barely fatal

I have no idea. I’ve played Bad Company 2 for quite a while now, in total more than twice as long as Modern Warfare 2. And I thought I’d get better. Uh-huh. Maybe everyone else is getting better, too, only faster than me? Yeah, right. But only the guys on the other team; the guys on my team were all born cross-eyed and brainless. Sure, keep driving over me while I try to repair your tank. Storm the room I just – and very visibly so – threw a grenade into. Stand in the doorway and slowly move backwards while firing in wild panic. And when I hide in a bush, trying to play sniper to get out of your ways, walk up next to me and start shooting like crazy to draw all the attention. Oh, and hold up high the “kill him” sign when we walk in a group of four, as for some reason it’s always me who dies – first and alone.

I don’t get it, some rounds end 18:3, others 3:18. Ok, no beer when playing, I do understand that. But still. Sheesh.

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Zombieland is a GREAT movie. Woody Harrelson. Bill fraking Murray as Bill fraking Murray … zombies … awesome. Is it me, or did they steal from Left4Dead? Or was it the other way round?

Alright, so I actually learn new things by watching Castle. Like how to use irony correctly. When he showed up in this one Halloween episode in his Malcolm Reynolds outfit I had to chuckle very hard. Dialog:

Alexis: What exactly are you supposed to be?
Castle: Space cowboy.
Alexis: Ok, A: there are no cows in space. B: didn’t you wear that like five years ago?
Castle: So?
Alexis: So, don’t you think you should move on?
Castle: I like it.

Later he makes a reference to Underworld. By the way, on another episode he plays Guitar Hero, and Alexis shows her grandmother how to use “MyFace”. Nice touch there.

…

As for Battlefield: Bad Company 2, the game of which the critics say the single player campaign was mediocre but the multiplayer was better than Modern Warfare 2: They are wrong. The single player is also better than MW2, or at least just as good (which doesn’t mean great). Blowing apart walls, trees, houses, how can you beat that? Of course the “story” is similar to Crysis, MW2 and god knows how many other titles, but it has total destruction, man! Grenades were never more fun.

Snow mobiles are for sissies.

Had to laugh so hard. I wonder what the Infinity Ward guys say about that.

I’ve been playing ArmA2, enjoyed its … sandboxiness (then got distracted by BC2), no irony there. Assassin’s Creed 2, also no irony, but a great game. Naturally I didn’t buy the disabled PC version. Sorry Ubisoft, I can wait for a console game to get cheaper, keep your sorry copy protection. The pirates are laughing anyway, now that’s irony. In the UK Steam pulled all DRM Ubi games, of course that has nothing to do with the copy protection.

…

A bunch of German veteran game journalists, amongst them people as famous as the senior product manager for Xbox at Microsoft Germany and the founder of Germany’s largest gaming mag and a next generation gaming site have finally started a blog to host their brilliant podcast Spieleveteranen. They went for wordpress. And they chose the same skin as I did for my testing blog. Dang. Now, I know I said I’d look into finding a more colorful one anyway, but I thought I could get away with changing the CSS a bit. Finding a good skin is so hard. A colleague uses one on his blog that is just perfect, but I don’t know if have the guts to steal it. What do you think Anne, would Che be angry if I did?

Did you know that the Bioshock Score can now be downloaded for free? (I know, so can the UT3 soundtrack, but who cares )

I tried the Enemy Territories: Quake Wars (what a title!) demo, and although it surely is fun it’s so much like Battlefield that I can’t be bothered to show real interest. Yes it does have the ‘new’ game mode(s) and gadgets and whatnot, but in the core the gameplay is basically the same. The graphics are not so impressive – not bad at all, but really nothing special next-gen wise. Maybe I need to spend more time with it, but so far it’s just another online team shooter.

Well, there’s one thing maybe. The voices of the Strogg (sp?) faction all sound like Yoda. Really.

That’s what I did this weekend: I chilled out. Had to, after that kind of week. I watched Good Night, And Good Luck and the first DVD of Deadwood, Season 2. Deadwood is getting kinda difficult for me to follow, the story becomes more and more complex every show. Combined with the western slang, I sometimes need to switch on sub titles. It’s a shame, but what are you gonna do. Then again, there are sequences when all they say is Fkuc, making it considerably more easy to understand. Anyways, I’m curious how it’ll continue.

On Sunday, I had the round of my life. Battlefield 2: Project Reality, that is. Oh boy, my team spanked ‘em bad. I finished #1 – for the first time ever in an open game. Yeah, I’m proud, dangit. Probably, I’ll never manage that again.

Work-wise, we’re still knee-deep in work. A few more days to go, I think it’s gonna be cool.