To the Brink

As an outlet to resolve some pretty shitty things happening in my life, I'm going to write out a review to Brink. It's a Multiplayer focussed FPS by Splash damage who previously created Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory and Quake Wars.

I jumped on the hype train mainly because of the art style and the small tight battles it promised. Like a new Team Fortress 2. I managed to get a preorder on the cheap too, so it seemed like the perfect storm. Then the reviews rolled in, with 6s and 7s out of 10s. People told me they were wrong, there were patches coming out, the problems would be gone before it hit shelves.

Well, I've been playing for the past couple of days and I really want to like it. But there are things just getting in the way. It's laggy for no good reason. 150+ pings when I get 60+ pings in Battlefield Bad Company 2. BC2 has twice as many players, bigger maps with much more happening in them, why the high pings Brink?

The gunplay is off. Construced Machine Gun nests are weaker than pistols and there are other balance issues that constantly irk me. It caters to the arcadey over the top style of

The parkour elements are great. The character design and environments are great.

The level of customization is great. The ease of unlocking is good, but there was a real chance to add a heap of depth to unlocking items. I think Brink needs a heap of work in balancing and getting the gunplay right. It seems a bit half-baked.

Get only if on special.

New Season, New Drama, New Opportunity

So I've been trying to get the Internationals at work onto the local game, this was a post I sprayed around the place

_______________

I write this with some trepidation, being an Australian recently introduced to some of the intricacies of American football. I'm a member of the Australian Army and I've worked in a number of Allied agencies in the past couple of years. At the moment I'm posted to Canberra, SE Australia and a few friends of mine are in Afghanistan. There is some great cultural exchange going on in these spots between allied nations, especially in regards to sports. My boss at the moment returned from the Ghan with some NY Giants gear that he traded for some Rugby League (Broncos) kit he had from home. Good stuff.

We have a few US and Canadian integrees just get posted in, about 3 months ago one of them sat me down and watched through a game of NFL with me as payback for sitting him down through a 5-day [URL="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OYVk4ryR5M"]Cricket[/URL] test match at work. :lol:

So, in the months since then, with a solid foundation of understanding, I've become conversant in the rules, terms and general 'culture' of American football. Where shotgun and play action meant diddly squat to me before, I now at least have a clue what is going on and no longer ask dumb questions like "Why not run it on the 4th?". Sure I've got a heap more to learn, but the bridge is being crossed and I'm happy to feed off anything anyone wants to throw my way.

The missus is heading to Canada for an exchange position at University this year (Brock University if anyone cares) and I'll be heading over as well for a few weeks. I'm especially keen to go see a Bills game (even though any Yank I talk to routinely laughs at me at their mention) and get immersed into the NFL culture as much as possible.

I know how interminable offseason can be for any sport anywhere, so I'm here to be a total whore for my culture, like I have been to my American mates at work, in order to help make offseason pass that little bit quicker. Now is the perfect chance to be immersed in the sporting culture of Australia, a pretty intense and rich one that goes all year. The cricket season has ended in Australia (with the World Cup in India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka being played as we speak) and is shifting into the biggest part of the sporting year, Football Season. No I don't mean soccer and no I don't mean Rugby (League or Union). I mean [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_rules_football"]Australian Rules Football.[/URL]

I know it's [URL="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AustralianRulesFootball"]probably an oddity[/URL] to the great number of people who have seen it casually, as NFL was to me when I'd wake up Saturday morning, hungover as fuck and sick of the game stopping every 4 seconds for another play to line up, but it's worth watching, like I've learnt the NFL is.

So why should you watch Australian Rules during the offseason? Well, it's a high tempo, [URL="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PotXGpd_owg"]free flowing[/URL] game. No offsides, no scrimmage and minimal stoppages. It's pretty [URL="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iFXaRh_4fM"]full on[/URL] with no padding, full body contact and the guys [URL="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUcnjGKOw80"]run all day[/URL], around 10-20 miles a game. It's full of [URL="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyOD3XJny6w"]big kicks[/URL] and [URL="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NF-_HszEC9s"]big catches[/URL] (called marks) and is pretty [URL="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVRZGdzxBsw"]exciting[/URL] to watch. I guess all you need to know is [URL="http://www.usafl.com/intro"]what the shit[/URL] is going on?

So sorry for the long rant and for being a bit off-track but I'm happy to answer any questions, or be kicked out and return only to ask NFL noob questions. Cheers.

