the option. Lame.)

I had a pretty weird storyline last night as Trevor Murdoch in season mode. I get a cell phone call from Candice Michelle about how she wants to hook up with me later. That made Murdoch remove his virtual trucker's cap and scratch his flea-bitten head. Then in Candice's match with Mickie James, Lita laid them both out with DDTs. Stephanie McMahon as RAW GM decides she wants to do away with all the Divas and their derogatory sexuality (but not Lita, the Diva with the biggest tits in the game next to Stephanie herself?).

Somehow Trevor Murdoch got in the middle of all this. Trish Stratus stepped up to defend the Divas and this unlikely pairing of a Canadian beauty and a redneck possum eater ended up in mixed tag matches when Kurt Angle got involved. The angle culminated in an Ultimate Submission match at WrestleMania between Kurt Angle and Trevor Murdoch for the right of the Divas to remain on RAW.

Now, in real life and in video game virtual life, it's pretty clear ugly mid-carder-at-best Trevor Murdoch is no match for Olympic Gold Medalist and greatest wrestler alive today Kurt Angle, much less in Angle's specialty match at the biggest show of the year. Prior to the match, I got cellphone calls from Candice and Mickie wishing me luck and that they'd see me after. They also said something about how I have all the best moves. Did they mean my knee drop, my eye rakes, or my big stomps? I was up shit creek without a paddle. How did Trevor Murdoch get himself into this?

Well, surprise surprise, I savvily guided Trevor Murdoch to victory at WrestleMania over the former multi-time World Champion. How did I beat Kurt Angle? I did what Trevor Murdoch does best: I cheated my ass off. After Angle initially killed me and got into an early lead, forcing me to tap, I removed all the turnbuckles and Irish whipped him repeatedly into them to soften his back up. Then I made him tap to the one major submission hold Trevor Murdoch has in the game, the bow and arrow. Trevor Murdoch: Ring General. The final indignity was my stealing Angle's own ankle lock and forcing him to tap to it to win the match, 5-4. I advise Samoa Joe to do the same on Sunday.

For earning the right for the Divas to remain on RAW, Trevor Murdoch was the hero of the Divas and celebrated in the ring with Trish. I assume Trevor Murdoch banged all the Divas after WrestleMania.

Smackdown vs. RAW 2007 has its good points and bad points so far. Regarding the new control system, the toggles aren't a bad idea in theory if all you want to do is grapple all the time, but it's intuitively difficult when you try to do all the other things that make up a good wrestling match in like Irish whip or running grapples. I also noticed two other basic problems: it's harder to get up after being knocked on the mat than in last year's game and you take more damage more quickly. Body parts turn yellow and red much faster.

I played three games with Lance on Xbox Live. First one was pretty good for the most part. I was Finlay, he was Ken Kennedy. We did as much as we could figure out and Lance finished me with a Kenton Bomb so it was well booked.

Second match was a hardcore match, he was RVD and I was Hardcore Holly. We specifically fought in the crowd area and looked for the hotspots to do stunts but we couldn't figure out how to put the opponent on the table. Hard Irish whips just sent them to lean on the table's edge. This killed the planned finish of climbing to the balcony and putting the other guy through a table. We fought to the announcer's tables but then Lance put me in a leglock and I had to tap because it was one of those holds where the guy putting it can't stop; the guy in the move has to get the meter in the bar and I was too injured. Crap finish to a decent match.

I got Lance back for that one though. The last match was Hell in a Cell, he was Undertaker, I was Randy Orton. He murderized me. I couldn't get any offense in except the occasional accidental reversal or nutshot. Then he climbed the cage and I followed. I charged at him and Lance tried to sidestep but he was too close to the edge. I was able to hit the brakes but Undertaker fell right off the cage. So I climbed down and covered his broken body for the pin, to the delight of the fans and everyone watching. The Legend Killer earned that one.

The last thing I did at 1:30am before I shut down Smackdown vs. RAW 2007 for the night was create a brand new RAW to run in GM mode. If I can't get adequate satisfaction (or Stratusfaction) from any of the three WWE brands in real life, I decided my video game wrestling life will fulfill my desires for quality violence.

My RAW is RAW in name only. It's actually ECW - the old ECW. I'm basically running what ECW should be. The guidelines I set forth were:

*No superheavyweights, no big, musclebound stiffs. No one over 260 lbs is on my show. Undertaker, Kane, Batista, John Cena, Great Khali, Triple H, Chris Masters, Big Show, Viscera, etc., they're all on Smackdown. Smackdown can have 'em.

*Every match on my show is Extreme Rules. I shut off countouts and DQs in every match. Anything and everything goes all the time. I want blood, weapons, sadism, violence 24/7. But not "ruthless aggression."

* If you're ugly, you're getting a push. Trevor Murdoch is going straight to the top.

Edge, Kurt Angle, Shawn Michaels, Ric Flair, Chris Benoit, Matt Hardy, Johnny Nitro, Trevor Murdoch, Carlito, Ken Kennedy, Finlay, Gregory Helms, William Regal, Paul Burchill, and Super Crazy.

And of course, Divas who can wrestle: Trish, Lita, Mickie James, Melina, Jillian.

The drafting part was funny because the CPU automatically goes after all the big WWE names. It's like drafting against Vince McMahon himself.

And so forth. So in regards to what the game thinks is quality vs. what I think is quality, the game is realistic, which totally worked to my advantage. I got the roster I wanted while Virtual Vince can book Kane vs. Great Khali to his heart's content. Frankly, I think Virtual Vince's Smackdown sucks, much like his real shows currently.

The biggest benefit from what I saw last night was the battle rifle becoming the starting weapon on Backwash. Backwash, the eerie green alien swamp was no one’s favorite and has always been a bit of a problem child. You used to start off with a single SMG and had to scavenge for grenades and the few good weapons like a shotgun or Covenant Carbine hidden around the map. Whoever can reach the energy sword and/or can get camouflage and a shotgun could usually slaughter their enemies. With the battle rifle, Backwash suddenly became a ranged game, negating a lot of the usefulness of the sword. With proper use of the radar, you can easily find opponents from a distance and unleash a barrage of battle rifle fire or chuck grenades at them to pick them off long before the swordsman can even get to you. Backwash is now a whole different game and it seems to be a lot more fun (if you’re good at ranged fighting.)

Another huge change has been in that old chestnut Foundation, which formerly featured two rocket launchers on each end of the map and an energy sword in the middle. Bungie did away with all of that and the battle rifle so that you’re forced to lob grenades or fight in close quarters while dual wielding. Having known of these changes before hand, we also knew that without the rocket launcher, the two turrets on each side of the map became the main damage-bringers. At the start of each game we were able to grab a turret and mow down our confused enemies as they scrambled for the rocket launchers that no longer exist, pulling into a quick lead. The strategy then becomes about disabling one of the turrets, leaving only the second, and then defending the only turret left. This also causes the enemy to cluster in groups in the corner bases so they can hide from the turret, making them generally easy prey to frag grenades lobbed at them. Of course, if you’re charging in for the kill while one of your teammates, lets call him LanceJr, is busy hurling grenades in any and all directions, this does lead to a few Betrayals.

