The Six Sided Ring of Fire

Niroxs, Friend of The Six Sided Ring of Fire

2012-02-07T17:57:00.000-08:00

Check out this guy's stuff, follow his stream, and like his facebook page. He's been a big help to me and if you like what what I do here, do me the favor of supporting him too. He's a great Starcraft 2 player and has been donating his time to help me improve as a player. Really nice guy too.

In fact, I'll come back later when I have time to cut up the VOD from today and post some highlights of Niroxs's coaching/playing (I thought I had him with 3 bases... meanwhile, he's on 9... yeah...)

http://www.facebook.com/NiroxsSC2

http://de.twitch.tv/firindus

http://www.competo-sports.org/news,1707.html

Cheese Night

2012-02-05T06:14:00.000-08:00

Seeing as my 3 in 30 challenge is probably going to get stuffed by the incoming league lock (and my play) the viewers in my chat proposed a new "activity" for the stream. Cheese night will be a night of fun and frolic... wine, tuxedos, classical music, top hats, white gloves... and most importantly... CHEESE! I haven't decided quite what strategies I'll be employing, but think 3rax all in, 6 rack opener, thor/medivac rushes, double reactor hellions, etc. This is where I reach out to the viewers and just do whatever they want for the next round. Have some BS cheese you want me to throw at the enemy? Let me know! This won't be a night where I'm too concerned about the outcome of the games and should be a way to blow off steam after all the madness I've been going through the last couple weeks.

Due to my work schedule rotating me back to a 6am to 6pm lifestyle I'll be trying to fit in Cheese Night at a time when I can get wasted and not get fired, so it will probably be on short notice. I wanted to get the word out that this is going to be a real thing to get you guys thinking about what you'd like to see for Cheese Night. I'm not a cheese-er by nature, so I'm going to need help setting up strategies. If you've got a favorite cheese, post it in the comments!

4 Hellion Opener into siege timing attack TvZ (LKBO)

2012-01-27T18:26:00.000-08:00

I was having a hard time beating Zerg with Terran so I reached out to the viewers in my chat and LKPL shared how he likes opening TvZ with 4 hellions into a 2 tank timing attack. This strategy is best used when the Zerg player goes Hatch first. If he doesn't expand by the time you've upgraded to an orbital stop what you're doing and get ready for a 7 roach rush. My first indication that this may not be the right way to go is when I see he's started his spawning pool before he expands.

The build goes as follows:

10 Depot @wall - > scout (make sure he expands. If he doesn't just sit on the expo until he does)

12 Barracks (@wall, finish wall with 2nd Depot when Barracks 100%) -> 1 Marine

13 Gas

15 Orbital Command

@100 gas build a Factory and take your second Gas

@50 gas build a reactor on barracks

at 300 minerals add 2 more barracks

add 1 tech lab and 1 reactor to the 2 new barracks

Build a Starport and 1 Medivac when you can, but don't delay your hellions, siege mode, or siege tanks (the timing of my starport has been in question, but combat shields plus a medivac means hero marines and high ground vision, so don't skip it all together)

Flip the Factory to the reactor and produce 4 hellions ASAP. Build a tech lab on the Barracks. When you finish the 4th hellion flip the barracks to the reactor and the factory to the tech lab.

A-Move your hellions to a safe distance from your enemy's natural (you don't want to end up on creep if you can avoid it. You won't be watching these hellions until you've started siege mode, so don't lose them by going too far.)

Train siege mode and build 2 siege tanks

Train Combat Shields

Once you've started siege mode your hellions should be in position to start the harassment stage. Burn as many drones as you can without losing your hellions. This part takes a little practice because I've found that just about every zerg player has a spine crawler ready to go (which shouldn't be enough). If they spot your reactor on the factory they will have at least 2 spines. The goal here is to FORCE him to stop droning and make units. The best case scenario is that he blows all his gas/minerals on roaches. If he's not prepared, kill every single drone and end the round. A-move your whole army to his natural and finish him. This is unlikely. What's way more probable is that he'll shake off your harass with spines and queens and keep droning. If you have an opening to get back in and burn more drones (or force them off minerals/gas) then do so... as many times as necessary... until you're ready for the timing attack. The longer he's not mining and the more drones he loses the more likely he is to build roaches (which is the goal). The best way to keep the harass up is to not get your hellions killed. If he's turtled hard [great spine coverage, multiple queens blocking the ramp, etc] don't worry about killing drones and just deny creep spread, patrol around, be visible, and don't let him even try to get a third. Make sure he knows that you're there. Just don't get surrounded by speed lings. You can kite speed lings off creep, so if you're skirting the edge and being annoying just back out to clean earth and burn the lings as they are produced. If you're killing lings without losing hellions it should be one more reason for him to build roaches.

Train as many marines and SCVs as you can before the second siege tank pops. Rally your medivac to your siege tank (but don't let it pick the siege tank up). A move to the edge of the creep, rally all your buildings to that spot, and get ready to mix it up. The priority is protecting the siege tanks, killing drones, and then the expo. Your tanks out range the spine crawlers, so as long as you keep vision with the medivac you shouldn't have to sacrifice any marines. Try to stay spread out in case of banes, and keep scooping up troops as they arrive. You may need to put your marines on a hold command at the tanks if he starts poking with lings, that's obviously a judgement call. If you want to be really slick you can move around the outside with your hellions and put them in the mineral line to burn drones while this is going on. This is similar to how Protoss players love sending 4 zealots to the mineral line while a fight is going on. It's devastating, tests his micro, and has the possibility of splitting up his army.

While this timing attack is going on you should be building your expo inside your base and upgrading to an orbital command. You've been building SCVs, marines, siege tanks, and supply depots this whole time, so if this push doesn't end the game you'll be WAAAAAAY ahead. Add 3 more barracks with reactors, two engineering bays, and add a reactor to your starport. I traditionally transition to mass marine/medivac with siege tank support. The most important thing at this point will be to try and keep him on 2 bases MAX. Deny the 3rd and keep an eye on gold. The typical response from Zerg will either be to mass whatever he can and counter attack ASAP or to expand all over the place (especially gold). If he repels your attack with lings, expect them at your front door. Make sure you have sieged tanks ready because a huge blob of lings is a lot to handle if you lose your army in the timing attack. Also, in the scenario where he repels your attack with lings you may want to delay flying your expo until you can be sure the counter push isn't coming (or you have enough to handle it).

Review: Spotify

2012-01-24T05:42:00.000-08:00

One thing I love about music is that there is no bottom to the rabbit hole. That's why services like Pandora and Last.fm are fantastic for when I am in the mood for a not so specific genre of music or if I'd like to hear more but don't know where to start. But... what happens when only one song, album, or artist will do? What about setting up your own playlists? Sharing those playlists with friends? This is where Spotify comes in. It's pretty much Napster without all the lawsuits. You type in an artist, song, etc and if it's on the service (I've only found one obscure track missing so far) you can listen to it as if it's on your hard drive. As I'm typing this I'm listening to the soundtrack from TRON Legacy... FOR FREE... because why not? It's free and it sounds cool, so I'm checking it out.

Okay, so they have a billion songs from every artist ever for free? How do they pay for it?

I've typed and deleted the word "ad revenue" about 20 times because it's just not the case but I'm not sure how else to word it. They make money off of premium subscribers. You can pay to have your music commercial free. "But you said they don't make money off ad revenue!" Yeah, and I mean it... because EVERY add is for SPOTIFY ITSELF. I also feel like the longer I listen, the more it plays commercials for itself. It's basically trying to bully me into paying by breaking up an otherwise beautifully smooth experience with obnoxious self promotion. The worst part from a business standpoint is that when a real add does come on (maybe 1 out of 10 commercials is for something other than Spotify Premium) I've already tuned it out because I'm so used to not listening to the Spotify Premium commercials.

The other thing they love to do is make it so you have to click on a full screen add to close the add and interact with the program. That's just annoying because I NEVER have my music player in the foreground completely. That means I'm able to see the buttons but can't press them because the center of the screen has an add for SPOTIFY PREMIUM that must be clicked before I can click anything else.

QUIT YER BELLYACHIN!

I get it, no such thing as endless free content... but when you compare the long duration experience of free Spotify vs free Pandora or free last.fm you have a very different experience. Sure, they all play commercials, but at least Pandora will play a variety of commercials that are for products other than Pandora's premium service. I tip my hat to thee, Pandora sales department. I hate having to click "I'm still listening" so often, but that's a minor gripe.

I guess I'm just spoiled by Pandora's ad management. They make it such a smooth part of their experience. It may be a personal thing, but I don't mind that they are making money by selling my time to these companies and giving me awesome music in return. It feels like a fair trade. I will listen to this add for some new car and in return you will find me more songs that I will like. The Spotify experience so far has been "we're going to make this unbearable until you give us money just to get you to give us money. We aren't making any money off this commercial, but I bet it ruined the flow of the album you were just listening to... doesn't that suck? Give us money." That feels underhanded. Maybe they are just priming everyone for the day when they have all their add time slots sold, but even if that's the case it sure feels lousy.

I don't share playlists, I don't integrate with facebook and I have no interest in any of the social apps Spotify has to offer. This may be affecting my overall opinion of the service, but I'm only interested in what they do best: on demand music... and as it turns out that's good enough.

That being said, if you don't have Spotify on your computer go download it RIGHT NOW. You may not use it all the time, but when you need Spotify, only Spotify will do. For example, my wife enjoys Katy Perry. I've only heard maybe one of her songs before, so in the interest of getting to know what my wife likes I typed "Katy Perry" into the search bar, it gives me a list of her albums with her top hits on top. I listened to a few songs and moved on. I didn't have to go out and buy a CD. I didn't need to purchase a single off itunes. I just said "you know what? Let me hear what this chick's all about." Double click... listen... nothing to lose.

3 Leagues in 30 Days Challenge

2012-01-23T05:38:00.000-08:00

I started playing Starcraft 2 because my buddy Spolz was a huge fan of the original and pretty much forced me into the second one when it was released. I had just purchased a strong computer and wanted to play some games on it, so why not THE pc game? I've never been a real strong RTS player... in fact, I've NEVER played RTS seriously. The last time I had played an RTS (Real Time Strategy game) was Command and Conquer: Red Alert in the 90s. To say Starcraft is jumping into the deep end of the pool isn't fair. What is much closer to reality is that Starcraft is like jumping into the deep end of the pool... and the pool is filled with acid... and sharks.

More after the jump!

My first season was season 2 (even though I started playing in season 1... but was too scared to leave the practice league). I was pretty much just doing whatever I thought was cool. Opening a round with 4 expansions in a row followed by 200 supply of 3/3 battlecruisers while playing on "normal" speed in the practice league? Yeah, that happened. I got lucky and simply played more games than 95 other dudes in my division and ended up top 8 for the season.

Season 3 brought my first promotion. At this point I was still doing whacky builds and had no idea how to play, but Spolz and I played a TON of 2v2s and I started getting a feel for what Terran does well and what they don't. At least I was building marines and medivacs by this point. Spolz had been promoted to Gold and was on his way to being a diamond league Protoss player in season 4. He has always tried to help me out, but he doesn't know jack about Terran, so that made us blind and led by blind respectively. His advice was "drop marines in their base" so that's what I did to limited success.

Season 4 I played about 15 games and won 8 of them. I was still focusing on dropping in their bases as soon as I could and trying to force an early close. If that didn't work I pretty much just waited to lose.

That brings us to season 5... and my new PC.

Two days before Christmas my computer exploded. Power supply surged (yes, it's on a surge protector) and blasted my motherboard to death. The horrific smell of burned solder wafted into my very sad nostrils and I was now PC-less. I had a trip planned to visit family in the Midwest starting the day after Christmas, so I knew I was going to be PC-less for a while. I forgot that my father-in-law is a tech ~~geek~~ aficionado and that he had a favorite PC warehouse he frequented. He needed to pick something up so I tagged along. $1,300 dollars later I had all the pieces to build The Nebuchanezzar. It rocks... it rocked so hard, in fact, that I wanted to re-try my hand at streaming games. League of Legends on max settings? PFFFT... easy. But wait... I love watching people play Starcraft... I wonder if I could stream Starcraft? On max settings? With music and commentary? A webcam? YOU BET YOUR ASS I CAN.

So, I'm off. I win my placement match and am put back into silver league. Great... I can do this... I just hope people enjoy what I have to offer so I'm not just another jerk screaming out into the abyss that is the internet without anyone even knowing I exist.

Well, some people really DO enjoy my stream! YAY! I'm off and running... but there's a problem: I might as well play blindfolded because I have no idea what I'm doing and I'm losing 3 out of 5 rounds every time I log in. I'm starting to lose to bronze league players (WHO ARE MARKED AS FAVORED BY THE GAME).

This is when my stream came to the rescue (shameless link to my last post).

Fast forward a couple days and I see this:

Spolz wasn't around so I shot him a pic of the screen to prove that I'm no longer mathematically worse than the average. (Bronze to Platinum go in 20% brackets. ex Bronze is bottom 20%, Silver is bottom 20% to 40%, Gold is 40% to 60% Platinum is 60% to 80%, Diamond is 80% to 98%, Masters is top 2% and Grandmasters is an invite only league of the top 200 players)

He responded with this: "Very nice! Can you go through 3 divisions in one month?!?"

I have until the 21th of February to see if I can get promoted 3 times in 30 days as I was promoted to Gold on the 21th of January. I'm still trying to figure out how to make this more interesting, but if I can get to Platinum league by the 21st of February THEN I SHALL HAVE GLORY!

If you have any ideas on what should be on the line here, drop a comment. If you want to see how I progress... check out my stream. If you want to be informed of when I go live don't forget to follow me on twitter @T6SROF. I have an irregular schedule due to my job, so if you want to catch me, you should hit that follow button under my stream... and if you've been putting off laddering... GET ON THE LADDER NOW!

3 Rax Stim Opener and General Build Tips

2012-01-22T04:30:00.000-08:00

"3RAXSTIM" is a strategy for opening a round while playing as Terran in Starcraft 2. This is NOT an all-in strategy and can smoothly transition into a macro game if the timing attack doesn't end the game. The initial push WILL win you a lot of games if handled properly, but if they survive, you'll still be in the lead.

Special thanks to Razklath for all his help.

Where I Learned 3 Rax Stim and How it's Worked for Me

I learned how to open with 3rax stim from the viewers of my twitch.tv stream. I was low silver at the time and was probably losing 60% of my rounds on my way to a demotion to bronze. I was facing guys who were in the bronze league (and not top 8) who were slightly favored in the pre-game. A viewer named Razklath said "You are trying to do too much. I think you need to do something more simple until your control improves." We did a few practice rounds where he emphasized what needed to be done, how to judge my performance, etc and I was off.

Starting with my first round after learning the opener through the next day I went 24-4. I was promoted to gold 2 days later and was enjoying Starcraft more than I ever have.

Video example, build order, and guide after the jump

Watch live video from t6srof on Justin.tv

"Keep Building SCVs" and The Foundation of Good Play

When you watch a replay you should just click on your command center (CC) and see if you always have an SCV in production. If that building stops producing SCVs for any reason other than to transform into an orbital command center (OC) or a planetary fortress (planetary) then you need to pay more attention to your macro game. PERIOD. If it means you have to queue up an SCV behind each one in production to help you remember, do so. Just don't queue more than 2 (one building, one on deck).

Hotkey ALL the things... seriously... hotkey your army, CCs, production facilities, etc and make sure you're always producing units and always building SCVs. Cycle around and double check everything... ALL the time. If you have an idle production facility (barracks, factory, starport) then you're losing. Also, hotkeying your stuff makes it easier to snap the camera to what you want to see with a double tap of the key.

DON'T WATCH YOUR ARMY. If you ever played basketball... the floor will be there, you don't need to look at it when you dribble. A-Move your army whenever they are moving and then GO BACK TO MACRO. Make sure you're always building SCVs, units, and supply depots.

You can cycle through different units INSIDE a control group by pressing TAB. That means you can have a factory and a starport on the same number. When you press that number it will highlight what is currently active. So, if you want 2 hellions and a banshee and your buildings are on "3" you'd press 3ee'TAB'e. This also helps if you want to move out with marines/tanks/whatever that all have different special abilities. If you're running with a pack of marines and siege tanks and you want to siege up and stim you'd press 1e'TAB't. That allows for less control groups (if you can get used to pressing tab).

Every time you think of it, select your army and re-hotkey them to include all the units.

PLAY AS IF YOU'RE LOSING. That sounds defeatist, but think about it this way, you walk in and take out 2 queens, 12 roaches, and his expo and let your macro slip (not producing SCVs or units, not expanding or building supply depots). He finds a way to stay alive and now all that hard work you just put in is for nothing.

If the push is stopped, leave a marine as a scout for the expo so you know if you're "safe" and can macro or if he's transitioned into a 1 base all in (aka going to cut off production of everything but units to mass up a huge but unsustainable army). In this same vein you want to stim a solo marine ahead when you can so you have an idea what's ahead of you. No use losing your army to 4 sieged tanks on the high ground if you don't have to.

REMEMBER THAT THIS IS AN OPENER... NOT AN ALL IN. What that means is if you feel stuffed by what your enemy has set up at his base don't just sacrifice all your units in a desperation move. You can always drop back and macro. You should be way ahead in supply regardless of what he does and have enough SCVs to saturate your natural expansion as soon as it's ready to go.

My Build Order and Notes to Myself:

(aka what I had up on a second screen while learning)

BUILD AN SCV FIRST
10 Depot (@wall)
12 Barracks(@wall and use this SCV to scout when Barracks completes)
13 Gas (DON'T FORGET TO MOVE SCVS TO GAS... will finish before barracks.)
15 Orbital Command (smash the B key rapidly as the barracks finishes) drop a mule at every 50th energy
16 supply depot (@wall to finish the wall)


1 marine from Barracks AS SOON AS IT FINISHES
Tech lab on Barracks RIGHT AFTER THE MARINE
1 Marauder from Barracks
Stim (If you can't get this while building a Marauder then you didn't move SCVs to gas soon enough)
Keep building Mauraders and SCVs to 24 (typically on the second Marauder)


24 DEPOT - this SCV will build one depot after another for the rest of the game


at 300 minerals build 2 Barracks
Reactors on barracks as they finish

Marines, Mauraders, SCVs, Depots until 7:30

Concussive Shells as soon as Stim finishes (aprox 6:30)

AT 7:30 (should be over 60 supply) ATTACK MOVE TO THE NATURAL AND QUEUE BARRACKS TO NATURAL
DON'T FORGET TO KEEP PRODUCING UNITS
DON'T WATCH YOUR ARMY

EXPO IN BASE AT 8:00


If attack fails:
Fly expo to natural + transfer SCVs

Drop your 2nd gas in your base
Factory 
Starport + reactor on factory (swap when both items are completed)
engineering bay
Marines + Medivac + tanks vs zerg/terran (no Marauders vs Zerg. Push fails, cut any further Mauraders)
Medivac (4 or 6) + more Mixed Bio vs Protoss (after your medivacs transition to Vikings (at least 10) to deal with the colossus response you'll most likely get)

But... how do I USE this build?

