We have Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon movie tickets purchased for Wednesday evening, and we also have another set for Thursday lunchtime.
'Thursday lunchtime?', you ask. Don't you work fulltime? Of course, but I took the day off in anticipation of its release. It's just how I roll.
As a home theatre enthusiast, I fucking love Michael Bay. Really, I do. I've seen the shit people say about him, all the no-plot gags about his movies, but I've gotta tell ya; I've spent as much time watching his movies on my theatre's big screen as I have any other director's movies. Without a doubt. Or do you think I dropped a little under $3000AU on a subwoofer to watch dramas?
Hell no.
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is a movie I often enjoy discussing. It has an average IMDB rating of a low 5.9 from over 114,000 voters. Ouch. It's also absolutely dripping with special effects, and sports one of the most intense, jaw-dropping fight scenes, that I've ever seen in my life.
In other words, you may argue that as brilliant as it is, it is also as flawed.
I won't sugar coat the issue, I've criticised the movie in the past. Some of the things that were added to it demonstrate nothing short of an adolescent sense of humour. Autonomous robots from another planet shouldn't be talking like those twins, they certainly should never be sporting a pair of testicles, and they shouldn't ever hump an attractive human female's leg.
I'll be honest, part of what made the first Transformers great for me, particularly when I saw it for the first time, was the mystery surrounding them. The Decepticons, particularly, used their own language, which was translated for us on-screen and everything. The secret and covert can be very cool like that, and it's something that was sadly lost with the sequel.
I didn't start this blog with the intention of bashing Revenge of the Fallen though; if anything, quite the contrary. It's a movie I was able to watch straight through from start to finish on my big screen barely a couple of months ago, which is saying something. Yes, I know, I mentioned there's a lot of crap in it, and a plot that just about falls apart, but sometimes I just want to be wowed with dazzling special effects and plenty of explosions. And for that, it does not disappoint.
I don't know why, too, but I find them a lot more re-watchable than most other action flicks released at around this time. Avatar, 2012, Terminator Salvation, Inception, The A-Team, I've got Blu Rays of them all, and yet... I so often find myself coming back to the Transformers franchise.
I will watch both of them again on the big screen in anticipation of Dark of the Moon's release next week, and then when it hits and I've seen it twice, I will no doubt show back up here to post my impressions.
Friday, June 24, 2011
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Bad Company 2 and Frostbite 1.5
Ok.
I'm now definitely leaning towards Battlefield 3 over Modern Warfare 3, when they hit at the end of the year. A week ago and you'd have had a very different answer.
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 was a lot of fun, and Frostbite is indeed a very capable engine. Destructable terrain can make for very interesting gameplay, especially when you're going up against tanks or even just a lot of soldiers with RPGs. I took shelter in a house against a tank mid way through the campaign, and by the time I'd gotten the tank taken care of, there was very little of that house left. I'd like to see all shooters end up going this way, because it's realistic but doesn't negatively impact the gameplay.
I'll admit that there were a couple of sections in which frustration set in, because for one or two areas, the difficulty really ramped up. When I got to the ninth mission, Sangre Del Toro, a couple of the passages proved very hard to get past. Not that challenging can't be fun, but when I breeze to an area just to get repeatedly spanked, the thought occurs it could've been balanced a little better.
While it's nice that Frostbite can do cutscenes well, there were way too many of them. They break up the gameplay too much. If I want to watch a movie, I'll watch a movie, and if I want to play a game, I'll play a game. Bad Company 2 is a bit like trying to do both at the same time, and I hope they go easy on them for Battlefield 3.
All in all however, I've had a great time with all of these first-person shooters. If there's anything I've missed that deserves to be included with these greats, someone please, let me know. What can I say, after 8 hours a day where I work, I always come home in the mood to shoot somebody!
I'm now definitely leaning towards Battlefield 3 over Modern Warfare 3, when they hit at the end of the year. A week ago and you'd have had a very different answer.
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 was a lot of fun, and Frostbite is indeed a very capable engine. Destructable terrain can make for very interesting gameplay, especially when you're going up against tanks or even just a lot of soldiers with RPGs. I took shelter in a house against a tank mid way through the campaign, and by the time I'd gotten the tank taken care of, there was very little of that house left. I'd like to see all shooters end up going this way, because it's realistic but doesn't negatively impact the gameplay.
