Triggered: Segregation today! Segregation tomorrow! Segregation forever!

The following contains:
- Scathing socio-political commentary
- Liberal use of Profanity
- Copious amounts of sarcasm
- No giving of fucks for your feelings
- No giving of fucks for you safe space

Segregation today! Segregation tomorrow! Segregation forever!
    - George Wallace

You know, when I was a kid and I saw this asshole saying this bullshit in documentaries, I just laughed at him. Like "haha look at this asshole, Everything's moving away from that kind of ignorant driven racism, and now he's just a kind of social dinosaur from a less enlightened era."

At least that's what I thought when I was a kid back in the '90s (fuck I miss the '90s...).

Fast forward to some 20 something years into the future from my childhood I see this fucking bullshit.

Segregated housing will now be available to black students at California State University Los Angeles as a means of combating “microaggressions” and “racially insensitive remarks.”

Maybe that Wallace asshole wasn't making a declaration, maybe he was making a prediction or a prophesy. That segregation would continue to be implemented rather him perpetuating it from office.
Now before I proverbially wail on Black Lives Matter and the regressive left as a whole once again, let me put it out there that I'm against this kind of thing for every race, unless there's some kind of traditional living aspect to the arrangement. It defeated the whole point of college as an intellectual space unless there's a educational aspect to it rather than yet another bullshit "safe space". Though I could be persuaded to go along with separate housing for students from overseas.

THIS is what I think of your "safe space", I will blast that shit from orbit!

CSU LA did try to justify this fuckery by saying

The Halisi Scholars Black Living-Learning Community is designed to enhance the residential experience for students who are a part of or interested in issues of concern to the black community living on campus by offering the opportunity to connect with faculty and peers, and engage in programs that focus on academic success, cultural awareness, and civic engagement....

...This living-learning community focuses on academic excellence and learning experiences that are inclusive and non-discriminatory. This community is open to all students.

I don't buy this shit and here's why.

WE DEMAND the creation and financial support of a CSLA housing space delegated for Black students and a full time Resident Director who can cater to the needs of Black students.
Many Black CSLA students cannot afford to live in Alhambra or the surrounding area with the high prices of rent. A CSLA housing space delegated for Black students would provide a cheaper alternative housing solution for Black students. This space would also serve as a safe space for Black CSLA students to congregate, connect, and learn from each other. (italics mine)

"Safe space for Black CSLA students". University admin can try to spin it all they want, that this housing project is inclusive and non-discriminatory, but the ones that demanded this housing to begin with have flat out said in their demands that this is to serve as a "safe space". It is a "safe space" for Black students, where Black students can connect and learn from other Black students.

So, translating SJW-speak to contemporary English vernacular, what they really mean is this.

Sure maybe they're du jure non-discriminatory, but I got five on it, that it's de facto segregation. I never though I would ever see this, but we have come full circle to the point now where the "coloreds" are demanding segregation. Doesn't that go against everything that people like Martin Luther King Jr. fought for? These the very people that Malcolm X referred to as "zombies" after his tours in North Africa.

This also goes against what Malcolm X preached in that these Blacks are demanding that the same government he said was unwilling/incapable of protecting it's Black citizens, fix their problems. MLK Jr. dreamed of a world where character mattered not skin color. Malcolm X preached for a strong Black community that stood on it's own strength.

This goes completely against everything the Civil Rights movement of the '60s and '70s were pushing for. Not only that, but it continues to go against the entire point of going to college. The point of going to college is to further develop your views and to refine your skills and pick up new ones. How do you develop your views? You learn from other views and you have your existing views challenged by opposing views. Those challenges come from both the academic sphere, political sphere and social sphere.

But now we have this segment of the population that sees challenge as a "microaggression" (yes I use Urban Dictionary since in many instances, the contemporary social definition is different from the academic definition). Society raised up this fragile society of kids told that they were special from day fucking one, and given awards and trophies just for fucking showing up with a pulse and brain activity. It's kind of like some warp, twisted and fucked up version of when Mr. Rogers would tell children they're special in their own way. That's true and what he meant by that was everyone had something they were good at, everyone had something going for them, and everyone could achieve what they set out to do. Instead we now have this view of "being special" as being put up on a pedestal. The result is this segment of a generation that can't handle being told they're wrong. Instead these people blow everything out of proportion and have to cry about every little fucking thing that does completely conform to their own specific world view (funny enough that's also the same reason why you see regressive leftists frequently eat each other).

Where this particular rabbit hole takes us is to a bizzaro realm where supposed adults in society require "safe spaces" because they are unable to function in society. They can't handle being told they're wrong, and therefore not special, after being put up on a special pedestal all their sheltered lives. But because they've been held up on a pedestal all their lives and told that their feelings matter and constantly asked how something made them feel (giving the false impression that people like me, and the world at large, give a shit about their feelings) they're also not equipped to handle a challenge to their believes, and are unable to think analytically. They are unable (but not incapable, they just don't know how) to form a solid Aristotelian argument, and instead fall back to screaming and running away when confronted with an opposing view.

Ultimately where we end up is here, with these people demanding the return of segregation. Demanding compartmentalization of society to levels unseen since we had feudalism and a class system. The left has gone so far to the left that they have gone full circle and have become the right. Did that asshole George Wallace foresee this? Is this what he meant by "Segregation forever!"