Okay, so at EXACTLY 7:30 you A click all these units to the natural of your enemy. You're producing 1 Marauder, 4 Marines, 1 SCV, and 1 Supply depot constantly. You are watching your mini map for signs of trouble, but you're not staring at your army. When they get there you're going to hit a real hard timing for your enemy to defend. Most players I was running into at low silver were VERY greedy and would expo first or double expand without any map control or defensive units. In those cases you simply walk in and murder everything. THIS IS YOUR CHANCE TO PUNISH THE GREEDY! RAAAAWWWWRRRR NOTE: always try to save stim for when you need it. Vs his army? Yes. Vs his refinery? Nope. You don't need it to kill a hatchery, and you won't have medivacs for a LOOOOOOOONG time, so don't over stim. Stim may come in handy for pylons if you want to shut off protoss's facilities quickly, but you have to remember that if they don't quit it should be played as if you're losing. DON'T LOOK AT YOUR ARMY. If you're in good shape in the fight (aka you wipe out their fighting units) just shift command (hold shift and right click) a bunch of their buildings and go back to macro. Scoop up reinforcements as they show up and A move them to the fight. PRIORITIZE ECONOMIC DAMAGE once you've secured yourself in his base. Sure, supply blocking someone is great, but killing every single worker is better. Nothing ends a game quite like not having a worker or 50 minerals to build one.

I typically try to approach Protoss from an angle where they won't see me in time to warp in sentries if they haven't warped them in already. Then when I hit the bottom of the ramp I stim and try to get as many units up the ramp as possible. From there, I move AWAY from the ramp, kill off his army (because you're Terran... DO EET), shut off his buildings by killing pylons, then go after as many workers as you can handle... FROM THE RAMP SIDE FIRST to try and force them away from the ramp. That should take any new sentries' focus off the ramp so you can bring in more units. If he goes with an early robotics bay and has an observer he'll warp in 6+ sentries and this push will be stuffed... but THE FIGHT LIVES ON.

Outcome #1: GG, VICTORY, SCORE SCREEN [enemy may use variations such as: Terran OP, cheese, ur bad, etc]

Outcome #2: OMG THEY'RE READY FOR IT.

Okay, so what do you do when you roll up to that natural and there's simply too much to handle? Did Protoss successfully wall off their ramp with a force field? Are there just so many units that you feel the fight would be worse than a trade (aka you both lose the same value of units)? Guess what? It's time to macro HARD. Good thing you've been building 1 SCV, 1 Supply Depot, 1 Marauder, and 4 Marines this whole time! It was also super awesome of you to build that CC at the 8 minute mark. Now, all you have to do is transfer about 2/3rds of your SCVs from your base to your expo and you're WAAAAY ahead of your opponent.

So, you decided the fight wasn't going to end in your favor, you minimized your losses and showed your army. He's probably thinking of ways to counter a massive bio force at this point [banes, colossus, siege tanks most likely]. You left a marine behind for intel. You'll know exactly when he decides to expand.

Move that CC to the natural, put up a couple of bunkers in front of it and fill those bunkers with your army. Add your second CC to your CC hotkey. If he had something out of the ordinary (like a colossus at 8 minutes) then you're going to need to act fast to counter it. Double your barracks count if not more at this point as well. You were able to keep building 1 SCV, 1 Depot, 1 Marauder, 4 marines all time off 1 base, now you have TWO bases... make use of them.

At this point you may want to start building depots 2 or 3 at a time to avoid the dreaded one-new-depot-won't-be-enough supply block.

At this point you've successfully transitioned out of a super hard bio push into a macro game. I'll go into more about what to do from this point later, but that's the stuff of another night.

Variations, When to Use This Build, When Not to

What's beautiful about the way I build is that all my builds start in a similar fashion. 10 Depot, 12 Rax, 13 Gas*, 15 OC. I scout at 10 supply when the first Depot finishes and hope to have an idea of what I'm up against by the time the OC and marine have finished. If I don't know what he's doing (haven't found him yet) then I just keep producing marines and SCVs until I do. That's typically only an extra marine or two and when you back out of this build it's typically encouraged to have some marines for defense.

*the only time I don't get gas at 13 is when I'm going for a 1RaxFE which I'll cover another time... after I understand it better myself preferably

Vs Protoss I open this way probably 95% of the time thanks to its flexibility and Terran's dominance of Protoss with bio units. I try to follow it up with very quick vikings to prevent any colossus counter push (all-in-y stuff). The other 5% of the time is either banshee harass to bio or 1RaxFE to bio... so they all end up needing a big bio army... why not open with a massive amount of bio?

Vs Terran I ALWAYS build an engineering bay and a turret in my mineral line. You're typically safe to drop the ebay at 6:00 or so. With how many Terran players are going with 1-1-1 builds and early cloaked banshees it's silly to not have a turret. If that means you have to cut Marauders and go with 5 marines at a time for a cycle or two to make up minerals, then by all means, do so. Marines do much higher DPS than Marauders... especially if they have a bio army (or a banshee). The only time you'll be truly punished for not having enough marauders is if they have multiple siege tanks. If they're sieged up you shouldn't be trying to force it anyways, but a healthy number of marauders will do work vs tanks.

Vs Zerg eh.... yuck. Of all the units in the game... bleh... this build will force... banelings. You WILL see banelings if this push doesn't kill every single building they have. In fact, turtling Zerg ~~jerks~~ players will typically see you on one base and build ~~a few~~ a million spore crawlers to deal with the 2 banshees they are expecting. When they see bio... without fail... they will drop a baneling nest (if they didn't auto build it vs Terran). For greater players than myself who have far better control it's possible to handle large numbers of banelings. In fact, they are not cost effective at all and a lot of them will be wasted (especially in my games). The sad part is if they have a baneling nest and bane speed you're GOING TO LOSE YOUR ARMY even if you're careful. Why? Because like me, you didn't know exactly how to 3RaxStim meaning you don't have the control to split a bio army into little, difficult to kill in one pop groups.

This build CAN work and typically has a decent success rate, but the ideal situation for you to run into TvZ is to see a 7 roach rush, 6 pool, etc. Any one base play from Zerg will be turned into a fine red mist by your army. In the spirit of full disclosure: I no longer 3RaxStim vs Zerg. The night I went 24-4 I lost to a 1-1-1 cloaked banshee from Terran and 3 Zergs who all went Ling/Baneling/Muta. That's when I changed what I did. I have a hard time saying "don't use this build vs Zerg." Especially because it worked frequently in low silver and stopped working as I got closer to gold. So, to all you Bronze/Silver Terran... DO EET until it stops working more than half the time.

I think I'm going to take posts here less seriously

2012-01-10T21:46:00.001-08:00

I think some small posts that give a little interesting information instead of massive walls of text is the way to go.

Tonight I streamed for the first time on twitch.tv/T6SROF. I really like it. I used to use own3d.tv, but it's not very "non pro" friendly.

For example... I bought about 40 games over the holidays via Steam. On own3d you get branded with a game and your stream is in that category unless you request a "new stream." At that point they will rebrand your stream and put it in a different category. I decided to try out LA Noir, but my stream was only able to be found under Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty. That wouldn't be a big deal if I had a ton of people who'd watch me regardless of what I'm playing, but when the game/stream category don't match up for some random jerk like me... people will just move on.

On twitch.tv you're able to say which game you're playing every time you broadcast. That puts you in the proper category right away and people can search for you by game. If I'm playing Rift and want to stream what I'm doing I put up that I'm playing Rift. People can search for live streams of Rift and find my stream. That right there is enough for me to want to switch services.

In the end it's going to be content and quality that dictate the number of people who decide to check out the stream. I don't know if I'll be able to match up with pros and vibrant entertaining people, but I'm going to try.

Still Alive

2012-01-10T20:16:00.000-08:00

It's been a while without any sort of update on what's going on. I'm still here. My pals who wanted to create content for the site are still here. It's been a busy chunk of time and things are about to get even more crazy.

Well, for now you can keep up with what I'm doing via twitter @T6SROF. There you can get updates on when I'm streaming whatever game I'm playing poorly @ Justin.tv/T6SROF.

Building a PC to handle more fun stuff was the first step. Upgrading some things and practicing streaming to try to get myself acclimated at the time being. My "studio" is under construction right now, so it will be a while before everything starts to look "better" but for the time being you can watch me screw around and get my teeth kicked in on the stream with a lesser backdrop.

Crackdown 2 Demo

2010-06-30T23:56:00.001-07:00

Back when the original Crackdown was released I bought it simply because I was broke and the price tag was right. If I remember correctly the game was released at $20 because it was extraordinarily short and the game developers knew it. I played through the entire campaign to completion in approximately 6 hours. That does not make Crackdown a bad game (see: Portal's two hours of puzzles and it's 10's across the board). In fact, it was one of my favorites. I loved the art direction, the fluidity of movement, the voice acting, everything. When I loaded Crackdown up it was the first time I had seen my xbox produce anything but gritty realism in a long time and it was a welcomed breath of fresh air.

So, I'd be excited about Crackdown 2 right? Uh... well...

Zombies... more specifically... infected.

Now, don't get me wrong, a zombie game done well is a thing of beauty. I've been spending most of my time online playing Left4Dead2. I'm just getting the sinking feeling that "an infection spreading across the city" is going to be the crutch to rule them all in the coming years. In the past few months I've shot, hacked, and smashed more zombies than I have in the past 20 years of gaming. Left4Dead, Nazi Zombies (Call of Duty 5), Prototype, Dead Rising, Left4Dead2, and now a super-cop based sandbox game?

But... but... why draw the line here?

More after the jump

I'll tell you why. All the other games made sense. Sure, the idea of an infection turning everyone into zombies has been over used a bit recently, but at least the infection fit the setting. Nazi Zombies was just a little treat handed to us for beating the single player campaign of CoD5... and I enjoyed it very much. With all the oddities attached to the Third Reich it's not like we weren't prepared for zombies. Hell, Return to Castle Wolfenstein was all about Hitler's paranormal research. I don't consider myself to be a master of world history, but I have heard so much about Hitler's research into dark arts and super soldiers that I can't even separate the reality from the fiction... which is somewhat embarrassing... but does explain why I'm cool with Nazi Zombies in a WWII shooter but am whole heartily against zombies in a futuristic super-cop sandbox game.

The Demo

Crackdown 2 starts out in the same way the original starts out. Cops are in a fire fight and you're there to kick some ass. You shoot a bad guy, you get gun points that add up to make you a better marksman. You punch a dude to death, you get yellow orbs that give you more strength. Feels about the same as the original, but it's been so long since I played the original that I could have forgotten the finer points.

I had a little trouble changing targets and had forgotten the golden rule of shooting dudes in the face... I play with inverted controls, so that means to aim up I have to press down... even when locked onto someone. I was shooting people in the feet... the same as I did in the original... until I remembered that the controls are still inverted, even when locked.

I did notice that things didn't have the flamboyant feel of the first game. Sound effects and visuals seemed to be a little more subdued. I was throwing grenades and expecting the loud beeping noise from the first game... it was there... but much more quiet. The cell shading was still there, but the colors just didn't "pop" as much as they did in Crackdown. I really enjoyed the flashy silliness that was Crackdown's visuals. I really hope I was wrong and that things stay fun in the final copy. That even goes for the voice over. Something about his delivery just didn't seem as "fun" as the delivery in Crackdown.

So, your mission in the Crackdown 2 demo is to turn on some beacons by standing on platforms near the beacons so that communications can be restored. That's all fine and good. I worked my way through the mission easily and ranked up my gun, strength, and agility in the process. I was glad I found enough agility orbs because I was feeling sluggish. Again, that could be because I played through the original so long ago and I'm remembering the way I ended the game instead of the way I started it, but that's how I felt playing the demo.

I did a little bit of driving and was slightly disappointed there as well. It's tough to evaluate driving (or much else) when you start out the game with bottom level skills and everything you can do ranks up as you do those activities. Regardless, the car didn't have the crisp snappy feel of the cars in Crackdown. It just felt sluggish and difficult to control. Hopefully this is just because I had a driving rank of zero, but I really hope they don't go all GTA IV and make the cars more "realistic."

Zombies... Zombies Everywhere...

So, I ran the car around a bit and progressed to the next marker to continue the demo. I had actually forgotten about the infected citizen part of the game up until this point. I looked at the demo timer getting close to zero and realized that they'd have to throw some zombies in at some point. I moved on.

Then I saw them... zombies... as far as the eye could see... in all directions... thousands of them. I only had a minute or so of demo time left (and I'm planning on running through it again) but I figured I'd mess around and blast a few to see what this was all about.

I have to say... really not done too poorly, but I really am going to miss the idea of being a peace keeper instead of a zombie hunter. I just feel like zombie survival is done so well in other games that it simply isn't needed here. I really enjoyed whip-fisting dozens of infected at a time in Prototype. I've blasted hundreds of thousands of zombies in Left4Dead. I spent hours upon hours hitting the mystery box looking for the goofy laser pistol. I just don't see why they couldn't have stuck to what worked and left Crackdown 2 as a Cops and Robbers type game. I won't spoil Crackdown even though it's been out for many years... but I was really hoping they'd take the plot twist from 1 and really expound upon it in 2. They were set up PERFECTLY but they decided to go in another direction with a universally excepted bad guy that is clearly 100% evil instead of going with the grey area "criminal" and the grey area "cop." What a shame.

I think what it all comes down to is that there was no need for zombies, nobody was crying out for more zombie games, but someone who doesn't understand gaming, Crackdown, and the market decided that "hey, dudes LOVE zombies... let's put them in Crackdown 2 to really pump up the sales!" Instead, what they did was alienate people who really did love the first one. I went from the biggest Crackdown fanboy to not even being excited about the second one.

The picture at the top of this post (because I can't figure out how to move it here) illustrates another fundamental problem with Crackdown 2. It is really trying to be badass. The first game gave you some tough guy looks, but it wasn't the space marine-ish garbage they are adding to Crackdown 2. I'm not saying the guys in the first game were a bunch of emo boys with their bangs in their eyes, but the "badassery" of the first game was picking up a minivan full of criminals and throwing it a thousand feet into a river. It wasn't a cool new set of armor (which I'm sure will have a Microsoft point value) that made you tough. It was the fact that... wait for it... YOU WERE TOUGH. Tough as woodpecker lips as my old man likes to say. It's just another thing that feels like it's being done to make simple minded people interested instead of just coming out with a great sequel. Unnecessary if you ask me.

Final Thoughts aka tl:dr

The demo was fun. It feels a little different from the original, but I didn't delete it. I will go back and give it another shot to see if I can knock the rust off and do some cool stuff. The addition of zombies is lazy and stinks of focus group nonsense. The desperate need to bring in tween boys has resulted in super cool armor and an unnecessary boost to the visual badassery. With most of the gameplay elements left alone this could still be a great game. If the story totally neglects to continue where the last game left off this could be another shirt over the head punch in the face... but still could be a good game. If this game focuses on the zombies (freaks) and turns into a super-cop version of Prototype... I'll be devastated.

Red Dead Redemption

2010-06-30T22:02:00.000-07:00

Forget I said anything. After a few more hours I changed my mind completely. I'll be back to make this a review again.

SUPER DUPER LONG AFTER EDIT:

I LOVED this game. It's funny how a little perspective and some time can change things. When I originally reviewed this game my feeling was that it was GTA4 with horses and that it didn't bring a whole lot to the table when it comes to entertainment. A year later I get an email telling me I need to take a week off work or I'm going to lose it. I get back on RDR and decide to just grind through it and end up falling in love.

What really stood out for me was the story telling and voice acting. I've been almost wholly consumed by competitive games like League of Legends and Starcraft 2 for the time in between the old review and the super long after edit. When I decided I'd take a break from grinding my teeth for hours while gaming and try to enjoy something story driven (and single player) it really did feel like a breath of fresh air.

There is just something to be said for a game that leads you from plot point to plot point but doesn't force the story forward. There were days I really didn't feel like doing anything but story line missions and there were others I just felt like putting on my bandanna and shooting townspeople in the face. I think that's the real place for sandbox games. They are still pretty much as linear as other genres, but the difference is that you can enjoy a lot of distractions along the way. This can help someone who's enjoying a particular setting linger and get the most out of it or break up the monotony of a story line that's become stale.

I'm pretty sure everything that needs to be said about this game has been said before and better than I plan on saying them, so here's a few quick points:

1. Why do I have to race stagecoaches?

2. If there is an option to rob a stagecoach or a train, make it more clear. I decided I didn't want to look up if I could be a bad guy from a silent film or not. I gave it a try and when it didn't make sense I moved on.

3. The challenges were a joke. There's no way I'm going to try to find a specific piece of desert to match up with a picture. I'm also not going to hang around for days trying to stab wolves. I guess some people love this stuff... to each his own.

4. Where is this music coming from? AWESOME.

5. Saw that coming, not like THAT though...

6. PLAY THROUGH THIS GAME.

REVIEW: Turtle Beach Earforce X41

2010-06-06T20:24:00.000-07:00

For Turtle Beach's official site for the Earforce X41s Click Here

I picked up a set of X41s off Amazon a couple months ago, but I did not want to write up anything until after I'd burned through some batteries and dropped them a few times. Seeing as both of those criteria are completed, here we go...

Amazing clarity, ability to change the way voice chat falls in the audio mix, and sound isolation (aka you get to have great sound without bothering anyone else). What more could you ask for?

more after the jump

A couple years ago I picked up a logitech 5.1 surround sound setup so I could hear everything the xbox 360 had to offer as clearly as I could possibly get it. I was (and still am) blown away by the quality of the sound and the clarity of DIRECTIONAL sound. Someone running up behind me? I know it. Bullet whizzing by from my back right to my front left? I know it. So, why did I buy a set of X41s?

It's simple really. I can't remember the last time I was able to USE my surround sound. The sub woofer shakes my house every time a grenade goes off and my wife is supposed to sleep through this? She works early mornings and I work nights, so when I'm off and want to get some gaming/movie time in, it's almost in silence. Before I was married it was roommates, neighbors, family members, whatever. I had this beast that could crank the immersion level of any game through the roof but could never use it to its full potential.... so I went shopping...

What I was looking for

I needed a sound system that could rival my surround sound but give me total sound isolation. I wanted it to be designed to work with xbox 360 so I wouldn't have to rig something special up to be able to chat with my friends/teammates. It also needed to have a way to bring voice chat up and down in the audio mix so I could adjust how loud the voices were in relation to the game audio... after all, if you can't hear people chatting, why have voice chat? I preferred to have a wired setup because I already carry two cell phones, a bluetooth headset, use a wireless keyboard and mouse, and a wireless controller and I'm just tired of charging batteries. I work nights and it had been so long since I had enjoyed game audio that cost really wasn't an issue. I wanted the best that I could get.

Why did I choose the Earforce X41s by Turtle Beach?

I asked around to see if any of my xbox live friends were using surround sound headsets. As it turned out, a few of my friends from work had been using Turtle Beach headsets for years and had no complaints. My only problem with the x41s at this stage was that they require 2AAA batteries. They include one set of AAAs, but I burned through them on night one. When I compared what I was looking for vs what the x41s had to offer it was almost a perfect match. The brand came highly recommended and since I was buying via Amazon I had nothing to lose if they turned out to be sub par. [NOTE: Amazon's return policy is amazing.]

My Order and First Impressions

I was not going to use any high tech device with standard batteries, so I ordered myself a duracell charger that came with 4AA rechargeable batteries and 4AAA rechargeable batteries (all pre-charged). I also picked up an HDMI adapter for my xbox 360... but that is collecting dust now that I'm recording everything via my Hauppauge HD PVR which does not accept HDMI.

Setup was easy. The X41s come with an optical cable so I was able to pass the sound through the base unit of the x41s to my surround sound for the times when I'm not the only one who wants to hear what's going on. I can't stress enough how happy it makes me that companies are packaging their hardware with the appropriate cables. Even Sony has begun packaging their PS3s with HDMI cables... FINALLY. This makes two purchases where I didn't need a single cable. 5 years ago I would have been rushing out to Radio Shack to get all sorts of things to be able to use these devices. The X41 gets its power via a USB cable that goes to your xbox (or it can be run to a PC or an outlet with AC to USB adapter. This was also a very welcomed feature because I live in an old house with limited outlets. USB power is always nice.

