Gearheads of War

Hey, the MW2 site Average introduced us to has some incredible wallpapers up.  Check 'em out!  Also, later today, the extended trailer featuring more goodies from the campaign etc. should be available.  For those watching the Pittsburgh game, you will see it soon (around 8pm EST apparently), I am sure.

Also, Bonus Round Fall Game Preview featuring Uncharted 2 and L4D2 is up.  Should be interesting (going to watch now).  UPDATE: Very enjoyable!

We are finally, and fully, entering the age when what we create is becoming at least as significant as what the major companies and studios create.

Metal Gear Solid Movie made by fans.  (Haven't finished watching yet, but what I have seen looks awesome!  Can't wait to download and watch when I get home.)

FREE, baby, FREE! and made with passion and love.

Awesome night of gaming.  Lots of people missing, but we actually managed not only to get some of us together playing Gears 1, but with papi's acceptance of the invite, fill a room!  

I was the host again, so shenanigans abounded.  Apologies to all who had their rightful kill taken from them and instead found themselves gibbed to pieces.  

I think tomorrow is gonna be busy, and I don't have much time tonight, so without further ado:

To RoBBins - especially for his sniper blind-fire kill of Johann on Canals

•The "Busting Melons" Award- Most/Best headshot(s) of FFF.

To papi - especially for his "This is Duck Hunt" performance on Canals, eventually taking out two baddies who tried to flank him, while other(s) were trying to snipe him - I think all his Horde skills are backwards compatible.

•The "Arrow in da Ass" Award- Most/Best Torquebow stick of FFF.

To ObiJuan and Kenai - for keepin' it real.  Actually, I remember Obi getting an amazing roll-saw on me in Mausoleum.

•"The Golden Chainsaw" Award- Most chainsaw kills of FFF.

Not sure.  Many of us were getting many shottie kills.  Honorable mention goes to papi for getting the match winning kill with his shottie on Fuel Depot.

•The "Shot Caller" Award- Most shottie kills of FFF.

There were more R.Kelly kills last night than I can remember in any FFF.  Honorable mentions include Kenai's saw kill of me on Helipad in Fuel Depot, and Grymm's saw kill of me on Process near the TB spawn.

•The "R. Kelly" Award- Piss-in-your-pants kill.

ObiJuan gets this award because, like aamato a couple of weeks ago, he couldn't buy a kill though he was deserving of MANY!

•"The Shenaniganery" Award- Player that is the recipient of the most shenanigans.

Me, I think. Which is reasonable, because sometimes it is the only way you can kill host.

•The "Saw Lube Tube" Award- Player that received the most saws.

Kenai was throwin' the lumber a little there, and then when tensions rose, he quickly put his big stick away.

The "Paul Bunyan" Award - - Inappropriate use of melees. (but we don't want to encourage this one).

I won't mention any names, but his name starts with a "K" and he laughs quite a bit.

•The "Hong Kong Phooey" Award- Inappropriate use of grenade tags. (but we don't want to encourage this one).

To Zoso for headshotting papi near hammerburst spawn on Fuel Depot.

•The "Hillary Clinton" Award- Most friendly-fire kills during FFF.

There was a ton of great laughter and fun.  I had a blast and I even got to play a little L4D afterward, for dessert.  (We kicked butt, as per usual.)

Cheers!
Have a great weekend everyone!

I.  I was watching one of the latest ODST videos and two things struck me.  One, I love guided missles.  Two, I am tired of the Halo music.  So, it got me thinking, is it a good thing for a game studio to have a permanent composer/sound crew?  

Don't misunderstand me.  The "monks" chanting at MacWorld summer 1999, before Grymm, Abe, and RoBBins were born*, is burnt into my memory and I own the soundtracks to the first two games.  However, I never thought the Steve Vai electric guitar suited the Halo universe, and I have grown weary of the tribal drums growing to crescendo just before a wave ends. It has been 10 full years of that stuff. I do not know much about music, so I am willing to concede that it just my lack of sensitivity to the subtleties of Marty's compositions.  Update: See my posts below.