And this is why I hate SJWs so fucking much. This false progressivism does nothing more than to push a weakness of character. A community, a society is only as strong as it's weakest member, and this regressive (I'm not going to dirty the name of Theodore Roosevelt by associating these weak, overly sensitive and generally pathetic people with his Progressive Party.) movement rejects intellectual discourse in exchange for both emotional coddling and this sort of social feudalism with a social classes based, not upon wealth and birth status, but rather on perceived levels of victimhood. Or maybe it's more appropriately called a victimhood based caste system. A system where the more victimhood/oppression points you can tally up, the higher the class/caste you belong to. Rather than being someone who can take on the world, what SJWs push for instead creates people so weak that they demand that the world adjust to their fragile sensibilities. Rather than taking on and overcoming ever challenge life has to throw at them, the regressive leftist expect someone else to make that obstacle go away for them. As someone who's completed a Juris Doctris I would LOVE to see one of these SJWs in the first month of law school, they would literally be eaten alive by their professors and their non-SJW peers. Professors will not let up on you no matter now much you cry "oppression" and "microaggression". NO ONE gives a fuck about feelings in your law school work. You are straight FUCKED if all you can do is spout off SJW buzzwords and can't form an argument advocating for one side.

This whole victimhood thing is nothing more than an extension of the special snowflake mindset. This happened to me, therefore that makes me special. It's the same shit as the self-centered woman who decides to be a mom just to parade around her trophy kid to attract more attention to herself by saying "hey look at ME, I'M a mom!". When people stop treating them special as they grow older, they go find some other reason to make themselves special, and they do this by making themselves a "victim" of something. They're essentially saying "look at ME! Something bad happened to ME so you have to be nice to ME!" Just like that fucktard Bonita Tindle who thought some random White guy with dreadlocks was "oppressing" her. Most people probably wouldn't give two-shits about her if she was just Bonita Tindle, but people will listen to and give special treatment to "Bonita Tindle the victim of racism!" Speaking of that moron, I wonder if she changed her name to something like "Binata Kalejayie" given that "Bonita" is a name of Latin and therefore southern European origins, and the surname of "Tindle" is of Scottish origin, therefore she is appropriating two European cultures with her name.

Worse yet, these same fucktards actively work to roll back the real progress made in society. It took Ike deploying the National Guard to get the dominoes falling to set the stage for Brown v. Board of Education. It took the work of MLK Jr. and all his supporters to bury Jim Crow, and yet here we are, with a minority group, demanding the return of the same Jim Crow segregation, under a softer sounding name. maybe I ought to call it James Crowe?

I mean seriously just look at this shit, look at this shit and just marvel at the sheer madness of this. The regressive left like to constantly harangue the rest of society over what year it is (yeah I know it's two-thousand-fucking-sixteen, I actually paid attention to math class instead of crying over how sexist math is.)  and yet here we are, 20-fucking-16 and the same regressive leftists are calling for segregation like it's 1963 all over again. As a kid and a teenager I never thought I'd see anything other than some of the more psychotic White supremacist fringe elements calling for a return to segregation, and yet here we fucking are, with a minority group that was heavily discriminated under segregation, calling for the return of segregation. Only now they do it under the pretense of establishing a "safe space". Well what in the fuck did you think "Whites Only" places were shit-for-brains?! They were "safe spaces" for White people. What, it's fucked up when White people do it but not for you?

Fuck this shit, this shit gets the blood pressure up, next post will probably be another retro review, maybe Parasite Eve.

"Leftovers from the Dreams of the Strong": Retro Review, Xenogears

Overall Score: 4.8

B++

Gameplay: 5
At first glance Xenogears looks like the typical SquareSoft JRPG fare of the time period. Largely menu based gameplay, where you give commands to your characters during battles and what not. It might even seem a little more limited since unlike Final Fantasy VII, Xenogears doesn't have a tower defense style sub-quest, nor does it have Suikoden II's turn-based tactics-style army battles.

Though what is present in Xenosaga that isn't in the other two games I'd mentioned is a platforming element in the towns and dungeons where the player has the ability to jump around, showcasing the game's 3D environment and adding more places where game developers are able to place/hide rare items. On the down side though, expect to get lost more often than you would in the other games, since being able to rotate the camera can be a little bit disorienting in some locations. Additionally this also has some frustrating platforming sections, though nothing that can't be overcome with a little bit of patience.

The main thing that sets Xenogears apart from the other JRPG's of the era are of course, the titular Gears, giant Gundam-like mechs that can be summoned by the player. Though unlike the Summons of Final Fantasy, which up until Final Fantasy X, were largely glorified super-attacks, the player actually takes control of their Gears the same way they would control the character on foot. The Gears even come with their own "limit break" attacks, when their Attack Level reaches Infinity. This system is essentially the forerunner to FFX's Aeon system, and the obvious direct ancestor to Xenosaga's (more on THAT relationship later) AGWS and AMWS combat systems.

Combat also differs from the Final Fantasy and Suikoden line, in that instead of simply selecting an attack to perform from a menu, the player actually has to input commands in the same manner as Tekken or Soul Blade/Caliber, by pressing specific buttons in a particular order (i.e. X,X,[],O), as mentioned this also applies to combat in the Gears.

Exploration is done both on foot and on-board Gears, within "Gear dungeons". Though for the most part there is little difference in terms of gameplay between the on-foot dungeons and the Gear dungeons. The world map can be explored on foot, aboard Gears or aboard the Yggdrasil which evolves from sand cruiser, to submarine, to air-ship.

Along with the regular gameplay, the game also has a few mini-games. One is essentially the card game Speed. This plays a bit clunky, needing to use the D-pad to select the cards. If a remake was ever made on PS4, the PS4's touchpad or motion controls may alleviate this issue. The other mini-game, is 8-way-run (think Soul Caliber) 3D fighting game where you, and even a second player, can select various Gears and monsters from the game and go head to head against each other. For what it is, it's actually pretty impressive. The generic random encounter Gears like the Hatamoto's and Eagles have as high a level of detail as the main character Gears like Weltall. The gameplay in this mode is pretty smooth and the hit detection is pretty spot on. It plays very much like Koei's Destrega, though there's no boundaries, like StarFox 64, the area just kind of loops and you can run "forever", which prompted one of my favorite taunts from an Eminem song, "Don't try to run from me, you'll just make it worse!"

