Tag Archives: PC

A quick return to the Battlefield

I’m not really sure what inspired it but I decided to install a couple of old favorites I hadn’t played in a while, you know, just to have them around. One of those games was Battlefield 2. Being a big fan of Desert Combat for Battlefield 1942 I decided to try a few total conversion mods out after screwing around in single player for a while. There weren’t many mods out when I last played Battlefield 2 with any level of seriousness although there were several in production that seemed likely to end up as vaporware. Wow, does BF2 have a great modding scene! There must be a dozen or so high quality, major mods out there nowadays. I only grabbed a few for starters: Project Reality, which I didn’t try because of not having a single player patch for yet and, given how hardcore it sounds, I didn’t want to jump right into online play. Point of Existence 2, the sequel to an old BF1942 mod, Allied Intent Xtreme, a total conversion seemingly focused on single player, and Forgotten Hope 2, another BF1942 mod sequel.

I can’t really say I put a ton of time into any of the mods. Forgotten Hope seemed too hardcore to jump right into and seemed to be designed to work a lot better online than with bots but it definitely oozes quality. Of PoE2 and AIX I think I enjoyed PoE2’s less “out there” approach a bit more but I definitely had fun with AIX and will revisit it a lot more in the future. In any case I’m highly impressed and intend to grab even more of these suckers. If only they weren’t so huge. Now, if only I had a copy of Battlefield 2142 so I should try out this awesome looking Star Wars mod, First Strike! I’m honestly thinking of picking it up just to play that one!

One thing I did notice was that the bots seemed to behave a lot more intelligently in these mods than they do in the normal Battlefield single player – using their vehicles better, making better runs for objectives, etc. I have only a vague idea of what is involved in adding bots to maps in Battlefield 2 so I don’t know the exact reason for this but regardless this seems like the way to play Battlefield 2 offline.

Since it’s been a while since I’ve posted many good screenshots here’s several from a quick single player game of Point of Existence 2. Enjoy!

“Trying to get him before he gets me!”

“Locked on!”

“Off with their heads!”

“Rolling down the highway of death.”

“A teammate’s handy work but still cool.”

“This doesn’t look good.”

“Tank engagement.”

“On his tail.”

America’s Army 3.0

America’s Army 3.0 was announced a couple of weeks back. This really isn’t major news to anyone following America’s Army as they’ve been talking about this 3.0 version here and there for a year or so now though I suppose this is the first official announcement along with the launch of an official website and dump of new information.

America’s Army 3.0, or just AA3 as it is being called (for some odd reason since AA1 and AA2 were technically the same game) is a complete rewrite of America’s Army. When America’s Army launched in 2002 it was one of the first games to use Unreal Engine 2, it was later upgraded to Unreal 2.5, and now with 3.0 it’ll be upgraded to… Yes, you guessed it… Unreal 3.0! That’s not the biggest deal for America’s Army fans though – Like I said, it’ll be a complete rewrite. This means new totally new and reworked features including major ones like an overhauled ballistics system, a new UI, a totally reworked honor/experience system, all new maps, etc. This is a great opportunity for new players to join the game as, depending on how drastic some of these changes are, everyone will be starting over from the ground floor. Now, a lot of what is changing in AA3 has yet to be leaked so there’s only so much we can dwell on the subject without entering fantasy land but suffice to say it is pretty exciting to fans of the previous game and of the Tactical FPS genre in general I’d imagine.

“The AKS-74U… an indigenous forces’ best friend.”

I know America’s Army isn’t everyone’s couple of tea to put it mildly. It really is quite a challenging game and its brutal, online only gameplay makes it very intimidating to learn and become good at. Then there’s the whole “Army propaganda” stigma that keeps a lot of people from even considering trying it in the first place. If you’re one of those people, believe me, I was skeptical myself as well but America’s Army is a great, high quality, completely free, online tactical FPS game. The propaganda isn’t shoved down your throat nor will a military recruiter suddenly appear on your doorstep if you start rocking the leader boards. Give it a shot! I could go into much more detail about the game’s mechanics and what makes it unique but suffice to say I’ve had my share of time with it.

I first got into America’s Army back when I was still playing Planetside with an old guild I was in, The Praetorian Guard. A few TPG members decided to give it a shot, being free and all, during some off hours just for fun. A few guys from work had also tried it, again, thanks to it being free. I really couldn’t get my head wrapped around it though. The game felt challenging enough with its precision ballistics, brutal damage, and methodical movement without you being forced to play online in Counter-strike style “one life per round” team based matches where being the last one alive meant your teammates were most likely observing your every move, commenting about what an idiotic noob you are, and plotting to vote kick your worthless ass off the server. It was just far too intimidating of an environment for me to try to learn the game in… and you definitely need to “learn the game” considering the objective based gameplay and often complex maps.

“Watching a corner in the darkness.”

