Latest Events in Eve and Modern Warfare

Well I finally made the move to low-sec in Eve. Went on a roam and learned a bit about the rules of roaming and basic pvp combat. I almost got killed by some gate campers while screwing around by myself, then I got stuck in a warp bubble and actually got killed. At least it forced me to learn techniques for avoiding warp bubbles when in nul-sec. Next on the skill training list is gas mining 5 to rake in some dough from all the gas sites in our area.

Dominion is right around the corner and I haven't even played enough of MW2 and L4D2.

In MW2 I ran into my first cheater. This guy had a lvl 70 account and was continuously shooting everyone through walls. At least some hackers have the brains to try and appear that they aren't cheating, but this guy was being blatant about it. I'm going to add 'cheating' to the long list of why it's better to have dedicated servers, as any admin can just ban the hacker's ip from the server.

Oh well it's just one more reason to give Eve more game time.

Modern Warfare 2 - What Has Been Lost

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (MW2) is a good game. It’s not revolutionary by any standards, but it’s still the best “tactical” shooter every made. It offers so many game modes that you can virtually re-create the game style of your favorite tactical shooters. From Counter Strike single life matches to Unreal Tournament mayhem, there is a huge variety of gameplay available.

The graphics are nice but not a major leap forward from the Call of Duty 4 (COD4) engine. However, the art is top notch which really creates an enveloping environment. From desert to snowy mountains to suburban United States, each location is rich and realistic enough to suspend belief.

But let’s stop talking about all the things that this game does well. If you played COD4 then you are aware of all the awesome multiplayer offerings that MW2 offers - except for dedicated servers. Now this was the most controversial issue with MW2: People were so much opposed to not having dedicated servers that over 200,000 people signed up to boycott the title.

Regardless of the boycott, and not surprisingly, the title still managed to out sell COD4 in the first weekend of sales. The match-making system that MW2 implemented works, and it works well. I have yet to join a server with a bad ping and not once has a match been canceled due to a host losing connection.

In the event of the host losing connection the match is put on pause and within ten seconds the entire game is switched to another server and gameplay resumes from exactly where it left off. This can offer interesting moments if the match pauses right as you and your opponent make eye contact. Then you are forced to wait and see who is the quickest on the draw when the match resumes.

Still I feel that the game loses something very important by getting rid of dedicated servers. For one, dedicated servers offer specific map rotations and game modes that can be quite agreeable. For example in COD4 I had a server that only did a certain rotation of maps in hardcore mode. I had a specific class designed for this server alone.

With the new match-making system, no longer can I design a class for a specific map as game maps are now randomly chosen, and even though players have the option to vote out of a specific rotation, votes are rarely passed.

However, the specific map rotations are only a minor concern, compared to the most important thing MW2 loses. Dedicated servers offer the ‘usuals’ a chance to get to know the strangers that you fight against. In COD4 I could log onto a favorite server and receive a few hellos from familiar opponents. Perhaps even log into their Ventrilo server and chat with them.

Now when I log into a match I am playing with a group of people who I have never seen before, all with their own stupid little call signs which make them “unique” and recognizable - except for the fact that I am never going to see any of them again. First person shooters do have communities, most of which are formed through familiars playing on dedicated servers. However, because of its match-making system, MW2 has seemingly doomed people to always be playing strangers.

Steam Screwed Again

I don't know why I keep purchasing games on steam. Part of me likes the idea of the digital age and I feel that my files are safer if stored online. The environmentalist in me likes the idea of not needing to waste a box, jewel case, and printed manual.

That being said I have had my fair share of steam problems in the past. From being unable to retrieve my account information to every kind of steam related bug you can imagine.

Today, however, I have experienced a whole new kind of being screwed by steam. Today, the 10th of November, was the launch of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. The Biggest game of all time blah blah blah...

As always, the developers have a nice hefty patch for everyone to download before they can start playing the game. Considering that there are about 5 million users who are all trying to download this ridiculous patch at the same time, servers are crashing like crazy.

However, if you were 'smart' like myself, you would have fully anticipated this and pre-loaded the game on steam to play it immediately upon release. And it would have worked quite nicely if Infinity Ward hadn't delayed the release of the game to all steam users in order to free up bandwidth for all the other retail @$$hats out there!!

Fook you Infinity Ward. It's not enough that I pre-ordered, pre-installed, and paid $60 for your stinking game? Now you have make me wait longer than everyone else for being a steam user, even though I did exactly what you wished everyone would do, which is pre-install the game to avoid bandwidth problems on launch.

AAaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrgh I hate the world!

- rant over

Twenty Dollars of Awesome

Well to be honest it was $18 for me because I pre-ordered Shattered Horizon. However for those of you who didn't pre-order Futuremark's astronaut combat title, it will cost you $20. And you will be getting a bargain!

So yes, Futuremark has released their first title. If you're not familiar with Futuremark, they are known for making 3D benchmarking software that many hardware reviewers and system testers use to gauge the performance of their machines. Usually, the test renders some fairly impressive imagery that the imaginative artists have cooked up for the benchmark.

It seems that they got bored with simply writing benchmarking applications and instead created a genre morphing game. Sure Shattered Horizons, or as I call it 'Astronaut Wars', is classified as a first person shooter. However, any shooter fan jumping into this game is going to be taken for a spin (Literally) if they think they can approach it with the same mentality brought to other shooters.

Imagine a world where there is no up or down - a world where your orientation is constantly changing. Now imagine flying through that world at 40 miles per hour with an assault rifle, while you're being shot at by 15 other people who are as disoriented as you.

The control scheme in 'Astronaut Wars' is perfect. In fact it's pretty much exactly what any shooter fan would expect from a standard awsd setup. The only main difference is that when you hold the right mouse button and drag your mouse to either the right or left, you will rotate instead of pan.

The graphics are quite acceptable. The artists have spent a lot of time making space look like space. Everything has a very NASA look to it. There are lots of supporting beams connecting station modules, solar panels, airlocks, etc. If there was such a thing as space marine combat, this game has done a very believable portrayal of both the environments and space suits.

The HUD is very slick and the text that displays across your screen is actually curved along the arc of the visor. There isn't anything to bring you away from the moment. Scores are displayed on your visor, and your options menu is access on your left arms control panel (predator style).

To top off the ambient feeling of space, you have the option to power off your suit's electronics and thrusters. When powered down the suit's sound simulator no longer works, so the only thing you can hear is your own breathing.. and the occasional bullet penetrating your suit if you're not careful. The advantage of going into powered down mode, is that you appear on enemy radar as nothing more than space debris. Since there are already a fair amount of dead astronauts floating through space you can often be mistaken for one.

This is perhaps my favorite way to get behind enemy lines. I like to fire off my boosters to get up to speed and then power down. If I'm lucky I will sail right past the enemy, power back up and begin my sneaky assassination of their squad.

Even though I have great fun playing the game it's not without it's faults. Most of them are technical rather than poor design decisions.

My main issue with the game is the engine. I think it's good for companies to create their own engines.. IF you have the experience and resources to do it right. And for the most part the engine looks fine, except that I can't turn the graphics up beyond the balanced settings without suffering massive frame rate loss. This is with a GTX 295 video card, an Intel quad core CPU, and 8 gigs of ram... On balanced setting the shadows look extremely pixelated and the texturing is nothing to marvel at.

Fine so maybe they pulled a "Crysis" and made a game designed for future computers. That would be fine, except that at maximum graphics settings the visuals are nothing that the Unreal 3 engine couldn't handle and at about 40 frame per second faster. The game also crashes upon exiting, has a laughable stat tracking system, and has a bunch of other little bugs here and there.

My one other gripe with the game is on the design end. The gravity boots that you are equipped with allow you to gravitate to any surface and walk on it. By doing so you can find cool little areas to ambush the enemy and you also gain a slight boost to your weapon's accuracy. The only problem is that when you try to walk around you will loose contact with a surface if it curves too much. This is incredibly annoying and pretty much ruins your ability to walk around at all. This gives the gravity boots no more use than just planting yourself in an area waiting for the enemy. I want to be able to walk around the surface of an asteroid dammit!

That being said, it's a $20 game thats incredibly fun and innovative. The bugs and quirks won't stop or ruin gameplay for anyone. I highly recommend getting the title and getting into this multidimensional space shooter.. Primarily so I can shoot your rocket fuel tank and watch your corpse go careening off into the nearby micrometer storm :)

November - A Good Month for Gaming

There are so many quality games coming out this month; it's going to be hard deciding which ones I should play. Maybe if I list them out it will help me decide.

