BF2 vs BF2142

05.19.2007

Back in February, maybe late January, I started playing Battlefield 2142. I sucked at first, but with a lot of dedication I've been getting better. Here's a look at my rather pitiful stats after just over an hour of playing (you can click on it to pop up an enlarged view):

 

Since joining up with the Starfleet Command Gaming Clan last month, I've found not only the first message board I've gotten addicted to, but a few people to play games with. One such member is greatly experience in Battlefield 2, the precursor to BF2142. Now I'm an odd one and have never played 2142 online. I've had the game for a while, and had a single player mod that would let me play the maps, but as I've learned with 2142, real people provide a whole different challenge.

But I'm more apt to try something new now that I've got gaming buddies. So Saturday I un-modded my copy of BF2 to where it wouldn't get marked as a a modified copy by real servers, and I went out into the world of modern combat presented by BF2, lead by ww2twit76 (I love gamer tags!).

After trying repeatedly to get my mic working so we could communicate as a well oiled, precision machine of a squad, I gave up on the stupid thing and just listened for commands. Much like my early days of 2142 I died, and I died a lot. Although I was a little frustrated, I realized I wasn't dying so much from lack of skill or doing something stupid, but I was trying to learn the way the weapons of the game worked while being completely lost on the maps. Luckily my main job was to follow my squad leader Twit (nothing better than abbreviated gamer tags!) so I didn't have to know where on the map we were going, I just had to keep up.

It was frustrating. It was fun. After it was over, I looked up my "official" stats:

 

My status between these two games is close to the same for these stats. I've got an extra 20 minutes on 2142. A couple of things caught my eye when I compared these stats:

• Even with less time, my BF2 score is a lot better.
• I can't hit crap in BF2 (8% accuracy vs 21% in 2142)
• Even though I can't hit crap, I've got almost triple the kills in BF2 while my death rate is about the same.

This online gaming death, destruction, and mayhem is kind of fun.

Here's a look at how I've been progressing in 2142.

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I Learned Something Today!

05.18.2007

About half an hour ago Brandon at work taught me what a Greeble is. 35 minutes ago I didn't even know a Greeble existed.

Can you tell I'm leading an overly exciting life?

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Now That's A Name

05.14.2007

I started watching 24 the week before last as my new "spare time" distraction. I've avoided most of the hype of the show over the past 6 years, catching an occasional episode at Gina's. Not enough to really know what's going on, but enough to know I would eventually be interested. More importantly, I've missed enough that the show is new to me.

As is my way, I started looking at trivia for the show after I started watching, but trivia that wouldn't give any (or too much) of the story and plot that I've yet to see away. So far, the most interesting thing I've learned is the name of the star of the show: Kiefer William Frederick Dempsey George Rufus Sutherland. I thought Boyd was overdoing it with his 2 middle names of Albert Michael.

That's a much more interesting way for me to post "hey Mom, I'm still alive!"

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They Don't Want Me

05.08.2007

Today in the mail I got a "thank you for applying but we're hiring someone else" letter from a job I interviewed for back in January. 4 months ago. And they're just now turning me down.

I'm on my 3rd job since that interview. I could have worked there and not even known it at the rate my year has been going!

It's a nice little form letter, though. Makes even more glad I've got a job now where I can develop my mad game programming skillz.

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3 3 6 on the Floor!

04.24.2007

I got a new toy last week. I have been gaming a lot on the PC of late, and although I told myself many years ago that I would mainly play sports and driving games on one of the consoles, I kept reading that Test Drive Unlimited would not just let you drive around a virtual Hawaii, but you could go online and race against real live people instead of a low down, cheating computer.

In playing Battlefield 2142, I've (finally) learned how different it is to play against humans as opposed to the computer AI. Some days it's frustrating, some days it's comically fun. More than anything, it's more of a challenge, which ends up making it mean more when you accomplish something in game.

With that thought, along with my fondness for driving games, I went to Amazon and bought the new Test Drive. It arrived, I loaded it up, and then started playing it. The first thing I found out is that I can't play a driving game with a keyboard. Steering is way to jerky. So I dug out my Microsoft Sidewinder steering wheel. I've had this thing forever - there's a sticker on the wheel that says "Designed for Windows 98". I hooked up the wheel, installed the drivers, and then watched as the game freaked out. It was like I had really bad network lag. The motion on the screen would jerk for about 3 seconds, then the screen would refresh. I tried tweaking video settings, but it was time I realized what had finally happened: my steering wheel was obsolete.

Always one to overcompensate, I went back to Amazon and read reviews on the current crop of steering wheels. They were all pretty much the same, except for one: the Logitech® G25 Racing Wheel

It's got a leather wrapped steering wheel. Polished aluminum pedals. A clutch. A 6-speed shifter. Oh yeah, baby! So what if I always use the automatic option on the gearbox?

So now I have a new steering wheel. This thing has the strongest force feedback motors I've ever felt. I hooked everything up to the desk, and during setup there's some test sounds and motions the wheel goes through. One of them shakes the wheel back and forth like you're in a wreck, and the desk started to shake. The monitor started to move. Water started coming out of my cup on the desk! I had some tweaking to do or this thing would shake the house apart.

But now I can drive around Hawaii. And I feel way cool when I do it!

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