Anyone else have that MOST HATED AGGRAVATING enemy in Mass Effect multiplayer? For us it’s the damn Combat Engineers. Always setting up F$*^ing turrets during a hack, or dropping a magical “self-setting-up” turret even if you kill them! Well in this comic, we show our “appreciation” towards them.
-Ian
So me and Justin were playing some firefight, and I managed to zap an Elite in the nuts with the laser. I made some comment about how I should have gotten an achievement called “Precision Comedy” and voilà , a comic idea was born. Justin said that Penny Arcade did something similar. Anyhoot, there it is. An amazing story behind every comic!
-Ian
So Duke Nukem Forever got a lot of bad press. Lots of people expecting it to be the best thing since Sliced Bread 2: Revenge of the Jelly, when it totally wasn’t. A game that’s been in development for 12 years?! Really? You were really expecting some masterpiece? Duke Nukem 3D was never like that, the thing that was so awesome about DN3D was that you could interact with pretty much everything. Strippers that showed you their… tassles, pissin’ in the urinal, kickn’ ass and chewing bubble gum were just some of the things that made DN3D great, not the amazing story, gameplay, or technical triumph. And I would have to say that Duke Nukem Forever does the same exact thing. It’s an entertaining game. A lot of reviews I read seemed to be very highbrow, as if Duke’s humor was below them. Get over it! I’m not trying to say that it was such an amazing gaming experience, nope, just saying that if you took it for what it was, it was pretty entertaining. Maybe that nostalgia has worn off, if so, I’m sorry you grew up. But me, I’ll take that immature humor anytime!
-Ian
Recently I was followed on Twitter by a cool, new, up and coming gaming website by the name of New Gamer Nation. Joe, the site’s creator, and I exchanged a few emails and Justin and I were invited to join him on his gaming podcast. Be sure to check it out – Episode 3 – Mass Battlefield Effect. We talk about what games we’re all currently playing as well as motion gaming, achievements & tropies, and the expensiveness of gaming as a hobby. It was a lot of fun and a  great opportunity and chat games with a fellow gamer! Be sure to follow them on twitter @NewGamerNation!
-Ian
Standing on my soap boxIf you haven’t seen or heard then “you must be blind as Anne Frank!” because the Playstion Network has been down for “maintenance” since early April (Thank you Clerks 2 for the Anne Frank comment). A lot of gamer blogs and gamer sites are commenting on the outage, and I thank them for their gaming journalism and really getting to the bottom of the issue. Though for the most part, they can only get as much as SONY releases to the public. Basically a person or group of hackers were able to penetrate deep into SONY’s security and access personal information on the 70+million users on PSN. Obviously SONY pulled down the Playstation Network and Qricotiaosicuaty services (Qriocity). More recent news is that the hacker(s) also got to the SONY Online Entertaintment servers (SOE) with the same personal information being compromised, but for around 20 millions users. Justin and I are familiar with SOE because the rocky relationship we had with them while playing Star Wars Galaxies – arguably the most amazing MMORPG… “before the darks times, before the Empire” ‘s combat update. But I digress.
I’ve been keeping up with the outage because I would like to get back online with my PS3, but for me it’s not because I am itching for some online gaming. No, it’s because I have some DLC for Mortal Kombat that I would really like to download! I would say that’s about the biggest disappointment, aside from not being able to download the newest Back to the Future Game epidsode. But while staying informed about the situation, I read some comments on a blog about how big of a hit this is to SONY, and how the Playstation 3 can “only play games that I put in it now”. The blogger sounded pretty upset at the idea that he could only play the games he physically owns. God help us all if we no longer play the mounds and mounds of PSN games that we no longer have access to (temporarily). He made no mention for himself that he was upset because he cannot play with his online buddies. He alluded to other gamers being upset for that reason, but not himself. I suppose it depends on the kind of gamer you are, and whose allegiance you swore to when the console arms race began. But the fact that everyone is up in arms about PSN being down and “if they don’t get it back up soon, I’m switching to Xbox 360!” is pretty ridiculous. Are we that reliant on being connected that we can’t manage to have an outage on a network THAT’S FREE!? How did we manage to game during the N64 and PSX years? Oh that’s right, we planned hangout sessions and played something called “Split Screen”. A term that is rarely used or seen on the back of video games anymore. Even during the original Xbox, Gamecube, and PS2 days, when there were only specific games that had online connectability people still managed to play in the same room on the same TV. And this was BEFORE everyone had a large HDTV. It seems like we’re such spoiled brats nowadays. For instance people are acting like SONY owes them something for the PSN outage. So far SONY has offered up a few “We’re sorry” gifts to all PSN users. A 30 day trial of PSN Plus, or a free month to those PSN Plus users already subscribed. They’ve even mentioned a few free games. For me, that’s fine. Others, however, aren’t so pleased with that. I can understand an outage being frustrating to players that are solely on PS3 OR have most of their time and energy invested in PS3. But if you have two or all three of the major consoles, why not spend some time with them during this outage? I’m mainly on Xbox 360 because that is where all of my friends are. So when the outage hit, I was easily able to let my PS3 rest while I play games on 360. Even during the outage I have managed to enjoy playing Mortal Kombat on PS3 without the desire to be connected. The first weekend of its release me, Javier, Justin, and Mike all gathered at my house and played a 4 player brawl. It was a lot of fun! Granted I look forward to playing online against my brother, but I don’t feel any anger or rush to play him online.
