The Things I do...

... to tell a story.
(follow us on Twitter @Lunartik and @EberhornFlorian)

Well, they're not as bad as you might think. But still: Product Endorsement? Who would've thought...

Slick Flick

So, there's this app for the I-Thingees called Slick Flick. You can do stories with it. My username on Slick Flick is @Eberhorn - or maybe it's without the "@", I'm not sure how that works. If you have one of those I-Thingees go get the free app, and like my stories, already. They`re totally likeable.

Me, I don't really have an I-Thingee, so it took my across-the-hall neighbor, the wonderfully twisted Lunartik Creator Matt Jones, to tell me about it.

Matt Jones

Actually, what he said was something like:
"You smell like a poor person. Take a look at this, maybe you'll get me rich... I mean, uhm, get you rich. Yes. That's what I meant." Yeah, he's a peach.

About the Lunartiks:

They're little aliens from another dimension, that live in Tea-Cups, which they use like portals to travel through time and space.

Matt's an "artist". Go figure.



Anyway, Slick Flick is a... story-boarding app. You take pictures and make stories. Slick Flick gives you several "Themes" to work with, then you can add characters, and objects and captions from those themes to your pictures or chosen backgrounds. A few of the themes are done by a similar number of Vinyl Toy artists, one of which is Matt Jones with his Lunartiks (in case you were wondering where that was going). Also, case in point, The Slick Flick Lunartik Theme is the very first time that Lunartik Legs were shown. Yes. It's true!

So, basically, Matt asked me to do stories with his Lunartik-Theme, in exchange for which he will lend me his I-Pod, a tiny little thing I use for nothing else but to do these stories in the first place. It seemed like a good deal at the time. I don't know why.


On to the important part: 

The Stories. They've already gotten their very own blog, too, @:
Tales of the Lunartiks

There are six different "series", and, for your convenience, I've listed and linked them all here:

1. Mr. T's Wonderful World of Tea
It's Mr. T telling you all about "Tea". Every single "-Tea" he can find. In the Dictionary.

2. Lunar Shorts
Short funny stories from the Lunar-Verse. That's like the Uni-verse, but different.

3. Travellers Between Worlds
Once in every Lunartik's life they embark on an epic journey into other dimensions. Stuff happens. And there's usually some screaming involved...
(Featuring additional artwork by Cavey, MakieLab, Usagi, Wippo and Slick Flick)

4. A little love...
Lunartik goes romantic. No, seriously.

5. Other stuff... and stuff
Stories from the Slick Flick Crypt...

and the, obviously limited, but very special

6. Lunar Christmas Countdown 2013
Counting Down, one day and one Cartoon at a time...

If you like Matt's work, why not join his Lunartik in a Cup of Tea - Fan Club on Facebook.

But honestly, my stories are much more important than his stuff... ;)

Things to do in Denver when you broke your hand...

... because you raged at Battlefield and beat on your controller, and now you can`t play games, so you need other stuff to do. Seriously, that crap happens to people.

So, yeah, this is another one of those posts where I will present you "books." Granted, they're mostly pretty cool books, but they all do require a certain amount of reading.

Don't be scared, now. It'll only hurt for a few hours... at first. Also, if "books" are too old-school, go and get them on your Kindle or Smartphone or Tablet. Yes. Books can be hip. Totally.

Alright, here we go:

The "Sandman-Slim" Series by Richard Kadrey

Richard Kadrey apparently wrote other stuff, too, but I don't know it. He also has his own Action Figure - make of that one what you will. The titular Hero of this series, Sandman Slim, is pretty much what you'd get if Harry Dresden was an outright lovable bastard. And Kadrey has had him take on Heaven, Hell, Zombies and everything in between that Los Angeles has to offer - and lots and lots of clothes - in by now 5 novels and a short-story (or maybe that'`s a "novella", who the hell knows?)

Eleven Years ago, James Stark, a fledgeling Magician (real, capital-M Magic, not that Party-for-Kids crap) is dragged into hell - still alive. It wasn't fun-times. Now, the girl he left behind in the world was murdered, and Stark has cut his way out of hell, hell-bent (Ha!) on continuing to cut his way through the people responsible for both the murder, and his eleven-year stint down-under.

That`s how the first book in the series, "Sandman Slim", starts. By the end of the first book, Stark has managed to kill some people, bitch-slap an angel, burn a pack of Neo-Nazi Skinheads and save the world. He also now lives with a severed talking head that walks around on a magical skateboard with legs. And things only get more fun from there.

Kadrey's writing is harsh, crude fun. It's smart, and (mostly) even makes an unexpected amount of sense. The "Sandman Slim" Universe is beautifully conceived, and continues to surprise with just how wonderfully, darkly funny it can be. Granted, the novels might seem a bit on the short side, but in those pages Shit Happens. Never a dull minute in super-natural LA.

"The Ocean at the End of the Lane" by Neil Gaiman

If you don't know Neil Gaiman... well, then you don't know him. There's nothing bad about that, and you should not be mocked because of it. But know now, that Gaiman is Magic. Those that haven't read his books (like American Gods, Anansi Boys, Good Omens or Coraline) or his comics (DC Vertigo`s "Sandman" Series), might actually have seen his work without knowing: "Stardust", starring Charlie Cox, Sienna Miller, Claire Danes and Robert DeNiro, a simply magical (and totally dude-can-watch-this-and-brag-about-it) romantic comedy. And it does a pretty good job of capturing Gaiman's unrivaled imagination, as well as the humor and wit of Gaiman's novel. The book is better, though.

His new book, "The Ocean at the End of the Lane", is somewhere between "Stand by Me" and "The Chronicles of Narnia". If the first one means nothing to you, despite a young "Ensign Wesley Crusher", a still alive River Phoenix, Corey Feldman ('nuff said), and a fat and ugly kid called Jerry O'Connell, you might be too young to fully appreciate the magic of this particular book. It's not your fault, and it might not particularly hamper your enjoyment of a fantastic read. And yet, for "The Ocean at the End of Lane" to do its magic, your childhood should be gone long enough to give you a chance to miss it - even if you only admit that to yourself.

Because that is what "The Ocean at the End of the Lane" is: a bit of childhood - terrifying, tantalizing, woeful, wondrous childhood...

When a death in the family drags our narrator back to his childhood town, a seemingly random turn in the road takes him down memory lane - literally. And what he remembers is a tale that couldn't have been - and yet it was. A tale of a man that killed himself in his father's car, and awoke an evil out of this world. A tale of a girl, her mother and her grandmother, that might have been his only friends, and were so much more. A tale of magic and dreams and fear and hurt and sacrifice. And about an Ocean that fit into a pond...

This is not a fairy-tale for children. It`s a tale of children and fairies and monsters for those of us that still remember how it was when all of it could have been real. And yes, fine, this one actually is quite short. But it won't feel that way.


