I've been frequenting Black Friday sales for the past 10 years. The first time I ever attempted Black Friday shopping was in 2003. I stood in front of a Best Buy waiting until they opened "early" at 7am on Black Friday. I stood in line from midnight until open with my group of friends. All of us were huddled around the front of the store munching on Thanksgiving leftovers and sipping on lukewarm coffee that eventually turned ice cold throughout the night. At the end of the adventure, I ended up buying a handful of DVDs and an electric shaver. I didn't even get any of the big ticket items, like a gigantic 30" CRT HDTV with full 1080i resolution for $999. I will admit that it was still a great experience, one that my friends and family repeated for a few years after.
This year, I will not be standing in line for Black Friday. Aside from the fact that I realized most of the electronics doorbusters are pure crap (I don't want a 42" Seiki TV for $299 when I have an awesome smart TV already), I refuse to become a part of the increasing Black Friday creep problem. Stores will be opening up at 6pm on Thursday. This is when a lot of people normally have their Thanksgiving dinners, including myself. I'm not going to trade in quality food gorging time for $4.00 blurays and bottom tier television sets. I'm not saying that I won't be shopping on Friday, I'm just saying that I won't be one of the millions huddling in the cold fighting over doorbusters. I'm going to casually stroll in once the smoke clears to pick up deals on towels, vacuums, and other stuff everyone else looks over.
If you like Thanksgiving the way it's always been, skip the lines this year and wait. We have to draw the line at some point. And with that, here's my turkey defrosting:
As you may already know, I fancy myself to be a Battlefield connoisseur. I've been playing Battlefield since its first debut on PC with Battlefield 1942, with Battlefield Vietnam, 2142, and BF2 taking up a ton of my time in college. I skipped over Battlefield Bad Company 1 and 2, but I really got into Battlefield 3.
After a short wait, we're now at Battlefield 4. At first glance, Battlefield 4 is just an incremental update to the tried and true Battlefield series. It looks fairly identical to its predecessor. However, once you dive in, the seasoned Battlefield vet will notice the changes fairly quickly. Here's my review after 3 weeks on the battlefield.
So first off, my thoughts on Battlefield 4 to newcomers to the series:
This is not Call of Duty. This is the one thing you need to wrap your mind around as you first enter the foray. If you think you're going to jump in and start 360 noscoping people all day long, you're going to have a bad time. If you think you're going to be able to pull of 10 headshots and then get some UAV to bomb the crap out of you just for getting a killstreak, you're going to have a bad time. If you want to jump into a game and play with your squad and team and attack some objectives, you are going to have a good time. Battlefield is true to its name, it is a digital Battlefield where individuals matter, but the team must operate like a well oiled machine if you expect to win. Having 24 recon soldiers on one team sitting on a hill taking pot shots and people will does not win a game. Also, you can't throw any knives.
You must manage everything from Battlelog. Including joining games. I know a few people who found the web based game join system to be annoying, They were pining for the ability to do that in-game. I think it's because most of us are used to playing games with built in game lobbies. Personally, I like the idea of having the game lobby screens on Battlelog. This allows me to do other stuff while I wait for my game to load. I can edit my preset loadouts, check my stats, go on Reddit. You just have to break away from the frame of mind that the program has to be actually open in order to join a game within it.
Stats. So many stats. Battlefield 4 has some of the best statistical record keeping I've ever seen in a game. I absolutely love it. You want to know how many shots you fired out of your 870 MCS? You want to know how many times you've been knifed? Battlefield has you covered. Battlefield 4 has also introduced leaderboards for the different kits, vehicles, weapon classes, etc. The leaderboards also drill down to your actual physical location. It will tell you how high you rank among other people in your town. My goal is to be the best damn defibrillator guy in the Midwest.
Guns. So many damn guns and accessories. Did you ever get into the Pokemon videogame? Did you spend countless hours wading through the grass to catch a damn psyduck? Well if you like collecting stuff, Battlefield 4 is definitely the game for. Not only are there dozens of weapons to unlock, but there are also dozens of accessories to unlock for each individual weapon. There are also accessories to unlock for all the vehicles as well. These unlocks happen when you hit a certain XP point marker, kill number, or other time consuming stat. It really fleshes out the RPGish grind in the Battlefield series. I'm not going to lie, I spent hours running around with my support kit, ammo box in tow, just to unlock C4 for my support kit. It was worth every moment.
