Ok so I was doing my good ol yard work for the day, clearing out weeds and high grass, using my weed wacker. After I got done with that I was using the rake to clear out all the loose brush that I chopped up so I can lay down weed killer... well in the process of raking I raked up a huge ball of fur. Immediatly I freaked out and was like "OH GOD I KILLED AN ANIMAL" so I started raking really gently and then all the lose fur went away. But under that was the most amazing thing.. something was moving.. I wasnt sure what it was at first, I thought it might have been a rat or some shit. But then I jumped out and I saw that it was a baby bunny! I said "OH MY GOD I HOPE I DIDNT HURT IT" *tear* then it started hopping away doing its little bunny thing. So I stare at it for awhile, seeing that its eyes are still closed, and its stumbling around trying to hop. The cuteness (bunny) was shaking so bad cause he was terrified is my guess.
But then when I looked down at where he came from I saw THREE MORE! all curled up with each other... There was no more time to screw around, it was time to act! I went on a 5 foot run to rescue the baby bunny from the new world it stumbled into and returned it to its family.. in the process I covered them back up and let them be. After about 20 minutes, I was too tempted to go back out and take pictures of the cuteness pile. So I give you... the cuteness!
Sorry for the blurry pix I didn't want to waste too much time leaving them uncovered, so I rushed through the shots, didn't want to freak them out again.
In light of me starting to play EVE Online again, and embracing its total visual and audio sexiness I decided to make muh first universe in photoshops... but in the process I came across a vision. I have discovered the birth of Mr. Destructoid.
THE TAUREN MARINE! LoL! Who trains from mulgore, and armament contains 88mm Impala Gauss Rifle. Its roll is a shock trooper!
"In the old Confederacy, terran marines were mostly criminals or rebels who had undergone mandatory neural resocialization. Freed from any previous allegiances or ideologies, these fearless soldiers stood ready to defend Confederate interests with their lives but exhibited an annoying tendency toward petty larceny, vandalism, and occasional cannibalism. Confederate authorities were unable to requisition enough reliable troopers in this way, and eventually recruiters turned to a new source of fresh meat for the grinder."
-starcraft2.com
When you think of intense first person action mixed with RTS features what comes to your mind? Savage Series? Command & Conquer lol Renegade? Tremulous? Natural Selection? If you were thinking any of these, allow me to take you on a journey through time, when there were many games that slipped under the mainstream and did not become the norm (which is probably a good thing).
1998, One of my favorite pc games of all time released. And its one of those favorites that you hardly mention because hardly ANYONE has heard of this damn game. So I will applaud and salute anyone who played this game regularly... It was one of both visual beauty (at the time) and challenging gameplay. The one game that kept me up for hours upon hours trying to master each mission, to master being a commander and a fighter at the same time. What game is this?! We'll you should know by the title and images you big silly... BATTLEZONE!
BattleZone takes place in the late 1950's during the cold war when a certain material was discovered called "bio-metal". Both the Americans and the Soviets wanted it, and they wanted it bad. It advanced military and space technology so far and so quickly that there was soon a 'secret war' of sorts on the planets surrounding earth. The first staging ground was the moon, the closest mass outside of earth that contained bio-metal. From the moon you ventured further away from earth continuously battling the reds for this preciouse material. Now that you got the gist of that, let us move on to the tasty subject!
BattleZone was the first game to ever incorporate FPS and RTS into the same boat with perfection. The first person aspect of this game takes place inside a vehicle of your choice. And in this vehicle you would obviously conduct combat of all forms as you being a soldier and a commander. You also had an option to play outside of your vehicle but considering most of the combat consisted of vehicle combat, it was not a wise thing to do in most battles. You could however on foot, switch to your sniper rifle and snipe people out of the cockpit and proceede to take over their vehicle ;), this became a great annoyance tactic in multiplayer.