Now, go buy these books. They're more than worth it. And who knows, maybe it'll help you pick up girls, or something. Show your sensitive side, and all that...

Hello, again.

It's been a long time. And I shouldn't have left you - without some dope beats to step to.
Step to, step to, step step to, step to, step to - chicka-chicka.

Anway. Yes, I've been gone. Deal with it. I could lie to you, and say I simply didn't have anything to say, but... well, now that I already mentioned I'd be lying, what would be the point? I did say stuff, I just didn't say it here.

What kind of stuff? Well, where to begin?

Will Technology Tell the Difference?

I had a pretty strong opinion about the next-gen consoles, but since "180-Day", a lot of that has somewhat changed. Yes, I am referring to the Xbox One... 80 and the PS4 reveals. Did I really have to point that out, just to do that "180 joke" again? Probably not, but I am so loath to talk about these new consoles by now, I need a few stupid laughs to put things in perspective.

Xbox simply screwed up. What else can you say? You cannot tell people "This is the way it is. It's for your own good. Deal with it." and expect nobody to bristle at that. It was like all the crazy conspiracy theories ever made about Microsoft actually became truth through the magic of popular belief. And no matter how much good would come out of it, people would always complain.

If someone told us tomorrow morning that we all had to get inoculated against the plague or we all die, tomorrow afternoon the streets would be filled with protesters burning WHO flags, singing "We shall overcome (the plague through sheer force of will because we choose to do so, and having a choice is all that matters!)".

Sony must've laughed themselves senseless during that E3 presentation, and while MS was desperately trying to saw off the foot they just had shot into so vigorously,  the PS4 seemed like the holy grail of gaming. The roles had reversed. Playstation 4 was all about Games, while the Xbox One wanted to rule the living-room. It was kinda spooky, really, like a "Walternate" version (that's a "Fringe" reference, by the way) of the PS3/Xbox 360 reveals.

And Sony came out smelling like roses. They might slow down the inevitable future of digital gaming, but it was apparently still better than Xbox ramming that future down our throats.

Then came 180-Day, and things changed. And, truth be told, I lost even more of what little respect I still held for the Xbox brand. If they really believed in what they were doing, they wouldn't have folded quite so quickly - or consummately. It was like that scene in "Full Metal Jacket", but Private X-bone changed their tune, and got slapped real hard by my personal Drill Sargent Gunny Respect.

In the end, what you get should be what you want to get. It's your money, after all.
Sony's PS4 is a really good offer, but lack both a good track record and experience when it comes to the online-part of gaming.
Xbox wants to be your entertainment center, and if you like all the fancy features, why not got for the Xbox One?  They do have the experience with Xbox Live, and all those dedicated Azure servers, just waiting to host your games, do sound very attractive.

Personally, I am still looking at a possible consoles switch from Xbox 360 to PS4. Or I just might get a PS3 real cheap and play all those PS3 exclusives. Microsoft has lost a lot of credibility for me, and purely on principle I am not sure I want to support these people anymore. And yes, "purely on principle" is a very valid reason to do pretty much anything you want with your money.


What else have I been talking about? Let`s see...

Batman: Arkham Origins gets Multiplayer. And despite the usual hate that comes along when Single-Player dominated franchises try something new - fine, the fact that the studio that committed the "Brink"-Disaster is responsible did also not go over well - I find myself mildly interested. Asymmetrical MP has been, on the few occasions somebody had the balls to try it, quite enjoyable. For me, my only experiences were Left 4 Dead 2`s Versus and Scavenger modes and Aliens vs. Predator (which was actually not half as bad as reviewers made it out to be, but by the time I got my hands on it, the multiplayer was pretty much deserted). Asymmetrical MP is all about the gameplay. If it hooks you, it's great. If it doesn't, there's really no redeeming factor.

One thing I am curious about though, is how the 3vs3vs2 MP will affect and work with parties. It's one thing to have asymmetrical but numerically equal teams, but as asymmetrical MP is often dominated by communication and teamwork (i.e. parties), what happens when a party of 3 is split up when one or two of them will play on the two-spots-only Bat-Team? It is, for sure, a  potentially questionable design decision.

The Campaign gameplay, though, already looks wonderful, and more complicated riddles and crime-scene-investigations are always welcome in my book. But then again, you'd have to work really hard to screw-up the Batman Arkham franchise, Rocksteady or not.


Then, there's Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag. One of the first big comparison titles coming out on both current- and next-gen. And damn, if it doesn't
look pretty nice. Despite the main male pirate character wearing eye-liner. And it does look huge. Islands, open sandbox Caribbean, seamless transition between foot and naval gameplay. If Ubisoft manages to limit the many technical flaws AC3 has become somewhat infamous for, it looks like a good game...

...That sadly still retains one of my main-gripes with the Franchise: No crouching. Taking cover at corners did so much for AC3`s immersion, that keeping the "Sneaking-Up on someone on rooftops or in restricted areas through Fast-Walking totally upright"-mechanic seems less understandable than ever.

Or maybe THAT'S what's important...

I mean, come on. Really? Walking upright to blend with a crowd and kill blade-in-the-grass-style, somehow looses its credibility when there are no crowds.

And I fear that is has become so ingrained in the minds of the series' creators, that the people at Ubisoft stopped being bothered by it.
Well, I still am. And that's what's important. Right?



I talked about Mobile Games, as in Games for your Cellphone, but only briefly.
The market is still mostly dominated by "Free-mium: Free2Play but quite expensive to enjoy"-games that lack, most of all, quality.
There are a few gems out there, some relatively cheap only-pay-once games (Wild Blood, comes to mind), but the more complicated and elaborate the games become, the more gamers will feel the lack of a gamepad, joystick, mouse or keyboard.

To me, the best mobile/tablet games are the ones that keep things simple. As such, I actually have a few recommendations of free stuff:

If a combination of Zombie-Killing, an On-Rails-Shooter and, curiously enough, a reaction-based "driving game on foot" sounds like fun to you, I can recommend "Into the Dead" for Android. I know the description doesn't really make sense, but play it once, and you'll see I`m right. It's addictive, if repetitive, zombie-fun. It does have some payable options, but it's neither obvious nor forced on you. Actually, if you like the game, you'll be likely considering to just buy something anyway to support the creator.


Then there's something that's not really a game, but a path to games, some of which are possibly the greatest ever made. I am speaking of the ScummVM engine for Android, that allows you to play old LucasArts Adventures like Monkey Island, Loom or Maniac Mansion on your Android device. If you're old enough to remember the magic of those games, you`ll laugh with childish glee once you see them on your mobile screen in all their glory. It takes a bit to setup, and you still need the old PC files for the games, but it is so definitely worth it.