Gaming Review - 2010

It took me a while just to frame the last year into some kind of digestible sense that I could then crap on about for as long as I can endure. This is like shucking the part of my brain that isn't involved with communication, just sheer absorption, onto a page and moving it about a bit, hoping that eventually the smears form some kind of legible missive. I had help from the Penny Arcade community to actually remember what games came out this year and they also helped remind me just how awesome 2010 was for gaming. Now I hope nostalgia isn't so recent as to have warped my memory already, but I'm pretty happy with my list.

So in reverse order, ending with my most enjoyable, favourite game of the year...

13. Limbo
A simple premise executed really well and absolutely smothered in atmosphere. Challenging to play but never infuriating, nice length and did I mention that the atmosphere was great?

12. Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale
Only grabbed this recently with Steam offering it at a pittance and boy am I glad I did. Classic JRPG dungeoneering mixed with a awesomely original item shop mechanic. Irreverent and self deprecating with a scarcastic eye on RPGs in general, I really enjoyed firing this up for a quick bit of trading and monster smashing.

11. Just Cause 2
This is how open world games should be. Stupidly huge, stupidly detailed and not self serious. Lots of fun doing anything from driving into a town, chaining up a petrol station and blowing everything to heck from hijacking a jet and flying it into airport.

10. Metro 2033
Atmosphere plus, awesome visuals, great design and some terrifying moments. Really creative and immersive, being topside and running out of air filters while some thing chases you is a sure fire way of ensuring your pants can retain fluids.

9. Minecraft
Does anything need to be said? Absolute open and free game, get lost for a few hours under the Earth make anything you want and it's only a goddamned Beta. Really keen to see what 2011 brings for Notch and his crew.

8. Darksiders
Zelda-esque romp with other influences thrown in melted together and fused in way that really works. Never feels really clunky, always looks and sounds awesome, a radical setting and story.

7. Bayonetta
Totally over the top, totally slick and never dull action with some of the best bosses seen since cartridge days. Everything just oozes style and almost ADD levels of character.

6. Dead Rising 2
Probably not as technically proficient as some of the other games in this list but goddamned it, this is fun to the max, taking all sorts of wacky things, taping them together and then painting the walls with zombie bits never gets old and if you think it does, then I won't see you at the end of the apocalypse.

5. Starcraft 2
Yes I bought the hype. How could I not? Being an old man has afforded me some kind of perspective and this game was worthy of the hype. Probably the most enjoyable single player campaign in an RTS has largely been looked over for the multiplayer but I'm not huge into that otherwise I dare say it'd be number one.

4. Fallout: New Vegas
Fallout 3 was enjoyable, but it was an obvious Bethesda game. Really pretty but kind of hollow. I like Obsidian, really I do, but god damned if they don't make it hard for you to like them. New Vegas was instantly engaging and always interesting. It didn't draw out storylines more than it had to, the characters were worth talking to, I had real trouble making decisions because they were not good/evil arrangements but much more philosophical in nature. The mechanics and gunplay were still great to play with with plenty of options.

3. Red Dead Redemption
I waxed lyrical on these very pages about the nature of the Red Dead Experience. Experiencing John Marsten's story is definitely one of the highlights of the year for me. The world was enjoyable to explore and looked stunning, the praise this game has received is well deserved.

2. Battlefield: Bad Company 2
The single player portion of this game is serviceable. It cannot compare to the blockbuster titles in this department. But in multiplayer it blows away all comers who are approaching similarity in nature. Sure it doesn't have the customisation that other recent titles can boast, but that in itself isn't a core mechanic, more of a vortex within the core that spits out odd perturbations at request. The very fabric of Bad Company 2 is a thing to behold. Collapsing buildings, vehicles spitting death, medics multiplying like roaches. The engine and the gameplay are fused into a waltz of a stupefying level. This has surpassed Team Fortress 2 as my multiplayer game of choice and Team Fortress 2 is easily on my top 10 games of all time.

1. Mass Effect 2
Could it truly be any other? A story more engaging than most other mediums could cough up, characters more memorable than anything else this year, gameplay that is electrifying and never feels repetitive. Mass Effect is a true achievement in gaming and in media in general. The followup of a heap of DLC was also staggering in it's quality and made an already engaging world just that bit moreso.
If Mass Effect 3 is half as good as this, it'll still be better than anything else released.

As an aside games that I hadn't played in 2010 but will rectify to do so as soon as able;
Vanquish
STALKER: Call of Pripyat

And disappointment of the year? Civilization 5. The more I think about it, the sadder I get.

So here's to an awesome year of gaming and here's to another. Bring on 2011!