Gears of War 2 or drugs?

I’m sitting here in the morning trying to muster the energy to get my laundry going and I started to watch a recorded TV show called behind the music of Courtney Love. As you can imagine it’s a show about rock n roll and drugs. As I’m watching it I see the part of her life where Kurt Cobain was so far in drug abuse he was lost. While I’m watching this it came to me. Gears of War is a drug. Last night was a prime example of something that feels good to do, but can hurt you at the same time.
Good part – the game is an ultimate team player game. If you go into a team based match and fly solo it almost always leads to you being eliminated. The maps are detailed in the way you can position yourself to get the upper hand. On any given map there is a plentiful amount of special weapons for every player. On a good match and with a bit of help from other players you can work as a team and mop up the other online team.
Now the bad part - Please don’t start explaining the whole connection based game theory from host base to server. This is with out a doubt a game that is based on 90 percent host connection and 10 percent of skill from experience with the advance weapons on a map to the typical player patterns where the big skirmishes occur. Rank in this game means nothing.
When the game first came out players with no morals and ethics would glitch the program and get the achievement award to level 100. I must clarify to all non-Gears players; there was a level system before the system of leveling up due to experience that relied on wins and loss percentage. I was very happy to see that at least one programmer at Epic games actually is a gamer and knows that there are too many flaws in the connection of the game to allow a fair skilled battle to occur.
Additionally, this game also breeds something I am sickened by – unethical players. To me, “ethics” means to make moral decisions and to know what good taste is. For example, if you are playing war zone mode, which is a 5-on-5 team battle where if you get knocked down you must rely on your fellow team mates to pick you up, and if you can’t be picked up in a short period your character dies. If you’re knocked down, and the opponent has time, they can kill you, or himself or herself. There are times where another teams’ players will linger over your fallen characters body and “make believe” they’re doing sexual and lewd acts to you. This is a practice I despise and loath. That puts me at a fever pitch.
If you ever asked my wife to describe me, she will say I’m an asshole, like all good wives say about their husbands. The next might be I’m the best lover in the world. The third thing she would say is I’m very loyal to my friends. So, when I play with friends I get even angrier when this happens to them. If I had to put a percentage on how often this happens it would be 30 to 40 percent of the time. If I had to put a percentage on how many times you win or lose based on the host of your party getting host for the match, well that happens at least 90 percent of the time.
Now that I detailed the highs and lows of this game Ill give you a history of my game play with gears 2. The first gears of war game I played on a regular basis with friends in private matches. There were host and game flaws, but I believe the social part of talking and discussing world events outweighed the problems. When gears 2 came out, there was a disappointing switch to online matches. I admit, I love competition and team work but the whole social art was lost. The nightmare began when the epic programmers stated in articles, blogs, and in interviews that the design issues as host shotgun power, one side host advantages, and so on had been fixed. Guess what? No luck on that. So I personally spent stressful nights playing the game, frustrated that my ability was not important, but my hope was that my connection would be good to other players and that the other team did not exploit the cheating flaws in the game.
After some months of playing the game I got fed up and put the game away. Recently I took the game out and started playing it. The designers decided to increase experience points to what I believe is a ploy to get people back. Are any problems fixed? No. So I have been playing it with the same frame of mind that Courtney Love must have felt when she abused drugs. You know its bad for you but you still do it. Last night was a prime example of why I am going to say no. Two nights ago, I played and toward the end of my game session Evil Ric and I vowed to put the game away for a time due to our continued anger toward the game. Last night a friend sent me an invite and what did I do? You guessed it. I played Gears.
Something happened last night that was the first in all my online game play. I gave up! The last match I honestly ran out and got killed. Didn’t care what the consequences would be to my team. By the end of the match I could not wait to get out of the room. Afterward, I once again vowed not to play the game for some time since I broke a rule that is dear to my heart. Don’t give up!
So, in parting – does anyone else feel the same about this? Does anyone else have a game that makes them insane? Are you just like Courtney and self destruct over a game? Think about that as you are getting mad over a game.

Until next time,

Drink Quality Jim Beam

Friends list

Here’s a question that I think anyone online has had to ask themselves . . . when do you take people off your friends list? Now, I don’t mean the occasional jackass that might bother you and you find out that they have a brain of a donkey, but when do you “clean up your friends list”?

