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Welcome to the Rant Room!
Ok, all, Kaiser here. Be sure to read ALL THE WAY DOWN, as the Rants keep rollin like the energizer bunny with a battery wired to his testicles.
  STAR WARS: KNIGHTS OF THE OLD REPUBLIC I'm going to tell you a bunch of things right now. A bunch of new things you may not know. You're going to read them, and then you'll know them. And then you'll read them again in one of next week's news posts because there are about five thousand of you that still aren't aware that I don't update on a schedule.

Many of you are idiots, and I am doing my best to send brains to each and every one of you. I have a very large number of carboard tubes in transit to my house via UPS, so that I can ship them to you wrapped in a protective blanket of security and non-wrinkliness. What can Brown do for me? Hurry the fuck up.

I am happily playing Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic thanks to my own ideas. I must say... this game is incredible, and lives up to all of my expectations. If you're playing this game right now, you know what I'm talking about. I played until the wee hours of the morning, to the point where my eyes were burning, and I was screaming out loud "Shut up, eyes! I just got more credits and I want to go buy something!".

The game is a wet dream come true. Not my wet dream... that would just be wierd. But I'm sure it's somebody's.. and we can only feel pity for that somebody.

It's everything Star Wars Galaxies wasn't. My only complaint is the customization of your character's appearance. They could have/should have added more faces, at least, but it's a minor grievance.

ALERT!
Help me. Please.

I haven't much time... I can hear it coming back for me. How I escaped to write you this letter of distress I do not know... but time is running out.

I was betrayed. I thought it was my friend, but I now see it was a horrible, horrible ruse, a trick to lure me into a state of opulence. I now see the true nature of this beast, a manipulative, cunning, heartless creature, who's sole purpose is to consume.

To consume me. I can feel it happening. I can feel it taking over. I know of no cure, and I know not what to do. I am losing myself... my will is breaking.

It will not be much longer before I succumb to its grasp.. before my very existence is forfeit. I weep for the joys I will never know, and for the regrets of my past.

I solemnly doubt that this plea will reach you in time. Even as I write these words, I can feel my grasp fading. I fear I am already too far gone.

I can hear it coming for me now. Deep down I know that I no longer have the strength to fight it. Flee. Save yourself.

It has come for me again.

KOTOR has me.

  FIRST GENERATION So I go to the store and picked myself up a copy of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic for my trusty ol' Xbox.

I get it home, and I settle down in front of the TV and prepare to immerse myself in this game that I've heard only great things about.

The intro was cool, the title screens oozed Star Wars. I create my character (I chose the nerdy guy with the big nose, because I thought it would be damned cool to watch him be consumed by the dark side), and I head off into the game. I watch the classic Star Wars opener, the fairly cool opening movie, and then it tosses me into the game.

I now realize my Xbox was teasing me.

I got through the first conversation just fine, and I was all psyched because the game was living up to my expectations. I even got as far as the very first hallway, just outside the starting room. I was feeling very n00bish, and looking at everything, when I noticed a repair droid hanging out nearby. So I head on over to say 'what's up'.

It's about this point where my Xbox wakes up and screams "WAIT! I'M A FIRST GENERATION CONSOLE! I CAN'T FUCKING PLAY THIS GAME!" and proceeds to freeze up on me.

I'm now a bit exhasperated, but I figure no big deal. It's not like I was very far into the game. I reload. This time I get as far as character creation before it freezes. After that, I get as far as the intro movie.

I had heard of problems with the first generation Xbox consoles, that the dvd drives originally used were faulty pieces of shit. I now realize I had even experienced it first hand on a previous occasion, after having bought a pre-owned copy of Deathrow. I blamed the freezing on the game. I now know it is the Xbox's fault.

So I went to the Xbox forums looking for some answers. I found a couple of tips concerning deleting the KOTOR file and shutting the box down for a minute. I did this, and it got the game running, but only for a few minutes, before it freezed again.

I even, in pure desparation, went so far as to delete all of my saved data on a tip that there might be a corrupt file somewhere. No dice.

The nice gentlemen at the Xbox technical support call center who couldn't speak a word of english, and insisted on calling me 'Yam', even though I insured him my name was "Tim" as was printed on my driver's liscence, told me that my the vents to my Xbox were blocked by nearby objects, and it was overheating. I looked to my Xbox, and it was sitting out in the open on a hardwood floor, right where I had left it. Apparently my retinas were playing tricks on me, because this gentlement persisted that the vents were blocked. I must be wrong.

Eventually we moved on to the point where he explained to me that the disc was faulty, and that I should go exchange it. I again explained to him, much in the manner one would explain something to a brick wall, that all of my older games worked fine, and that the Xbox was only choking on the newer stuff. Nope, I was wrong again. He says it's the disc.

Finally (and like no one knew this was coming) he tells me that I need to send the Xbox in for repairs. All it will cost me is a cool . Actually, he quoted me , because apparently Microsoft thinks we're idiot's and that if we see two digits instead of three, we feel like we're paying less, and are more happy to part with our green paper. As if we don't know it's still a hundred god-damned dollars.

So here lies my issue. If by noon today when I leave for work, none of you have provided me with an ingenious fix, a technical repair, or a method for throwing the Xbox against a wall that will make this game work for me, I am going to buy a new Xbox.

