What the fuck happened to "True Blood"?

Oh “True Blood”, what the fuck has happened to you? Here you are in your fourth season of existence, and you’re just sucking (no pun intended) so goddamn much these days that I can’t even put it into words anymore. Blasphemy you may say, as the show’s ratings are doing better than ever and the series has achieved a beloved fanbase that rivals another HBO smash hit show that went off the deep end towards the end, “The Sopranos”. Then again, it isn’t all that hard to love a show that features supernatural elements, blood, and Anna Paquin’s tits. That all being said, let’s take a look at what the fuck has happened to “True Blood”…

The first two seasons of the show, the second one in particular, I absolutely loved. For so long I looked at “True Blood” as something along the likes of being something along the sort of a “Twilight”-esque affair, but with balls, blood, tits, and no douche bag metrosexual sparkly vampires. Well…things changed quite heavily in the third season. Werewolves were introduced, which wasn’t so bad (and something I actually looked forward to), but now here we are with fairies, trolls, witches, and other assorted elements of the paranormal fantasy-esque ideas that just drain all the fun out of the show.

That in itself is my biggest pet peeve with “True Blood” today; it just isn’t fun anymore. There was never an assortment of great writing or acting to be featured on the show before, but it had its own brand of charm to it that made it devilishly enjoyable. Now, it’s just ridiculous. What’s next? Are we going to have zombies, giants, and fucking Keebler elves coming out of the woodwork to take on the vamps? Is the whole Eric losing his memory bullshit ever going to be anything but boring? Is Tara ever going to fuck off and die, or what else is she going to become besides a butch lesbian MMA fighter? Seriously, where the fuck else is “True Blood” going to go before it finally completely goes off the deep end?

Now, keep in mind that for a show about vampires existing in the modern world, I don’t expect any brand of realism, but I expect it to be at least fun. As for the books that the show is based upon, I’ve never read a single one, but from what I’ve heard from people that have, they tend to get progressively worse as they go on. With the way that “True Blood” has been going thus far, I think that it’s safe to say that this is a sign of things to come for the show…

…and there’s only so much that blood and Anna Paquin’s tits can do to make up for a progressively shitty TV show.

Duke Nukem Forever is here...for better or worse

Hell has officially froze over…”Duke Nukem Forever” is here…for better or worse.

If you read the reviews surrounding the title (which has spent a decade plus in development), you’d think that it’s the worst video game to come out since “E.T.” on the Atari. As someone who has waited so damn long for this game to come out, I can’t say that I’m not a little disappointed at the end result, but what I can say is that the bad press surrounding it is hardly all that warranted either.

Back in the late 90s (97 I think) when DNF was officially announced, the first person shooter genre was a lot different than it is today. We didn’t have the “Halo” franchise or the numerous “Call of Duty” games, or “Killzone”, or “Resistance”, or “Half-Life”, etc, etc. We had simple yet fun FPS games like “Doom”, “Quake”, and of course, “Duke Nukem 3-D”. From that time until today, where we have the more sophisticated shooters that I already mentioned, things have surely changed, and expectations for DNF, as well as shooters in general, have reached incredibly high heights. I’m not saying it’s unfair to have high hopes for a game that was well-known for being little more than vaporware for the past decade, I’m just saying that there’s no way any hype built around it could really live up to the exceedingly high expectations. Hence the facts that I think the reviewers and press have been a little too harsh on Duke thus far.

On to the game itself, I will admit that it is underwhelming to a degree, and can be quite frustrating. I love the juvenile, dirty humor of the game, because that’s what I was hoping for in a game starring Duke fucking Nukem. Gameplay wise, it often feels like a mish-mash of various shooters that have come and gone since DNF was originally announced. There are puzzle elements that feel like they were ripped right out of “Half-Life 2”. Duke can now only carry two weapons max. He has a regenerating health bar. There’s more features besides that have been adopted by the game that are so featured in every FPS around today that at times it doesn’t feel like a true Duke Nukem game should: i.e., old school shooting fun. The graphics are a mix of bland and boring, but the shooting elements themselves make up for it in my humble fucktard of an opinion. And honestly, I enjoy the game for the most part; minus the tedious driving assignments that is.

What it all comes down to is this: if you’ve become so used to how big-budget games like “Halo” and the “Call of Duty” series are, you won’t like “Duke Nukem Forever”, so it’d be best for you to steer clear. If you want an enjoyable dirge however and wind up not paying too much for it and want to kill some brain cells, I say check the fucker out.

Like I said before, I’d still take this over Call of Duty 25: Modern Warfare 12 in Space with Zombies or whatever installment they’re at now.