So last night's trainwreck of a ustream for battlefield 3 got me thinking.  This year is really the first year I've been able to see lots of live E3 footage, thanks in large part to ustream and livestreaming in general.  It's interesting because livestreaming isn't all that new- GiantBomb has done it for a while actually.  I suspect others have too, but now livestreaming is so prolific- like it's a media format in of itself (as opposed to just recorded video coverage).  Anyways I had 3 windows up at the same time, switching between audio feeds and checking twitter on my phone, and I finally arrived at the other conclusion:
It's not just that there is more media for me to consume it's that I am consuming more media as a direct result of being more plugged in
 
One of those ways that has really stuck out to me is how now I follow all these games dudes (journos, bloggers and devs) on twitter. And I guess, in a way, I'm prepared to say perhaps I consume too much.  Because I've made the following observation:
 
In the video games world the overwhelming tone of commentary is snark.  This is actually not bad in of itself.  In particular I think of how the GB dudes have this constant pseudeo-negative tone on everything, but for me at least their notion of what they want and do not want in games development roughly matches my wants/desires, specifically:
 
Not interested in handheld gaming that is replacing console experience
Not interested in tacked-on motion controls
Not willing to settle for more of the same
 
That being said, some snark has gotten to me.  And unfortunately so, from a particular set of people at particular developer related to making a certain space rpg action trilogy I am very interested in.  And here's why:  I sat following the Microsoft presser hearing about kinect being put into mass effect in ways that I am not really interested in.  Actually, ways I think could be done without kinect and makes me feel like they think I'm stupid if I believe you have to have kinect to put in voice commands.  That actually insults me.  And yet, this particular tweeter was talking how awesome all this kinect support for ME3 looks and is and how excited they are.  Ok- you're a developer or whatever, so I understand you have to be excited about your own project.  Here's my problem- for every piece of coverage they have tweeted about outside of ME/EA content- they've said the following: "this is crap and I don't want it, bad job."
 
And to finalize my internal reaction:
WHY THE FUCK DO YOU MAKE GAMES IF YOU FUCKING HATE THEM
 
Seriously- if you're going to shill you stupid shit that's tacked on, don't go hard on other stuff that may or may not be great.  I mean I agree with the dude on some stuff, but he's being disingenuous.   And that really pisses me off.  At least most dudes who have some snark to them tend to keep up the act for everything-  or still can be genuinely impressed with stuff that is legit good.
 
Arghhhh... anywho, @manveerheir your e3 attitude has pissed me off, and made me think all this new media coverage I get is just too much.

Ok first, to preface.  Please do not take my title or blog as an understanding that the IMPORTANT shooters coming out this fall are Battlefield 3 and MW3.  As far as I'm concerned Deus Ex HR is the single important shooter coming out this fall.  Rage has potential to be one of the important shooters.  The two I'm talking about are somewhat window dressing (for me).  Ok that being said lets talk about BF and MW.
 
I've scoured (or at least the last day's posts) the forums for talk about this, and haven't really seen much discussing this so I'm just going to come out with it.  I recorded spike's 5 sole hours of E3 coverage yesterday, so when I got home first thing I did was watch it, so basically I watched the Microsoft and EA conferences back to back.  The Microsoft conference started right away with the MW3 footage.  I thought it looked good, maybe I though it looked just like MW2, but wasn't horrid.  Then I watched a bunch of other games and  stuff I don't care about, then after drooling over Mass Effect 3, along came the Battlefield 3 footage.  Now since we've seen both games thus far I guess this isn't news.   But watching one then an hour later watching the other, I felt a strong contrast in the graphics quality of the two.  And now hearing how both games are coming out  within a month of each other, I'm just starting to think the following:
 
Will a release of a 'mainline' Battlefield game actually bring about real change or the end to the MW franchise (or it's dominance/prevalance in military shooters)?
 
I say this because I was somewhat shocked how much better BF3 looked.  My wife watched the whole thing with me and here's what she said when she saw the MW3 footage:
"That actually looks awesome."
Here's what she said when BF3 came on:
"That's insane.  It's like I'm watching tv war footage or something."
 