Given that the game plays well on the OG PS1 digital controller, along with the menu based interface, the game will likely play well on a touchscreen interface.

Graphics and visuals: 4.5
On one hand, I wouldn't say the game really pushes what the PS1 can do the way FFVII and FFVIII did in terms of character and environment graphics, but the modeling of the Gears is easily on par with the 3D modeling of the aircraft in Ace Combat 3.

The graphics and visuals are fully 3D, both the character models and the environment, and you can rotate the camera the full 360 degree for the most part. The game does this all in a smooth manner with little graphical tearing, flickering or other glitches. The animation of the Gears doesn't look weird and clunky.

Overall the quality of the graphics is largely what one would expect out of SquareSoft in the mid to late '90s.

I will say this though, of the anime style cut scenes. While visually they were very good for their time (the opening movie still holds up today) the English voice dub was easily the worst I have ever seen (Hell Reba West's butchering of Lynn Minmay is still a better job than this). While the opening movie was done decently, the dubbing for the rest of the cut scenes was badly off sync and sounded like they were phoned in. Given that the same year Xenogears came out, Trigun and Outlaw Star came out, and Macross Plus in 1995, three series with decent English dub work, there's just no excuse for the horrible dubbing done in Xenogears. It would have been better had they left the Japanese audio and just subtitled it.

I have to knock half a point off for the dubbing, because while at first it doesn't seem like a big deal, but it really detracts from the experience, when you have an emotionally heavy event happening in the plot, then a cut scene comes on with the comically bad dubbing, it can affect the overall immersion in the game's plot.


Stability: 5
Playing this game since about 1999, I can't ever recall any major show stoppers. I can't recall encountering any major freezes or crashes, nor any save or load issues. Again, the build quality of the game is what one would have expected from SquareSoft's golden era.


Plot: 4.5
The plot follows the format of "the Hero's journey" (think Luke Skywalker in Star Wars Epi. IV), you have the main protagonist Fei (an amnesiac), who is forced to leave his secluded hometown due to a particular incident, and along his way he's accompanied/looked after by the town doctor who's quite familiar with the ways the outside world works.

As the plot moves on, Fei meets a rather colorful cast of characters that fate had decided to put together on the same road. His companions range from deposed Crown Prince turned sand pirate/rebel Bart, to an AWOL solder from a Waffen-SS like military organization named Elly, to a mutated demi-human "Battling Champion" (think UFC) Rico.

The cast of villains is no less colorful from the enigmatic and manipulative Miang, to the Machiavellian puppet master Krellian, and even the Darth Vader-esque Grahf. And there are certainly plenty of main and minor antagonists.

No... I am your fa- oh wait, wrong sci-fi series. 

As the story goes on, the player will get hit with one plot twist out of nowhere after another, eventually learning that the villains aren't what they seem on the surface. Eventually, the player learns how the events in the opening movie are connected to the game.

The plot of the game is very engaging, and as with Suikoden II it's paced like a well written novel. As mentioned earlier, there's quite a myriad of villains, but the way the plot is done, introduces them and fleshes them all out in a way that it doesn't seem like a "monster of the week" sort of thing. Each villain and their motivations are developed and fleshed out and most of them aren't black and white individuals. Half of them aren't even all that bad when you think about it, as you play though the game. And that's the point where the game's plot shines, as the writers in Suikoden II were able to do, the writers here where also able to integrate elements of human drama without doing it in a heavy handed manner. You as the player will come to sympathize with some of the villains and why they're doing what they're doing (most of them have motivations that have nothing to do with serving/believing in the Big Baddie, aka "God" at the end) while on the same token Fei finds out the hard way that some of his allies haven't been exactly 100% up front with him and keeping him in a sort of "need to know" basis.

Though the plot isn't all dry and serious, there are points of humor sprinkled in. One character, at first appears as nothing more than stuffed animal, but is actually a living creature with a child-like level of intelligence. A minor plot arc that leads to Fei being rescued by a salvage ship with a colorful crew of demi-humans who's half-walrus captain proclaims them to be "Men! Of the Sea!" (yes that's how he says it) starts out with Bart's penchant of shooting first and confirming his target second leading him to shoot down an aircraft that Fei had commandeered. While removed as a playable character, in the Perfect Works Marguerite is shown to have a Gundam-style bazooka, a pair of hand grenades and a sickle-like blade hidden beneath her cloak. There are also less dark but still deep scenes, like one where Fei goes along with Emeralda, an artificial human made from nanomachines, on a walk down memory lane and at the end some systems trigger within her that causes her to age from a young teen to a young adult, she "grows up.

The plot of game draws a lot from Abrahamic mythology with references to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam scattered around the game, with the last boss constantly referred to as "God" (no it's the real God of course). This cause a rather humorous tantrum to be thrown by the Christian Right in the US and an attempt by a segment of them to get the game banned over the fact that you "kill" God at the end.

Where I had to knock off a half a point was in Disk 2. Due to the up coming Final Fantasy VIII, staff and budget were pulled from the Xenogears project and it showed in Disk 2. Where as Disk 1 played like your typical JRPG, being able to go just about anywhere you want and play the game at your own pacing. Disk 2 pretty much got a less butchered treatment than Ace Combat 3's Western release did. In contrast to the previous part of the game, Disk 2 now takes on a linear, episodic format, taking the player's hand and walking them though the rest of the plot, rather than letting the player experience it at their own pace.

Rather than free roaming, the plot of Disk 2 is presented in this narrator segments told by various main characters. 

