Hello peeps. I’ve made a post on Backslashgaming extolling the virtues of the Kinect from Microsoft. I’m not a particularly big fan of Microsoft, but they’ve definitely got it right with the Kinect.
If you’d like to read more then here’s the link:
http://www.backslashgaming.com/2011/10/19/i-love-the-kinect/
Toodles
One thing that used to frustrate me in Bad Company 2 was respawn invulnerability. Some people claim it doesn’t exist, but when I fire an AT4 at someone I expect it to kill them if there’s a direct impact (skip to 12m10s):
Having played the BF3 beta for a little while I’d encountered what I thought was respawn invulnerability a couple of time, but put it down to me just being paranoid about it. But no, it is in BF3 too!
I saw this video:
And considered that maybe it was dodgy hit registration on the shotgun because it’s not like that hasn’t happened before. But the video that proved it for me was from Geoff (sasbenjr)
In this video there are a couple of incidences of respawn invulnerability and Geoff confirms that it appears to be the case.
In terms of the respawn invincibility itself it seems that it’s also a perspective issue, with the player model appearing to the enemy momentarily before the actual player is spawned. That would explain why players spawning report being killed straight away. But here is where my problem with respawn invulnerability lies: the spawned player model is not only invulnerable, but they are also impervious.
This means that if they block your line of sight to the person they spawned off they are acting as a shield for that player. This is a problem when you flank a squad of buffoons and are taking them out with a weapn with a low ammo count. As soon as someone spawns in the middle of them and soaks up your bullets you can be left high and dry while the other players turn around to see where the shooting is coming from.
I don’t actually have a problem with respawn invulnerability as a concept. It’s useful for those that are being spawn trapped, but that to me, is the only time it should be happening. And if invulnerability needs to be in the game for those people who choose to spawn in to a dangerous situation then they should not be impervious and soak up all the bullets intended for their squad mates.
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David Nicol is a gamer, blogger, podcaster and video creator based in the UK. Find me on:
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The Battlefield 3 Beta has been out since the 26th of September now and I started playing it yesterday. Why so late? I wasn’t one of the special people who either pre-purchased BF3 via Origin (because I won’t be playing it on PC, although I have it pre-ordered elsewhere), nor did I buy the truly awful Medal of Honor. This meant that the Beta was not available to me, and everyone else until the 29th. Sure, I downloaded it on all three platforms (PC, PS3, XBOX) on the 29th, but it was a nice day so I opted to go outside (BLASPHEMY!) rather than play video games.
There was another reason why I wasn’t in a rush to play the Beta. I’d already played it. Not the Beta itself, but the Alpha a couple of months earlier. The Alpha was Operation Metro, the Beta is Operation Metro. Some players on PC were invited in to Conquest on Caspian Border to load test the servers, but that map/game mode apparently will not be available to console players. Ironically, despite all the big talk about dealing with those who broke the NDA on the alpha, at least one of the players who broke the NDA was on the Caspian Border map…. using the same gamertag as in the Alpha. That is a total pisstake by that player, and also EA/DICE for allowing it to happen (unless of course they were allowing him to “leak” the footage to begin with).
So at this point I’m a bit fed up of the same map all the time. The good news is that there have been a number of changes between the Alpha and the Beta. For example, the LAV. This was an attacker armoured vehicle but is now absent from the Beta. When I first spawned I went looking for it, but it wasn’t on the map. It took me a while to realise it wasn’t there.
The positions of the MComs on the first base (in the park) have also changed for the better. The locations are more accessible for both sides without having direct lines of sight from spawn.
You no longer vault over everything, it’s possible to leap small obstacles without doing an impersonation of Daley Thompson’s Decathalon. The vaulting is still there, and it is a cool animation, so it’s good that it’s limited mainly to objects you would normally vault.
Flashlights are in. These were mentioned in pre-Alpha posts but weren’t in the Alpha. They are a gift and a curse. The flashlight, which I’m going to call a torch from now, since I’m not American, and it takes less to type are a gift when you see the beam coming and you fire at the source to get the kill, but a curse when you’re totally blinded (especially by a team mate) and get killed. In the Alpha there was only the RDS or laser sight which caused a red blinding effect, this is also in the Beta.
The biggest hinderance I’ve had so far has been a single team mate with the damned torch. Trying to hold down an MCom is not easy when some window licker keeps running past, blinding you. It’s a bit like the team mates who blow up your mines in BC2…. “thanks dude, that was really helpful”.
What about the weapons? Well the MLG Pro are using the PP2000 and UMP45 this season as those laser death cannon kill you before you know it. The M70 shotgun is an adequate counter – but requires you to be up close and is mostly a two hit kill unless you get a head shot.
It’ll be interesting to see what others make of the different weapons and unlocks as you have to unlock each attachment for each weapon. For some I can see them getting to the level where they unlock the UMP45 and not using any other weapon unless DICE “balances” the damage characteristics.