The x41 can also be setup using the red and white component audio jacks, so if you're not using optical cables, you're still in good shape. The base unit has a second headphone jack, so if you've got a friend over and you're playing split screen you both can experience sound isolation at the same time using the same device. Obviously, the quality of the second connection can only be determined by the headphones you choose to use. I don't believe it will work with xbox live voice chat either, but I have not tested it, so I can't say. I think it's a nice feature regardless. How many people are living in close proximity to others who want to avoid disturbing everyone else but still want to enjoy their games... even if they have a friend playing with them? I wouldn't think that group would be so large if it wasn't for all the split screen-ers I've seen on Left4Dead2 recently... but I digress.

The first game I played with my new x41s was Battlefield Bad Company 2. My first impression was... this is exactly the same as what I had before. After all the hype I heard from all the people I knew with Turtle Beach headsets I was expecting a whole new world of audio clarity. What I got was... the same as what I had... which was an amazing world of audio clarity. What I lost was earth shattering bass and an open and airy atmosphere that feels like it's full of life. What I gained was the ability to have a very similar experience to what I had without waking my wife up every time I fired the main gun of a bradley.

Was I disappointed? Yeah... a little. I didn't really know how good I had it until I heard what everyone was doing back flips over. It was exactly the same...

or was it?

X41s after a month of gaming

So, after the initial buyers remorse cooled off I started realizing that I was doing something I'd never done before... played it LOUD. I was able to crank the volume in the middle of the night and hear every last sound in crystal clear 5.1 as if it was going on around me. I also changed the sound settings in Battlefield Bad Company 2 from "War Tapes" to "Headphones" after I realized they weren't talking about a the old $10 headphones that your laptop is talking about when you change THOSE settings to headphones. Now, my wife was sleeping soundly and I was gaming at full throttle experiencing the things that I'd missed for so many years.

All of a sudden I started realizing little sounds I had missed. There were little pieces of audio "flair" that I never heard before. There were nuances to all the games I play that I had never even realized before that were bringing my gaming experience to a whole new level. I started appreciating the fact that the voice chat is in both ears. It actually increased the immersion level of the game when I could hear people just as I would in real life... in BOTH ears (now if xbox had the voice in 5.1 and I could tell WHERE a dude was talking to me from... a man can dream). I started noticing that the voice chat was being boosted during loud sequences in game preventing the much needed intel from being lost in the mix. I started really loving my headset without even knowing it.

The only quirk to this whole process and really... the only true "con" to this head set is that there is absolutely ZERO notification that the batteries are near death. Luckily, I was playing single player when the first set of included batteries died (after 10 or so game hours) and I was able to pause and replace them with the first set of Duracell rechargeable batteries. I figured they'd die in another 10 or so hours, but I was wrong. They lasted over 20 game hours! The only problem was that I was in the middle of a L4D2 round of Scavenge and suddenly had no xbox live voice chat, no game audio, no nothing. I had packed away my old xbox live headset, so I decided it was time to try my NASCAR pit crew skills. You don't realize how important 30 seconds are until you have your controller down and are trying to carefully insert batteries into your headset while your teammates are being smoked, pummeled, ridden, etc. I had some angry dudes on my team after that one.

From that battery death on what I've found works the best is to click the power button on the headset, report quickly that your headset batteries are dead and that you're going to change them after the round (you normally can get 5 or so seconds even if they just shut off on you), and then do your best without any sound until the round is over (or you have a long respawn time, etc).

I don't even know if I want to call this a "con" because I would hate for Turtle Beach to add a "your cell phone is going to die in 1 hour beep" to the headset. I'm not really sure what the best situation would be. It probably would be nice to have a warning light on the base unit when you're under 5 minutes of charge... but it's a small price to pay to be able to play it loud without disturbing anyone.

Comfort vs The Marathon Session

I had the night off and decided that I'd run the x41s through the comfort gauntlet that is a showing of Avatar followed by a 10 hour gaming session. I chose a long movie because I wanted to see if I could lean back in my recliner with my hands behind my head and enjoy a movie just as I would with my surround sound. I wear a 7 7/8ths fitted hat and a XXL motorcycle helmet, so I must extend the earpieces to maximum length to center them on my ears... but I can... so that's a huge plus. The boom mic could be a bit longer, but it is very adjustable. I just have to be careful that I keep it close to the side of my mouth because it doesn't reach far enough to go in front of my mouth (which I would prefer... but when you've got an Easter Island style head you take what you can get). I do occasionally get the complaint that I sound far away, but that's corrected by adjusting the boom.

The movie sounded great. The headset is light and comfortable, but I did become aware of it a few times when I'd turn my head and bump a speaker. I didn't feel I needed to adjust it at all during the movie, so I give the x41 an A+ for the movie experience.

Then came Left4Dead2 and the marathon gaming session. I wasn't aware of the headset until about hour 5 when I felt a little ear fatigue and needed to move the headset forward on my head. The earphones don't squeeze your head at all, but having them in the same place while you're frantically playing games and getting heated (in a warm room) tends to get slightly uncomfortable after multiple hours.

From hour 5 on I found myself adjusting them a little after each round or taking them off to let my ears cool off a bit while everyone was taking a bathroom break in between campaigns. They were still comfortable, but a little adjustment kept them feeling fresh.

It wasn't until hour 9+ that I started getting a little tired of having the x41s on my head. The room I'm in isn't cool enough to run an xbox360, PC, and plasma TV for double digit hours. I'm confident that I would have been no more comfortable using the standard xbox live headset for that long in my game room. It just got too hot to have something on your head.

All in all the x41s were extremely comfortable and I did not expect to make it the whole night without any complaints. What discomfort I felt was minor and more attributed to the weak AC unit than the headset itself. For such high quality sound with top notch sound isolation you can't find a more comfortable headset... even when using them for 12 hours at a time. There was a time long long ago when I was quite the audiophile and used a set of $500 headphones to listen to music. I ended up selling them to a friend of mine after a few months because I simply hated the way they felt on my head. I was ready to say the same of the x41s... but Turtle Beach knows what they are doing and did a wonderful job making these functional and comfortable. A Freaken Plus.

Conclusion and Final Thoughts (aka the tl;dr version)

Turtle Beach knows gaming. They know what you want and they give it to you in a package that's unbelievably easy to setup and use that's powerful enough to rival the best 5.1 surround sound systems money can buy while being comfortable enough to outlast the longest gaming sessions. If you have a top of the line surround sound system, you're not going to notice a difference when it comes to sound quality or directional awareness, but you will hear all the little sounds and all the finer points you've missed. Most importantly, you get to game in a world of earth shattering sound without making everyone around you hate your guts.

RE: Would any MMOG Make a Good Offline Game

2010-05-21T13:23:00.000-07:00

THIS POST IS IN RESPONSE TO MMORPG.COM'S BLOG POST FROM THEIR COMMUNITY SPOTLIGHT. IT CAN BE FOUND HERE

A few hours ago I was reading through my emails and received an update from one of my favorite gaming sites, MMORPG.COM, that caught my eye. MMORPG has a column called "community spotlight" that takes forum conversations and highlights them as a blog post. I posted a quick response to the article (see if you can figure out who I am once I post this) but I felt like I had a lot more to say than I wanted to leave in the comments.

I feel that there is a lost opportunity every time a MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game) gets shut down. It's not because of the subscribers that they lose when they stop accepting their money. It's because those subscribers (and probably many more people) would love to have their own version of the game that they can play at home by themselves or with friends even after the game has been shut down for good.

More after the jump

EverQuest OFFLINE

My first MMORPG experience was EverQuest. I logged thousands of hours into that game and never experienced even a small fraction of what was out there. There is a near endless amount of quests, zones, mobs (mobile NPCs), special drops, rare items, etc. Most of which are obsolete by years of expansions that have built players into monsters compared to the original top end toons. The problem in EQ is that if you want to stay relevant and have people around that want to play with you then you need to be on the cutting edge when it comes to gear and goals. If you want to experience older content for the pure entertainment value it brings and the odd old rare drop that you can show off from your bank then you're out of luck.

I spent the last year or so I was subscribed trying to run old raids (50+ player quests) and find fun little items that had special abilities. I had a second account that gave me the ability to do a whole lot more than I could on my own, but even my box shaman couldn't replace having adventurous friends. In essence I was logging into a subscription based chat room and playing an offline game. I still loved playing, but all my friends had moved on and when I needed just a little bit of help to conquer some old boss that nobody had killed in ages I could NEVER find it. Everyone was too busy being high end raiders, keying themselves into some new dungeon, or grinding AAs (Alternate Advancement points... similar to leveling but nearly unlimited) to do a blast from the past run through some old castle to kill some old boss who drops some old trinket that nobody needs.

At this point I figured I'd try to start up my own guild based on running old raids and experiencing the maximum quantity of adventure possible without the desire to be the best geared. I received nearly zero interest. The people I did find could barely fill out a group. When I explained to them that the first thing I'd like to do is get everyone keyed for Vex Thal...

BREAKING NEWS: When I went to go get a link to the Vex Thal quest I read that VEX THAL IS NOW OPEN TO ALL PLAYERS LEVEL 55+... Do you have any idea how long I farmed those stupid luclid shards off names that spawn 1 out of 5 with a 30 minute timer and only drop the shard 3 out of 5 times? I spent WEEKS hunting stupid green mobs for EACH shard only to have to roll for them only to LOSE THE ROLL 3 OR 4 TIMES PER SHARD AODGHAODSGIHASGHAJGHNASGHO;LASGH;L and then they open it up... I may have to renew my sub for a month just to hit that damn zone... ANYWAY... BACK TO THE POST

ehem... so I gave everyone the link to the Vex Thal Quest and told them that if they need any help finding placeholder mobs or camping any of the shards I'd be on just about every day doing the camps and would be happy to help. After a few days of trying to get 5 other guys keyed they all decided this was a stupid idea and went off to grind more XP (Experience Points).

So, here I am. A warrior who's too well geared to find any upgrades in a group but too low geared to get INTO a group. I know that sentence doesn't make a lot of sense, so let me just say that's EXACTLY what I meant. I was just about full raid geared from farming Anguish meaning I had gear that was far superior to current day group content [NOTE: I stopped playing a couple years ago. I'm sure current group stuff trumps Anguish gear]... but the groups that were looking for warriors wanted only warriors in current end game gear!

To get into a raiding guild that could bring me up to par I would have to invest a specific amount of time per week raiding. Because I wasn't cutting edge, I'd just be a liability to the guild on the raid anyway. A common raid guild would have a mission statement that went like this: "You are required to attend 60% of raids to stay in the guild. In order to bid on loot you need to be at 75% raid attendance. New members will not be able to bid on loot for 30 days. Raid schedule: M,T,W,F 6-11PM EST and Su 1PM-5PM EST." To clarify, that means they raid 5 days a week. In order to improve your character through drops you have to go to at least 4 of those raids a week for 30 days and then you have to "bid" on loot using what is commonly called "DKP." Briefly, DKP is awarded for attendance and tracked by a guild officer so when an item drops it is auctioned off to the highest DKP bidder. Going any deeper into that will make you gloss over... if you haven't already. Most guilds have a rigid raid schedule and stick to it. They expect you to be able to be on for those hours doing what they want you to do for that amount of time or more. So what happens to guys like me who work all different shifts? Some weeks I work during the day, some weeks I'm at night. Even if I do make every raid when I'm home during those hours I'm still below the 75% attendance I need to loot any items and improve my character... and I accumulate a massive quantity of wife aggro.

EverQuest's Charm and How Most People Miss it Completely

everQUEST to me was about adventure. From the minute I logged in for the first time I couldn't believe this whole world was designed with things for me to find and conquer. I was equally blown away by the fact that there were all these other real people around me who were helpful, friendly, and made life online so much more enjoyable. But, when it came down to it, what I loved the most about EQ was the ability to live an online life as an adventurer. I'd go from zone to zone hailing NPCs to find the next piece of some puzzle that would end up giving me a piece of gear so old and underpowered that I'd never even put it on. When I'd get that piece I'd be so excited that I had to send everyone a link of the item and tell them the story of my most recent adventure. It would go a little something like this:

Me: "Hey, guild, check it out! I just finished the quest for this LINK: Shiny Sword"

Guildmate1: "LINK: Shinier Sword I Bought for 100 Platinum"

Me: "I know it's not the best, but the quest brought me all over Antonica and I figured it out all by trial and error, hunting down quest pieces, and figuring out key words to say"

Guildmate2: "lol"

Guildmate1: "Why didn't you just buy the one I got for 100 platinum?"

Guildmate3: "If you need a sword, just ask I'll give you one 10 times better for nothing"

Me: "I did it for the adventure"

Guildmate2: "lol what?"

I believe with all my heart that the original developers of EverQuest intended the "fun" of the game to be found in the satisfaction of completing quests and adventuring through the unknown. While the ol' XP grind seems like the main activity, I think it was designed to give you a way to get to know people and bond with them while you're doing quests or getting more powerful so you could get new quests done. I wouldn't even be shocked if one of the devs said that the quests were supposed to go hand in hand with the grind and that you were supposed to level up through a series of quests that required you to kill a bunch of mobs while you waited on some special mob to spawn.

What ended up being the "fun" for most people I've played with was advancement. It was getting that new helm or winning the bid on that new sword that they looked forward to. It wasn't about the activity being done, it was the reward for finishing it. This caused most everyone to go into an arms race that's lasted for a decade without realizing it. I'd always hear stuff like "once I get my new ax from this raid I'll be able to do so much more DPS. I'll finally be able to go to that zone." Once they get to that zone it's "After I grind 100 more AAs I'll be able to go to this other zone." For a lot of people it really felt empty to play the game if they weren't constantly advancing their gear and becoming more powerful. When you'd ask them why they need to do a bajillion DPS they wouldn't know.

South Park summed this up very nicely in their episode about World of Warcraft. In that episode they grind for months to take on one griefer who keeps killing them. Once he's dead they say "OKay... now we can finally play the game." Only to go back to exactly what they were doing before. EQ can pass you by while you're playing it. If all you are concerned with is being the best, then you miss out on all the joy that can be had experiencing the lore and adventure that's out there. You don't have to enjoy things the way I do, but I've seen top 5 warriors quit the game way more often than you'd expect. Why? When they have everything they can get there is nothing left for them in the game. There is nothing fun but advancement if you let the other stuff go by.

NEWSBREAK from the future: EQ Goes Dark!

At some point in the future Sony Online Entertainment is going to pull the plug on EQ. Maybe it's years away, maybe it's sooner, but it's coming. Everyone has been saying it's over for years but it keeps on plugging away. It goes dark... what's next?

I believe that there are hundreds of thousands of players who would love to play EQ again, but on their own terms. People like me that could never finish their epic quest because some platinum farmer had their quest mob on a timer for 10 years. People who want to experience the little things and have access to the character that they lived through for all those hundreds of hours. Here's how I see it happening.

You can buy a copy of offline EQ. That copy works very similarly to how FPS multiplayer games work. You can set up a server online, select options (which expansions to include, who can join, etc) and play. Your character is persistent on your end. The world shuts down with the server. That means I could take my warrior and join my friend's EQ "room" and quest with him when I wanted to on his instance of the EQ world or he could join me. I could set up my server to have any number of simultaneous connections so I could organize a raid of any zone at any time and invite a whole raid party to my server, get set up and go without having to worry about raid timers. Those players could be organized on a message board, a chat room, a super cool blog about games (lolololo) or through real life friends, but you're pulling from people all over the world who have an interest in this game at this time instead of your server or your guild.

NEW POST: Vex Thal raid

Hey, guys. I'm setting up a Vex Thal raid for this weekend. I'll be hosting the room starting at 18:00 EST and the raid will move out at 19:00 EST. I'd like to get a feel for who'd like to come. Post here with your character information if you'd like to make a run through good ol Vex Thal. All loot will be /random 1000. Afterwards we can make a second run or we can move the raid. What do you think?

If I saw that post I'd be in in a heartbeat. Add a search function to the server list and you'd be rockin and rollin.

Servername: Baromen's World

Current Zone: Riftseeker's Sanctum

Connections: 5 of 6

Average Level: 71

Description: Level 72 Warrior grinding some AAs with level 70 Shaman [box'd]. Join up for some GRINDAN

Servername: Glantok the Raider

Current Zone: Asylum of Anguish

Connection: 15 of 32

Average level: 74

Description: Farming anguish augs and 2.0 orbs.

Servername: Old Skool

Current Zone: Halas

Connections: 3 of 6

Average Level: 6.5

Description: Questing through Antonica. Grinding the early levels WITHOUT twink gear.

Can you imagine that? How much fun would it be to be able to organize anyone who's purchased an "offline" copy of EQ into whatever you felt like doing? How many people would come back if they didn't have to deal with certain player related problems or have to keep up with their neighbors via endless raids? How many people would love to kill Nagalfar with a group of level 50s geared up in the expansion's appropriate gear? How awesome would it be to try to reinact the killing of The Sleeper?

An offline copy would be like a time machine that you could enjoy forever. If the devs decided it was worth it they could even select "expansion appropriate replacements" for weapons that didn't exist when you're going into battle in an older expansion. Have your epic 2.0 but want to raid the plane of time in a server that restricts all newer expansions? You'll have the choice to select appropriate gear from your bank or have your gear replaced with "expansion appropriate replacements."

The economy would be a difficult thing to "fake" for an offline game, but I'm sure that something could be done to make it rewarding enough to screw around with. This is pretty much a MMORPG simulator anyways. You're not going to get the same experience. It's just a way to enjoy something in a new way instead of it being gone forever.

Since EQ introduced "mercenaries" to the mix, why not have programmable "bots" that you could bring along to fill out a raid? Why not give the ability to control any one of them at any time? Select the monk, pull a mob, go back to your warrior, tank the mob. While you're tanking, the monk goes back to dps. While you're pulling with the monk, the warrior is ready to assist. You could program commands similar to how the platinum farmers used macros to have your "bot group" do whatever you want them to do. Want your bard to sing an AC tune mixed with Selo's? You got it! Want the cleric to use quick heals instead of complete heals? Would you rather have your enchanter charm an add instead of mezzing it? You get the picture. It'd be a whole new game of multitasking with added AI support.

MY EYES! THE NOSTALGIA GOGGLES DO NOTHING!

Nostalgia is a terrible thing because it makes us do things like renew a sub because you just read that a zone you never got to go to because it was locked is now open to everyone 55+. That costs you at least a month's subscription, makes you remember all the bad things again, and puts you back out of the game remorseful that you didn't just let it go.

But, if you could set up your own instance of the game, invite people to that instance under the pretense that you'd be doing what you want to do, and go back and do it... that's a delicious serving of nostalgia served with an exciting new memory topping. Add in that you can have a realistic experience of what it was like when that content was fresh by restricting gear or blow through it like a one man army with all your shiny NEW gear and you have something that will be revisited for years to come.

When you take out the need for there to be thousands of people subscribed at once and give people the option to pay up front (and maybe even rent a server of their own) to play with whoever they want whenever they want you have a sustainable model that will be remembered as something special forever. Yes, you lose the persistent online world that gave life to the pixels around you, but you gain the ability to experience all the content on your own terms after the online product has passed it's profitable life. Why would anyone let over a decade of imaginative content just vanish when there are thousands of people who'd love to be able to say they can go back to it at any time?

