It recently occurred to me why I cant stand halo 2's online multiplayer. If you know me, you've undoubtedly seen me lay claim to the community being more or less, the main reason I dislike the game's multiplayer. Aside from that I've said things about it being unbalanced, and the like. While the balance issue in the game may still be a factor, it's tolerable, as is the community. Hell, the community is simply avoidable.

So, I was playing halo 2 online yesterday, more or less out of sheer boredom boredom. And with my previous qualms with the community, I simply avoided all of that madness by not wearing my headset, and cranking some tunes.

I'll admit, I was having a good time with the game. It's rare that I actually do this, and I really don't play the game very often (I think the last time I played halo 2 was a couple days before the Halo 3 beta hit). I went a few good rounds, but then on a big team battle match, on coagulation, nearly my entire team drops, so its 3v8. I knew it wasn't possible for me to actually have a nice little session with this game, and have it end on a high note.

It would be easy to blame the community for this, as well. But it's like something clicked with me. It's not the community's fault (I'm as guilty as leaving a game early as anyone else), it's matchmaking's fault.

Then it all came to me, it was a total, "duh" moment, but I just never really thought about it before. I wont lie, I've had many a good time playing halo 2, but all the best times were playing at LAN's or in a custom matches. I've only ever gotten frustrated while playing in a random matchmaking game.

Think about it, you're forced to sit for sometimes in upwards of 5 minutes just to get into a match, then it's all really hit and miss. You could be stuck with some total douche-bags for the next 10-20 minutes. Or they could just up and abandon you. Leaving you to fend for yourself against 4-8 other people. This is the PC gamer coming out right here, but the fact that you can't just join a game, already in progress, and have it auto-balance the teams each round, is ridiculous.

It's not like it's a hard thing to do. Battlefield 2 Modern Combat had a method that would work perfectly for halo. It had the ability to just join an on-going game, but it still had ranks. Instead of having it match you up with people near your rank, it just grouped you with everyone near your rank. I may be wrong, but the game had something like 3 rank groups. Whatever group you were in, on the server browser it would only show games for people from that group. So no matter what you're playing with someone at least close to your rank, and skill level.

You never had the problem of sitting there waiting for 5 minutes in matchmaking, or the hit-and-miss teams. It was just; join a game, and play. If anyone on your team drops, it will auto-balance someone to the other team the next time they respawn, and that was it. You didn't have to worry about anything, you didn't have much of anything to complain about, and it was a hell of a fun game.

I just wish Halo 3 would implement something like this. It would make it a highly enjoyable experience for people like me.

Alright, this rant has gone on long enough

and it was kinda coo' I guess

It's kinda coo' I guess.

Call me in a week.

Got my hands on the bioshock PC demo a couple hours early thanks to a torrent. I could play it on all high without a hitch, which makes me a happy clam. I was worrying about the performance of the game on my PC since I switched my preorder to the PC LE. But now I don't have to.

One qualm with it though, that I didnt know about. It doesn't have native anti-aliasing, which is really retarded, but whatever. I just turned 4x AA on in my card options.

So apparently Jack Thompson is sooooooo set on taking down rockstar, that he's going to complain about any mature rated game, regardless of who it's being made by, and say its being made by them.

"Take-Two... is aggressively marketing its newest Mature-rated video game to kids under 17 years of age... On this Friday's night's 8 pm Eastern time airing of WWE's wrestling program "Smackdown," there were repeated ads for Take-Two/Rockstar Game's Mature-rated, incredibly violent BioShock ... This rampant fraudulent trade practice is precisely what 'Big Tobacco' did with its 'Joe Camel' and other teen-targeting ads, while at the same time lying to Congress that it was not marketing its adult product to kids."

http://www.joystiq.com/2007/08/19/jack-thompson-files-bioshock-ad-complaint-with-ftc/

God jorb, jacky boy.

Made this.

and of course gaymespot cuts it off!

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y280/Ashuku/risingsunFINAL.jpg

click for full thing.

To start it off, I'll just say, I'm glad I have this preordered.

The game is pretty amazing once you get your hands on it.

I've played through the demo 3 times now, and every time I approached it differently.

For example, the first time I played through, I got caught by a security camera. I didn't even THINK about having the ability to hack. Instead I just mindlessly shot all the flying droid things they send at you.

The second time playing through, I just solid-snaked my way past the camera. Shot it a couple times then was on my way.

But the third time, I got caught by the camera again. Hacked 2 of the droids, then hacked the camera, then hacked a turret. The very last section of the demo you get bombarded with 6-10 enemies. I didn't even have to fire my gun.

Game developers are always going, "Its so versatile! You can approach a situation from ANY angle you want!". Which may be true, but this is the first time where running and gunning isn't always the best approach. But it still works. You're not going to be forced to hack every security drone and turret, just like you're not going to be forced to run-and-gun.

You'll be able to play the game the way you want to play it, and so far the balance seems pretty good between, "Should I just run up and shoot the guy?" and "Should I turn everything to work for me, and let them do the work?". Either decision can work.

And after drinking a can, all I want to do is Tea-Bag everything that moves...

Seriously though, this stuff is actually pretty good. Tastes like cherry Mellow Yellow, and the can looks cool, to boot.

I upgraded my PC yesterday with a C2D E6420.

So the specs currently stand at:

Intel C2D E6420

2GB of Ram

Geforce 7600GT

It's really incredible how much faster this thing is over my old P4 3.2ghz. To give you an example, on Counter-Strike Source I could run it at 1024x768 (I honestly don't see any point in going at a higher resolution that that like most people do) everything on high, 16x AF 4x AA, and generally get between 40-50 FPS. Now, on those same settings I get 150-200fps on average.

I don't plan on upgrading anything else for a while. Now that I should be able to run Bioshock pretty much maxed out, as well as Crysis and UT3 near the highest detail settings I have no need to upgrade for a while.

Also, I've reinstalled C&C 3 and BF2, so if anyone wants to play with me, hit me up on xfire: Ashuku