Lastly on this let’s talk about graphics. PC understandably has the best graphics out of the three available platforms (mainly as it’s outputting on current hardware rather than components that are over half a decade old). From there it’s pretty subjective, platform of choice. Both the PS3 and Xbox360 have positives and negatives against them in the graphical department, but nothing that really puts one much much much above the other. Here’s a visual comparison between the platforms:
But don’t forget: IT’S A BETA
Which means that DICE are looking for areas that they can improve on.
That’s it. Stop reading now.
Considering all the attention that the BF3 beta is getting, I’m sure it’s a surprise that I’m putting my attention in to Minecraft. Well, it’s a distraction from all the issues in the community for a start, plus I never had enough Lego as a child.
Earlier today Donncha turned mobs on on the server. For those not familiar with Minecraft, mobs are beasties. Zombies, spiders, creepers, eldermen and skeletons. Their sole purpose is to ruin your day, which is a bit hard to do when you can’t take any damage (Creative Mode).
For some reason every time night fell (when the mobs come out) they’d head up my pyramid. Probably because “it’s there”.
So here is my first encounter with the mobs on the server:
For the majority of mobs, they burst in to flames when the sun comes out, unless they are somewhere nice and dark…. what’s that? Oh, underneath my part finished pyramid is probably nice and dark? Yeah, I hadn’t considered that….
But mobs be damned! Especially the eldermen who kept stealing blocks from my pyramid (although Donncha has since sorted that so they only steal “natural” blocks). My pyramid is complete!
We’re cooking now.
I’ve been playing Minecraft off an on for a little while now. I say ‘playing’ but I’m not sure if that’s the correct description for the time sapping digital lego set with animals and lava that it is.
But anyway, love it or hate it, I’m hooked. And my most recent endeavour on Donncha’s server has been a massive pyramid. The top of it is at the highest buildable level. It’s really quite a large undertaking, and if I’d paid attention at school I’d be able to a) work out how many blocks it needs, and b) how long it would have taken to build.
It’s so big it’s the largest singly structure on the map so far:
Thankfully Nick and Duck gave me a hand last night after Donncha activated Creative Mode on the server – which basically means you have infinite blocks, take no damage and can fly around for easier building. As it was late and I’m minging with the cold right now I left before Nick and Duck. But they had my back. Ensuring that I wasn’t preyed upon in the night by binary vampires by entombing my spawn point. They’d also made impressive headway on the pyramid build, and left some amusing graffiti to boot:
I’m also doing a series on what I’ve built so far on Minecraft and will be doing a live comm/let’s play type thing of the single player. So if you’re interested in that, here’s the first two vids:
Part 1
Part 2
Cowing lush.
It’s taken over a year, but finally someone has been able to document the lifecycle of the elusive Bad Company Wookiee:
http://twitter.com/#!/Lundenerpaa/
http://www.youtube.com/user/Helwaron
Actually very good. I try to ring ‘help lines’ as little as possible. I worked in technical support for six years and in that time I saw pretty much the entire gamut of the type of ‘help’ you’ll get when you ring up.
I don’t want to be down on call centres, but having been on both sides of the phone the level of support you get is very hit and miss. Being a realist I spend my time expecting to get someone who either doesn’t understand the problem, or the term ‘help/support line’. Being a target driven industry the latter is understandable, the former, as far as I’m concerned is inexcusable. But I digress.
Here was my issue: I’d signed up for Xbox Gold to play BFBC2 on in June and thought that the autorenewal was off (I could have sworn that I’d sorted it out) – but apparently not. So I was being billed £5.99 a month when I was intending to get a 12 month card from a retailer for cheaper than the Microsoft price. So what I wanted was the auto renewal turned off and I’d sort the rest.
Eventually I found the number for Xbox support since the website kept giving me the American contact details (not good service). I rang the number and wondered which country I would end up talking to. When I got through I spoke to “Neil”, well that’s what he said his name was but judging by his accent he was obviously a Dara, or a Padraig! Oh, I jest.
Seriously though, Neil is a credit to Microsoft. He was upbeat and used his sense of humour in the call. Many many many many many call centre workers could learn a thing or two from him. I was fully expecting to be on the phone for ages getting more exasperated by a hard of learning monkey when instead I had my issue dealt with and resolved straight away, and not only that, it also gave me a more positive view of the company (Microsoft).
Well done Neil – you’re a star.
Peas and loaves.
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Find me on PSN – MrCheapKills
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David Nicol is Articles Editor for hupitgaming.com, YouTube gaming commentator and blogger based in the UK.
Why not check out my new gaming site: backslashgaming.com
Since I posted anything on anywhere. With my work contract winding up it’s been difficult to think of gaming in any other way than just playing. I’m looking to change that in the near future and get back to posting more frequently, and also on backslashgaming.com.