I'll admit that there were a couple of sections in which frustration set in, because for one or two areas, the difficulty really ramped up. When I got to the ninth mission, Sangre Del Toro, a couple of the passages proved very hard to get past. Not that challenging can't be fun, but when I breeze to an area just to get repeatedly spanked, the thought occurs it could've been balanced a little better.
While it's nice that Frostbite can do cutscenes well, there were way too many of them. They break up the gameplay too much. If I want to watch a movie, I'll watch a movie, and if I want to play a game, I'll play a game. Bad Company 2 is a bit like trying to do both at the same time, and I hope they go easy on them for Battlefield 3.
All in all however, I've had a great time with all of these first-person shooters. If there's anything I've missed that deserves to be included with these greats, someone please, let me know. What can I say, after 8 hours a day where I work, I always come home in the mood to shoot somebody!
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Australian Aborigines
I don't consider myself an overly racist person. That is, I'll give everyone a fair go, regardless of appearance.
Still, I'll be honest, I've lived in Australia for about 23 years now, and during that time, I'll admit to one or two things having become apparent.
It didn't take long to realise that Australian Aborigines can be a nasty bunch. No shit, the level of hostility that they can rain on you, unprovoked or otherwise, is absolutely second to none.
You can be just driving down the road, for all intent purposes, minding your own business, and there'll be a group on the street hurling abuse at motorists passing by. And what abuse. They are loud, and filthy. You don't even have to be looking at them.
Now, I'm not saying they all behave like this. No way. But if you were to add up the percentage of crimes commited by an Aborigine in this country, and marry that up against the percentage of the Australian population being of Aboriginal descent, well... I'm betting those numbers wouldn't add up.
There's a reason I'm blogging about this, and it's not because I feel the sudden urge to blog about these people. No, the reason I'm blogging about them is because yesterday...
...we had a visitor.
It was all very atypical really, we had the landlord over to do a bit of maintenance. Some of the washers needed replacing in the bathroom, and the basin needed new tap fittings. The usual stuff.
So the landlord was coming in and out a lot, and it wasn't an unpleasant day outside, so we just left the front door wide open.
Myself and my fiancee were in the main living area, immediately to the right of the front door, just talking. The house has a pair of nice elegant internal doors separating that room from the entry area, and even though I couldn't see the entrance from the front door directly, thanks to the doors being made of mostly glass, the reflection cast actually allowed me to see the area completely.
At one point, I look up... and the reflection presents an image of this face at the front door, peeking in. Just... looking. I remember thinking how strange it was, because I assumed it was our landlord, except for the fact that I could still hear him working away in the bathroom.
So I walk over, and there's this guy standing there, staring in to the house. He was Aboriginal, in his late teens/early 20s, and as is often the case with them, hadn't quite gotten around to having had his monthly shower just yet.
"Can I help you?"
"Err yeah, I need a taxi".
Clearly, that's my problem.
"You want me to call you a taxi?"
"Yeah could ya? I need to get to Burswood"
At this point, I don't know why I didn't just point him down the road to the local gas station, or the shopping centre, but I just thought... yeah, ok. So I go for my phone.
"What's the number?"
"13 13 30"
"What's your name?"
"Steveo"
So while I'm on the phone with the taxi company, he starts to walk away. He points to his left, mumbles something about "just being over here", and then disappears from view.
Of course, by the time the taxi showed up, he was long gone. I went out to explain the situation to the driver, who just sort of nodded, and took off. Steveo was nowhere to be seen.
While Australian Aborigines have complained over the years that they've been treated unfairly, and that they should be respected, something tell me that getting a taxi was the last thing that Steveo actually wanted.
Still, I'll be honest, I've lived in Australia for about 23 years now, and during that time, I'll admit to one or two things having become apparent.
It didn't take long to realise that Australian Aborigines can be a nasty bunch. No shit, the level of hostility that they can rain on you, unprovoked or otherwise, is absolutely second to none.
You can be just driving down the road, for all intent purposes, minding your own business, and there'll be a group on the street hurling abuse at motorists passing by. And what abuse. They are loud, and filthy. You don't even have to be looking at them.
