Modern Music: A Laugh!

Your man, Sir Simon Milligan, comin' atcha with a bit of commentary about the state of modern pop music. I'm sad to say that modern pop music exists, and that it is most likely here to stay. I'm happier to say that some of it may actually be worth listening to.

No, seriously. Two songs come to mind, and I ask that you come to them with an open mind.

Rihanna- We Found Love
Rihanna's public troubles with ex-boyfriend Chris Brown are now the stuff of legend and TMZ-prized snuff. She was abused, the relationship was hard, etc. Until now, we've never had an opportunity to know anything but the bad. Rihanna has put together a video that shows the good behind the public circus that her relationship became. Through over-the-top (yet effective) symbolism, Rihanna shows that she was in a relationship that provided what she needed, but at too high a cost. A heartfelt, devastating video that can only be experienced to be fully appreciated.

LMFAO- Sexy and I Know It
These party dudes have made no bones about their goals. They want to get drunk, party, and have sex with attractive women. While they certainly get props for referencing "The Godfather" in one of their songs ("I'm runnin' through these hoes like Fredo..." That shit is brilliant.), their crowning achievement to date is the song "Sexy and I Know It." This song is of the YouTube age, simply because one might be misled listening to the song, thinking it was serious. The video shows DJ Redfoo working out, walking into bars sans shirt, and generally acting like he's in good shape, where he's clearly not much to look at. Brilliant! DJs Redfoo and Sky Blu have joined the ranks of Spike Jones and PDQ Bach as mocking, very effectively, the music that allowed them to exist. This is clearly the end stage of pop music. Once LMFAO stop making music, we can simply go back to our humdrum lives

A hilarious comic by me

Modern Warfare 3: Suck It Russians

Recently, we here at the Smoking Nerd had the opportunity to get our hands on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Infinity Ward's latest and greatest installment to the Modern Warfare series. Thanks to our good buddy at the local Family video establishment, we were able to play through most of the game's modes a whopping four days before the official release, and I feel ahead of schedule as I've beaten the campaign and the game hasn't even launched. Overall, the game was great, as we knew it would be, and I am in the unique position of being able to pump up the rest of you for the offical launch on Tuesday. I'll try to keep spoilers out of the article, but let's just say crazy shit goes down on numerous occasions, involving all of our favorite ass-kickers, Price, Soap, Nikolai, and the new guy Yuri (who isn't as new on the MW scene as he may seem...). We didn't get to play around with the multiplayer as we didn't want to risk banishment from the servers, but in addition to the campaign we also got to play the new survival mode and some of the special ops levels.

The special ops mode in MW2 was a great new addition to the game, and the special ops in MW3

continues the legacy of awesomeness. There are a total of sixteen missions that are divided into groups of four based on difficulty. The missions themselves are fun, but as in MW2, trying to do them as fast a possible is where the real fun is going to happen. You can take these missions on solo or co-op, and you still earn stars for each mission based on how well you do. The new mode, survival, seems to be Infinity Ward's contribution to the wave based game mode craze that has been sweeping through shooter ranks in the last few years. Much like Nazi Zombies in Treyarch's Call of Duty games, or Horde in Gears of War 2/3, survival sends a number of waves your way, with "boss" waves every ten, and the occasional helicopter wave. Luckily, they don't send you into endless battle without the proper equipment. There are weapons, equipment, and air strike crates in each level that allow you to buy and upgrade the guns of your choice to allow for the most efficient bad guy destruction. Unlike the buy-off-the-map style gun purchases in Horde and Nazi Zombies, you can actually use the guns you want, when you want, as long as you've earned enough money, and upgrade them to your specific play style. Spec ops and survival are great alternative play options, and will steal countless hours of my life in the future I'm sure.

The main part of the game that we looked at in this super sneak preview was the campaign. Without wanting to divulge too many of the game's secrets and twists, I cansay that the campaign is rife with the betrayals, heroics, and badassness that we have come to expect from the Modern Warfare franchise over the years. The campaign takes you all over the world, and one of the best early game sequences involves the operators fighting out onto the floor of the New York Stock exchange. Other awesome battle settings include African slums full of pissed off militias, under the Eiffel Tower in Paris, and inside a hijacked and stalling airliner among others. The size of the campaign is about the size of the other MW campaigns, and I was able to finish the entire thing in about five and half hours. The graphics haven't changed much since the last MW, but that isn't nesessarily a bad thing. The game was full of stunning laandscapes to fight across, the best of which, in my opinion, were the skyscraper-city scenes. Modern Warfare is not shy about taking the fight to the streets of America, and they tear New York apart in this game. The enviroment seems to be a little more destructible that in previous games, which is an imhem provement, but didn't get me as giddy as Battlefield 3's destruction potential does. The AI also seems to be a bit better in the campaign, as there were less whack-a-mole moments as you sit and wait for an enemies head to predictably pop out of cover. However, the enemies do seem the have the uncanny ability to always know where you are and only shoot at you even though you may be surrounded by allies. This wasn't always the case but was noticable. Your allies can and will be lost as you progress through the game, but they will be replaced by other generically named soldiers. Plot characters can't die, unless they're supposed to, so sticking near them is often a good idea, or essential.