The End

Do I feel this model works for most MMORPGS? Yes, but with a little caveat. The longer a game is live and the more people that have subscribed the greater chance you have at making a buck and giving people something they really enjoy. Do I think that Tabula Rasa is worth an offline version after it's short life? I don't know. I never got a chance to experience the game, but from what I've read I'm sure there would be some interest even if it was only to fly around using a devkit and just look at the places that you could go.

What I do know is that this week I happened across a video an old guild mate of mine made. It was just a series of screenshots with background music that detailed our progression through the Planes of Power raids. I was so nostalgia'd out that I wanted to resub right there. The timing of the MMORPG.com article was perfect and hit me in a place that I am passionate about. I'd LOVE to be able to start up a version of the EQ world on my PC today and just be able to move around the zones like a GM and look at everything. Just to stand there and stare down Quarm again... not even to interact with him... but to stand there and just see him grunting and waiting... ready to test the metal of the next guild who thinks they've got what it takes... Just to look at it one more time... I can't even put a price on it. I'd pay whatever SOE would want. I couldn't get my credit card out fast enough if I could have my own little time capsule to enjoy... even if I couldn't see a thousand other players hanging around the big bank in the plane of knowledge...

REVIEW: Hauppauge HD PVR

2010-05-18T21:59:00.000-07:00

After my short and disappointing tour of duty with the Blackmagic Intensity Pro I wanted to make absolutely certain that I gave the Hauppauge HD PVR a solid run through before I even considered a review. After 10 or so hours of recording and an entire day screwing around in different video editing suites I can say without hesitation that the HD PVR is EXACTLY what I was looking for. Setup was intuitive, recording options made perfect sense, quality is fantastic, and hard drive requirements are low.

More on Hauppauge's HD PVR after the jump

Hauppauge HD PVR official site

What I Wanted vs What I Got

It makes me feel old, but what I really wanted in a capture device was a VCR. I wanted to be able to record hours of video at a time and worry about editing it later. I wanted the quality to be outstanding and the file sizes to be manageable. I wanted to be able to turn on my xbox and play hours of games with my friends and have a recording of the night that I could mess around with, share with my friends, upload to video sharing sites, and enjoy. I wanted to be able to share those moments that nobody would believe you pulled off without seeing it with their own eyes. I wanted to laugh again at the funny moments that make playing games so enjoyable...

What I got with the Hauppauge HD PVR was EXACTLY that! With standard settings I'm seeing file sizes around 4 gigs an hour with 1080i resolution and flawless sound. I'm able to go back and relive the fun times and share them directly to youtube thanks to the device encoding the videos in H.264 MP4. The files are easy to work with in a wide variety of video editing suites and with how cheap external solid state drives have become, they are easy to carry around and share with friends... just as if it was an old VCR tape.

There is one other benefit to the HD PVR over an internal card like the Intensity Pro... you can use it anywhere. I don't have a Playstation 3, but other writers here at T6SROF do. I can easily bring my laptop and PVR with me and record at will. Not being tied down to my desktop for video capture isn't the main attraction, but to me it's the icing on the cake.

Basics

This device sits in between your video source (in my case, an xbox360) and your TV and splits the signal so you can record what is coming out of the source to your PC. It does not have HDMI functionality, so the money I just spent upgrading to HDMI was wasted, but it does come with its own set of component audio/video cables, so at least I didn't NEED to buy anything right out of the gate. What I did end up buying was a six foot optical cable so I could run my audio from the PVR to my Turtle Beach X41 headset in the highest quality. The PVR attaches to your computer using a USB cable.

Setup:

Since the PVR is a USB device, setup was simple. If you can hook your xbox to your TV using component video cables then you will have absolutely no problem setting up the PVR. Just be sure to have an available USB port and an extra optical cable (NOTE: you will not need an extra set of RCA "Red/White" cables if that is how you transfer audio)

Software and Capture:

The device uses a program called ArcSoft Total Media Extreme to capture, edit, and convert video. I do not use this program for the converting or editing of my media, so I can't speak to the quality of those functions. It does allow you to burn DVD discs that are playable on blu-ray players, but I don't have a blu-ray player either, so if that's your thing... go crazy... but I won't be able to confirm or deny that it works.

ArcSoft Total Media Extreme

The program is simple. It only gives you four options: Record, Create Disc, Playback, and Convert. Here I've selected that I'd like to record video which brings me to the capture preview window:

The options on the bottom are just presets. If you select Playstation 3 or Xbox360 it just changes the settings for optimal playback on those devices. You do not need to use the setting for the game system you have. The PVR can also record from set top boxes and any other video source that uses S-video or composite connetions and you could use any of the presets without any problems. You can also decide which of the settings you'd like to change ala carte using the drop-downs if you are more of an advanced user than I am, but I just left everything as is and went to town. To begin your recording all you have to do is click the capture button on the bottom and you're off. When you've finished recording you just press the button again and the file is saved to the hard drive. It's that simple.

Unlike the Blackmagic Intensity Pro, this device does not require a RAID ZERO hard drive configuration. Using the settings above I am seeing file sizes of around 4gigs per hour and the quality is fantastic.

HERE IS AN EXAMPLE

Problems:

So far the only problem I've run into is that the device has a tendency to lock up in between uses. That is why there is a "refresh device" button on the capture window. It really is not a massive problem, but the device has to be on in order to get a signal to your television. If it locks up in between uses and you have to reset the device using your PC then you have to have your PC on even when you are not recording. I am sure you could turn off the PC once everything is good to go, but I haven't really tried that as I've been recording everything I've done for the past week.

TL:DR

If you want to record and share your games online this capture device is PERFECT for you.

REVIEW: Blackmagic Intensity Pro HDMI Capture Device

2010-05-10T09:35:00.000-07:00

Looking for a way to get uncompressed, super-high quality HDMI signals directly to your hard drive from a HD video camera? Are you someone who works in television professionally who needs to edit the highest of high quality feeds? No? Well... me neither... so a week after I received my card it is back in the annuls of Amazon's warehouses. Here's my (short) experience with the card and what I think.

While I'm not a professional TV editor, what I am is some dude who wants to press the record button and play video games so I can share my experiences with the internets. I play my xbox 360 via HDMI to my television, so that's where my search began. I went to Bing and typed in "Capture card hdmi." There are very few choices when it comes to HDMI capture, so I went to some forums to see what people thought. The overwhelming majority of people came back to me with get a Blackmagic Intensity Pro or use composite cables and get a Hauppage HD PVR. I figured an internal card was good enough and probably more reliable than an external one and the HD PVR does not work with HDMI, so my mind was made up.

Setup

The box came with the card and two "breakout" cables that were ways to change the signal from composite to HDMI if your source only uses composite video/audio (thus the two cables). It also comes with an installation CD... that DID NOT WORK with windows 7 64bit. I had to go to the website and download the installer for both the drivers and the capture software. Once that was all said and done it was a quick path to uncompressed HDMI to my PC. All I had to do was run the cable from my xbox 360 to the card's input and a second HDMI cable to the television from the card's output.

Software

The software gives you very few options. It also doesn't make it clear that if your signal doesn't match the settings you won't get picture or sound to the PC. I spent the next few hours learning that the hard way. The easiest way for me to get this right was to hook my Xbox 360 directly to the television, set the display settings via the dashboard to 1080p (RGB), turn off the "autodetect display" option (the 360 has a nasty tendency to just switch display modes when you plug the HDMI to the pc if you don't do this...), then hook the Xbox BACK up to the capture card, and just trial and error around with the multiple 1080p settings until you see a picture in the "capture" tab.

After multiple hours of frustration... I had a crystal clear picture of my Xbox 360 dashboard on my PC.

Capture

At this point I was extremely excited to get recording. I figured I'd do a quick test and capture myself scrolling through the blades on the dashboard. I click capture, pick up the controller, press LB to scroll, and the capture card throws an error. I go back and it had stopped recording due to "dropped frames." I went into preferences and unchecked the box that said "stop capture for dropped frames" and tried again. This time everything seems good.

I have to inform you that I only use one display adapter. I have a 42" plasma from Panasonic that I use for both the PC and Xbox, so I didn't notice anything strange until I flipped back to the PC.

So, now I'm back on my PC and click "stop capture." I see a brand new clip in the library that I had just created. It was approximately a minute long.... and almost a TERRA BYTE in size. To be fair I believe it was something like 750gigs. I lol'd a minute and then went and watched it. The video could not have been any more clear. It was amazing. The problem was it would drop a series of frames every time something happened on screen making it a bit choppy... not easy to notice, but it was there. The audio was not even CLOSE to being sync'd up. The video played normally for a minute, then it freeze framed itself, and the rest of the audio kept playing.

The BIG problem was the file size. I've done stupid things like this before where I just didn't check a box or pick an appropriate bitrate and it turned into a mess, so I knew there was a way to set it properly...

BUT...

This card/software IS NOT designed to take anything but the highest quality video/audio. They only have 3 settings for quality and I already had it on the lowest one!

I figured it had to be the 1080p setting on the xbox so I turned the xbox's display to 720p. I repeated the test and the file was not much smaller than it was the first time, the picture was choppy, and the audio was not sync'd up.

I then tried multiple video editing software platforms to try and capture at a lower bitrate but could not even get them to recognize the hardware.

Searching for Answers

At this point I didn't want to admit I had purchased a $199 brick so I went searching for advice. I spent an entire day looking for people who use this card to capture video and what I found was a whole bunch of happy campers that got exactly what they wanted. They weren't gamers like me who wanted to upload videos to sharing sites and post them on their blogs. They were professional video editors of one type or another and they all had one thing in common... RAID ZERO.

I haven't had this computer for a month yet. It has an i7 930, 2xATI Radeon 5770 1Gig GDDR5s in Crossfire mode, 16gigs of DDR3 RAM... and it cannot handle the card due to the single hard drive. I thought I did a ton of research before purchasing the Blackmagic Intensity Pro, but as it turns out, I did a pretty lousy job.

What I don't understand is how I could have missed the fact that this card takes such amazingly fast hard drives. Even the solid state drives of today are NOT fast enough to capture this type of feed alone without being configured in RAID ZERO. The people that actually have, use, and enjoy this card recommend having 6 or more drives in RAID ZERO at 2TB each. One such user said that he uses the card to transfer HD video feeds to the PC in 1 hour increments. That 1 hour of video/audio runs about 10TB of HD space.

I had it in my head that I was going to record up to 8 hours of game play at a time... what a shame.

TL;DR

The Blackmagic Intensity Pro capture card allegidly works great as long as you have a bleeding edge PC with 10+TB of hard drive space configured in RAID ZERO. This is NOT the card for the casual user. It should not be considered for capturing video games to upload to sharing sites due to its massive requirements and impractical file sizes.

What's Next?

I have a HD PVR from Hauppauge on order from Amazon.com. Hopefully that review will come with video evidence.

Where I'm Coming From...

2010-04-13T15:30:00.001-07:00

I had a professor in college who talked about the "conceptual grid." He said that there is truth and there is your perception of that truth, but in between is a grid that you filter information through so it makes sense in regards to personal context. It is extremely important to have an idea of what colors a person's conceptual grid if you are going to take their opinion seriously. AKA know what's going on in someone's head so you have an idea why they feel the way they do about things.

So, a little about me after the jump.

My setup:

42" Panasonic Plasma 1080p TV

Xbox 360 with composite video (HDMI connections in the mail)

5.1 surround sound (Headset on order... and it WILL be reviewed... I can't wait)

I was born in 1980. I am recently married, own a house, and have a pit bull named Otis. I play the vast majority of my games on the Xbox 360 with the exception being MMOs that are still a PC exclusive. I own a Wii, but when I moved in September of 09 I never hooked it back up... mostly laziness and a wealth of alternatives. I traditionally buy games that are multiplayer focused online games and rent offline games from an online rental service (which I may or may not review in the near future) unless the single player game is extremely interesting or I don't want to have it spoiled.

I have always enjoyed a wide variety of games, but once Goldeneye was released I became a First Person Shooter (FPS) fanatic. I moved to the PC in 1997 when I bought Rainbow Six packaged with Rogue Spear, but ended up back on the consoles for TimeSplitters and later Halo.

My time spent gaming is currently 90% online 10% single player, but that changes depending on the quality of games that are out at the time. Fable II, Bioshock, N3, and a bunch of other games have pulled me offline, but I will default to being online unless something intriguing is out.

My online time is heavily adversarial, but I do really appreciate a good co-op mode. Terrorist Hunt from Rainbow Six, SpecOps from Modern Warfare 2, and (whatever they called) the co-op missions from Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter are all great examples of great co-op modes.

My favorite games have been simulation shooters (Rainbow Six 3, Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising, Ghost Recon, Battlefield) as opposed to arcade shooters (Halo, Gears of War, Call of Duty) but I have spent considerable time in both categories. I also prefer a game that requires teamwork over a game that doesn't and will always choose cooperation over individualism online. You'll hear me talk a lot about the community's perception of teamwork and strategy a lot.

I feel that a game should have a learning curve that's tough but fair. I shouldn't be able to buy a game 2 months after launch, optimatch into a room, and go 1:1 (Kills:Deaths). The games I've enjoyed the most over the years have taken me a long time to adjust to... but that just made it more satisfying when I did.

I have a special place in my heart for RTS games, but I haven't been involved in a long time.

I'm not overly impressed by amazing graphics, but amazing sound will cause me to talk. I am very aware of hit-boxes and hit-detection. I feel like that's the single most important part of any shooter. I don't mind if a multiplayer game like Call of Duty or Battlefield has a short single player. I like when the single player brings something to the table in a multiplayer game, but let's be honest... nobody is buying Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 that doesn't have an internet connection.

I loathe the word "nerf" and will never use it in regards to balance issues.

I don't like instanced content in MMOs but understand their value.

uh... what else...

I'm extremely libertarian. I don't believe the government should have any involvement in our business or personal lives unless it's straight up protection (Police, Fire, Military) and shouldn't have an overseas presence for any reason.

I work nights on a container port... my favorite movie is The Matrix... Zakk Wylde is my favorite musician with David Allen Coe neck and neck. When I'm not working or gaming I'm on my motorcycle or playing semi pro football (I'm an Offensive Lineman).

ANYWAYS... that's who I am.

Battlefield Bad Company 2

2010-04-13T15:22:00.000-07:00

A WEEK of total playtime and thousands of murders later I'm ready to finally review EPIC's latest game, Battlefield Bad Company 2. I have to be honest, Bad Company 1 did nothing for me. I thought it was interesting and enjoyed their "gold rush" game mode, but after investing a dozen hours into the demo I felt it had ran its course and moved on to geener pastures.

Fast forward to 2010 and I notice a demo for Bad Company 2 on the Xbox dashboard. By the end of the night I had pre-ordered the game and was trying to confirm a midnight launch at my local retailer.

Overview

Battlefield Bad Company 2 is a class based multiplayer first person shooter with a single player mode. The game's big new feature is "Destruction 2.0" that allows for pretty much anything you see to be reduced to ash. Trees, buildings, boxes, walls, fences... they all come down with the right encouragement. Enemy camping a doorway? Make a shiny NEW doorway in the wall he's sitting next to! Now you get a kill and a fresh new entryway. Hit that same building with enough firepower and it will fall to the ground killing everyone inside. If you don't play online, stop reading right here and move on. The single player campaign took me all of an afternoon to run through and it was nothing to write home about. To be perfectly honest I can't remember a whole lot about the single player and it hasn't been a month since I finished it. Multiplayer is mostly objective based and involves a ton of vehicle combat. There is a "squad deathmatch" mode, but with the other two modes "Rush" (with it's 4v4, vehicle-less variant "Squad Rush") and "Conquest" you most likely won't see much deathmatch.

Facts and Features

Single Player

Like I said above... it lasted all of 4 or 5 hours. If you're handy with an FPS and can remember enemy placements you'll do just fine and be through the story rather quickly. What's interesting to note about the single player is that Epic did not opt to throw endless waves of enemies at you until you cross invisible barriers like Infinity Ward's Call of Duty 4. Once you kill who's there, you move on. This tends to feel more satisfying to me, but it does bring down the intensity when you know you can pop out and blast a few guys, duck back behind cover and repeat the process until you have a much more manageable force to deal with. The AI did some pretty impressive things, so there were those moments when I'd duck behind a building to reload and all of a sudden the guy I was shooting at was gone only to remove my helmet from behind with a 7.62 round, but again... it took me 4 hours to go from beginning to end.

Epic also included the ol' "find 20 hidden things" achievements into the campaign. All that means to me is that I'll never have 1,000 gamerpoints from this game. STOP IT! It doesn't add to replayability or game hours. I don't want to find cog tags, newspapers, torches, statues, toys, etc. I want to focus on the game, not the floor textures.

I really wanted to go deeper on the single player... but I'm finding myself adjusting my mp3 playlist more than typing... AND the only reason I ever played it was because the online servers were a little shaky the fist week... so I'll just throw out some adjectives and move on:

Short

Funny

Lighthearted

Short

Cool level design

Interesting Story

Short

Online Multiplayer

Epic goes in a very different direction than most other games in this department. Rooms max out at 24 players, so you can have up to 12 people per team. That may be a couple more than some games or a few less than others, but the REAL difference is that every team is made up of "squads" that are groups of up to four people. Those four people can use voice chat with each other, but not the rest of the team. You can't hear the other eight players... just the three in your squad. The burden of trying to communicate with the other eight players is carried by the action button. On the 360 the action button is the "back" button. You can use the back button to give commands to the other players in the form of in game voice (aka voice actors used to record the audio of the game) that is combined with graphical notices in the HUD and can even mark things in the world. Sounds scary and awkward, but you'll grow into it.

The next huge difference here is that when you die you get the option on where you would like to spawn. You have at least one static choice (called your deployment) which is where the whole team starts out the round. This is also where your team's vehicles will traditionally spawn. The other choices you have are the other members of your squad. That means if your buddy just snuck around behind the other team and is ready to unleash death you can join in on the madness immediately without worrying about how he got there. Flanking maneuvers and spawn timing are now art. Are you alone in a great place? Let your squad know to spawn in on you and go in with backup.

There is a class based system that allows you to choose from four "kits":

Assault: Assault rifles with a choice of grenade launchers, rifle mounted shotguns, or smoke grenades. Killing fools at medium to long range is why you'd pick this class. Your specialty is supplying your team with ammunition. NOTE: If you select a primary weapon that does not allow an under-barrel attachment (ex. Shotguns can't use grenade launchers) then the assault kit can bring C4 charges which can be devastating to armor and buildings.
Engineer: SMGs for up close and personal action. Anti-Armor equipment (rocket launchers, Anti-Tank mines, etc). Specialty is the repair tool which is an impact wrench that repairs friendly armor or destroys enemy armor (or faces... see achievement "The Dentist")
Medic: LMGs for secondary assault roles and to maintain pressure on enemies while all the other classes are reloading (or dead). Specialty is two part. 1. You drop medic packs that heal your team. 2. You can revive downed teammates with defibrillator paddles. Most game modes are based on "respawn tickets" so reviving a downed teammate means he won't have to use one of the tickets to continue the fight.
Recon: Sniper rifles so you can sit in a bush a mile away and not be a credit to your team (can you tell I've had some run ins with people who don't work towards objectives running this kit?). Specialty is motion mines that bring enemies close to the mine up on your team's HUD and give an audible warning that trouble is near by. Recon players can also use a mortar strike that is basically a targeted air strike that takes down buildings, armor, and dudes pretty effectively.