The fall months have not been as kind as the summer was to me, Steve Barnes. A few factors, such as better opponents, sometimes faulty Internet connections, and prolonged periods of not playing, have diminished my hardly-legendary skills. Despite this, The Robot Devil remains our best player, LanceJr can be touch and go but has recurring moments of brilliance, I'm getting back in the swing of things and can hold up my end, and Jayne Cobb is a lawyer. We managed to climb all the way to Level 20 last month. I think we managed to do it twice. From that lofty perch, our next goal was to achieve the legal drinking age, Level 21. We failed pretty good, getting kicked right back down to Level 16 or 17 by the much better players who occupy the 20’s. In general we take on players ranked in the high teens and the low 20’s, many of them derankers, most of them filthy, stupid rednecks. They still like to make fun of Steve Barnes’s name, think Jayne Cobb is a girl, and talk shit about owning us. Some things don’t change.

Going away for over two weeks to shoot Across the Hall was the worst thing that could have happened to my Halo game. When I got back, I’d totally lost my skills. Last night’s seven game session with Jeff and Lance was the first time since I got back home that I started to feel like I knew what I was doing again. We ended the session with a record of five wins, two losses. We won the last four games in a row and I came in first on one, tied for first in another. Yea, dog. That’s what I’m talkin’ ‘bout.

Over the summer, I was reaching the point where I was getting more than decent at Halo. I was downright competent. Maybe, I daresay, occasionally even good. I was regularly leading The Four Assholes in kills, a feat not so impressive when you factor in the number of times you die vs. the number of enemies you kill, but a final score in the high teens per game was a regular thing for me. I was more than comfortable in most every map in the game. In fact, the former bane of our sessions, the Colossus map, was an equation we had solved as we mastered a battle technique that won us victory after victory. I learned how to use the battle rifle, eschewing my old habit of dual wielding an SMG and plasma rifle in favor of fighting ranged games with the battle rifle and with grenades. Becoming skilled with the battle rifle completely changed the way I played in the Burial Mounds and Colossus. We came up with a basic strategy that won us our share of games on Sanctuary, and even on the shitty Warlock map, we did pretty well most times. I still suck as a rule with the rocket launcher but I made the effort to learn how to use it to lock onto and destroy vehicles. I also became a better sniper. For the maps we played in regularly, I had worked out a half dozen different battle scenarios that I could switch to and from as needed so that I could adapt to different enemies’ styles faster. In addition, I made occasional visits to the Rumble pit to test myself against 7 other players and would regularly clean house, coming in first with over 20 kills each time as I shifted back and forth in strategies against the different players, using all the weapons and tricks I was learning to great advantage.

All that went out the window when I left town in August. Upon returning to Halo, I was lost. I didn’t remember how to do any of the things I described above. My reflexes were that of an arthritic old woman. All that proficiency I’d labored to achieve with the various weapons over the summer was non-existent. I sucked with the battle rifle, sucked with the sword, sucked with the rocket launcher, sucked with the sniper rifle. I fell back to the old habit of dual wielding an SMG and plasma rifle and charging in black ninja style. It might have worked if we were taking on lesser-ranked players, but before we went on hiatus we had achieved the rank of Level 18. Which meant that we were getting matched up with Level 20s, 22s, even 24s - people way, way better than us. They weren’t interested in deranking, either. I couldn’t hit anyone if I’d given them each a dollar to stand still. We were routinely slaughtered. There was that one Sanctuary debacle where Jeff got seven kills, I got five, and Lance and Sean each posted a zero that we won’t speak of again, except to say, “Zero?! Come on, you bitches couldn’t kill anyone? You two suck.” As bad as I have been, I’ve never ended a game with zero kills.

Making matters worse was the addition of new maps to the game. Maps we had virtually no experience in when it comes to Matchmaking combat with strangers. All of us, except for Jeff, bought and played in the maps over the summer, but we still barely knew them, unlike our enemies who knew all the tricks by the time we got there. My diminished skills, our team’s lack of coordination, coupled with playing on maps like Relic, Backwash, and Elongation for the first time made for some ugly, brutal ass kickings. Not that there weren’t some amusing blunders and highlights, like on Elongation when I drove the Warthog right on the train tracks and got the jeep jammed. Lance Jr. was on the turret, saw the train coming and immediately bailed out, leaving me in the Warthog to get hit by the train. That was awesome. I think it was earlier when that game started that I hopped in a Scorpion tank and immediately hit the booster jets, squishing Lance Jr., who was directly in front of me. (That was another thing that was happening, based on my own carelessness and poor playing, I was turning into Lance and betraying people left and right.) My second favorite folly with the Warthog was on Relic, when I urged Jayne Cobb to man the turret and, thinking there was a beach where there actually wasn’t, I immediately drove the Warthog right off a cliff, killing us both and taking away the only kill Jayne Cobb had managed in that game. (Why can’t Master Chief swim? Must be just because of the weight of the armor.) And then there was that game in Elongation where we played a bunch of Krauts, had an early lead, thought we were gonna win, then quickly fell apart and ended the game sucking on their wienerschnitziels.

However, that’s all in the past. I think last night we turned a corner. I’d dropped the dual wielding crutch and reacquainted myself with the other weapons in the game. I sniped three people in a row to open our Relic game and cleaned house with the battle rifle in the now infamous game where Lance did endless color commentary as he tends to do and finished the game with one measly kill. It helped that our opponents weren’t very good, but it was a good confidence builder to squash an enemy like that. I’d gotten a few killing sprees and Jeff, our battle rifle headshot king, had scored running riots in a couple of games. Lance, when he eased up on the announcing, did great as well, posting his own killing sprees. Except for one early Ivory Tower game where I absolutely sucked, and the aforementioned Relic game where Lance got that big one kill, the three Assholes all held their own and had a good night, our first outing that we can be proud of in a month.

We rag on LanceJr a lot for continually betraying us when we play Halo 2, but while he’s been on vacation, I’ve inadvertently been filling his shoes. Last night while in the Foundation map, I ended up betraying The Robot Devil twice and Jayne Cobb once. My betraying a teammate doesn’t happen very often. I guess I was making up for lost time. Still, three betrayals in the same game is a lot for me.

