battlefield 3 beta
Oh, well look at this...
EA has announced that if you waste your money by buying the limited edition of the mediocre game that is Medal of Honor, you can get access to the beta for Battlefield 3. That's right - they've told us before that it's coming, but nothing has been said about BF3 for quite some time. And even now they aren't showing a logo or giving any other details, other than that the beta will begin within a year of Medal of Honor's arrival this fall.
What's interesting is the mention that Xbox Live Gold is required to access the beta of BF3, indicating that the game will, once again, not be a PC-exclusive. It remains to be seen if this can be DICE's return to glory after heading further and further from their former success. In my book, if BF3 has a full assortment of vehicles (land/sea/air), massive maps, full squads and squad leaders, commanders, 64 player support, mod support, decent VOIP, a command rose, revive ability, and none of this garbage auto-regenerating health and/or unlimited ammo, then it will be a success...even if they manage to screw it all up somehow.
who was robot zeus?
Bayern Munich's manager Louis van Gaal had the following to say about Manchester United's goalkeeper:
I always say Van der Sar is a manufactured goalkeeper. He is not so happy when I say it, but there are more natural goalkeepers in the world. Van der Sar has been made into a goalkeeper.
Of course, van Gaal had not yet seen Chelsea's new keeper, or his recognition of "manufactured" goalies would be more astute. It took a special caliber of player to dethrone the venerable Petr Cech from his starting role. 6'7" of solid, shining bronze, "Robot Zeus," as he became known, was an embodiment of perfection. His original ties to Robot Pele are nebulous, but his affiliation with Dieter Sphinxly and Grecian origin remain of little debate.
Although he could sometimes be beaten by less challenging shots, he routinely turned in fantastic saves and rarely got caught flat-footed. He did, however, show a propensity for wandering from his line, and his early days saw opponents seize the advantage of the open net. But with time his might became known, and there was nothing he could not accomplish on the pitch. For those blistering shots seemingly beyond him, some claimed to have seen sparks of lightning issuing from his fingertips and steering the ball off-course.
And when he sallied forth, teams crumbled. In tandem with Robot Pele, the goals pelted the nets. He became the all-time leading goal scorer among goalkeepers in the history of the English Premier League in a matter of two appearances. On top of that, he performed his role admirably, and the preponderance of clean sheets in Chelsea's record could be attributed directly to his influence.
His ascension to Olympus remains a dark day in the storied history of the Blues.
who was robot pele?
Robot Pele was a legend.
Then, one day, Dieter Sphinxly showed up at Stamford Bridge in a rented tuxedo along with a £10 haircut and a large, black box. His tenure as Chelsea's new manager began with the mysterious arrival of a tall, white-haired figure that never spoke and moved mechanically. And the legend intensified.
After several days with the team, it was apparent that the new recruit possessed otherworldly talent. His kit bore the simple moniker "R. Pele," and his feet moved with a fury never before seen. He could drain a shot from midfield with ease, and his tackles and crosses were always spot-on. It wasn't long before speculation began that he was, in fact, a robot.
But FIFA could not stop him. Nor could any defense. His one weakness - a dismal left foot - was consistently overshadowed by his all-around prowess. While the electric bills at the Bridge escalated, so did the footballer's stamina, and his dominance continued unabated.
And the legend grew.
Sphinxly would not reveal the player's origin, or the source of his immaculate skill. But the tabloids would reveal his training regimen: practicing "the robot" dance move for hours on end. When this came to light, other teams in the premiership became irate, insisting that no human being would be able to keep up with the pace of the league without ever touching a football on an off-day.
After a bout of tough losses, Sphinxly was sacked, and he took his player with him. Some claim to have witnessed the robot embarrassing schoolchildren in pick-up matches in rural U.S. towns, but nothing has been substantiated. The truth behind the story of Robot Pele's arrival to, and disappearance from, professional soccer may never be fully known.
a pick-up day
We all know that "good days" should not be qualified by what we have gained in that day...but today was a good day. It's been a day for products with numbers in their titles. Allow me to explain:
I now have Windows 7 Professional x64 running, complete with virtual Windows XP. Having not played around with 7 since one of the early betas, I never really got a feel for the added functionality and it's been a good experience so far. I had no problems with Windows Vista, but with the $29 student deal the upgrade was impossible to pass up. Installation was painless; I downloaded an installer, did a clean install, and updated a couple of drivers.
And during the installation, I've been playing my newly-acquired FIFA 10 on the Xbox 360. It's undoubtedly more fun to play with multiple teams in different stadiums and weather conditions - far more than the demo would allow me in the weeks that I played it non-stop. The virtual pro addition seems well implemented, even if it requires an Xbox Live account for the 3D game face functionality (which I finally managed to get working only to find out I couldn't import it into the game).