Now, I'm not saying they all behave like this. No way. But if you were to add up the percentage of crimes commited by an Aborigine in this country, and marry that up against the percentage of the Australian population being of Aboriginal descent, well... I'm betting those numbers wouldn't add up.
There's a reason I'm blogging about this, and it's not because I feel the sudden urge to blog about these people. No, the reason I'm blogging about them is because yesterday...
...we had a visitor.
It was all very atypical really, we had the landlord over to do a bit of maintenance. Some of the washers needed replacing in the bathroom, and the basin needed new tap fittings. The usual stuff.
So the landlord was coming in and out a lot, and it wasn't an unpleasant day outside, so we just left the front door wide open.
Myself and my fiancee were in the main living area, immediately to the right of the front door, just talking. The house has a pair of nice elegant internal doors separating that room from the entry area, and even though I couldn't see the entrance from the front door directly, thanks to the doors being made of mostly glass, the reflection cast actually allowed me to see the area completely.
At one point, I look up... and the reflection presents an image of this face at the front door, peeking in. Just... looking. I remember thinking how strange it was, because I assumed it was our landlord, except for the fact that I could still hear him working away in the bathroom.
So I walk over, and there's this guy standing there, staring in to the house. He was Aboriginal, in his late teens/early 20s, and as is often the case with them, hadn't quite gotten around to having had his monthly shower just yet.
"Can I help you?"
"Err yeah, I need a taxi".
Clearly, that's my problem.
"You want me to call you a taxi?"
"Yeah could ya? I need to get to Burswood"
At this point, I don't know why I didn't just point him down the road to the local gas station, or the shopping centre, but I just thought... yeah, ok. So I go for my phone.
"What's the number?"
"13 13 30"
"What's your name?"
"Steveo"
So while I'm on the phone with the taxi company, he starts to walk away. He points to his left, mumbles something about "just being over here", and then disappears from view.
Of course, by the time the taxi showed up, he was long gone. I went out to explain the situation to the driver, who just sort of nodded, and took off. Steveo was nowhere to be seen.
While Australian Aborigines have complained over the years that they've been treated unfairly, and that they should be respected, something tell me that getting a taxi was the last thing that Steveo actually wanted.
First-person shooter roundup
Thanks, in part, to my having gotten all E3 hyped about Battlefield 3 vs Modern Warfare 3, I have played through the campaigns of three of the more popular real world FPS games that are out there over this past week or so.
This is quite unusual for me, as it's rare these days that I finish any game, but that's getting besides the point.
The Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 campaign was fun as hell. The engine may be showing signs of being a little dated these days, but bear in mind, this is a game that's actually about a year and a half old now. I think it's fair to say that, as was said about them during E3, these Modern Warfare games are akin to being in the middle of a Hollywood blockbuster. Everything is designed to be going on around you, and whether or not that makes for a truly accurate depiction of warfare is largely irrelevant, as the goal is to entertain the player. This is something it pulls off very, very well.
I will say, however, that if you choose to play the game on the hardened difficulty setting (as I did), you may experience some frustration. I fully completed the campaign in hardened mode, but there were many areas in which I died repeatedly before being able to progress, and they felt somewhat cheap. Of course, in real warfare where it would take pretty much one bullet to incapacitate you, there may very well be times where your demise is unavoidable nomatter what you do, if just because of how much the odds can be so stacked against you.
The Call of Duty: Black Ops campaign I did not enjoy nearly as much. While there will be others that disagree, Black Ops having one of the lowest metacritic ratings of any of the Call of Duty games on pc would certainly seem to suggest that many others feel the same way. It's not a bad game, I mean, it's still 80+, but there were times, for example, where the interactivity really wasn't well done. It will have cinematic moments that require you to be at precisely a certain point, so if you get there early, the game places an invisible wall up to prevent further movement until the moment is ready to start. That sort of thing comes across as being positively amateurish.
I would also have to admit that Black Ops didn't visually impress as much as Modern Warfare 2, despite being released a year later. That and, I really wasn't the least bit interested in the story. What do the numbers mean? Who cares! I'll be honest, I wasn't playing through out of enjoyment, but just because I wanted to see him finally get out of that damned chair.