In the Devil’s case, I’d gotten my hands on a rocket launcher and got over eager to blow shit up. Sometimes when we start a Team Slayer game, I simply don’t pay attention to whether our team is the blue team or the red team. I get confused very quickly. To remedy this, I have a habit of openly announcing what color team we are over the headset, usually to mocking ingratitude from the others. I really do it for my benefit more than anyone else's although everyone has times when they also fail to notice our team color and blurt it out on our headsets. Anyway, once the Foundation game started, I spawned near a rocket launcher and grabbed it. As a general rule, I’m ass with a rocket launcher. You’d think a long range weapon with a wide-explosive yield would result in easy gimme kills, but not in Steve Barnes’ hands it doesn’t. The other team managed to dodge or avoid the rockets, which isn’t hard. I’ve also managed to become skilled at leaping over or past rockets fired at me if I see them coming. Across the map I could see someone near where the turret was. Having momentarily forgotten my team color and completely neglecting to look at the logo above the player’s head, I fired. He was all alone over there and thus was an easy target. Problem was, he was Jeff. Betrayal one. Not long after, The Robot Devil respawned near me in one of the corner bases and Jeff gave me an earful. Then the other team appeared and engaged Jeff in a firefight so I targeted them in the scope and let a rocket loose. Naturally, Jeff was right near the explosion so he died too. Betrayal two.

Soon after that, Jayne Cobb and I were cornered and fighting off some more enemies. He rounded the corner so I started chucking grenades in that general direction. I think I got one of our opponents, I’m not sure. I know I blew Jayne Cobb up. I think what actually did happen was Sean managed to kill the bad guys right before he got caught by my grenade. Betrayal three. As Jeff pointed out when the game was over, even though we won, it shouldn’t have taken 53 kills to do it.

I had another close betrayal call a few games later in the Burial Mounds. We were in the ruins across from the bunker and the opposing blue team had captured the ghost. I was trying to get a bead on him with my battle rifle but I didn’t see our ringer kill the guy and take the ghost. Since I was gunning for the ghost, when I saw it I started firing on our ringer, but I managed to catch myself when I realized what I was actually doing. No damage done, just some annoyance at me. People really don’t like it when their teammates start shooting at them. Understandable.

The betrayals only slightly marred an otherwise high scoring night for Steve Barnes. In the other games, I took extra care not to wantonly chuck grenades and paid closer attention to what my teammates were up to, where they were positioned, and most importantly, what fucking color we all are. At the end of the night we jumped from level 16 to level 17, and Jeff had leapfrogged from level 14 to level 16. It was a very successful night of Halo, even if I had to spill some of my boys’ blood in the process.

Most times, betrayals aren’t funny but a few days ago there was a rare exception and my favorite betrayal. We were on the Sanctuary map and the game was pretty much lost in its closing moments. Sean was on the turret and I was in the far left corner with the sniper rifle covering the right side of the base where the rocks are. I saw an enemy carrying the energy sword running tight towards Sean, who was too busy on the turret that even if he could see the red dot on his radar heading right for him, he’d never be able to disengage the turret and draw his weapons before being sliced to shreds by the sword. I went into the sniper rifle scope and lined up a shot. In the one second it took for all this to happen: I fired right when the enemy with the sword leaped into the ear for his killing stroke. When he did so, Jayne Cobb’s head jerked back somewhat into my line of sight. My sniper bullet caught Sean right in the head and his corpse dropped right to the ground. When the enemy with the sword landed back on the ground, he was confused for a split second as to why his target was already dead before he could slash him, and that split second was all I needed to line him up and snipe him in the head. I couldn’t stop laughing at that one. Sure, I ended up sniping Sean, but I spared him from being carved up by the energy sword. Better Jayne Cobb died by my hand than by the enemy’s. Plus I got the guy with the sword right afterwards, so I call that a success.

Sniping Jayne Cobb in the head so he wouldn’t be killed by the enemy replaced by previous favorite betrayal, in which I was the victim. We were in Ascension. The enemy team had the banshee and LanceJr went to procure the rocket launcher. While Lance was doing that, I saw the pilot had brought the banshee close to the ground so I went after him and successfully managed to hijack the banshee. Lance, who had the rocket launcher and had the banshee lined up saw me hijack the banshee in his scope. And despite clearly seeing me pull the enemy out of the ship and commandeering it, he locked on the banshee with me in it and fired the rocket anyway. I was annoyed at Lance for betraying me, but in retrospect, it’s pretty funny. Not quite as funny was the time I was chasing an enemy up the energy elevator in Lockout and Lance decided to throw a grenade at the elevator so that it followed me up and blew my ass to smithereens.

I guess I’m looking forward to Lance coming back from vacation and taking his rightful place as our Benedict Arnold. It’s not a role that I think suits me but Lance does it effortlessly and with way too much pride. I have my moments, and Jeff and Sean have blundered as well, but when it comes to betraying his teammates and laughing like Santa Claus about it, nobody does it better than LanceJr.

I wasn't pissed at the betrayal so much as when you did it. I literally had a shotgun pointed at the enemy's head and he was facing the other direction. There was no way he was going to survive. He couldn't even inflict any damage on me from that position. Just as I was about to pull the trigger I got blown up. It was just as bad as the time when I killed a guy with the battle rifle and Lance stuck me in the back.

That's not to say I was entirely blameless in the betrayals last night. I was chucking grenades out the window on Midship when I turned to the side and threw my last one. It stuck right on Jayne Cobb's ass. Still, if you have to betray someone, sticking them in the ass is the best way to do it.

The Four Assholes have reached a point in Halo 2 online play where we must face the realization that we’re not as bad as we think we are. Last night marked a momentous occasion: We won the majority of our Team Slayer games for the first time. I believe our record for the night was 5-2, with another victory gained by the other team quitting before the game starts. At the end of the night we reached Level 16.

This is the highest level we’ve ever reached. To many, none of this may sound like achievements worth trumpeting, but fuck you, I’ll shove my trumpet right up your ass. This is a big deal to us.

Furthermore, as a result of being Level 16, we are facing players who are at that level or above, and we’re not getting slaughtered like we used to. We still get our asses kicked a lot, but the complete blowout, say a 50-11 final score, hasn’t happened in a while.

We’ve been playing Halo 2 as a defined team for about six months and there was definitely a six month learning curve. Only recently have we learned to largely abandon our black ninja style of play and begin working together and covering each other’s backs in our games. The results of this are unmistakable: Hey, guess what, if you work together you can win! It took us a long fucking time to grasp that. By no means are we a well-oiled machine capable of implementing intricate battle strategies, but after six months and a few hundred games together, we’ve gelled enough to know what everyone’s style, strengths and weaknesses are.

None of this is to suggest we don’t still suck. In the fraternity of 300,000 + Halo 2 players online, there are probably 250,000 players much better than us. I don’t have the hard numbers, but I conjecture 98% can be considered rednecks and 71% of them are in the early stages of pubic hair growth. These are likely conservative estimates.

