Thursday, January 10

3 DS ....

Well i was guna be camping for my holidays.... and the idea of being stuck in a car for a long time with nothing to do did not interest me..... SO .... yeah.

the idea of the 3ds is cool but i found the 3d effect just annoying and i play with it off.


brought resident evil revelations and i am quite impressed with it. It took me 14 hours to complete the main campaign and i probably sunk a good 4-5 hours in the survival mode thingy ^_^

i may or may not give you more info later as i am exhausted 2 day so ima go to bed

night night yall

- Cleft lip kid

Monday, December 17

Honey (you), Im (finally) home, Im also a Duck (Me).

Man, Im sorry you guys, this is like the tenhundredth time Ive had to say "IM BACK" because I have been away so frequently this year. Well, I'll be honest, there were 2 reasons for this;

1) This was one of the most intense years of study Ive ever undertook, and have had little free time. And of that free time, I used most of it for games and anime, blogging wasnt much of a priority.
2) Blogging to me is a nice little hobby, although emphasis on the 'little' part. I wouldnt say Im the type of person who likes to write a lot oftenly about stuff. Hey, thats not to say I dont enjoy the little I do, but any more and it becomes an mildly boring excessive chore. I dont want it to become this (and possibly end up giving up blogging if it becomes so), so I dont really push myself to blog a lot.

Do I sound negative? Like Im leading up to some bad news.... "blah blah Im quitting blah blah"... hahahaha...NOPE. Im still the same as I usually am, just thought opening up a little more serious would be appropriate this time, because this time, IM HOME!!!!!

<- HOME - ME ->

Thats right! I have FINISHED this year of study, DONE. In reality, I finished my exams at the end of november and have been relaxing for a bit before going on holiday last week, but fact is; I am Done! I will have a lot of time for anime, manga, books, visual novels and games over the next months, and depending how uni goes... the next few years! I will also have more time for blogging, although like I said above, I want to keep it as the nice little hobby it is. I was never fond of English or any writing subjects, more so why I have very unstructured posts because I just write what I feel like (basically what comes into my head) around various topics Im passionate about. Im not stopping blogging, dont get me wrong, but Im also not going all out either. I think its also a  bonus for the very few who even read this site (whoever you are, you are awesome) and to be honest, I dont want to spend your precious time that can be used else where. So the less I post, the more time you can spend doing other stuff, like playing games and not reading IGN. Just coming on here every so often and actually reading this shit is more than enough for me :) Maybe Im trying to pathetically justify laziness? maybe so, but quality > quantity! Posting less keeps every post overall better, it keeps this hobby nice, and it also allows you to enjoy this site in your own time, weekly? monthly? yearly? you choose, I will be 100% satisfied if you just show up!

Now, enough trivial crap, lets GET ONTO SOME NICE JUICY CONTENT! Although Im free now, I was still busy the months before and haven't got round to doing much, but its more than enough to talk about! With games, I have managed to complete borderlands 2 with a friend. In anime, I have completed another amazing series called steins;gate, and an even more epic and blown out series called tengen toppa gurren lagann, as well as a mildly psychological anime known as school days. Ive also started to pick up manga, and will be more than glad to describe 2 that have blown me away recently; Assassination Classroom and Magi. And lets not forget My little pony and how amazing season 3 has been so far! I also have finally gotten round to planning to buy a new computer which i will buy soon, you can Read about that below as well.

Probably my GOTY

Starting off, Games have been pretty good! Borderlands 2 improved everything I loved about the first one, seriously, everything! The Characters, gameplay, guns, NPC's, plot, story, voice acting and much more all improved and adequate to squeal standards! However, I hear a lot of people now complaining about it, stating its only Borderlands 1.5 and not much different to the first, 'barley improving' it. Now although this is true to an extent, they forget if it was any more different, even more people would call it out for not being like the original. This is something every sequel in media history has to deal with, as no matter how good it is, there will always be this trend criticism that follows. But If I was to find one flaw in it so far, It would be the confusing, but yet so amazing character of handsome Jack. Without spoiling much, he is a great funny character overall, but has trouble deciding in wither to be the almost pointlessly dominate evil villain or a solid emotionalized character with a real humanitarian emphasis & motive. Rather than focusing on one and being excellent, the Character tries to be both and suffers the trade off in which they both are second-rate.