And that's my thoughts exactly.  MW looked fine, but BF3 seemed to be visually head and shoulders above.  I kinda feel that BC2 was like this as well, but the Bad Company series seems to have not gotten the attention a proper battlefield game would.   So anyways- thoughts?  Are you, like me, a little perplexed at how good Battlefield 3 looks, even in comparison to MW3, and a little disappointed at the lack of ambition on display in MW3.  Or are you finding both looking about the same, or not caring?
 
Also as an aside to this 'which game looks better discussion' I'd like to enter some casual observations:
 
Battlefield 1942 is almost 10 years old.  Battlefield 2 was released 3 years later, and between then and now there has been that Battlefield 2142 game (not interested...), and the two BC games (also battlefield 1943 on BC tech).  In almost that same time I feel like we've seen far more CoD titles.  Yet to me, battlefield has made the most progress.  
 
PS- looking closer at the franchise pages on giantbomb, I don't think the discrepancy in release schedule is as great, so maybe that's not true.  Meh.

Ok so I have finished the game, watched the whole credits and watched some more.  So if you are reading here, and don't want to be spoiled because you haven't finished the game, stop.

No seriously Stop.

Last warning, because I'm not planning on hiding things because my observations require specific (not general) observations, or may, and in the process of doing so I may ruin the end of the game for you.  Seriously, find another entry and come back later.

Ok, I'm assuming those of you with me now have finished the game or want to be spoiled.  So I finished the game last night.  I sat down and let the credits play and watched the additional scene after the game credits roll.  And then I came here and read some of what people have been saying about the story and the characters specifically the following elements (ok I lied, I put a spoiler tag here, so click at your own peril):

Ok,  so this game I think is very soul crushing.  Here's why:

As has been brought up already, side missions don't seem to help mission performance.  I've done two side missions thus far and in both cases my suspect was killed (by me) or killed himself.  Both felt like how the side missions were supposed to play out.  However, both times I did these I arrived at my next destination 'late' and in one case a POI in my case was killed (right fucking in front of me) and in another case I missed some bad guys doing something bad to someone and had a pretty harrowing end to the case as a result.  Also I'm pretty sure I ended up being forced to save a pedophile as a result of my tardiness.  FFfffffffffffffffffffffffffuckkk

Then, there's the case reviews.  It took me halfway through the traffic desk to realize how the case star system worked.  I also have no clue yet how to go review past case performance (from the main menu somewhere?).  Anyways, somewhere after the first traffic crime I noticed the hints (but not stars) at the mission review screen.  AND EVERY FUCKING TIME I have received some cryptic clue that a different line of questions would have explained something I had no clue was at work.

Next, the interrogations.  I now understand that anytime you talk to a POI it's 'interrogation mode.'  However, I was expecting more interrogations to take place in the jailhouse (like the one in the quick look).  I have only had that in jailhouse interrogation happen.  I just finished the lipstick murders.  Every fucking time my chief congratulates me on getting the guy, and the next case loads.  I seriously feel like I'm missing something here.  And that saddens my soul.  Like I literally feel there is a gross miscarriage of justice going on and instead of being straight laced and righting that particular wrong, I'm playing a cog in the machine.

But wait, there's more.  I ran over a pedestrian.  In a scripted car chase I totally fucked up some pedestrian.  And that really upset me.  I was so set on getting my man that I killed someone in a crosswalk.  Fuck.  Then there's the actual questions.  Right now my 'successful question' rate is somewhere around 40%.  Yet I'm 4-5 starring cases regularly and making my chief happy.  Plus, I use the intuition every once in a while and have now realized that just fucks you over too.  It took me a bit, but you can only use the 'lie' option when you actually have evidence to trap your witness with.  If you don't you automatically fail.  Even if you do, you have to choose the right evidence.  Anyways, if you know your clues then you'll know when you probably have evidence and when you don't.  So that option is pretty useless unless you already know the person is lying based on the facts.  So when you aren't sure about the lie option and you use intuition to remove an answer, you risk it removing the lie option which totally fucks you.  Because then your back to wondering if doubting the person will make them open up or not.  And I have used the social clue intuition exactly once.  And when I did the overwhelming majority chose doubt, and they were all wrong.  So was I.  And what am I missing, I'm 40% my way through the questions yet solving cases.  And well. 

