Battlefield: Bad Company 2

I'm not a fan of playing first person shooters online. The potential of becoming hooked to one game is there playing online. It hurts my ego when I get killed every 2 minutes by a person I didn't see. The games I play have to have end at some point. Army themed first person shooters is an over saturated market with too many games putting their emphasis on the multiplayer. I could play a single player campaign and not know if I was playing Call of Duty, Brothers in Arms, or Medal of Honor. Then there's Battlefield: Bad Company 2. The best first person shooter I've played in years.

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 has a personality. It doesn't follow the trend of recreating wars of the past, present, or future in space. Instead they create a fictional story based on four privates. The story isn't important, but it's nice to not have developers try to teach you a history lesson.

The characters in your squad are fun. I especially liked Sergeant Samuel Redford. His no nonsense attitude is hilarious especially when the squad members joke around about some of the decisions he makes. This game made me feel like I actually was apart of the squad. Instead of feeling like the black sheep, I felt like I was carrying my weight with the team. Every other game I play I always feel like I'm in the way of other members shots, or the person I was aiming at gets killed by another squad member before I can shoot. It usually results in me moving ahead of my squad getting killed a lot in the process. Battlefield had me rolling with my squad the whole time.

There are some incredible moments in this game. I enjoyed playing a sniper waiting for lightning to strike before I could hit my target. I also liked how destructible the environments are. I got a 101 on destruction from Just Cause 2. BFBC2 is where I applied my knowledge. You can create paths, and make it to the top floor of some buildings by destroying it properly. It also works against you. You might think you're safe inside that building until a rocket launcher takes out the wall that was protecting you.

I had the opportunity to see this game in 3D at NVIDIA's show at PAX East. I was impressed. If you are a PC Gamer who has the money to buy one of the GeForce graphics cards from NVIDIA, Go for it. I might be a console gamer, but I know the future of gaming is here for the PC. PC Gamers Unite.

The Simpsons Arcade Game

I went to the arcade today. First thing I did was look for The Simpsons arcade game. I remember playing this game with my family and friends growing up. We wouldn't ever get that far since Simpsons games are notorious for being obnoxiously difficult. The difficulty works well with the arcade game. I found it easier to kill those tough enemies after I put more quarters into the machine.

The game starts off with Maggie being kidnapped by Smither's while the Simpson family attempts to get her back. You can play as Marge, Homer, Bart, or Lisa depending on where you decide to put your coins. Each character attacks with a different weapon. Marge has a vacuum, Homer uses his fists, Bart has a skateboard, and Lisa uses her jump rope. The game plays like an episode of the Simpson. The star of this episode is the town of Springfield. You begin in the streets fighting your way throgh enemies. The second level brings us to the amusement park. At the end of the boss fight you fall into the underworld and end up at the cemetery which conveniently is the 3rd level. I ran out of quarters here so I'll get back to you on the rest of the levels.

The game remains fun for me almost 20 years later. I used to enjoy the game play a lot as a kid, but now it's pretty dated. For controls we have a joystick and two buttons. One button (A) attacks and the other button (B) jumps. Really not much of a variety when it comes to attacking things when you only have two buttons. I found it possible to do 3 moves. Attack (A) . a jumping attack (B) then (A) or a swinging attack by turning the joystick in a circle then pressing  (A) attack. The plot keeps me interested now. Seeing all of the various characters on the show doing stupid stuff while I explored the town of Springfield was fun. It's no secret Matt Groening loved video games. Konami came together and made him a good one. I forgive all of the other bad Simpson's games thanks to the arcade game.