What’s more, we don’t really deserve to be Level 16. A lot of our advancement up the ranks after about Level 10 was the result of our opponents quitting on us before or during the games, which has artificially bumped up our levels. We are probably around Level 12 or so in our actual skill level; it’s hard to say. However, what has really struck us is how we’re dealing with fighting Level 17s and 18s. We used to get absolutely annihilated. Now we’re more than holding our own against them and can fight them to a near standstill even if we don’t win.

We just don’t suck like we used to. Where do we go from here? Actually being good? What’s that like?

In other Halo 2 news, we’ve observed enough common phenomena and foolishness in our games where we’re in the beginning stages of putting together the Four Assholes’ Halo 2 Drinking Game. It's a work in progress. This is what we have so far:

- A player has any of the following in their gamertag: 69, 420, X, 666, Sin, or asinine capitalization (i.e. SpElL ThEiR nAmEz LiKe ThIs)

- Any betrayal. Two drinks if Lance does it and there are no enemies in the area.

- You're playing people who don't speak English.

- A redneck calls you "nigger."

- An opponent claims to have "raped" you.

- The first words after a match are "Good game, [color] team."

- An opponent thinks Jayne Cobb is a girl and targets him because of it.

- Whenever someone “cheats” to kill Lance

- Every time an opponent makes a point of singling out Steve Barnes

- Every time the enemy team quits and we shoot up a level. Two drinks if we actually win a game and shoot up a level deservedly

- Whenever someone calls you a "noob" (or "newb" if you want to spell a fake word properly)

- Whenever someone is so impressed with getting a Double Kill he has to tell everyone

- Every time someone says or calls you a "bitch"

One day we’ll actually have to try to play Halo 2 while playing the drinking game. I bet we make it to Level 20.

What is it about the name Steve Barnes? An increasingly common phenomenon in our Xbox Live Halo 2 play is our opposing players fixating on me, Steve Barnes. In nearly every Team Slayer game Jeff, Sean, Lance and I play, we have at least one opposing player who comes after me because of my gamertag. Sometimes the entire team singles me out. They taunt me with my tag as they attempt to kill me. It’s pretty funny.

And so forth. I had no idea the name Steve Barnes would be such a lightning rod.

I would guess 99% of people don’t even know what the name “Steve Barnes” is a reference to, which is exactly why I chose it as my gamertag when I set up my Xbox Live account. “Hank Scorpio,” my old Internet handle was already taken, and ironically, I was relieved because I initially didn’t want to deal with other players going on about Hank Scorpio from The Simpsons. My next choice was The Robot Devil, but that was already taken… by Jeff. I decided to adopt the most obscure Simpsons reference I could think of at that moment and went with Steve Barnes, the name Apu used when he left his family, went back to India and opened a convenience store in a 16th season episode.

It’s interesting how other players approach the different members of our clan. One guy couldn’t for the life of him properly read “The Robot Devil” and kept calling Jeff “Robert the Devil”, but most players generally don’t come after Jeff in any special way. Sean becomes a target because his gamertag, Jayne Cobb, makes everyone think he’s a girl. (As River Tam pointed out in Firefly, Jayne is a girl’s name.) They assume he sucks because he’s a girl and come after him, but they don’t taunt Jayne Cobb like they do Steve Barnes. LanceJr is pretty innocuous and doesn’t attract much attention. Thanks to his regular betrayals, we have as much to fear from LanceJr as our opponents do.

I enjoy the other players’ taunts and comments. I like it when they try to take Steve Barnes down. Very often they can, but I’m just as likely to shoot them dead. In general, we don’t suck as much as we used to so our games are now very competitive. The taunting has gotten to the point where I like use my name against them. I’ll blow away a guy who yaps on about how he’s gonna end me and yell “Steve Barnes!” It’s the equivalent of Cliff Claven trying to kill Norm, but Norm beating him to the punch and yelling “Norm!” instead of waiting for everyone else in the bar to bellow it.

But what is it about the name Steve Barnes that triggers people to come after me? Is it because it’s easy to pronounce? Because it’s a real name (but not my real name like people might assume), when everyone else has stupid, unimaginative gamertags like Killer420Sinner69xXx? Is it because of my simple blue, white and red inverted double triangle logo, which I rather fancy? Is it simply because it’s kind of a fun name to say? Is it because it’s a dumb name? (It is a dumb name, which is partly why I chose it.)

If we were smart, we would use this to our advantage. Since other players are drawn to take down Steve Barnes the way a dog is compelled to sniff another dog’s asshole, we could use me as bait to lure enemies into ambushes. One trait nearly all the Steve Barnes killers share is the need taunt and announce through our headsets that they are coming after me. When that happens we should just have one or two of the others lying ready in wait to take the enemy down from multiple sides.

Or we could do what we always do, fight every man for himself black ninja style and scramble for individual kill points.

I remember a time when Halo 2 multiplayer was a lot of fun. It was approximately two weeks ago. On April 25th, Bungie introduced four new maps to Halo 2 online.

It was pretty exciting. For those of us who’d grown a little bored with Midship, Colossus, and Beaver Creek, the prospect of having new environments to do battle in, with different vehicles and weapons, sounded like a breath of fresh air. It promised new challenges, more fun, a whole new game.

Along with the new downloadable maps and the forthcoming Halo 2 Multiplayer Map Pack, the braintrust at Bungie decided it was time to 'fix' the problems in the game. Bowing to the demands of the literate and eloquent postings by the best and brightest on the Halo message boards, Bungie set out to correct the cheats and glitches in Halo 2 multiplayer. Now, among other things, you can’t grab Flags through walls and exploit glitches so you can snipe from an unreachable spot atop the Coagulation cliff walls. That was cheating so it had to go. All well and good.

Bungie then addressed the concerns regarding the weapons available in the maps. Turrets and grenades now cause more damage, as do blunt attacks. The radar was rumored to be history; a terrible decision if carried through as it creates an over-importance for the Energy Sword and makes the game about sneak attacks instead of confrontation. Covenant weapons weren’t popular with the message board so they largely disappeared from the existing maps, replaced usually by the battle rifle. This was designed to cut down the overwhelming power of double-wielding weapons, which is fair enough. However, the prominence of the battle rifle altered the game considerably. It lessened the instances of direct confrontation even more as ranged headshot kills are now far more common. This is a personal complaint from me as I’m ass with the battle rifle. However, competence with the weapon can be practiced and learned so it isn’t really that big a deal. The game has become less about head to head carnage, which was fun, and more about skill, which is a different kind of fun. None of the changes above are that difficult to adjust to.