Most egregious of all though, was the sheer amount of cut content that resulted from this. Two of the playable characters did not get the intended upgrades to their Gears (though the game was coded to boost their parameters to keep up, so this is largely a cosmetic thing) the result being the removal of these quests and therefore less character development for these two. In addition, several locations were either greatly reduced or cut all together. While their removal doesn't have too big of a negative impact on the overall main plot, it does leave the player feeling like something is missing. If Square-Einx really wants to make their fans happy, they'll release an HD update to Xenogears with all the cut content re-introduced. Call it, Xenogears: Definitive Edition or something.


Music and art style: 5
The soundtrack is, again, of the same quality that one would expect out from Square. The music was composed by Yasunori Mitsuda, the style is more instrumental and has more of a classical feel to it. In a sense it was pretty common for RPG music of the time period, though that isn't a knock against the music.

The musical tracks are also varied with a 44 track OST. With tracks ranging from festive "Aveh, Ancient Dance" that serves as Bledavik's theme to the foreboding "Grahf, Emperor of Darkness"to the upbeat military march "Leftovers from the Dreams of the Strong" that serves as Bart's theme. Xenogear's soundtrack certainly stands with the works put forth by Nobuo Uematsu for FFVII and FVIII.

The art style for Xenogears is extremely varied, ranging from characters who wear stereotypical martial arts garb, ones clad in a more roguish and flashy outfit. Landscapes range from ruins that resemble our contemporary Earth, to clean, sterile futuristic structures. One major city Aveh, is located in the middle of the desert and has a kind of Laurence of Arabia feel to it, while it's rival city Nortune has a very gritty and industrial, steam-punk feel to it with various soot belching smoke stacks around the metalic city. While in contrast to both of them, locations in the futuristic city Etrenank look less like a city and more like a lab.

Imperial Capital Nortune, yeah that big red thing in the middle of the city totally isn't some kind of battleship. 

Royal Capital Bledavik market place

Someone's house in the Imperial Capital Etrenank, hey that girl looks familiar...

The designs of all the Gears are varied, with each of the player Gears having their own unique look, with the female characters having Gears with a more feminine look to them. The Gears of the various countries also have their own styling to them. Kislev and Aveh gears are bulkier with a more rounded look to them, where as the more advanced Solaris Gears have a leaner more angular look to them, that make them look like something that could have come out of MS Gundam's Earth Federation Space Force's arsenal. The design variance also take another step up with the more powerful Omnigears. In contrast to the standard Gears which have a clear mechanical styling, the Omnigears instead have an organic look to them.

Citan Uzuki's standard Gear

Citan Uzuki's Omnigear

The Hatamoto Gear of the Kislev Army

The EFSF's RGM-1... oh wait, this is Solaris's Eagle Gear.

Elly's Gear Vierge

Emeralda's Gear Crecents

There are also influences from outside media. The massive Gear Seibzehn bears resemblance to Giant Robo and to a lesser extent Gundam Wing's OZ-00MS Tallgeese mobile suit. The massive battleship sized Gear "Super Dimensional Gear Yggdrasil IV" is an obvious nod to the SDF-01 Macross battleship of SDF Macross. Even the Yggdrasil IV's overall layout is vaguely similar to the Macross, and the Gear is first encountered in a cruiser form, sitting in the middle of a city, the same way the Macross is first seen, as a recently restored battleship, sitting in the middle of a city. Like the Macross, the Yggdrasil IV comes armed with a large scale heavy cannon, and uses it's arms to smash targets.

Super Dimensional Fortress-01 Macross

Though it isn't just the machines and locations that come in a wide variety, the people of this particular planet come in a variety as well. As mentioned it isn't just humans that reside on this planet, but there are also various demi-humans. Ranging from Rico who looks like Blanka from Street Fighter to various other's who seem to be hybrids with other animals.

The "Sea Captain", I always read this guy's dialog in the voice of the Sea Captain from The Simpsons. 

Minor antagonist Seraphita looks to be part rabbit.

Yggdrasil sonar operator Franz is obviously a dolphin demi-human

Overall, the music and the art style make for a varied experience. If the plot and the gameplay are the meat of the Xenogear's gaming experience, then the music and the art style are the prefect mix of seasonings applied to the meat in the perfect amount.


Final Verdict: Must Buy
Despite the game's short-comings, the game itself still provides an experience that post-PS2 has become largely unheard of. Since the PS2 there has been few traditional JRPGs that offer an experience of the same caliber. On Amazon the game can be had used for as low as $35.51 (way less than Suikoden II's $100+ price tag). Or you could go for a digital copy from the PlayStation Store for $9.99.

Spoilers and speculation ahead. 

Like I said, I'd get into the relationship between Xenogears and Xenosaga. 

On a final note with the plot, there is a fan theory going around that Xenogear's relation to Xenosaga is that Xenogears takes place in one of the many timelines that Wilhelm of Xenosaga had rewound with the Zarathustra though Eternal Recurrence.

The relation between Xenogears and the later Xenosaga can pretty much be described as "It's complicated". The staff behind Xenogears has left SquareSoft around '99 or '00, and gone to Namco to form their own development studio MonoSoft, which ended up being bought by Nintendo. 

Xenosaga has been labeled as a "spiritual successor" to Xenogears. But it could be more than just that. There is an argument to be made supporting the theory that Xenogears is a previous timeline. The main idea behind Wilhelm's Eternal Recurrence is that it results in people having to relive their lives with each reset (though think of it less as repeating and more as redoing). The events of Xenosaga appear to parallel the back story of Xenogears presented in the Perfect Works. 

- Xenogears and Xenosaga use the same calendar (Transending Christ). 

- In both games, a mysterious object of unknown origin was found on Earth. 

- After the object was found Earth became inaccessible, forcing humanity off the planet in both games. 

- Both games see a interplanetary federal government (Star Cluster Federation, and the Galactic Federation respectively) with their capitals established on a planet named after Jerusalem. 

-Both games have said Federation mired in a massive war. 