Dragon Age: Origins - Nov 3rd (very hard to pass up a Bioware title these days)

Shattered Horizons - Nov 4th (A sexy looking Zero-G space shooter. For $20 on steam I may have to give this one a try. The graphics look too pretty to pass up.)

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 - Nov 10th (Pass up one of the biggest first person shooter launches ever? I think not.)

Left 4 Dead 2 - Nov 17th (Being a zombie fanatic this baby is already pre-ordered)

Side Note - The new Star Trek movie is coming out on the 17th as well. This day should be a good mixture of zombie guts and phaser blasts.

Assassin's Creed 2 - Nov 20th (Splinter Cell in the Renaissance era? Count me in)

And as if these titles aren't enough to overload any gamer during November, we have Eve Online: Dominion coming out on December 1st.

Did the list help? No, not really...

Beer - What Would Iceland Do Without It?

Probably stop making awesome games and music...

If you're an Eve fan then you are aware that the fanfest was going on over the weekend. Reading some of the blogs out there, it sounds like it was quite the event. You have to love CCP for doing ridiculous dev videos starring - the devs (obviously).

I recommend watching both of these vids (CCP rap - beer ship) for a laugh. Surprisingly good production quality.. I wonder how many ships they could have designed in the time it took to make these.. Bah I won't be negative. This is why I love CCP, they are ridiculous and they clearly know how to have fun which is probably why Eve is in it's current state of awesomeness.

Also in case you're interested in Dust 514 - who isn't - there are some nice new gameplay vids to watch. It looks a lot like Halo, except that you're not fighting pink monsters with the mentality of the three stooges. I may have to buy a console for this game. Maybe I can mine in Eve in between lives on Dust 514..

Am I The Only Person Who Didn't Like Fallout 3?

Every gamer on the planet seems to have played, beaten, and thoroughly enjoyed fallout 3. Except for me... I mean, I bought the game, and played several hours worth, but eventually lost interest. This really perplexed me, because Fallout 3 seems to be everything I want from a game. Post-apocalyptic? Check. Powered armor suits? Check. Massive sandbox world? Check. So why the hell did I find the game so F-ing boring?

Looking back on it now, I think I have narrowed it down to two things. The first being the status of Fallout's a so called "first person shooter" setup. The VATS combat element, although seemingly cool, pretty much ruined the intensity of all combat in the game. Sure you can play the game like a regular FPS, but why should you when every time you're confronted by an enemy you can pause the game, tell the computer to zoom in on your opponent's head, pull the trigger, and un-pause the game.

I there is no longer any reason to have skill with aiming your weapon. Just keep you finger on the pause button and the first sign of trouble, pause, target, shoot, un-pause and repeat. The most challenging part of the whole game was figuring out how to organize my backpack. Speaking of which, you know there is something wrong with a game when your players are choosing extra backpack space perks over crazy sweet combat perks.

The second main gripe I have with fallout 3, is that the entire mission elements of the game feel like I'm playing WOW with a facelift, and without other people. The missions in the game are boring.. Find this, kill that, travel here, travel there, etc. When I found myself grinding for ant kills, I had to sit back and contemplate what the hell was wrong with game designers.

There is no excuse to have a "kill 15 giant ants" mission in a single player game. Don't put content in a game as filler. It's like a movie director adding in scenes for the purpose of making a longer movie. Every mission should be exciting and engaging and relevant to my character's story. Sure Fallout had some interesting missions, but only after doing about eight errand boy missions in between each.

I don't know.. Maybe I have played so many games that my immersion suffers from recognizing the game formula. But I can't help feel that at least two thirds of Fallout 3 was designed as filler around the main plot.

The SyncMaster!

As a blog that revolves around gaming and everything related to gaming, I have to write a post about my new Samsung SyncMaster 2233rz 22inch gaming monitor. As a computer enthusiast, I have never used anything that even comes close to matching the performance of this beautiful piece of hardware.

My previous monitor was a 22inch widescreen view sonic LCD. With a response time of 5ms and a good contrast ratio, this was not a bad gaming monitor by any standards. So why upgrade to another monitor of the exact same dimensions? Because the SyncMaster can operate at 120hz refresh rate as opposed to any previous LCD's 60hz refresh rate.

Now as I have recently discovered that not all gamers are aware of how refresh rates impact gameplay or the general viewing experience. The refresh rate is the number of times a second that a display redraws data. This is not the same as your frame rate. Your average movie plays at around 24 frames per second (fps), but each frame is illuminated two or three times before the next frame appears. The amount of times the screen is illuminated per second is your refresh rate.

