Gearheads of War

SweetTea wrote a diary about the Microsoft discussion about what is going to happen at E3 last week.  If you want to watch last week's episode on Xbox 360, go here.

The Sony entry is live at Game Trailers.  I actually think Sony is really going to be hurting until they drop the price of the console by about $200.  MGS4 will move a lot of units and FFXIII will move a ton in Japan, but I don't see Sony being successful until the price comes down significantly.

The Wii has ultimately been so successful because it is affordable and it's done a great job marketing its unique nature to people outside of gaming.  Every month if you look at the NPD numbers, it essentially goes in order of price.

It's always Wii, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.  Heck, the PS2 is still selling like gangbusters because it's really cheap and there is a great library of games for it now.  I still think price is the most important factor.  We'll see 360s and PS3s really start to move as soon as they become affordable.  N'Gai makes a really good point about how the Xbox reached its pinnacle when Halo was out there and the price hit $199 and $149.

Any way, check out the video.  It's pretty interesting.  E3 is now right around the corner, so we won't have to wait long to see what the Big 3 have in store for us.

I was thinking last night about just how great some of the Gearheads are (usually as I was getting killed).  I've never ventured out into the ranked field because I just don't want to deal with folks who play the "Gearheads" way, so I don't really have a great basis to compare, but I would say we've got some pretty darned great players among this group.  

But it's funny, some of us definitely have our specialties.  A weapon we all love and have tried to become a master at.  Some I was thinking what players I'd associate with what weapon and mastery of that weapon.  Now, I don't intend to slight anyone on the site who is really good with a certain weapon.  This is just my observation from getting killed a great many times by that weapon by that Gearhead so please don't take offense.  This list is intended to prompt discussion of who is good with what.  

Here is my list:

Torque Bow:  This is one of the easier categories.  Zoso Fan really has no rivals in terms of the TB from my experience.  Machete is pretty darned good as well.    I would say that he's the only player who is near Zoso's class amongst the Gearheads.

Longshot:  Robbins is one of the best, if not the best.  He gets head shots galore and I know because I'm always a victim of them when I'm on the other team.  Frosty Vern is pretty darned good with the snipe as well as is Zoso, Scott and Machete.  I judge this category based on who gets the most head shots on a consistent basis.

Lancer:  In other words, the saw.  I'd say this is likely a three-way tie between Poland, GearsChrisB and Blankman.  Both are unbelievably effective when using the Lancer to chop people in two.  

Boomshot:  I'd have to say ESuns and Robbins are pretty close.  ESuns was getting some great kills with the boom last night.  Machete is also pretty darned good with the boomshot.  But Robbins is an artist of destruction with it.

Boltok:  I'd never seen anyone use the Boltok and get regular headshots until last night when ajABE did it to me repeatedly.  I didn't realize how effective a weapon that thing is.  Amazing.

Gnasher:  Oh man, so many are so good in this category it's tough to choose.  But no question this goes to Really Doe.  gackywacky is also unbelievably nasty with it (I've only played with him a couple of times, so I'm not sure what else he might be good at).  So is Scott, Grymm, Frosty Vern and Sonic Crazy.  As a matter of fact, I think there are fewer Gearheads who are bad with it then are good with it.  

Hammer of Dawn:  This would have to be Zoso.  I don't know too many people who can use the Hammer and use it effectively.  As a matter of fact, we've largely taken it out of our games now because most don't bother with it.

I think that's all I can really think of.  Do you guys have anything?  Did I miss anyone?

It was another fun FFF for the Gearheads. I played with a few guys that I don't usually get a chance to play with in TexasTrap and TMBSwift.  We also saw the return of RedChief to FFF, which felt like we were going old school.  So it was a nice mix of old and new.

I didn't keep exact track, but this might've been the best my team has done during FFF.  We only lost two matches all night and we switched up teammates a couple of times.  I was particularly surprised because I thought the team with Really Doe, Machete, Grymm and RedChief was going to roll over us.  It was me, Robbins, TMBSwift and TexasTrap.  

