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Ah that might explain it! I remember liking one gun, going to next game and it had changed. Assumed progress was just limited to each game and reset or something silly, would make sense with the unlocks i'd had on certain ones. In the mood to give it another go now.

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I'm liking what they've done with the emphasis on 'scout' for the sniper. Once you get the mobile spawn you find yourself foraying much further up in rush than you'd think to do normally. And it looks like they unlock more mid-range guns as you progress. (Plus a load of kit that doesn't work yet - like 'motion detectors' that show nearby enemies on the map etc.)

I'm still finding the map display to be one of the most pants aspects so far. I have to totally squint to make out enemies on it (altho I'm getting a bit more used to the team/enemy diddy arrows now). Oh by the way spotting is done by using the back button on xbox I've now found out - but it's pretty tricky to get it working on infantry. Will be more useful for tanks and that.

*EDIT* Oo, altho looks like the engineer gets at least one natty scouting tool... it can trigger MCOMs and everything...sneaky

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Virtual Reality chatter on a movie site? Got endless amounts of it here. Reviews over here

New Vegas is insane. So, so, so many quests. They intersect in insane ways. Have you guys seen "Behind the Beef" in that game yet? I haven't completed it but I made a bit of an exception and read up on it, because it was so intricate, and I can't believe the number of permutations possible to complete it, and/or the related quests. That quest is a friggin' masterpiece of branching decisions.

I guess this makes sense: since they're using the same basic engine and just tweaking combat a bit, they probably got to spend way more time on making the quests complicated and interweaving them, particularly with the way you can play the same basic quest from different sides depending on which faction you align yourself with. Really impressed by that aspect.

Really weird, though: I thought I'd been playing for way longer than I had. Playing Fallout 3 must have really trained in me how to level up and explore efficiently and all that, because I was stunned to see how few actual hours I'd put into it the other day. It feels like far more. I think I'm into the high 30s; maybe 38 or 39 hours, and I've already reached level 25.

Be an aggressive sniper, you'll win in a battle against an assault rifle 85% of the time.

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"A laugh can be a very powerful thing. Why, sometimes in life, it's the only weapon we have."

Suspect's Reviews

BF3 can go **** itself

I'm currently playing Deus Ex: Human Revolution. It's a good game with a really intense story.

I am a SIMS 3 addict.

I inadvertently wiped my save file when swapping PCs a few days ago. Along with 120+ hours of FM2011.

In more positive news, my new Phenom Black Edition and 8GB RAM have given my old graphics card a bigger lift than the one Joan Rivers got a few years ago. Everything that I tried which previously ran well on High now works even faster on Ultra and even the massive system hog that is Witcher 2 (could only previously play it on Low with a few Medium settings thrown in) is perfectly playable on High (with a couple of redundant settings, like motion blur, removed). Ultra, though, is still a no-no with that porker...

Both Fallout games are giving me great frame rates on Ultra at 1920x1080 with the high res texture packs, I've been able to play Dragon Age Origins with the high res pack and 8x AA (very choppy before) and Oblivion is now running with the full Qarl Texture Pack (only ever had the reduced versions running for a length of time) at 1080p and 8x AA.

Do I actually need a new graphics card? Of course I do!

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"Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how the Tatty 100 is done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves." - Brendan Behan

Do you mean shooting from the hip? That has been working for me as it goes in the later close quarter stages (if by some miracle I haven't had my sinuses blown off prior to that and respawned as a more close quarters class )

Heheheh. Uh ohhhh. Things didn't go well?

I did have a total rage inducing round last night. My squad were useless, and the defence opposition were relentless. We got to the second stage and that was it. Very frustrating. Going lone wolf against organised packs in the close areas is just impossible. (The one guy on my team who didn't spend his entire time dead just stayed in the previous stage, trying to remotely pilot that robot device down railway tracks. Silly boy)

I like how you have to adapt as time goes on tho, as everyone's learning new tricks. People have learned to spot the sound of the remote spawner now (and they're a bitch to actually place, so hiding them behind debris or something is almost impossible)

On the plus side, I've unlocked the gun called the UMP, and it is very tasty indeed. Even with iron sights you can pick people off in the middle distance with ease. Barely any recoil on it. Luvvly

Everyone was playing against was Level 28, the game doesn't run smoothly enough to be tactical or sneaky, the team were incapable of having any objective based co-ordination. Was getting killed as soon as respawned at some points. Was ridiculous. Not fun or even playable

In what game? I am of the mind that a sniper should lose 100% of the time if they don't get the drop on their opponent and they are running around in the open field. If you are able to run and gun, quick-scoping with a sniper rifle, it's a bad game, period. Quick scoping is a broken mechanic and has been removed from most shooters at this point.

