My other mistake was Red Dead Redemption. I didn’t even care enough about it to follow the media hype prior to its release. But recently one of my friends purchased the Undead Nightmare DLC (which is a standalone playable game) for my son, but he was afraid of the zombie on the front cover. So being the good dad I am, and not wanting the game to go to waste, I plopped it in my Xbox.

Ho – ly – shit. Dude this game is amazing! I have played very little of the single player story (which is cool), but I’ve played a bunch of the multiplayer. I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say this is one of the most entertaining free roam games I’ve ever played. The environment is so well done, the gameplay mechanics work perfect and the graphics and ambient music keep me in awe. This is the first game I’ve ever taken pictures of with my phone just to save a moment (I wish consoles supported screenshots).

Its like GTA IV but way better in many ways. I thought the old western theme would be boring but its actually the best part about it.

If you get a chance to play either of these games, do it now.

We’re at the tail end of finishing Zinger. I can’t believe we’re the last gamemode to be submitted to Garry, but then again I guess it isn’t that big of a surprise. We have an incredible amount of custom content and we’re also OCD kind of perfectionists. It’s a curse really.

In between our workings on Zinger, we are also revamping an old website and converting it into an HTML5 web app. I don’t want to indulge everyone with all the details just yet, but those of you who use LuaBin will really be excited about this product. It’s going to have a community integrated into it as well… it’s super cool. We’ve already invited a few people into the alpha testing phase and we’ll invite more as we progress.

I’ve also been playing a bunch of games recently, mainly games I’ve owned for a while but never got around to playing.

Oh and I picked up Halo: Reach the other day but haven’t had a chance to play it yet because my Xbox RROD’d right when I put the disc in. No big deal because it’s under warranty. It just gives me more time to catch up on PC games, even though I’ve got a small collection of unplayed Xbox games building up (Reach, Splinter Cell, etc)

Anyway, more to come later…

Samuel: Hi, my name is Samuel. How may I help you?
Brandon: hi, I just bought my son Battlefield 1943 for Xbox 360, and when connecting to EA servers after accepting the Terms of Service, it just sticks at "connecting…"
Brandon: we’ve owned the game for 2 hours now and he’s still not able to play
Brandon: I just need to link his Xbox 360 gamertag and his EA account
Samuel: Alright.
Samuel: In order to assist you with this issue, we need the following information:
Your EA .com account name: (The e-mail address)
Gamer Tag / PSN ID:
Email address on which you want to link your Gamer tag / PSN ID:
Email address listed on your Gamer tag / PSN ID:
Date of Birth listed on the account:
Zip Code:
Brandon: EA account: (hidden)
Brandon: gamertag: (hidden)
Brandon: email for gamertag is also: (hidden)
Brandon: dob on what account? EA or xbox?
Brandon: zip code (hidden)
Samuel: Thank you and please allow me a moment while I check this for you.
Samuel: Thank you for your patience.
Samuel: I appreciate it.
Brandon: no problem, I just want to get this fixed
Samuel: checked the records but I was unable to find any information about the Gamertag. Please provide us with the correct name of your Gamertag so that we may assist you in the best possible way. However, if your Gamertag name is correct though sometimes it doesn’t display in our records. In order to merge your Gamertag properly with your EA account, please follow the below given steps and get back to us.
1. Go the Xbox live marketplace.
2. Download any demo game available there.
3. Start the demo and choose the "Multiplayer > Xbox Live" option
4. At the EA Login/Register screen, put in your EA account name (email address) and password.
5. Read and accept the Terms and service.
6. Exit the demo.
Brandon: that’s the problem!
Brandon: none of the games work!
Brandon: they are all say that cant connect to EA servers
Samuel: Yes it is and after performing these steps get back to us and we would link that for you.
Brandon: the only game that appears to work in Bad Company 2, but it wont let me do it on his account because its a child account
Samuel: Is there anything else that I may assist you with today?
Brandon: nor will it work for Fight Night Round 4
Brandon: because hes a child account
Brandon: tell me what game can I download to fix this?
Samuel: Any demo EA game available there.
Brandon: all the ones I’ve downloaded say "cant connect to EA servers"
Brandon: I’ve tried with face breaker, battlefield 1943, battlefiled bad company 2, fight night round 4
Brandon: what more do I have do try?
Samuel: That is it and get back to us after performing this.
Brandon: I DID THOSE STEPS
Brandon: IT DOESNT WORK
Brandon: NONE OF THE GAMES WORK
Brandon: THATS WHY IM TALKING TO YOU NOW
Brandon: IVE BEEN DOWNLOADING DEMOS AND TRYING TO FIX IT FOR 2 HOURS
Brandon: I’ve done those exact steps you listed
Brandon: they are listed on your support site
Brandon: I did them EXACT with 4 different games
Brandon: none of the games connect

Samuel: Okay then please provide me your EA Account e-mail address and gamer tag that you want to connect.
Brandon: EA account email: (hidden)
Brandon: Xbox gamer tag: (hidden)
Samuel: Please be inform you that I have linked the gamer tag from my end.
Brandon: okay let me try to connect
Samuel: Sure.
Samuel: Since I am not receiving any response from you I have to end this session.
Samuel: Thank you for contacting Electronic Arts support today.
Samuel has disconnected.