Finally, there's the "Splinter Cell: Blacklist" Companion App: Spider-Bot. It's actually three games in one, and at least two of the top-down games are very enjoyable.
Spider-Bot is a Pacman-Variation with security drones, laser-grids, automated turrets and soldiers.
Stealth-Bot is a sneaky version of Spiderbot, with soldiers, cameras and motion detectors trying to prevent you from subduing scientists and stealing their research.
Strike-Bot is a dual-stick arena shooter Robo-War. It can be fun, but my fingers are really not quite up to it.
You can use the in-game currency you earn for unlocks and money in your Splinter Cell: Blacklist main-game (yes, Ubisoft finally fixed the issues with those), but it's actually way too good, to only play it for (pretty much useless) unlocks.


Which brings us to the last real "thing" I laid out my wisdom for: Splinter Cell: Blacklist. I love it. I loved pretty much all of the SC games, with Conviction a little less than the others, but Blacklist delivers on almost all aspects: Single Player, Co-Op, Replayability, Variety, Player Choice, Challenge... it's all there. Okay, Ironside isn't, but unless you're really just sitting there, waiting for him to not be there, I don't think you notice (probably because you don't relate the person you see on screen with Sam Fisher, but you really don`t notice).

Noticed that I didn't mention the Spies vs Mercs  Multiplayer? Well, it's there. And I like it. It has it's issues, both technical and balance-wise, but it's a solid MP system - and requires a bit more thought than the usual fare. In fact, with all the equipment and abilities, it can become a bit overwhelming at first (the terrible matchmaking doesn't help with that), so I will post a few pointers for newcomers soon. Yes. Soon. Within the week. Maybe.

And no, it's not like SvM was in Chaos Theory or Pandora Tomorrow, not even in "Classic Mode". How do I know? Everybody says so. I can't tell. I never played those back then, so what am I supposed to say?


So, that's what I did. I've been gone. I might be back. Deal with it.

The Future is here - and it's not really what we thought it would be...

 To put it concisely, "Where the hell is my Hover-Board?"


Visions of the Future don't always pan out. It seems we're still always quite a step behind what we had envisioned ourselves doing right now, 20 years earlier. "Back to the Future 2" was no different. And neither was I. Back in 2009 and 2010 I wrote a small series of articles for the now sadly defunct online gaming magazine GameObserver.com, one of which was my view on my personal New Year's Day 2013. It was a Vision of my Personal Future, as well as the future of video gaming in general. Turns out I was pretty wrong. Shocking, I know.
So, with the next-gen consoles Sony's Orbis and Microsoft's Durango on the horizon, and contradictory rumors blackening the skies, I though it might be funny - for you - to read my take on things and games this year - from three years ago.


The following (without the pictures) was published @ http://www.gameobserver.com/features/inside/all-platforms/the-word-the-future-is-close-216/ on January 16th, 2010. And boy, wouldn't it have been nice if things had turned out this way.



"When I wake up, my mouth feels like so much offal, and for a short moment I wonder if maybe my cat had shat down my throat. Again. As I’m trying to figure out how exactly I might get a crowbar into my mouth to unhinge my tongue from my palate, my hand touches something soft and warm and tender beside me. It’s a leg. It’s definitely human, and seems to be well shaved. I pray to God it’s female. But, then again, my prostate doesn’t feel violated, so at least I was (probably) the penetrator. Which is something, I guess, and apparently enough of something to light a small, shimmering beacon of hope behind my eyes. It hurts. A lot. Without mercy, its brilliant rays slowly dissolve the 2,000 $ worth of murky, mushy stuff around my brain, and I begin to remember as much of last night as I probably ever will. It’s a shame, really, since the parts I do remember do make me want to remember more, for a change.

"Anyway, being reasonably sure that I will be able to take it, I open my eyes, and as soon as the man with the hammer in my head stops pounding, I venture a little smile. Oh, it’s definitely female. An actress, if I remember correctly, and quite famous, too, but I’ll be damned if I can remember her name right now. Sierra, or… or something. She stirs, and opens her lovely eyes, and gives me one of those special I-am-so-completely-sexually-satisfied-it’s-almost-too-much-to-take-it smiles. I smile back, fervently hoping that I won’t have to say anything. On the one hand, my tongue is still not really moving, and on the other, knowing my luck, talking would inevitably get me into a situation where I'd have to say her name, and that would most assuredly ruin the moment. But instead, my mysterious maiden mumbles a word that sounds suspiciously like “shower,” and sinuously slips off the sheets. And as she walks towards the bathroom in all her nefarious nakedness, her brown hair falling almost to her bodacious buttocks, I am truly a happy man. Almost at the door, she stops in her saunter to pick up a pair of very fashionable, slightly futuristic sunglasses from amongst her scrambled leather clothes on the floor. She puts them on and turns her gaze upon me, and even if I cannot see her eyes, there is a promise in that look, of things wet and wonderful that I won’t ever forget.

"It’s the glasses that do it. Her, the glasses, her leather jumpsuit and one terrible movie… The movie was years ago, but she still fits the role. Yes. I finally remember her name. Oh, I am a happy man. So happy, in fact, that I hum a little tune to myself. An old Beatles song, about some guy named Jude… It’s a sad song -- for Jude, anyway -- and that makes me smile. With my G.I. Joe Cover Girl in the shower, I notice another, probably feminine, lump under the sheets, somewhere far, far away, on the left side of my Cesar sized bed. I contemplate for a second to reveal the mystery, travel the distance, even if it means actually moving my battered body, but I eventually decide to let the lump lie. No sense pushing my luck. Unfortunately, I still do have to move. It might be a holiday, and it might be some time in the general vicinity of afternoon, but I still have work to do. And since it is my work that blessed me with my candid companions, I am eager and willing. Now all I have to do is convince my body of its own eagerness, preferably some time before nightfall.

"I don’t quite make it. First, the lump came alive and straddled me with dancers’ legs while she breast-beat me into submission, then a freshly showered action figure heroine felt sore and left out. And I am but one man. Trust me. It was terrible. Finally, while my sultry side-trackers try unspeakable things with the shower hose that threaten my sanity, I get out of bed and dress for work. I pick up my work-shirt from the TV, checking to make sure it is at least half charged. It’s very frustrating for the shirt to go off-line in the middle of a conversation, let me tell you. But, as so often, fickle Fate had been graceful to me, when she landed the shirt so close to a major electronic appliance last night. The TV’s electromagnetic field was more than enough to recharge the battery weaves. And anyway, I should be happy to even have one. Only about a thousand are in circulation and Microsoft wants to keep this one pretty close to the vest, so to speak, until the official release.