We never really get to see his face, literally and psychologically

My opinion is that I think they could have made the story much better with an emotional psychological climax by having the ending fight of the story more personal between the characters whom are both underlined by the quest to get to the vault, rather than having the quest of the vault as the main focus. Expand on jacks true reasons to fight, and how both he and the vault hunters will have both positive and negative impacts by either of them beating the other. I think they really could have reached a rare shade of grey between the character lines eg. maybe the vault hunters are really the reason why pandora is a wasteland, opposed to Jack who wants to finally make a change for the greater good? But then I think that would be asking too much. Handsome Jack was a pleasant surprise, I didn't think they would ever make a character this good. I mean, its not like they are marketing this game off his character. Although mildly confusing, as long as we can make interpretations of him that make sense, he is still a good villain.

On other related gaming posts, I managed to use the initial free time after exams to finish a huge list that involves everything I want to complete over the next few years. This mega list includes anime, manga, tv shows, books and games, such as  Borderlands 2, Bastion, Dead Island, Batman Arkham Asylum, Batman Arkham City, Dragon Age Origins, Dseus Ex: Human Revolution, Minecraft, Mount and Blade: Warband and heaps more that I really should get round to playing (and writing about the best ones here)

LISTLISTLISTLISTLISTLISTLISTLIST LISTLIST

When it comes to anime, over the last few months Ive managed to complete 3 series that have blown me away. Although I usually like to get into full on detail, because there is a lot to talk about I will try to summarize the main points as best as on how these 3 anime are amazing on their own way. (this means I can also avoid spoilers as well!)

Firstly, Steins;Gate has simply an amazing solid thought out plot from start to finish that fits together miraculously with twists that will blow you away, bring you to tears and keep you on the edge of your seat. This is now my second Favorited of all time, only just one-up'd by Clannad's amazing story telling and theme conveyance, but not to imply steins;gate's is nowhere close (It has one of the best conveyance of Sacrifice I have ever seen, as Clannad is more family/love). The plot also revolves around time travel and changing the past, now although time travel themes cannot be standardized because of how different fictitious interpretations of it can be, I can confirm out of the many possible ways time travel can be done right, steins;gate displays one of the best. The characters and relationships are so well defined  as well as how the anime actually has a solid ending/conclusion that is SATISFYING (just like Clannad). At 24+1 episodes with an OVA and canon movie coming out soon (that I cant wait for), it is a simply amazing adventure,YOU WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED!

el psy congroo

Next is Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. Now I'll be honest, when I finally started to watch this, it was because I had been begged to by a friend. I found the action fast paced, quick and well fitting, but also tiring. I was enjoying the story, but I thought I would drop it (to pick it up later obviously, it was just getting tiring to watch)... that was until the second half. Seriously, I was BLOWN AWAY. I was second guessing myself, saying "how is this so good!!!", what I thought was initially an ok action anime turned into an emotional roller coaster of twists & turns and out of proportionally blown EPICNESS. No seriously, if there only there was a word more epic than epic, then THAT WORD would be the one to describe Gurren Lagann. It is actually structured similar to Clannad; its first half is good at what it does, but the second half is just so amazing that you love it so much and appreciate how the first half actually sets it up. No joke, the second half was so good, It allowed me to look back at the first half and see how amazing that actually was now that I watched the second half! So please, I encourage you who like me didnt find it 100% interest at first, PLEASE FINISH IT. HolyDamnFuck its only 27 episodes you whiny BITCH, NO COMPLAINING, DONT YOU DARE DROP THIS ONE OF A KIND SHOUEN MASTER PIECE. In all seriousness, please dont, I guarantee you will love the series, especially with its bittersweet ending and closure inducing epilogue!

And the award to the most badass cast goes to....