This isn't a rant against Black Ops though, and I want to make it clear that this game is so much more than just the quality of its campaign. It also has the zombie mode and full multiplayer practice with bots, something I've always been very fond of. Single player gamers have so much more they can do outside of the Black Ops campaign, which of course, is really my only criticism of Battlefield 3 right now.
Anyway, that's getting a bit off-topic, so...
Medal of Honor was the most surprising of the three. At first I thought the engine was DICE's Frostbite, but then, actually learned that it's Unreal 3 technology. That said, it came as a pleasant change from what I'm so used to with the Call of Duty titles. Among other improvements, I really, really like the hit recognition, like when you're shooting, you can see where the bullets are landing. Awesome stuff. You're also made well aware of when bullets are striking the area around you (including different sounds for them striking different types of surfaces), and I've always been really big on that one.
As has been noted, the Medal of Honor campaign is a little short. I finished it in about a day or so, which is saying a lot because I typically only play for a couple of hours at a time. I'll admit that I thought the voice acting was a bit of a letdown; it was satisfactory, you might say, but there were times where I felt there should have been more emotion in the lines.
I did like the setting though, I mean, Afghanistan, bring it. The story was, for me, tenfold better than that with Black Ops. I didn't get into it hugely, or anything like that, but it didn't bore me either.
I am redownloading my copy of Battlefield: Bad Company 2 via Steam, and I'm going to force myself right through the campaign this time, whether I like it or not. I've tried a couple of times over the months following its release, having actually bought the game back around the time it was first released (which is unusual for me), but I couldn't bring myself to do it both times.
This time I will though, and I will be paying a lot of attention to the quality of the engine, which of course, is Frostbite 1.5. For EA's sake, I would hope that it compares very favourably to the abovementioned titles, because Frostbite 2.0 is the only incentive for me to buy Battlefield 3 over Modern Warfare 3 at the end of the year.
This is quite unusual for me, as it's rare these days that I finish any game, but that's getting besides the point.
The Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 campaign was fun as hell. The engine may be showing signs of being a little dated these days, but bear in mind, this is a game that's actually about a year and a half old now. I think it's fair to say that, as was said about them during E3, these Modern Warfare games are akin to being in the middle of a Hollywood blockbuster. Everything is designed to be going on around you, and whether or not that makes for a truly accurate depiction of warfare is largely irrelevant, as the goal is to entertain the player. This is something it pulls off very, very well.
I will say, however, that if you choose to play the game on the hardened difficulty setting (as I did), you may experience some frustration. I fully completed the campaign in hardened mode, but there were many areas in which I died repeatedly before being able to progress, and they felt somewhat cheap. Of course, in real warfare where it would take pretty much one bullet to incapacitate you, there may very well be times where your demise is unavoidable nomatter what you do, if just because of how much the odds can be so stacked against you.
The Call of Duty: Black Ops campaign I did not enjoy nearly as much. While there will be others that disagree, Black Ops having one of the lowest metacritic ratings of any of the Call of Duty games on pc would certainly seem to suggest that many others feel the same way. It's not a bad game, I mean, it's still 80+, but there were times, for example, where the interactivity really wasn't well done. It will have cinematic moments that require you to be at precisely a certain point, so if you get there early, the game places an invisible wall up to prevent further movement until the moment is ready to start. That sort of thing comes across as being positively amateurish.
I would also have to admit that Black Ops didn't visually impress as much as Modern Warfare 2, despite being released a year later. That and, I really wasn't the least bit interested in the story. What do the numbers mean? Who cares! I'll be honest, I wasn't playing through out of enjoyment, but just because I wanted to see him finally get out of that damned chair.
This isn't a rant against Black Ops though, and I want to make it clear that this game is so much more than just the quality of its campaign. It also has the zombie mode and full multiplayer practice with bots, something I've always been very fond of. Single player gamers have so much more they can do outside of the Black Ops campaign, which of course, is really my only criticism of Battlefield 3 right now.
Anyway, that's getting a bit off-topic, so...
