Gearheads of War

Sorry i haven't been on much, lot of stuff going on at work and i'm trying to cut down my appetite of online forums. So i've decided to take an extended leave of absence from gearheads. Don't worry, i stll love you guys very much. Just trying to set my priorities straight.

You might not see me on live that often too so feel free to remove me from your your FL, dont want to hog it for no reason. When and if i comeback i'll send you an FR myself, hopefully you'll still have space.

Thanks for being so nice all along, you guys all rock.

Naveeda out.

Often time when playing a gears public match i notice a message at the bottom left of my screen Marcus Left. Now i know this happens all the time when players leave a message like this appears, but for some reason I've never seen a Marcus Joined message in the first place and then this message is without the chainsaw symbol, which shows up when a player leaves during game, so supposedly this Marcus guy joined, was waiting in the lobby while the round was in progress and then he left.

Now i wouldn't bother about it no matter how many times a player would have left but the thing is that the GT is Marcus,  which apparently doesn't even have a 360 (check the link), so I'm wondering if anyone else has seen this.

In case you missed todays big news:

Microsoft announced today they are extending all Xbox 360 warranties to three years, a policy that not only applies to new consoles but retroactively, as well. If you've had to pay for Microsoft to repair the red ring issue in the past, they will pay you back. At 2:30 p.m. PST, Microsoft will hold a teleconference to announce this.

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3160812

I think its a good move my MS but honestly the 33% or more failure rate is simply unacceptable. These guys should get their act together and fix the thing in the first place.

Any Shadowrun players out here? I started playing it recently boy was i pleasantly surprised. I think the game was robbed by its reviews.

For example if you read the IGN review, it goes on to describe issues with PC live service in lengths and other stuff before saying "Despite the number of gripes, the game itself it a lot of fun, thanks to some well-balanced magic and tech attacks." The thing is, if more readers are like me, they are not going to even reach this line.

1UP guys did a better job of summarizing the game upfront and i agree, if you somehow manage to get pass the strings that are attached "...you'll have a hell of a lot of fun."

Shadowrun is basically a tactical FPS with lots of equipment in it. I use the word equipment for both "tech" and "magic" abilities. Simply put these are tools you can use to do special things. A little bit similar to the equipment in Halo 3. For example, you can deploy a power drainer, jump higher, get temporary invulnerability, go through walls etc.

The game is tactical and requires lot of communication. Mainly because you have one life per round and just like in gears, no communication and tactics and you loose pretty quick, no matter what weapons you're carrying or what equipment you got. Its funny because you can actually "revive" a friend who is "down" but not "out".

No single player campaign exists, but you can use the BOTS to create your own match, and man on tougher settings those bots kick some major butt, very impressive AI programming IMO.

If you do pick it up, make sure to go through the tutorials, they are a must and you get achievements for completing those too.

I know this guy from one of the gaming sites vgrefugees.com and although I don't play racing games myself but i felt i should let the racing fans here know about the product.

Checkout KontrolFreek.com. Speed Freek is basically a gaming accessory that attaches to your 360 controller and makes it easier to play driving games. Its a very simple concept that works really good i hear. Here is an image:

Forza guys have posted a review about it here.  IGN review is here.

Disclaimer: I'm not affaliated with this company in anyway, since a bunch of friends using it say its great i thought i'd let you folks know about it.

I played some last few nights, thankfully it still has Halo written all over it, so anyone who was expecting a totally different kind of game than Halo 2 would be disappointed, I was for sure not one of them.

First Impressions The biggest WOW factor for me was the sounds, from the grenade cracking to the distant gunfire, it was really amazing to hear. Graphics are definitely sweet but not Gears quality, but still beautiful enough to stop and take a look at that thing. MC's looks are bit changed and the jumps seems a little higher to me.

Weapons The game is full of weapons now, there are so many of them it becomes a bit hard to choose from, the AR is the perfect starting weapon, you dont go looking for another one and can jump into the fight with just that and do decent damage. Still controlling the power weapons is important to winning the game. Needler is no more dual wieldable but much more powerful, about 10-12 hits and you're done. plasma charge doesnt track that much anymore, so its harder to pull off the noob combo. Auto-aim has been significantly reduced for BR and Sniper, makes it hard to do swipe headshots.

Equipment and Support Weapons Its hard to predict the impact of these, I havent played with them much to make an assessment, Shield Drain or whatever thats called, made some fun moments.

Vehicles I tried Mongoose quite thoroughly, its a lot of fun and you can pretty much take it anywhere, it goes into pipes to stairs to rooms to anywhere. I wasn't able to jack it though? Ghost seems a little slower to me.

Maps Between SnowBound and HighGround, i really liked HighGround, the map is perfect for any kind of game as long as the party size is smaller than 10. Valhalla is a  BloodGulch/Cogulation derivative and as beautiful as Yosemite, its best suited for big teams, but 4v4 objective games will still work.

User Interface Options and a lot of them, from match making to voice output to Spartan armor, but the defaults kick in so that you dont get lost if you dont want to. Controller settings will take some time to get used to. i keep on dropping my bubble shield to board mongoose.

More later.

So i played with some of you on last FFF, i joined a little late on Blanman's invite and there were bunch of familiar faces, Zoso, MDK, David, Blankman, good to see you all, but there were two other guys in my team that weren't playing at all, instead most of the time they didnt move out of the spawn area, or just shot fires in the sky, in addition they were constantly picking up on one guy in the other team, or planning new things to do the same. I think it was David who tried a bit to tell them to chill but nothing helped, infact he got some of it too. So eventually i left the room and played with some other friends.