School days. If you haven't heard of it, or more importantly haven't had it spoiled for you, I greatly encourage you to watch all 12 episodes ASAP. You probably may have heard that it sucks or is a bad anime, but please, it is a truly unique experience for an anime that has a lot of unjustified hate, and also for those who have seen it and still believe it to 'suck', here, let me explain why. it. does. not.  (spoilers below, only continue reading if you have an opinion against watching it (from watching it, dropping it, or already been spoiled), if you have no opinion about it, WATCH IT and dont you dare drop it until the end, then if you have an opinion against it you can read below :) ):

The problem here is that many people unjustifyingly hate this anime (because they disagree with it, such as the stupid protagonist, confronting themes and being 'unrealistic'), but for 12 episodes, I'd say its worth it as a unique experience for an anime. Why?

First off, you'll never hate a Main character as much as this guy. He will make some very bad decisions and you will cringe as he reaps the consequences. A lot of people hate this anime and call it a Joke due to its seemly forced plot twists, but hear me out.

I actually really like Kotonoha, from the start and Especially to the end~hehehe

It is a deconstruction of the Harem genre. It is not made to make you like the characters, it is not made to have to cheerily pick a girl to support and wait widely grinned as they go have some comedic fun. No. This anime wants to show you the worst it possible can. It doesnt want to entertain you, it wants to take everything you know about how romantic comedies should be, shit on it, screw it up and chuck it in a fire. In terms of the main theme of the anime (relationships) and without spoiling much, you'll be looking at one big bad example of a screw up, and through him it will teach you how terrible cheating can be.

However, many people like to disregard it as unbelievable and unrealistic, and to a degree it is, But I Question that! In reality, People get their hearts broken through conflict similar to that in the anime. People get angry and crazy over their love lives. People fall into lust and turn into sexwhoring jerks that make bad decisions. And as horrible as it sounds, People HAVE Killed others over conflict like this. Despite the uncommon circumstances of it happening in the sequence presented by the anime, Its really is not uncommon for shit like this to happen in real life. Fun Fact: The last episode of this was delayed a week due to similar violence in real life that may have given the anime an untimely bad reputation if it went ahead with the broadcast.

Some(most)times, people just hate it because they disagree with it, which I think is idiotic and ignorantly stupid. Media is made from (subjective and objective) Dominant and Resistant Views. Everyone likes to watch dominant media as they agree with it, however that doesnt mean you should hate resistant media that disagrees with you. Resistant media is good in its own right as it can reveal to you forms that are far more confronting to your personae and ultimately have a greater worthwhile impact on you as a viewer! School days shoves you out of your comfort zone, that doesn't mean you should hate it, especially because this show WANTS YOU to disagree with it (as explained above, being a deconstruction and all), but it doesnt want you to hate it.

Please Please PLEASE Do yourself a favor and watch it, it will be painful like no other... but the good kind of painful that allows you to become a better person. Trust me. It will.


Head what Ive said, Do NOT hate this anime because you may disagree with it

Manga time! This whole year I never got round to much manga, as the ones I want to read are BIG and will take so much time that I never had to give until now. However, I also had continuously been reading series I got up to date in, and have been surprised at how well written they are. At the mean time, I have finally gotten round to reading (although only about half way through), Magi! Being as breif to the point, magi has some of the best writing in shouen, continuously maintaining a solid believable and unpredictable story that is unique enough to stay fresh.I recommend it to anyone who likes Full metal Achimist, Negima, One piece and other good high quality shouens! (I do like naruto and bleach and stuff, but come on, they arent that the best shouens). Assassination Classroom is another new manga I picked up this year (started = not a lot to read = time to read it) and really, it truly deserves its near top spot in the recently weekly shouen Jump rankings. Its a mild shouen (not much action) with clever comedy that honestly, is fantastically written, and has so much potential to be the best shouen ever (like negima, they could definitly have a twist to mega action and adventure half way through). I highly recommend Both these series (especially Assassination Classroom as its only up to 23 so far) as they, just like everything I post here, are top class and you will most likely NOT FIND ANY BETTER!