Watch the following intro to the game, this is all pre-rendered but it is an almost 100% accurate representation of what the gameplay is like
Your commander abilities stretched far and wide, from constructing buildings, sending gatherers to get materials for you, to managing base defenses (mobile turrets, etc). All of this was easily done from the first person view as well, the only thing you had to learn was the keyboard shortcuts. So to build a base you would hit 1 (build) -> 2 (building a) and then an image would appear on the ground in front of you, and from there you could choose where to place the building as long as it was on flat terrain and you could see the location from your first person perspective.
One of the best ways to experience the commander in BattleZone is in its multiplayer Strategy mode. In this you build your base, build base defenses, and supply other players with new / upgraded vehicles & weapons. Another cool thing you can do is build AI controlled units to help your players fight or defend. Even the base defenses can be player or AI controlled, which helped out greatly considering how reliable AI was back then ;).
All in all while the singleplayer campaign is a total blast, along with its expansions, the multiplayer in this game is where it was at. Nothing was more satisfying than having a 4 on 4 of commander & players battling each other for map resources and total destruction. Just watch some of the videos below and you will get a taste at the speed of multiplayer, and the overall feel for the game. It really is one of the BEST games of all time, and I'm quite sad that it does not get the recognition it deserves these days.
So now I cry out to you Activision, yes you! You know what you are going to hear from me, especially if your peripheral vision is better than a tick, you have already seen my cry. Observe...
Side notes for Activision: NOW, I strongly urge you read the following, this could be a VERY terrible idea, as most great titles that get resurrected end up being burned in a fire 3 times over. So Please, for the love of god! If you do move forward with this endeavor... PLEASE! Force the development team to play through BattleZone 1 singleplayer, and its expansions all the way through. Then spend AT LEAST a month playing multiplayer with each other so you can let the greatness sink into your skin. Also, and most importantly. IGNORE BATTLEZONE 2! While I agree it was a great game, it lacked so much of what BattleZone 1 had. You can look into it from an engine perspective and how the vehicle system handled, by all means please do because I honestly thought they handled better than BattleZone 1. Other than that, stick to the true roots of BattleZone, blow us away and actually bring an old game back to life THE RIGHT WAY!
BattleZone Singleplayer mission video (In German.. the eastern front.. IN SPACE!)
So you dont have a drill? Do you have a gun? Well there is apparently a new method of drilling holes into your wall, SHOOT HOLES! Thats what this young man did, and in the process he killed his wife! This man wins dumb ass award of the week!
"Officials are trying to decide whether to file charges against a Missouri man who fatally shot his wife while trying to install a satellite TV system in the bedroom of their home.
Patsy Long, 34, of Deepwater, died after being shot in the chest with a .22-caliber handgun on Saturday. Her husband, Ronald Long, fired the shot from the inside of their home after several unsuccessful efforts to punch a hole through the exterior wall using other means.
Henry County sheriff's deputies said the woman was hit by the second of two shots fired by her husband."
I know .. the few of you lol. Who attended Sunday fights the two times we had it had a blast and have been asking me where the hell is it at? We'll ive been busy as shit with work, school, truck transmission blowing out. Yeah, the past month or so has been mighty damn occupying and I really haven't had the time to organize another SNF event.
HOWEVER! Now it is time to go again! But this time I'm going to organize something a little different. Fallout is calling, and coming back... and now it is time to prepare for radioactive rape! I've been struggling to find my fallout cd's and have not been successful, so once I put in my paycheck on Monday I am going to purchase the fallout set on amazon which comes w/ fallout 1 / 2 / brotherhood of steel. And then either this coming weekend, or next weekend (spring break!) We will have a SNF of fallout going on!
So for all of you who are wanting to fire this old bad boy up! Let me know, please inform me of any patches, files I should list up here for people to grab if they decide to join us!
This is what happens when you bring niero and the rest of the crew into the realm of stickam. Epicness. Tonight was a night to remember, it has been quite awhile since we had the presence of our great master and tonight was indeed one great reunion. A Salute to you niero and what you have built!
