Death

Yesterday was a sad day for my laptop. Poor Vista fought a good fight, but in the end it was not enough. Finally, I put the nail in the coffin and formatted my pains away forever.

Vista was really nice, but now it is even nicer to be writing this on a fresh install of XP Professional. Sadly, a driver conflict and small program errors were enough to sink the entire Vista boat.

Thankfully, after spending a day with XP as opposed to Vista I have come to see just how amazing Vista was. Don’t despair, don’t give up, sometime in the near future Vista will be the operating system to have.

Baseball’s Hall of Fame: Room for supposed steroid users?

My favorite part of baseball does not take place within the actual season, but during the process of voting for new inductees to Cooperstown.

For those who missed it, Rich “Goose” Gossage was the only inductee this year. In his ninth year on the ballot, Gossage received 85.8% percent of possible votes (75% is needed for induction). Longtime nominee Jim Rice missed the cut once again in his 14^th year on the ballot. Mark McGwire managed to only garner about 25% of the total vote in his second year of eligibility.

Frankly, I’m kind of surprised. Though McGwire undoubtedly took steroids, his numbers probably deserve a place in Cooperstown. 583 career home runs merit some sort of spot in my opinion. Let’s not forget that the androstenedione found in McGwire’s locker in 1998 was legal at the time.

The release of the Mitchell Report in December begs the question of how the voters will handle an influx of players that may or may not have taken steroids. Roger Clemens, for instance, would have been a guaranteed first ballot inductee if his name had not been named in the report. Now, Clemens is scrambling to save face and his hall of fame status is in limbo.

If McGwire is any indication, Clemens may just have to wait for a while.

We’re Back: Call of Duty 4 PS3 Review

Sadly for us (and good for our beloved six or so full time readers) GVSU is back in session. Our writing will pick up accordingly.

Our return also marks our first video game review. Though I rarely obtain games on their respective release dates, I hope that our slightly belated reviews will still help those interested in purchasing the game.

I have never been a fan of shooting games. Period. And then I played Halo 3 and Gears of War. Slowly I began to change my opinion of this type of genre.

Call of Duty 4 cemented it.

Playing as the British Special Forces and US Marines the player is deeply immersed into a modern day terrorist-laden storyline that will keep most everyone engaged from beginning to end. Take back control of Russia before the terrorists have their way with the nukes that they have stolen.

As a first time Call of Duty player I was impressed with the entire package, but for sake of the review I will break it down into a couple different sections.

Gameplay: The gameplay is great. Very few games that I have ever played top the amazing realism offered by COD4. The controls are well thought out, and the AI is also very developed. Only on harder difficulty levels does the enemy become insanely difficult to deal with. Though the storyline is rather short (I played through it in less than probably 15 hours on normal) it is very realistic. The replay value is pretty good as well, as the game offers four levels of difficultly.

Visuals: This could go under gameplay, but the visuals on COD4 deserve their own section. The game is easily the most visually stunning one that I’ve ever played. From shadows, to rain, to heat off gun barrels the game recreates everything as if you were actually there. Early on I found myself ducking and twisting like I was actually there.

Multiplayer: This is where the game makes up for its short storyline. The multiplayer is very deep and extremely challenging. Unlike most shooting games, players only appear on radar when they fire weapons. Players are rewarded for doing certain things, and teamwork is very important (which I learned within the first game or so).

Overall, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare would deserve a 9.5 or so out of 10. A longer storyline would have been nice, but the multiplayer more than makes up for it.