Many hardcore gamers still use older CRT monitor because of their ability to refresh at around 120hz (120 times per second). LCDs, only until very recently, have always displayed at an average of 60hz. This isn't really a problem for normal media, such as videos, because they generally play at frame rate between 24 and 30 frames per second. However, games can have a frame rate that is only limited by your computer's hardware. Thus many enthusiast gamers can achieve frame rates over 100 per second.

Playing a game at a frame rate of over 100 per second on a 60hz LCD cuts out many of the frames your computer is rendering. This often causes an effect called screen tearing, where two frames overlap each other. The Vertical Sync option found in most games, limits your frame rate to 60 fps to avoid this effect.

Playing a game that renders at over 100 frames per second while using a monitor with a 120hz refresh rate, allows the player to see up to 120 frames per second. This creates a much, much more fluid experience and even offers a distinct advantage to people playing fast paced games such as first person shooters.

While playing Call of Duty 4, I was able to take in my soundings at a much more detailed level. When quickly spinning my view around, I noticed a player hiding in the foliage who I probably would have missed if I were using a 60hz monitor. Playing games like Eve Online also resulted in a very fluid feeling while orbiting my camera around the spaceship. The general viewing experience of the operating system has less flickering and causes significantly less eye strain.

The last main perk of using a 120hz refresh rate monitor is that it allows you to use some of the more advanced 3d gaming hardware. While alternating frames, a 120hz monitor can still display a separate image for each eye at 60hz. This will allow you to game in 3d at an acceptable frame rate. Although I haven't dropped $200 for Nvidia's 3d kit, it is definitely something I have been thinking about. Now if only CCP would support 3D viewing in Eve Online my decision would be so much easier :)

The Baby Sitting Zombie Killer

No this is not the title of an upcoming zombie film.. although if it was I would probably go see it. The title of this post refers to my early morning experience with some Left 4 Dead gaming.

Being newly unemployed, I now have my mornings free to do whatever I want, and this morning seemed like a good time to kill zombies. I don't know why, maybe I thought it was like fishing and that perhaps zombies were also more bitey in the early hours.

I hopped into an advanced difficulty game. I like advanced difficulty because it's not too easy, but it's easy enough to get by if you have a straggler, or two... or three in my case. Awesome, I got teamed up with three teenage boys. Go figure, anyone of a reasonable maturity level is working so I get stuck with the only teenage guys who are awake at 8am, and naturally they all suffer from A.D.D.

Whatever, some of the best gamers are prepubescent boys. They may have the attention span of a common house fly but they also have the reflexes of a mongoose on crack. Having thrown out the notion of getting any rewarding conversation from this gaming session, I proceeded to try and keep my teammates focused.

This was a huge failure. Within the first 2 minutes of gameplay, "KidRock" was miles ahead of the pack getting eaten by zombies and yelling over the mic to come save him. "Medic" was still in the start location, apparently trying to decide between taking the shotgun or the uzi, and "HealMe" was hiding in a closet..

Professional zombie killers, I think not. Let the baby sitting begin.. After completing the first stage I had actually become quite adept at running around the map like a maniac saving my teammates, who, for the life of them, couldn't understand the concept of teamwork. On the rare occasion that we were able to regroup, I was constantly getting shot by friendly fire.

Left 4 Dead is one of the few first person shooters where you cannot turn off friendly fire. So basically, you just have to hope that your teammates are not stupid enough to shoot you. Obviously this was not the case. I began counting how much damage the zombies were inflicting upon me and comparing it to the damage inflicted by friendly fire incidents. My teammates were clearly winning this contest..

As we struggled through each level, the complete lack of common sense in my teammates became more and more evident. You know that rule "look both ways before crossing the street". Well it's dually important when it's a Zombie filled street! The zombies didn't even need to follow the sound of gun shots. My teammates backed right into them, time after time. It was like they were incapable of acknowledging that the world on either side of their screen even existed, but only what lay straight ahead them. The flanking maneuver was invented for these kind of people..

After watching my teammates pull off some of the dumbest tactical decisions of all time (This includes Keanu Reaves jumping out of an airplane without a parachute in Point Break), it really got me thinking about the legitimacy of stupid movies. You know those horror movies were the bimbo blond decides to solo investigate the noise coming from the dark basement that's suspiciously familiar to the sound of a zombie chewing flesh... Well these are the guys who would do that. No longer can I argue that people are not that stupid. Thank you early morning gaming for you have lessened my faith in humanity even further.

