I T ( ) E - U N I T E D

Want to play

2013-06-13T12:31:00.003-04:00

It's called Watch Dogs. It looks like a cross between GTA and Splinter Cell. I'm worried, though, that it might be a bit too ambitious to deliver.

Payday 2 - use stealth (if you really want to)

2013-05-31T16:43:00.000-04:00

Seems there may be more tactical options in the second offering. You know, other than shoot! shoot! shoot! shoot! shoot! shoot! shoot! shoot! shoot! shoot! shoot! shoot! shoot! shoot! shoot! shoot! shoot! - grab the thing! - run to the place!

EDIT:

This video confirmed my speculation. I have decided to preorder.

A Meat Bicycle Built For Two

2013-05-31T16:33:00.001-04:00

This was unexpected:

Game Plays Self

2013-05-28T12:43:00.002-04:00

Almost. Profile not kosher. Build is very ridiculous.

Fun to watch, though:

EVE Universe: Origins

2013-04-27T17:47:00.003-04:00

CCP does know how to make a great trailer.

Eve Fanfest 2013 Keynote

2013-04-27T11:10:00.000-04:00

If you have any interest in where Eve Online is going, this is worth watching:

http://www.twitch.tv/ccp/c/2208288

"The future" actually starts at about 56:10. Jesus features may be dead, but there are a couple of Holy Shit moments nonetheless.

How the F**K do you even fly something like this?

2013-04-22T12:19:00.003-04:00

And why would you fly it to Jita during Burn Jita?

http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=17425453

Look what it took to kill me

2013-02-04T00:16:00.000-05:00

Initiative hot-dropped us on a Ganked roam out in Curse (0.0). At first, I was pissed. Then I saw the KM:

http://rvbeve.com/red/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=434479

That's a lot of ships. And big ones. I feel better now.

Honestly, I didn't last very long (and I got podded later; clean clone, though). But, I got top damage on a Guardian, a Lachesis, and a Proteus, to the tune of 1.035 billion Isk. That's not bad for an 85.6 million Isk Harbinger.

Everyone wants to be wanted

2012-12-22T11:40:00.001-05:00

I love Retribution:

RvB POS bash

2012-11-17T18:03:00.002-05:00

Someone drops a player-owned station in RvB's AOE. RvB declares war on the POS owner's corp. RVB fleets up and shoots the POS 'til it's dead. Unfortunately, no war targets wandered through that particular region of space just then.

It's more fun than it sounds. But, I wouldn't want to be doing this all day in 0.0.

BTW: I did 463,749 points of damage in my Coercer ... but that was only 0.79% of the station's total HP.

(Click to enlarge image.)

For the love of god, stop shooting

2012-11-11T20:05:00.000-05:00

This is what panic does to you.

A member of RvB-Blue lost this monster during a "kitchen sink" weekend. He undocked, he aggressed, and for some reason, he stayed aggressed when a Red fleet of 20+ ships landed on him. He could have turned off his guns, and docked after 60 seconds. But he didn't. Depending on whether you go by the kill board or the in-game kill mail (I have no idea why they're different), that's 330 to 430 million down the tubes.

My ship only shaved 1.16% off his 180,044 EHP, but my ship costs less than of one of his guns.

Kill (yourself)

2012-11-06T17:57:00.000-05:00

This is the ship's kill mail. This is the pod's. Taken together, that's almost 65 billion Isk. From the information available about the "battle," the pilot was AFK in a 0.0 system. He didn't move, he wasn't aligned, he never fired, and he never launched his drones.

I put the fitting and the pod into Pyfa. Including drones and implants:

DPS = 1679

Volley = 6860

EHP = 132,000

Of course, those numbers assume the ship has a pilot.

Oh, and by the way: one of those guns costs more than a Vindicator.

A review of a game

2012-11-04T23:00:00.001-05:00

Before you read the rest of this post, go read John Walker's review of Medal of Honor: Warfighter at Rock, Paper, Shotgun. Note that the review only deals with the single player mode.

The review is exactly what you'd expect from a guy that didn't want to play the game in the first place (and with good reason). The lack of enthusiasm is understandable. Electronic Arts has long been obsessed with knocking Activision from atop its modern military shooter throne, to the point that it reflexively grafts single player appendages onto otherwise fully-functional multiplayer bodies. In the race to the bottom of the modern warfare abyss, EA just can't help itself. Committing finite resources away from the core competencies of Battlefield -- and the rebooted MoH -- has become a habit.

This is not, however, a reversal of the "tacked-on multiplayer" trend of years past. The path that Call of Duty has blazed demands an EPIC single player campaign, full of showy explosions and toppled buildings, overwrought dialogue and oppressively scripted game play. There's nothing tacked-on about it. It requires a massive investment of money and developer time to produce those five or six hours of single player drudgery.

