Warlock.

slightly relevant to last lan.

Age of Conan F2P

Yeah. It's free to play now. No idea if it's still any good, but it might be worth a try.

Prepare your email for an onslaught if you do sign up though, Funcom just loves telling you what they are up to.

the jack.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVtr3QL-PXY

LegPRO

too much free time

JIMMY FUCKING GLASS.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KejwqhLDeOs

this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKQn-gpeJsU&feature=related

Sexism: how to participate in it.

Being the seedy mofo I am I was lurking the seddit forums and came across this. I watched all of it and personally found it entertaining and possibly informative. If you got some spare time check this out.

www.kathack.com

yfw
naaaaa-na-na-na-na-na-naaa-naaaaa-nanan-aananannanananaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

My Tracks

Check 'em.

something
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5X8UQQZ1R8Q
something else
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApSNpAUIeeY
wubstep attempt 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JxecvP5mjs
wubstep attempt 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbGtv6PQAa0

So... Lan?

I'm able to have a lan at mine saturday night from 3pm, till 11am sunday morning.

Move along

Nothing to see here.

LAN tiem

LAN at mine on Saturday night, 2 days. I have work until about 6:30, so start arriving about then.

Make sure you try to get SC2 installed so we can play line wars which people seem to be fond of.

Also, pokemon tourney. use this to make and test your teams. The rules are it is a mono tourney, so all your pokemon have to share a type. Also, this will be a UU tourney so you can't use anything in the uber or OU list linked in the PO interface. This only bans the really strong guys so most pokemon are still available.

Bring stuff to swim in and i'll to to crank up the temperature on the pool.

see you then

Review: Test drive Unlimited 2

The cars handle like trains
The developers have tried to create facebook with cars.
Most work has been put into customisation options for your avatars.

Billions of expensive packs of DLC are going to be released and will be necessary to make the game worthwhile for online play.

also, people who pre-ordered it full price off amazon got 4 exclusive cars >.<

If you don't care about any of this then this game has potential to be fun.


No, I haven't played it.
I'm just basing this off what the beta testers have said and what they repeatedly and publicly complained to the developers about, which has been completely ignored.

So this isn't really a review, just a bit of a winge.

The Secret of Monkey Island

Hey. I was just reminiscing on how jesus Monkey Island 3 - The Curse of Monkey Island is. I first played it at least 7 years ago, though I last played it in year 11 and can confirm my love of it is not just from nostaligia - it is the best in the series and the best adventure game I've played. It has awesome visuals (cartoon) characters, wit, problems, inventions etc. If you get a moment, play it (a walkthrough will almost certainly be necessary at some stages).

Battlefield: Bad Company 3

Any doubt that this will be the best videogaming year ever is henceforth dispelled.

Jizz

Mafia 2 Review

It has been about a month since I finished Mafia 2, a feat which took maybe 15-20 hours, not including my stint with the many DLCs. Though my memories grow more and more vague, they are still fond ones; so I thought I should try to convey them to you all as best I could, before they are entirely disappeared beyond "I think it was pretty good."

Mafia 2 is one of two single-player games I've played this holidays that are gripping enough to have made me want to play them erry day and finish them. The other was Black Ops, but that wasn't nearly as good, partly because it's just more of the same. Competition to this claim includes Splinter Cell 1 (which I have finished but it took about 6 months), Bioshock 1, FO:NV, Mass Effect 2, Amnesia, Starcraft 2 and I'm sure many more which I've forgotten. All amazing games, greatly acclaimed both within and outside of DC, yet ones which I only open 1 or 2 times per month and then quit after a short session.

Mafia 2's combination of story, setting, characters and voice-acting is the best I've played for years. I think that this is because of the connection created between the main character Vito Scaletta and the player. Vito is a Sicilian immigrant to the USA in the years leading up to WWII. His poverty line existence in the new country, coupled with seeing his father work a low income, dead-end job, causes Vito to turn to a life of crime in an attempt to make something of himself.

During the course of the game, this sees him succeed in (SMALL SPOILERS) making bogus amounts of money, moving between the poorest and most expensive suburbs in the city, driving beastly 50s sports automobiles and penetrating lots of whores (though far fewer than his chief partner in crime, Joe.)