So he left while I was testing the connection on Aidan’s Xbox… and guess what? Shit still isn’t fixed.

FUCK YOU EA

I decided to check out the demo on Xbox 360. Wait… what? People had to fight tooth and nail to get a beta key for the PC but everyone and their retarded mother could download the demo for Xbox 360? BTW the beta and the demo are exactly the same thing. Whatever. Some people I knew had already downloaded it so we rounded up the gang and deployed for battle.

Team Play

The Battlefield franchise has always proved to be a great gaming experience, but I think they’ve done an extraordinarily great job with this latest release. In general, DICE has managed to once again encourage teamwork. They don’t force it down your throat and you can be as independent as you want in the game, but still you find yourself working with squad members almost automatically. Many of the vehicles require a second person to fully utilize, and you’re rewarded with experience for helping teammates. A few points for healing this person, some more for giving ammo, or even targeting enemies. All of which is normally increased if you do the same for a squad member.

The Environment

The levels are nothing less than beautiful. Everything is destructible and structures can even collapse if you blow them up in the right places (which makes for a really cool way to kill people). You can find yourself sprinting across and open area and into a house where you think you’re safe, only to have a wall or three blown open by a tank…  exposing you and your squad and filling your pants with shit. They added enough details  to provide places for hiding and flanking around enemies, yet the maps aren’t cluttered or crowded. You’ll also find great visual effects like sand clouds and fog and bloom and whatever else the level needs to help bring the world to life. But I think more than anything you find the most pleasure in seeing the destruction. A match starts and there is a completely intact city in front of you. Piece by piece the entire thing gets blown to tiny bits. Its awesome when you find some dickwads camping in an attic, sniping down on a group of your friends like a turkey shoot. Instead of risking your neck trying to sneak up on them from the stairs, you just blow a fucking hole in the roof and kill the sons of bitches.

Weapons and Unlocks

What can I really say… the weapons look great, sound great and respond fairly realistically. They didn’t bother over exaggerating inaccuracies and such. Most weapons just fire where you shoot them. Sure if you spam and spray the recoil will kick your ass, but that’s what you get for shooting like an idiot. You have to invest a little bit of time into each class, but each one has its own set of weapons and other unlocks that come pretty quick if you score decent.

Not only do you unlock weapons but you unlock gadgets. I won’t go into detail on all these because there are already tons of sites you can find that have more information than I feel like typing.

Classes

As you can see in the chart above, the classes are pretty standard: Assault, Engineer, Medic and Recon.

Assault is your run-of-the-mill trigger happy bastard with an assault rifle, gun mounted and hand thrown explosives, and provides his team with ammo.

Engineer is your demolitions expert, sub machinegun wielding Mr. Fix-it. He shoots rockets at the enemy tanks but fixes friendly vehicles.

Medic is the huge gun carrying guy who can heal and revive teammates.

Recon is the dude who sits way back with an excessively overpowered rifle, blasting away at enemies and calling in mortar strikes.

Vehicles

Oh yea… what’s Battlefield without vehicles? This game does not let you down. Tanks, UAVs, helicopters, Hummers, mounted weapons and ATVs. They all pretty much fucking rock. The tanks blow shit up, Apaches terrorize EVERYTHING and the ATVs are the ultimate flanking vehicle. Each one has its strengths and weakness and are balanced pretty well. Except for the Apache. If you get a good pilot in there with a good gunner… all hell breaks loose! Once again you’re going to find much more information on other sites, so I won’t bother.

Conclusion

Get. This. Game. You won’t regret it. When you get to the multiplayer games I highly recommend playing each class and unlocking their basic items first. It sucks being Assault and not being able to resupply ammo, or Medic and unable to revive people. I will warn you that at first you’ll be pretty frustrated because everyone has unlocked stuff like the Magnum Ammo (every gun does more damage) or body armor or shit like that. You feel weak in comparison to everyone. But just grind through it and soon you’ll be unlocking stuff too and kicking major ass.

I rate this game 2 cookies + win.