Is the ODST music "fresh"? Do game studios need to keep their music "fresh"? If so, should composers be itinerant (poor saps, finally the musicians get some stability and I am suggesting it be pulled out from under them)?  As regards music in sequels, is there ever a time when freshness is more important than continuity?  

*Yesterday, when relating my pre-Internet era stories to Abe, Grymm, and RoBBins, I realized they never experienced that era.  LMAO @ me or them, I don't know which, but it is hella funny.

II.  There will be a new game mode in L4D2.

"We have a whole new game mode coming out in October [being announced in October].  It is a competitive mode, it is not the same as VS but it is complimentary.  It's super a lot of fun."

Will it be a mode in which we play as the special infected and try to stop A.I. survivors for all five acts in a movie - and maybe even get scores/medals based on how well we do (how quickly we shut them down)? For me, playing as the special infected is like finally getting to be the A.I. that has been knockin' us down, and killing us over and over again since video games were created.  Playing as the infected is always the really "fun" part of VS.  Yet, my idea above sounds kind of lame.  Is the new mode just going to be a tack on/extension of another mode that will get old really fast?  What is this new mode going to be?  Surely there aren't that many different things they can do with this game, that we can't guess the gametype before it is announced.

III.  Splinter Cell: Conviction is going to kick your ass up and down the street, open your lunch box, step on your sandwiches, pour your thermos of juice all over you, and then steal your bus money.  That is all I am going to say.

IV. Monday through Wednesday are holidays for me, and my heart is as light now, as it is heavy when I have to work.  lol

V.  I wrote the word, "hella" above.  Whenever I use that word, I always think of SlmShawty.  I miss Slm.  He plays now, but never when I am on. Sad thing is, I don't think he even lurks enough to notice that I just posted this.

VI.  Vudu is getting the MW2 360 Console Package.  He lives the dream.

VII.  You WANT Zoso in your Gears 1 room.  You don't want him in your Gears 2 room.  lol

VIII.  I am still trying to figure out what I witnessed when I played Modern Warfare with Infidel and Machete.  Was it real or was it just all in my head?

IX. I think often of Poland, always with a smile, and when I think of the games he used to buy, I even laugh.  Poland, RIP.

X.  Whenever I play with the Gearheads, especially in the wild, I always feel like I am the shortest, youngest brother, walking with his big older brothers who are "gonna kick your ass".

After seeing the second trailer for HBO's The Pacific, I started re-watching Band of Brothers.  I think this is my third (4th?) time through it.  Love it.  So much to appreciate in that drama.

Anyway, I just realized that new episodes for The Office and a ton of other shows have started their broadcast run.

What are y'all gonna be watching this fall?

I am not sure, but I think we (aamato, Blankman, Grymm, Kenai, Johann, RoBBins, and 3Suns) played Gears 1 for about 3 hours yesterday, every map but Tyro Station.  Almost the whole time, it was 3v2 or 4v3, which was really unfortunate because starting out with a greater number of people on your team almost guarantees the win. It is strange how about 10 seconds into the round, the unbalanced numbers on teams through in-game deaths, doesn't matter so much. Often even 1v3 or 4 can win. Off the start, however, it seems just crushingly unfair.

Zoso!!!  Where the heck were you?!  Dang it!  It was for the reason of unbalanced teams, that we finally switched to CoD4, which became quickly tiring because of lag and camping.

Anyway, the Gears gaming was a real hoot. I enjoyed every minute of it, even though I held the uncomfortable honor of being the host.  Seriously, I love that game.

Were we to give out awards, they would look something (awesome) like this:
(click "Full Story" for the awards)

papi often talks about how much he likes the controls of CoD4.  Now I know why.

There is a great article on "input latency", and it would appear that Infinity Ward has always held controller lag to be one of the vilest evils, and regularly stomps out any bugs or inefficient coding that might lead to "unresponsive" controls.