"Writing for the most influential online gaming magazine ever does have its perks. I admit, that the thought of wearing a battery woven into shirt form that powers your Xbox peripheral controllers, and is recharged simply by exposing it to a strong electromagnetic field did take some getting used to -- especially the part about all those “totally harmless” invisible energy fields we apparently live amongst -- but it’s surprisingly comfortable, easy to wash, and the tight fit makes my pectorals look very nice, indeed. It also features a microphone woven into the collar, forever freeing my handsome head from the old, hideous and quite uncomfortable headset. I still have to wear the glasses, though, but no glasses, no virtual office. The glasses are not powered by the shirt, and need to be recharged once a week by prolonged exposure to natural light. Which usually means, that I leave them somewhere next to the window when I go to bed around 10:00 am.

"After an hour’s search, I finally dig them out of the cat’s litter box. They’re a bit smelly, but otherwise functional. I don the smelly glasses, but on second thought pick up the controllers and sling them unto my arms, the ergonomically formed wrist supporters gently fitting around my forearm, transferring most of the controllers’ weight from my wrists on to my bulky biceps. The controllers are basically what you’d get, if you sawed through the middle of one of the old 360 controllers: you got your sticks, your triggers, your shoulder-buttons, everything’s still there, only lighter and more comfortable. They’re also motion sensitive like those Wii sticks, but everybody had known that was coming, once Microsoft’s discrete purchase of Nintendo had surfaced into the light of day one year ago. It was the final part of the Console Wars, and there really could only have been one winner. And, no, I never did believe that Sony was harboring Weapons of Mass Destruction, but apparently the obvious is not as convincing to UN inspectors as it is to the layman. There never were any WMDs, of course. Sadly it took a forceful invasion of most of Asia to prove it, but, honestly, who can blame them? It was an honest mistake.

"Finally, the controllers act as additional reference points for Natal, enhancing the video-interface’s already impressive accuracy. I know all that, because someone much smarter than me told it to me again and again while I was wondering very intently about how her skin would taste. There are some treasures hidden among the Nerdity, and not all of them are about the head, after all. Now, Natal works fine for browsing and surfing and navigating, and I do love my virtual Pilates instructor very much, but there are some things, small things -- like, say pulling a trigger -- that Natal just can’t do very well, and for the sake of Natal’s compatibility and usability both with older and newer games, the controllers supplement the necessary fine mechanics. It makes the killing real easy. You just choose in the game options menu which controls Natal will take from your movement, and which are, well, controller-controlled. Yes, I am mighty with words. To explain in more practical terms, stuff like crouching or taking-cover or aiming can very well be done by moving your hands or legs or body, but try to make a movement that tells the game to change your weapon or Aim down your Sights. On second thought, maybe crouching and taking cover also fall into that last category. At least for the lazy or the hang-overed.

"Anyway, I don’t really need the controllers for my work, but I am not quite awake yet, and I want to kill someone before I bow to the needs of my job. So off come the glasses, and as soon as I connect the controllers by a small expandable cable to the little ports artfully hidden in the seams of the long-sleeved shirt arms, my Xbox 360 work-center starts to boot. The TV switches on automatically, and if you ever wondered how a 150” flat screen looks, let me tell you, it looks just fine.

"The Box connects to Live, and my virtual secretary informs me of calls I missed and appointments I forgot, of family and well-wishers and other miscreants trying to scurry my favor. She’s standing there, her flawless virtual body in virtually no clothing at all, but I scroll all that away with an impatient flick of my wrist and go straight to “Modern War.” It’s the latest evolution of online multiplayer gaming, the most successful game in history, and -- no surprise, there -- it’s all about killing people. The World is at War. A terrorist attack released a virus into the global water supply, poisoning almost all freshwater resources on the planet. On the brink of thirst, the continental powers now fight for the last remaining fresh water, frozen in the arctic icecaps. I’m not quite sure how any of that makes sense, but it served its purpose insofar as that there are no real bad guys. We’re all just fighting to survive, or some such, and anybody can join up with any faction or country he wants to, without having to worry about fighting for the Evil Axis. Every year the war starts again, with new and different missions, DLC and add-ons, and I am eager to see how my venerable veteran will utterly destroy all those sickly green recruits coming in today.

"The game itself is actually three games -- and they were all sold separately at hefty prices -- but the reward is a complete virtual world war that fully integrates air, land and sea combat into one colossal competitive multiplayer campaign. You can be a pilot, a tank driver, infantry, special-ops or the captain of a warship. Or all of the above, if you have the necessary rank and the necessary money to buy all three games. You can even choose to play it as a real time strategy game, commanding your assets (i.e. the real people controlling the soldiers at the frontline -- you know, the ones always bitching about the screwed up decisions you make) on the battlefield, giving them missions and objectives -- but for the first time ever all of these facets can and will be controlled by other human players. It is as real to actual combined warfare as it gets, and as a joint venture of Tom Clancy’s Ubisoft, Infinity Ward and Microsoft itself, the quality is nothing short of inspiring. In theory. And theory in the realm of Microsoft is to be taken with a handful of salt. But it is still extremely engaging, and the fixed timeline gives it a wonderful urgency. As a battle-hardened veteran of last year’s war -- which nobody won, because some flunky in Russia decided to just nuke the ice caps and be done with it; Europe would’ve lost anyway -- I am superior to any noobs in equipment as well as in my tactical options. With my rank and XP I have also access to harder and more crucial missions against the enemy elite, but I decide to stick to the frontlines for today. More cannon fodder. But before I dive into the trenches, I take a few minutes to limber up. I don’t want to pull a muscle. It’s not that kind of war.

"Two hours and a 164 killstreak later, my name is being cursed in multiple languages by noobs all over the world. I feel good. I feel almost an hour of work coming on. Maybe two. Before I leave, I check the battle schedule for tomorrow, and I see that there’s a combined attack on Iceland. As I heard it, the scheduling was one of the hardest parts for the programmers to figure out, since a surprise attack isn’t really surprising if you have to notify your enemy and then make a date to make sure you’re not playing against mindless bots, but however they did it, it works. Personally I think there are a million people somewhere hidden in a Microsoft warehouse, playing the game 24 hours a day for minimum wage to give the rest of the world someone real to shoot at. Of course there are still Bots to flesh out the ranks, but they die just like the rest.

"But enough of that. Time to go to work. I exit the game, sit down on the couch, unplug the controllers, don the glasses, and I enter my virtual office. My virtual secretary has gone from eager to bored to petulant to so bored she began touching herself eagerly, yet in a petulant fashion. This is what happens to sweet virtual kids named Milo, once you give them over to creepy programmers that never had enough sex in their lives. I can’t help but smile. It’s like someone made something just for me. I ask what I missed, and she shrieks one last time, and in her sweaty, sensual voice she answers: “Fuck all.”
So I might have expanded her vocabulary a little. So what? I like a little color at work. I check my emails, tweet a “Good Morning Vietnam!” to my 1.443781 million followers, and check Facebook to see that Steward_Steward426 is getting his feet waxed. I’m not really sure what that means, but it sounds hinky. I do all that with nothing more than moving my hands, pointing, pressing, waving, flicking, sometimes, sometimes even tickling. The uncomplicated written stuff I can just say out loud and it’s done. Theoretically, the secretary can also take dictation, but her oral skills are hugely overrated. And I do prefer writing -- by which I mean “typing” -- by hand, so anything longer than “stuff I don’t care about what it actually says,” I type on the virtual keyboard displayed on the glasses.