So, if two players are prancing around strafing in the open, the sniper should NEVER win, ever, because those guns don't work like that in real life. A guy can Iron sight an M16 WAY faster than someone bringing a full scope up (which has to be adjusted for range every time, btw) and drawing a bead on someone.

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Ug, there's nothing more frustrating than spawn-death. (Altho I did accidentally arrange one for a team mate - threw a grenade from behind cover, revived him, then we both died when the grenade exploded next to us [it had bounced back off the roof ])

I don't have a problem with smoothness on mine. But then I don't snipe much so might be worse for that.

It is totally frustrating when your team run around like headless chickens. I guess people'll realise as time goes on you've gotta move in a squad of sorts to get the best out of it. You don't even have to co-op with guys on your actual squad, but it helps for respawn and that.

Ah well, if I've got the funds come the 28th I'm still gonna get it I reckon. Hope they run a vehicle demo prior to that tho.

Battlefield 3. I'm not very snipe savvy, but in terms of 'realism' they do at least do things like having to be prone, or on a bipod to get good shots off, with breath-holding for extra accuracy.

I've got a feeling Usual might mean shooting from the hip, which you can kinda get away with. Some daft buggers do just spray from a distance and miss you tho, so I could imagine staying calm and laying one shot on them from middle distance and getting away with it. (There's no adjusting for range or anything like that, that I know of, altho there is a range-drop scale on the scopes etc)

I wasn't even using the sniper on that play, ironically. I find the aiming glitchy as hell, a lot of the time it wont scope which basically means death or hip firing, then death when they realise and aim. When you can aim, it's too jumpy to get a steady aim and will jerk away from the target. I seem to have more luck spraying the vicinity than actually attempting to directly hit anyone. Plus it's seems like the match engine is taking the piss or everyone has levelled up far too much.

Yeah there's def a scope glitch going on. It also doesn't allow you to sprint when that happens either. You can reset it by changing weapons, but by then it's normally too late. Hopefully they'll fix that soon.

(I'm still getting all kinds of weird artefacts. The whole screen staying in 'menu grey and blue', sound being muffled for a whole round as if I'd had an explosion go off near me. Stuff like that). I do find the vanilla guns near impossible to lay a shot on distant targets with, unless I switch to single shot (down on touchpad). But it normally takes too long to finish em off. The upgrade guns seem to work better - specially the 'UMP' I was talking about. (Altho for a long time I thought it was called LIMP when people kept killing me with it )

I haven't experienced any 'jerk away', except when trying to move over weird terrain while aiming perhaps. That said, I'm a long way from a pro at shooty games. In BF i'm more like some deranged concierge. "More ammo Mr SweatyPuffin?" Etc

And yeah, the matching algo seems to be non-existent in terms of skill levels. Not sure if the full release has anything along those lines (I know this version has a totally pared back interface tho)

What's a battlefield?

A field of dreams. Covered in spleens.

Yeah, never mind me. The last time I played a Battlefield game, there was a Republican in the White House.

The UMP seems to be pretty effective, I died by it a lot.

Semi automatic fire seems strikes me as pointless since you prone and cover as soon as someone hits you. Might give it one more try with that.

I think jerk away is probably terrain related where the player doesn't interact well with the ground and slips around on it.

The whole experience is lacking, the play just seems like a mess with enemies all around you and seems to favour those who smash the levels as quick as possible, which gives a frustrating skill curve.

Yeah you've pretty much gotta pull off a headshot, or rely on them being dopey for it to work, sometimes in conjunction with grenade, or other squaddie spotting them after your shot. Worst case you can duck down and pop up somewhere else to finish em off if you're behind something solid. (I think the main way to unlock new 'all class' guns is to level up your general rank, so maybe go for some medic action and keep supplying a particularly inept squad with a medpack. Or just stick one by a choke point. It's an easy way to get points )

Yeah, I think it's backfired on them releasing an infantry level, in that the BF fanatics are obsessing their way up the ranks, and enjoying it, and turning everyone else to red mist. (I can still enjoy it, when the team balance isn't tooo off, coz of the 'team input' idea, so even if I'm not killing many, if I'm helping a decent squad keep spawning etc then it feels kinda structured).

The same inbalances woulda happened if they'd released a vehicle map, but at least you could have fun barrelling around in something for a bit before someone shot you through both ears. (Altho planes were always a b*tch in BF2. They seem to have balanced it a bit with portable seeker launchers for engineers, but if it's not them it'll be something else that isn't quite balanced right. I'll just keep serving out hot coco and enemy spotting UAVs like a good battlefield butler, regardless )

Well I just got a 30:1 ratio on Black Ops, far more satisfying. Of course, neither game is helping my interview prep