Rou

We all have the things in games that drive us up a wall. Sometimes it's the insanely complicated maneuvers they expect us to pull off. Or the microscopic target mounted on the back of the gigantic titan. Or the stupidest AI in the world that we have to protect as it mindlessly wades through a horde of zombies.

Well, I get to add a new game to my list of games that irritate me. Medal of Honor: Airborne. It's yet another in a long line of WWII shooters. The big gimmick in this one is that you can parachute in to the level from above and pick your landing zone. Cute, but ultimately not very useful. Still, I love shooters in general, and WWII are generally worth my time.

Sadly, the game has three of my pet peeves in it.

The first is infinite respawning bad guys. I know Nazi's are evil incarnate, but even they draw the line as instant cloning of hundreds of soldiers. Well, I'm sure they would have done it if they could.. but that's not the point. When I clear a building or area, and my troops move up with me, I generally expect it to remain that way. More importantly, when I'm attacking a small 3 room building, I expect there to be an upper limit to how many times I have to shoot the machine gunner in the upper window. They don't have a company of people in there.

The second is a long standing complaint of mine and many MANY games are guilty of it. The protection offered by various forms of cover. For example, when being attacked by shoulder mounted anti-tank panzershreck, a thin wooden pallet is an unacceptable form of cover. Equally, a 55 gallon drum would not provide protection from that type of attack. This is a weapon that is designed to go through TANK armor. the thin sheet metal used there is not going to slow it down much. Even if it did stop the round, the concussive blast is going to hurt you on the other side. And finally, an M1 rifle is entirely capable of shooting through barbed wire. Hiding behind a roll of it isn't actually cover. It's not a wall. I can see your entire back and head. When I put 3 rounds on target, it shouldn't act as a wall. The bullet would got THROUGH it because it's a FUCKING coil with a large amount of air for the bullet to pass through.

The final one is the enemy. They should have to operate under the same rules as I do. If they can fire hundreds of rounds from their MG42 machine guns without reloading, I should be able to do the same when I capture it. But no, I have to reload every 30 rounds or so. If I take 25 seconds to reload my bazooka, they shouldn't be able to fire it four times in that same period of time. Rules must always be equalized for both sides.

Maybe my expectations are too high. It's just a crappy little shooter from Electronic Arts, I know. I should expect much. But damn it, I demand more. Maybe Call of Duty just spoiled me.

I meant to complain about this when I saw the movie in the theater, but hey, sue me. I forgot. However, 'Superman Returns' just showed up on HBO and reminded me to do it.

I like the movie. I'm not a huge Superman fan in general, but I enjoyed the movie. Mostly. If you're planning on seeing it, don't read any further. Because I'm going to spoil the fuck out of it in a little bit.

You see, I don't get the story. If you turn your brain off and ignore the glaring plot hole, the movie is enjoyable and you come away thinking 'Hey, Superman rules'.

But I didn't do that. So I enjoyed the movie, but decided that Superman is a bastard. Basic idea goes like this: Superman left Earth to find Krypton. Five years go by and now he's back. Lois Lane and the merry band of reporters have all moved on with their lives. She has a kid with her fiance. About five years old. You see where this is going, right?

So Superdick comes back and expects everything to be the same, and is hurt when it's not. Boo fucking hoo. The villain does his thing, Superman saves the day, nearly dies and finds out the kid is his. Yay, heroic ending.

Think about it. This story requires Superman to fuck Lois, knock her up, and decide to run off into outer space. What a shithead. Seriously, Superman is a hit-it-and-quit-it type of guy? Really? Then, inside a few weeks of banging superman, she runs off and fucks her new man on the side (Richard). I mean, it had to be close enough that he thought the kid was his, right? They never say if she knowingly lied to Richard. Maybe she just underestimated the power of Super-Sperm. The end result is that she's either easy or desperate to cover up the bastard child. And since we see her hang all over Superman's jock once he's back, I'm betting she's just easy. I suppose she could have been involved with Richard while she was banging Superman. Still, not a set of choices that really casts her in a positive light.

But let's step back to Superman. The pillar of Truth, Justice and the American Way, right? Sleeps with a chick out of wedlock. Knocks her up, and the runs away for five fucking years. That American Way bit just isn't what it used to be, is it?

For additional points, I refer you to Superdickery.com Read it for a while. There is plenty of other evidence out there.

Superman sucks.