This, however, is coupled with many downfalls, including going to prison, being summoned to fight for America, and the loss of family and friends. It is this struggle of Vito's - his and the player's desire to keep rising from a series of increasingly worse kicks to the teeth - that makes the story so addictive to pursue. It was not only my desire to collect the finest and most perfectly tuned cars that made me keep playing, but after a while, also the sense of paranoia that had built - wanting to know what challenge to my self-earned, "made man" lifestyle was next to be overcome. It truly draws one in to the volatility of the life of organised crime.

Unlike what I recall from the GTA series, there is also a more realistic sense of hesitation due to morals etc. evident in this game's approach to crime. For example, Vito's sister appears several times in the game and is increasingly more disturbed by Vito's behaviour and requests that he become legit. But Vito's world-weary regret and conviction towards his chosen path are masterfully demonstrated to the player through his narrative. "Where I grew up, the only people who mattered were the ones who took what they wanted."

Furthermore, the mafia brutality and politics are all very high quality, Godfather-esque stuff, and I think that and the 1950s are underused as game settings.

So, that is why it is stand-out, I think. Now on to gameplay, graphics, physics etc.

At a glance it looks like a GTA clone in many ways, but it isn't really in any way except for the free-roaming and car stealing. The story is much more structured - you almost always have an objective for the main storyline, but similarly almost always still have the option of roaming the city. This city is more than big enough for the purposes of the story, but it's not h00J and there are not a great deal of non-story things to do really. Pimping rides, pimping your dude's clothes (HHHNNNNGGGG dem jackets) and robbing gun stores for lots of cash and infinite ammo (then making it your fortress as you slaughter infinite cops from behind cover) were the crux of it for me. If you intend to play, get thinking of funny 6-character numberplates. eg.
6CUNTS,
6DICKS,
3FUCKS,
UJELLY (fastest car),
U--MAF (second fastest car),
GET-IN (supercharged taxi),
POLICE (stolen, supercharged police car),
KIDIES (pedo little milktruck with sweet decal art that for some reason when you buy a supercharger gets an orchestra of horns that play a tune rather than a conventional honk, and yet it's still the slowest thing in the game) etc.

I've not played a lot of PC drivers, but the driving was awesome. There is a real contrast in speed and handling between a shit WWII-era car and wicked-sick mid-50s sports car. Handling seems a bit more down-to-earth than GTA, so it's really important to learn at which speeds you can pull off particular maneuvers. There are some very good chases, with you both fleeing and pursuing, and fellow civilian road-users can really mix things up with their ridiculously succinct freeway lane-changes sometimes. There's some really hilarious moments on the roads.

To be brief about graphics and physics, they are both mostly very good. Destruction during firefights looks and functions very realistically, however when driving there are a few fences and walls you should be able to drive through but can't, and conversely a few which are enormous but can still be driven through. The game chugged a bit for me during some of the larger firefights, but often a restart fixed it somewhat.

The shooting doesn't look like much to start with - you only have a big, fat, crude crosshair and a zoom-in on that crosshair. It turns red when over a bad guy. However as I learned it's subtleties I really began to enjoy firefights. Pistols have smaller zoom, accuracy and damage than an M1 garand (my personal favourite) but their RoF can help when aiming for dem headshots. There are about 5 SMGs to choose from which is wonderfully mafia. Shotgun is OP in the way that it 1-shots at better range than most shotguns, however getting in close to dudes can be fun yet suicidal. The cover system is quite good, my main issue was that it was a bit difficult to use the move-between-covers button fluidly. Combat AI didn't seem really intelligent or anything, but it was damn effective sometimes when a dude is in cover and only comes out every 1 minute and you forget about him and he shotguns you as you walk around the corner. Sometimes a big group of people rush towards your cover and you need to change weapon and do your best to take them down really quickly, 'cuz close guys hurt heaps. There's a fair bit of fist-fighting too, which I liked, and I mixed it up sometimes by just pulling out a gun on small-time blokes and raping them.

What I've played of the DLCs wasn't very good (they lack much story or new gameplay), and their main selling point seems to be the car customisation. They introduce superchargers to put on cars (in addition to the simple tuning options of the original), and entirely new sports cars that are so obscenely faster than the vanilla cars, that there are no roads in the game long enough for one to reach max speed. The DLCs take place in the same city as the main game, and in thinking back to the original storyline while playing the DLC, it is both disturbing and exhilarating that you can cross the map from a standing start in about 10 seconds.

I think that's about it. Ask me for the install files if you are interested. Or you could buy it LOL.