Medal of Honor was the most surprising of the three. At first I thought the engine was DICE's Frostbite, but then, actually learned that it's Unreal 3 technology. That said, it came as a pleasant change from what I'm so used to with the Call of Duty titles. Among other improvements, I really, really like the hit recognition, like when you're shooting, you can see where the bullets are landing. Awesome stuff. You're also made well aware of when bullets are striking the area around you (including different sounds for them striking different types of surfaces), and I've always been really big on that one.
As has been noted, the Medal of Honor campaign is a little short. I finished it in about a day or so, which is saying a lot because I typically only play for a couple of hours at a time. I'll admit that I thought the voice acting was a bit of a letdown; it was satisfactory, you might say, but there were times where I felt there should have been more emotion in the lines.
I did like the setting though, I mean, Afghanistan, bring it. The story was, for me, tenfold better than that with Black Ops. I didn't get into it hugely, or anything like that, but it didn't bore me either.
I am redownloading my copy of Battlefield: Bad Company 2 via Steam, and I'm going to force myself right through the campaign this time, whether I like it or not. I've tried a couple of times over the months following its release, having actually bought the game back around the time it was first released (which is unusual for me), but I couldn't bring myself to do it both times.
This time I will though, and I will be paying a lot of attention to the quality of the engine, which of course, is Frostbite 1.5. For EA's sake, I would hope that it compares very favourably to the abovementioned titles, because Frostbite 2.0 is the only incentive for me to buy Battlefield 3 over Modern Warfare 3 at the end of the year.
Friday, June 10, 2011
e3 2011
I'll start by going over the press conferences from the big three, in the order in which they happened:
Microsoft
Well, they've gotten a lot of flack over their conference, and I do think a lot of it is justified. That Star Wars Kinect game was actually generating a bit of hype; that is, until everyone realised the fucking thing's just rubbish.
I'll be honest, I don't think Kinect has much of a future. The idea is great, but it's just too damn laggy, and I think it's a waste of time and resources to try and improve the software lineup given its current state. It's a great first step however, and I'm all for evolving gaming off of the couch and away from the gamepad, but this isn't the answer. Not yet, anyway.
That all said, there's one more thing about what was shown in Microsoft's conference, which I will discuss at the end of this blog.
Sony
I'll be honest, I like Jack Tretton. Really, I think he's a natural on stage, I like listening to him, and I think he's very much down to Earth. I might not always agree with what he has to say, but when watching him at e3 at any rate, I can't help but like the guy.
Poor Sony had some apologising to do this year, and Jack did it about as well as anyone could. Despite it all, I came away feeling sorry for them. I couldn't have cared less about the network's downtime, because I'll go months at a time without firing up my ps3, but the perpetrators having potentially gotten away with our credit card details also, well, that's very serious business indeed. For a company that was just about humiliated, they rebounded extremely well.
Outside of buying the odd app for my Ipod Touch, I don't care for handheld, portable gaming, so I have no interest in their new PSVita portable device. I will probably see one at some point, and be impressed in it's processing capability no doubt, but there's no way I'd ever buy one.
I'd have liked to have seen more Playstation Move demos, particularly that Sorcery game they demoed last year (that almost seems to have dropped off of the face of the Earth). It wasn't to be seen though, and while Medieval Moves looked alright but not particularly impressive, NBA 2k12 was just much too gimmicky for my liking.
Thanks but no thanks.
Sony really impressed in one way though, and that's with their new Playstation-branded 24" 3d screen. Two players, each with a pair of glasses for 3d, will be able to both watch that screen but both also see completely individual unique images. Brilliant.
Nintendo
The Wii-U is a huge gamble. It's an about-face on their strategy with the Wii; going from a great small controller shaped like a racquet handle, to a huge controller with a 6.2" screen slapped in the middle.
If you think about it, the Wii-U is just an evolved Wii. It can use Wii remotes, and it will play all the Wii games, but it does 1080p over hdmi and has a controller with a big screen built in.
There's some potential there for some clever shit, but as per the usual, it will only really be Nintendo themselves bringing out the goods. All Activision, Ubisoft and EA seem to know what to do these days is make one title and port it across. Unfortunately, that's a practice that doesn't exactly allow for much in the way of innovation.