But aren’t I the same guy who complained about SOE when they “ruined” Star Wars Galaxies? Yes, and I still agree with my gripes back then, and now. My gripes about Star Wars Galaxies’ demise wasn’t in reference to their servers being hacked by a group of losers with nothing better to do. I was paying on a monthly basis to play a game that I enjoyed. SOE decided that the game I was playing wasn’t fun enough, and without my consent decided to change the game from under me. Though I continued to pay, I sadly watched as the magic and enjoyment of the game slowly disappeared. Instead of attempting to keep its loyal fan base, SOE decided to change their online gaming model to hold onto fans that were switching over to World of Warcraft, instead of listening to their devoted Star Wars fan base. Essentially it was a knife in the back of fans who were prepared to pay and play the original Star Wars Galaxies until the servers were completely turned off and retired, like myself.
So has SONY finally gotten what it deserves? I would say no. SONY is definitely feeling the pain of having to completely rebuild its PSN security, but I think the gamers are put out more than the corporation. A wise butler once asked his battered super hero master, “Why do we fall sir? So we can learn to pick ourselves back up.” I think that is a key saying for SONY. Through these petty hacker attacks, they’re now beefing up their security, and will know who and what to lookout for in the future. I don’t think that it will make them a new or more tolerant fan loving SONY. If anything it is going to make it more difficult for those gamers who enjoy hombrewed games and applications; the users who were mildly breaking their Terms and Conditions Agreement. SONY will come down harder now on anyone looking at their PS3 or PSN funny. I look forward to PSN coming back up, but I am neither pissed at SONY nor pulling my hair out while trying to figure out what to do with my “free” time. I think people complaining need to chill out a bit and go do something more entertaining… like rearranging their sock drawers.
So this is an idea we’ve had since Halo: Reach Multiplayer Beta. Basically, the splash damage and power on the grenades in the Beta was so overpowered it was a bit ridiculous. If you couldn’t get a shot on a guy, what do you do? Toss a grenade (or mess of grenades) in the opponents general vicinity and “KABOOM” he’s dead! That’s not to say that the grenades in Reach aren’t still overpowered, but they did tone them down. I personally have died so much more from grenades in Reach than from any other Halo game! Sorta of annoying. But I know that Justin get’s absolutely pissed when he’s completely dominating opponents with the DMR and ends up dying by what he calls “no talent hacks” to spam the grenade button to kill him. Long story short, he was bitching one day about the stupid grenade boots that his Spartan was wearing. Apparently they were attracting all grenades from the entire map directly to him, and no other player. It was humorous hearing him bitch, and thus, this comic was born. Voilà ! Halo: Reach Grenade Boots, get yours today!
-Ian
Battlefield Playing History:
If you’ve been reading the comics then you should have noticed by now that Ian and I are Halo players, not necessarily good Halo players, but Halo players all the same.  However a few summers ago Dice released Battlefield 1943 as an Xbox 360 arcade and I picked it up on whim and had fun playing it for a couple of weeks.  (I also got Ian to buy it and he had fun playing it as well)  Do to unfortunate circumstances I lost my 360 and just about every video game I own so I was forced to restart my game collection this past winter.  During the period of time I only had enough money to pick up one game so I was relegated to playing that game and whatever arcade games I had purchased.  So I began to play Battlefield 1943 again and realized how much I loved that game.  So I went and picked up Battlefield Bad Company 2 when I had enough money and I had a blast playing the game.  I brought it over to Ian’s place and we played for a while and I got him to buy it as well.  Battlefield is a great change of pace to Halo or perhaps its a modern time set game that plays most closely to Halo, I’m not sure, but it’s a hell of a lot of fun to play.  So I couldn’t wait to try out Vietnam.
Vietnam:
The game is enormous fun to play.  The sound is excellent, the game looks beautiful, and I love that everything is time specific.  What I mean by time specific is that no guns can use optics of any kind except for sniper rifles.  That means players will have to get used to the iron sights.  The weapons themselves are time specific, only allowing you to use weapons that were used in that era, same goes for the vehicles you use as well.  A nice addition is the soundtrack that Dice added for this game, which again is time specific.  Getting in a vehicle and hearing CCR blaring is a fun addition to destroying the enemies with tank shells to the dome.
Speaking of vehicles, the helicopters in the game, from what I’ve seen, are not nearly as much of a menace as they are in BFBC2.  While admittedly I’ve only been playing conquest on the 360 and I’ve only played a couple of hours, you can shoot down a chopper with a weapon equipped with magnum ammo.  I watched Ian shoot down a Huey with a PPSH, a engineer weapon, and I think he was the only one shooting at it.  Sure he used up all of his ammo but he took it down and it only took about a minute and 1/2 to do.  *Warning I’m a terrible helicopter pilot* but the helicopters seem easier to fly than in BFBC2, but again I’m no ace pilot.
It seems that in Vietnam the sensitivity is actually increased from BFBC2, so players might find the controls a little too responsive and might need to tone them down. Â I’ve heard some players on their youtube videos say the guns seem to feel a little different but I haven’t noticed that myself.
All in all the expansion was worth the 1200 Microsoft points I spent to buy it and if you like Battlefield owning this expansion is a must.
Bought, played, and beat The Force Unleashed 2 already…
Keep an eye out for my review on it.
-Ian
So Justin and I have been playing our separate Fallout: New Vegas games. We’ve been having all sorts of different outcomes. I tended to destroy the Legion crew that burned down Nipton, which in turn is hurting me as I am constantly being hunted! Meanwhile in Justin’s game, he left the Legion jerk wads as they were, and has been zooming through the story… Guess that’s what I get for trying to deliver justice in the wastelands!
-Ian
