And the third:

and last post worth mentioning of my own goes as such: if you've not looked at the context yet; there have been a plethora of responses (most of them saying how cool this Sparton is).

It was titled
"I disagree with your history, Mr. Pre"
And the body was:
Lenin (who was the catalyst for the communists, not Stalin) was a foot soldier captured by the Germans and sent back to Russia in order to stir up trouble for the Czar (something he did quite well, too). To say that Germany merely 'grew an ego' is a bit of a slap, isn't it? They developed the worst inflation in the history of economics, became what amounted to the whipping boy of France (seriously, how could one grow an ego there, of all places?), watched the Rhineland be stripped of it's resources, the republic that was set up for them by the League of Nations was suppresed by the soldiers of 1, who became the embittered leaders of two. You must remember, Mr. Pre, that the history books are written by the victor, and to say that Germany was in the wrong is due mostly to their having been emptied of useable men in the workforce and military.
So you are correct in saying that they took off separately, but they were caused by the same conflict. Lenin would have been a syphilitic soldier returning from a foolish war had the Germans not given him some cash and a get out of jail card to go stir trouble. Hitler came back a blind veteran pariahed of society because he was a temporarily blind artist in a nation that needed construction workers and bakers. he gathered an army of other disgruntled ex grunts and created the Nazi (National Socialist) party.
So, one could say (as you have done) that Germany just grew an ego, Russia grew some stones, and Italy and Japan had nothing to do, but this is a gross oversimplification! I don't pretend that my two paragraphs are going to well illustrate the causes of two World Wars, but that seems rather foolish. Of course you are entitled to your opinion, but I am rather offended that you would reduce these monolithic struggles to what reduces to "Germany is full of idiots and anti-Semites who didn't learn their lesson after the first can of whoop ass we brought down on `em". I'm not accusing you of racism, or being anti-Germany/Russia, I just think that you're perhaps basing your argument on a high school history textbook (a very unreliable source, I must say).
As far as the gaming part of your argument, I agree that Halo wasn't the only reason for it's success, and applaud your mention of games such as Morrowind. At the same time, I doubt it would have sold very many people with a line up of Fuzion Frenzy at the beginning.
I didn't mean for my article to come across as if I meant a console would be defined by one game, but I think that the one game series that has Sony execs scared is Halo, and now Gears. I don't think the Xbox was a poor console, I love games like Halo, Crimson Skies, and Battlefront. But if it didn't have a select few in the beginning, it would have likely gone the way of Gizmondo. If Winston Churchill had been killed in the trenches, would we all be speaking German with Erwin Rommel's son as president? I hope not, but had there not been a Halo in the beginning, would we all be applauding Gears new arrival on the PS3? I rather think so.
So, I apologize if my return is not to your liking, Master Pre. I must say that I'm rather known as the `kid you don't debate with' and when I think I have a good argument to be made, I usually don't go home till I think my point has been well made. Please don't think I'm trashing your thoughts, anybody. It's a fault of my own to beat a dead horse. And I daresay that your opinion is quite valid to me.

"Thus, I didst cleave his head that each half did lie upon it's respective shoulder."-Scottish Noble
by Sparton 501 on Thu Feb 15, 2007 at 12:55:06 AM EST [ Parent Reply to This ]
And Master Pre learned a valuable lesson at the hands of Sparton. I guess I'm like Ghost Rider. Just keeping the dream alive.