"The glasses are a technological marvel, and yes, they were my idea. Windows 7 was, too. They are just a little bigger and a little heavier than unusually small and light sunglasses, but they house a lot of technology under that sleek and sexy surface. Connected via IR to the console, and programmable with several fixed working environments, the glasses are the actual core of my virtual work space. The lenses are actually transparent LCD displays that can display anything from a keyboard to a drawing board, while small cameras on the frame monitor my eye and hand movements, transmitting the input information to the Xbox. Fine. What that means is, that the glasses can tell where I am looking and what I’m looking at -- which really are two separate things. It can also tell what my hands are doing, and so, if, say, there’s a keyboard over my right eye, I can move my fingers and tap on keys that aren’t really there, and the glasses try to make sense of it. The keys, thankfully, are very big indeed. It’s a work in progress. It’s not a real holographic keyboard yet, but it’s more fun than using the wireless USB keyboard. And it makes me feel so totally cutting edge.

"On a whim, I drop by in the Major’s virtual office -- everyone who’s someone has to have one of those, complete with sexy secretary. While I wait for a video-meeting of his to end, his and my virtual secretaries start talking about the latest news, politics, sports and gossip. I had once tried to hack into the MS server to let them make out with each other, but I failed gloriously. The news talk actually was my idea. As someone who loathes anything even close to newspapers or news shows, I sometimes find myself left a little behind, while the world around me has moved on. It really sounds more dramatic than it is, but apparently I’m not the only one with a certain lack of connection. Or maybe lack of interest, and since I was spending a lot of time on Live… well, I gave my idea to the right people, and a month later, avatars of friends and virtual secretaries all over Live began informing me of the daily news, in a subtle and conversational way, all according to my predetermined preferences. And now, it’s almost as common as listening to people discussing the news in the subway. If I wanted to know anything more detailed about the outside world -- which I don’t -- I could just ask them to tell me more, but for now, I listened without really listening, already getting bored. Patience is not part of my genetic make-up. I had it surgically removed a year ago, and I have lost all my friends since.

"After two more minutes of endless entropy I decide just to leave a message and go. I feel my work-power fading. The hour’s almost up. Before I sign off, I type a short message to my editor -- my editor’s a good man -- telling him that he should have believed me three years ago when I first wrote this article. I had speaketh the truth. The Observer does rule the gaming industry, and its sister TV Show, The Executioner, does pass out our judgments to those who do not bother to read anymore. I predicted all of this. Right here. Right now.

"It’s a strange world, and we should all try to keep it that way, with me right here up top, so far above your head, that my urine would freeze during the fall and upon impact bring untold destruction should I ever decide to piss down on you. Metaphorically speaking. The one time I tried to take a piss out of my window I had been forcefully restrained by a Burj-Al-Arab Security detail, shortly after they figured out what I wanted to drill into with the diamond drill I had ordered on Live Marketplace. So much for Penthouse Privileges. Anyway, the work was hard and demanding, and I have women to please. Time to call it a day.

"My name is known all over the globe. I write a pseudo-regular feature article called The Word for the GameObserver, spewing my filthy thoughts onto the web and infecting unwitting civilians with visually transmitted Neuro-Viruses that hack their brains to agree with every word I say.

"It’s January 1. 2013.

"It’s good to be me."


Well. Yeah. That would've been nice. But I have to stop writing. I need to clean up my room so Mom won't get stuck or, God beware, fall with her walker during her daily inspection, and with all the fat I'm carrying around, it takes a while to gather the momentum to get up. I fondly remember the time when I could just stand up, no hydraulics or anything. Or see my dick without mirrors.

Memories,
Like the corners of my Mind
Misty water-colored Memories
Of the Way we Were...

Mysterious Ways... of 2012 pt.2 - Control

Control is important. Whether you talk about the irresistible urge to pinch the invitingly plump rump of a co-worker, the equally irresistible urge to push random buttons when stranded inside a futuristic laboratory in the noble spirit of "I wonder what this one does...", or the control of virtual avatars in a virtual world that we so often wish would be so much more real.
Control is important. Controls are important. And none more so, than the one that directs the aim of our virtual actions. Camera or Cursor, the focus-point  of action is the most vital aspect of modern action-oriented video gaming - you point, you shoot.

So it was quite surprising to me, when two of the games I was most excited for in 2012 so deliberately failed to understand the importance of control in the player's hands. Maybe it is simply a product of the sad trend of lacking options in modern video games, of designers and developers forcing us to play their games the way they think we should play them. Maybe it was a product of pressure, when time at the end of development runs out and there are just too many things left to do. Whatever the reasons, the decisions marred two great games to the point of people simply unwilling or unable to play them.

The Walking Dead - Video Game

I will not talk about Zombies. It's a topic that has been talked, told and filmed to death. And that's not even funny anymore. If you like Zombies, you know The Walking Dead, period. So you know. If you don`t know, well, even unnaturally intense or necrophiliac attraction to the mobile mortified meat-sacks has no bearing on the issue at hand.

With the advent of flight simulators, with "simulation" being the operative word here, a curious development and conditioning entered the world of video games: the inversion of the y-axis. You pull down, you go up. Just like planes do. Why they do that has something to do with hydraulics and flaps and maybe ailerons, but it is a very fundamental truth of aircraftery. Plane-flyery. Aviating.

Anyways. Flight Simulators were really the very first First-Person Shooters - without the shooting, but still. The first First Person "Games", then, and for many, many gamers old and young, their influence still holds sway. You pull down on the stick, you look up. It's more than a preference, it's a trained reflex. It's the reason, why every video game out there has that option. Every video game? No. In a very strange move for a contemporary company, Telltale Games did not include such an option in their episodic take on The Walking Dead, that by all accounts is one of the best and most riveting zombie experiences, ever. Some say it might even surpass the brilliance of the comic book and the much lauded TV-Show. Now, The Walking Dead is more of a point-and-click adventure than an action title, so some might say it's not really an issue. But The Walking Dead actually features action-scenes, scenes where you must react quickly - and aim. I could argue and explain for all eternity, but what it boils down to are three simple points:

One, for people used to an inverted y-axis, up is down and down is up, which might be something you could overcome with enough practice or thought, but the action scenes are all about reflexes - and by definition, reflex circumvents (well, actually short-circuits) conscious thought.