Finally, Rune Factory 3 has also come out in Japan, and it's quite fulfilling from a portable farming adventure perspective. Now, if only I could keep playing around with this new software without the real world creeping in...
battlefield carnage
Who needs Battlefield 3 when you've got excitement like this on the horizon?
That's Bad Company 2, which won't be out for a while (March 2010), but it's looking promising. I'll just have to get used to shooters with health regeneration (and possibly infinite ammo), since that's the way the winds are blowing these days. Now, if only everyone I knew had an Xbox 360, since PC gaming is dead...
wishing for more
There's usually an overwhelming feeling of impending doom looming around midterm time. When such concern does not present itself, poor grades often result. But it seems that there should come a time when someone has written enough papers, or taken enough exams, that he or she cannot be held to any further obligations of that nature.
While some are spending their creative juices trying to tie together thrombotic pulmonary emboli and mural thrombi, and others are making vague relational assessments in painstakingly long essays, there are the select few who get paid to imagine scenarios like these:
Jurassic: the Hunted is an epic shooter set on a dark, mysterious island lost in time. Players assume the role of weapons and survival expert Craig Dylan, who has been hired to protect a research team studying the strange temporal energy of the island. Protection quickly becomes a fight for survival as Dylan is pulled back in time through the Bermuda Triangle and finds himself facing the most terrifying creatures in the history of the planet.
Sometimes you just have to separate yourself from a situation and remember that things could be a lot worse: you could live in a country where they don't let you play dinosaur-killing video games.
smokey’s candid appearance
Sometimes studying for four straight days of exams conjures up memories of the games of one's youth.
Harvest Moon games are a dime a dozen these days, but the latest game recently announced for Japan (Twin Villages) has something that caught my eye. In the following screenshot, a female protagonist (male and female options are available) is clearly visible, and so is some wildlife. Two monkeys, and a bear.
Harvest Moon has had some strange animals before (and in this new one you can raise alpacas), but a gentle roaming bear is quite unheard of. It's possible that bears have been in some of the newer games that I haven't closely followed, but I think it's a first for a DS game. What the bear will do remains to be seen; it's good that he gets along with the monkeys, but hopefully you can feed him fish or something. I believe bears should be included in all worthwhile video games, so this is a good design decision.
The U.S. is still waiting for the last two Japanese Harvest Moon releases (Sunshine Islands and Wind Bazaar), so who knows when this one will materialize.
scribbling results
Yesterday I started messing around with a game called "Scribblenauts." It's a bit juvenile, but the premise of the game is highly original. It presents you with a puzzle or objective in a 2D level and then allows you to write in the name of any animal or object...or anything conceivable (with some exceptions), and it will appear. You can then use the properties of that item/creature/etc. to accomplish your goal. For instance, conjure up some pizza and eat it, or put in a helicopter and fly anywhere you want. Certain inappropriate things are excluded.
The game leaves itself open to lots of creative scenarios, many the developers could not have possibly foreseen. One such situation is one of the first things I did - I used the game as a battle simulator. Yeti vs. Bigfoot. Yes, both mythical creatures were in the game, but the Yeti acted more aggressive, while Bigfoot seemed protective. Bigfoot won. I then decided to do best two out of three. Bigfoot won again. Just for good measure, I tried once more. Again, Bigfoot was the victor. So I decided to even the odds.
I gave the Yeti a shotgun. Unfortunately, once he took it he did not know how to use it, so he just held it passively. He still wanted to fight, but simply couldn't. So I started torching him with a flamethrower. It just forced him back, so I had to set some TNT at his feet to finally take him down.
Now there's something even the most open-world game won't let you do.
it lagged BIG time
It may be premature to speak of the death of PC gaming, but the industry at least has some sort of terminal illness. Blame it on uninspired game designers, piracy, or the increased prevalence of console gaming, but that doesn't tell the whole story. There will always be people who don't deserve to use computers until they're old enough to vote. I am speaking, of course, of those who give piss-poor reviews to highly-acclaimed PC games on sites that the average Joe would visit.
Empire: Total War is a strategy game that was well-received by experienced reviewers and gamers, but its somewhat demanding system requirements left the inexperienced 12 year old scratching his head. Those who don't realize that their inferior components may be to blame instead find fault in the game, which leads to low scores and mixed public approval.
Still, if game designers just made their products devoid of "huge white screen errors," PC gaming would still have a chance.
fifa 10 film clips
I wanted to share some videos I made in the FIFA 10 demo, to show off how fluid the game is and how much better it feels than FIFA 08. I had never messed with EA Sports Football World, but they have a very competent system in place for uploading videos and snapshots of matches you play on the Xbox 360. The still pictures are terribly low quality and not worth viewing, and the same could be argued of the flash videos it creates, but they're much better than taking off-screen video of the game.