No, the truly unfair, shortsighted and idiotic decision by Bungie was to ‘level the playing field.’ By 'level the playing field' Bungie really meant 'assfuck all the lower ranked players with a mop handle.' In a shocking and sweeping move, Bungie eliminated all the established ranks for players and reset the game so that everyone started out at level one. What this did was create a situation where the most skilled players were being pitted against players with less than expert ability. Since then, it’s been rough going for the marginally skilled Halo 2 online player.

Oh, the rednecks and teenagers and teenage rednecks who devote most of their waking hours to Halo 2 loved the change! Why shouldn’t they? The game became a turkey shoot, or something even more relatable to the countrified farm boys glued to their Xboxes: the game became the equivalent of shooting cans off their fences and the mirrors off the cars on cinderblocks on their porches.

For the rest of us, Halo 2 online now sucks dripping ass. One of the most basic aspects of why Halo 2 multiplayer was fun was that it was structured so that you were matched up against players of roughly equal skill and ability. For us, the rag tag somewhat-talented Clan known as the FourAssholes, it meant usually competitive sessions where we lost a lot but also won our fair share. No, we’re not great, and we don’t have hours and hours to devote to mastering Halo 2 like a 14 year old might, but most games were a lot of fun because we were playing people usually as good or a little better than we were and we’d hold our own. When we lost, it was usually cool as we would only occasionally get squashed by players way, way better than we were. Sometimes we’d win and it was great. But that was the point. The players who were level 45 fought other level 45s and those of us who struggled for six months to make it to level 7 were hoping to make level 8 and having a great time trying. And then they ‘leveled the playing field.’

You know what’s more fun that having four level 20+ players hand you your ass in an all-out massacre? Not playing at all. Because, hey, we try, but there isn’t much we can do when these guys who have hundreds of hours of game time under their belts have shot you dead before you can even turn to face them. Even less fun are their redneck drawls taunting you for sucking.

Hey, Cletus, of course we suck, we’re not supposed to be fighting you. We’re supposed to be fighting other people who suck.

Just last night, we level 1s were being matched up against level 8s. Of course those numbers are deceptive. We’re supposed to be level 7s and who knows what the level 8s are supposed to be. They fight like they’re level 15 or higher. The outcome of the games were what was expected: Slaughter. Fun for them, shitty for us.

Bungie promises that eventually all the levels will return to where they were. The best players will climb back up the ranks and the less skilled ones will be able to be matched up against each other. Everything will be back to normal. Well, if it’s happening at all, it’s happening very slowly. Who knows how long it will take for things to shake out and return to a reasonable playing field?

In the meantime, Halo 2 multiplayer currently blows. And Bungie blows for moronically ‘leveling the playing field’, a bullshit misnomer which implies we’re now all on equal standing. But we aren’t. And I have the shitty scores to prove it. I used to be able to score kills in the mid teens; now five kills is a fucking miracle. Bungie took an extremely fun game for everyone and they fucked it up to please a vocal, illiterate few. All the rest of us can do now is wait it out until things eventually get back to normal, whenever that will happen.

April 28, 2005

Hey kids! Shut the hell up.

Pet peeve in Halo 2 online play: people who don’t shut up. Being able to communicate on your headset is a privilege and not a right. The best use of it is to communicate with your teammates to coordinate your gameplay. There’s a white button on the control pad that you press so you can talk to your teammates without anyone else being able to hear you. It’s a courtesy I wish more people would use online.

Being forced to listen in on other players’ chatter is a great way to reaffirm that most people have nothing clever or interesting to say. Also, they swear a lot. Hey, I swear too, all the fucking time. But not at others. And I don’t run around in the game yelling, “Fuck you, bitch!” to my opponents when I’m playing against them. Boy, that's original. If I had a dollar for every time someone called me a “bitch” online, I’d be able to quit my job and make a living playing Halo 2. Also, Lance Jr. would be flat broke.

Lance Jr: That’s right. Eat it, bitch! Ho ho ho ho.

The young kids are the worst. Lately, we’ve fought a lot of young kids online who refuse to shut up. From babbling to their friends and screaming about kills others stole from them to making loud machine gun sounds as they shoot at you, the kids are the biggest nuisance by far. We usually try to play in late night hours to avoid them but inevitably we run into a few kids in every session.

I got to witness an annoying young Halo player up close. My 16 year old cousin stayed overnight with me last week and he doesn’t have Xbox Live so I let him use my gamertag and play online. I sat behind him annoyed and watched as he blathered on nonstop into my headset. He constantly narrated and audibly reacted to everything he was doing and everything that happened to him, showing absolutely no regard for everyone else in the game who was forced to listen to him. Since he was playing with my gamertag, I feared he’d given Steve Barnes a bad name.

Sadly, there’s nothing to be done about this. People who just refuse to shut up or think they are hilarious (they are not) are a hassle that comes with the online territory. It’s also not a crime to be a young kid blabbering on who doesn’t know any better. But if the world were a fair and just place, their parents should be able to see and hear how their kids behave online, become ashamed of their kids, and cancel their Xbox Live accounts. That would be a first step to a better online world.

Now, if there were only a way to get rid of all those rednecks online…

Jeff: One thing I'd add is the talk after the games on the stats screen. It seems like there are only two types of people, the ones that are overly complimentary, telling you "Good game!" when they've just thrashed you 50-13, and the obnoxious assholes whose favorite saying is, "You got raped!" Everyone takes the game too seriously. The polite ones can't joke around and the assholes think we actually care when they make fun of us for losing. Being worse at a video game than a bunch of children or rednecks or redneck children doesn't really bother me.

If not the worst, it's actually pretty close. Please, readers, do not buy WrestleMania 21 for the Xbox. Don’t make the mistake many others, including Sean, made this weekend. He was at Best Buy, saw WrestleMania 21, said “fuck it” and bought it. Apparently he didn't read any of the reviews and links we'd emailed each other last week. Instead he dropped $50 on a turd.

I wanted to see how bad WrestleMania 21 was. We played 3 matches. The first was JBL vs. Triple H. It was fucking shitty.

Once you're on the ground, you can't do anything except barrel roll. You barrel roll and barrel roll around the ring but no matter where you barrel roll to, your opponent can do a striking move and hit you. Except apparently when he's standing right next to you, in which case he misses and writhes around the ring in pain.

The vaunted reversal system is stupid. You have virtually no time to reverse (whatever the timing entails, it's makes no sense) and if you manage to, it's by sheer dumb luck because when you're actually trying to reverse on purpose, nothing happens. Every grapple starts with a knee to the gut. Before every move, you knee your opponent in the gut automatically. So do you reverse before the knee, during the knee, or after the knee? There's a tiny blue reversal bar in the corner that flashes for a split second, less than that even, and it's no help. And once you're on a roll dishing out offense, there is no way for the opponent to recover. You're supposed to be able to reverse grapples to counter but after you take a certain amount of punishment, you're perpetually stunned and can't do anything.