Time will tell on the Wii-U, but I think it's a pretty good bet that it's not going to sell anywhere near as well as the Wii has done. I'd like to see it be a big hit though, because I do love how Nintendo are so often thinking outside the box, but I do imagine them losing a lot of money on this one.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 vs Battlefield 3
Assuming I have the money to buy just one of these at the end of the year, I'm pretty much 50/50 at the moment on which of these it will be.
Battlefield 3 was looking good heading into e3 (thanks largely to the faultline footage), but then Modern Warfare 3 hit with some very tasty footage, both at the start of Microsoft's press conference, and also while watching the stage demo being played.
It was a bit surprising, to be honest, considering the mass exodus that took place a while back at Infinity Ward, but it looks like they're putting together a damn fine game all the same. Kudos to them.
That said, Battlefield 3's new Frostbite 2 engine is sexy. I didn't think much of their tank run demonstration at the end of EA's press conference, but it's arguably an extremely capable engine.
The Battlefield franchise has lost me of late however. It all started going downhill from Battlefield 2 onwards, when it was becoming apparent that bot support wasn't nearly as important to them as it used to be. I even bought Bad Company 2, despite the removal of bot support, not to mention the ability to create your own servers altogether.
While I don't really regret that purchase, I can't stand it when features that are once considered staples of a franchise are completely removed down the track. Many will not care, but I did, and it felt like they were giving me the finger. This is how you reward me for my loyalty all these years?
The excellent Call of Duty Black Ops, by comparison, is the first Call of Duty that I'm aware of in which they actually added in bot support. Not to mention, the full campaign and the awesome zombie mode. Talk about fully featured.
So yeah. 50/50.
Microsoft
Well, they've gotten a lot of flack over their conference, and I do think a lot of it is justified. That Star Wars Kinect game was actually generating a bit of hype; that is, until everyone realised the fucking thing's just rubbish.
I'll be honest, I don't think Kinect has much of a future. The idea is great, but it's just too damn laggy, and I think it's a waste of time and resources to try and improve the software lineup given its current state. It's a great first step however, and I'm all for evolving gaming off of the couch and away from the gamepad, but this isn't the answer. Not yet, anyway.
That all said, there's one more thing about what was shown in Microsoft's conference, which I will discuss at the end of this blog.
Sony
I'll be honest, I like Jack Tretton. Really, I think he's a natural on stage, I like listening to him, and I think he's very much down to Earth. I might not always agree with what he has to say, but when watching him at e3 at any rate, I can't help but like the guy.
Poor Sony had some apologising to do this year, and Jack did it about as well as anyone could. Despite it all, I came away feeling sorry for them. I couldn't have cared less about the network's downtime, because I'll go months at a time without firing up my ps3, but the perpetrators having potentially gotten away with our credit card details also, well, that's very serious business indeed. For a company that was just about humiliated, they rebounded extremely well.
Outside of buying the odd app for my Ipod Touch, I don't care for handheld, portable gaming, so I have no interest in their new PSVita portable device. I will probably see one at some point, and be impressed in it's processing capability no doubt, but there's no way I'd ever buy one.
I'd have liked to have seen more Playstation Move demos, particularly that Sorcery game they demoed last year (that almost seems to have dropped off of the face of the Earth). It wasn't to be seen though, and while Medieval Moves looked alright but not particularly impressive, NBA 2k12 was just much too gimmicky for my liking.
Thanks but no thanks.
Sony really impressed in one way though, and that's with their new Playstation-branded 24" 3d screen. Two players, each with a pair of glasses for 3d, will be able to both watch that screen but both also see completely individual unique images. Brilliant.
Nintendo
The Wii-U is a huge gamble. It's an about-face on their strategy with the Wii; going from a great small controller shaped like a racquet handle, to a huge controller with a 6.2" screen slapped in the middle.
If you think about it, the Wii-U is just an evolved Wii. It can use Wii remotes, and it will play all the Wii games, but it does 1080p over hdmi and has a controller with a big screen built in.
There's some potential there for some clever shit, but as per the usual, it will only really be Nintendo themselves bringing out the goods. All Activision, Ubisoft and EA seem to know what to do these days is make one title and port it across. Unfortunately, that's a practice that doesn't exactly allow for much in the way of innovation.