Disclaimer: Korosensei strongly disapproves of Tenticle Rape

You think its over? No, Ive got a bit more to write about. I dont mind if you want to have a break and do something else. seriously, go ahead, this post inst going anywhere, just as long as you actually come back to finish it muahaha! MY LITTLE PONY SEASON 3! I cant believe how amazing it has been, all 7 episodes so far have had wonderful characterization,  interesting plot, hilarious comedy and solid lessons! Some examples include Dark Magic for Twilight, Pinkie's Hilarious 4th wall powers, Confronting Bullying Advice for the CMC, a genius conclusion to the Magic duel and a fulfilling redemption for Trixie, Sisterly heartwarming themes for Scootaloo, MORE LUNAAA, and lately, a fantastically developed Rainbow Dash episode with awesome drill Sargent Spitfire. Not to say I havent had my fair share of critics as well; including how vague and generically villainy Sombra was, the lack of Pinkamena and the complete reversal of roles for Rainbow dash in the wonderbolts episode (Im sure we were all expecting HER to be the aggressive role who would be too rash and then later learn the importance of helping others, but instead played a rather passive role and they gave the aggressive role to someone else to allow her to learn of it without her character taking a hit... which  I think is kinda cheap). I can go on and on about my opinions and such, But not everyone here is a brony teehee, so I think that will be enough... for NOW (HAHA I will probably go further in detail later, as I will only have 13 episodes to talk about until season 4... which hopefully is not November next year lol).

Not an understatement

I think that about sums it up. Having finally finished these hard studying exams, I will continue to fulfill my list and relax until uni starts next year. Who knows, maybe I will blog some study tips in future as well that may be of more help to you guys then random opinions of AMGP (Anime, Manga, Games, Ponies). Alyea, I also have plans for this new computer I want to finally buy. Having my HD 6950 2GB GPU already, I gonna get an i5 3750 CPU, 2400MHZ 8GB RAM, 1TB 600Mb/s HDD and the basics such as a gaming case, Motherboard, DVD drive, speakers, OS etc. Whats that? get a console? pfff, LOVE LIVE THE MASTER RACE.

Sorry... I couldnt help it, I love this joke

Overall I think I will be more than ready to jump into my new life next year, free of study and actually having time to DO WHAT I WANT!

Thanks for reading, and dont worry, I haven't forgotten about the competitions I promised. Ive been contemplating wither I should make an official steam group for our site and host competitions on there with Cleft. Of course only the people of this site should know about it, so like I said, if theres only 3 people who actually read this site, then I guess they are the ones who will get the goods, kinda like a reward for loyalty. One of my most valued value thingy. Ironic because Rainbow Dash isn't even my favorite pony.

- Duck

Saturday, November 17

Lets Plays & Walk through's

Dear internet
Can we Please sort some thing out here.
i want you to all know my views on lets plays and walk through's and the difference between them.
My understanding of a lets play is some one going: Heeey i just got this new game and recording them self working through a game their first time.

EG :

a Walk through is some one going: Hey i have played this game heaps and love it and i want to share a video with every one explaining How to get through the game. they already know how to do this and have no trouble doing it

EG:

that is all ...
-cleft lip kid

Thursday, November 8

Miska: good music

Hello Music lovers.
I have started producing my own music.
I am creating music of a wide range of genera's including: House , Techno, Dubstep, Hardstyle and many more. You can check me out at :
My Fb Page : https://www.facebook.com/MiskaMaskedOne
I have only just started it so if you could spare me a like it would be much appreciated

You can also follow me on sound cloud here: http://soundcloud.com/cleftlipkid

I really really hope you like what you hear :) i have more music coming very soon :P

Till then

Cleft Lip Kid

Tuesday, November 6

THE WALKING DEAD !!!!

Ohkai people im going to keep this short. 

I have a HUGE back log of games to blog about for you all :) and i will TRY to get to them but no promises. 

