Something to keep you busy

[Strike]

This is really off topic now (Should be in pilot's lounge). But if you wanna kill some time without paying too much money, and you already have a COD monster-rig you should look at some of these titles:

ARMA 2 + Operation Arrowhead (Combined Operations)

- The default game supersedes most infantry/tank/aerial shooters out there, and emphasizes tactics and realism more than most "popular" shooters (like the battlefield series, modern warfare, rainbow six). But to get the full realism potential out of it you need some mods (btw mods make arma what it is. The ultimate sandbox warfare sim - you can have russians fighting clone wars troopers from starwars, or pilot an A-10 strafing taliban IED teams).

The mod for me is A.C.E. - Advanced Combat Environment. It adds a whole bunch of weapons, vehicles and features whilst removing nearly all "HUD" items. It adds wind deflection, and for long range sniping you can adjust the sights by measuring wind strength and direction. Add on top of that the mod called ACRE (Advanced Combat Radio Environment) which coordinates teamspeak with ingame radio systems. That means the game decides who hears what over teamspeak, and that through the use of radio systems. They all have frequencies etc even volume buttons. The cons are that if playing online there's a little (sometimes a lot) of visual LAG. Players seem to jitter around, so does vehicles. But you can live with that mostly since a lot of situations depend on the way you approach the objective. It's not meant to be a close quarters hair-trigger battle, but a long range tactical engagement where surprise is the best attack.

This mod is very well coupled with a realistic soundmod and then you have very very very good immersion. Also has a powerful editor that lets you create your own or tamper with existing missions. Just made one where you start inside a C130 at 15,000 ft and choose your equipment from some crates in the cargo hold. Once you're ready you run off the ramp and that initiates a free-fall dive. Of course you need to remember to pack a chute

Speaking of tanks the armor code is very good in ACE. You can penetrate light armor and houses, walls etc with .50 cal, taking out crew or ammunition storages. Some guns like the one on the Bradley IFV have a variety of munition types, so you can fire Armour piercing or High explosive. High explosive deals more damage to soft targets naturally, whilst armour piercing can punch through even heavy armour. The angle of impact and location and projectile energy all count towards what penetration value you get and how this damages the interior of the tank.

Example of bailout sequence with ACE:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-olG4...eature=related

Some ACE with ACRE teamwork

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06dxjkXGXII

Then there's another timekiller:

SPAZ, Space Pirates And Zombies. It's cheap and has hours of fun packed into it. It features a decent selection of ships and equipment with loads of configurations. It's only in it's first release candidate and havn't encountered any bugs yet, but it's easy fun!

Rise of Flight:

Naturally a pretty flightsim, in no means a "rival" to cod because of the scope of the games. Sometimes WW1 is like fighting with sticks and stones when you know there's an alternative that has heavy machineguns and some real payloads in the bombbay. It's my "deathmatch" type game, whilst IL-2 is more serious to me.

Mount and Blade:

Played this for hours and hours. Big sandbox world with a handful of factions. Whoever is at war or are allied is completely random by default, but can be influenced by actions of the player. It's a "300" style game with slaughtering up close, or from a distance by archery that includes a large RPG level up system with plenty of skills and proficiencies to choose from. I am currently one of the "viking's" faction most trusted warriors and kindof singlehandedly obliterated two factions already. You travel the country, embark upon quests and gather food, trade and recruits along the way. There's random Tournaments with different styles according to the local culture etc. Graphics are kindof mediocre, but the ability to switch between first person/3rd person allows for great immersion. Also many good mods out there.

[WWBayonet]

"The thing to remember, though, is that WoT attracts the scum of the online world as a general rule."

HEY!!!
I resemble that remark.

[mazex]

In a nerdish place like this admitting that you like WoT is like saying you like Brittney Spears in an experimental Jazz forum

Still i do admit that I like it to for some fast arcade action in an interesting setting, and the tank models and number of tanks is rather impressive (even though many never got off the drawing board).

What sums up WoT though is that my 9 year old son has an IS3 and plays as well as most other players out there... He has a best score of 8 kills and regualarly score in the 1500 xp range. He still keeps a BT2 "as it's so fun playing with the noobs on tier 2 that don't understand tactics so you get 4-5 kills every other round". And most of those noobs are 15+ years

If he spent the same time in IL2 online he maybe would get to a 0.1 k/D ratio

/mazex

[Baron]

"Problem" with WoT is that 90% is pure chance/toss up and 10% is skill.

To many things to list why that is but tactics in public matches for ex. is non existent unless u get lucky with the random team/match maker.

I haven't check it thoroughly but id bet that pretty much everybody has a 50/50 win/lose ratio or thereabouts.

The entire game is set up so it "forces" people to get the best in the thought that u would do better that way (meaning: pay alot of money if you aren`t very patient) when it in reality it makes no differance what so ever if u have the biggest and meanest tank around, u will still die if u are in the "utter moron team" against "i have 2 brain cells team".

Other than that its fun, lol


P.S. I have a IS-3 to

[DK-nme]

Originally Posted by speculum jockey

This right here is why I will never play World of Tanks.

I can understand not wanting to have "one shot kills" because it would scare off a lot of people, but come on!

Yes, the game-play stinks and one can't get any far without using a heck of a lot of money (buying gold).
And yes, russian tanks are just better than anything else - were have we seen that before???

[mazex]

Originally Posted by Baron

"Problem" with WoT is that 90% is pure chance/toss up and 10% is skill.

To many things to list why that is but tactics in public matches for ex. is non existent unless u get lucky with the random team/match maker.

I haven't check it thoroughly but id bet that pretty much everybody has a 50/50 win/lose ratio or thereabouts.

The entire game is set up so it "forces" people to get the best in the thought that u would do better that way (meaning: pay alot of money if you aren`t very patient) when it in reality it makes no differance what so ever if u have the biggest and meanest tank around, u will still die if u are in the "utter moron team" against "i have 2 brain cells team".

Other than that its fun, lol


P.S. I have a IS-3 to

I agree completely, but after a tough day at work it's rather good to have some no brains action, and it definately fits me better than a death match in Modern Warfare...

Regarding tactics it's really true that it's amazing how bad people cooperate in WoT. I have played platoon with my son and a friend of his to try to teach them how to play (and they naturally love when dad joins their ranks) . We have used teakspeak and when I lead and the kids follow orders we can wreak havoc on most occasions. I remember one time when we all had our Leo's and where in the upper level of a match (rare with the Leo but if a platoon of three joins it's not that rare) .... I got five kills, my son got five and his friend got one and a lot of damage. We practically won the game on our own by staying real tight and keeping the number of enemies able to return fire simultaneously low. And that was with two nine year olds and a slow 41 year old

And yes, I have an IS3 myself Just got the BL9 with gun laying drive, stabilizer and rammer. You can't have a worse tank than the kids so a lot of gold naturally went into getting it using all shortcuts they cleverly put in to get our real money

It's good that I can use my son as an excuse to play it, and I hope my wife does not understand how much gold we have bought...

/mazex