And finishing moves - once you hit A+B to hit your finisher, regardless of where you are standing in the ring, the characters teleport magically into a set animation of the move. We were in the corner when JBL went for the Clothesline from Hell and suddenly we teleported to the center ring and just watched as the move was done for us.

Tag matches are even worse because the AI is as stupid as they say. RVD and Booker T vs. Edge and Christian saw Christian get pounded on for 5 minutes unable to mount any offense whatsoever. I called Edge for a run in and Edge entered the ring and stood there doing absolutely nothing while I was in a chinlock. Finally, RVD put Christian in another chinlock and Edge ran in, dropped an elbow, missed completely and writhed on the ground clutching his arm in pain while Christian tapped out to the chinlock!

Last, we did John Cena vs. Batista in a Hell in a Cell and that was also very, very shitty. To get out of the cage, you walk over to the door and hit the white button. One kick, the door budges, two, the door is open. Well, that was easy. The only fun we had was at the top of the cage when we took turns Irish whipping each other. The character runs right off the roof and does a belly flop landing flat on the floor on his face and stomach. That was pretty funny. Also, completely unrealistic. Even Mick Foley wouldn’t tumble 20 feet to splatter on his face without protecting himself in any way. Has anyone at Studio Gigante ever watched wrestling, much less have any understanding of how a human being behaves when flung from a great height? No.

To end the match, Batista gave John Cena the Batista Bomb on the roof and we crashed through and landed onto the mat. Batista couldn’t get up and get the pin this move should have guaranteed him. Instead, despite taking a move that should have ended his life, Cena somehow got up first and hit two half hour suplexes and the FU for the pin.

This game is fucking horrible and not only am I glad I heeded what everyone said and didn't waste money or my Gamestop credit on it, I even took it off my Gamefly when I read the reviews.

Why can't they just import a mod of Revenge and No Mercy on the Xbox and change the character models? Why continue to fuck up what was already perfection? I just don't get it.

In other video game news, we are totally kicking ass in Halo 2. If you think you can take The FourAssholes, look for Steve Barnes, The Robot Devil, Jayne Cobb and LanceJr online. LanceJr will betray the rest of us at least once per game, so you automatically get a gimme kill.

Last night, while playing Playboy: The Mansion, I finally met Melissa Joan Hart. I'd run across some celebrities already like Jose Canseco and I had him and all the members of the band Sum 41, if you can call them celebrities, in my Inner Circle. But Melissa Joan Hart, finally, a celebrity I would like to virtually nail.

I had 4 girlfriends at that point and for some reason I couldn't add any more, so I fired one and got myself all prepped up for Sabrina: The Teenage Witch to join my harem, or as Hef calls his girlfriends in real life, the Party Posse. I threw a party in the grotto with her as the guest of honor and then I went and invited all the people listed as her Buddies in her profile. Then I worked on her the entire party. Made her part of my Inner Circle, signed her to a business contract that earned me $900,000, let her use the pool, the grotto hot tub, got her drinks, sweet talked her all night.

But I ran into some road blocks: the game had her programmed with her real life traits: Chaste (which means she doesn't want a part of the Playboy lifestyle, not that she doesn't have sex), Confrontational, and Drinker. All of which is true based on what I've read and heard about her in real life. This was a problem. No amount of romantic talk and manuevering could get her clothes off. I routinely brought in her Buddies and my staff Bunnies come in and talk to her, and still she wouldn't come around. So I got annoyed and decided to cheat.

There is a Cheat menu in the game where you can alter characters and situations if you build up enough points, which you earn by producing quality issues of Playboy Magazine. I had like 84 points, so I went into the Cheat Menu and got rid of Confrontational and Chaste and replaced them with Amorous and Fun Loving. I kept Drinker, since, hey, this is still Melissa Joan Hart we're talking about. Basically, this is the game's equivalent of creating a Stepford Wife. Still, she wasn't budging and refused to become a girlfriend, much less turn tricks. So I tried a new strategy.

I ended the party and sent everyone home, went back to the Main Mansion, and then invited her over again. This time I brought her upstairs, where I built a love pad with a bathroom consisting of the finest hot tub, shower, massage parlor, and facilities the game had to offer. Finally, after a massage and a lot more romantic talk, I got her to take her top off. Then RAW was about to start so I saved and quit. But damn, that was a lot of work to get to see Melissa Joan Hart's virtual breasts. Most women in the game succumb with little difficulty. The next step is to get her to become a girlfriend, defile her, get her to pose in the magazine, and keep her in the Mansion with the other girlfriends. Until Carmen Electra finally shows her face in the game, then I kick Sabrina to the curb.

As vile and repulsive as all that sounds, is any of this really worse than being Tommy Vercetti?

I've gotten the hang of Playboy: The Mansion overall but there are a bunch of aspects I'm still not sure how to do or even if they can be done. For instance, I can bang nearly any and every woman in the game in a variety of ways with a modicum of effort. It's probably not that easy for the real Hef in real life, even if he weren't the same age as Danny Hodge. However, while I can make girls make out with each other under certain circumstances, I can't seem to get them to have sex and I don't think you can do three ways in the game. Which is bullshit. I've been trying to get a three way going and it just isn't happening.

Putting out the magazine every month is ultimately more interesting than the parties or the women but even then it all gets repetitive. The initial challenge of getting the magazine out every month has its share of constricting limitations. And the social interactions are too easy and also limited. But I think there are some areas in gameplay I just haven't encountered yet, even after 12+ hours of play.

I've been playing Mission Mode where you start out with everything you need and the game gives you challenges. I've put out 20 issues, expanded the mansion about as far as I could in the space the game allows me, had 4-5 girlfriends at once, banged at least 30 girls, and have over $4-million in the bank in profit from magazine sales, but I think the next time I play, I will start a Freeform game and see what happens as I try to build the empire from scratch. I should have more choices and variety in design and construction, and I'm hoping that also extends to more options in business and social interactions.

I should also read the instructions soon. Like I said, there are things going on that I may not be aware of that is impeding my progress, even with the success I've had. Also, I'm finding Mission Mode limiting in terms of the characters. I've encountered a few real Playmates (called Celebrity Playmates and Star Bunnies) and some real people (Jose Canseco), but 90% of the characters are made up and interacting with fake people is getting old. I don't know for sure, but I'm hoping the Freeform Play has more variety and choices. I know there are a bunch of real Playmates in the game that I haven't encountered yet, plus Carmen Electra, Melissa Joan Hart and all those celebrities that are in the game. I want to see how many of them I can bone.

Even though it gets boring at times, I'll be playing this game for a while or at least until all my questions have been answered. I do wish the game had more depth in terms of the business side of things. It seemed like it would, but not really.

There's plenty of room for growth in a sequel game. For instance, it would be nice to leave the Mansion once in a while. Maybe hop in Hef's limo and go to Vegas, throw parties at the Palms or at the Playboy Club.