Squishy's Automotive Faggotry *mini*

A fat middle aged man who has a couple of Pulitzer prizes who doesn't give a shit about cars reviews a hybrid and is better than Clarkson

Some insurance agency create an infographic of all the Autobots from the 80's transformers cartoons to get advertising, do it wrong, then get raped by the real fans in the comments section.

So you don't have to bother scanning through the comments I have compiled a bunch of the mistakes for you:

- Optimus Prime was originally a cab-over truck.
- A number of vehicles are shown that were built after the show ended in 1987, including a 1994 Volkswagen New Beetle.
- Hound was an American Army Jeep, not a Japanese "Jeep".
- Chromedome... is just wrong...
- Ultra Magnus, like Optimus Prime, was a cab-over Freightliner, not a Mac truck.
- Jazz was a Porsche 935
- Freeway was a C4 Corvette
yeah... theres more but i cbf. wikipedia it or something. Not to mention the images are all fan art, sometime very dodgy, and many more autobots are missing.

AoE Online

Check it.

Grotesque, mutilated penises

LAN!

so, keen to do a lan since i got back, and have permission to host one tommorow night..... or possibly the night after.
keen for either a lan or a dnd.
would have to start after 2pm friday.

Battlefield Bad Company 2 review

I am starting up the reviews again with a review of DICE's latest shooter.
I was reading through my Atomic magazine awards for 2010 and this game was a favorite of theirs so I downloaded 2 gigs of map pack and jumped into the multilayer again.

Although I didn't play a great deal of BF2, and most of it was spent sniping Chicko, I think I understood why the franchise was successful. Most FPS games simulate shooting people which is logical enough; BF simulated battle. You felt like you were a part of something greater still with a role to fulfill, or just to be a dick and put C4 on your chopper. It was always going to be interesting to see what the developers would do with improved graphics and to see if they could steal some players from CoD4.

The Crucifixion:
The initial release of Bad Company 2's multilayer was a farce. There were a multitude of problems involving a terrible lobby system and latency issues that made the game pretty much unplayable. This was a shame because there seemed to be a general feeling that this game could be epic.

The Resurrection:
Many months later an update was released that fixed almost all of the problems with the game. This was fantastic. Without all the stupid lag, I was free to go weapons hot.

The best feature of BC2, and the selling point that they flogged hard was the destructible terrain. Almost every building was destructible. This was done much better than in Crysis. It now took more than a gentle breeze to topple a fortress. Only explosives are capable of damaging a structure, which is fine because 3/4 classes carry them regularly. In many games the objective is generally shat on by both teams and what used to be a shelter to hide from fire while activating deactivating a bomb becomes a death trap and requires lots of team support to get.

Probably my best memory of BC2 was firing through a window, only to have the walls either side of me blown out. knowing my little piece of wall was next I bolted around the house never being able to stay in cover for more than a few seconds because it kept disappearing. So you know have a counter to camping, sweet. There is also a great effect that you go deaf and your ears ring if you are too close to an explosion which makes it really realistic and gets your heart pumping.

Classes:

There are 4 classes in BC2. Each class has a specialist weapon and ability set. You also have a role to fill and gets points for doing it. These points unlock your class's weapons and abilities and increase your overall rank. It's a pretty good system, and the numbers that appear after a kill or capture or anything are most satisfying and help justify you are not wasting your time, even though your probably are. Its a good system that keeps you motivated and on task, and as with any game ever, leveling up feels great.

Assault:
My least played class, the assault class is the predictable assault rifle guy. You get some cool weapons and some even cooler attachments for it. The most popular is the grenade launcher which is good for killing groups of guys and blasting holes in walls. Any OHKO weapon like this will obviously be abused and is abused, but its not nearly as bad as it could be. Combine the grenade launcher with hand grenades, your ammo box ability and a grenade capacity upgrade and you have a very effective class at saturating an area with explosives. The other attachments are the shotgun attachment which is great when in buildings, and the smoke canister launcher which is good for covering yourself and team mates and more importantly, pissing off snipers.
Assault is quite popular and I guess is the main attack force of your army but I found its style of play unfulfilling went not carry a shotgun and C4.

