Gearheads of War

Well, I finally found an actual reference to if Gears on the PC will be cross-platform playable.  And it will not.  So there goes any worry about PC users pwning console users.  But it does sound like it might be worth picking up just for the extra gamescore points.  (At least as a torrent!)

Here's the link:
http://gamerscoreblog.com/team/archive/2007/07/16/552075.aspx

I remember reading, a long time ago, about how the size of a TV (or display) can affect your reaction time/speed in a video game.  It kind of makes sense; if you have a big picture, the space between objects appears larger, so your mind calculates things as if there may be more time to react.  Granted, in Gears, A LOT of stuff happens toe-to-toe, so it might not be much of an issue, but I'm wondering what size TV do most people play on?  If the likes of Zoso, Really Doe, Machete, and countless others, play on 14" TVs, then I'm definitely heading out to Best Buy before Friday!  As the ladies say, "Big isn't always better."  (At least that's what they tell me.)

I came across this at Joystiq.com.  CliffyB made a celebrity appearance at an improve comedy club and relates to the audience some childhood memories.  Then the improve troupe replays his story with some humorous results.  The very last skit is especially funny because the troupe plays it out as if CliffyB is the older brother and his younger brother (papi blez?) is looking for help picking up chicks!  Check it out

http://www.joystiq.com/2007/07/06/todays-most-standup-video-cliffyb-the-comedian/

After the update, I heard that the shotty is less powerful and that seems to be my experience as well.  What are other people's perception or can that be confirmed somewhere?  I'm surprised that Epic wouldn't make note of that also, but it probably would upset a lot of people. (There, that's 300 characters!)

I just found this out at Xbox360Fanboy.com.  http://www.xbox360fanboy.com/2007/06/13/gow-update-and-achievements-tomorrow/  I rather like Annex and would like to play more with fellow Gearheads.  What does anyone know about this?  (And what's the crap about a minimum of 300 characters?  Do you really want me to ramble on about something that is self evident? I've got your 300 characters right here!)

As a few of you know, I've been having technical difficulties, of which there are two.  For one, I bought a set of Turtle Beach Ear Force X2 wireless headphones.  Apparently, my plasma TV interferes with the infra-red signal of the wireless headphones.  That is why people cannot hear/understand me when I use the mic on those headphones.  Be warned, if you are looking for headphones, don't get IR, especially if you have a plasma TV.  I think they would work great with an LCD, DLP or CRT.  I'm probably just going to return the headphones and go back to using wired headphones with the default Xbox 360 mic.  My second problem is that my Xbox always locks up about 15 minutes into play.  It's an interesting threshold because after it warms up, locks up, and I re-boot, the box gives me no further problems for hours.  I have a ticket open with MS to get that fixed, so hopefully that will be a non-issue in about a week.  In the mean time, I REALLY, REALLY appreciate everyone's patience and understanding.  Playing Gears with other humans is fun.  Playing Gears with the people from this site has become the highlight of my week and I hope we can continue on for years to come.

P.S.  Does anyone want to buy a set of slightly used Ear Force X2 headphones?  $70 + shipping.

I'm not that good of a player but I like to think I'm consistent.  And I've gotten kind of used to lagging.  It sucks but it's unavoidable.  Well, the other night I got to host my first GoW games (Thanks to my fellow Gearheads!) and I'm still stunned by some of the shots I pulled off.  I didn't know how big of an advantage host advantage could be but I'm a firm believer now.  I know I can't play that good, EVER!  But my biggest worry was that everyone else was lagging like crazy and that would not be fair.  I understand that there are a lot of factors involved which contribute to lag, such as the host's upload speed, distance to the host, home networks, etc., and the host advantage can be greater or smaller dependent on their upload speed as well.  (Inversely proportionate.)  But, my questions for you are; if you frequently host, what is your upload speed?  Do you think distance to the host can have a greater impact than host upload?  Or are both pretty minor and it all comes down to skill?  

(Please no whining or crying about lag, it's a fact of life.  And no preaching about client side hit detection!  And if you're unsure of how to check your upload speed, go to speakeasy.net/speedtest or dslreports.com.)

I would never condone playing another game other than GoW, let alone buying another game, but if you have ADHD and need to play something else, I'm seeing on Best Buy's web site, that if you pre-order Halo 3, you can get a 1,600 Marketplace Points card for an additional $4.99.  That's a pretty good deal!

In his write-up about playing Halo 3 on Friday, papi blez said, "There's just something about that chainsaw, boom shot and those grenades that just make Gears so unique."  Well, this past Friday, I really noticed how cool just the sounds of GoW are.  Especially the grenade tags, torque bow and hammer of dawn.  Who doesn't panic a little when they hear those latter two sounds?  But now here's something for which I may need therapy; I was driving through my neighborhood Saturday.  It was a beautiful day and I had my windows down.  Then, out of no where, I here a chainsaw rev up!  My head whipped around and I half expected to see Polandstyle coming at me.  But it was just some guy cutting up a tree in his front yard.  What a trip!  GoW is such an awesome, visceral, experience.  There are so many small touches that make the game so immersive.  It is really one of a kind and the bar by which I will measure all future games.

First of all, I don't even know how to do any of the gliches.  I've seen the weapon slide and chainsaw gliches done a bunch of time, but I really never thought much about them because they don't seem to have a huge impact on the game.  Even the chainsaw glich.  The way I see it, if a guy is going to get that close to me, I'm going to die regardless if he has a shotgun, pistol or whatever.  But I finally saw the roadie run glich, and let me tell you, I'm pissed.  It gave the guy a huge advantage!  I couldn't take him down to save my life (Literally!) and he was running around taking people out with ease.  And, what was even more unfathomable, he was boasting about his kills!  At one point, I said, "Cheaters never win."  And his reply was, "But I am winning."  If it wouldn't have been a ranked match, I would have just dropped out.  So, instead, I stuck with my team, submitted a complaint on him, rated him and muted him.  That's all I can do in the end anyway.  It's amazing how things like Xbox Live can bring together total strangers who end up as friends and become part of a community.  (Gearheadsofwar!)  But it also shows how many depraved, anti-social, cretins are out there.  At the end of the day though, it's all just a game.  Keep things in perspective and remember that there are a lot more important things in the world.  Mine happen to be a beautiful 5 year old and an impish 3 year old.  What are yours?

I, for one, am not part of the Halo 3 beta.  Hopefully there are some other have-nots Gearheads out there who will be able to play GoW this Friday?  I can't go back to playing random player matches!  Especially after the quality I've experienced here!  Who will not be doing the beta and looking for some GoW action Friday?  (I can try hosting even though I've never done it before.)

This past Friday was only my second FFF and I thought it was great.  (Except for the network problems!)  It's really refreshing to play with a bunch of guys that take the game serious but not too serious that they suck all the fun out of it.  There was actual team-play going on and lots of joking around between matches.  It was a lot of fun and I can't wait for the next FFF.  See you all then!