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Wasdie Blog

Guild Wars 2: First Impressions

I'm just going to get this out of the way, I was never a huge fan of Guild Wars. I picked up a copy of Guild Wars and the Factions expansion back in 2008 and didn't get very far.The game was unique but it failed to pull me into theexperienceand hold my attention like it did for so many other people.There was certainly nothing wrong with it and I thought the whole setup of the pesdo-MMO was pretty neat, but in the end we parted ways after only a couple dozen of hours (at the most) That said, after a few hours with Guild Wars 2 I see the potential for a long lasting and very rewarding relationship.

Upon creating my Human warrior who was born into nobility and has a dead sister which apparently angers him, I was thrust into the mini-tutorial where me and all the up-and-coming heroes of Tyria must defend thevillageof Shaemoor from the hordes of Centaurs. Already I noticed the biggest area where Guild Wars 2 tries todifferentiateitself from other MMOs, the focus on teamwork. Instead of being told to go kill X amount of enemies by myself and complete a small handful of quests before finishing off some boss and entering the actual game world, I was told to defend a location. Any player in thevicinitycould join me and all of us worked seamlessly on the same task without having to add each other to a party. As the number of players grew so did the amount of enemy attacking. The tutorial ended with the newly collected horde of heroes rushing towards a final boss, which seemed to scaleappropriatelygiven the amount of players, and bashing on it until it exploded knocking everybodyunconsciousthus teleporting us to the game world.

Like always, read the rest here at my blog.

Freemium vs. Free-To-Play - Why EA's Vision is Doomed to Fail

With theannouncementthat Command and Conquer Generals 2, being developed by Bioware Victory, has beenrenamedjust Command and Conquer and been refactored under EA's freemium model, it has left many gamers very disappointed as the once great RTS series known for its over-the-top single player campaigns, cheesy FMV, and memorable character, has now completelyabandonedits roots and focused on freemium fueled multiplayer.

This should come to no realsurpriseto anybody who has been following gaming news the last few months. In late July, EA Interactive's senior vice president said that the freemium business model was going to be the "market-leader" (source:Gamespot). A month before, Peter Moore, COO of EA, was quoted saying that "I think, ultimately, those microtransactions will be in every game, but the game itself of the access to the game will be free" (source:Kotaku) Clearly EA has warmed up to the free-to-play market enough to understand it'spotentialrevenues.

Read the rest here.

Planetside 2: The FPS We Need Right Now

I posted a new entry on my official blog today. Here's the first pharagraph:

"Let's face it, we are in a rut. Since 2007 the market has been flooded with the modern military shooter all based loosely on the small scale, corridor ridden, infantry focused combat of Call of Duty 4. Military shooters today have 2, sometimes 3, basic elements: a really short, extremely high paced single player which plays more like a glorified on-rails shooter than a FPS where you're really in control, a multiplayer mode feature class based customization, ranks, and special abilities, and, form time to time, some sort of a co-op mode which puts you and a buddy against waves of mindless enemies. That pretty much sums up the Call of Duty, Medal of Honor, Battlefield series and has rubbed off on games such as Crysis 2, Homefront, Killzone 3, and pretty much every other shooter since 2007 in one way or another."

Read more at my blog.

New PC!

Alright, after many months of waiting I finally built my new PC. Here it is...

Specs:

  • I7 3770k @ 4.2 GHz
  • 2x EVGA GTX 570 1.2gb in SLI
  • 16gb GSkill DDR3 1600 RAM
  • Asus Maximus V Gene motherboard
  • 128gb Crucial M4 SSD
  • 750gb Seagate XT
  • 1TB 7200 Samsung HDD
  • Blu-Ray drive
  • Rosewill Thor V2 Case (love it)

I've got it all set up to 3x 23" 1080p monitors.

Speccy:

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CPU-Z:

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Insides:

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Cable Managment (it's a bit messier now, this was before I installed the 3rd drive):

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Case:

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Desk:

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Night (I need a better camera, I strung up lights behind the whole desk, you can kind of see them):

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Gaming with the monitors:

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Not gaming:

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Desktop:

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Benchmarks:

3D Mark06:

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3D Vantage:

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3D Mark11:

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The whole 3 monitor thing is pretty neat. I would like to upgrade the GPU to either a single GTX 690 or 2x GTX 670 4gs so I can have the 4 gigs of vRAM I need for the high resolution gaming.

More videos to come and more ways to connect with me!

So today I've overhauled my Youtube page, my Blogspot blog got an update, and my Livestream channel was cleared of old content. I've also decided to share my Twitter account with people here at Gamespot.

What does this all mean? Well this means there will be more ways for me to interact with the community and have several outlets for me to voice my opinion, post reviews, and share content with the world. Here's the links to everything new.

Wasdie's Twitter

Wasdie's Youtube

Wasdie's Livestream

Wasdie's Blog

So drop on by any of the links and check out stuff I post. Feel free to comment on all you want. I'm going do a better job of keeping fresh content on these websites from now on.

Call of Duty: Finest Hour - The First Two levels

I've update my main blog here with a new post. I'm about two levels into Call of Duty Finest Hour and already I'm kind of regretting my decision to replay this game.

Here's a little exert...

I haven't gotten to much time into to continue my CoD marathon as of late because I picked up Wargame: European Escalation, which came with a multi-player beta that I have been playing, and just picked up the new Twisted Metal game which I've played a few rounds of. Finally, last night I was finally able to sit down and play another level of Call of Duty: Finest Hour on the Xbox.

