Ahh the mysterious Battlefield series...well to me at least. I never really got into online PC gaming except for Wolfenstein and loads of Counter Strike: Source. I always observed it from afar and thought "That might be fun to play". But I missed my boat and never got around to playing 1942. Did play Bad company and the not so polished Modern Combat and thought...meh.

Battlefield 1943 seems like a perfect opportunity to see whats the deal with the BattleField craze.

WED 01:11 AM: D-DAY...wait that didn't happen in 1943...whatever!

No sign of 1943 on the Marketplace, Instead of waiting any longer, I go to bed, only to discover the horror in the morning.

WED 11:53 AM:

I wake up in cold sweat, I had a werid ass dream. I was driving a blue car with all blue clothing on, and I was driving at night past all these illuminated giant statues of the Muppets. "Man that was werid, But whatever must get battlefield." I quickly scourer the marketplace and found an ad for it but no item selection in the marketplace?
I bought it with no second thought, played some Banjo-kazooie while it download. BING IT DONE! I hit play and the show begins...

WED 2:45 PM

Yeah so enough of this narrative. So for the past 3 hours i've been constantl;y hitting the A button trying to join a game and going back and forth between my computer to vent my frustration. So if you haven't heard or don't go to other sites other than Giant Bomb, the release of BattleField 1943 turned out to be a flock of seagalls shot down with a cannon that fires mid sized sedans. If your one the lucky ones that got up early this morning to play it well you probably had no problems at all. But around when all the kids get up which happen to be when I got up, the servers were full to the brim.

EA or DICE or Someone, underestimated the amount of hype for game which makes sense given sales on XBLM to be rather slim. I wonder if there is some at DICE just has his face in his hands saying "Dammit, I should of added more servers." Who takes the heat on this one? So what this mean is that people just spent $15 on something that doesn't work and they can't even hold in their hand. So trying to connect to the game has a been a rather frustrating experience. I gave up around three o' clock and watched the Ghost in the shell movie which was rather confusing. 

Finally around 6:45 IT WORKS! And let me tell ya, it was worth the wait. Its a different pacing from other shooters, you can go for a while without fighting anyone. it doesn't have an realistic feel to it but you can't go guns blazing either. You have to be cautious of whats around you, and make good use of the vehicles. Airplanes are a blast to fly and to have dogfights, but requires a bit of practice. So for $15 bucks, this game is Solid. Though the Servers aren't fully operational yet, I do get stuck in the "Searching for game" Screen so I definitely recommend you wait a few days and then BUY IT!

So up until this point I have beaten P4 and P3. (Oh god over a 150 hours of hitting the X button) Up until that point of P4, I had never beaten a JRPG. I would lose focus or get frustrated at some point and throw my hands up into the air. Persona was different, it had a fantastic story at which I had to shut off my console at times because I would not leave, and then I would smell. The combat was also different in that it would reward you for playing smart. P4 was awesome, now I want some more. P3:FES is next and...ok I can't give my dudes commands.

Thats something you have to get used to going from P4 to P3. It really make you aprecciate the changes from P3 to P4 like Direct commands, the Square Button, iJust one inventory screen, etc. Also the combat was way more repetative and difficult which could be a bad thing. All in all it was still a great game with a darker story, and not as great characters as P4, they were really down all the time.
 
But Im here for FES. More Persona gameplay. Right off the bat, that sounds perfect. More story, excellent. Yes I would like to know what happen to Aigis and Friends. So Im very deep into the game, about 18 hours. And...its not good. Some might say, "Why did you play 18 hours worth then?" Because dammit the storyline looked very promising. Those intro movies really got me going. Just seeing Ken getting a table thrown at him was Awesome! Unfortunately the rest of the game wasn't like that.

First, lets take P3, together its a solid 80 hours of awesomeness. But When you remove the Story, Characters, Social Links, and school cycle, what do you have left? Combat. Now Granted all those things exept Social Links ARE in FES, but  the bulk of the game is running up to a shadow, shooting it in the goddamn forehead and then quickly going on the next on. Doing that for 25 floors for each door, it gets me to a point where I just rush the last few floors because I just want to beat it.

Im not saying the FES shouldn't exsit, Maybe if they had less combat and more story, I don't know. What I would like to see is Advent Children Style. Just make a long Anime Movie. That Beginning cut sceen was great, I would of like to see more of that. Well im off  to leveling up Metis because I nevered used her, I think its the developers way of saying "You don't like our new character? Well heres a Giant Middle Finger!