I see a lot of this on XBL everyday so its not that i couldnt handle this, and anyway its probably easier for me to just ignore this and move on, it wasnt directed at me anyway. but i think i do care about this community and if you guys havent read the FFF  details please do so now and specially read the The Golden Rule of Respect part. These things prevail longer than you think.

If these things continue without check, then i'd assume that i'm the odd man out here.

Looks like Epic has listened to so many people complaining about the new rodie run, so today they announced that they are going to fix the fix, and basically make everyone happy (i dont think thats possible though). Anyways here is the link to Rod Fergusson's post. Or you can just read it below:

Hey all,

As you know, at Epic we try very hard to listen to our community and address issues they may be having with our games. Recently, to do just that, we tweaked the way that roadie run controls so that players would have greater control of their movement in an attempt to reduce the amount of times a player would accidently get sucked into cover. Our idea was to look at "player intent", in essence, where is the movement stick when a player bumps into cover. If the player wants to go into cover then they'll have the stick pointing towards it. It they want to stay out of cover then they'll have the control stick pointing away from it.

We tested this method extensively for weeks and really felt that it was a solid improvement, otherwise we would have never released it. We have received numerous emails and forum posts from people who really like the new system but unfortunately that is not true for everyone. Based on what we're hearing from the community now, there are a large number of players where this new control system does not help them as we intended. For that we apologize.

The good news is that we have been looking at this problem very intently as soon as we started getting reports of people getting caught by cover more frequently and we believe we have found the ideal solution for both groups of players. It's one that takes the best elements of the original roadie run control scheme and marries it with the best elements of the latest roadie run update and doesn't have any of the negative issues of either.

Our current plan is to continue to test this latest tweak to make sure that there are no more issues with it moving forward and then to include it in our next title update. This will not happen immediately of course as a full test pass and a full certification test pass takes time, and we'll want to monitor if there are any new issues that require attention due to the inclusion of Annex or the removal of certain exploits.

We appreciate your patience in this matter and please know that we have your best interest at heart any time we look at updating the game.

Thanks,

Rod.
______
Producer - Gears of War

I was going to write a post about why host visibility, the fact that the host knows he's hosting, is not a good idea, and how people misuse it to ruin your online experinece. But then i was so upset after getting booted last night that i went ahead and wrote a hip-hop song about it.

You have to sing it with me, all 'i got booted' lines below are sung by Carmine and Dom in a chorus and the rest is sung by Cole. This song is dedicated to Prodigy for getting banned for his pwnage (ppl thought he's glitching). Here ya go:

I got booted
coz i pwned insane
i got booted
just for playing lame

i got booted
for a host's friend
and that he
didnt like my name

i got booted
coz i sniped him thrice
this for him
is really a shame

and got booted
for picking up torqe
he's got nothing
else to blame

this wont turn
me off no sir
coz i freaking
love this game!

(c'mon give it up for Prodigy)

I got booted
coz i pwned insane

I got booted
coz i pwned insane

I got booted
coz i pwned insane

This is a cool website, checks your upload and download speed and latency. Mine seems to be a  little higher than my ISP's avg but almost half as compared to the california avg. Here it is:

Once you test your connection, click on "Compare your results with others" to get the comparison info. Most of my friends seems to have double download speed than me:( Time to fire ATT i guess.

In case you're missed this, here is the official link:

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/community/events/playandwin/default.htm

Here is the low down

• First Register Here
  
• Play Gears of War online between March 14-16. Earn one entry each day you play.
  
• If you win you'll get an email.

The grand prize is A Three-Month Xbox Live Gold Subscription Card, an Xbox 360 VIP Accessories Kit, an Xbox 360 Wireless Racing Wheel, and an Xbox 360 HD DVD Player. (Approximate Retail Value (ARV): $770.00)

The Xbox 360 VIP Accessories Kit includes the following:

• Xbox 360 Wireless Controller
  
• Xbox 360 Play and Charge Kit
  
• Xbox Live Vision
  
• Xbox 360 Quick Charge Kit
  
• Xbox 360 Universal Media Remote
  
• Xbox 360 Wireless Networking Adapter
  
• Xbox 360 Wireless Headset
  
• Xbox 360 Memory Unit (64MB)
  
• Limited Edition Xbox 360 Aluminum Carrying Case  

Ten (10) First Prizes: 1000 Microsoft Points One Hundred (100) Second Prizes: An official Shooter hat (ARV $10.00/each)

To enter by U.S. mail without registering online or playing Gears of War, hand-print your first and last name, address, city, state, ZIP code, phone number and e-mail address (if any) on a 3x5 piece of paper and mail to:

The Xbox Live Shooter Play and Win Sweepstakes
P.O. Box 504
Sayreville, NJ 08871-0504

Limit one (1) entry per envelope. To be entered into the Sweepstakes, mail entries must be postmarked during the Entry Period and received no later than March 23, 2007.

Sometime ago folks at bungie were running a Most Satisfying Kill poll and until i watched plasma grenade stuck was winning. Care to share what you love in gears? The one that puts a grin on your face and makes you go "Shit Yeah" or "I'm in the zone baby" or "Come on whos my boy".

For me it has to be wiping out a foe with boomshot, normally i try to hit on the ground where his feet are moving to and with a little luck three of them meet at the same time and space and wham all you see is some meat chunks flying towards the sky. Specially if i get more than one guy with one shot, i'll officially declare nirvana.