Basically what is happening is literally in the pit of my stomach I feel I'm wronging the virtual LA.  I feel I'm making evil, not stopping evil.  And one final note.  This involves some spoilers so I'll tag the next little bit then discuss as general as possible:

Ok, so if you're in college but don't eat in the student cafeterias all the time and/or don't just order takeout, or if you're an adult I think you'll get what I'm getting at.  Otherwise, maybe not.

Self checkout. 

Now people presumably smarter than me will say here that people who use self checkout are deluding themselves and the grocery store cashiers are ALWAYS quicker than doing it yourself.  Now, in all fairness, they're probably correct.  I've never heard the argument (the people smarter than myself rarely would actually make an argument for their hypotheses), but if I were to venture a guess they would say that cashiers are paid to do their job and therefore have more practice, and are better than the average consumer at a grocery store.  Yet for a lot of things (lunches in particular) I always use self checkout.  I pretty much get the same thing every day for lunch from the local harris teeter (sub, bag of chips, drink) and once I get started at the kiosk, I can usually check out in a minute or so, which when there's not a line or when there are just likeminded lunch-buyers at the self service area, is pretty good.  Plus usually the housewives making large mid-day grocery trips usually use the regular checkout, so that's implicitly a longer wait. 
However, sometimes a serious coupon-hunter, or someone paying with a non-standard method decide they want to use the self-checkout lanes too.  And inevitably they get stuck.  Today was a perfect storm of this.  One of the four self checkout lanes was broken.  This is rarely a problem as there are 3 others.  However when I pulled up in line (2 people in front of me) there were 3 people in line, 2 of which were of the 'coupon hunter'/'housewife' variety.  The third was with someone paying with some sort of alternate method (not sure if food stamp or gift card, but she wasn't pressing the credit/debit button on the screen).  So here's what happened:
the housewife lady had a large order,  not too bad because she seemed efficient at scanning her goods so I gave her a pass.  The coupon lady was buying alot of produce, which means using the touchscreen to key in PLU's which ALWAYS does make using the self-checkout slower because people aren't very touch screen friendly by default.  The alternate payment lady was buying what looked like lunch.  But it was taking forever.  So after standing in line for like 2 minutes, the people in front of me go to a full service aisle.  After another couple minutes the housewife finished.  My turn.  I watched the alternate payment lady for a minute of those last 2 minutes trying to pay - over and over again.  When I stepped up, she was visibly and audibly getting frustrated.  Meanwhile the one dude assigned to fix problems at the self checkout kiosk had the manager come over to look at the broken kiosk.
Here is where what transpired to make me write about it happened:
First, the alternate payment lady's phone rang.  SHE ANSWERED IT.  I mean, not like you're having trouble and need to focus and there isn't a line or anything.  On top of that, she answered it just to say "I'll call you back" and the person on the other line hassled her.  I know that sounds like I'm just needling, and in a way, I am.  But what frustrates me about all of this is the general lack of self-awareness here.  So after a minute, I'm beginning the pay process.  At this point alternate payment lady is finally off the phone and asking for help from the self service dude- which he pretty dutifully goes over to help (remember he's been working on the broken kiosk until this point).  It's at this EXACT point coupon lady's coupons wont.... something....  I say this because she had trouble communicating clearly.  It sounded like her coupons wouldn't scan, but i couldn't tell.  And here's what frustrated me:  She was not aware of the fact that the kiosk dude was actually helping (and talking) to the alternate payment lady.  She just started talking at him, repeating herself, and making no energies to seem like she was willing to wait her turn, be patient, or recognize that the kiosk dude was actually busy at the moment. 

After another 30 seconds I had my goods in my grocery bag and gave a knowing smile to the people behind me in line (also lunch purchasers like myself) and made my way out of the store.  Of the 5-6 minutes I spent in line, those two people checked in probably 3 items each.  In the final 2 minutes I did 3 items and paid and walked out of the store.  Ironically when I was driving away, I saw the alternate payment lady walking out of the store looking flustered with no groceries in hand.  Not sure if she didn't have the money or what...

