New Podcast: "Batarang" Now Available!

This week on "Just BS," Brad and Scott discuss the upcoming "The Dark Knight Rises," and reflect on the series thus far.

Be sure to subscribe on Itunes, or click the link for every episode of "Just BS" through the RSS feed

This week's episode: Batarang

Trailer for "The Dark Knight Rises": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GokKUqLcvD8

Damn you, Apple (And Google)! Damn you to hell!

(Note: The Damn You ___! series will likely start running weekly on Wednesdays.  I just got a little itchy and posted this one early.)

Planned obsolescence isn’t a good thing.  I think we, as consumers can all agree on that.  Most of us can name off at least one time when we’ve been the victim of greed that has forced us to either upgrade something that we didn’t want to and there was no need to or has forced us to go without a feature that should have been included from the get go.  Several examples of this are very obvious from Apple in both their iPhone and Macbook Pro line ups, as well as from Google.  First, let’s address the issue with Apple.

Apple hasn’t ever been a company to take great care of its legacy hardware users.  They have shown often that they have no problem with leaving older (read: more than one generation past the present hardware) computers and whatnots out to pasture.  The rationale has been that this allows Apple to “innovate” and not be bogged down making sure their newest idea works on all hardware, just the ‘stuff that can handle the new innovation.’  I call bullshit on this.  I own a Macbook Pro.  It has worked fine since I bought it three years ago.  The battery still works fine (better than my Dell laptop’s after just one year) and I have relatively no complaints about the rest of the laptop itself.  I do have complaints about the operating systems changes, though.  I understand that it is my choice to not upgrade to the latest OS, which I won’t because I would lose functionality and gain little if nothing in return for my work needs, but I hate that many of the nifty bells and whistles aren’t on my OS for no other reason than ‘we don’t feel like supporting it.’

On the laptop, I’m mostly ok with this as it is easier to circumvent or have other work-arounds for the various issues.  On a phone, however, it is not nearly as easy.  With the newest release of the iOS system to 6.0, lots of great new functionality will be introduced to some of the iPhones on the market.  Conveniently, most of the newest, coolest stuff won’t be available on phones that are two years old or more.  If I honestly believed that the newest iPhone was going to have hardware so much more advanced from the iPhone 4, I could see why some features wouldn’t work.  But I don’t.  I don’t believe for one minute that the iPhone 4 is so old and decrepit so as to not work.  Why?  Because the iPhone 4S isn’t THAT advanced compared to the original iPhone 4 and the iPhone 4S will be getting most if not all of these new cool features.  Apple is artificially keeping older hardware from working so you will buy a new phone.  I get that Apple makes the majority of its money on hardware sales, but it is just wrong to withhold features simply because they can.  But you know what, I bet this is the bestselling iPhone yet because people won’t care that their old hardware still works.  They just want something new.  American consumerism at its best.

Google also has a problem with this planned obsolescence, but they aren’t the ones causing it.  Rather, it is the cellphone carriers and the handset makers causing the problem.  Google puts out their operating system Android for free to anyone that wants it, much cheaper than Microsoft does for its Windows Phone 7 OS.  The problem with the Google stuff and Android phones in general is that Google is constantly updating the OS.  There may be two or more major updates to Android in any given year.  Great, right?  It is if the cellphone carrier and the handset maker actually push the new update to your phone.  Also great if you have a phone that is actually powerful enough and has enough hardware to handle the new software.  Here, Google is like the mad scientist in the back room making new discoveries and the middle man peddling the wares is purposefully holding back goods so he can sell his existing inventory full well knowing the scientist has just made something vastly superior.  I’d like to blame just the phone companies and handset makers, but Google really should shoulder some of the blame.  If they had a yearly iteration cycle for the new OS that everyone could count on, handset makers would have more impetus to make better, longer lived devices from the get go.  The way it is now, you walk into a Verizon, buy the newest phone with all the features and before you walk out the door it is obsolete.  Again, I call bullshit on this system.