Two, there is no downside to this. It cannot in any way adversely affect the game. It's an option that those that don't need it will never see, hear, smell or feel. But it would drastically improve the experience for those people that, for lack of a better term, were raised "inverted".

Three, it's not a complicated, onerous or lengthy addition. It's a switch that in essence puts a "-" (minus) sign in front of the input coming from the "camera"-stick. It's a few lines of code, plus a small GUI addition.

And yet, despite a small but dedicated campaign on their official forums - that began only hours after the game hit Xbox-Live, is still going strong, and was signed and supported by a few hundred people (which is quite a lot in forum-terms) - Telltale Games stated repeatedly they have no intention of implementing such an option.
And I do admit, that I find their decision to not invest about 30 minutes of work and net themselves potentially a few thousand more units sold... well, I find that mysterious indeed.

Arrows in Smallville and a Trip into Video Game Future

Hole made by Arrow (aka: an impression)

[for my prescient review of the Arrow Video Game, scroll down]

Smallville was... strange. What started out as a teen-dream TV-version of Superboy and spent its first few years trying to tell the same "green-meteorite-affects-Smallville-person-in-evil-ways-and-makes-Clark's-heroics-a-little-more-difficult", matured (if you can call it that) to at least a semi-respectable comic adaptation, holding a steady prime-time slot for no less than 10 seasons. Granted, it never outgrew the feeling that even after 10 years it was still being made for a 10-year old, and its pathos, plot twists, "dark secrets" and tedious relationships rivaled at times the most bubbly of soaps.

So when fans of Smallville tuned in to Arrow, CW's re-imagining of DC's Star City vigilante Green Arrow, a show made by some of the same people as "the Struggling and Overly Complicated Relationships of Clark Kent - and Some Heroics in Cheap-Looking Costumes", they may have been surprised. Arrow is dark. Mysterious. Morally ambiguous.
Arrow kills people. With arrows. It was impressively refreshing. Superheroes don't kill people. Yes, sometimes they may choose not to save someone really evil and be forgiven, but generally it's a big "no-no". Additionally, Arrow chose to limit the spoon-feeding of plot-points to a bare minimum - which is a nice way of saying that the first few episodes left people a bit confused. Where did that list of villains for the Arrow to punish come from? Why would he choose such a strangely colored vigilante outfit in an Urban environment? Whose kid belonged that cheap rubber Deathstroke mask to that was staked out on the beach? And why would he wear so much eye-liner all alone on an isolated island? Some of these questions have by now been answered, and the way those answers came supports Arrow's claim of a more sophisticated (and darker) look at "The Superhero".

However, once Ollie had returned to civilization and met up with his former love after five years of legal death, Smallville veterans were back on solid ground. Dialog that was probably meant (or hoped) to be profound and touching, sadly most often played out as that same 10-year old's take on Batman Begins.
Still, Arrow is not bad. It's actually quite good. It's just a bit schizophrenic. Stephen Amell is charming enough and holds his own despite the green make up, the action is actually impressive for weekly TV, but surprisingly (or maybe un-surprisingly) Arrow's best moments consistently happen without the Arrow-persona actually being involved. At the very least, Oliver Queen and the characters surrounding him are definitely not as bland and boring as Clark Kent's Smallville was.

Except for his counterpart Laurel Lance - at least until now. And can I just say that a re-imagining actually gives you the right to break with certain ridiculous traditions, like the "Double-L" love interest? Lana Lang, Lois Lane, Laurel Lance... There's a thin line between tribute and tedium, and when it comes to the Double-L's, these producers have tedium down pat. I didn't like Laurel Lance the first time I heard her name. It was an instinctual reaction, as those two Ls instantly dragged up all the things I hated about Lana and Lois. I disliked her even more when she started to talk - it all felt like things I had heard a million times before, and much better phrased at that. If the killing was refreshing, how much more refreshing the absence of a moralist love-interest, possibly with a dark side waiting to break out would have been, I could not even begin to tell you. On the other hand, she is quite beautiful, so allowances can be made... Seriously though, I will withhold final judgement until the end of the first season. Katie Cassidy is a good (fine, and hot) actress, that should be allowed to show a much deeper... uhm depth of character as Laurel Lance seems to have. But maybe that will change as the season progresses. I should not (prematurely) rage on a character simply because the writers and producers failed to try something they haven't done before ad nauseam. Maybe it's one of those things you "just have to do" I never seem to understand. I will however reserve the right to tell you "I told you so."


Still, Arrow will probably be quite successful, and should the writers eventually to decide to add the same wit, brains and finesse to the "heroic" dialog as Oliver's conversations with his little sister so often contain - and tune down on the soap opera moments and the painfully obvious "this line will lead straight into a flashback"-lines - it might even become thoroughly enjoyable. Right now though, despite the mostly strong performances of Arrow's leading characters, it still feels a bit like the small and slightly annoying teenaged brother of Chris Nolan's Batman, jumping around in his home-made Robin costume.

It could be really good. All those two guys need are some better scripts.

Oops. Right. I meant those two guys:

Well, arguably, I could've meant both. I mean, all four. And no, they're not the same people. Just look at the hairlines...
(See what I did there? Robin, Chris O'Donnel and the Hooded archer Green Arrow?)
Anyways... with my freeze ray I will stop... uhm. You know. Stuff.

Arrow, the Video Game

One potentially very good thing we might get out of Arrow's success though, could be a possible Arrow Video Game. Now, until a few years ago, most license games were admittedly terrible, Riddick's Escape from Butcher Bay being probably the most notable exception. Then there was Arkham Asylum. And then there was Arkham City. And suddenly the faithful conversion of fan-favorite content into an interactive experience did not seem so impossible anymore.

If you think about it, Green Arrow is basically Batman with a Bow. And Arrows that kill.
Now imagine what homicidal vigilante-fun you could have in an Arkham City environment, with a Bow and Arrows - some tricky, some lethal - and no restrictions when it comes to how much damage you can actually do to your adversaries. Think of a modern-day Assassin's Creed III with Batman's Utility Belt, parcour-style movement with zip-line arrows and grappling-hook arrows, coupled with Batman's stealth and combat mechanics, all built around the central pillar of the Bow. Indoors and outdoors missions, stealth missions, detective missions, the options are many and various, especially with Starling City not being bound to any authentic architectural or historic entity.

Or you could go the obvious way, and make a game about the five years Oliver Queen spends on a remote island fighting mercenaries, the five years of "Learn or Die" Training that made a playboy billionaire into a Deadshot with a Bow.
The overgrown and heavily forested island would offer the open world-setting, the forest itself Queen`s main avenue of movement, and the mercenaries led by Deathstroke the evil to be vanquished.

