Welsome Back PSN:

So the Playstation Network is finally up and running but still Sony is getting the heat for not reporting the incident earlier, their handling of this incident and their inability to protect themselves from this gargantuan hacking. Surprisingly, I admit to all of these, why I said surprisingly? because I myself am a long time user of Playstation and to a certain extent a fan. But still, I don't follow a company blindly and neither do I take a blind eye towards their mistakes. Sure I was angry, mad and upset over the month long absence of Playstation Network and the way Sony told us about what exactly happened and technically we still don't. We still don't know the details as of how the hackers actually managed to get into Sony's system and stole so much information, which by the way is the same information that is stored on so many other websites that we use almost everyday. However, I am more angry over people and critics who just won't shut up about this and the way they are treating certain aspects of this incident.

For example, critics are taking the whole, "Stolen Information" aspect to epic proportions. Articles are written about how much of a danger we are in now that our basic information is in their hands, now let me get this clear, that same information is also in the databases of so many other websites, like amazon, best buy, even our own banks, imagine if Bank of America's accounts are being hacked, we loose more than just our name, addresses and credit card numbers, and yet some people don't realize that it really isn't that big of a deal.

As I mentioned earlier that I myself am very angry about the lack of information we had during the beginning of this incident but think about it, you are Sony, one of the biggest tech titan in the world, and suddenly you found yourself hacked like you are a garden variety website, off course you'll try to keep things quiet until the last minute and try to fix this mess as quickly and quietly as possible. But alas, in this case it wasn't the case so they as ashamed as they were,  had to come out and say that "Yes we dropped the ball and we are sorry and we still have no clue how it happened."

What made me even more angry was that some lawyers actually decided to sue Sony for this. I mean how can they sue the company but not the hackers? Sure Sony should have had better security measures installed but the real bad guy are the hackers who caused millions of gamers around the world so much trouble. To top it off when Sony actually announced a rewards program to compensate, people and critics actually made fun it and laughed and called it a lame attempt to just buy our frustration? Grow up, at least they are giving their users something in return, sure what they are giving isn't going to cover that month long agony but still its something rather than just a simple apology.

Sure I might sound a bit sympathetic to Sony but really I am not, I am still just as mad but for the right reasons, not because I am an arrogant jerk who think that services like Playstation Network, Xbox Live or iTunes is merely just a service. It takes people to run and sometimes mistakes happen. We should be a bit more forgiving and lenient.

Who should I blame for this?

So its been officially four days since the Playstation Network went down unexpectedly and still Sony hasn't clarified as of what exactly was the reason of this catastrophic shutdown. I mean I have to go to other gaming sites like Gamespot or IGN. Yet even on their own official site, there's only the usual cryptic messages about network being shut down due to "external intrusion". I mean I am one of those few lucky ones who don't play their games heavily online but still I am pissed off. I admire that they are working around the clock but a few regular updates might be nice enough to calm down the angry playstation users. heck even I would be more sympathetic if I knew exactly what caused this, all I know is that some technical failure or rather someone caused this.

Lucky that my PS3 still plays PS2 games so now I am finally starting off Persona 3 for the third time but I feel really bad who bought games like Portal and Mortal Kombat only to find the network shut down for God knows how long. Well my sympathies to them all and I wish Sony the best of luck. Maybe this is a signal for Sony to try new things or who knows, this could be the bringer of some massive overhauls to the service.

I Finally Answered the Call of Duty.

So, after five long years I decided to give Call of Duty 4 a chance to woo me just like it has so many other gamers. First of all, why did I waited five years to try a game, simply because I just never cared for the series. Sure i love shooters more than any other forms of games, but I just never saw the appeal of the series. I was still having a blast with Resistance: Fall of Man and was lost in the world of Ivalice in FFXII. Then came 2008 and along with it the PS3 version of Bioshock and I never looked back at the CoD series again.