My list includes : 
The walking dead 
Batman arkam asylum 
Borderlands 1 
Mass Effect 
Dishonored
Fall Out NV 

.... thats all i think :) but that is still alot to blog about for me :) 
i will return soon :) 

BUT FIRST ! 
more playing of THE Walking DEAD! 

cya ! 

Monday, October 22

BC2 > BF3 (Why I think Battlefield 3 is inferior to BF:BC2)

Heyooo. Just thought I'd let you know we're not dead. I'll be coming soon with a a few posts right before our massive exams, but for now, here is an argument I want to show you that supports my recent views of the superiority of Bad company 2 over battlefield 3 (yea, I had that view, if you didnt know yet).

Credit to Ganondorf_is_God over at Reddit (i.e. he wrote this amazing thing), Please, sit back, relax and dig into what I cant possibly agree more with!

________________________________________________________________________________
Originally I was writing why I like BC2 more than BF3 for a forum. Over an hour it grew to this. I'm curious what other people think as well.
Quite simply from someone who tries to objectively view games I find myself in a situation where I can say, easily, that Bad Company 2 was a better 'game' than Battlefield 3.
There are numerous reasons why:
Health/Damage disparity: In BC2 you could take 1 or 2 more bullets from nearly every source. This made headshots worth more and made it so if you were skillful enough you could manage to get a kill when surprised by an enemy. In actuality you still have 100 hp... its the gun damages that were altered.
In BC2 the weapons of the offensive kits did about 14-16.7 damage per bullet. In BF3 they do 26-31. This means you die in 4 bullets in BF3 and 7 in BC2.
The Guns: "Man I really like the ak-47! It's just feels like the best for me." "Yeah man, I know that feeling. The FAMAS is just a killing machine in my hands!" That crap is an illusion. Here are the gun stats from BC2[1] and BF3[2] .
In BF3 almost all the guns are homogeneous in every way. Every gun class (assault rifle, submachine, etc) may have 12 different skins but there are only 2 different guns. They vary in this way. Either one gun has a lower fire rate but more damage or a higher fire rate and lower damage. Of course once you categorize them this way you may notice that your favorite gun isn't the most statistically superior in the 'lower fire rate higher damage' category and is beat out by another gun with equal stats in everything except reload time. And even then the reload time is only .05 better.
Hell, here are Modern Warfare 3's gun stats[3] . They're almost identical to BF3's in every way. They even kill in the same number of bullets.
In BC2 you had more variety. Different guns had special properties. Some had their damage drop off in different ways at a distance, some didn't drop off at all. Some guns had unique firing modes. Some let you switch weapons faster. Some had different spread patterns (mostly shotguns). They had the same homogenization issue but on a much smaller level. Every gun had a statistically similar pair or two... but not 5-8 pairs.
I also enjoyed the potency of the pistols in BC2.
The Maps: The maps in BC3 were almost entirely designed for consoles (by that I mean their max player cap per server). There were very few maps that played properly with 64 players. Hell, on most maps even 32 was pushing it. Quite frankly... this is incredibly obvious from a design standpoint.
Hell, even the god damn vehicle spawns don't adjust for players. It's like they wanted enough vehicles for only 32 players at all times. This creates a situation where on 32 vs 32 on several maps in BF3 you literally don't have enough transportation out of your base. You could fill every seat on every vehicle and still leave several people walking absurd distances. And since most people roll off by themselves you get half your damn base walking.
Too much close quarters combat. They appear to have been trying to cater to the CoD crowd here. I know that sounds like something a forum troll would say but seriously... CoD maps are all about closed sightlines and close quarters combat.
Battlefield is about large maps and large amounts of players battling it out with tons of vehicles and armaments. There are plenty of open areas in BF3 but they aren't places where you should normally be fighting. The funnel the players via incentives and choke points. An incentive is having an objective in a tunnel. A choke point is having to go into a tunnel to get to the objective. BF3 made the mistake of having a god damn inventive in a god damn choke point.
The system that Battlefield's 64 player combat created was that you didn't need large amounts of incentives or choke points to control the action. How it worked was simple. There were so many players that you were literally incapable of not running into someone.