Overall, the gmae was everything I expected it to be. I don't know if Infinity Ward could have possibly made a bad MW game at this point; just sticking to the formula and continuing the plot could have guaranteed them at least a good game. However, they eally made MW3 stand out from the others in a number of ways, from survival mode to the amazing visuals and fights in the campaign. The multiplayer remains uncharted territory, but with the rest of the game looking so good, I can only expect great things.

Smoking Nerd Score

Presentation- 9.0

Like all the Modern Warfare games, MW3 gives the player a fantastic combat experience from the main menu to the credits and beyond.

Graphics- 8.5

There were a few moments during the game when I noticed some patters were slow to load or remained fuzzy for too long. I also noticed numerous instances of the old limb sticking out of wall situation. This is made up for, however, by the stunning settings and environments the game takes you through.

Sound- 8.5

The firefights and effects sound awesome, and they lay off the army cliches so common in military shooters. This score would probably be a nine if my speakers didn't suck.

Gameplay- 9.0

What's not to love about awesome settings, super fun game modes, and a huge arsenal with which to destroy the evil Russians?

Replay Value- 9.0

MW3 could have some of the best replay value in recent memory, with an awesome campaign to beat, online multiplayers modes, as well as spec ops AND the new survival mode.

Overall SN score 9/10....Awesome

Halloween May Be Gone but the Scares Continue

   I love Halloween. I mean I'm a college kid and let me tell you the girls are cute and wearing less then they would at the beach and the drinking is at a...well a medium really. For those concerned I am of legal age (now). Anyway another Halloween has come and gone and I will make due with the copious amounts of nerdy scary movies that exist in the world. Here is a personal list of what I consider the nerdiest of the horror genre. Granted just being into horror movies is pretty nerdy in the first place but I digress.

1. Gremlins (1984)

   I have loved gremlins from an early age. I was born in 1989 so I can only assume I saw it at around 5 or 6. Christmas and horror are just a great combination, no one expects bad stuff to happen at Christmas. Plus you start with a racist interpretation of a Chinese man in a mystic sundry shop selling a mysterious troll of some kind. Only we soon realize it's a freaking adorable Mogwai later named Gizmo (pictured to the right). But he comes with these seemingly inane rules (Something about only feeding them water at midnight? I'm sure its not important).  Which ,because the protagonist is a young lad, he is doomed to break. They turned into less adorable green trolls and cause havoc killing people around town until they conquer the town in gangster fashion. The cute mogwai saves the day and it ends with the people you care about living, good times all around.

2. Aliens (1986)

   Bombastic space marines with crazy futuristic weapons fighting off hundreds of Xenomorphs? Count me in. It starts with crazy awesome futuristic technology keeping a woman alive for 57 years continues into a fusion reactor plant meant to terraform the planet that is infested with xenomorphs. A bunch of the marines die and they find a girl named after an amphibian of some kind. It ends with a fight between a giant xenomorph queen and a bad ass Ripley wearing an exoskeleton. If they asked me what I would have wanted to see in an sci-fi horror movie (using some kind of time travel)  I would never have come up with something that awesome. Game over man...game over.

3. Predator (1987)

    Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ritually Homicidal Humanoid, A guy named Dillon, And inter species bare knuckle boxing. Nough. Said.

4. Alien (1979)

    One of the scariest movies of my youth and truly terrifying it was. It starts off with this cool futuristic space ship which is apparently DOS based and the cool awakening of the crew from cool frozen sleeping pods. Then they go to an alien planet with an alien spaceship that is warning people away from it but the evil company wants whats in there. How they slowly learn what the thing is that wrapped itself around the face of the British guy who then has a Xenomorph burst out of his chest is very interesting and increasingly frightening. Pair that with a psychotic synthetic human named Ash who truly admires the alien and you got a recipe for sci-fi terror awesomeness.





5. The Thing (1982)

       An alien monster that can disguise itself as other creatures as well as grotesque combinations of all those lifeforms it consumed. I haven't seen the prequel yet but I've heard pretty good things. Frozen space ships and ancient all devouring alien of unspeakable origin that causes a descent into paranoia amongst the research team. No one can trust anyone but must rely on others anyway its both legitimately scary due to a roaming monster that wants to kill you as well as deep psychological terror because anyone could be the alien. I love The Thing its one of my favorite scary movies of all time.

   I love scary movies and while Halloween may be over the movies are still there to watch and terrify me. So check these out if you haven't already (if that's the case I don't think your reading the right blog) and thank me later

Nerds Do It Better