Monday 9 November 2015

Spot cream, Blops3 1st impression and smelling salts!!!

Well hello interweb, This weekend I have mostly been blowing things up, swearing a lot and laughing a lot whilst having a blast on the new Call of Duty Black Ops 3 game from Activision.
I had the game pre ordered and the Game store in the city centre was opening at eleven so I got my fat ass down there for about twenty past.
People were already forming a que and I made around number thirty.
The que got steadily longer as midnight approached and the smell of spot cream also got somewhat stronger as I found myself surrounded by people who were nerdier than myself.
It was like a scene from the Walking Dead except with NERDS!!!
A few of us at the front of the que got some free swag in the form of a Black Ops 3 lanyard, not much but better than a poke in the eye with a donut I guess.

Anyway I hurried back to Thumper (my Jeep) and sped home to find that there was a 2.7 GB day 1 patch to be downloaded before I could play.
So around 45 minutes later I got online and got me some game time in for a while.
I have played for a total of around 5 or 6 hours so far so this is just my early impression of the game to date.
I was very disappointed to find that there was no Hardcore (HC) Domination game mode as this was my staple game from AW and so it was to Core Domination I tried first of all.
Hmmmm, As usual even after playing it for a few days now the majority of players seem too hung up on their precious KDR to actually go for the objective leaving myself and maybe one or two others to do the work.
Seriously the amount of people who had 2 captures was pretty high and so I have been for the most part been playing TDM and a few games of Kill Confirmed.
My Netduma R1 Gaming Router pretty much worked out of the gate but there have been a few issues which I think are game related more than anything else.

I have seen a lot of complaints about lag and I have experienced it to some extent myself but I do feel that a lot of this is inexperience with this new release.
Time to kill is quite long as the base weapons that you have unlocked are really not that good and this can lead to people thinking they are lagging when they are not.
That said I have seen a couple of examples on youtube of some pretty bad lag and rubber banding but the majority of people complaining will not put up a full two or 3 minutes of game play to show what they are getting so I am guessing some of it is not lag but simply lack of time with the game and weak guns.
I am by no means much good at the game myself but I am surprisingly enjoying it. (for the moment)
Previous Black Ops games became more and more unplayable for me as more patches rolled out so I will not hold my breath on the longevity of me playing this one but for now it is a lot of fun especially if you are in a party with at least 1 friend.
I have only just made level 20 so do not have many decent guns unlocked yet but have been trying the low level ones and have come to the conclusion that for me there are 3 to choose from at lower levels. 
I guess it is a personal preference but the KN44 assault rifle is for me the only choice. It reminds me of the AK 47 from previous games and after unlocking the grip reflex sight and quick draw on it I can do reasonably well for an old duffer.
Not had much success with SMG's for a couple of releases now but the KUDA SMG is a powerful gun and feels like a cross between an ACR and an MP5 from previous games.
Lots of people are raving about the Gorgon Light Machine Gun which is pretty much a 2 hit kill at any range so I gave it a go but find the BRD is a better more versatile LMG.
The problem I found with the Gorgon was simply that whilst it is 2 shot kill it takes so long for that second bullet to leave the barrel the enemy had fired a clip reloaded and were firing again.
There are a few new additions to the game like the winners circle which I have made it into a few times, Just not as many as Nighthawk (JD) or Knuckles who seem to get in there nearly every damn game.
The specialist I could actually happily leave out of the game. You see I am not sure if they have any counters at all and whilst I can see they have tried to balance them a couple of them are in my humble opinion slightly overpowered. The sparrow thing which fires explosive arrows seems to be able to fire faster than a SMG and if it comes within a few feet of you explodes killing you, as a result there are lobbies filled with people spamming this shit all over the place and I know its there for everybody to use but it's getting old fast as the saying goes.
So all in all for a release weekend I think it has gone quite well and in my opinion the game is much more fun and tolerable when playing it with friends than solo.
It has certainly improved 10 fold since the beta and as long as my trusty R1 keeps connecting me to those low ping lobbies and the Devs don't screw things up with all the patches then I can see me playing this game right up to the next release. It is with out a doubt much more fun and playable at the minute than Adavanced Warfare.
In other news I only had 1 large Whisky to drink last last night and I think my body has gone into shock as it usually receives between 1 and 2 bottles of red on an evening.
The weather is a paler shade of shite outside and blowing a gale too so I think staying here in mission control is the answer to that and maybe some sort of smelling salts to get the smell of that damn spot cream out of my nostrils.
Peace out Yall, THE BAGSTAXXXX


 

Wednesday 4 November 2015

Wine, Black Ops and Coffee!!!

good morning interweb, I am feeling a little groggy today as I drank far to much red wine last night and have absolutely no right to be up and able to type at this time.
I did start playing Advanced Warfare but after only a few games got very frustrated by all the full tilt douchebags with the constant barrage of noob toobs and rocket launcher spam in every objective mode.
The only mode that was playable was TDM Core and I did hand out a couple of spankings but quickly discovered that despite been a grumpy old bastard and probably the most anti social person I know, I am actually quite social. With the correct people it would appear.
You see I game most evenings with a friend from The USA and we bitch n moan about stuff laugh and joke and generally behave as if we were down at the local bar but playing a video game at the same time.
A couple of nights ago I got online and had a few games of Black Ops 2 on the PS3 with Dillinger (another gamer form the USA) and despite the fact that he did not have his mic set up we did have a total blast sending the odd message via PSN after the games.
Now I never really did very well on Blops2 and stopped playing it after about 4 months due to the horrendous lag I was suffering but the other night Dillinger and myself were topping the leader boards every single game. This on a game I have not played more then twice in about 2 years.
So this has got me wondering if it is the magic of my Netduma R1 that is helping my connection out or the seriously hard work I have put in to the last two awful titles that the Call of Duty franchise has put out.
I am sure I will be put out of my misery and find out soon enough, Thursday at midnight I will be in the shorter of the two que's at Game in the city centre as I went in and fully pre paid for my copy of Black Ops 3 on Sunday.
After playing the beta I was not impressed. I must be honest but then I played the Star Wars beta and was less than impressed with that as well.
So with the whole weekend off to try stuff out I am sure I will have a KDR of 0.4 by Monday morning but at least I will have played the objective. :)
In other news our neighbours from hell appear to be making more steps towards actually moving house. It was sold over 3 months ago but the noisy little bastards are still there. However I did see a very large roll of bubble wrap in the living room as I drove past a couple of days ago. Hopefully they will be gone by Christmas.
And so to today, I have an appointment with a flat white coffee at Costa later and will be watching the results of today's Trixie with interest.
We have Stand to reason in the 13.00 hrs at Warwick, Duchess of Marmite in the 16.40 at Kempton and how could I resist, Taste the Wine in the 13.10 at Chepstow.
Oh and a long shot punt, "Between the Sheets" has just come in 3rd at Greyville, no pun intended.

And so interweb I will leave you with these thoughts, "As long as we respond predictably to what feels good and what feels bad, it is easy for others to exploit our preferences for their own ends."
"and I have been wondering of late, do you think that ISIS, Al Qaeda et al have a territorial division?"

Peace out yall, THE BAGSTAXXX