One of the times that TPG had a little resurgence in interest and there was actually a good amount of us participating I decided to say screw trying to find good public servers and to just rent our own to fuck around with for a bit. The server was a pretty big success – our own little sandbox to screw around with. We were able to play whatever maps we wanted privately, play around with cheats to experiment with all of the different weapons available, and most importantly of all I was able to develop a much better appreciation of the game without the pressure of actually having to, you know, not suck! TPG eventually formed their own AA division and I eventually joined it. We set up a real server and even participated in tournaments and the like before I finally got sick of the game and moved on. I’ll talk more about my TPG days in future “Ancient History” entries.

I later went on to start my own clan focused specifically on the Tactical FPS genre. It fizzled out pretty quickly for various reasons. Again, massive tangent there that I plan to talk more in later posts. Suffices to say that my clan has been more or less on hiatus for the last 2+ years while I waited around for another tactical FPS to come along that fit the mold I was looking for. With my prior experience with (and appreciation for) the previous game and some plenty of old contacts from the America’s Army scene it may very well be the game that brings my clan back out of the mothballs. I’ve made several posts about the idea on the clans forms and chatted with some of my ex clan members about the idea. The response has been great so far and a few of us have even reinstalled the current version of America’s Army to casually get ourselves warmed back up a bit.

“No objective bravo for you!”

I find the whole idea both extremely exciting and a little daunting as well. While I miss the heart racing, adrenaline rushing intensity of clan matches I can’t help but remember that the stress of organizing and playing said matches was one of the reasons I quit playing hardcore originally. Another being the community filled with unsporting, anti-social idiots that a free FPS game like this naturally tends to attract. It is also, in some ways, an even bigger commitment than an MMORPG. Still, it has been quite a while and I think I’m up for the challenge again.

These screenshots are from the latest, pre 3.0 version of America’s Army, 2.8.4. They’re of me schooling noobs* just the other day and not of my clan or any of my past teams in action. (*) By schooling some noobs I actually mean doing pretty fucking horribly.

Katagraw

After beating Warhammer: Battle March I jumped right into my Xbox 360 backlog.

I decided to hit up something entirely different first and started Beautiful Katamari. I’m certainly familiar with the concept behind the Katamari games and indeed have tried them in very short bursts in the past but this is the first time I’ve actually tried to sit down and play through one. I don’t feel like I need to say much about the quirky characters, stylized art, bizarre, catchy music, or how it is all hilariously countered by the disturbing concept of “rolling up” living people, destroying cities, and even uprooting entire continents. The controls take a little getting used to which I’m sure is quite intentional but, even so, I found myself sucking at Beautiful Katamari lot more than I’d anticipated. I had to retry some stages several times before beating the required goals which doesn’t even guarantee you got a good score a long the way. The king is also a pretty big dick when you do any less than fantastic. Thanks Dad!

I blasted through the entire single player campaign in just a few sittings picking up an easy 245 achievement points along the way. Definitely a unique, enjoyable game but definitely not something I felt like I wanted to invest a lot of time into especially considering the size of my backlog though I admit I was definitely tempted to try to beat some of my more lackluster scores. If you are the type who wants to complete games 100% though Beautiful Katamari gives you plenty of goals to chase after – collecting hidden cousins and presents in levels and completing your collection of rolled up items as well as other achievements will have you playing for quite a few more hours. There’s also several additional DLC levels you can purchase as well which I’ve heard are pretty good.

“Sure, don’t worry about why I’m in cover guys, just stand there in the open.”

Next up was Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 2. I’ve been a long time fan of the Ghost Recon series although the original Ghost Recon is quite clearly my favorite with all subsequent games taking different directions to try to break out of its hardcore niche into a more mainstream audience. I’m only about a third of the way through the single player campaign at the time of this post but so far GRAW2 definitely corrects some of the issues I had with the first GRAW: The campaign feels much shorter, with less drug out and strung along missions. The game as a whole feels a lot easier and, more importantly, less frustrating than the first one. Overall I’m having a lot more fun with GRAW2 than I did with GRAW as well – I’m not sure if this is because of some of the changes and the extra polish that it’s received or maybe just because it has been a while since I’ve played this kind of game. Regardless so far I’m considering replaying the whole thing on the hardest difficulty when this run is done with which is in stark contrast to GRAW’s single player campaign that I couldn’t wait to be done with by the time it was nearing the end.

My Warhammer Online burnout morphed into a general MMO burnout after taking a very quick hop around space on my Eve Online account thanks to a free reactivation promotion. I was quickly reminded of why I quit the game and, more importantly, if I wanted to get the most out of hopping back into it I’d have to invest way more time than I currently have running around with a corporation (Eve’s equivalent of a guild or a clan) and the like. Besides that I’d simply rather be playing other games than any particular MMO right now. There are certainly some interesting looking ones on the horizon, such as Jumpgate: Evolution though. It may take one of them to get me back in the fold after I finally decide to cancel my WAR account.

Please forgive the horrible photograph of GRAW2. This is the first time I’ve actually posted a photo of a 360 game despite being tempted many times before. It’s better than nothing, perhaps? I definitely prefer posting my own screenshots over stealing someone else’s in any case.