Anyways- my point to all this is I agree in principle with the anti-self checkout argument.  It is slower.  But, so long as people who have a desire to check their own goods out and to understand  how to work a particular self-checkout machine, there's reason to use self-checkout.  Of course, a lot of people use self checkout when they shouldn't (buying produce, large shopping order, paying in a non-standard way) and that certainly makes the experience worse.

Ehh- or I'm an asshole and shouldn't complain so much.  In other news on my way out of the parking lot I saw a blue mitsubishi eclipse driving in.  De-badged.  Rebadged with a ferrari badge.  Now that's something really bad.

Ok, so I really liked Dragon Age: Origins.  I did, however, play it on the xbox though really just because I was in a mode where I hadn't played games on the computer for years.  And I didn't have a computer that could run the game.  So I played it on the xbox, and other than some texture muddiness, I thought the game was fine.  I guess  I could see the gripes people had to an extent, but alot of what I heard was the following:
I'm so used to playing Dragon Age on the computer that the concessions they have made to make it playable on the Xbox make the game worse.

Being that I was not used to the game on the computer, this didn't really bother me.  Anyways, now I have this super fast computer so I decide to get Dragon Age 2 on the PC.  I definitely noticed in the demo I played and what I heard of the game that the graphics disparity between what you could have on the PC and what was on the Xbox has widened.  Also I could get that high res texture pack, so that's fun.  Anyways, so I'm playing Dragon Age 2 on the PC. 

So here are the complaints I've heard of Dragon Age 2 in general:
The difficulty levels make the game easier to Dragon Age Origins difficulty levels
The camera isn't tactical enough
Repeating of area textures
The game requires less thought of the player (skills easier to implement?)

So first off, what they say about Dragon Age being easier on the xbox than the PC is totally true.  I approach these games a little more like action-adventure and more for the story than for the tactical RPG elements.  So on the xbox, I usually played on the easy level.  I know, I'm a weenie!  Anyways, I let the PC game on normal as I started Dragon Age 2, and it only took about 30 minutes for me to see this critical error.  Regardless of whether Dragon Age 2 is easier than the first game, switching to the PC from Xbox versions is tough.  The game is significantly more challenging, and as of now I'm playing on easy (casual) again.  I have not been bothered by the camera nearly at all, mainly because I'm used to the xbox version.  I have certainly noticed the repeating of areas and textures in the first act, but also am still in 'this game looks so much better than the first game' mode so I haven't been too bothered by it yet.  One act one quest, however, straight repeated a dungeon area and the second quest was easier because I knew where to go.  That's kinda silly.

And on the final item, I think I see the point if you play a melee class (ie not mage).  Since I sorta wimp out and play at difficulty levels where you don't have to time your spells not to hurt you own dudes, character placement was not an issue.  And it still isn't. 

So what I have enjoyed that I think got a little lost in all the ways in which Dragon Age 2 is not necessarily better than Dragon Age Origins is the story.  Over the weekend I literally had to stop playing the game at one point because I was so overwhelmed with the way the story really puts you in kirkwall and in your role as this enforcer-helper type dude.  I sort-of feel like in Dragon Age Origins one of the things I didn't like was the game had a steep disparity (for me) between side quests and the main story quests, to the point where I had to force myself to treat the game like a game and grind out levels by doing every side quest I could.  Even if they seemed trite.  Here in Dragon Age 2, I feel like the side quests are meatier, like they are important to me as my character, and like if I skipped out on them I would be missing something.  Also the way they tell you what your big main quest is, but seem to lock you out of it is nice.  At first I was like 'ok i'll do what I need to go on this expedition,' but then I was like, "wait, something bigger is at work here and I need to figure it out, really get the feel of kirkwall."

So yes, Dragon Age 2 is in a way, Dragon Effect.  it certainly is worth all the criticisms leveled at it.  However, in my case the Dragon Age Origins I came from is not actually better than Dragon Age 2, and I'm thoroughly enjoying myself.  The only complaint I have is unlike how I feel about shepherd in the Mass Effect games, I don't care to omuch about this Dragon Age world (yet).  Hopefully the third game ties together things from the first two games in an engaging way.