The Perfect Works is unclear as to who the Federation is engaged in war with, but in Xenosaga we see the Federation in conflict with a human faction in the Ormus Church and against the trans-dimensional Gnosis aliens. 

Given that whole planets have been turned into Gnosis in Xenosaga, and given that Deus was constructed as a "planetary invasion weapon" to be used as the Star Cluster Federation's trump card in a war, it's very much a possibility that Deus (the final boss of the Xenogears and a biological super-weapon developed by the Federation) was a strategic level anti-Gnosis weapon to be deployed against Gnosified planets in a previous timeline.

Alternately given that Deus has "living" characteristics, the major role played by a person carrying the Uzuki name in relation to this living weapon, and the very human appearance and characteristics of KOS-MOS along with the fact that KOS-MOS carries Mary Magdeline's soul (therefore KOS-MOS could be considered to be "living" as well), an argument could also be made that KOS-MOS, is the Deus of another timeline. As mentioned earlier, Eternal Recurrence has the effect of making a person re-live their life, but nothing is said of that life being relived in the same way. In Xenogears we have a man named Uzuki, who works closely with an artificial human and extension of the Deus System who takes the form of a man named Cain. Xenosaga sees the advanced weapon system code-named KOS-MOS being completed by a woman by the name of Uzuki, who subsequently works very closely with KOS-MOS. Additionally, both Deus and KOS-MOS went berserk during their initial start-ups and people died as a result, but where as Deus was a strategic weapon that destroyed a whole planet and was shelved, KOS-MOS was a tactical weapon who only destroyed her lab, and since the damage was only small scale, the Federation continued on with the project. 

While the timing of events doesn't seem to line up, with the events of Xenosaga happening in 14,767 TC and Wilhelm making his attempt to once again trigger Eternal Recurrence in 4768 TC. It can be implied that in each instance of Eternal Recurrence that the conscienceness dispersal that prompts Wilhelm to trigger Eternal Recurrence to save the universe makes gets worse and worse, and could mean that Wilhelm is having to trigger the Recurrence sooner and sooner each time. 

Xenogears could even be the "original" timeline. As we see the Wave Existence (Xenogears), a higher dimensional being got pulled into the Zohar during an experiment, and we see U-do (Xenosaga), also a higher dimension wave existence, interested in observing the Lower Domain universe that humans inhabit. It could be that U-Do's interest came about from it's complete or partial, or that of another wave existence, being pulled into Xenogear's Zohar. Additionally, one of the U-do's "observational terminals" in our Lower universe is perceived by humans as a young boy, a young boy who has a suspicious resemblance to an young Fei. This could be explained that because Fei had come in contact with the Wave Existence, that his likeness was the most familiar, or the one imprinted on to U-do and was the form that was used "later". As Recurrence doesn't affect U-do, it would still have knowledge of Fei if it was one and the same as the Wave Existence. 

Xenogears, the Gear, was one of Deus's "mobile terminals" essentially it served the same role as a fighter craft aboard a carrier. In Xenosaga, developed along side the Federation's ultimate weapon Merkaba, was the Gear like AMWS called Omega Universitas, Universitas bears a strong resemblance to Weltall with a face similar to Alpha/True Weltall. Lastly the "Weltall" is German for "universe". 

All this rolled together could be used to argue that the similarities between the two games are more than just homages and cameos, but instead are incarnations and counterparts living their lives over and over, but in a different manner, like making a different decision at the same crossroad. 

So this one football player didn't want to stand up, and a bunch of people lost their shit.

I'm largely neutral on the matter, actually, that probably isn't exactly true. If anything I'm completely baffled about this whole thing.

We have this video that's made the rounds.

Don't hear much about the killing that Mrs. Hubbard brings attention to. No national outrage. And then a football player decides not to stand up and the internet and society lights the fuck up over it? Really? Maybe it's because I never really cared about any of these 'ball sports but I don't really see why the words of some guy who makes a living tossing around a ball gets more weight than anyone else's.

Lets get something straight first, I'm not saying he should shut-up. Far from it, he has the right to stay seated under the 1st Amendment. What I'm saying is, that he's full of shit, and that I'm completely baffled over all the attention he gets.

Now why do I think he's full of shit? Well what would he know about what goes down on the streets? What makes him qualified to speak for other Blacks and People of Color (which includes me). He gets paid millions just to throw around a lopsided ball, he doesn't even have a real job (I know I'm going to catch shit for that one, but I don't consider being a professional athlete to be a real job any more than I considering being a professional gamer to be a real job.). He's the elite of society, up there at the top. I look at him as no different that the ivory tower dwellers in academia, his tower might not be ivory but he's up in a tower none-the-less.

I also doubt his sincerity, since how long has the Black Lives Matter movement been going on? And only now, when there's talk of him getting cut from the team, that he pulls this stunt? You ask me he's only doing this to draw attention to himself, and to kick up controversy if he does get kicked from the team. He can claim that he got the boot from the team because he didn't stand up for the anthem, not because he was under performing.

The real kicker is when I see Colin wearing a shirt with Fidel Castro on them. Like "hey dumbass, you know you wouldn't be making millions and have all your sports gear endorsement deals under a communist regime right? You also know that if you snubbed the Castro regime the way you did here, you'd be thrown into a political prison and likely tortured right?" This is why I doubt his sincerity and is only doing this for attention. He doesn't even bother to do basic research on personal liberties here compared to in a communist regime like Cuba? Go back to what you know, and that what you knows is playing with balls.

On a personal note, he certainly doesn't speak for me. I can fight my own battles and I sure as fuck don't need someone who gets paid millions just to toss and kick around a lopsided ball to speak for this particular person of color. Him and I have nothing in common and nothing to relate over, at least in how we view society, and therefore he is no position to speak for me.