Of course there many subtleties. Since there were two main bases you knew which direction the player would be coming from. Since players could spawn from captured points you knew that was also a possible direction they could be coming from. If you manage to come from an unexpected direction you were almost guaranteed a kill.
This is why crap like Rush is just that, crap. You have one ingress through one or two choke points towards the objective. They know where you are coming from and where you are going. This creates what I like to call a killing field. A killing field is an impassable @#$% house of people camping behind better cover than you.
This includes: Respawns close to the objectives Better accuracy because they're camping (being prone) Smaller profile to hit (they're prone so you are going to have a hard time hitting/seeing them) Escalating advantage (you take out on point and then there is only one left. This makes it so you can't overwhelm one point when there forces are split. If 32 are fighting 32 and one side has a huge advantage I wonder who wins)
The Vehicles: Honestly this is a big one. So many things were changed. First off the unlock system makes vehicular combat incredibly unfair for new players. This is especially true for anything that flys. The unlocks for jets are what let them fulfill a function for your team. A new player in a jet has no way to defend themselves from the one billion rockets locked on to them or that Ace Pilot Lt. General RapeStorm coming his way with missiles locked on, his codpiece ready, and his extra large pack of flares.
No vehicle in a Battlefield game (hell, no games I can think of) should start of useless. You can barely attack anything that isn't another jet with the stuff it starts with. You have to 'unlock' crap that lets you actually contribute to the team below. Hell, a lot of jet players don't even take such unlocks and just continue to play the super fun jet mini-game in the sky that has 0 influence of the games objective. It's like everyone is playing Quidditch... except everyone on the ground is the chaser while the jet players are the pointless rabble of unnecessary extra positions.
The whole lock-on thing in general kinda sucks. It forces you to bring certain unlocks. It also raises another problem... too many players. The more players in the game the more lock-on sources... but the amount of vehicles doesn't change.
Bad Company 2 did it right and a bit wrong. Vehicles had a powerful presence and were hard to deal with but still being vulnerable to a foot soldier. Even someone ready to take one down would have to have a bit of skill to do it. You had two options hit it with dumbfire explosives (or the vaguely 'guided' launchers) or tag that beast with a tracer dart. This was a solid system because if they were flying in a way that made them hard to hit with the dart pistol then their crew had an incredibly hard time aiming.
When every player can lock-on to your vehicle with a two hit kill launcher from anywhere on the map you need to have a system for the pilot to be able avoid those lock-ons. This results in a single individual being almost incapable of taking down a chopper/jet.
The only problem was when you had a blackbird at the top of the skybox. This created several problems... namely that you literally couldn't stop it. They were higher than you so you couldn't ascend up to them in another blackbird because you couldn't aim your guns straight up... so they would spray you with miniguns until you exploded. They had a permanent floating spawn point.
My solution... lower the damn skybox.
My last issue is the disabled vehicle status in Battlefield 3. It caused several problems. 1. Investment vs reward: In order to take it down in a traditional manner you need to role engineer. You risk life and limb to fire 2-5 rpgs at this beast. You may get lucky and have the rear be exposed or you might risk even more trying to get a line of sight on its ass. You take your shots and bam... 100 points. They all get out of the disabled pos and either get away or get picked off by the rest of your team. Sure you can nab one too but what the hell.
You rolled engineer to blow these things up. A big hulking monstrosity full of players being destroyed should result in the points for 1x hulking monstrosity and 4x players housed within.
  1. Only two good ways to blow them up and be properly rewarded. C4 or landmines. C4 is for active destruction (see a tank and blow it up). You can destroy it all at once and everyone inside. Landmines are for passive destruction (ambiently protecting your bases and maps). Land mines have the same property of being able to destroy armor in one go. You need 3 each to completely destroy a vehicle. Additionally landmines don't despawn when you die (which I agree with... but not when launchers aren't viable like they are in BF3) which further compounds their advantage.
The Server Browser: Holy crap. The battle-log is just that... a nice floating log in a toilette. When it works it works well enough. But it never works. Either someone appears offline for no reason, the chat doesn't work (voice/text), the chat does work but randomly omits certain things, and so much more. Playing with your friends on the same team has never been so difficult.