Ok so I was reading a roundup of some of the latest Mass Effect 3 details and had this crazy revelation.  First, relating to ME3 here is a spoiler:

Ok so another day of reflections on PC gaming.  As an aside, the odd thing here is I spent ages 10 to about 20 being mainly a PC gamer, and took a break over the past few years playing the xbox- now I have to consider if I want to play a game on a gamepad or on a mouse and keyboard.  And I do consider that a significant choice- so far none of the games on the PC I've played that support my gamepad work quite right.  But I like the mouse and keyboard (forgot how much I like it) so good.

Ok so I've made it through the first alien part in Crysis.  The zero-g part.  Spoilers.  I feel like I cheated myself- I turned difficulty down to easy and left it there.  Alternatively- now I get to experience the story, and contrary to what everyone has said- I like the way crytek spins a story.  So good on them.  Anyways that's been fun.

Now last night I played alot of TF2 and experienced something relatively new.  Non team voice chat.  Turns out I was playing on a server with allspeak turned on.  I do not know if this means there is no team voice chat or if you can do either.  I still haven't really adopted to voice chat being normal on the PC yet- with a keyboard right there chatting seems more normal.  Anyways- after playing some of the capture point game, I went to a server that was CTF on 2Fort.  Which is a map I kinda dig because from the little bit of TF2 on the xbox I've played, this is a map I'm pretty familiar with.  So this map had one of the teams largely using voice chat to communicate important details to each other, and it took me most of a round to work out it was all the other team. 

So here's what I noticed- I was playing as a heavy attacking the flag.  Yes that seems ludicrous.  Yes it worked.  It seems that with a couple standard attack classes a heavy adds might and makes getting to the flag room relatively easy.  So does allspeak.  Turns out that when teams use voice chat to call out enemy positions (and when you're playing a heavy on attack) it's fairly easy to also work out where the enemy players are and shoot them.  Huzzah!  So until I realized that the chat I was hearing was the other team (by design it appears) I was about to plug in my headset.  For now I think I'll stick to team text chat when required.  And the Medic button.

Ok so I went ahead and built the Tested 1500 gaming Pc

And it's awesome.  Actually I didn't just build the 1500 gaming pc.  I used the 2600K i7 processor instead of the i5.  I bought 8GB of 1600Mhz DDR3 instead of 1333Mhz DDR3, and I bought a 1 TB Caviar Black drive instead of the 2 TB.  I bought everything else right down to the specs they're using.  And like I said, it's awesome.  I'm mainly interested in my computer being hyper fast without breaking a sweat- so I turned on Intels IMP overclocking instead of setting up manual overclocking and the only default I changed was to actually turn down the max OC multiplier from 43 to 40.  At 43, my CPU was hitting higher temps than I'd like so I tuned it down.  And it plays everything.  Below is my list of games installed (all of which play at maximum settings at native resolution).  I don't have some super great monitor so native resolution is 1680x1050


Crysis
Crysis: Warhead
Crysis: Wars
HL 2, Ep 1 & 2, Lost Coast
Portal
Garrys Mod
TF2
Unreal Tournament 3
The Sims 3
Civ IV


Of these- crysis wars seems to never work.  This sucks.  It appears the game hangs when trying to join a game.  That's ok though, because TF2 always works and Unreal Tournament 3 works (more on that later).


So Crysis was the first game I booted up.  Wow that game looks good.  It plays smoothly and everything works as it should.  HOWEVER, damn that game is hard.  I'm not sure if I'm just stupid or what, but I really suck at this game.  It's total crytek through and through though.  It feels like what I used to think of Far Cry as, but just a little better.  Enemy AI is just ever so advanced than before, and levels are 'bigger and better' or so some say.  I legitimately like this game, but it is really really hard.  I'm committed to finishing the game though, so oh well.

Unreal Tourney 3 was game number two.  And surprise downgrade number one.  I used to be a huge UT fan.  I've owned and played bunches of every UT out there on the PC except this one.  Now I've owned them all.  And there's a fairly small number of servers still active with a fairly small community base playing on fairly ugly community maps.  Booo.

Then was TF2, my surprise number one of these games.  That game is legit fun.  And while I've owned the orange box for the xbox, TF2 plays way better on the PC.  So much so in fact, that last night I had a sucessful round as a heavy.  I never play as a heavy- nor have I ever found success with this game.  So go that.  However- I was upset that in one round I got autoswitched to the other team, and immediately lost interest in the game.  But looks like TF2 will be my go-to multiplayer PC game for a while.