But so fucking what though, at the end of day I don't really care all that much about what some ball juggler has to say on a matter that's unrelated to his game. What baffles me is why society gives so much weight to something that some chump who plays municipal park games, or some chump who acts in generic movies has to say over what some random person says? This Colin... what ever the fuck is name is, isn't a sociologist or a historian, someone who understands these things on an in depth level, or someone who makes public policy. Same goes for someone like Matt Daemon, he's a fucking actor not a criminalist, a forensic specialist, law enforcement officer, judge or criminal attorney, so what the fuck does he know about guns and associated crime? Given that, why the fuck do people care about what they have to say on a given topic that isn't related to what they do on a regular basis? What Colin or Matt have to say on those given topics is no different that any other pedestrian opinion from a random person on the street.

Celebrity status doesn't make one an expert on a given topic. Sure I would take a helicopter piloting course taught by Harrison Ford, but that's not because I want to take pilot's course by Indiana Jones, it's because Harrison Ford actually has a pilot's licence. On the same token I wouldn't take anything Colin has to say about socio-political-economic issues, any more authoritative than a random person on the street. He's not an expert on the field, and for all it seems, it just looks like he's parroting left-wing talking points. Wearing a shirt with a communist despot while taking great financial benefits from a capitalist system just tells me all I need to know about what he knows about the topic.

But that's ok, no one needs to be a field expert to have an opinion or something. That's not what I'm saying.

What is getting me is why do people care about what a celebrity non-expert says on a topic more than what any other person has to say? I guess some of you are wondering what makes me qualified to make social commentary, well one same as Colin, it's my 1st Amendment right to do so, second I hold degrees in Political Science, Law, and a certificate in basic forensic science. So I kind of know a thing or two about this shit, but that's beside the point, as I said, you don't need to be an expert to voice an opinion. More importantly though, I also don't claim to speak for the oppression of "Asians and People of Color" I only fucking speak for myself. But what gives one pedestrian opinion more weight than another one? A team jersey? The word "Starring" in front of someone's name?

Is THIS what makes your voice matter? A nylon shirt with tiny holes in it?

Where's the national outrage over the situation that Mrs. Hubbard brought to light? Why isn't this getting national attention? If she threw around a ball would more people pay attention to what she had to say? She's a Navy veteran, she served this country, this motherfucker only plays a game for a living, why does he get more attention?

But at the end of the day, the free of speech allows for all manner of speech. I'm not going to tell him to shut-up since it isn't my place (though I can say he doesn't speak for me), no more than it isn't a psychotic sport's fanatic's place to tell me to shut-up over my comment that playing sports isn't a real job. He's free and has the right to voice his opinion, and I'll stand by his right to do so. But why the fuck does his voice carry more weight, why the fuck does his voice get the national outrage, and when all he's said are the same political buzzwords that others have been saying before him. We've heard all the shit he's said before, so why do people lose their shit when it's nothing new?

In other words, why do we care about what Colin Kaepernick (or any other celebrity) has to say, and not someone else?

To Mr. Kaepernick, use your right, say what you have to say, and say it proudly. But to me, yours just another dime a dozen. pedestrian opinion from some guy who's main qualifications is playing a glorified game of catch with a lopsided ball.

Being the asshole cat: Review of Catlateral Damage

This is going to be a little different. I've never reviewed these smaller indy titles and I'm not really sure yet how to go about it, since in a way it isn't really fair to compare them to big releases, I'll probably be a little more generous on the scoring. So I might be refining this more as I review these kinds of games.

Overall score: 3

C

Gameplay: 3
The gameplay is very basic, basic in a Super Mario Brothers kind of way. You walk around, you jump, you can swipe or push with your left or right paw, you can pick stuff up in your mouth, and you can meow. That's pretty much it.

Though there are things you can interact with. You can turn the faucets and showers on, and you can interact with cat toys for power ups. There's nothing around that will hurt you and in Litterbox Mode, there's no timer. There's something actually kind of relaxing about the game in that regard, since there's really nothing to kind of stress you out.

There are two modes, a timed Objective mode where you have to knock over X number of things in a given time limit, and Litterbox mode, which is sort of the sandbox mode where you freely roam the house at your leisure. Both are single player only modes.

The game does have some room for improvement. A few things I would add would be a vault function like in Doom, where the character will climb a ledge when you jump to it. Here you actually have to land on the top of a cabinet. I'm sure we've all seen cats grab the top of a surface with their front paws and kind of kick-off to the top with their back legs. I would have added a few multiplayer modes, a co-op mode where two players have to knock over a certain number of things before the timer runs our, and a vs mode where the players have to knock over the most amount of things. I'd also add the ability to scratch the furniture and have basic scratch marks appear on surfaces that got clawed.

Though the biggest disappointment for me, was the lack of a "create-a-cat" feature where you can customize your own cat. I was really wanting to be able to make a white Manx I had in high school in the game. Instead you have a roster of cats you can pick from.

I've used several cats (mostly Catzilla since he looks like my actual cat) and there doesn't seem to be any difference other than cosmetic. Though it seems the payoff is being able to have a bunch of cats to choose from. Unlike Street Fighter, or Mortal Kombat with their huge rosters, there's only so many "talents" you can give to a cat before getting to be "unrealistic".

My actual cat. 

Graphics and visuals: 3
The graphics and visuals are very basic. There's just enough detail for you to tell what something is. Which in this case really isn't a bad thing, it gives the game a kind of cartoonish look.

Along with the simple 3D graphics, there also isn't much in the way of visual bugs. There aren't any glaring visual bugs that could hamper game play or just other wise detract from the experience of being a destructive cat.


Stability: 5
The game does get a perfect score in the area of stability. Haven't had any freezes, crashes, or save issues.