In the meantime, here’s a quick run down of what’s been going on:
Borderlands Let’s Play. After one episode I’m going to be abandoning this particular debacle. Sulley is great in the comms and we tried to get Duck in with us last night, but the rubbish lobby system prevented us from being in the same game together. The game that Sulley and I were working on was then tainted by a moral dilemna (and I don’t care what the spell checker says that is the correct spelling of dilemna!). I’ll put a video up explaining all, but the issue meant that we couldn’t in good faith continue with our characters and neither of us wants to start again. We even tried to have another friend, Shiznit, host a game, but we couldn’t even see him in the lobby menus.
If you missed it, here’s episode 1 of the series [NSFW]:
Still been playing BFBC2, unlocked Magnum Ammo on the Xbox version and made a video about it which was accepted and posted to the Pixel Enemy Revive channel (thanks guys)
I’ve been following the same method for playing on the PC, but I don’t find it as enjoyable on PC. I’m getting old and lazy so prefer the controller to keyboard and mouse. I’ve not recorded any PC gameplay as even with a new graphics card, my computer still struggles a bit with it.
After recently being gifted Team Fortress 2 by the Awesome D, it’s now free to play. Typical. I returned the favour with Monday Night Combat which we have yet to play, and a game that I’ve only played for about thirty minutes. I mix up some TF2 gameplay with info on a MNC giveaway in this vid:
Another game that is now free to play is Arma 2. I downloaded it last night. Not had a chance to play it yet, but it looks pretty good. You can get it from here: http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=14588
Oh, I’ve also been on YouTube for just over a year. Well just over a year uploading vids and the like. Here is my anniversary video:
When I started my channel I did not go in to it lightly. Having lurked for a number of years I was aware of the level of random hate and trolling that is an everyday occurrence on YouTube. I was lucky in a way that from the start I was part of the Battlefield community and gained support from a great bunch of subscribers and fellow uploaders. I was all too aware that just because you upload to YouTube, or play a certain game does not mean that everyone who does the same has to either like you, or support you. But then, that’s the same in everything you do in life. So I’ve always treated YouTube as something that I do to amuse me and those close to me. Subscriber count is just a number and ratings don’t matter.
Erm, that’s pretty much it for the now. I’ve probably missed out loads, so there may be some updates in the very soon.
Peas and loaves.
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Find me on PSN – MrCheapKills
Find me on XBL – MrCheapKills
David Nicol is Articles Editor for hupitgaming.com, YouTube gaming commentator and blogger based in the UK.
Why not check out my new gaming site: backslashgaming.com
Hosted by Chris Redd_Dragons and DCRU Colin, along with Paul BigMooney06 and BeBarnee
Here’s the link to the post on the dontrevivemebro.com site
We talk about Battlefield related stuff to the beat of Colin’s penis related swearing via Coyno77′s prompts in the live chat room.
That is all.
Peas and loaves.
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Find me on PSN – MrCheapKills
Find me on XBL – MrCheapKills
David Nicol is Articles Editor for hupitgaming.com, YouTube gaming commentator and blogger based in the UK.
Why not check out my new gaming site: backslashgaming.com
After taking part in the Don’t Revive Me Bro podcast with bigmooney and bebarnee last night I went on to Xbox in an attempt to level up some more in order to get the Magnum Ammo at level 15.
I joined #MongolianGnome’s party and we entered Harvest Day for some conquest. Before we started I asked John what level he was since that would skill match us against players of his level in the game – as a level 30-something I was expecting more of a challenge than when I enter the game alone to be joined by blueberries with a skill level of similarly intelligent molluscs.
As it happens we did have more of a challenge, especially when we spawned 100 tickets down with all flags already capped. We started 3 v 2 but then it became 3 v 5 when every person entering the game joined the other side. Although we made a valiant effort we couldn’t claw back the tickets and saw the long slow bleed as we ran from flag to flag to be confronted by the other players and one incredibly obnoxious teabagger.
Sure, I have a reputation for teabaggery, but I do not do it after every single kill, in fact I seldom do it to non-friends unless they’ve been particularly troublesome or annoying to begin with. This guy was something else.
The second round was different and we totally demolished the other team to point of them quitting when they were down to about 30 tickets. Typical! They can give it, but not take it.
Then on to Panama Canal, which is personal favourite of mine, and again we had most of the flags for the majority of the time. I did numerous rambo revives which were very enjoyable and I even managed to kill some people too. My K/D (which I’m only mentioning for comparison between playing against more skilled players compared to the first couple of games) went down to 0.71 from 1.23 on the first night.
My main issue on the Xbox is the sticks do not have the same accuracy as the PS3 controller sticks and the fire button (Right Trigger) is currently awkward to use for pistols as you have to depress it all the way to fire unlike the straight microswitch on PS3. This means that I miss fire the pistol.
All in all the Xbox is fun but I need Donncha and DrunkinDunkin to get on at some point!
Peas and loaves.
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Find me on PSN – MrCheapKills
Find me on XBL – MrCheapKills
David Nicol is Articles Editor for hupitgaming.com, YouTube gaming commentator and blogger based in the UK.
Why not check out my new gaming site: backslashgaming.com