Akin to Just Cause, the island will have to be liberated by sabotaging the enemy's evil machinations. Outposts will have to be cleared and defended, convoy's ambushed, disguises used to infiltrate bases and "pacify" and high-ranking mercenaries. Raids on Supply Depots would provide the tools to improve weaponry and create new custom arrows out of different combinable components, experimentation with plants provides poisons and "potions", while hunting in the woods provides nourishment and resources. You could even secure your hideouts by using camouflage or placing cunningly concealed traps.

And this is the way I would like to review it:

You begin the game washed ashore in a small lagoon on a remote tropical island. You have nothing but the clothes on your back and whatever can be scavenged from the remains of the life raft that brought you here.
As you explore the environment, you find that you are trapped in a small area, limited by steep cliffs too sheer to climb. Still, there are animals in that area, and some are not too friendly, but for now your only course of action is to run from these encounters. Until one day, you find next to the little hut you built a primitive bow and a few arrows. You spend some time training with the bow, and notice that the more you practice, the better you get, the stronger you get. In a simplified version of Skyrim's "Leveling by Doing" system, every shot with the retrievable arrows increases your aim, range and power - quite fast at first, but becoming a Master of the Bow will of course take a considerable amount of time.

After using your new-found skills to bring down some hopefully edible critters and regain your strength, your next task will be to escape the lagoon. Somebody must be up there, hopefully the mysterious benefactor that provided bow and arrow.
The idea is to use a rope or vine attached to an arrow shot at a tree on top of the cliff, a shot the untrained Queen could not have made. Getting up high enough into the forest to find a sufficiently long vine introduces the climbing mechanics, that in a way similar to Assassin's Creed III has you tentatively scaling the lofty heights to reach the jungle canopy. Your movements will be awkward at first, and you will fall, but it's part of the learning experience. Eventually having vanquished the vines of your immediate world, you will find that a small rodent sized monkey has made off with your bow. Chasing him down will introduce you to a way of speedy locomotion by swinging and jumping from tree branch to tree branch, but as with everything else, you start out helpless and only practice will make you better.

When you've finally managed to reach the top of the cliff, you encounter the mysterious man in the hood, who subsequently goes on to kick your a$$. The a$$-kicking is witnessed by the little monkey that had stolen your bow, apparently the man's pet and obviously part of a sinister conspiracy to make your life miserable.
The intent of this demonstration was, of course, to drive home the point of your utter helplessness. The second part of the game begins with your advanced training in combat, archery, stealthy stalking and speedy movement, conducted by both the Hooded Man and his monkey. Once again, you will only be able to exit this training area if your skills have sufficiently increased to actually do so - and even then you have to figure out the way.

With your training progressing, you soon gain access to a bigger part of the island, and the Hooded Man will take you on a few hunting outings, providing you with the knowledge necessary plant deadly traps, skin and butcher caught animals, use plants to make poisons and potions, and in general forage the woods for raw materials to make weapons, arrows, clothing and other things of use. He will also teach you a few nifty tricks, like shooting multiple arrows, as well as introduce your first trick arrow, the Snare Arrow, that lets you trip and bind animals (of all kinds) from afar. The most important part of your hunting training however is your newly gained ability to focus, to slow down the time around you for precision and special skill shots.

It is also around that time that you first realize - and quite painfully so - that the two of you are not the only inhabitants of the island. A group of vicious mercenaries has made it their base of operation, and control most of the territory through a multitude of outposts and guard stations. You find out that your hooded friend has led a private, solitary war against those mercenaries, who, despite diligent attempts, have not yet managed to kill or even find him. But in you they have found a possible chink in the Hooded Man's armor, a weakness they will try to exploit. Especially after the Hooded Man rescues you right out of their evil clutches.

During your daring escape from the Base, the Hooded Man will show you another very useful tool, this one aimed at speedy transportation across long distances: the Paraglide-Arrow. Basically this arrow, attached to a rope and fired high into the sky, will deploy a para-chute to catch the strong winds prevailing above the island and quickly whisk you out of harm's way. The Para-Arrow is your primary means of traversing long distances, but to actually reach your destination you will first travel to an area below the wind stream going where you want to go. It sounds complicated at first, but you soon find yourself traveling across the island with ease. Of course you will be able to hijack and drive enemy vehicles, from motorbikes to Armored Personnel Carriers, but it's just not as satisfying (or impressive) as floating high above the islands.

Now that you are part of the war effort, your attacks on mercenary camps and supply depots will gain you access to technology and resources you can use to enhance your equipment and create custom trick arrows with different effects. From Stun-Arrows, Binding-Arrows, Gag-Arrows or Explosive-Arrows, the right ingredients allow you to make an arrow for every occasion, and grants a certain degree of individuality, catering to your own play-style.


The most important development however comes when you are deprived of your hooded teacher quite early in the game, and long before you have learned all there is to know. You have the basic skills to survive and fight, but are nowhere near good enough to take on Deathstroke himself.
As you are now using your mentor's old hideout, you can use your old training equipment (or build new equipment) to improve your skills. During the game, you will gain access to more hideouts, all of which you can improve with the right resources. You can also spend some time camouflaging your hide-outs from spying eyes and, in a nod to the popular Tower-Defense games a few years back, can plant traps in the area around it, granting you additional time to defend or flee a hideout in case of an attack.

There are also quite a lot of different skill and trick shots you can still learn, their availability depending on your Bow Proficiency Level. Those are not just handed to you, though; they have to be earned. Opportunities to learn shots available at your current level will present themselves in semi-random events you encounter while playing.

These events basically present you with a challenge, a chance to figure out a new shot by doing it, but contrary to common quick-time-events, there are no button prompts - the things you have to do just all make sense once you figure the out. As an example, stirring up a trio of birds will give you the opportunity to learn the Triple-Arrow Trick Shot, by first marking two birds like a usual double-shot and shooting the third bird manually, after quickly pulling out another arrow. It's a really satisfying experience, and since the opportunities will return until you've mastered the shot, failing an event is not the end of the world. In fact, it will have you thinking about ways to pull it off. Similarly, hitting a target at extreme ranges will increase your accuracy and permanently steady your aim. It's a challenge-reward system that actually encourages exploration and experimentation in a way most tangible, since the game offers almost no hints as to how you are supposed to achieve those rewards. Granted, you could enable hints for the game to hold your hand, but the most gratifying reward is often knowing you figured things out yourself. If you think you should be able to do that, if you think it makes sense, more often than not you will find that the game will reward you for figuring it out.

The island of course offers its own secrets, from ship wrecks and tunnels to ancient ruins, and it's quite satisfying to simply explore its vast and diverse areas without sticking pointy things into bad people. But eventually the game will force you to continue the war your mentor started.