Plot: 0
The plot... well... there isn't one beyond being a bored house cat who decides to make a huge mess of his human's home.  There's no story mode what so ever, the result being that it feels like the game is unfinished, like you just got the trial version that lets you play around with the bonus content.

You might be wondering who you'd make a story about a bored house cat, all they typically do is eat, sleep, crap and on occasion, completely spaz out. I would have gone about making the plot very basic. You're a cat, cat gets bored and figures out how to get out of the house though some puzzle solving, knocking things over the right way to reach the door knob that got left unlocked. Then the next level is the cat roaming the yard and getting out in the street. Then the next getting into a store and messing things up there before they open for business and you get chased out. The next you're in the pound and have to escape from the pound. Then you make your way back home, it's later in the day and you're in the yard and have to get back inside the house though the window you left from earlier.

Taking some inspiration from Valkyria Chronicles, I'd have the plot moved along with still images and text, the animation to cycle to the next one would be like turning a book page, like a children's book.


Music and art style: 4
There's pretty much only one kind a music and it has a very happy kind of tone. Which is perfect for the game since it works to set a playful tone.

Bad cat.

The art style is also very simple and basic, and looks to have some cell shading. As mentioned earlier the game's art style has a very cartoonish look, which is fitting for what the game is. Both as a quirky cat simulator about messing up a house and as an indy title that doesn't have the budget to make something with super realistic graphics.


Final Verdict: Must Buy... if you like cats. 

This cat's an asshole sometimes. 

This is clearly a game made by someone who likes cats, for other people who like cats. Running around just knocking things over would certainly get boring for other people pretty quick. On the same token, you'd be surprised how much time you could lose track of running around as your favorite 4-legged creature.

If there was some kind of story mode and/or multiplayer mode, then this game would likely be a 4, but it's still a fun game to play, if you like the subject matter.

Triggered: Reefer Madness and Gun-Control, a perfect match together.

The following contains:
- A brutal critique of the judicial system
- Political incorrectness
- Profanity
- Harsh social criticism
- Copious amounts of sarcasm
- Liberal usage of the word "fuck"

Aw goddamnit, why won't it stop shitting?! Why can't the bull stop shitting?! Did Philbert sneak Heifer an ex-lax or something?! Stop eating what ever it still that keeps making your shit Mr. Bull!

So this latest trip to the shitter comes in the form of a 9th Circuit Court ruling. The 9th Circuit ruled that people who hold medical marijuana cards are banned from owning guns.

The court also said Congress had reasonably concluded that marijuana and other drug use "raises the risk of irrational or unpredictable behavior with which gun use should not be associated."

Ok, so let ask you this. How come someone isn't stripped of their 2nd Amendment rights if they have a prescription for oxycodone. Oxycondone is an opiate, it's in the same family as fucking heroin. Every person I know in my personal life who has a heroin problem got started on heroin because of oxycontin. And these people have gotten into trouble with the law on more than on occasion. Oh but if you smoke weed the Court will take away your 2nd Amendment right, but hey feel free to buy another gun if you're a pill popping smack addict.

Same if you're a violent drunk with a mean streak, so long as you haven't been convicted of anything.

I mean seriously, what's the stereotype for a pothead? A lethargic person with a big appetite. When was the last time you heard about someone committing violent crime while under the influence of weed, or to support a weed addiction? At most you'd hear about an armed robbery to steal someone's plant. An armed robbery that wouldn't have happened if you could buy the stuff at the store like you could 151 proof alcohol. You can be a raging alcoholic and own a gun (as long as you haven't be convicted of anything) but if you use weed medically? Nope! How the fuck does that make any sense?!

Typically I'd call out a judge for being a fucking idiot if they made a bad call. But that might not even be the case here. More than likely this was just the Court taking the statute and applying it. Sometimes it's not their fault the law is ass. So then who's responsible for crapping out this cow pie on the American public? Well you can blame that on the federal government and it's Big Phama influenced, pig headed insistence that marijuana is every bit as bad as heroin and cocaine, to the point that prescribing opiates to kids is A-OK, but you'll lose those same kids if you're busted for weed. Makes perfect fucking sense.

Here's the other thing that makes this all so fucking stupid. When someone goes though the trouble of getting a medical marijuana card, that show's that they want to do things the proper way, rather than just getting it from a street dealer, rather than just being an "underground" user. Odds are they're likely not going to go commit crimes. Kind of like who someone who goes though the trouble of getting a CCL isn't like to go and rob a 7-11 as soon as they get their licence. If they were going to rob the corner market, they wouldn't bother with the hassle of getting their papers in order.

Though on the other hand, I'm also willing to be that the judges that heard this are also anti-gun. The 9th Circuit isn't exactly known for supporting the 2nd Amendment, and I suspect more than a few look for any little way they can get to strip citizens of their constitutional rights. And this is where Reefer Madness comes in.

It's more or less accepted these days that marijuana is really no worse than alcohol as far as recreational use. Though unlike alcohol there actually are medical benefits. Most people consider Reefer Madness to be complete bullshit. Pretty much only the government and far right conservatives and out right idiots still believe in that shit (as opposed to just using it as another political tool to hoodwink people into voting for them).

And yet, those particular individuals in positions of power, with their own personal agendas will use bullshit as a way to strip the rights of the people for the sake of cementing their own power. These individuals will use the fairy tale of Reefer Madness to push the lie that marijuana is on the same level as crystal meth to push more gun-control.

These two are perfectly matched for each other. They both have emotional bullshit as their foundation, and they both serve to restrict the rights of individuals.

In short, they're both complete and utter bullshit.

Triggered: Protecting your feelings from the mean things the world will say.

The following contains:
- Profanity
- Scathing social commentary
- A lack a damn to give about the feelings of others
- Political incorrectness
- Brutal mockery of things and people I find to be utterly stupid
- Copious amounts of sarcasm

What the hell is it with this month?! I'm finding just one thing after another that burns my ass. I mean seriously, it's like I bought a bull, that doesn't want to stop shitting.