Each kit earns points towards kit specific unlocks as you earn points using the kit (kit kit kit kit kit... didn't say kit enough in that sentence). Those points go towards your overall score that also is tied to unlocks. You don't start out with your specialty items until you've earned a few hundred points in each kit. Once you go further down the road you'll get things like a red dot sight, 4x scope, heavier barrels to increase accuracy, silencer upgrades, etc. Your rank unlocks "all kit" weapons like shotguns and rifles that cannot use grenade launchers or optics. Once your rank is in your 20s you should have everything unlocked and are now out on your own in the world with all the tools you'll ever get... but don't worry about how long it takes to rank up. You can even finish all the unlocks for your favorite class first so you have everything the veterans have quickly.

I don't believe there is any sort of "prestige mode" or anything. The max level is 50 and you're done. There is a "veteran level" which is based on how many games you've registered on EA.com from the battlefield series... and there are tons of them. Having a veteran rank unlocks the final weapon... the M1 garand. You can do it without paying any money for any other game because PC demos and the free game "Battlefield: Heroes" count. I haven't done this yet, so I don't want to go into a lot of detail, but if you ask my friend Google real nice he might tell you what to do.

Game Modes

Squad Deathmatch - In this mode you compete with up to 3 other squads of 4 to see who can get 50 kills first. Pretty basic mode if you've played any other FPS. The spawn system has virtually eliminated spawn camping from the game all together, but in SDM it's GONE. That doesn't meant you won't get blasted .001 seconds after you spawn... it just means that it's your fault.

Conquest - 12v12 mode where both teams start out with 120 respawn tickets with the goal of reducing the other team's tickets to zero. There are 3 or 4 flags per map that when captured give you another choice of spawn location and bleed tickets off from the other team. Capturing the flag for the first time also starts a new vehicle spawn in most cases. This is pretty much a really cool way to play deathmatch and also have objectives to screw around with.

Rush - 12v12 mode where the two teams are designated Attackers and Defenders. The attackers have 75 respawn tickets to destroy two "MCOM" stations by either planting a bomb (any class can do it by holding B next to the MCOM), using explosives to damage the MCOM, or by bringing down the building housing the MCOM. Once the first set of two MCOMs are destroyed the map zooms out, the defenders get a new deployment location and there are a fresh set of MCOMs to destroy. Once the final set of MCOMs go down or the attackers use up their 75 tickets the game is over. There is also SQUAD RUSH which is a 4v4 variant. This mode only has one MCOM per location and two locations per map. A hard fought Rush game can take over an hour. Squad rush is much quicker with rounds lasting between 10 minutes and a half hour.

Opinions

First impressions

When you first fire up the game you'll be thrown into a world of people who seem to "get it" with you on the outside going, "Man... and I was really good at Call of Duty." I know that's where I was when I first brought Bad Company 2 home. The game modes are complicated if you've never played them. I swear it was a week before I had anyone explain to me how stupid conquest is scored. If you don't allow yourself to be bad at this game for a lot longer than you're used to then you're not going to enjoy yourself. I am sure a lot of people hopped right and did well, but I wasn't one of them. It took me having a whole lot of frustrating rounds in a row before anything clicked at all. I know a lot of the games leading up to this point have very flat learning curves, and if that's all you know then you're going to drop this before it gets good. Trust me, it takes time, but it's worth it.

There are a lot of adjustments you'll make right off the bat, but the most important thing I realized was that you can't play every round the same way. Just because you like a weapon doesn't mean it's what you are going to bring out every round. Some rounds will simply require you to use a different kit and it's not the same for every person. I had a discussion the other night with a friend of mine on xbox live about what kits he uses based on what map he's playing and his list was nothing like mine even though we both have similar outlooks for each map. YOU will have to figure out what works for YOU in each situation and change it up OFTEN until it clicks. Then, when you think you have it all figured out you're going to have to change it all again to match up with your squad's strengths and weaknesses. You may have a medic that's keeping everyone alive and they are going to need ammo... but nobody's playing assault. You'll find yourself more useful and have more fun as a result if you force yourself to fill rolls and step outside of your comfort zone from time to time. Why? Because your squad will be more effective and you'll WIN ROUNDS.

Along those same lines, there are no lone wolves here. The game gives out a series of "pins" for things you do in round. For example if you kill four people with explosives you'll get an explosive pin that is worth 100 points. There is a pin called the "Ace Pin" for the highest scoring player in the round. There is also a pin called "Gold Squad Pin" for the highest scoring squad. I've received the ace pin dozens of times during losing efforts, but I can't remember earning the Gold Squad pin and losing. Basically, it all comes down to teamwork. People that work together have more success and by extension, more fun.

Weapons and Hit Detection

I feel strongly that hit detection is the single most important part of any shooter. If you fire a gun at someone and it doesn't hit, why should you keep firing the gun? Just play something where it does what it says it does. Well, Battlefield Bad Company 2 does one hell of a job with hit detection. So far I haven't found a single situation where a bullet will not register properly. The only problem is the knife. From time to time the knife will just do its own thing regardless of what you're trying to get it to do. Sure, you're saying, "Hey, knife. I'd like you to penetrate vital organs of this sniper in front of us with his back turned." What the knife hears is, "HURRR SWING AND MISS? SURE!"

This is the also the first game where you can take a non damaging shot to the helmet. I've seen it happen multiple times where I've had a round plink my helmet, known I was hit, but did not have any damage. I've also shot for a tiny sliver of helmet only to hear the classic PLINK! and have no hit indicator. I thought it was a mistake at first, but when you think about it, a shot grazing a helmet SHOULDN'T kill you. Also, it truly adds to the immersion when out of nowhere you hear a shot coming and then PLINK! but you're still alive. Talk about a scramble... your whole squad is going to be in a panic to find that dude before the next shot is six inches lower.

I would like to give a round of applause to EPIC for being the first game I've played in this century to take their own stance on the effectiveness of weapons and their ranges. I know that my old man has killed a deer from over 6" away with a shotgun... so does EPIC. You can finally take a shot at someone 100 yards away and get the kill. You can also opt to load slugs into your shotgun of choice and hit as if it was a rifle. I'm not a gun nerd, but I know that I'm tired of every weapon behaving exactly the same in every game just because that's how it was in the previous blockbuster hit.

Another popular weapon they took their own stance on, which should make a lot of people want to sing songs and write poems, is the grenade launcher. If you think you're going to get a ton of kills by dropping ammo packs to yourself and firing endless grenade rounds all over the place while running and jumping like a maniac... guess again. There are people who will try and have a little bit of success, but they are nowhere near as effective as they are in other games. I find myself using the 40mm grenade launcher more as a can opener than a weapon. Is there some squishy goodness on the other side of that wall? Let's find out! BLAMO! Oh look, there he is. It says right in the 40mm's description that it's mostly used as a force multiplier and a way to break up groups of enemies. That's pretty accurate seeing as I'd never switch to it in a firefight unless I was trying to kill a couple guys who were bunched up. Even in THAT situation you're looking at a kill and a pair of assists instead of three kills. The same goes for the RPG. It's not the insta-tripple-kill monster it was in Call of Duty. It's a great way to take out armor and buildings, but it takes a pretty tricky shot to be devastating to foot soldiers... unless you're hiding behind the wall he's aiming at.

The only explosives that are truly a threat to personnel are rounds from the good ol Hot Carl. The Carl Gustaf launcher is not what you want fired at you if you are on foot. It's got great splash damage, travels fast, and will make you rage if you are killed multiple times by one. They stink against vehicles, so hop in that Bradley assault vehicle and show that dude what's what.

When you spend time with each weapon within a kit you're going to find that they all behave slightly differently and that it's all going to come down to your personal preference as to which you like the best. That, my friends, is weapon balance. Sure, you're going to see a ton of similar loadouts, but a lot of people like the same music too. I've heard plenty of rumors of this gun being "nerfed" or that one, but we'll see how that all turns out as time goes on.

Vehicles

Something I've never been a fan of in any FPS has been vehicles. I think my beef with a tank is that I'm never able to get the results I need when I use it and I spend way too much time trying to counter them instead of using my guns to get kills. For the most part, Battlefield Bad Company 2 does a pretty good job of balancing the vehicles with the ground combat, but that only goes as far as Atacama Desert... which I'll get to later...

You have six basic vehicle groups: Cars, Light Tanks, Heavy Tanks, Watercraft, Mounted Weapons, and Helicopters. They are pretty much self explanatory with a few exceptions. Cars include an ATV and Helicopters include a tiny remote controlled helicopter called a UAV. Any actual vehicle can have a second player jump in a secondary gunner spot or just tag along for the ride. Any vehicle can get a road kill by running over an opponent... yes, even the UAV. You can equip vehicle specialties (READ: Perks) that change their behavior slightly, but if you can picture a tank and how it behaves, you know what's up.

When the game first launched it was near impossible to take down vehicles with any regularity. If you were on Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 you know what it was like the first time someone called in a Harrier. You don't have any rockets that "lock onto" any vehicles by themselves, but you can hit a target with a tracer dart pistol and then follow that up by holding your rocket's reticle over the little orange box that comes up on the target until you get a distance marker on your screen. At that point you're all locked up and ready to fire with great accuracy. That being said, you won't use it anywhere near as often as you think you will. Most times you'll be planting mines, free firing shoulder mounted rockets, taking aim with mounted guns or attaching C4. The tracer darts are great, but so is timing up your shots and does not require so much time in the open.

Move ahead a few weeks and now everyone has their favorite way of dealing with vehicles... and everyone's got much better at using them. When you add it all up you end up with tank hulls and helicopter parts everywhere and people taking the shoe leather express. This has also put a ton of the emphasis on your squad's engineer(s). If you have a couple smart engineers around they can keep a single tank up and running through a pretty serious attack and give you a massive armor advantage. Combine that with a driver and gunner who are on point and you now have a strong weapon that you've EARNED... not just a murder button you acquired by being the first guy to get there.

I still have problems with helicopters from time to time, but most of that comes from people spending the whole round trying to steal the opposing team's helicopter while trying to maintain ours in the air instead of going for objectives. Helicopters are so fun and tempting to get into that some people will even go so far as to HELP the enemy push us back until there is a helicopter available just so they can get some helicopter time. If you end up in a round against a top knotch helicopter pilot you'll know it... and it can be extremely frustrating. Firstly, it's frustrating because you keep dieing. Secondly, it's frustrating because EPIC decided that we didn't need a training map to practice flying the things. That means if you want to get better you have to take the chopper and fly it poorly during live play. If you want to start a private match you have to have at least 8 players... so that's out of the question too unless you've got 7 friends who are cool with letting you practice killing them. I tend to just keep my distance and put shots on enemy choppers. PROTIP: Get that long barrel tank on a hill and hit that SOB chopper pilot with a tank round between his eyes for great justice.

To wrap up this vehicles section, if you're having trouble with enemy armor, work together with your squad to maximize your anti armor capabilities and stick with it. If you have two engineers, a medic, and an assault running together focusing on some stubborn tank who won't die you'll get him eventually and save your whole team a load of grief. This is another example of a time when teamwork and possibly stepping out of your comfort zone will lead to having more fun and winning more rounds.

Community and Online Experience

Plug in your microphone. Put on your headset. Work together. If you don't, you're like 75% of the players online. Too many people are either so uncomfortable with their performance in this game that they don't say a word or they have been brow beaten to death by all the simple games they've played over the past five years and don't even know what teamwork is anymore. The people that I've run across that have their headsets on and microphones clicked on have been great. I've already made significantly more friends in BFBC2 than I made in all the years I played the three previous Call of Duty games.

The nice part about being online in Bad Company 2 is that you don't hear all the childish nonsense you hear playing in other games. You only have 3 other dudes you can talk to at any point. As of this post I haven't even wanted to mute anyone but one guy who's microphone was throwing so much high pitched noise I had to take my headphones off to save my hearing. There's no lobby to go back into after the round and hear about how much you got "owned' or for someone to complain about how you "don't have any skill." You are COMPLETELY isolated from everyone but your squad. Of course that means if they aren't working with you that you're going to have to find another squad or sit talking to yourself all round, but hey, I haven't wanted to choke anyone in a few weeks.

Of course, there are plenty of people to play with/against at all hours. I work nights, so I'm usually on after 11PM EST and will regularly stay on until 6AM EST or so. Sometimes I'll find myself in a light room or two, but I have a feeling that EA marks servers to be shut down due to inactivity at certain points and blocks new players from joining. Why? Because I'll join a different room afterwards and there will be squads coming and going from the server on the same map I just left after 10 minutes of running around by myself in the previous server. Again, it's another hunch of mine, but it feels like what's up.

I am hopeful that over time the level of play will rise from everyone who sticks with the game. All the people who'd prefer to keep their headset off and do their own thing will go back from whence they came and more people who enjoy a game that requires teamwork will buy in. I'm sure some people will even give teamwork a try after they prove to themselves that being a selfish piece of crap doesn't get them anywhere too.

Don't get me wrong, there are a ton of good people online. The problem is that there are too many people doing their own thing with blatant disregard for the goal of the round. I still have a great time online and find myself hooking up with cool people from time to time... I just wish it was more often that I get dropped into a squad that's working like a machine than one that's not working at all.

Audio

Best I've ever heard in any game I've ever played. Set your audio to "war tapes," turn up the volume, and try to disagree with me. Period.

Tips and Tricks

and other stuff that took me too long to figure out on my own

Assault Kit can use c4 if you select a primary weapon that doesn't have an under-barrel attachment.
Spotting means pointing at a bad guy and pressing the back button. This puts an orange arrow over their head that everyone on your TEAM can see. This works for both vehicles and soldiers. You get a +20 point spot assist for anyone who dies with an orange arrow over their head after you've spotted them. It also makes it very easy to track an enemy who runs behind cover, etc. DO THIS ALL THE TIME. YOU CAN'T SPOT TOO MUCH.
Spotting has a reload time if you miss. If you hit with the first spot you can spot again immediately after and so on until you miss again. This prevents people from spamming the back button non-stop.
When you create a squad it defaults to "private" meaning nobody from your team can join your squad. If you aren't waiting on someone else to come fill that last spot you can change the squad to public by pressing start, scrolling down to the word "private" and changing it to "public." You would do better with three squads consisting of four players each instead of six squads of two players each.
Conquest is scored by respawn tickets. First to zero loses. Medic revives give back tickets and holding flags helps bleed off the other team's tickets. Conquest is a fancy version of deathmatch. Play it as such and don't throw away your lives.
The repair tool can damage enemy vehicles. You're very hard to hit when you're right up against the tank too.
Ammo packs refill motion mines. If you're going to insist on playing recon, buddy up with an assault and make sure you've got plenty of ammo packs so you can keep the actual recon coming via motion mines. Ammo packs fill up rockets, grenades, c4, and everything else with an ammo counter too. Don't be afraid to throw a few grenades while you've got an ammo pack at your feet.
LMGs "stabilize" after a few shots. This means if you hold down the trigger it will hop around for 3 or 4 rounds and then level out and not kick anymore until you stop firing. As long as you're not moving you can mow through dozens of enemies with the trigger held down much better than tapping the trigger in many instances.
The only way to remove C4 from anything is to blow it up. There is a maximum of six blocks of C4 per player throwing them allowed on the map at once, but once you put your 6 C4 charges on a tank they stay there until they are blown up. Even if you die after planting them, you're still being a credit to the team... just call out that it's wired up and someone should start shooting until the tank goes bye bye. PROTIP: an ATV covered in C4 will do a number on a lot of things.
You can put down a maximum of SIX anti tank mines... but after they are down they will stay put until blown up even if you change classes.
Play using the sound setting "War Tapes." You won't regret it. It bumps up the bass and puts emphasis on near by sounds like your breathing, footsteps, the way a gun sounds when fired inside the room you're in, etc. Believe me, you'll love it.

Final Thoughts

Battlefield Bad Company 2 is a MUST BUY. I say MUST BUY because you'll never get to a point where you're comfortably enjoying yourself in a round during the course of a typical rental. You are only cheating yourself if you're a fan of first person shooters and put this game down before you get into a groove. This is the single most satisfying online experience I've had since games dropped the survival game mode. Give Bad Company 2 a couple weeks to sink in and start making sense. Find your way and team up with people you enjoy spending time with. Try out every vehicle in every way you can think of. Try out different weapon combinations. When one game mode gets too frustrating, try a different one. The way each game mode is played is night and day from each other. At least then you'll be frustrated by something new while you're building the skills that will eventually make this the most satisfying experience you've had online.

Getting back to actually reviewing

2010-04-06T22:44:00.000-07:00

The two posts previous to this one stink and I hate them. I only posted them to get something on paper, knock a bit of the rust off, and to try to learn spelling and grammar. They will probably stay, but I'll get into that below

Here's what I'm working on and where I hope to be in the near future

HD Video capture capabilities for both the PC and Xbox 360 games I review. These will either be posted as standalone video reviews with commentary or as supplementals to written reviews to back up points I've made. Do not expect sniper montages. Do expect to see things that differentiate one game from the others.

A clearly defined and easy to reference review structure that homogenizes the reviews regardless of genre. I want you to be able to find what you want without having to take in what you don't. Want the tl;dr version of a review? Want to know how it behaves in regards to ______? I want all those things to be easy to find and as clear and simple as they can be. I'm currently working on finalizing this structure and will post everything that I'm working on.

A list of games that will be reviewed with soft completion dates. I know I posted about MW2, but I really don't plan on reviewing the A-List games. But, if I do, know I will try to take a unique look at the game and post things that have not been talked to death about. I get most of my obscure titles from an online rental service that has been up and down on what I get and when, so this may be a little off.

A method that will differentiate the different "columns" I plan on writing from the reviews. I sometimes have some gripe or am in love with something that I want to talk about that falls outside the realm of a review, but I don't want to clog the page up with junk like I posted below without having a way to make it clear what is what.

Monthly-ish podcast. This is something I've been meaning to get involved in for a while, but I'm rough around the edges when it comes to editing audio. The topic is still up for debate... with myself... but I'm thinking of taking this in its own direction. I understand that nothing is original... especially LOLJOURNALISTS like myself who decide they are the voice that gamers need to hear, but I know there are things I seek out and can't find. I'd like to try and plug those holes a bit.

Okay, so that's where my head's at right now. I've got a lot on my plate, so things may start out somewhat slow (or I may never come back and this will be the last post ever), but I feel that in time this will be a fun place and I may actually be able to help people find that gem of a game they wouldn't have found or help them avoid drinking a tall glass of hot garbage juice.

Anyways, I've been typing about games for about 5 hours now... I'm going to go play them

-BYOB Kenobi

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 - Yay mediocrity!

2010-04-06T21:48:00.000-07:00

I'm sure this timely review is going to blow your mind, but I'd like to get into a few things that caught my eye after being in game for approximately 10 days worth of rounds. I'm not a huge fan of this game, but it does have its place and its intentions make a lot of sense.

Here's where I make assumptions about the developers

First and foremost I feel that MW2 was not designed for lasting appeal. Now, I know you're thinking that there are 10 prestige levels and all sorts of unlocks, challenges, and achievements that are there to make it last a long long time. What I see is a game that was designed to grab the attention of every single player right off the bat and hold it as long as it can without turning anyone away. "Yeah. And?" I get it, I'm not making a ton of sense, but it will make sense in a second.

There are a number of mechanics in the game that I'm going to talk about that I feel are in place so that a player that buys the game at any time can jump in with anyone else and have the time of his life while he's getting the hang of the game without being hampered by things like a learning curve.