Time will tell on the Wii-U, but I think it's a pretty good bet that it's not going to sell anywhere near as well as the Wii has done. I'd like to see it be a big hit though, because I do love how Nintendo are so often thinking outside the box, but I do imagine them losing a lot of money on this one.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 vs Battlefield 3
Assuming I have the money to buy just one of these at the end of the year, I'm pretty much 50/50 at the moment on which of these it will be.
Battlefield 3 was looking good heading into e3 (thanks largely to the faultline footage), but then Modern Warfare 3 hit with some very tasty footage, both at the start of Microsoft's press conference, and also while watching the stage demo being played.
It was a bit surprising, to be honest, considering the mass exodus that took place a while back at Infinity Ward, but it looks like they're putting together a damn fine game all the same. Kudos to them.
That said, Battlefield 3's new Frostbite 2 engine is sexy. I didn't think much of their tank run demonstration at the end of EA's press conference, but it's arguably an extremely capable engine.
The Battlefield franchise has lost me of late however. It all started going downhill from Battlefield 2 onwards, when it was becoming apparent that bot support wasn't nearly as important to them as it used to be. I even bought Bad Company 2, despite the removal of bot support, not to mention the ability to create your own servers altogether.
While I don't really regret that purchase, I can't stand it when features that are once considered staples of a franchise are completely removed down the track. Many will not care, but I did, and it felt like they were giving me the finger. This is how you reward me for my loyalty all these years?
The excellent Call of Duty Black Ops, by comparison, is the first Call of Duty that I'm aware of in which they actually added in bot support. Not to mention, the full campaign and the awesome zombie mode. Talk about fully featured.
So yeah. 50/50.
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
But... shit happens?
Oh yeah, and I don't have a fucking clue what to call this blog.
I mean, it's not like I just ever talk about the one thing. Gaming, home theatre, life, it all gets a look in.
It's unlikely I'll settle on the name "Shit happens" for this blog. Not that it doesn't, but for now, consider it a temporary name until I can come up with one better.
I'd ask for recommendations, but I know nobody's reading anyway :)
I mean, it's not like I just ever talk about the one thing. Gaming, home theatre, life, it all gets a look in.
It's unlikely I'll settle on the name "Shit happens" for this blog. Not that it doesn't, but for now, consider it a temporary name until I can come up with one better.
I'd ask for recommendations, but I know nobody's reading anyway :)
A second welcome
Welcome to my blog. This is day one...
...except that it's not.
You see, I ran a blog up on my personal website, venturai.com, for about a year now. I didn't mean to buy a website, at least not at first, but my VQuest modification for Warcraft 3 needed a home following IGN discontinuing their hosting services, and even though it's a mod just about nobody was still playing, I figured I couldn't just let the website die without it having a replacement.
Those times are long since gone though, and when the contract for venturai.com runs out, there's no way I'm going to pay to extend it.
I've quite enjoyed blogging though, off and on, and I didn't want to just let it all vanish when the website does, so I've copied quite a lot of it across. That's why it looks like I've actually been blogging here for a year or so, when in actuality...
...this is day one.
So yeah. Welcome :)
This is an exciting time, anyway. It's E3 time next week, and I will be blogging the hell out of that one. Nintendo's conference should certainly prove to be more interesting than it was last year, on account of them apparently demonstrating the successor to the Wii.
Bring it on!
...except that it's not.
You see, I ran a blog up on my personal website, venturai.com, for about a year now. I didn't mean to buy a website, at least not at first, but my VQuest modification for Warcraft 3 needed a home following IGN discontinuing their hosting services, and even though it's a mod just about nobody was still playing, I figured I couldn't just let the website die without it having a replacement.
Those times are long since gone though, and when the contract for venturai.com runs out, there's no way I'm going to pay to extend it.
I've quite enjoyed blogging though, off and on, and I didn't want to just let it all vanish when the website does, so I've copied quite a lot of it across. That's why it looks like I've actually been blogging here for a year or so, when in actuality...
...this is day one.
So yeah. Welcome :)
This is an exciting time, anyway. It's E3 time next week, and I will be blogging the hell out of that one. Nintendo's conference should certainly prove to be more interesting than it was last year, on account of them apparently demonstrating the successor to the Wii.
Bring it on!
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