Dust 514 - The Coolest Game Symbiosis EVER!

Video: Dust 514 - Ego-Shooter im Universum von Eve Online - Gamescom 2009

This looks absolutely amazing. Yeah it seems like some Eve fans are a bit scared by the idea of having to rely on the consol guys to get the job done, but what they are failing to realize is the awesomeness of this acomplishment. This is perhaps the first massive integration of two different gaming worlds into one. Whew, I need to go fan myself.

War Stories: Battlefield 2 - The Glory Days

This is the first of hopefully many War Stories posts in which I shall reminisce about truly awesome moments of gaming. So without further ado (clears throat).

It was the beginning of summer in 2005 and the battlefield 2 demo had just been released. My brother Sam and I had just installed it and were gearing up for our first battle in the game that would soon become my favorite first person shooter of all time. The computers were side by side, I had calibrated my joystick and setup the controls for chopper flight. We jumped into a 64 player server and decided to test out the combat helicopters.

After camping on the helipad for about a minute the chopper spawned and we both jumped in. Me in the pilot seat and Sam in the gunner seat. It was the Mi-28 Havoc attack helicopter. This thing looked mean. Loaded with rapid fire javelin rockets, TV guided missiles and an explosive round machine gun, we set off to see what kind of havoc we could cause.

According to the map, the US forces were trying to take some of the beach head bases and I made for a low altitude approach toward the closest one. I decided to keep the chopper moving fast to avoid fire and we made for a strafing run. On our approach we could see heavy fire fights between the ground forces. Sam opened up fire with the machine gun and began picking off the invading forces. The explosive rounds tore through the infantry as if they we made of paper. The bullets didn't even need to hit the enemy; simply land within 10 feet of them and the splash damage would do the rest. A we took a couple hits from small arms fire on the way over the installation but the Havoc's armor handled it with ease.

3 kills from the first strafe. Not bad.. But the enemy had managed to take the installation and now their ground vehicles had spawned. As I reeled the chopper around we could see an armored transport in the distance. "Sam why don't you give the TV guided missiles a try". I hovered the chopper and looked over at my brothers screen to help align his targeting reticule.

Sam fired the missile and I watched his screen as he guided it toward the tank. The missile picked up speed and his maneuvering took it off course at the last second. There was a large explosion in the distance. A close miss.. no biggie, but the transport was now on the move toward another outpost. Sam took a second shot. This time I watched the missile streak toward the transport from the pilot seat. Bam! The transport went up in a giant explosion and we saw 3 more kills appear on the scoreboard. This - was - awesome!

I dipped the nose of the chopper and we went careening off into the battlefield. This time around the enemy troops turned and ran when they saw us coming. Unfortunately for them they were on a beach with little to no cover and there was a fully armed attack chopper bearing down on them. Sam opened up with the machine gun and made quick work of the infantry while I unleashed a volley of javelin rockets on an unsuspecting dune buggy.

The kills were racking up and the battlefield was getting ugly. The enemy was now moving around the map. The radar showed a large force taking over the construction site outpost. There had to be at least 20 soldiers in the area and we headed over, eager to nab some easy kills.

As the construction site came into view it became apparent that the enemy was holding up in a four story open level building. Although the building hadn't been finished there were several walls in place and the windows were dark. It was hard to see anyone inside. I brought the chopper down to peer inside. A rocket shot out from the dark and missed the cockpit by mere feet. Sam fired into the building and a kill registered. I backed the chopper off but another rocket was fired from a window, and this one was coming right at us. I banked to the left as the rocket whined past.

It was time to test my flying skills. I banked the chopper and and begin orbiting the building always with the nose pointing toward the structure. More rockets we fired at us but the moving chopper was too hard to hit. Sam begin firing inside erratically and the kills began to rack up. Five kills.. ten kills.. Soldiers began the flee from the building only to be gunned down by explosive rounds. I began to fire javelins inside nabbing a couple kills of my own. This "defensive" structure was becoming one big mausoleum. After a while, the enemy fire ceased.. There wasn't anybody left.

The round ended and the scoreboard appeared. "Rakanishu" (me) and "The Walrus" (Sam) - 67 kills each. The next highest score on the list was 19. We exchanged glances, cracked our knuckles and geared up for the next round. This was gonna be a good day.