As the conflict escalates, and you liberate the island one arrow at a time, the mercenaries will bring ever bigger guns to the bow-fight, make more concerted efforts to find your hide-outs and attack you while you rest from your injuries, and every so often, a highly-skilled operative will be dispatched to deal with you. These boss-fights easily are some of the high-points of the game, as they are both diverse, yet still manage to present options of dealing with your enemy according to your preferred play-style and arrow loadout. A boss fight equipped with Net- and Stun-Arrows will play differently than the same fight with Explosive-Arrows.

And so you slowly fight your way through the mercenary hordes, hoping to get a shot at the top dog, while at the same time figuring out the secret of the island and why Deathstroke and his employers are even here. Admittedly, since the game stays pretty well within the established confines of the TV series, we do know how it will eventually play out, but how you get there is one of the most engaging, imaginative, gripping and beautiful gaming experiences I've ever had the pleasure of playing.

Mysterious Ways... of 2012

There comes a time in every man's life, when he's got to look at sh@t that he now owns. Can't depend on games to help you in a squeeze, please, they got problems of their own.

Props to those that just got that.

It's a formative experience in the life of every video game enthusiast, when she looks at a certain feature of a certain game, and, quite insistently, yells the following words in her mind: "What.The. F@ck?!" And not even the sight of her own, trim body, slightly covered by nothing but a very tight "Duke Nukem" shirt and "Solid Snake" panties, reflected on the screen of a 70" HDTV, can ease her pain. But it does soothe ours.

We all know that developers work in mysterious ways, but there are certain... call them "creative decisions" that seem a bit... questionable. You know, the things nobody thought they would do, directions nobody can understand they would take, mistakes nobody would believe they could make.

So let's take a look at some of my personal favorites, the "creative mis-decisions" of 2012:



Battlefield 3, Close Quarters: 


I got into Battlefield when I got sick of Modern Warfare 2. Commando, Marathon, Lightweight anyone? Those teleporting, backstabbing Jackrabbits on Speed? Totally ruined the game for me. It may be personal taste, but the thing about sprinting as soon as you spawn is that it somewhat discourages a thoughtful, tactical approach to things - unless you count "Let's all go left and kill those motherf@ckers!" as approaching tactical. Killing "those motherf@ckers" incidentally seemed to sum up most of the available game modes, as objectives simply massed all the motherf@ckers to kill in certain areas. Then the glitches, the exploits, the hackers, the boosters, the Tactical Knife, the Akimbo Rangers... Battlefield Bad Company 2 for me was a welcome reprieve. Not only did it actually make long-range combat long range, but the game modes and the level design provided a wonderful variation of scenarios - not to mention the free map packs. I spent about a month of my life on BC2's Multiplayer, and I don't really want it back.

I was consequentially inappropriately aroused when BF3 neared its release, but the Beta already left me with a sour taste in my mouth, feeling like a two-bit whore that got cum-jumped by a John during a 10-buck blowjob. Operation Metro. What were they thinking? Not only was it buggy as hell only a month before release, it was also a very concise demonstration of everything Battlefield was supposed not to be. It felt a lot like COD. It played a lot like COD. But when the first few voices were raised to voice that particular affront, they were flamed like foxholes.

But the voices had been right. In fact, it was the very first step in a treacherous move of DICE and EA to entice the CODites to switch games, to CODify the Battlefield, ruin the experience for a lot of faithful fans, and make lots of extra money.

This trend continued when looking at the on-disc maps available at release - three small, three medium, two big and one too huge to really enjoy on consoles with only 24 people. It felt like a cheap compromise between luring the Fish-heads with the small maps, while still being able to point to the too-huge-to-be-true maps for the franchise faithfuls, with the medium maps somewhere in the middle - and yet not one of these maps came even close to the pretty much perfectly balanced and varied maps of Bad Company 2.

Then there was Team Deathmatch, the single most loathed game mode in Battlefield lore, not least because it is the foundation on which the Call of Duty games are built. Its very existence was an admission of the developers attempt to emulate their rival and present Battlefield as a viable alternative. Already, the list of things that actually made Battlefield different had shortened to the sad stump of an old man's c@ck when seen in ice-cold water.

The sad culmination of their shameless ploy for Modern Warfarers was "Close Quarters", the second Multiplayer DLC released in June of 2012. It actually advertised the kind of hemmed-in, fast-paced, twitchy, trigger happy gameplay that Battlefield players explicitly played Battlefield to avoid. Most BF fans felt their gorge raising when they saw the part in the tailer with the Russian Engineer vaulting a ledge and firing an RPG inside a skyscraper. Nothing is so reminiscent of COD than the gratuitous use of rocket-propelled anti-tank weapons against human targets in telephone-booth sized environments. That just reeks of tactical gameplay.

"Close Quarters" also came with two "new" game modes, that were actually carbon copies of well known COD game modes, right down to the names. And the question that so many people - well, fine, that I (as the only person of note) am asking myself is: why? Why would you do that? You had a good thing going. You were different. Arguably, you were better. You have a faithful following for the very reason of being different from the COD, why would you actively try to emulate the enemy? And why, if you choose to sell out, why in all the seven hells would you sell out in such a terribly obvious way?

Now, imagine how angry it would make you, if, for example, Battlefield introduced a season pass like Call of Duty's Elite Premium Membership. Of course they would call it something completely different (I mean, how obvious can you be?), but the Season Pass principle has been greedily adopted by developers, and swallowed - without even looking at the contents - by members of the non-intelligentsia. So, imagine you're one of these hardcore Battlefield players, the kind that drives pre-school COD kiddies nuts by spreading rumors of huge maps, no quick-scoping, vehicles, no kill-streaks and no One-Shot-Kills on their message boards before every release. Imagine you're one of them. The PC guys. The core of the hardened core of the center of what would be left of the hardcore players should DICE ever decide to make small COD style maps. The guys that made DICE and Battlefield into what it is today. And you pay 50$ for such a season pass, pay that money before they even announced a single detail about the content, expecting the usual quality Battlefield. It's DICE, after all. What could go wrong? And then you get what basically amounts to a "Modern Warfare" game mode. Everything you never wanted was now a part of your most cherished pastime. And you paid for it. No money back for you, mate. No guarantee that the next three pre-paid expansions will be any different. The uncertainty. The torment. The pain. Tough buns.

Boy, would I be pissed...

Anyway. What started with the BF3 Beta and Operation Metro, then found its questionable high-point in Close Quarters, left many a veteran of the Battlefield feeling angry, used and disillusioned. But most of all confused. Because, except for the money, there seems to be no possible reason why DICE would do or agree to such a molestation of everything their flagship franchise stood for. And we all know that the money could not have been the deciding factor, right?

... right?

-- tbc some other time (but preferably before 2013 comes around) --