My thoughts for Battlefield 3 vets: Levolution may be a gimmick, but it is an awesome one. As a game progresses, the landscape can definitely change while you play. Can't access the rooftop of C on Siege of Shanghai? Easy, bring it down along with all of the defenders inside of it. Tank bothering you on street? Blow up the street and let it fall through the pavement. The increased amount of destruction in Battlefield 4 is a great addition. Hopefully they'll allow for more building destruction in the expansions, but so far this is a great start. Use the test range to practice flying. Don't learn how to fly in the middle of a 64 player conquest large battle. If you crash the helo full of squad members into the side of a building, be prepared to receive a ton of hate mail. Use the test range to safely test out vehicles and equipment. Your not KIA squad will thank you.
Why is my aim so much better now? I don't know what it is about Battlefield 4, but I feel as if my aim has drastically improved. I think it might be the default mouse tracking speed settings that may be helping, as BF4 feels a little bit "slower" in tracking by default. Combine that with an adjustable DPI mouse and you have the perfect recipe for a headshot extravaganza. Commander mode is back. You can now command an army on your phone or tablet while you take a shit. You can tell 32 people to follow your orders, resupply them with more ammo, and send cruise missiles at their enemies while you sit on the can. This is what I call next generation gaming. This is Battlefield, play it however you like. You don't have to play the objective. You don't have to work as a team. You can go hide on a mountain with your M48B for all I care. Just go have fun. If you want to spend your day creeping through the brush knifing all the camping recons, more power to you. If you want to hide under a train track mortar spamming, enjoy it (because I certainly did). If you just want to hop into your transport helo and fly your friends around in circles around Siege of Shanghai, you can definitely do that too. Battlefield is whatever you make of it. It can be your CQB pistol frenzy, your large vehicle warfare arena, or your ATV + C4 playground. You're going to have fun doing whatever you enjoy doing. Just don't be a cheat.
Today I also got started on XCOM: Enemy Within. XCOM EW is the expansion to one of my favorite strategy titles XCOM: Enemy Unknown. Rather than being a separate story expansion, Enemy Within actually incorporates into the main game and radically changes the style and shape of XCOM play. The main additions to XCOM EW are the new unit classes. So far I've created a "mec trooper". Basically a person inside a mech suit. It is as awesome as it sounds.
That's Betty. They cut off her arms and legs and filled her vag with motor oil.
So far I'm enjoying XCOM Enemy Within. While I find it to be quite entertaining and challenging (I just rage quit, which is why I found the time to write this blog post), Enemy Within isn't going to change your mind if you weren't a fan of Enemy Unknown. With that being said, here are some screen shots I snapped whilst playing today.
Say whaaa?
My sniper, Maximum Foreskin.
If you were a fan of XCOM Enemy Unknown, I'd definitely recommend you go pick up Enemy Within right now. It's a 7gb download via Steam, so you better get at it.
Bioshock Infinite was one of my favorite games of this year. It had one of the most engrossing stories I've ever experienced and some of the most beautiful scenery I have ever seen in a game. Today marks the release of it's first storyline expansion: Burial at Sea.
I won't spoil the story so far, but those familiar with the first 2 Bioshock games will definitely be in for a treat as the expansion takes place in the city where it all began: Rapture.
I've about one hour into the game so far, and I can definitely say that it has retained the immense creepy factor that the original Bioshock had. It has preserved the dark, dreary neon feel that the original Bioshock had while keeping some of the newer gameplay elements of Infinite. So far so good.
I've managed to take some screenshots of my adventure through rapture so far
This looks familiar...
I guess Elizabeth smokes in this world
No Gods or Kings
They're back
Not as cheerful down in Rapture.
I'll keep you posted about my adventure through Rapture. So far it has made my skin crawl a little bit, which means so far, so good.
Ok so I've been a bit late on generating new posts lately, but I have a good excuse. We're entering the holiday gaming season. My gaming backlog has just exploded. This is what I currently have on my plate:
Battlefield 4
Batman Arkham Origins
Splinter Cell Blacklist
Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon
Bioshock Infinite: Burial At Sea
Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag
X-Com: Enemy Within
Not to mention that I receive my PS4 on Friday (sans games).
I'll be posting more frequently once I delve into the meat of these games I promise.
New to Battlefield 4 (and something that CoD players will recognize) is the emblem maker. You can now make customized emblems that show up on your profile, player stats, enemy kill cam (you see the emblem of your killer during the killcam now) and even vehicles. The web based emblem maker program is decent, allowing you to pick from predetermined shapes and figures to create your own customized emblem. It's a little too basic in my opinion, as it took me forever to make identical sized shapes (I tried to make eyes). However, I've seen some pretty awesome emblems in my short time playing through Battlefield 4.
PSA: EA/DICE mods will make you take down any offensive emblems, stop with the veiny wieners already.