I had a pretty good night personally even though the darned boom shot often went right through some opponents.  There was one incident on Gridlock where I actually hit an opponent (I think it was Grymm) right in the chest with it, the boom exploded and Grymm just kept charging.  After I saw that, I thought someone spiked my drink.  But alas, Grymm killed me almost immediately since I missed him and then proceeded to take Robbins out too to get his team the win.  I did actually have my chainsaw working pretty well last night whereas I usually get my head popped off quite often when I try to use it.  Still, I got two torque bow kills as well (I usually leave the torque for others who are better with it).  I did chainsaw Zoso twice and it felt really wrong.  You just don't chop your brother in arms to bits.  It's part of the unwritten code (or maybe now that I've written it, it's part of the written code).

Any way, Machete had one of the most ridiculous head shots ever with the sniper on Bullet Marsh.  He climbed over the short wall in the center where the boom is, into the darkness and fired before he was even all the way over (on my screen at least) and popped my head off.  I was bitter, but hell, if you can execute something like that, I've got to give you your props.

Anything you remember from the evening?  What about the other room?

By the way, I plan on being on a little after 9 p.m. tonight for some more Gears goodness.  My wife is going to another concert tonight so it should be a late night.  That being said, I'm going to nap now.  We're potty training my daughter and I'm frickin' exhausted.

Man, the weeks have been flying by lately.  I can't believe it's already that time of the week.  But yep, time to sign up for FFF.  I probably won't be playing as late tomorrow as I normally do because my wife is actually going to see another concert in LA on Saturday night, so I'm going to be playing both nights this weekend.

I'll probably get on and host a game starting around 8:30 p.m. PST and will likely only play until 10 or so.  But Saturday night will probably be a late evening.  I'll probably start a little past 9 p.m. PST and will likely be on until midnight or so.

As usual, I'm asking for a volunteer to host the EST match earlier as I know many of you can't stay up until the early morning hours on Saturday to play.  Oh an I had a few people telling me that there's been a bit too much complaining of late in some of the Gearheads matches.  I suppose I'm guilty of complaining about Really Doe's shotgun quite a bit, so I'll try and keep that to a minimum.  I apologize if I've been whining a bit much about it of late.

Any way, sign up below for FFF and I'll try and keep the complaining to a minimum.  Although when I get a little beer in me, all bets are off ;-)

By the way, what adult beverage do you like to drink while playing during FFF?  I like Newcastle and Bass beers as well as Chimay.  Not sure if any of you have tried Chimay, but it's a beer brewed by monks and it's one of the smoothest, best beers I've ever had.  The problem is that it comes in a big bottle that doesn't close up well, so you really have to drink it all in one sitting.  That would explain why my play gets worse and worse as the night goes on.

I was thinking about my take on Gears of War today and how it has evolved since the game was released.  In particular how I've started to enjoy more maps than others.  When I started out, my two favorite maps were Gridlock and Escalation.  I also liked Fuel Depot.  Canals was one of my least favorite maps because I felt like I couldn't do anything.

But as I've played the game more and more, I came to love Canals.  It is still one of my favorite maps because there are so many places to hide and sneak up on an opponent.  Especially guys who love sniping.   You can easily often sneak up on a guy trying to snipe and get him with the saw. I've also come to not really like Escalation as much because of the crunch points on the stairs.  Everyone meets there and it often turns into best shotty wins.  

Now Gridlock still remains one of my favorite maps at this point, but that's because of the weapon swap with the two boom shots replacing the Hammerburst.  I also love Mansion with that weapon swap as well.  I particularly like the Boom switch because it encourages people keeping their distance a little more.  

But any way, with the new maps being released and others, I would probably say that my favorite maps are, in this order:

1.  Fuel Depot (I'm not sure anything is going to change this)
   
2.  Canals
   
3.  Gridlock
   
4.  Mansion
   
5.  Bullet Marsh

My least favorite are:

1.  Raven Down
   
2.  Old Bones
   
3.  Rooftops
   
4.  Tyro Station
   
5.  Clocktower

How have your thoughts on the maps evolved after hours and hours of gameplay?  Have you changed in terms of what your favorite weapon is?  Or have you pretty much remained the same since the game was released?

One of the things that I find especially frustrating about being considered a "gamer" is that people automatically assume certain things about me.

Now I'm not saying that some of the stereotypical gamer cliches don't hold true with me.  Many would consider my sense of humor pretty dorky.  I love science fiction movies like The Matrix and grew up loving the Star Wars movies.  I am a bit overweight and don't work out as much as I should (though I've been hitting the gym a lot more lately).