1. Laser cannons and army pants - The weapons in this game share every characteristic of the weapons in any fantasy arcade shooter (read: halo). Bullets fire in a direct line and hit the second they are fired without a delay, drop etc. This is all fine and good, but when someone is as far as he can be and you can put a dozen shots on him with a pistol because every shot will go perfectly straight forever and hit immediately it takes away from the experience for me personally, but makes it more fun for the inexperienced before they realize what they are dealing with.

2. Magic Bullets - If someone is shooting at you and you duck behind cover, lay down behind cover, etc you will die. The worst thing you can do is try to avoid being shredded by bullets when someone has you from a superior position. You have a better chance standing there and trying to shoot back every single time. If you don't believe me, try it. Even if they aren't hitting you before you turn the corner or they are barely grazing you, the second you turn the corner you'll be a corpse.

3. Killer's Protection - Something I noticed in Modern Warfare but didn't really wrap my mind around until MW2 is that every time you engage an enemy you are protected from damage coming from anyone else until one of you dies. For instance, you turn a corner and see someone spraying at a teammate of yours and open fire at him from behind. You are aiming perfectly, he's standing still... at this point in MW1 your teammate would die and then his killer would die. I can't say this is a perfect science, but it happened so often that there's no way that it's not the norm. Now in MW2 it comes down to the roll of a die. Similar to an RPG where the damage you do per "round" depends on your weapon, class, gear bonuses, and a die (die is the singular version of dice... jackass) roll that is a multiplier. That's why every strike isn't the same. The same happens here in MW2. If you "win" the roll then you get a savior kill and your teammate can go hide somewhere and regen his health. If you "lose" the roll then your teammate dies and you get an avenger kill... but it has NOTHING to do with your weapon, aim, etc. It's just a die roll... as long as you would have killed him anyway.

4. Streak breakers - This game is designed to have many ways for inferior players to stop better players in their tracks while still having inferior scores. This may be a personal preference thing again, but the fact that so many weapons come down to who shoots first or have such effective splash (area of effect) damage... or come out of freaken nowhere (commando pro/lightweight anyone?)it just screams that they don't want anyone to dominate a round by strategy and personal ability alone. I've never seen a lightweight/commando pro player go positive if all they do is knife people all round, but they sure as hell are hard to counter when they are running at you like Usain Bolt with a clicky insta murder that can be activated from 10 yards away. Or how much do you enjoy when you've got 10 kills in a row and a chopper gunner on tap and some dude fires a thumper at you, missing by 20 yards but killing you anyway? How about dual wielding? What the hell is this? Halo? Come on now... You can't call this a tactical shooter and then have some dude with two p90s spray you with 100 bullets from a mile and a half away while jumping and laying down repeatedly. Also, what's the counter strategy for a dude who sits in a corner with two shotguns? Flash and clear? How many flashbangs do you get before you have to clear rooms without them?

What it comes down to is that a lot of the additions to this game are not balanced in a way that you can avoid being dominated by them consistently, but they don't give such an advantage that the person using them will come up with a monster score. It's just a way to lower the barriers to entry and make the game more fun for the rookie. The not turning people away thing is that your scores will improve, you'll get better, but the advantages you receive from weapon upgrades, unlocks, leveling, and personal in game experience will never put you so far and above the average that you'll be able to counter everything with practice. Some things are random chance and others are flat out designed to be impossible to counter.

One thing that stands out about MW2 in my mind is that the game wasn't shined up nice and buttoned up properly before being shipped. Holes were left in the programming and it was only a matter of time before people figured them out, posted them on youtube, and ruined the gaming experience for weeks at a time while Infinity Ward figured out how they were going to handle them.

I also feel whole heartedly that the game is being sabotaged.

I put that in bold and by itself to make sure it stands out in your mind. The game is being sabotaged. There is no way that some random person figured out the care package glitch. I had it explained to me the other day and it goes something like you have to pull a grenade, jump off something switch to your care package marker, back to your grenade, back to the marker and throw it before you hit the ground and you get a care package every time you get a kill instead of every 3 kills. I'm sure I screwed that order up, but you get the idea... I believe whole heartily that a competing developer who has an xbox 360 dev kit broke the game down and figured that one out, shared it, and laughed as everyone exploited it until the game was unplayable. I just don't see how anyone would have realized what they did if they accidentally figured out the care package glitch. I don't even feel like professional game testers could have found that one with the quickness it came out and was spread.

Why wouldn't someone who is trying to dethrone Call of Duty and has the programming know how go in and figure out endless glitches and share them online until Call of Duty looks like garbage?

Why I like Call of Duty

The fast paced nature and non stop action makes MW2 a fun "two punch" to another more tactical game. I used to play the original on the PC as a diversion from Rainbow Six 3 and loved it. When I really think about MW2 I see a game that allows millions of players to compete and have fun together in a beautiful and well designed game with exciting and enjoyable game types.

The only real problem I have with Call of Duty is that it's making all the stone cold killers I knew 10 years ago fat and lazy. They'd rather play something they can do well at by themselves and keep hitting prestige over and over for validation of a job well done than move onto some other game that requires a higher level of focus and teamwork. I don't begrudge anyone what they enjoy, but it saddens me greatly when I hear people who used to stand shoulder to shoulder with me and take on the best and brightest of the FPS world say things like "I suck at this game so I don't have fun" instead of "I have a long way to go, but the challenge of this game is refreshing."

I just feel like the risk/reward of Call of Duty is very low. You'll be pretty close to as good as you'll ever be a few hours into the game. From that point you're just playing rock paper scissors with the other group of individuals and hoping that you get the first shot off.

Does any of this mean if you love it that you should stop playing it? No. What I'm trying to get at here is that the Call of Duty and Halo series are the Sirens of the gaming world. They are beautiful and exciting, but they draw you into a situation you should not be excited about. Teamwork, communication, and strategy are thrown out in favor of a game that lets everyone be mediocre.

The Rise of Gamer Culture and Death of Online Society

2010-04-06T14:54:00.001-07:00

I have been online playing games against real people for years. I started with Rainbow Six on the PC in 1997. What I found from game to game were diverse groups of people who seemed to build little communities around their favorite game. You'd notice that the group of people playing one game would all seem to follow the same set of rules and norms while another group would be completely different. This was before the word "gamer" was common and easy to use home networking was still years off. Even though there was a considerable downside to dialing up your AOL account and logging into gamespy arcade, there was just something special that I feel has been lost as the industry became... THE INDUSTRY instead of a bunch of like minded individuals enjoying a fun pastime.

More on my experience after the jump.

You know my friends… come on!

It's 2004. I've just joined a friend from Texas who's hosting a Rainbow Six 3 game of Team Survival on the map Airport 1. It's mid round so I sit in the lobby and chat with the other dead guys for a few minutes while the two teams duke it out. While I'm sitting there I start inviting my friends to the room to fill the few vacant slots. The round ends in a draw because there were survivors on both teams at the end of 5 minutes.

My buddies Scooby and Alex join and now it's 6v6 with two out of the three of us on one team. The host asks if one of us would mind leaving and coming back so we can square the teams away. I volunteer. I come back and the room patiently waited for me to load back in before giving the "suggestion" to my two friends who were known to be jokers "No remote charges."

Well, that round my buddy Scooby pops a remote charge as someone is running through a doorway and is booted. Then Alex blows up someone else in that same doorway... and is booted. I’m laughing because I know they are messing with a dude who’s normally quick to flip the crazy switch but I don’t think anything of it until after the round. He scolds me for not “controlling their behavior” in a way that sounds like he’s dead serious… like “we’re not friends anymore if you don’t talk to those two knuckleheads” serious. This went on for months with me playing mediator between a hot head friend who wants things a certain way and my clown friends who loved getting under his skin. It culminated with me finally having enough of being in between the two groups and blowing him up with a remote charge in his server 5 seconds after he explains how he’s removed my buddy from his friends list for that very reason.

I then get a nasty email telling me that it's not cool that my friends and I disrespected his rules in his room that he's hosting. He made it clear that none of “us” were welcome in his server anymore. (For the record, we’re friends to this day… but this went on for years.)

It's 2010. I’m playing Battlefield Bad Company 2 and I'm a defender at Nelson Bay. One of my squad mates isn't responding to voice coms. He runs up to Alpha and starts planting C4 all around the MCOM station and then runs off behind a rock. I send him a text message asking him not to plant C4 on the MCOMs that we're defending because it will take down the building and destroy our own base. No response. He's determined to C4 people on the MCOM. Bomb is planted at Alpha. I run in and shoot the guy who planted and start disarming. C4 goes off all around me. Bomb defused. I am killed by Destruction 2.0 and the MCOM is lost.

Every MCOM we attempted to defend that whole round was surrounded by this dude's C4. I am chatting with a buddy of mine who's in the squad and we're both getting quite frustrated that this guy isn't responding to stimuli and is basically handing the attackers the victory.

Round ends in a big "L."

Next round starts.

"Hey, you sent me a text message. Why? I have a mic you know."

My buddy and I promptly leave the room to find greener pastures.

WTS Stigma, PST

Six years ago I didn't want to let anyone know that I played video games online because it felt like once you connected a game to the internet you were breaking through some massive milestone of nerd from which there was no return. I still remember people's reaction when they heard I played my xbox online or that I was connecting to other people to play computer games. I might as well have brought up that I was standing outside the elementary school in my trench coat with fake arm by the way they looked at me. Non gamers had real disgust for adults who tinkered with phone lines and cable modems to play games with strangers. Meanwhile, online I was making friends that would end up becoming friends in real life and some of the longest lasting friendships I've ever had.

Being into video games was something kids and computer fanatics [read: nerds] did to pass the time or to put an avatar to a personal fantasy. Over time each online game started to build into little societies with their own codes of conduct and culture. People knew each other by reputation and stories and strategies were passed around the virtual campfire. Guys who were fun to hang out with or talented players would go from game to game showing off, fooling around, competing, and making friends all while being a part of the society. Because of the seemingly fragile ecosystem, new players were welcomed with open arms and given the information they needed to build themselves into a useful part of the team. The room would eventually shut down and you’d exchange friend requests and look forward to fighting side by side again. This wasn’t exclusive to Xbox shooters, in games like the MUD Gemstone III and MMORPG EverQuest I had similar experiences where I was the eager “newbie” and there were sagely veterans who were more than willing to set me on the right course. Don’t get me wrong, there were always griefers and jerks out there, but they were the extreme minority. Most people were out to have a good time and encourage people to give their chosen game a chance. This wasn’t via pure altruism. There was always the fact that people knew that more dudes logged in meant there was a better chance their game lived on, so it was part selfish, but regardless, it was great.

Back in the early days you could not overstate the value of your reputation. You treated people the way you’d like them to remember you because they WOULD remember. A guild mate of mine in EverQuest actually kept a cork board next to his computer where he’d take notes on people that didn’t live up to their end of the deal or did shady stuff. If you wanted to have access to the maximum amount of competition and have the best opportunity to play the most fun games you had to “fit in” with the society or be forced to search the servers over and over again all night long.

What has happened is we've given up online societies for ease of entry. In order to encourage people to behave there has to be rewards for behaving and punishments for stepping out of line. In the host based days the reward was lag free gameplay and a steady server. The punishment was banishment and having to roll the dice on another server. All that has gone away and anyone can join any game at any time and get the content they are looking for quickly and easily. Everything from World of Warcraft's group finding tools to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2's matchmaking system are built so that you won't have to wait more than a few seconds to get your high, but it comes at a great cost.

I've been checking out a bunch of amateur game journalists like myself (LOLJOURNALIST) and have noticed a lot of people taking notice of the general population's annoying tendencies. Some have called it a loss of manners by today’s youth. Others think it's a cultural shift away from face to face interactions and the increasing reliance on social networking to fulfill the need of companionship that lacks the cultural norms of face to face interfacing (aka you go into punt block on 1st down and I’m going to punch you in the face). I've even heard it's the political landscape leading to a society of irresponsible people who don't understand that actions come at a cost... I enjoyed that one.

Asteroid is to Dinosaur as Bungie is to Hosts

Once Halo 2 was launched things would never be the same. They just couldn't be. Halo 2 sold $125,000,000 (125 million dollars) worth of copies on launch day. It held the top spot as most played game on xbox live for many years and gave gamers exactly what they wanted... Halo with Xbox Live functionality. Not only that, but they gave anyone the ability to join a game from any playlist at any time with solid competition and connectivity at any time day or night even if their friends list was empty. For those that don’t particularly like interacting with other people even if there is a monitor and a thousand miles of cables between you this was a blessing. You didn’t have to kiss someone’s rear just because his cable provider had better speeds. You didn’t have to jump from room to room hoping to find people to play with that are going to be enjoyable competition. Now you can just hit a button and you’re in. You can join by yourself or with friends ANY TIME AT ALL and you’ll wait no longer than 30 seconds to start blasting away.

This removed the “host’s” ability to boot people that were causing problems. Now, you could sit there and play music over the mic the whole round and there was nothing anyone could do about it. You could find an exploit and grief the other team forever without punishment. It changed the dynamic from “problems get removed” to “you must remove yourself from the problems.” That doesn’t sound impossible, but once people realized that nobody could hold them accountable for anything (including submitting feedback and filing complaints… who knows if that even does anything?) they started taking advantage of that fact.

I personally went from joining at most 3 rooms a night to quitting and rejoining probably 3 or 4 DOZEN times a night. Then the modders hit the scene and it was over for me. People were blatantly cheating and there was nothing the honest players could do about it. You’d be winning midway through a round and all of a sudden there’d be a dude flying around the map pulling off headshots from a mile and a half away while moving faster than any vehicle can move. Your only recourse at that point is to keep quitting and coming back. Punish the honest… yeah… that makes sense.

We’ve made this game more accessible.

After Halo 2, the next game I was involved with was Rainbow Six Vegas. I was OBSESSED with Rainbow Six 3, loved the community that played it, and heard that the same developers who designed 3 started working on Vegas the day after 3 launched. I bought an xbox 360 exclusively for this game. A week before I set myself up I watched a video interview with the project manager from Ubisoft Montreal who said a word I’ll never forget: Accessible. He used it a few times. He kept talking about how they’ve lowered the barriers to entry and made the game more ACCESSIBLE to the MASSES. I dismissed it as something they must have done with the server browser or the HUD… as it turns out… I was wrong. Halo was such a game changer with its ease of entry and excitement for even the shortest of play sessions that every other developer was lining up with their version of Halo trying to get their piece of the billion dollar pie.

A Cod is no longer a Fish

Call of Duty was around for years, but the impact wasn’t truly felt on the xbox live scene until Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. I was right alongside everyone else crying out “GAME OF THE YEAR!” from the day I logged into the beta. What I didn’t realize was how right I was and what COD4 was going to mean for both fish and gamers.
Call of Duty is a team based game and I spent most of my time playing TEAM Deathmatch. I worked together with my friends and we had a lot of success. Some of my friends were simply amazing and would rack up 10 to 1 rounds back to back to back to back all night long. That made it easy for me to sit back and cover lanes, move around to flanking positions, etc. I’ve always felt that I’m not the best shot but I’ll out-think and out-teamwork (is that even a word?) anyone else. Give me a killer or two and we’ll put together a murder fest not to be missed… but were we really working together?

Sure, I’d say stuff like “I’m watching the left road” and hear things like “I am watching the right road,” but does that equate to teamwork? The simple answer is: NO. I know that amongst my friends there are several that will say “of course it’s teamwork, I need someone to watch my back so people can’t just shoot me in the head from behind.” Yes, that’s true, but pay very close attention and you’ll realize that someone who’s a 3:1 K/D guy will boost his team regardless of how bad they are. The mechanics are structured in a way that prevents you from being completely boxed in as a single player. Sure, it’s easier to kill dudes when they are on their heels, but does that stop you from being able to find a secure position and start whaling on the enemy even if your team is full of thumb less blind people?

Years pass, games are released, yadda yadda yadda… then we get Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. This game is the perfect example of a game that LOOKS team based… it FEELS team based… it SAYS IT’S TEAMBASED… but in the end it’s just two groups of individuals running around independent of one another. It’s like that on purpose… don’t kid yourself. They want that game to make every single player feel like a human murder machine so everyone tells their friends about how great it feels to kill in MW2. If you want proof teamwork means nothing, look at how many people use their headsets. In any given room you’ll see maybe 2 or 3 people with headsets. There simply is no reason to say anything or hear anything.

I plan on getting way more in depth about MW2 later on, but that’s for another day. What’s important to realize here is that the guys who were 12 years old playing halo 2 as their first online game (rated M for mature… another topic that makes me rage) are in college now and have most likely never experienced a game where communication and teamwork are the keys to success. They’ve also never experienced someone booting them for being a cheater, loudmouthed ass or for any other reason. They’ve never been held accountable for doing wrong or being befriended for doing the right thing. The odds are their friends lists are comprised mostly of kids they grew up with and their friends with the occasional stranger they met online. Game lobbies are places where you can show off how mad you can get people and how much of an ass you can be to impress your friends. When your buddy from gym class isn’t on you don’t even bother plugging in your microphone because there’s nothing to talk about that pertains to the game you’re playing. The only reason you’d speak is because you want to talk about some chick at school, the car you are working on, the pot you’re going to smoke, or how high you are (PROTIP: nobody cares).

Hey, Wang, this club is restricted so don’t tell them you’re Jewish

Things have changed since the 90s in ways that have forced the hand of game developers. Games have become a big money maker and with every new milestone passed in regards to users, hours logged, launch day sales, etc you’re seeing people take the creation of new games differently. What’s the way to get the most people playing?

When I started playing online it was only the savvy and the enthusiast who found their way to online lobbies looking for excitement. Broadband internet wasn’t even available 20 minutes from New York City (where I grew up) and most games were primarily single player experiences. Today broadband access is available to millions of households and is as common as cable TV. People think nothing of networking their whole house and having multiple devices scouring the internet 24 hours a day. When I got my first broadband connection from Comcast it was in their Terms of Service that you were not allowed to use a router. They wanted you to buy a separate connection per device. Today Verizon FiOS’s modem IS A WIRELESS ROUTER IN ITSELF. As time goes on the market is only going to get bigger and more diverse with more people giving gaming a shot and gaming becoming more mainstream by the day. Watching the NCAA basketball championship I saw a commercial from the makers of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 that bragged about having 20 million players. Each copy costs $60… do the math. I saw this commercial with a group of guys in their 50s and they were all familiar with the game.

There are many times I miss the old days, but that can be attributed to nostalgia for part of it. The other part is that I used to really enjoy hopping into any random room and having teammates that looked forward to working with you to win. I’ve always found the most joy in gaming when I am part of the machine that gets things done. Being the dude who goes 20 and 1 and carries the team is fun, but when you can feel that your team is grinding the opponent to dust under the gears of a well oiled machine… that’s when I’m really happy. The whole reason I even started writing this manifesto is right in this paragraph. Teamwork is in short supply and the amount of people who would rather totally disregard winning a round rather than open their mouth and give out any piece of useful information is staggering.

I blame this phenomenon on the deep penetration the gaming industry has made and the general dumbing down of all games to appease the largest number of buyers, but I’ve noticed that the pattern of easy to join, easy to play, easy to play alone has made even the best gamers amongst my friends turn into sheep. Nobody wants to go out of their way to try something difficult or complex. If they aren’t the best right out of the gate they lose interest and go back to something that’s easier for them. I NEVER expected this to be the case until my last two game purchases.

Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising and Battlefield Bad Company 2

Both of these games have left me wondering if I am truly a dying breed. OF:DR is a hyper realistic shooter that makes cod look like playskool’s my first pew pew game. I ran around screaming at everyone like a mad man that this game was the second coming and that we all needed to get on board and start playing this game. A couple of my friends hopped on, but at any given time there were less than 20 other people online. Most of my friends either shelved the game or returned it. Why? Because it’s too hard? Because the developers took a real chance making a multiplayer mode that looks, feels, and plays nothing like the Halo/COD clones? Nah… it’s got to be that the community wasn’t robust enough to support someone who’s used to having a million players to shoot at around the clock… yeah… that’s it… right?

Well…

Bad Company 2 demo is launched and I get my friends to download it… one day before it goes offline. Only a couple of us try it, but I immediately pre order the game to make sure I’ll have it at midnight on launch day. Of my friends, maybe 20 are active in any capacity. Of those 20, probably 10 picked it up. Of those 10… only me and one other guy I met early in the Rainbow Six 3 days play it with any regularity. The others all have some beef with it or another. One guy who was a cold blooded killer in just about every game that’s been released will look me in the face and say stuff like “people don’t die when I shoot them” or “vehicles ruin it for me” or “I’m just not good at it and don’t have fun.” Another says it’s too slow and that it bores him. He went back to Call of Duty. Another one felt like buying it a week late made him too far behind to catch up. A couple have been busy with family and work, so that’s 100% understandable, but when we were all playing COD:MW2 and bitching nonstop about grenade spam, commando pro, crazy advantages for people who stink and a general population of people that make us all want to go to people’s houses and slap them in the face they were all looking for a way out. When a game comes along that takes teamwork and communication… practice and patience… and is hard as they come these days… they all go flocking back to what’s easy… cod.

Has the string of A-list games that have been released over the past 5 years really made all the top notch murderers fat and lazy? I seriously feel like Rorschach from Watchmen. Everyone who I used to rely on for backup in the old days of stupid high learning curves and nonstop competition that would make the most stoic want to bite someone face are all gone. I feel like I’m looking at the ghosts of the men who once would bring the most talented players to their knees.

Combine that with the complete and utter lack of respect, class, responsibility, and teamwork and I’m sitting here playing Bad Company 2 earning ace pin after ace pin (highest scoring player in the round) while losing due to players that are still chained to the floor watching shadows on the wall. It’s time people step out of their comfort zone, say hello, play their part online, and get back to the way it was. Will it ever happen with another Halo on the horizon and Call of Duty earning dump trucks full of cash daily? I doubt it, but I have some advice for anyone who reads this and feels like I do:

1. Do not be part of the problem. If nobody uses a headset, use yours. Call things out. Be helpful and try to make things better

2. Try to treat people online as real people… believe it or not, they are real people. I’ve built relationships that led to amazing business opportunities and lifelong friendships thanks to the fact that I see people online as people. That doesn’t mean you have to dress like Mr. Peanut and use big words, but try to consider that adding to the problem doesn’t help solve it.

3. Be social and try to help those that seem to need it, but don’t be “know it all guy.” Just offer some advice and try to do your best to help your fellow players advance.

4. Try something new and vote with your purchases. If you are sick of a game or don’t like what you are dealing with, try something else! Don’t buy a new product when the old one wasn’t up to par. Let developers know that you want more and won’t fall for another shirt over the head punch in the face just because it has a higher number next to it.

5. Be bad at games. It’s okay. You think everyone who’s good at anything started out good? I guarantee you Tiger Woods wasn’t able to have sex with as many beautiful women behind his wife’s back at first, it took practice. And as Aldo Raine so beautifully put it, “You know how you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice.” I guarantee you that if you stink at something at first you’ll feel even that much better when you do something awesome. Something you are instinctively good at never is as rewarding as something you work for.

6. ????

7. Profit!

Delta Force: Black Hawk Down

2005-08-06T11:26:00.000-07:00

I picked up Novalogic's Black Hawk Down last Saturday and meant to put up a review on Sunday... but I've been too busy playing it to sign off and tell you guys that it's every bit as awesome as I had hoped it'd be. Strap in, kiddies, here we go:

Overview:

This game is set in Somalia during the same time period of the movie "Black Hawk Down." It's a port of a precision shooter that came out on the computer in 2003. I am going to let you know right now, I don't even know how to start a campaign on this one. I just hopped right online and haven't signed off until now to write this lame review. It's a class based game similar to Return to Castle Wolfenstein where you can either select a medic, gunner, sniper, or CQB specialist (close quarters combat). Each has their strenghts and weaknesses, and they all contribute to a well ballanced team. A team with too many medics won't have the firepower to handle a swarm of gunners with m60s, but a team of snipers won't be able to handle the rush of a platoon of CQBs. Finding what you're good at and a good ballance of classes among your friends is key to victory.

Every class is equiped with a primary weapon, a knife, frag grenades, flash/smoke grenades, a pistol, and binoculars. I've never used binoculars in any game I've ever played until BHD. The levels are so huge and the streets are so long that you really need to use them to watch for enemies in the distance. Even snipers could use someone on the binoculars to spot for them. Ever level is simply massive with endless alleys and rooftops. Death can come from ANYWHERE and it does frequently.

Graphics:

Mediocre. They are plain and simple, but the game makes up for it with pure scale. At any time you could pick a direction and walk for a mile out into the desert. If you're looking for a graphically stunning game, this isn't it. The textures are very basic. It looks like a slightly upgraded port of a game from 2003... wait? Yeah. This is a slightly upgraded port of a game from 2003. I've never been one to base my enjoyment of a game on graphics, and even though these graphics are simple, I'm still impressed by the complexity and size of every map. It really is a unique online experience even with the slightly dated graphics.

Sound:

This game does not support 5.1 surround sound, so you guys who listen for enemies coming from behind you, you're out of luck. For the rest of us with basic sound setups, the sound is great. The sound of sniper bullets hitting the ground at your feet while you're running accross the street to heal a downed teammate are amazing. Very realistic sound to all weapons, all bullets, everything. If someone shoots from far enough away you won't hear the shot, but you'll hear the bullet wizz by and hit the dirt. The ambiant sounds are simple, but they add to the feel of being in a war beaten African town. My favorite is the sound of flys circling around barrels and doorways.

Basically, when the combat zone is hot, it's going to sound hot. You're not going to be able to escape the sounds of war, and that's how it should be. Every battlefield sounds like a battlefield. The best part of it? The sounds that make you feel like you're in the middle of an intense battle are all caused by other players. There are no ambiant war sounds. When nobody's fighting, it's quiet, and even more scary.

Online Gameplay:

Here's where BHD strikes Xbox gold. The gameplay online is as intense and immersive as you could ever wish a game to be. From the moment you engage the enemy until the round is over you are going to be on the edge of your seat. I play as a medic, and I can't tell you another situation as insanely intense as watching someone get cut down by a sniper in the middle of an open street who is calling for your help. You call for covering fire, you're gunner opens fire, and you dash accross the street as hard as you can, heal your buddy, and try to get back behind cover while bullets are ripping by you by the dozens. There are many times where you'll find yourself organizing strikes on PSPs (Player Spawn Points) that will invlove 20 of your men againt 20 of theirs.

I spend the majority of my time playing straight Team Deathmatch, but there are other gametypes like King of the Hill, CTF, Flag Ball (one flag CTF), Attack and Defend, and Search and Destroy. All of which bring even more intensity to the playing field. I'll write more on these gametypes as I have more experience, but from the little I've played each they are all a great time.

Online negatives:

I've heard endless lines of people telling me they aren't getting this game for 2 reasons: "I heard the game is laggy with 50 people." It's not. I've played in multiple 50 player rooms that ran like silk. At first Novalogic had problems with their servers, but every day they are doing a better job. By the time you read this there will be a few more 50 player servers that run perfectly. The problem with laggy servers is that if you lose connection for a split second you get a message accross your screen telling you, "This session is no longer available (20)" that goes away after a few seconds, but while it's there it's blocking your line of sight. In servers that are so/so you are going to see that every so often, but the game will otherwize run fine.

The other is "I heard you can't drive the vehicals. Being on a vehical that drives itself is so gay." Well, they do drive themselves, but this gives you benefits that can't be understated. Not only do you get the benefit of having a hellicopter with chainguns that will cut any bad guy to shreds before he even knows you're there and humvees with 50cals mounted on them that will roll into town and change the direction of a battle, but you DON'T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT PEOPLE TAKING ALL THE VEHICALS AND SPAWN CAMPING THE HELL OUT OF YOU!!!! The fact that the vehicals are not able to be used to defend positions or attack as a group is amazing. It gives you all the upside of having them, but none of the annoying downside [see halo 2 when one team has both wraith tanks on waterworks, both banshees on coagulation, the banshee (and rockets) on assention, etc]. This feature brings ballance to something that could be awful. I've played games like Battlefield Veitnam where you could pilot any vehical and the only reason that those games didn't become awful was because flying those vehicals was so difficult that not many people could do it effectively. Not only that, but there were so many vehicals, and fixed anti air/armor guns all over the place that there was no way you were going to come out alive for long no matter how good a pilot you were. The Xbox just doesn't have the server power to host games with that many moving parts yet, so you're looking at a game with very few vehicals and a very strong possiblilty that they will become a great annoyance.

There are really only two things that I find dissapointing in this game. The first is that it takes a long time to find a good game. When you optimatch, you will see endless servers with 35/50 12/32, etc that have plenty of room for you to join, but when you click on it, it trys to load for 30 seconds and tells you the game is no longer available. Then you search again, and the server is still there and not full. I still have no clue what that's all about, and Novalogic doesn't run a site like www.rainbowsix3.com where there is a forum to ask questions, so it's going to be a while before I have answers. The worst part about this problem is if you have 6 people that you are playing with, and all of you try to get into the same game, 4 of you will get in, and 2 won't be able to connect. That has been happening less and less this week, but it sucks when it does.

On a side note, you can't switch teams between rounds, and there is no pregame lobbey, so if you want to play together with friends you have to decide before hand which team you are going to join and set your preferences to either red or blue at the get go. Not a huge deal. Only problem with that (and it's not much of a problem if you think about it) is that you can't stack one team with more than 3 extra players. So if there is a room that's only got 10 people in it and it's 5 red/5 blue and you bring in 6 people that all want to join red, one or two are going to join blue. It stops games from being stacked, and it's easy to fix. Once the other team gets a player or two, drop, and come back red. With the lack of a pregame lobbey, that's how it has to be.

The only other problem I have is the gunners/CQBs. Nothing is more frustrating than being in a fire fight down a street where you are hiding behind a wall and having someone lay down a grenade from a grenade launcher or fireing an AT4 (shoulder launched light anti armor rocket) at your feet blowing you to bits. When grenade launchers are on (and I don't put them on in my rooms) you always have to be on your toes for people that can blow you up around corners. The reason I don't like them is because normal frag grenades are time delayed, but launchers explode on contact, so you have absolutely no chance of escaping if someone fires a grenade instead of throwing them.

That problem is solveable. The thing I really can't stand is the acuracy of the heavy guns. For anyone who played rainbow six 3, you know that an M60 isn't going to be your best bet if you are going to be engaging the enemy at long range. In BHD you can take an M60 out, lay in the middle of a road, and start spraying. You will hit EVERYTHING that gets near your crosshairs. I've only encountered it a few times, but if you have a handful of smart gunners they can effectively cover all usefull exits from your spawn by spraying like maniacs and cutting everyone to pieces before they even realize where you are. Friends of mine have been learning ways to out shoot and out manuver these spray and pray gunners, but I'm still at a point where I'm a sitting duck. I don't know what they were thinking with this bit of the game, but I am getting the feeling now that it's going to level out once we medics become better shots. As I said, one of my friends has no problem wasting those fools before they get him, but I haven't figured it out yet.

The Short of it All:

Pros:
-Intense and immersive battles that never let you take a breath.
-Vast and complicated levels that force you to work as a team
-A class system that MUST be ballanced to win.
-Massive games with up to 50 players in a Novalogic server or 32 in a player hosed game
-Multiple gametypes that all have a strong following
-GREAT hit detection. NO HITBOX PROBLEMS WHAT SO EVER
-Great online community. The people that runied Halo 2 don't like games like this.
-Teamwork is necessary and fun. You will find yourself saying things like, "I'm engaging the enemy 2 clicks due west of alpha." "SOMEONE GET A ROCKET ON THAT HEELO!" "MEDIC!!!" "WE'RE TAKING FIRE AT E4! ALL NEARBY ENGAGE THE ENEMY!"
-Can't understate the immersion. You will feel like you're really fighting.
-NUMBER 1 REASON TO PLAY - The annoying kids who ruined Halo 2 have read the lousy reviews this game has received and are "waiting for battlefield 2" You WILL find rooms of mature adults who are level headed team players every night. I've added more friends in the past week than I did in the past few months playing halo 2.

Cons:
-Not graphicly stunning
-No ragdoll physics
-time consuming to find or fill a room
-Some Novalogic servers still aren't up to par
-You can hear everyone nearby if they don't hold down the white button. Be ready to mute.
-gunners should not equal snipers with 400 round clips and RPGs
-"This game is no longer available (20)"
-"This game session is no longer available"
-NUMBER 1 REASON NOT TO PLAY - This game is a port of a precision shooter from 2003. If you are looking for something with graphics and physics that are going to blow you away, this isn't for you. It's time consuming and very involved to play. If you are looking for a quick fix, go to halo 2.

Final Thoughts:

I love this game. I've been looking for a game that catered to what my friends and I love since rainbow six 3 was killed by that horrible garbage called Black Arrow. I've always said that the next great strategy based simulation shooter would come from a company I've never heard of. In comes Novalogic. I have allready put together a team, and we are going to begin competeing as soon as we get enough guys online at once. It's looking like next week is when we start using the in-game system. I'll be sure to come back and let you all know how that works out.

This game is exactly what you're looking for if you are 21+ and you loved rainbow six 3 and have been waiting for another game to come out that has the same feel. It's also great if you loved RTCW or Ghost Recon. If I had to say exactly what this game is, it's a blend of r6, RTCW, and Ghost Recon.

Buy this game. You will not be dissapointed unless you believe halo 2 is the greatest game ever.

Halo 2, Bungie.net, and Rainbow Six 3

2005-06-06T16:09:00.000-07:00

By now everyone with access to an Xbox has played Halo 2. In fact, I bet everyone's played it A LOT. I have not seen the numbers, but it must be one of, if not THE top game of the year in regards to xbox live play. This is why I'm writting this now.

I have noticed that I am getting destroyed in matchmaking games. I'm a damn good gamer and have been playing halo since it was launched multiplayer; split screen at first and later on xbconnect over the internet. I have friends who are also amazing halo players and some of the finest FPS gamers I've ever met. We party up and hit the matchmaking scene almost nightly. So why is it we will win a few and then get destroyed over and over and over?

Before I get into this, you're probably wondering why I'm reviewing Halo2 now when it came out so long ago. I'm sure you are thinking, "jeez, we allready know the ending sucks, why is this dude wasting his time?" Well, I don't want to review the mechanics of the game, I want to review the ongoing measures by Bungie to improve the game and make it a constant struggle. This is strictly about Xbox Live! and the ranking system.

Bungie has consistantly stated that your level is not a reward system, but a way to match you up against people that will be an even match. This is a great idea. Why would a casual gamer who isn't very good and doesn't care want to go against some clan fanatic player who knows every inch of every map and racks up 45 of his teams 50 kills a round?

My friend list is filled with people I met playing Rainbow Six 3 which is clearly defined as a simulation shooter. It's slow and realistic. No respawns, no weapon with a clear advantage over any other, no weapon switching beyond what you bring to the round, it's basic. Now we played together for a very long time and did very well in organized competition against the finest rainbow players in the world. When we would get on for a night of casual r6 we would no doubt win at least 75% of the rounds. There weren't many groups of randoms who could stand up to our onslaught. When someone would cheat or talk trash we'd boot him. If it was getting unballanced we'd even out the teams and go back at it. Every aspect of the game was under strict control. Anything seem funny? BOOT EM! When you saw them again, BOOT EM! It was easy to keep things the way you liked it because not many people wanted to get booted from a good room.

Now, this brings me to why my friends are divided over Halo2. There are 3 main camps of people who are angry at this game:

1. Trash talkers make the game awful - Yes they do, but if you're ok with dumping out and risking the double loss you get for leaving to enjoy yourself, it's not a problem.

2. Cheaters/questionable situations - Bungie is doing a fantastic job of monitoring the gaming community and if you leave feedback, and the person truely is a problem, they will be dealt with. Yes it's frustrating when someone pulls some cheap ass move on you that really shouldn't be part of the game... and Bungie agrees. As time goes on they are only making cheating harder, which is the best compliment a game community can receive from me. [UBISoft needs to take a hint from Bungie] The questionable situations I'm talking about are when you blast someone at point blank with a shotgun, slash them with a sword, stick em and it doesn't stick, direct shot with an explosive, etc etc etc and they DON'T DIE! That is why several of my friends have given up. They just don't understand why the things that work for others work for them. My best solution... I don't know? It's a game and it's not perfect. Deal with it... and I should listen to my own advice as I'm screaming at myself.

3. "I am awful at videogames" syndrome - This is the main point I want to get accross. If you are being ranked to play against people that are on your skill level you are going to get to a point where you are getting smashed on a regular basis. You will watch your level shoot up and then WHAM! You start dropping. Some people I know will freak out if they go from a 27 to a 26 because someone betrayed a teammate late in a round and others don't care. The problem is that the people who are used to dominating rooms that were under the watchful eye of their friends in games like r6 are now having to adjust to a gaming community that's as dynamic and difficult as any that we've ever seen. I believe I've topped out my level at 20. I'm at a .521 winning percentage accross all gametypes. I have friends who say, "god I SUCK! WHY DO WE KEEP LOSING" and I keep trying to explain that we are being matched up against people that are AS good as we are or BETTER because winning every single round isn't what Bungie had in mind when they designed the ranking system. With the extended duration of most matchmaking gametypes as opposed to the 2 minute gun fights of rainbow six and the consistancy of excellent competition people just get frustrated. In order for the ranking system to work you HAVE to lose! You have to find that place where you are winning as often as losing and everyone you play is the same skill as you.

If Bungie has done this right than in time I should never see a 50 to 15 win or loss again. They should all be 3 kills one way or the other. I'll even accept 10 kill wins/losses if they are clean.

The last point I'd like to make about Bungie and Halo 2 is that they actually LISTEN to the gaming community and do whatever they can to make everything better. They've allready changed the playlists twice to make the games more fun, released more maps, and changed weapon sets to eliminate some of the "cheap garbage" that people are pulling (n00b combo...). I hear that they are going to eliminate everyone's favorite plasma pistol/battle rifle combo in the next update. I'll hug my CAT5e cable when that happens.

So this is my question to you few and unfaithful readers: Would it be so bad if rank was tossed away and everyone had to just play against whoever came on into the game? It didnt' make rainbow six bad. It didn't make wolfenstein bad. It didn't make Unreal bad. Would it ruin halo 2? I have run into my fair share of psychopaths playing rumble training. I'm talking about that 38 who you can't get near because he will snipe you from anywhere and if you spawn near by you are going to get smg'd to death even though you have a BR. The guy who sticks you while running and jumping from accross the map. That guy. I still don't think it is that bad. The only problem I can see is a PARTY of that guy's friends who are also as good as he is, but I doubt we'll ever know what that's like because the ranks are here to say. What do you think?

Here are three good reasons to keep at Halo 2 on xbox Live!

1. The competition is great
2. You can find a match alone or in a team at any hour of the day or night without a moment hesitation
3. when you assasinate that 12 year old who only knows one word that starts with N and ends in R it ALWAYS puts a smile on your face as you quietly tea bag him.