and continued

Here's another response I made on that 'string' of comments.
It was titled

"you take me to seriously, Mr. Boris."
And the body went as such:
but to go back to my analogie, you'll notice that I do beleive that the 2 wars were an evolution. Had there not been a 1 (Halo) the Xbox would not have likely lived on, as Sweet put it. But had there not been a war from 1914-1918 there would not have been a rise of fascism, totalitariasm, and communism, causing the events leading to 2 (360; 1939-1945). So I wasn't saying that theres a great battle between Sony and Microsoft that's waged every few years; there's an evolution that keeps the struggle alive. Our consoles keep getting more powerful, as a Messerschmit (didn't spell that right) was more powerful than a Fokker (knew how to spell that). Both were manned by the same people and both were an evolution. One didn't spring up without the other. Perhaps it was my analogy that was at fault; I didn;t mean for my argument to come across like I want J Allard and Phil Harrison to get into a ring and duke it out, I meant that there was an evolution. I guess I just let Zoso have his flower, I'd take the war in Europe to illustrate my point. You make good points, Mr. Boris, I think you took my argument a bit literally for it's own good. Which I suppose is a risk one takes whenever you use prior events to illuminate your beleifs. Especially when those prior events involve genocide and fascism. In closing, I agree with you Boris. It is an evolution of consoles, Neandertals v. Homo Sapien. I usually find Patton a little more interesting than Darwin, unfortunately.
"Thus, I didst cleave his head that each half did lie upon it's respective shoulder."-Scottish Noble
by Sparton 501 on Wed Feb 14, 2007 at 02:19:17 PM EST [ Parent Reply to This ]
The site is gearheadsofwar.com if you want to go and read more stuff; this was taken from the topic 'Gears v. Halo'. You may have to dig a bit to find the particular topic, but it is on the main page a few diaries down.

Gearheads posting

Now, as I've not been posting much on here since January, and it would appear that this is the unfortunate toy I had feared it would become; I've decided to post some of my writings from my other sites. Here's a link so that you can see them in context: http://gearheadsofwar.com/story/2007/2/12/13947/7899#commenttop

I ask you to go there that you can see my comments in their natural habitat. I feel badly about posting another persons work on my blog.
The title is:
"They don't deseve comparison."
And the main body is:
I've played video games regularly only since May 2005, and been a halo player since the beginning. So, I can't really compare my experience with that of people who have had the LAN parties since 2001, and the first Xbox Live Halo 2 game (what a wonder that must have been, meaning no technological belittlement to the old school). Thinking back to the original Xbox and Halo 1 I daresay that they are much the same game. Both had massive innovations (I don't know this from experience; I use the words of my gaming predecesores), both were within the early life of the Xbox 1 and 360. I think that perhaps Zoso probably summed it up best with his comment. My argument goes as such:
When you compare World War 1 to World War 2 using just the numbers and the combative experience, 2 comes out far the victor. With a higher causualtie rate, faster weapons, more reliable vehicles, more powerful bombs, more land covered in combat. But there would not have been a 2. We forget 1 in the hoopla that is surrounded by 2, but in many ways we live in a world shaped by one. The rise of the Bolsheviks in Russia, a scar the world still bears, and bore till the late 80s. The rise and fall of the Weimar republic and the growth of fascim in Germany and Austria. The League of Nations grew as well: soon becoming the United Nations.
Halo is the first world war. The first shot between Microsoft and Sony. Now we have Gears and Resistance. Did World War 2 destroy more? Build more? Of course it did. But it was a foregone conclusion. This cheap and poorly articulated argument does not give justice to the history of the deaths of millions, and the imprisonment on Boris' grandfather in a prison camp (and likely many more fathers and grandfathers suffered as well). Nor should they really be compared to what we do in our spare time. we must remember that while Gears may have made a splash now, it was just the second salvo of something started 6 years ago. We simply see the newest 'innovation' that comes from a long line going all the way back to Goldeneye and even back to MegaMan. We can't compare last generations golden child to this, the former will always come short. Halo 3 will lessen Gears in our eyes, and Gears 2 will lessen Halo 3. Comparison demeans both by making Gears stand before a jury of it's forebears which will always seem just a little less graphically amazing. And making Halo 1 (a 5 year old game) and Halo 2 (a 2 year old game) stand a test they will always fail.
"Thus, I didst cleave his head that each half did lie upon it's respective shoulder."-Scottish Noble
by Sparton 501 on Tue Feb 13, 2007 at 02:26:07 PM EST [ Reply to This ]

If you go to the link and read more, my posts are those with the author of 'Sparton 501'.