Author Archives: Donncha

So at first we played with some crummy t…

So at first we played with some crummy teams in Bad Company 2 Conquest last night but then played a couple of games of SDM which were a blast. Later on we teamed up with some good guys! Unfortunately the opposition were pretty tough too! I managed a positive or 1.0 KDR in only two games but we won a share of games too. Yes, I was that guy taking a bullet for the team.

Good News! There was hardly any C4 whoring! I armed a crate in one game when a wookie on my team rushed in and through stick after stick of C4 on it. I was shouting, “NOOOOO! Those were my points! I got here first!” but luckily he got killed by the enemy, I took out a medic but then fell myself. Too late to disarm the crate though! 🙂

Rush defence on Nelson Bay was particularly tough. We were down to our last base, and fought tooth and nail to secure it. I got several disarms and suffered an atrocious number of deaths but we got our win.

The final game I played on Isla was totally different as most of the enemy were camped on the hills around the first island. Every few minutes a helicopter would come flying in, crash and a single solitary soldier would leap out only to succumb to a hail of lead. They didn’t have a chance.

Thanks to almost all my regular team mates for joining in at one stage or another. Most of the team was made up of friends for quite a while which was a blast. Pity the PS3 doesn’t have the equivalent of Xbox Live party chat or we’d have totally kicked ass.

Map Pack #6 for Bad Company 2 (for real)

Once again Fieldoperative has the scoop. He must be watching the BC2 store on a daily basis!

Map *cough*mode*cough* pack #6 is out tomorrow for Bad Company 2 and in my opinion is a wasted opportunity and a disappointment. It will have Panama Canal Squad Death Match & Laguna Presa Squad Rush. At least I do play a bit of SDM these days but it would have been so nice to get Conquest on Valparaiso.

Can we all say, “DICEapathy”? Would that be fair?

Well that was an odd game of Squad Death…

Well that was an odd game of Squad Death Match in Bad Company 2. I joined after playing Onslaught in hardcore mode (thanks Mike for joining in briefly!) but after we were decimated Mike left to go off to the cinema and my squadmates decided they wanted to play with themselves so the game ended prematurely.

Anyway, on to SDM. This is one of the times I wish I had a PVR. The squad I joined was leading with 5 kills when I joined and I was doing well. The matchmaking system working perfectly for once. Then I got killed and spawned on Matheu who was crouched in the upper corner of a house. I noticed a number of C4 charges on the lower floors and presumed he was waiting to kill someone with the explosives. Thinking, “Good luck with that”, I ran down the stairs and off into the fight.

Later on I spawned on him again. He was still in the same house! I checked the scores and he had 2 kills to his name. Over the mic I asked him what he was doing crouched there. He didn’t reply so I got out the grenade launcher, aimed over his head and blew away the wall behind him! Sure, the guy needed some sun being locked away in that corner for so long! “Here, I’ll let some daylight in.” He fell out unfortunately but came racing up again into another corner. “Eh? Let me help you.” Boom, more daylight! Boom! Boom!

Repeat this a few more times. When I saw his explosives from elsewhere in the map I’d lob a few 40mm grenades over in his direction. The resulting explosion would more likely than not set off his C4, and unfortunately I killed him when he wasn’t fast enough evacuating one building. I think between us we took down 3 houses.

He left the game shortly after the teamkill. I miss him. Did I upset him? I was just helping him get a tan.

Good news, we went on to win the game! Thanks to Matheu I blew holes in one house, looked out and saw two medics in a house across the road and got myself a double kill. Later on I killed a guy in the middle of the road, a medic jumped out and revived him. Would could I do? I shot the medic, and pumped the original guy full of bullets until I ran out. He was invulnerable of course, but my trusty sidearm took care of him when that wore off.
Got the last kill of the game too. Woohoo!

We won the game, I got 18 kills, ace pin in the game and a positive KDR. Great game. Very enjoyable.


What’s Double Dragon?

It was with amazement I read that question on the hupit forum a while back.

What? You’ve never heard of Double Dragon? Arcade beat ’em up from the late 80’s?

Double Dragon was only one of the most anticipated arcade conversions of 1989. A two player beat ’em up, heroes (Billy and Jimmy Lee) fighting against hoards of baddies to rescue Billy’s girlfriend.

Exciting, heady stuff!

Of course, when it finally hit the C64 it was a less than stellar conversion. All the moves were in there but there was this annoying gap in the torso of each character. The programmers even added a note in the game manual about it!