Welcome to Medal of Honor: Warfighter.

The reviews have been unkind: MoH:W's metascore is sitting at an abysmal 55 as of this writing. Given that the publisher declined to distribute review copies until mere hours before the game was released, EA may have known that the single player was garbage. Maybe it realized -- just a bit too late -- that the format has atrophied. Or, the delay might have had something to do with the massive day one patch. Either way, the decision was clearly a defensive one.

EA has taken too long to realize that its shooters aren't just competing with Call of Duty. Rather, both Battlefield and CoD are threatened by every new game that doesn't seek to reprise the modern military shooter formula. There are a lot of them out there. It started, perhaps, with the asymmetric multiplayer of L4D, and games like Borderlands, Portal, Metro 2033, and Dishonored have carried the banner of the truly original IP to ascendancy. Maybe, just maybe, EA's business model of chasing the money is finally backfiring.

We can hope.

Natural Selection 2 is here

2012-11-01T16:14:00.002-04:00

It's all good to go, folks... Launch happened yesterday. I pre-ordered this game over 5 years ago, and it was worth the wait.

Think Starcraft or Warcraft (1 2 or 3) where the minions and units are all real people. Aliens versus marines in a fight over a mining colony.

As the aliens take over the map, their biological "infestation" begins to cover the walls and floors. The marines must fight this back, along with the aliens, to be able to control resource nodes needed for researching and creating weapons and equipment.

Play as a marine with options for jetpack and exosuits, and weapons from MG, shotgun, grenade launcher and flamethrower. Play as alien and be a "skulk" that can climb on walls and ceilings, leaps and bites, a "lerk" who flies and bites, and shoots spikes or poison gas, a "fade" who kind of teleports or phasewalks and slashes, an "Onos" which is the giant rhino and can stomp the ground knocking over nearby marines or the "Gorge" who builds and heals, and has a spit that erodes marine structures.

Then there's the commander for each team who gets a top-down view, decides the research path to use and provides orders and support to the team.

2012-10-14T15:18:00.002-04:00

This one's for Stinky:

http://www.ragecry.com/images/102153/a-dea-officer-stopped-at-our-farm-yesterday/

First Borderlands 2 DLC

2012-10-11T20:33:00.000-04:00

It's called "Captain Scarlett," and it will be available for ten bucks on October 16.

Details are few, aside from a new vehicle dubbed the "Sand Skiff."

PLEX spiking

2012-10-10T11:56:00.005-04:00

I thought I was being clever speculating on PLEX about a month ago. I should have waited another month:

I would have made another 37.5% profit if I had held on to my stock until today. At this rate (it won't last, but in theory), one PLEX will get you a billion Isk in the December.

Quoth the Raven ...

2012-10-07T23:00:00.002-04:00

... nevermore.

It has never been my mission in Eve to suicide gank anything. But when a Caldari Navy Raven is just sitting idle on a gate in your home system, what are you going to do?

Answer: fleet up with a dozen arty Thrashers, a Tornado, a Hurricane, and assorted hangers-on, and whore your way onto a kill mail. That's what.

And you do it in a Condor:

http://rvbeve.com/red/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=319346

2012-10-05T23:18:00.003-04:00

Nuff said:

First solo kill

2012-09-22T18:55:00.000-04:00

ATRON vs. KESTREL

(I was the Kessie.)

I didn't even know that I'd been targeted until I started taking damage. He was a hell of a lot faster than me (3700 vs. 2456 m/s), and that's what killed him. He had no tank, 46 less DPS, and no tank, and he flew right up my tailpipe.

It was a no-skill kill ... and I'll take it.

And yes: his buddy killed me 10 seconds later.

Can't wait to get home to Borderlands 2?

2012-09-18T11:49:00.003-04:00

Then play the prequel in your browser from work!

Next: Minmatar Destroyer

2012-09-17T19:37:00.001-04:00

Tier 2 Caldari Destroyer

2012-09-16T02:12:00.003-04:00

Swoon.

Coming this winter.

Red vs. Blue: "Kitchen Sink"

2012-09-15T21:46:00.002-04:00

RvB fleets usually field cruisers, destroyers, and frigates, and mid-slot ECM is not allowed.

Except when the weekend theme is Kitchen Sink:

I kited my way onto a couple of killmails, then escaped when something melted my shields. We were out-shipped pretty badly, but it was still the most fun I've had in Eve thus far.

In fact, I'm still shaking.

Early Borderlands 2 review (IGN)

2012-09-15T04:59:00.001-04:00

Read it here.