"Our mantra of '60FPS 60FPS 60FPS!' would all be for nothing if we had horrible input lag," says Infinity Ward's Drew McCoy. "It is extremely helpful being able to see the physical, measurable, result of what is going on in our game - especially if things change or if someone in the office complains that things 'don’t feel right'. If anyone cares about the end user experience of their game, they should be heavily invested in their input latency."

"We commissioned Ben to make us the light board after a programmer saw me spending a lot of time filming myself pressing buttons in front of a CRT to test input latency," says Infinity Ward's Drew McCoy. "He, being a programmer, was obviously frustrated that such an imprecise method was used to test something that he and the rest of the engineers here at Infinity Ward spend a great deal of time and energy on - reducing input latency."

So that is why the controls are so crisp!

It is a fascinating article, and I was very surprised to learn that even the monitor one uses can create considerable lag.  Dang! I wish they had tested Gears 2. I am curious to see how it would fair with the other games.

This is just a heads-up to let everyone know that the The-Stranded.com domain will lapse on "2009-10-09".  (I don't even know if that means September the 10th or October the 9th. LOL)  When I went to check the recent changes to the wiki, there were no results at all for the past 30 days.  For the 8 months previous to that, it has just been Blankman and I using it for photo linking. I don't even want to know when the last post was written in the Off-limits forum.

I had a blast learning how to set up the forum and wiki software, and would do it again in a heartbeat if I/we had some sort of use for it.  I feel it was well worth both my time and money and am glad I did it.  

Thanks to everyone who used it at one point or another, and a special thanks to Sweetie for his hard work in Off-Limits, and to Zoso for making the forum skin, and for creating the Main Page.  I have used it several times daily since you put it up, bro!

If you have any content you want to keep, get it soon (really soon if indeed that "9" means "September" ha ha ha).  I know that I want to get a copy of Gabe "cooking up" a PS3 version of L4D and a couple of the epic FAIL pics...oh, and that Nurse that Blank found a while back.  ha ha ha  But other than that, I think there is probably very little that can't be googl-ized again at some point in the future.

Ah, life is good.  

In a goofy, happy kind of way, I feel sort of like I brought home a backhoe for the sandbox.  Smiling guiltily, I present it to Chiiko, and try to tell her all the cool things we will be able to do with it, including (and I am thinking on my feet here) moving the entire sandbox into the bucket, ...making more space for lounge chairs in the yard!  

"Yes, of course!  In fact, we don't even need lounge chairs! We can have our barbecue right in the cab!  You know what this means?!", I ask her in ever-heightening enthusiasm, "We can even have barbecues when it rains! ... 'Cause I chose the deluxe cab!"

When I realize that no amount of awesome things that could be done with a backhoe will persuade her to approve it, I take it back to the dealership (a long and slow drive), and tell them that my wife "doesn't like the color".  The manager chuckles knowingly, but more importantly, mercifully, and then tears up the lease in front of me.  

I walk out of the store with a smile on my lips and a tear in my eye.  I drive home in sour-sweet silence.  Only Chiiko's embrace when I get home, convinces me that I probably wouldn't have enjoyed barbecuing in the rain anyway.

So, watching the new MW2 vid, I noticed immediately that it will be supporting host migration.  I have been playing a fair amount of TF2 on the PC, and I have to say, I miss the opportunity to set up my own room with a map and options of my choice.  Sure, there are literally thousands of servers to choose from on the PC, and sure, the connection discrepancies are considerably reduced, but I really miss not being able to set up the room just the way I want it, or play the map I want to play (often times, the map I want to play is either not being served at all, is being served and is full, or is being served and is empty).  I miss the control.

I think the current types of servers can be categorized into three groups:  

1. The PC dedicated server set up, where gamers join a server of their choosing, and come and go as they please - but without any control as to the settings of the game.

2. The Console client/server model, where a gamer configures the options/conditions under which he would like to play, and then "hosts" a room, or lobby (to which matchmaking services bring other gamers), the actual server of which is often chosen by the software itself according to connection speed.