It only took me one more level to realize how painful this journey is going to be. The Call of Duty games on the sixth generation consoles were never highly praised in their day. They were made by a company called Spark Unlimited, and while Activision gave them a decent sized budget, the constraints of the sixth gen consoles are blatantly obvious. In 2004, when Finest Hour was launched, console FPSs were still lacking any sort of real identity. Halo: Combat Evolved led the pack but most shooters did not follow suite in terms of controls, shooting mechanics, and overall feel. Finest Hour may have implemented iron sites, but the rest of the controls were mapped all over the place and it is difficult to go from the flawless controls in Halo to Finest hour.

Read more here

On my blog you can also find me on twitter. I've been trying to use it more.

Call of Duty Mathon: Call of Duty Summary

Last week I started a marathon of every single Call of Duty game's single player in the order they would be released. That order is.

  • Call of Duty (PC)
  • Call of Duty: United Offensive (PC)
  • Call of Duty: Finest Hour (Xbox)
  • Call of Duty: Big Red One (Xbox)
  • Call of Duty 2 (PC)
  • Call of Duty 3 (Xbox 360)
  • Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (PC)
  • Call of Duty: World at War (PC)
  • Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (PC)
  • Call of Duty: Black Ops (PC)
  • Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (PC)

After each game I will be giving a summary of the game and some thoughts on the next one as well as random updates on my progress. Here's a taste of my latest update...

Last night I stormed The Reichstag, defeated the Fascists, and avenged all of my fallen brothers and sisters who have given their lives in defense of the Motherland. I guess the Americans and the British helped, a bit. You know, blowing up those V2 rockets and smashing the Western Front and all.

I'm not going to go on and on about the quality of the game or shooting mechanics, partly because we already know that it's a fantastic, genre-defining shooter, and partly because you've all probably played it at some point. If you have not, I suggest picking up a copy ASAP. It's on the PC and was ported to the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 a while back and is probably pretty cheap. It is a great game and can be just as fun today as it was back in 2003. However, it does show it's age.

You can read the rest here at my official blog.

I Really Want to Enjoy Battlefield 3

I posted a new post on my Blogspot Blog. Check it out the first few pharagraphs below.

I really want to enjoy Battlefield 3. The game has been out for about a week and I have about 8 hours of gameplay and in that time I can say that BF3 has all of the potential to be the greatest mutliplayer shooter in recent years. However every time that potential starts to break through it gets buried under a mess of bugs, inbalances, poor design decisions, and lag.

Now I could rag on how DICE is a terrible developer and how EA is an evil company that forces it's will upon its helpless customers like the Battlelog forums would lead you to believe (seriously, don't go there if you don't want to be depressed), but I won't because it's not just unfair it's also incorrect. I understand the situation that Battlefield 3 is in. In less than two week Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 will launch and absolutely dominate the sales charts like every other CoD game. Already the game's preorder match that of Battlefield 3's totals sales, and BF3 has had the highest selling launch day of any EA game ever. This puts EA in a very difficult position as releasing after MW3's launch could really negatively effect sales. Under these conditions you can understand why EA pushed BF3 out the door when they did. However it seems that this may have caused more problems than a post-MW3 launch would have.

To continue reading click here.

Red Ochestra 2 - Before the Hammer Falls


For the past two weeks I have been participating in the beta for Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad on the PC which launches today, September 13th..All those who pre-ordered RO2's Digital Deluxe edition, which includes a few in-game unlocks, were allowed to play. Being a veteran of the Eastern Front through Red Orchestra Ostfront 41-45, I was eager to strap on my boots, grab my Mosin Nagant, and go protect the Motherland from the Fascists. In short, I have not been disappointed.

Being a veteran of the series, I was quickly familiar with the formula. Like its predecessor, Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad is a realistic first person shooter set on the Eastern Front which puts players in the boots of The Wehrmacht or Red Army in objective based maps with a mixture of infantry and tank fighting. Unlike it's predecessor, Heroes of Stalingrad focuses solely on the Battle of Stalingrad. This emphasis shifts the combat from the plains and trenches of the Russian countryside to the bombed out urban wasteland that is Stalingrad.

View the rest at my blog. www.wasdie.blogspot.com

Battlefield 3 The Last Hope of the Modern Military Shooter

I posted a new blog post here. Here's a small taste...

So many of you may know I'm quite excited for BF3. If you didn't know, you do now. I've been a fan of the franchise since it was released and I have spent many hours with every single Battlefield game ever made, that includes the one made for the Xbox and PS2 last generation and both Battlefield Bad Company games this generation. Finally after several weeks of waiting, the full 12 minute gameplay trailer was released. I understand it was released on the 14th, but I've only gotten time to sit down and write some thoughts about it now.

You can watch it here if you haven't seen it.

It's pretty.


After watching this video I believe that Battlefield 3 is the last hope of the modern military shooter. The modern military shooter craze started in 2004 with Battlefield 2 and really took off in 2007 with the release of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. While Battlefield 2 took it's place next to the dominate PC multilayer shooters like Counter Strike Source and Unreal Tournament 2k4, Call of Duty 4 swept the console market by storm with it's extremely well paced campaign and fast paced multilayer which rewarded players more than any other shooter before. CoD4's success quickly knocked off Halo as the console's biggest shooter and even took it's place next to the PC's biggest multiplayer shooters. Even after the launch of Call of Duty World at War in 2008, CoD 4 was still the dominate FPS in the market.