But one of the stereotypes that I think misses me is the stereotype of an overly negative, cynical person who can't be pleased by anything.  It doesn't take a genius to figure out that's the overall nature of the gamer these days.  All you have to do is spend one minute on a message board and read through all of the flame wars to realize that gaming isn't something that people take lightly.  One of the major reasons I started Gearheads of War was because I was inspired to try and create a place where people could unabashedly love a game and not have the threat of flame wars breaking out.  

Now Gearheads has evolved a bit whereas we don't just talk about Gears.  We've discussed everything from Halo 3 to the Wii to the PS3.    But I've enjoyed the fact that much of the negativity that surrounds other online places to discuss games has remained clear of Gearheads.

I just get tired of it and I'm wondering what compels people to continue with this hobby if they so hate everything in it?  I mean I read some of these message boards sometimes and wonder if the people who are posting even enjoy games or they're just searching for an outlet to complain about something.  Now I'm not going to sit here and say that the people on message boards and blogs are the only ones playing games.  Actually, there's a lot of evidence that we're actually in the minority of those who play games.  I imagine the Madden-only gamer or the Halo-only gamer don't necessarily populate message boards or blogs.  Maybe that's where the positive vibes hide?

I don't know but it's one of the things that bugs me about being classified as a gamer.  I'd like to think I'm pretty positive most of the time until I'm given a reason not to be.  What kind of gamer are you?  Are you one of the positive ones?  Does it make us pollyannas by just accepting what we're fed?  Are we so jaded that no game ever seems to live up to our lofty expectations no matter what?

Man some funny stuff comes up on Friday nights.  As many of you know I switch out the Hammerburst for Boom shot.  I figure, why not make the maps more interesting since no one uses Hammerburst any way?

So as I was booming my way through Fuel Depot and Gridlock, we came back to the pregame lobby and I started singing "Boom boom boom let's go back to my room so we can do it all night."  SweetTea promptly replied, "Hey, we should create Gearheads: The Musical, what with that song and Really Doe's acting chops."

Any way, it was one of the light moments of the night.  As usual, Really Doe was nasty with the shotgun, taking Lancer bullet after Lancer bullet and refusing to acknowledge they were even there.    Although I did actually win one one-on-one shotty battle with Really Doe for maybe the first time in the history of FFF.  Usually if Really gets close to you, your head is going to pop off or you're going to blow apart.  That's just one of the laws of FFF.

It was a ton of fun as usual and we played until the other side of midnight when my wife got home from seeing Gwen Stefani in concert.  One of the big highlights of the evening was the final brother versus brother, Wangler vs. Wangler battle (SweetTea vs. Wangler1316) to decide the final victor on Mausoleum.  The battle was epic, prompting Zoso to quip, "This is downright Shakespearean and if SweetTea had any dignity, he'd just off himself right now rather than kill his brother."  A moment later, younger brother prevailed for the final kill of the night and sending the Zoso/Papi/Robbins/Younger Wangler to bed with the satisfaction of victory.  Although Zoso claimed he was going to go get a chocolate shake.  I think that was an homage to our brothers in arms partnership as I quickly realized it was my obligation to get a peanut butter shake today.  Heh.

Finally, since this post has a music theme, I was wondering what the perfect Gears of War soundtrack might be.  My daughter heard the song "Bodies" today by Drowning Pool and loved it.  Obviously that would be a good candidate.  I was also thinking that Shamrocks and Shenanigans (Butch Vig Mix) by House of Pain would be another good choice since it's got the "Boom-Sha-lak-lak-Boom" chorus and it's got "shenanigans" in the title.  I personally love the "I bring doom because I've got the boom" line.  Any other songs?  The Mad World song would need to be on there as well as Megadeth's Gears of War.  And a good amped up song that I also like is Sepultura's Ratamahatta.

It's that time of week already.  Time for you to sign up for the Friday Night FragFest.  

I will be hosting a game this week starting at 9 p.m. PST.  Sorry for starting a little late, but my wife is going to a concert and I'm putting my daughter down to sleep tomorrow night.  At the same time, my wife will be out late with her aunt so I anticipate it being a late night for me and you on Gears of War.