I really don't want to buy a new one. I really can't afford to buy a new one, with Otakon right around the corner. But I am not a patient person, and I am simply incapable of waiting 6-8 weeks for my Xbox to make the round trip voyage to Microsoft and back, all the while KOTOR is staring me in the face, taunting me.

If anyone knows of a fix for the first generation, piece of crap-shit Thompson DVD drives, please let me know.

Please.

  SHINOBI!!! I went ahead and snatched up a copy of Shinobi based on the fact that Contra cost me two dollars thanks to the sacrifice of Robotech, Onimusha, and Bust-a-Move.

The game started out innocently enough, but ever since the katana-wielding zombie ninja dogs (which are far more dangerous than any other regular enemy in the game) it's been getting bitchier and bitchier at me. I'm currently at the annoying Fire-Guy boss. Let me give you a run down of the situation.

He's an orange guy wearing an orange outfit in the middle of an arena that's orange from all the fire everywhere. There's a pit of lava in the middle. There are buildings along two of the four sides. Fire-Guy, who is part-chameleon in this environment, also likes to teleport around every time you hit him.

When you hit him, you do hardly any damage. See, your sword gets powered up by killing enemies. The more bad guys you kill in a certain amount of time, the more powerful your weapon becomes. Most bosses require that your sword be damn powered up to do any noticeable damage. Luckily, the bosses like to spew bad guys at you at regular intervals. This is good for another reason. Your sword is hungry for souls. If it doesn't feed on the souls of your slain foes often then it feeds on your soul. Considering the homing fireballs from Fire-Guy, the constant stream of dummy-fire fireballs from the flying enemies, the flaming kamikaze dives of the same enemies, and the giant pit of lava doom in the middle, you sure as hell don't need something else to take your health away.

By the way, I haven't even mentioned the hard part yet.

So you have to kill the floating bad guys to power up your sword before you attack Fire-Guy. This isn't technically necessary, you could just rush Fire-Guy and do one pixel of damage per hit. But considering that most times you get up to him he hits you anyway just because he's a prick who doesn't care if he's stunned or, y'know, has my cursed ninja blade lodged in his forehead, you're better off powering up first.

So you attack the bad guys and power up your sword. At least this way when he hits you for hitting him you can trade blows with equal damage.

The problem here is that you have to A) find the enemies. They do this thing where they fly and you, like, don't. And they like to fly from far away and shoot their infinite ranged fireballs at you. Or they just drop down and hit you on the head. And, assuming you can even get to one of them, the other fuckers like to provide crossfire. The short version is that you're going to get hit no matter what.

Okay, so you've powered up your sword a little, now you're ready to attack Fire-Guy. One problem. You don't know where he is. He teleports around the level and shoots fireballs at you.

"I'll just follow the trail of fireballs to their source!" you say? That's an interesting theory, but there's about half a dozen trails of fireballs coming at you from all angles.

So you have to leap up on one of the rows of buildings on the sides of the level because he likes to hang out in those corners. At this point you just have to hope that you managed to pick the right one. Why? Because your sword power wears off in like three seconds. Often, it's worn off even before you figure out where he is, much less before you actually get there.

But, for the sake of argument, let's say you actually manage to find the bastard while your sword is powered up. It won't matter. He does this thing where he'll just hit you anyway with an attack that knocks you back a couple steps and stuns you before he teleports away and you have to repeat the impossible process all over again keeping in mind that you're constantly losing energy from his cheap shots and the un-erring accuracy of his buddies while your sword is getting very hungry because the fuckers you kill must have Diet Souls.

But, again, for the sake of argument, let's say you managed to hit Fire-Guy. You do a combo or two, hopefully from behind for even more damage, and then he teleports away in the middle of the combo. At this point you realize you have to deal with this all over again. You have to do all of this all over again and the only thing that got you this far was luck.

I hate Fire-Guy with an intensity that knows not words. If I manage to meet the guy who designed Fire-Guy, I would kill him.

It'd go like...

"Hello, good sir."

"Hi. I make video games for a living."

"Oh really? Do tell."

"I came up with Fire-Guy in Shinobi."

At that point I'd nod knowingly with a big friendly smile, and spin his neck around 720 degrees with my bare hands. I should imagine that I would then take to stomping on his temple with the heal of my foot, smashing his skull into a pulp against the ground.

At the trial I wouldn't just plead guilty. I'd plead "Yes, I did it. And I'd do it again given half the chance."

I'd smile when they gave me the chair. And when I got to hell, I'd find the Fire-Guy designer--because people who inflict things like Fire-Guy onto the world go straight to hell, boys and girls. It wouldn't be difficult to find him, I'd just go to the wing where all the Shinobi designers are forced to play their game. I'd find him there, stand in front of the TV, and poke him in the eyes for the rest of eternity.

Oh, sure, maggots would be eating my flesh from the inside out and I'd certainly look the part of someone who was spending forever in hellish agony, but the joke would be on them. I'd be loving every minute of it.

So, yeah. It's still a fun game. But when the reviewers say it's hard, they ain't lyin'. This isn't "it's hard until you learn the patterns", this isn't "it's hard until you learn the weaknesses." This is "it's hard until you learn the patterns and the weaknesses and then it's frustrating and hard because if you're off by a milli-second you're dead." It's fun, but I am honestly in awe of the fact that the controller has not been smashed through the screen.