3. The hybrid a la L4D(360) wherein a company provides an entire server farm on which a game is served as directed by the gamer/host's configuration.

I used to argue for 1 or 3, but for the first time since Microsoft introduced the client/server model (on the original Xbox), I realize that I am willing to trade some connection advantage/disadvantage for the incredible control of "client" hosting, especially if the software also provides host migration.  What do you guys think?  Which is best?  

Hopefully Papi is making a speedy recovery from his "photo" session.  Hope you are doing alright, papi!

In the meantime, there were lots of Gearheads on over the course of the evening, though we continued our trend of Mixed Bag Gaming.  

I got on even later than had hoped because Chiiko wanted to replace our electronic dictionary for the boys studies which will start next week.  I had to go shopping as soon as I got home.  Sorry I missed you, Kenai!

At one point, I observed Johann playing CoD4 with RoBBins, Boxin, Machete, Extra Terestical, and Grymm (Grymm, were you playing, or were you just in the party?).  Looked and sounded like they were having a pretty good time, though every once and a while I would hear a "I hate this map!" or "This map sucks!".  I can't be sure how well they did, though I doubt they lost very often.  It was a more casual session to be sure though.  The old gang was back at it, and towards the end, Boxin and Machete went "Stealth" voice, whispering for the rest of the evening. Christmas is simply too far away Boxin.  We are gonna miss you!

I just sat and watched and listened for a while, then later started up Shadow Complex, while still in the party.  Blankman had power restrictions that kept him off his machine till very late.  When he jumped on, it was really just me and him left (I think Infidel, Vudu et al had a full room for killing randoms in Gears 2).  Blank played Batman and I continued Shadow Complex.  Just visiting while working our way through our respective SP games was great, and I mentioned to Blank that the Party Chat feature truly is awesome.  Speaking of which, early in the evening, several other Gearheads including Savage popped in and out of our party, often so briefly, that I never even got a chance to say "Hi!".

P.S.  Blank says Batman:AA is in his Top Seven games list of all time.  Definitely rivals BioShock, but more than that, it truly allows the gamer to become Batman.  I can't wait!  Great review!

P.S.S. Penny Arcade thought it was awesome, too, giving Rocksteady's Batman the "Top of the Stealth Food Chain" title.  WOOOO!!

Just a heads-up for the fans of all flavors of Valve software.  

Get the inside scoop on Left 4 Dead 2, new Left 4 Dead DLC and much, much more tonight on GTTV! Tonight's revealing episode of GameTrailers TV takes viewers inside Valve as we showcase brand new Left 4 Dead 2 footage, including a never-before-seen campaign that's quite literally a carnival of zombie action! We also deliver detailed information and new gameplay footage from Left 4 Dead's upcoming DLC - Crash Course, find out about the future of the Team Fortress 2 short films and the possibility of a TF 2 comic book, and host Geoff Keighley unleashes a flurry of Twitter user-questions on Gabe Newell. Find out about Valve's distance from the PS3, the progress of Half Life 2: Episode 3, Counter-Strike 2, and a whole lot more!

It will apparently be available for download at Gametrailers after the fact.  I am ALL over this news.  Having spent several early evenings with rED, Zos, Arc, and Johann fighting for our lives (and taking lives) in L4D, I am as ready for L4D2 as a healthy person could be.

OT  It looks like The Walking Dead is coming to TV.  Could be a great show!  I would certainly like to see Valve and the greater community create episodic Zombie content for L4D2: the continuing Saga of the .... .  So much story potential.

I have been hanging out at TF2maps.net as I prepare to introduce my computer club students to Valve software and mapping tools.  It is an incredibly helpful and courteous community (they even have little "Thanks" buttons!).

This is from one of the projects that goldenhearted is working on.  The quality speaks for itself.  I had to share.  For desktop sizes, stop by the site (though I think you would have to register (free) to view.)

The HBO original

goldenhearted's TF2 version (my desktop now)

And the Team Fortress Band of Brothers Teaser YouTube video - is a must view!

Cheers!