A few years ago my dad was using a really archaic method for keeping track of what vehicles he was in charge of. Like… where they were stationed. He wrote the vehicle number down on a magnet and placed it on a white board and moved them from square to square depending on where the vehicle got shipped. So I wrote him a digital version of that and since he struggles with computers, I totally mimicked the look of a board with magnets on it. Except you could double-click any “magnet” and open up extended information and tools on it. Needless to say this worked many times faster and he instantly fell in love with it. I spent loads of time in the UI so it was extremely user friendly.

Well he has since left that company and moved on to bigger and better things. Little did I know he continued to use that program and one day his boss saw him using it and one thing lead to another… next thing I know I’m in a meeting talking business for writing this company a custom software tool. So a lot of our time is being dedicated to that…

BUT THEN…

Garry decides that he wants to start a Fretta gamemode contest with some high dollar incentives. So now we’re working on THAT at the same time. Our goal is to submit two gamemodes so we really gotta bust ass on everything. We’re not going to sacrifice quality though, so its just time dedication.

BUT THEN…

All these new games have come out/are coming out and ahhhhhhhhhh. I’m deep into Fallout 3 right now, I’ve got Borderlands to focus on, Left 4 Dead 2 soon… Modern Warfare 2– fuuuuuuuuuuuuuu–

AND NOW FOR SOME COMPLETELY UNRELATED MEDIA

Awesome:

So lately I’ve been addicted to L4D and totally neglecting anything else. The game just keeps me coming back, no matter how many times I play it (especially if I can find a good game of Verses that isn’t full of cock-fucking fuck-cocks).

Anyways. I’ve been on my holiday weekend (four days off baby!) and I decided to visit my garage and my Xbox 360 and the NXE and what not. So my friend was over last night and we played an extensive amount of Halo 3. Like almost 10 hours of it. Just sitting back and “relaxing” drinking some beer and shooting idiots in their stupid fucking faces.

I know I’m a little late to the Halo 3 fad, but to be honest I don’t really care. I owned the game forever but I just lacked the desire to play it. I know most of you reading this are like “wtf halo 3 lol wtf thaz liek so old u r so laem lolwtf”. But whatever, I’m into the game now and I know I have a lot of catching up to do… but I digress…

After a considerable amount of time playing this game, I’ve come to a few conclusions:

First of all, there’s no fucking way these people are legit. Xbox Live needs some sort of VAC or something. I don’t know how they do it, but they do it. They are fucking hacking little ass fucks. I understand there are awesome shots, I get them, they are amazing. I’m talking about those headshots or grenade banks or random chances you stick someone with a sticky nade mid air with your eyes closed and pants down. I GET IT~! But! That shit shouldn’t happen eleventy billion fucking times in one round!

Take for instance, my friend and I are like “okay lets jump down and flank those fags over there…” and while we’re in mid air, one guy headshots us both. Okay… wow. That guy got lucky. But nooo…. when I respawn I walk around a corner (mind you on the other side of the level as this guy) and the same fucking guy headshots me the instant I become visible.

THAT’S SOME FUCK UP SHITTY FUCKING SHIT, SALLY!

Secondly, Halo 3 is anything but “relaxing”. As I metaphorically described it to my friend; Halo 3 is the Counter Strike of Xbox. It pisses me off more than it relaxes me. Last night through my endeavor I repeatedly had to create new four-letter words to curse with. I distinctly remember saying something along the lines of: “what the fuck? fucking shitty fuck that fucking cock ass stupid idiot! Why are you such a piss headed cum fuck? Don’t fucking attack me fucker! I’m not the fucking Oddball you piece of shit stupid fag-ass fucking idiot bitch cunt! NOW HE’S GOING TO WIN! KILL HIM! GOD DAMN YOU STUPID BITCH I HOPE YOU GET HIT BY A TRAIN FULL OF AIDS ON YOUR WAY HOME FROM CHURCH!“

*Ahem* …give or take a few fuck’s here and there.

Also. Is it me or do you never just get to fight anyone 1 vs 1? Anytime you run into an enemy, there’s someone right behind you ready to bash your skull in and steal your kill. It is just a constant wave of fuck each other over by stealing each others kills.

Lastly, let me pick my own gametype I want to play. Don’t randomly pick what I want, and then when it sucks veto it only for a shittier gametype and shittier map! Needs moar server browser.

And while I’m bitching…

About that Netflix shit that’s available through Xbox now. Don’t bother. It’s the worst shit ever. I gave it a shot and granted, the video plays like I’m watching a DVD… it really does. Very good quality and whatnot. But the selection of available movies to stream is SHIT. I MEAN JACK SHIT. The worstest, oldest, crappiest, most random movies ever. I went to “New Releases” and they had U.S. Marshals listed. Look at the date on that movie! 10 years old! I created an account and canceled it the same day.

Edit: f-word counter: 21 times in this post.