So far, I give Playboy: The Mansion a 3 out of 5. That score is more likely to drop than be raised when all is said and done.

I got a $5 coupon for Best Buy in the mail and I decided I would use it to buy Knights of the Old Republic II. It's $49.99 at Best Buy this week so I could get it for $45, which is better than $52 at EB Games.

I'd already put a down payment on KOTOR II at EB Games, so I went EB Games and told them I wanted my down payment back. They said they could only give me store credit. What?! That's totally lame. Think about it; I didn't buy anything. I gave them $10 with the intent to buy, but now that I rescind that intention, they won't give me my money back? I didn't get any goods for my money! What the fuck is that?

Lenny: They wouldn't give me my money back. They said they wanted it!

I was going to cause a fuss, but right next to me on the other register, there was a very cool guy with long hair, a shitty half grown goatee, glasses and an overcoat who was raising a fuss because his roommate broke his brand new Xbox control pad and he didn't have the receipt to return it so the EB games guys told him there was nothing they could do for him. He was demanding their corporate number so he could make a complaint. I thought about it for a moment and I decided I would be a better man than this guy.

Lrrr: But not my enough.

So I took the $10 store credit and walked over to see if they had Top Spin, which they did. $17.99 used. So I got that with my store credit and paid the difference.

The moral of the story is EB Games sucks. But now I have Top Spin and on Tuesday I'll get my Star Wars for $45. Anyway, once I figure out how to play it, I'll see Jeff and Lance online soon for some hot tennis action. And by that I mean: Anna Kournikova vs. Anna Kournikova.

I just beat X-Men Legends about half an hour prior to this writing. That was all in all a lot of fun. I really liked the scope of the game. It had a terrific storyline with a super villain scheme by Magneto that I haven't seen before, and I've read thousands of comics. The storyline twists and turns were fun and I enjoyed the various cameos by X-Men and X-villains from the classic comic books. I was a little suprised when I took on Magneto and handed his big goofy helmet to him that the story kept going. The finale is appropriately world-threatening and cosmic. By the time the game is over, I really did feel like I saved the world, just by the sheer number of villains and soldiers I fought.

Being able to choose, coordinate, power-up, and equip all the different X-Men and then learning how to make interchangable teams of four fight in tandem was the best part of the game. Wolverine is the go-to guy for fighting and wanton destruction of property, but he's not much for solving puzzles. Iceman, Jean Grey, Cyclops, and Storm were important players and Psylocke and Emma Frost had key roles later in the game.

Using a young mutant, Magma, as the entry point into the story and seeing the X-Men through her eyes was an old chestnut that always works well. Magma's powers are quite formidable and I liked using her in the mix as often as I could. Teaming a young mutant girl with Wolverine and X-Men icons and sending them against Sentinels is rockin'.

Personally, I liked surrounding Wolverine with X-Chicks. The X-Men has the best, most versatile and coolest female cast in all of comicdom. I tended to send Wolverine into battle with Rogue, Magma, Jubilee and/or Psylocke. When robots Sentinels are on the agenda, Rogue and Colossus were handy for smashin' 'em. Nightcrawler and Beast were great for tearing through legions of soldiers. Iceman, Storm, Jean Grey and Cyclops tended to be a pretty unbeatable combination. But then I'd throw in Gambit and Emma Frost for a little variety.

The flashback missions were also a nice touch, as were seeing the X-Men in their classic costumes. The Ultimate X-Men look grew on me over time, but seeing Wolverine in his classic yellow and blue suit was nostalgic.

The voice acting was better than expected, from Wolverine's growl to Beast's somewhat British pomposity. They could have picked a better voice for Storm; I liked her voice least. Gambit was also a little overly stereotypical in his Cajun-ness. But a very nice touch was the inclusion of Patrick Stewart as Professor Xavier, although the movie Xavier's voice coming out of the comic book Yul Brenner-looking Xavier's face was a little odd.

All that said, the game has a number of irritating problems. First off is the inability go back and play through levels again without making multiple saves. On the USS Arbiter mission, I wasn't entirely aware of the time limit the first time I'd played through. I had only one save and I'd saved at a point where I only had a few minutes to complete the mission, which was impossible to do before the ship sank. I was stuck with no way to continue or go back. I had to restart from level one and replay the 5-6 hours of game again just to get back to that level. That was so frustrating, I almost gave up on the game right there. Similarly, I beat the game with 14 of the 15 playable X-Men. I was very thorough on each level so I really don't understand how I missed activating one of the playable characters. And I can't go back and find that character without playing through the game again. Terrible.

I would have prefered just being able to save the game at any point as you can in games like Knights of the Old Republic as opposed to being forced to keep going until you find an X-Traction Point. However, I did like that you could take a break from the narrative at the X-Traction Point and enter the Danger Room for some relaxing fighting and level up-enablin'. I hardly ever bought anything from Forge or Healer, although I should have because Healer is where you can find many of the Danger Room level discs you need. But again, I'd have to play the game through again start to finish to find all the stuff I missed.

In a lot of ways, the game is a little too easy. Health and energy power ups are so plentiful, it's laughable. You can find them literally anywhere. You are hardly ever in danger while fighting the vast majority of enemies, especially in the game's later stages when the X-Men reach the upper 30s in their power levels. Taking on the level bosses isn't too tough either. The bosses tended to each have a trick to them and after a loss, putting a little thought into which characters powers would work best and what that boss's particular foible would be usually did the trick. I thought Magneto fell too easily and I was disappointed that the greatest X-Villain of all didn't go 15 rounds with Rogue, Cyclops, Nightcrawler and Storm. The hardest time I had was with the very last boss, which is appropriate. However, he was the only real challenge to my X-Men.

The role-playing elements were also too linear and strict. You have periods where you wander around the X-Mansion and the sub-levels but there just isn't much to do and usually only a small handful of characters to talk to. Their dialogue moves the story along and fills in the backstory for newbs, but there isn't much in the way of character building. I found the times you had to walk around the mansion looking for people to talk to and things to do incredibly dull. Looking at concept art is nice and all, but who cares. I answered every question of the X-Men trivia game right, and after that there was no point to any of it.

It would have been so much more interesting and much better if Magma were undecided in becoming an X-Man and the game were based like KOTOR or Fable where you can choose your path and be tempted to join Magneto and the Brotherhood. As it is, everything is far too predetermined. There is a little flirting between Magma and Iceman that never goes anywhere. And the other relationships, such as Rogue and Gambit are touched on but have no bearing on anything and many of the characters are just there for background and for fighting. Rogue in particular had little bearing on the story other than her presence and fighting prowess. I found that very disappointing since Rogue is one of my favorites. While you can't have everything, this is a video game and you can have a lot more.