It would probably be a good idea to get someone to volunteer to be the East Coast host since I'll be on later.  Polandstyle still isn't available to do it, so perhaps someone else could volunteer below?

Any way, I'm looking forward to catching up with some of you who were absent last Friday night.  Sign up for FFF below.

After one blue screen of death, two program instillations (plus another that isn't automatically supported) and one hour of "oh, wow that's cool" I am ready to chat about my Windows Vista experience.  

Gearheads, I got this idea a little while ago when N'Gai Croal ran the photo of my daughter and myself on Level Up.

One of the Gearheads reminded me of this this past weekend when she sent me a photo of her son playing Gears of War with us.  It was adorable and funny all at once.  So I decided right then and there that I was going to share photos of myself and my daughter so we can get to know each other a little better.  I figured we've gotten to be a big enough community that it would be fun to put up a picture thread.

That being said, here are some photos of myself, my wife and my daughter:

This was the three of us celebrating New Year's Eve at Mel's Diner in Sacramento.  Crazy times with a two year old!

Here we are playing "caballo" at my mother's house this past Christmas.  I was rocking the Gears tee!

There's the photo that ran on the Level Up blog.  We were partying at a huge family fiesta.

So, if you want to share your photo below, just use this html:

Use this carrot (<) then NO SPACE img src="the photo url goes here" then close carrot (>)  It should show up in the comments.  Let's get to know our community better.

Hey Gearheads, I just wanted to wish all of you guys out there who are gaming fathers, like myself, a Happy Father's Day!  Blankman, ESuns, Polandstyle, GearsChrisB, all my best to you on this special day.  And anyone else who has children out there that I might not know about.

Also, Happy Father's Day to all of your fathers who raised some great people.  My Dad passed away when I was 18 and Cliff was 15, so I can't help thinking of him quite often on a day like this.  The funny thing is that I have four brothers and Cliff and I were the last two of the litter and my Dad never really understood Cliff and I.  It might've been a product of age, but he always seem baffled at the fact that Cliff and I played with Transformers and collected them into our early teen years.  We were also obsessed with video games, and my first system was the Atari 2600.  

I distinctly remember one birthday my Dad got me the game Berzerk for the 2600 and sat down and played with us.  It's one of my great memories of my Dad, just us sitting down and laughing and having a great time with that game.  And he was actually pretty darned good at the game, believe it or not.  It's just funny some of the flashes in time you remember so distinctly about your parents.  That one is as vivid to me today as it was the day it happened just because my father was such a "man's man" and thought that the only way to bond with your kids was through sports.  He and I did bond through sports quite a bit as well, but he was also ultra competitive and those basketball games and volleyball games we had often became family fights.  It was him taking the time to do something we loved that resonates with me to this day.  I try and remember that and always try and do the things that my daughter loves most while also giving her exposure to the things I love.  So we'll play choo-choos one minute and then we'll watch the Halo 3 trailer together.  I hope I'm finding that happy balance.

Happy Father's Day, fellow Gearheads.  Any stories about your Dad?  Wisdom he's left for you?  Have a great one.

It was nice to return to the FFF.  It was good getting back with the boys.  

The highlights came fast and furious last night, but I think the two best moments that I saw were Blankman's boom shot on Nate on Process.  Nate was tearing into Blank with with Lancer and wasn't really in cover when you could see Blank going down, but as Blank was going down he managed to get off a boom shot that blew Nate to pieces.

The other one was the longest Torque Bow I've ever seen.  Zoso was all the way across the map on War Machine and JohnEMidnight was at the top of the stairs on the other side.  The torque tore all the way across the map and stuck right into John's backside for a beautiful kill.  Possibly the best TB I've ever seen just for the pure distance of it all.  John looked like a speck that far away.

I had some highlights as well whereas I was hitting folks all the way across the map on Gridlock with the boom. I also managed to kill two in one with a well-placed grenade in Escalation.  And I should've had a moment where I took out two in a two-on-one situation, but unbeknownest to me, my melee with the boom on someone who I'd downed with splash damage didn't take.  So when I downed the second guy I didn't realize the other one had gotten up.  Lame!

Any way, here's the place for the Gearheads report.  What was your highlight?  We did have a couple of new Gearheads join us, so welcome aboard Desert Foxel.