RealSuck and Recent Games

RealPlayer is the worst piece of software ever created. Even in its newest, 'sleekest' version, RealPlayer or RealOnePlayer or whatever the fuck it's called is absolute shit. RealVideo and RealAudio, or .rm and .ra files, are totally worthless. Closed source, extremely lo-fidelity, and not worth your time. I remember back in 1998-1999 downloading South Park and anime episodes in .rm format, and even then, the quality was unbearable. Size was small, which was important in the early days of broadband, but jesus christ, with such horrible quality, why bother? The free version of the software is "hidden" on the damned Real.com website, and then after you do install the goddamned thing, it runs wonderful background processes [check for RealSched.exe] and tries to hijack every single media file's association and force you to use RealPlayer to play all your files. Fuck that. The other horrible thing about RealPlayer is the fucking buffering. Even files locally stored on your computer still feel a need to fucking buffer. Maybe that's why this image makes me so damned happy:



The only thing I like about RealPlayer is uninstalling it. What a piece of shit. It's a sad, sad day when I'd much rather get a .wmv file and deal with shitty Windows Media Player. Thank goodness for the phenomenal [and open-source] Media Player Classic, which will play everything without all the damned bloat of players like WMP9 and RealPlayer. It mimics the old WMP 6.4, except streamlined. Free, quick, and lightweight. Gotta love it.

I haven't really talked about video games yet, which is suprising, considering I have a rediculous amount of them. But here are some quick run-downs on what I've been playing.

1. Grand Theft Auto 3 [Xbox]: the freedom and scale of the city are great, but admittedly, the gameplay just feels boring. Sure, I can run around and obliterate everything in sight, but it got old quick.

2. The Simpsons: Hit and Run [Xbox]: this game has the same scale and freedom of GTA3, but it's fun. The excellently crafted world of Springfield totally immerses you into the world of The Simpsons. This one's a lot of fun, and even the 'collecting' aspects of the game are fun to do.

3. Strike Force Bowling [Xbox]: an awful game, but yet, Zack and I played this one into the ground. Computerized bowling...does it get any sadder? Once I figured out how to get a strike every time, I put up a 299 and have never played the game since.

4. UEFA Euro 2004 [Xbox]: a sweet-ass soccer game, based on the namesake tournament going on in Portugal as I write this. All the national squads that make up UEFA are there, and it's fun and worth playing. Better than FIFA 2004, this is the best soccer game I've played to date.

5. ESPN Major League Baseball 2004 [Xbox]: a really fun baseball game, with great ESPN presentation elements, and lots of unlockables. Good game mechanics, and it's truly fun to play.

I'm working on my "Best Albums of the 1st Half of 2004" list, so that should be ready fairly soon. I just need to listen to Modest Mouse and a couple others a little more.