Garrys Mod was a huge surprise.  I had no clue what to expect and though I'm somewhere at the 'put the square peg in the square hole' level of understanding, I'm having fun.

I think overall the observation I'm having is how good games look these days.  I noticed that UT3 is throttled on the PC, which makes me mad(ish) but all the other games appear to be PC games- they look really good and play amazingly.  So anyways that's all I really have to say.  I suppose for the next year or so every new game that comes out will have me in fits deciding between the xbox and pc version.... meh....

Ok so I'm thinking outloud again.  Shit.  Anyways- I've been consuming content from this website since sometime around 2008 (I think), and it's been good.  I like it.  And of course- eventually I liked it enough to check out the forums and create an id an all that nonsense (something I rarely do).  And it's been good.  Of course, now I'm 26, gainfully employed, maybe a little bit wiser, but older and certainly more educated than I was when I first started paying attention to this place.
 
So then I'm observing more and more lately the following things:
 
a) I'm old.  I mean, I'm 26 so I'm still young dammit!  But, this place has hella 15-20 year olds, and I'm starting to notice more and more that my opinions, thoughts and feelings are specifically motivated by the things that happen when I'm this age as compared to the opinions, thoughts and feelings of a late-teenager.  And that's odd.
 
b) I'm smarter than I was.  People will believe what they read, not do their own research (fact-checking) and believe that opinions are fact.  And apparently that happens alot when you're in your teenage years.  It's weird seeing so many people ascribe to so many things that are ludicrous just because they can't seem to spend an ounce of intelligence outside the forum (or the internet).  Also odd- I never was one of my 'smarter' friends, but as I've grown older, I've become 'smarter.'
 
c) The internet connects people.  Seriously- when I was in my teens, i played video games.  I didn't have alot of friends who did, but I had one friend who all through my college years, we would get together during breaks and play little 1 on 1 Unreal Tournament matches.  I also played alot of that game and battlefield 1942 online during those years.  But I certainly didn't spend alot of time going onto forums and talking (or bitching) about it.  Which is weird.  Having internet validation about the other assholes out there seems to turn people into more 'complainy' versions of themselves.   Sure, I've played battlefield matches where it seemed someone was invincible (and not by skill).  Sure I've hit the report button on my xbox.  But usually I just quit the match and find another one to play.  But rarely (back in the day or now) have I been so motivated to go online and complain about all the other assholes playing game x or game y.  I just suck it up and move on.  Multiplayer storytelling, for me, is about talking about the crazy shit happening.  Like that time on wake island (BF 1942 version) when I joined this one server and there were no teams- they were having Jeep races from one end of the island to the other.  And I joined in the fun, and it was awesome.  And when we got bored, someone would grief the race (not to mention the randos joining and playing the game which resulted in them griefing us), and shortly the race would continue.  And the permutations were endless.  Racing jeep against tank (tank with firing capabilities), racing jeep against plane, tank against plane, against boat.  It was fun, and a few hours later I had already forgotten which server I found and actually never played there again.  That was both a fun and sad day- but a story that comes to mind first when I think of video game stories.  Not the time that I got my ass beat by some guy who was cheating.  Because (with one exception) I don't remember those stories. They're not the reason I devalue or value multiplayer in games.
 
 
However- the main reason I'm building a PC this summer (other than price levels being at a point where <2K gets me an upgradable machine that is pretty high end) is because of this.  Because battlefield 3 is coming out.  Because I'm excited to return to teamchat (although I bet people probably use headsets to communicate now more than typing on the PC), because I'm NOSTALGIC.   Plus with almost all major video game cards coming with mini-hdmi ports and ports for coax and digital optical, I can probably play my PC on the home theater system.  Which is awesome.
 
So anyways- my point is a) the face of the GB userbase seems to have changed, shifted (or stayed with) to a younger userbase.  At least, I've changed.  And that's alright- makes for fun reads, but sometimes, maybe sometimes, nostalgia is good.  And in this case, I feel like maybe Nostalgia has made me better.  So uh-uh-uh?