For this blog I’m going to use my list as an example. I have some friends that like to keep their list. Some people like to hoard their friends. I know from talking to various friends that they will play one rank match with someone and a year later they have had no contact with the player but god forbid they drop the person from it. On the other hand, some people go the month-rule of you play, you don’t stay. I like to say I’m a collector of sorts. I have a little bit of both. I just did a small house cleaning of sorts before I wrote this. All the people were either ones that I just don’t ever play with or one was a friend whose annoying son would pop in and not shut up. I like the guy, but I feel comfortable to say that he lost the gamer feeling and won’t be playing anymore.

As for my list, everyone has the everyday players on their list. The players that are friends and they schedule their grocery shopping and their drinking around. Examples on my list include – Evil Ric , Pengwenn, Hell weasel (well, most of the time). I have some people who were on the list but are MIA right now (El Sand dog, El Zak, and Genghis khan 70). Will they return?????

I have a supporting cast of players that I either communicate with or play with from time to time. It is safe to say that we all have friends like that on our list. From time to time they send a message about liking a game or you jump in and play online matches with them.

My third category is for sentimental and note worthy players. I just as of late took a couple off my list. I have a few, like Hut Sut Raw, that I would never take off because once in a blue moon we communicate with each other and the last time we played I enjoyed it. I do have a freak of nature on my friends list. Luse 666 has a gamer score of 186872 as I write this . His account is 5 years old. Shit, my fingers would be fried.

Lastly, there is the relative spot. The ones you can’t take off your list or you will get a shit and a brick wrapped with a bow at Christmas. Hester, yes that’s you. Did I come close to anyone’s list? Well safe to say my list is solid at 41. Who knows what person will pop into your room any given night to play with you.

My random thoughts about gaming as of right now.

So first off I apologies for the first time I started to blog but I disconnected it. I would like to say that it was "buyer remorse" and I wash not happy with the way it came out. In starting there are two reason I'm doing this. Also I know that you spell facts different but it was taken and I thought that fax's had a ring to it. First, to improve my typing and writing skills. I am very out of touch with both of them . Second , I feel I can put a funny twist to the daily life of gaming with friends and the odd and interesting people you game with and against. Ive decided that my first blog is going to be a list of random thoughts I have in regards of people and experiences I have online. There is no real order to the list. I'm just going to think and type. Later blogs I'm sure will detail matches and of course the soon to be famous " If I could meet them in real life I would knock their teeth in list" of all gamers that lack social, ethic, common sense, vocabulary and pure honest gaming skills. Also another note, from time to time Hester Hater will do some typing for me since as some of you know I have hands of a 90 year old.


List of random thoughts of my gaming world

1- Cursing is healthy. it is OK to shout and curs. People do it all the time. Hey, everyone knows I should have soap put in my mouth after playing online matches in Gears of War 2 but remember don't fire it back at someone unless they do first to you.

2- This a fact. The real reason That Evil Ric and TacticalShino do so well in Modern Warfare 2 is because of me. I am the guy who takes out all the UAV's and most of the copters and air support ( with some noted assistants from Pengwenn ). Just think , if I didn't take them out the other team would spot them each time. Think of me as the supporting actor on this award.

3- Jack Wraith is correct on USMC Wolf in regards to rpg's and games. I give props to him on how fast and quick he gets his achievements and finishes a game. Now Jack , on AOS Pyro eating Man chowder?

4- No- Genghis Khan 70 is not dead. I am going to give you 3 choices to choose from and you can guess which is right. 1- He is making adult porn movies in the LA region starting 75 to 80 year old woman called "Young love" and " Very OLD Brokeback mountain" . 2- His real gamer tag is Pogue Moran. He is doing a experiment where he has one gamer tag that everyone likes and another that gives you a splitting headache every time you play with them. 3- Well, he gave his Xbox to his kids and until he gets a stable living location he'll be offline. Take your pick. I know C5ride will pick number 1.

5-In the upcoming months you are going to see starting with Activision on there new Tiger Woods 11 edition to start a monthly charge to there games. This is a fact that it will happen iin the future. Will they increase or make the experience better? No , it will be just like now with once every so often new stuff coming out. What can you do? Don't support the company's like Activision. Yes , I understand that they need to make money but when designers of games like Cliffy B. talks about his Ferrari and all the over budget trade shows, that money could go back to the people that work to design it. it sadden me that this last few years company's went out of business.Again business is business and if you don't buy then company's will re think there strategy and do something different. If you care you will do whats right

6- Pengwenn steals castles from you. Yes , its true. It happens all the time when I play Carcassonne with her! I warned you!

Now that I got over my over my first blog I can start complaining on my next.

Until next time,

Drink Quality Jim Beam