So again, what changed my mind? well my cousin did actually. He saw CoD: Black Ops at his friend's house and begged me to get it for him (he is only 13). At that time, Gamestop was having a buy one get the second one for half off sale and at mere 15 bucks I thought of it as a reasonable purchase. It was one of those purchases that I never really cared about and yet there was a curiosity in me to try this game for so long I have shared my distaste for this series.  See, i like my games with a hint of strong story, with characters that I can invest myself into. That's why I like RPGs so much. Games like Bioshock, God of War, Silent Hill makes me want to know what is going to happen next and frankly its simply because of these reasons I never bothered to buy a Call of Duty game. Not to mention the fact that I really don't like Multiplayer, odd it may sound but i just never bothered with it. Sure i tried my hand at Warhawk, a game i bought only after my friend's insistence and to be honest enjoyed it  very well but besides an occasional deathmatch session I totally ignored it on my games. 

Which became a nightmare for me since nowadays almost every shooter has a multiplayer component, nothing really wrong with it but I started to notice that the single player campaigns of these recent shooters has been placed simply to teach gamers the basics of the game so that they can try their hand at the MP section. These days if I want to play a game with a strong and well crafted story I can't look at shooters anymore except maybe towards the Bioshock series and the upcoming Deus Ex game. 

So now back to Call of Duty 4, I hate to say it but it is a really well made game, mind you though i never really hated the game because it plays bad but rather that it basically could've been a mp only game and it still would have been awesome commercially ans critically. It has this whole Jerry Bruckheimer flavor to the way the game starts and the way you shoot, the 60fps rate. Its all very action movie stuff, but then again, it CoD, so I can't expect Apocalypse Now can I.

So all in all, I liked CoD 4. Sure I will finish the whole single player campaign and might probably will even pick up the Modern Warfare 2 as well but only to see the whole story finish. Though I am pretty sure that my cousin is having a ball right now while I am writing this...oh well.

My First Blog about Nothing.

So this is it, my first blog on Google and I have no Goddamn clue about what to write. I mean seriously, every single time I try to make an account at one of these sites, I start off very excitingly, thinking that maybe this time, i might immerse myself into the world of blogging, might make some new friends/followers and will have a nice dedicated page. But by the time I am on the title page, my steam runs out and I am left just staring at the screen and disgruntled, I simply close the page and moves on. Sure I try to come back once in a blue moon but still I just simply don't feel inspired enough to talk about anything worthwhile. Why? simply because every time I try to write about something, I can't seem to focus and I am afraid that I am not saying anything new that's already been said about it.


For example, before writing this piece, I was thinking of writing something about Apple, My most favorite company that I like that talk badly about. Yes, no matter what Apple does or says, I still can't get to like them. It's not as simple as me not liking them , but rather my distaste of Apple goes a long way, back when my uncle used to own an iMac and he never used to let me touch it. Sure I was still fascinated by it but the fact that I wasn't allowed to touch it or play with in any way seriously bugged me out. But I guess the biggest reason why I never became a big fan of Macs and in general, Apple was that I love Gaming. It's this simple reason that I am a loyal "Microsoftie" ( if that's even a word). I guess that's why that Apple never truly captured my attention the way Microsoft did.


Microsoft gave me Xbox which in return gave me tons of awesome games from Halo to Fables to Doom 3 and so on. What has Apple given to me in terms of gaming that would make me wet my pants with excitement? Nothing. Sure, it is making big headlines in that whole so called, "mobile gaming market" and God I love when some tech gurus talk about the demise of dedicated gaming machines like Nintendo DS and Playstation Portable by the hands of iPhones. Yet they constantly forget to include in the equation people like me, who like their games serious, long and full of high end visuals and a whole lot of neat features, like multiplayer. an average cellphone game cannot do that.


Hey wait a second, I just posted a decent size blog post and in doing so, cleared one thing about myself, that I am an Apple hater. Kudos to me!Well...let's see how well this goes, though i have heard that there's a way to make money out of this by signing myself to a program or something on Google by posting ads on my blog. Hmm...let's see where this goes. Well this is for now and maybe next time I might actually talk about something worthwhile.