EA Sports Fight Night round 2

2005-04-23T09:44:00.000-07:00

Ah, about time I review something else, right? Well hold onto your hats, I just picked up EA Sports Fight Night Round 2.

From the moment you pop this game into the xbox you realize that this game is a no holds barred slugfest full of all the blood splattering glory you could ever want from a hardcore boxing game. The intro movie is just two guys bashing each others' faces in while hardcore rap plays in the background. This game makes no apologies for excessive bloodloss.

I started out by creating myself in career mode. I have never been so impressed with a character generator in my life. You basically use the sticks to adjust the dimentions of every part of your face from your eye placement, size, alignment to the shape of your jaw, nose, mouth, cheeks, everything. There is even a two stick adjustment stage for fat vs muscle. When I was done, it was like looking at myself in the mirror. Unfortunately for the reality factor, I did a ton of training and he's jacked now. The amazing depth of this generator cannot be understated. It's simply amazing.

So I still had no clue what I was doing, and here is my first criticism. There is no training mode, no tutorial, nothing. This game is very different from the old school games that involved a different button combo for different punches, blocks, etc. All of your punches are executed with a movement of the right thumbstick. If you are like me, and never played the original, the "Total Boxer Control" interface is daunting. There are games you can play that help, but if you really don't know how to throw a haymaker uppercut, no amount of chances to do so will help you figure it out. I would have appreciated a mode where you can just slam the heavy bag and get a readout of what you are actually throwing similar to Soul Caliber II.

Immersion Factor:

While we're chatting about it, Total Boxer Control makes this game so realistic that the immersion factor is VERY height. I'm the stereotypical "I'm going to throw 500 punches a round and never block a single punch" guy, but this game makes it easy to evade, block, parry, and simply get out of the way of most punches if you try. That combined with the fact that you can throw punches from anywhere and they all look, feel, and land according to where your standing, where you're moving to, and where your opponent is moving is simply breathtaking. For fun, circle the other boxer and throw an enormous haymaker just to watch his face explode. Then circle away from the other dude and throw the same punch. Not so good. This game makes you think and act like a real boxer. You have to know your opponent and really break down his strengths and weaknesses just as if it was you in that ring.

To put it simply, if you step into your punches, time them out so you catch a full fist of face, and figure out how to wind up and throw a decent punch, you will find yourself cheering like an idiot as you watch in gritty slow motion perfection as the other guy goes limp and lands face down with a mouth full of canvas. If you are throwing off balance punches, punching yourself out, or landing only grazing blows, you will find out real quick what it's like to be a bad boxer.

Immersion Factor rating: Extremely High

Learning Curve:

I normally don't talk about the learning curve with games because I'm just like you. I don't even know where the manual is when the game is shipped. I cut open the packaging and throw it in the tray before I even consider reading anything about how to play. Like I said, there is no training mode and the mini games they have set up are nothing but frustrating to someone who has no idea what they're doing. I immediately jumped into a fight and the only training I received was the loading screen with the "Total Punch Control" options shown. In career mode, the boxers you face to start out with hearken back to the good ol days of Glass Joe. They show blatant weaknesses and will go down to a barrage of lousy punches even if you have no clue what you're doing. Having a basic understanding of punches was a huge help. If you don't know the difference between a right cross and a right hook, you should probably open the manual. I had no problem adjusting to the new style at first when it didn't' really matter what I was doing, but as the opponents started getting tougher, I really had to go back and try to figure out which sweeping motion was an uppercut and which was a hook in order to land the punches I needed to to win.

All in all the learning curve has been very generous. I played for a few hours last night and normally once you break the first 10 fights in a boxing game you all of a sudden end up fighting dudes you can never beat. It's been a nice smooth transition up the skill ladder and I'm very thankful for that. I've found that extended enjoyment of fighting games is only as long as you can find a CPU opponent that is up to par with your skill and yet not so hard that you have no chance. For a good example of this concept going horribly wrong, check out Soul Caliber II. If you get past the first few difficulty levels and try to bump it up to the maximum you will lose without ever hitting the other guy. When you still want to play, but the easy level is too easy and the hard level is too hard, the game goes back on the shelf. I hopefully will come back and amend this post once I've played the game more, but for now, it's been smooth sailing.

Learning Curve: Great

Presentation:

This game is as smooth and cool as you could ever ask for. From it's hip hop soundtrack to it's dancing ring girls in your possie to the colorful announcers it does a great job of showing the glitz and glamour of the [fantasy] boxing world. If you've ever fantasized about doing backflips over the ropes to your own entrance music only to pummel some punk into a coma in front of tens of thousands of screaming fans, this is the game for you.

The only real quirk with the look of the game is the people in the stands. If there is a shot where you can see them, they look like the crowd from Pro Wrestling on the NES. Not a big deal, and I wouldn't want my precious DVD memory being wasted on a great looking crowd, but when you see them, you have to go, "eh..."

For anyone who's seen the movie Snatch, when you knock someone down, they have a slowmotion cut scene that harkens back to when the barenuckle fighter knocks down Brad Pitt with the amazing uppercut. They play around with the speed of the replay, so you'll see yourself wind up in slow motion with the focus on your glove and then when you start swinging it's in full speed only to go back to super slow motion as your glove crushes the punks face in an explosion of sweat and blood. They show the punch from several angles with varying focal points and speeds. I haven't screamed at a TV screen in joy like that in a long long time. There are just some moments in your video game life where you have to just sit back and enjoy. Landing a sick knockout punch on some fool and then pummeling him as he slides down the ropes with 10 more punches while the announcers are screaming out about your animalistic aggression is one of them. Nothing in gaming is that satisfying on a consistent basis.

The camera angles vary depending on the situation, but your punch motions on the right thumbstick do not. For you FPS junkies out there, this will be a hard transition. I know I have a hard time throwing the right punch depending on where the camera is located. It really adds to the immersion factor when you are throwing a flurry of punches and the camera is frantically trying to catch each one of them. It takes a little getting used to, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

Presentation: Great

Gameplay/Fun Factor:

This game plays smooth and fair. I know that a game playing "fair" isn't something you hear a lot, but this isn't' the kind of game where the computer automatically knows what you're doing and counters it. Even when I brought a lightweight fighter out against Ali as a joke I was able to land some serious punches and avoid many of the ones coming my way. I know if you're like me and have played a lot of fighting games you've experienced the phenomenon of the computer controlled fighter all of a sudden having a 6th sense. This game doesn't use a CPU advantage like that to raise the difficulty, it uses different styles. One guy you fight might have a tendency to keep his right hand too low, so you can land lefts to his head all night. Another fighter might be a counter puncher. He'll wait for you to throw, parry the punch, and throw one of his own. Another guy might be a power puncher who exposes his body to all the punishment you can dish out. All of the difficulty and strategy comes from figuring out your opponent, and for someone looking for a great fight game, you can't ask for much more than that.

The only problem I have with the gameplay is that if you try to throw a couple looping shots in a row you have to bring the stick back to top dead center before you throw the second one with the same hand. If you want to throw a right and then a left, you don't have to do the same thing. It's just one more stupid thing you have to remember. I find myself drilling someone in the face with a right hook only to have an opening for another one and to miss because I didn't bring the stick back all the way and my fighter just ended up cocking back his hand "pretending" he was going to hit him again. I also don't like how you have to remember which side of your controller is up. That sounds stupid, but if you let your hands go uneven on the joysticks and you try to go for a sweeping motion from straight out left to straight up and you end up going from down at an angle to 3/4 of the way up you won't throw the punch correctly and leave yourself open for a haymaker. I might be the only person alive with this problem, but it is frustrating, so it's here.

Overall, gameplay is fun and easy. It sounds daunting when you hear that you actually have to "throw" every punch with a punching motion on the analog stick, but once you realize how much fun it is to have total control over your boxer's every motion, you'll wish that every boxing game was like this. It really gives you the chance to mold your own style and use it all the time no matter what boxer you are controlling or going against.

This game has a huge fun factor. The actual physics of this game are so realistic that you feel like it was YOU that threw that left uppercut that lacerated the guy's mouth and knocked him out cold. I can't stress enough how much fun this game is once you get into it. It's exciting and different every fight and it's only looking to get better. When you create a boxer, here's a tip. Make him fat because you'll be able to see his body transform through training and hard work as he gets more and more recognition. If you only make him kinda fat like I did, you don't' really realize how different he looks after hitting the gym. The total reality of the career mode is unparalleled in gaming today. It's really something that has to be experienced by anyone who loves fighting games.

Try and name me something that is as much fun as taking some dude who's stunned and stumbling and just hauling off and cracking him with the perfect punch only to watch him get knotted up in the ropes unconscious! It never gets old. Every knockout is more fun than the last. If you are a power puncher or if you are good at connecting big shots, you'll experience a lot of them too.

I still haven't tried this game out on xbox live due to the fact that I know I'm no good and don't want to get destroyed, but for you, the faithful reader who has been reading my Kingdom Under Fire review over and over waiting with baited breath for my live! Reviews, I'll do it. If this game is as much fun on live as it is single player, this might become a fixture in my xbox.

Pros:

Relistic from your hair down to your boots. Simply amazing graphics
Very high fun factor. Every fight is an adventure.
Fair learning curve. You can pick up and play straight through the easy guys and work your way up to the hard fights comfortably
Soundtrack is contemporary and fun without sounding repetitive or becoming annoying
Enterance sequences are just as exciting as real life
Amateur circuit looks and feels like you are really there
Total Boxer Control - It's just that. You have total control. If you get hit, it's your fault. If you knock someone out, it's your fault, and it feels great.
Immersion factor near critical levels. You feel the pain of every blow and the elation of every victory. Never felt so "into" a boxing game.
Nice easy layout. Follows along the same line as the Madden series. If you've played Madden, you'll know exactly where all the game modes and options are from the get go
Cut man - Between rounds you have to take care of your own cuts and swelling. It's not hard and it's actually a neat little feature. The whole time the cut man is working your coach will be catching you up to speed on what just happened and what you have to do to win. Again, immersion factor all over this piece. You feel like it's you getting your face cleaned up and you hearing that you need to have better punch selection because you're punching yourself out. Amazing.

Cons:

Loading is annoying. Every time you see your boxer it has to load. Every time you change windows... it has to load. Every time you do anything... it's got to load. Not bad at first, but it gets old real quick
You can't preview new gear until you buy it. This is EXTREMELY annoying if you are trying to figure out what tatoos you want. They do nothing but look cool and there's no way I'm spending the hard earned cash I could be using for better skills to get a tat that I'd hate. (yes, I'm whining, sue me)
Total Boxer Control - It is easy to pick up, very difficult to master. That's a good thing, but when you've been playing a while and have no idea why you can't throw a left hook or a right uppercut and the dude is begging for you to kill him with one, total boxer control makes you want to throw your xbox out the window. It's also frustrating if you don't go through the whole motion and your boxer "feins" a punch instead of throwing one. Then you're just standing there with your face out there like a big ol target when you should have been erasing his childhood memories with a killer punch to the mouth.
***speculative con*** If this game follows suit with every other fighting game on Xbox Live! it will be a trash talk fest with a bunch of 12 year olds. Why do I even put this here? Because playing against a real breathing human being could be the most amazing experience ever. Unfortunatly when a game is as popular as this one it means a lot of youngsters have copies. If I get online and end up having a decent experience then this game will be perfect. If the real market ends up being annoying kids (see halo2) then I'll play through career mode and put it back on the shelf.

The Short of it all:

EA has come out with yet another franchise that cannot be overlooked. This game has been designed to give you the total boxing experience... Minus all the brain damage. It's realistic, bloody, and perfect. Try to not feel like you got your butt kicked when you are looking at your bloody and swollen face between rounds while the cutman is trying to get the swelling down before the next round. This game is fun, smooth, fair, and beautiful. I've never seen a more realistic or brutal game in my life and I believe this game deserves all the praise in the world. If fighting/boxing games aren't your dish, you should at least stop at your local rental shack and give it a try for it's amazing character builder and physics. I defy anyone to knock someone out with a haymaker, watch the replay, and return this game. It's just too much fun. If you've ever dreamed of raising the belt over you bloody and beaten face screaming out to an arena filled with 40,000 screaming psychopaths, then you MUST buy this game. It's worth every penny.

Kingdom Under Fire: The Crusaders

2004-12-04T10:40:00.000-08:00

With waiting out in the cold for the midnight launch of Halo 2 still fresh in my memory and Ghost Recon 2 still hot in my xbox I decided that I would stop by the EB Games and try and find something totally different. I have been shooting people on Xbox Live from a first person perspective since Return to Castle Wolfenstein launched in the summer of 03. Kingdom Under Fire is what I picked up. For $39.99 new it wasn't too painful on the wallet, boasted battles with over 100 characters on screen at once, and has xbox live functionality, so I picked it up. This game is a mix between Braveheat and the old Comand and Conquer series. It is a great mix of button mashing and strategy. You start out by picking a soldier by difficulty. I played through the first set of missions with Gerald who is the "easy" character and the one pictured on the cover. The cinimatics in this game are amazing and the scale of the battles you find yourself in are simply breathtaking. The camera shakes (can be turned off in the settings menu) while you are charging into battle and really gives you a feel for how crazy it must have been running into a massive battle in a suit of armor with a 6 foot sword.

You begin controlling 1 infantry division led by yourself, Gerald, and two other officers with their own personalities and fighting styles. You cannot controll the other two, but you can call upon them to help by using simple button combinations. The opening cinimatics lead right into your first battle and the imersion factor (how much you feel like you are part of the action. Aka how into the game you get) is very high. The first battle is with "vells" that just burnt down a church in your home town. You charge in and simple destroy enemy after enemy with combinations of light and heavy attacks that are very easy to execute and amazing to see. From there you meet up with archers, calvary, sappers (demolition experts laying and disarming traps and such), spearmen (that take down calvary. see Braveheart) and several other classes of troops that will help you on your quest to save Hironiden.

As you progress through your quest you gain experience and gold which can be used to buy better equipment, train yourself and every single troop available to you in differnt skills, and hire mercenaries to fill gaps in your army. I love games where you can improve your character and this game puts a lot of emphasis on developing your army. Spend your points wastefully and you will have trouble. Train wisely and you will have an unstoppable force.

I have completed Gerald's campaign thus far and started out the Lucretia missions. What I am realizing is that this game is written kind of like the movie Go where you have 4 characters all going through the same 10 missions from different points of view. That part is pretty cool, and they aren't exactly the same by any means. So far just a few key points have been the same, but people in "Luci's" missions make reference to battles they had with Gerald and move according to what happened in Geralds campaign.

Pros:

The gameplay is smooth and fast
The controlls make perfect sense.
The minimap in the top right corner makes troop movement easy
The battles are all intense and immersive
Strategy is key, but knowing how to swing an axe will make the difference
Wartime dialoge is interesting and full of emotion
The main character makes decisions just like a real person. He gets angry and vengeful at times and will follow the rules of war at others. The passion Gerald fights with after a key plot twist is so strong that he actually scares his troops with his fury in battle. For instance, there is a time Gerald comes across an enemy village in his home town while on his way to a major battle and decides to stop, burn it to the ground and kill everyone inside. Cool stuff. You don't get that with every game. The hero is normally a "Justice is the only rule I live by" kinda guy and that is not the case in Kingdom Under Fire.
The language is honest without being over the top. They will swear at times, but it doesn't seem out of place or done to be "shocking"

Cons:

The dialogue is obviously a translation from Japaneese. There are times they say things in the wrong order or the voice actors put the emphasis on the wrong sylable
The voice actor who plays Gerald is flat and emotionless in normal speach and is obviously not a great actor. He only really shines when he is furious.
Controlling troop movement without the minimap can be difficult and learning when to use your eyes and when to use your map is confusing.
The camera angles can be difficult at times, especially when in a forest. You can rotate the camera around your troops, but sometimes you simply cannot see what needs to be seen. Especially on horseback. Basically, the camera is really tough to get used to and took me all of 5 missions before I got the hang of it. Once you understand when to rotate the map and when to just click on the minimap things get easier, but for some, the lousy angles will turn them off quickly.
This isn't a great rental because it takes a lot of time to get used to and most features aren't even available to you until you have played for a good amount of time.
******SPOILER ALERT*******The story line is a bit predictable. I don't know what it is about the Japanese, but they love their traditional "you save yourself! I'll stay and hold them off" martyr scenes. They also love the "big brute of a soldier who falls in the line of battle fighting the ultimate bad guy with blatent disregard for his own life only to die" stuff. A lot of the major twists and turns in the first campaign are just clitche kung-fu movie stuff.
At times the action is slow and takes a lot of time. Especially with low level calvary who can't exactly turn on a dime yet.
You can't send your infantry led by Gerald into battle and controll another division because Gerald will just stand and take a beating while you aren't controlling him directly. This makes calvary charges and archer movements difficult
*****SPOILER ALERT*******The final cutscene makes ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE WHATSOEVER! "whoa, it was all a dream" and then everything that happened really did? WTF? You fight through 10 levels of intense battle and then there is a huge emotional cutscene leading up to the final stand with Reigner, the ultimate badass, and then before anything really happens there are 4 quick cutscenes and then a "it was all a dream? But it was so real! Antie Em, you were there! And you, and you and you." But the dead are dead and what happened really happened? I was very dissapointed with the finale after the opening was so freaken amazing. I hope more is revealed as I go further into the other campaigns.

A few final thoughts:
This game is a beautiful and powerful depiction of war back in the midieval times. One thing I personally didn't like was that there is an element of fantasy. There are flying craft, huge crow looking birds that kill people, magic, and a few other things that didnt' exist. That doesn't make a bit of difference to most people, but I was really hoping for a real simulation of sword and shield battle. I got exactly what I asked for during 99% of the game so far, but the little bit of fantasy took away from the game just a tad for me.
I will go more indepth with the Lucretia campaign once I'm deeper into it and will also give a taste of the other characters, but I just got the game a few days ago and wanted to give my innital impressions first. But here is what I've seen from her missions thus far. She commands a basically all female army (drawn up to be sexy as hell, but that really doesn't do it for me) that rely on speed and quickness whereas Gerald was pure brute strenght. The speed is almost mind numbing to the point that you actually blur and zip through the human armies (Gerald's Armies) slashing with two swords at whatever gets in your way. The animation for her attacks is priceless and really is something eveyrone should check out, but because she is more a "death of ten thousand cuts" kind of attacker, you have to spend time on each kill and if you are zipping through a crowd you have a tendency to take a beating quickly if you don't lure one away from the melee at a time.
The pure physics of the game are perfect. People look very realistic when taking hits and really react the way you'd expect. I have caught myself just watching my archers fire flaming arrows into the woods for minutes at a time just because the animation of them lining up, having one man with a torch light all their arrows, and then command them to loose their arrows is amazing. You can actually watch the arrows fly through the air and where they land they stay. If you are being attacked by archers you put up your shields and you can actually see all the arrows that missed stuck all over the ground. For anyone who has seen braveheart, the scene with the sky full of arrows from the English is exactly what you get from your archers in Kingdom Under Fire.
The reply value seems high at this early point with missions having multiple ways to victory and multiple campaigns. I have not signed onto live with this title yet, but look forward to doing so in the near future.
If you liked braveheart, you'll love Kingdom Under Fire. The game is as polished and fun as it possibly can be and has received NO attention whatsoever. Buy this game if only for the rush of adrenaline you get when your army of hundreds lets out a mighty war cry while charging across an open field at another screaming army. The pure rush you get between you decision to engage and the actual battle is worth the $39.99 price tag alone.
For more on Kingdom Under Fire: The Crusaders, stay tuned. Part II of this review will be served up soon.