I don’t think that capitalism is the root of the issue here, but rather greed.  It is still possible to desire making a good profit for shareholders while providing an excellent product and then standing behind that product.  The idea that drawing a line in the sand arbitrarily between the haves and have-nots when realistically there is barely and difference is greedy at best and deplorable at worst.  Oh well.  Both companies will continue down this path with likely little pushback from the public at large and I don’t see anything changing any time soon.

Star Craft II, Then, Now, and the Future

It has been almost two years since Star Craft II: Wings of Liberty was released and I already find myself as bored with the game as I am with the original Star Craft which released in 1998.  I am writing this now because the first expansion pack, Heart of the Swarm, will likely be released within the next year.  In fact, I bet that Blizzard Entertainment will offer another Annual Pass deal to all World of Warcraft subscribers with the free game being Heart of the Swarm as Diablo III was for the last Annual Pass.  While Diablo III was a title that I definitely knew I’d purchase and therefore it made sense for me to buy the Annual Pass, I can’t say the same for Heart of the Swarm.  The Annual Pass might be the only way I would get the expansion, but only as a side benefit.  Why am I so disinterested in this new game?  Because, dear reader, Wings of Liberty was so underwhelming.  Allow me to explain.

First, the gameplay didn’t interest me.  When I buy a Real Time Strategy (RTS) game, I want the story mode to be compelling but most importantly I want the multiplayer experience to keep me engaged.  The single player story line in Wings of Liberty wasn’t the worst I’ve played, but it wasn’t the greatest and I honestly expected more out of Blizzard of which I know more is possible.  It felt like they cheaped out on story hoping that the graphics would distract from a lack of content.  The twists like researching enhancements for troops and the ability to buy upgrades and mercenaries didn’t provide a deep, expansive storyline.  Maybe one of the problems here is that the only playable story was that of the Terrains unlike the original game that gave access to all three race’s stories. 

No matter what the true reason for the lack of interesting single player campaign, the multiplayer didn’t do any better.  Unfortunately, many of the units available and seen in the campaign are not accessible in the multiplayer which was a shame because I remember liking many of the Terrain campaign units.  The biggest nail in the coffin was the lack of originality or spark of something new that was so endearing in the first game.  It feels like SC II’s multiplayer was merely a remix that did little to enhance the original work.  Sure, the graphics are nice and there are upgrades to the core works of the program that allow for play at higher resolutions and bigger screens, there are changed gameplay mechanics that cause the tactics from the first game to no longer be applicable, but this does not make for a revolutionary step.  And honestly, given all the time Blizzard worked on the game, I expected revolution, not evolution like I got.  We’re not even talking evolutionary like going from gills to lungs, but from four fingers to five.

I get that if they changed the game too much, some of the core fan base (read: Korean gamers that play professionally) would have been upset, but with what they produced now, I’m upset.  I’m upset that I should have gotten something amazing and I didn’t.  Maybe Blizzard looked at the situation with SC II and that prompted them to work on Diablo III’s story more (I understand Blizzard held off publishing the game twice for various reasons).  Maybe Blizzard will look at how SC II was like a flat, hot soda when it should have been a bubbly, cold refreshing brew and make this first expansion better.  Here’s hoping.  But honestly, I doubt I ever know unless I get the game for free because after SC II, Blizzard, I just don’t see myself ever buying any of the expansions.

New Podcast: "WoW: the Dumbening" Now Available!

(Note: the beginning of the episode was cut off for some unknown reason. Obviously Brad is the other guy in the podcast. Podcast circumcision under investigation. (lie))

In the latest episode of "Just BS", Brad and Scott discuss a recent youtube video regarding the changes to the difficulty of raid content throughout the years of World of Warcraft.

Be sure to subscribe on Itunes, or click the link for every episode of "Just BS" through the RSS feed.

This week's episode: http://recordings.talkshoe.com/TC-76124/TS-642849.mp3

The original youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rd0-zVIBVo&feature=g-user-u