A great deal more could have been done in exploring the characters beyond powering them up so you can fight Sentinels better. The X-Men have some of the richest characters and most intricate relationships in comics. Those aspects of the X-Men were barely touched on. This was the biggest letdown of the game. It's not a role-playing game as much as it is a fighting game with some role-playing aspects halfheartedly shoehorned in.

I don't have a second controller and so I can't utilize the Danger Room for the featured multiplayer fighting missions. But that is something I'm keen on doing because you can do a lot of cool things in the game, such as the characters with Might (Rogue, Colossus, and Beast) being able to pick up Wolverine and throw him in a Fastball Special. That is cool shit. X-Men Legends not being Xbox Live enabled is criminal.

All in all, I had an excellent time playing X-Men Legends despite its shortcomings and my disappointment with many aspects of it. I especially liked the little teaser at the end for the sequel game, featuring one of the greatest of the X-Villains making a welcome appearance. Bring him on! I'm looking forward to the next game and I hope it goes deeper into the characters and allows you more leeway with them and the narrative of the game.

John: I'm tired. I was up until 3:30am but I beat Deus Ex: Invisible War. Something like 20 game hours (probably about 25 in real time) spread over four days have resulted in victory.

John: It's the future, 2060. There was an economic and technological Collapse 20 years prior, and mankind has come out of it with new technologies. There is a big backstory based off of the events of the first Deus Ex game. Anyway, the main issue is the existence of biomodified humans such as my character Alex Denton. We work for a security agency called SSC that is an arm of a worldwide tech conglomerate called WTO. They are at war with a religious faction called the Order and the conflict is over nanite technology and the biomodification of the human race. Then there are two other groups, the Templars, which are a fanatical offshoot of the Order religiously intolerant of biomodification, and there are the Omar, a faction of cyborgs lurking in the underworld. I have been playing all sides against each other trying to uncover the truth behind the destruction of Chicago and the death of my parents from a nanite terrorist attack. As my three fellow biomodified friends each have taken a side, they were all pulling me in their separate directions of loyalty. I walked a tightrope trying to unravel the real truth and in the end, I made a choice that decided the future of the human race.

John: Well, the gist of the decision was based around choosing one of four futures: 1) A world where everyone is jacked in to a central consciousness through nanite technology. Everyone has a shared consciousness and all information is global and instantaneous, but there is no privacy. The world is run by an AI called Helious that has ties to my origins. 2) A world where all nanite technology is wiped out. Everyone is fully human, but the world is run by a religious right, the Templars. 3) All the existing governments are brought down and the technology is free to everyone, but the world is run by the Omar and most people are cyborgs, more machine than man. 4) A preservation of the status quo, where some are free to be biomodified, there is a class system based on ability and wealth and stature, but the world is being secretly run by a shadowy group calling themselves the Illuminati. The real choice for me was between 1 and 4. I won't create a world ruled by religious fanaticsm. Choices 1 and 4 would actually improve the state of the world, but I had to decide between all mankind linked by nanite technology (whether they want to be or not) or a world run by a bond between the WTO and the Order, with the Illuminati behind them. I chose the latter, which I felt still gave mankind some form of choice.

John: Everyone in the game is some level of corrupt, even me. There was no clear cut answer. I did what I thought was best.

Rob: I'd probably make the same choice. Even if the world is being controlled by more powerful forces, it's nice when they have the decency to keep themselves hidden.

John: Some of it was self-preservation. As a biomod, I didn't want to help religious kooks wiping nanties out. Why wouldn't they turn on me? By choosing the Illuminati, even though I don't entirely trust them, at least the technology is preserved and people can benefit, if they choose, if they can afford it. I think that's the way it should be. Not everything should be equal. The first choice sounded like technological communism at best, and the Borg at worst. Same with choice 3, where the Omar run things. I worked with the Omar and they were honorable but they are also deformed inhuman cyborgs. I didn't want to doom mankind to that fate.

John: Very good. I have to say I was a little dissatisfied with the ending. There was no way to walk away from it feeling like I had a total victory. I had to compromise; it's set up so that you have to turn on someone when you make your choice. All the factions did genuinely think they were doing the right thing. No one was clear cut evil, but they were all in their own way assholes. Even the people I ended up helping were assholes who screwed me once or twice. I don't know if the world is safest in their hands. It seemed to be at the end, but I feel like it's a tenuous peace.

Rob: There's so much moral ambiguity in video games these days. I remember when you didn't have to make hard choices. You knew your quest was noble and you were on the side of right. Furthermore, you knew you were a holy avatar who was empowered, nay, compelled to strike down and destroy everything that moved. If you could kill it, you did, and you knew it was a good thing.

John: The Templars tried to make me turn towards their side by using the fact that I was biomodified against my will and that I didn't know who I really was. But they didn't understand that not only do I love being biomodified and all the cool things I can do, it ultimately doesn't matter who made me or why, what matters is what I choose to do with what I am. Also, those bastards destroyed Chicago and killed my parents. Did they think I would let them get away with that, much less join their little prayer circle? They had no idea who they fucked with. My biggest moment of glee in the end was when I killed that fucker who ran the Templars. I threw his lifeless corpse onto a flaming barrel and watched it go up in flames.

Rob: Where these Templars linked to the ancient Order of the Knights Templar, defenders of the Holy Land and purported keepers of the secret of the Holy Grail?

John: They believed themselves to be an incarnation of the ancient Knights Templar. They're just a bunch of Bible thumping terrorist assholes to me.

John: You know, you're right about moral ambiguity in video games. I do miss the old days. Samus was good, Mother Brain was evil. Link was good, anyone fucking with him must die because they are foul, despicable monsters.

Rob: Exactly. And you weren't able to kill the harmless things, like the people you're supposed to talk to. If you could kill it, then it should be killed.

Rob: Unholy vermin that must be vanquished by the power of your mighty wrath. I miss that.

John: Oh, I sort of have one other regret in Deus Ex, which makes me want to play it again. You can choose your character to be male or female at the start. I always pick the chick. Well, I have three friends, Leo, Billie, and Klara and the last two are also chicks. I think if I'd been a dude, I could gotten it on with Billie, Klara, or both. Biomodified nanite sex sounded intriguing, but the game did not provide an option for biomodified nanite lesbian sex.

Rob: I think you have to tap in up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, start, for lesbian sex.

John: I had the same regret about the first time I played Knights of the Old Republic. Being a chick also, Bastila wasn't interested in strapping on a different kind of lightsaber. I never quite got Bastila as a full love interest even when I was playing as a male heel.

John: One other thing I didn't like about Deus Ex is the game didn't compensate enough for some of my choices. I could have killed anyone I wanted as much as I wanted, and no matter if I executed dozens of people who work for all sides in the game, they would take me back in because they want

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