Medic:
The medic class was done really well in Bad Company 2. He is the master of LMG, healing and reviving. He is also a point whore. He gets some cool 200 clip weapons which have recoil controllable enough to sustain long periods of fire. Emptying a gun of 200 bullets is a great feeling, and even better knowing the guy hiding behind those rocks is wondering when you are going to run out. As a medic you generally float behind the other classes throwing out med kits to heal them, and using your magic metal plates to cure guys of their headshot wounds. This class was fun to play because you feel like the responsible guy on your team. Best part is, the medics on both teams (US and Russia) look like someones dad from the 70's, in camo.

Recon:
Now we are getting into the good stuff. The 'recon' class is a sniper class, with a few more team support options. You get these cool little motion sensor mine things that you can throw really far. They pick up bad guys for your team and help you protect your nest. You get the choice of C4 or a mortar strike. C4 is pretty obvious. The mortar strike is a pair of binoculars that you can focus on a target to call in off map arty. This has many cool uses such as destroying tanks, flushing out campers and saturating the objective. The sniper rifles you get are really diverse. You start off with a big bolt action M24, and unlock semiautomatic and even full auto snipers. My personal treasure is the last gun, the M95. Capable of shooting the pilot out of a helicopter, this beast makes a great sound and has been my trusty friend for a while now. Him and my magnum make a dynamite duo. Another cool feature of Recon class is the marksman bonus you get for ridiculously long range headshots. Finally the best thing about recon, you get to look like a shrub.

Engineer:
My beloved engie. If you play US, you are a black guy with a helmet. If you are Russian, a terrorist in a balaclava. The engineer hasn't changed much from BF2. You still get a main weapon, a pistol, an explosive of some kind and a the thing they use to put the wheels on F1 cars in the pits. The engineer only gets to use sub-machine guns which is great for me because I have a bit of a subby fetish. The mini AK and UMP are lots of fun and sound like gentle rain on a tin roof. Each class gets the option of using at tracer dart pistol that you can lock your RPGs onto. This is a great weapon to have, giving tanks and sometimes choppers no escape from a RPG. You get 3 RPGs, the RPG-7 standard, the noobtube, and an interesting weapon that behaves almost exactly the same way as the rocket launcher from HL2. You can also trade them in for a rather dull but effective landmine. You can spec your engineer to carry more ammo, be more effective against flesh, or more against armor. The majority of my time in the BC2 world is spent hunting tanks, and boy is it satisfying. No feeling is greater than killing an APC with 4 guys in it and watching the points flood in.

Vehicles:
Although not a class they need to be mentioned somewhere because they are the life and blood of your team on some maps. You get a good variety of vehicles. Attack helicopters, Transport choppers, APCs, main battle tanks, Hummers, ATVs and a tiny remote control helicopter. The rest of them speak for themselves and are pretty well balanced and enjoyable. The helicopter is a UAV that you control from a little monitor. It flies around scouting out bad guys and can call in a hellfire missile strike making it very useful, deadly and entertaining.


You get to pick one ability for your vehicles, mainly for your tanks and choppers. The choices are from extra armor, better sights, better damage, faster reload, smoke and an alternate weapons package. These are subtle but useful changes. There is much satisfaction in a tank battle in being able fire 3 shots off before the enemy does due to reload or escaping with smoke.

Maps:
This is a big feature of the game. The maps are set in interesting locations an have lots of features to play with or hide behind. Spawn camping is nearly impossible which is good news. There are two main game modes: conquest and rush. Rush is where the attcking team has to set off charges at different locations. When two targets are destroyed, the map opens up onto two more charges and the defense falls back. You get some tight games in this mode and players usually do their job. The charges are generally in an easily defendable position, such as on an island or in a valley making the games exciting most of the time as the attackers scurry in and try to push you back. Conquest is a free roam capture point mode where you start at your base and have to decide your own objectives. The two game styles are very different and both popular so you will always be able to find a game in each.

Overall...
A game that is difficult to get into but very rewarding when you do and if you get 3 mates to play with you your team of commandos will likely turn the tide of war.

Postin'

Keeping the blog alive.

read dis.

Slow Down Guise.

This blog sucks, so I'm re-igniting it with the intense effort of a nostalgia thread.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgV3vdOT09I

Skyrim News

Click here!

Looks pretty good to me.

OllieLAN again

LAN at mine starting at about 4pm. may make it two nights. People need to bring a small sum of monies to pay for foodz.

God of tetris.

Can you win tetis? This man can. At about 5:30 the pieces go invis. just sayin'