I have been tracking a lot of this jack thompson talk lately and I must say every time I read more and more I am disgusted with his blatant statements about video games and the industry as a whole. I seriously cannot comprehend what would make someone go to such an extreme as to generalize the video gaming industry as being such a violent market. Has he not seen snuf films? Has he not heard of Day Time television, or the 11 oclock news? What about the news shows '48 hours' or court tv, where they depict and cover far more violent matters in a much more gruesome fashion than most video games have ever touched.
I mean seriously, have you seen how sadistic our culture is? Day time television and the news in itself like 48 hours mystery or dateline nbc can cover far more gruesome stories that touch in a region most video games would even dare to venture into. Yet .. I will pull a quote from this latest video I saw "they train in these violent simulators, called video games" wow, way to make a generalization jackass. Sorry but you deserve that insult JACKASS. Yeah im sure mario galaxy, and rock band really pushed kids out there to blow someones head off. I'm really sure their self-control and living / parental environment had NO effect what so ever on their choices/actions that they took.
I'm sorry but im tired of playing MR. Nice Guy. I was whiling to give Jack the benefit of the doubt, I was so whiling to go so far as to have a one on one with him and logically talk about this subject as to why he thinks this way. And I would gladly have done it with no media/press involved.. just for my own knowledge. But now, after seeing this, after he generalizes the entire industry with such a statement. I don't know what to think.
I guess I shouldn't be too rash? Because I still would not turn down the chance to talk to him one on one. Me being a gamer, who has played violent video games since I was kid .. since doom came out in 92 (91 shareware) I would still love to talk to this guy and find out his points. But man does it aggravate me when he generalizes us as a whole. And I know it gives all of you a burn in the ass.
What really surprises me is the fact that he has never once NOT ONCE brought up Americas Army, a game developed under the US Armys supervision. He has NEVER brought that up into his arguments. Oh but then I suppose he could say "yes but those are built for training purposes" Oh really? Right, so they just released that to the public for free for no reason, and they hold annual tournaments for the game globally for no reason... right training simulators. LOL!
It just seems asinine to me that he would label counter-strike as a 'violent simulator' when its nowhere close to it, like most of these games. Why can people not accept the fact that its due to the child's environment, and the parents that they grow up with. Alot of these people that commit these crimes have had troubled childhoods, unstable minds throughout their life, or have been treated badly by others, and have never really been thought self control due to the negligence of their parents. Yet Jack seems to think that they are so easily effected by these video games that those MUST be the main cause. Seriously Jack? Stop picking things out of thin air, really investigate it yourself. Don't go off of "polls" or "surveys".. really investigate it, because so far you just seem to be feeding off the 'bottom of the pool' bullshit that most simple minded people swallow. But I guess thats your goal.. to feed the simple minded with more bullshit.
I don't mean to sound crass, or like I'm attacking Jack for no reason. I may sound stupid for saying this but I believe everyone should be given the benefit of the doubt, as should Jack. My anger only stems from the pointless repetitive arguments that come out of him. I really would LOVE to have a one on one with this guy and really get to the issue.
I think I am not the only one who is squeeing in their pants right now, yes thats right, you can squee in your pants! I loved the new C&C it restored my faith that ea can atleast SOMEWHAT touch base with the old days of C&C. And now.. they made me squee.. Red Alert 3 will be revealed in the April issue of PC Gamer!! I give you.. HUMP!
LOL HI! Welcome to the Happy Kingdom! Name: Mikey Age: 24 Location: Cary, North Carolina Occupations: Graphic Artist / Photographer / Concept Artist Current Job: Unemployed [i]Position:
Me: I am a gamer, go figure. I've been gaming since the days of Atari when I was a wee little tot. I am also an artist currently attending school getting my degree in Simulation and Game Development. Other than that ... I'm German, Irish, and Puerto Rican..SOOO logically I drink a shit load ;D. Ummm Any other info you want to know.. just ask ;).