My main complaint is it has all sorts of unique issues in every browser. It's a hulking crapsack. Battlefield has a history of releasing unusable server browsers but in this day and age... come on. It feels like BF2142 all over again.
The Ranking System: Not too many gripes here. It takes a bit too long to level up into class defining mechanics. Hell, it takes too long to level up without resorting to stupid crap like MAV point farming (float the thing to the top of the map and just get points for marking crap and get 1st place at the end of the round).
The Little Things: Lets start with scope glare. Well all sniper scopes have the same two types of glare. A crapload or none at all. That's right that 6x has the same amount of glare as a 12x. Fine, sun glinting off glass is sun glinting off glass. I find it renders snipers and even more compromising class. Not only with all the new players role recon/sniper/1337assassin... they will now role one and be easily targetable at a distance. It also discourages scouting via scope and instead only shooting at enemies you can readily see without a scope.
The flashlight. I just personally find it retarded. Sure even in real life you can temporarily render someone incapable of seeing properly if your light source has a high luminous intensity. I might also add that your eyes aren't nearly as susceptible to this if they are adjusted to daylight.
How certain unlocks are unlocked on a per-gun basis. I don't know what kind of mentally handicapped soldier I am that I can't just remove the scope I unlocked on one gun onto another. Hell, I can even put it onto another that uses the same kind of accessory rail. This exists solely to pad out unlocks.
Destructibility: How BF3 has less destructibility on maps then BC2. Buildings don't collapse, very few walls are destructible, very little cover is destructible, and generally less crap being blow-up-able. This is just another feature that was lost. I enjoyed the changing dynamic of the maps during a game. In the first ten minutes people took cover in this building. At the twenty minute mark that building was a hole in the ground so they all moved on to new locations. That rooftop where all those noob snipers camp bothering you? Blow it the @#$% up.
Realism is not equivalent to fun nor is it the antithesis: People complain about realism in games or want more. If realism adds to the game in a positive way then implement the feature. If it doesn't... then avoid it like the plague.
I'd like to talk about skill in Cod games. Your aim in CoD is far from the most important thing a player needs to succeed. The only real skill in CoD is your ability to move around the map in a way that offers you the most advantageous sight lines while denying your opponent theirs. Being able to do this in an unpredictable manner is the highest level of skill in that game.
As a gamer who enjoyed Unreal Tournament, Quake, Halo, and more I understand how this kind of skill is important... but I also understand how being shot at and dying with zero chance of retaliation in a 'game' is not fun.
Creating a game that has reasonable health pools along with this skill in using sight lines is what creates a competitive fps game with a high skill cap. People often mistake this for the argument of health vs damage. It isn't. It's encounter duration vs player ability (using sight lines and accuracy).
CoD is popular because it's modern setting which appeals to a wide demographic (and it's a setting which lets new players adjust faster and become invested in quicker due to it's familiarity) and how easy it is to do good (and bad).
In Closing: Battlefield Bad Company 2 was a lot closer to the sweet spot in 'encounter duration vs player ability' and differentiated itself from the competition.
Battlefield 3 while advancing graphics steps further from that sweet spot while attempting to play like its competition. These two factors make for a game that is less fun, less skillful, less strategic, and a game that no longer exists within it's own niche.
To me personally it feels like Battlefield 3 wanted to become CoD like draw in its user base and instead of evolving the features of the Battlefield IP (large combat, vehicles, etc) simply used them by saying "hey we have this feature and CoD doesn't".
I like CoD (as a player, not a consumer) and I like Battlefield. But I don't like what Battlefield 3 became. All it did was get better graphics, appeal to CoD's user base, lose a ton of features, and stagnate.

Sunday, September 23

Away for a bit

Hey every one
unfortunatly due to yr 12 and exams i will be taking a break from bloging
i have been getting a few games played and have finished mass effect, border lands 1 and fear 3 while starting fall out NV

I will update you all when i have time

till then

-Cleft Out