Nokia 5800 Long Term Review

Nokia 5800 XpressMusic is a smartphone and portable entertainment device by Nokia. It was introduced on October 2, 2008 and released on November 27, 2008. Code-named “Tube”, it is the first touchscreen-equipped S60 device by Nokia. The version being s60v5. It’s part of the XpressMusic series of phones, which emphasizes music and multimedia playback. The touchscreen features tactile feedback. (Wikipedia)

I’ve had a Nokia 5800 for almost a year now. I was really excited when I bought this phone last year. My first touchscreen smartphone! It took some getting used to, having mostly been a Nokia S40 user. It didn’t take long, and in fact now I try to press the screen when I use older phones!

The phone itself does all the usual things and frankly, there are many in-depth reviews out there. Here are a few:

I love this phone. It’s the best phone I’ve ever owned. It’s not perfect by any means but the pros outweigh the cons!

  1. I love the on-screen keyboard for entering texts. It will switch from portait to landscape mode when you turn the phone on it’s side. When I first bought the phone I could use predictive text in both portrait and landscape mode but the latest firmware upgrade changed that. In landscape mode I can’t use predictive text now. That sucks.
  2. The GPS works reasonably well though. Using Windows or Mac OS X software you can download maps for your area to the phone. Unfortunately the GPS chip in the phone is Assisted GPS. It makes a network connection almost every time it needs to find it’s location. I actually bought a data add-on simply because the phone seemed to “leak” data for no apparent reason but it was probably because I had loaded Nokia Maps.
  3. Nokia recently made their navigation system free of charge and it works, sometimes well, sometimes not. Unfortunately it sends us driving in round about ways on occasion. Our journey may be directly down a road but the map told us to cross the river, drive for a bit and then drive across a bridge further up!
  4. The camera is decent enough. It has a flash too. There’s a plastic cover over the lens on the back and unfortunately it cracked. I bought a cheap cover on Amazon but now the light leaks from the flash so I usually disable it when I can.
  5. Reception is very good. Phone calls don’t drop very often, and texts go through all the time. Data calls drop occasionally, and will drop back to Edge if required. No “grip of death”! (har har, bet you’re all sick of that now aren’t you?)
  6. My favourite apps would have to be Gravity, a Twitter application, and Opera Mini for browsing. Opera Mini loads the mobile version of Gmail and Google Reader quickly and display them with little lag. There’s also the free Youtube app which is excellent but I prefer to use a computer for watching videos. I also have numerous free apps and games installed, almost all from the Ovi store.
  7. The Ovi store is Nokia’s application store. It’s basic, but it’s quite good. You can search for apps, and sort and display by different criteria. Only want free apps? There ya go! Installing is a sinch, but it would be nice if they made reviews more accessible. You have to click through to them.
  8. Battery life is pretty good too. If you’re browsing the net and making phone calls it’ll last well over a day but add GPS and suddenly battery life drops like a bomb. If it has to hunt for a signal that hurts too unfortunately.

So, there it is. The Nokia 5800 is an excellent phone. It’s not perfect but I can heartily recommend it.

My next phone? I already bought it. It’s the Samsung Galaxy S, an Android powered smartphone. While the 5800 is an excellent phone it’s showing it’s age. Using the new phone is like moving from Windows 3.11 on a 486 to Windows 95 on a Pentium. Hmm, time to update my analogies?

Mode Pack #6 is apparently coming to Bad…

Mode Pack #6 is apparently coming to Bad Company 2 next week according to this post. No details, and I haven’t checked the BfBC2 store but it fits in with their monthly giveaway of new maps mode packs.

So, we’re not going to see new maps. That’s clear enough already. What would you like to see? If I was a betting man I’d say we’ll get rush on Laguna Alta which could be like rush on White Pass. Alpha will be so close to the attackers deployment battle will be joined as soon as anyone moves an inch.
Or they’ll make a mode pack for SDM or squad rush and everyone will go YAAAAWWWWWNNNNN!

I was just thinking the other day how the lack of a level editor is such a missed opportunity for players. The Doom and Quake series had level editors, other shooters from that era had them too. I remember downloading mods for Doom 2 and having a blast! Are games companies so scared we won’t buy their next big product just because there’s a level editor (and hopefully active community) in a game? Really?
Do they lack the imagination to make a better sequel and feel threatened by amateurs designing levels? Do they think we won’t splash the cash if we have new levels for their old game?

The average age of games players is now in the early thirties. That means they’re probably working, have a family and have (some) disposable income. Sure, getting maps for free is great, but what about a map store? The Apple app store proved that people will buy in their droves if the price is right. Apple make a fortune from it and there’s a huge community around it. People talk all the time about their favourite apps. Why the hell haven’t EA or Activision replicated this for their respective franchises? All we get is what the company blesses and produces itself.

Would you buy maps built by amateurs or even semi-pros who didn’t work for the game publisher? What if they were priced like app store products? US$0.99 for a map?

Such a missed opportunity.

Edit: I forgot about Starcraft II. That has a level editor of some sort doesn’t it?

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