So what the fuck crawled up my ass this time? This insidious piece of software.

Reword has the unique potential to change online behavior by stopping insults before they are posted, Chris Tanti, CEO of headspace, said in a news release. It will not interfere with anything you do online unless you begin to use inflammatory language. 

 The tool will flag potentially hurtful comments by crossing them out with a red line and encouraging users to reword. The technology works similarly to spellcheck, by recognizing words and phrases that are considered unkind.

Seriously. this is fucking stupid and Chris Tanti has his head so far up his ass that the smell of his bad morning breath is indistinguishable from his farts. I can just imagine what this fucking sentence would look like if I had this dogshit program running on my computer while I wrote all this out.

You know, when I was a kid, we had this little jingle. "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me." That was in the '80s and the '90s when we didn't have parents hovering behind us, coddling us 24/7. Back then we were taught that the world wasn't always nice and that we would just have to deal with it, in one way or another. As the military motto goes, "Adapt. Improvise. Overcome." that's how you deal with the world not by running off to a safe space and curing up in a fetal position and crying for an hour.

But hey you might be saying "Salty Manx, at least they're trying to do something about the problem!"

"We gon stop 'da bullyin'!"

Here's the thing, I've been doing this whole internet thing since... oh I don't know... 1998 at least. So I could be considered something of an expert on behavior of people on the internet. The premise of this program is that kids act like little shits on the internet because they don't know any better. As opposed to acting in a manner that they know will get an emotional reaction and getting said emotional reaction to laugh at.

The developers of this circle-jerk don't understand the mentality of an internet troll. They say shit because they know, it will hurt someone else, and that there isn't a whole much that other person can do, regardless of who they are. Bullies will bully other people, not because they don't understand that it hurts someone, but precisely because they know it hurts someone and get on a power trip over it. Having program that keeps on telling them that they're not being nice, other than irritating them, will only egg them on even more. If someone is intentionally acting like an asshole, then constantly telling someone they're not being nice, will only entourage them.

Bullies and internet trolls know what they're doing is messed up, the thing is, they don't give a shit. This will ultimately accomplish little if anything. This whole thing also stinks of lazy parenting and lazy educating. It's not a computer program's job to teach your kids these things. It also provides another excuse for parents to no monitor their kid's internet usage.

I had a lot of internal conflicts about becoming a bully. My folks always told me to do unto others at they would do to you. But then I remembered... I was stronger than most people, so they can't do unto my anything! - Dolph

Now I'm willing to bet that someone of you are mentally accusing me of bullying because of my scathing, and profanity laced commentary, but guess what?  I don't care. I don't just don't have the patience to candy coat things for something that's fucking stupid. It's a futile gesture, as Ron White said, "you can't fix stupid." And this is stupid as all hell.

You know what else this bullshit is? This is kind of Orwellian social engineering that Soviet and Chinese/Korean Communist totalitarian wet dreams are made out of. Think about it for a second, they want this software installed at school and work place computers. They want all social media sites to have this software integrated in. Say they do get their way, then who gets to determine what acceptable speech is? If you can limit words, then you can limit thought, because then you limit how ideas can be conceptualized.

And what of dissenting speech, that gets restricted on online outlets because it might hurt someone's feelings? Should feelings be what determines acceptable speech? I think I've made it quite clear that I don't flying rocket powered fuck about whether or not what I have to say in the manner in which I say it hurts anyone's feelings. Everyone is certainly free to stop reading this if they don't like what I have to say. But if the creators of Reword had their way and their Ingsoc-esque (or should it be "Aussoc"?) software was applied to Blogger, this blog would largely only be about video game reviews.

This is nothing else, but more regressive leftist PC horse shit. The kind of shit where "everything is sexist, everything is racist, everything is homophobic..." It's the kind of crap that restricts freedom of expression all for the sake of protecting someone's coddled and overly sensitive feelings. This won't stop bullying because bullies just don't care anyway. Once kids realize that there's no real consequence for ignoring the red line and popup box, it all becomes a moot point.

But probably the biggest problem I have with this, is that it fosters a weakness of character. It's further coddling of children from what the world is. If they don't learn how to deal with bullies because they've been shielded from them and placed into helicopter protected bubble, then how are they going to deal with assholes out in the adult world. This is why we end up with these weak, pathetic, fragile special snowflakes. I mean seriously, look at this, this isn't an adult. This isn't a person equipped with the tools needed to survive and thrive in the adult world. This is a child, this is a child trapped in an adult's body. Are these people serious? In 2016 words hurt now? A fucking email of all things can now hurt your feelings so bad that it fucks your life up? Fuck how old are you? 18 or 8?!

These people are fucking weak. They are fucking pathetic, They are fucking children that need to go back home because they're just not ready for the real world. These people will get their shit completely and utterly fucked up by a world that doesn't care about their feelings, and certainly doesn't care if they feel safe. They need to go watch Rocky Balboa or something.

This is what this kind of shit does, this kind of shit prevents people from growing up. Here's the thing, Rocky's absolutely right about the world, it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. If winning, or just making it, is about how hard you get get hit and keep going, well just how hard of a hit can you take when mere words reduce you to a shrieking mess?

I'm know it kind of seems like I'm going off on a tangent but all these things are related. You take programs like Reword that try to shield kids from the world, and you get kids that grow up to be people that can't handle the meanness the world will throw at you. They grow up into adult-children where everything is a "micro-aggression" because it doesn't 100% conform to their expectations, and they run off to the nearest authority figure to make it stop... just like how a child would.

Am I encouraging bullying? Fuck no, of course not. All I'm saying is that it's a part of growing up and kids should be taught how to deal with a bully, rather than being shielded from them.