Still, this is an opportunity to sum up and talk about everything that's been happening in my gaming life throughout a given week, so there could be some value to it. After all, I do play games during the week, mostly to de-compress for an hour or so before bed and I usually find time to follow the news of the gaming world and have things to say about it both from the perspective of a developer and that of a consumer.
Finally, this gives me an opportunity to talk about the progress of my latest iOS game development project, which I know is of interest to at least some of you.
Okay. Time to give this a shot:
Battlefield 3 Premium and the Close Quarters Expansion
When I first heard about "Close Quarters" (CQ), I thought, "This could be cool." and to a certain extent it is. Being able to rip through walls with standard weapons fire, knowing that the potential for an engagement is around every corner and the general feeling of intensity are all pretty cool.
The new "Gun Master" mode, despite being basically lifted from "Call of Duty," is pretty fun even though I apparently suck at it and "Conquest Domination" makes the necessary changes to the classic "Conquest" formula to make in work in CQ; however, it's not all good news.
Cheating is still rampant in this game. I've had a lot of trouble finding servers where one or more players weren't obviously running aimbots and wall hacks, which utterly ruin the experience for everyone else. DICE needs to take a step back, look at what people are doing to create these hacks and put a stop to it. Cheating is absolutely killing this game for me and I already find myself avoiding it on nights when I just don't feel like dealing with that sort of thing.
Beyond that key issue, is Premium worth it? I think so. Despite its problems, "Battlefield 3" is still a good game and I continue to have faith that DICE will eventually make things right. Will that happen tomorrow or next week? Probably not, but I'll keep checking in from time to time to see how the situation evolves.
"Battlefield 3" is a game I've been playing for a while and I'll probably continue to play it for quite some time, so "Premium" makes sense for me but new players and those frustrated by glitches and cheats should wait for a patch or two before jumping into "Premium" or CQ.
Battlefield 3 - http://www.battlefield.com
The DayZ Update
Still totally feeling it for DayZ. Glad to see them adopt the Six Updater/Launcher as an official distribution mechanism for the mod as it's really slick and effective. There's a little weirdness right now as the mod transitions toward using beta versions of the "ARMA II" expansion patch, which makes it a little tricky to get the ideal version of "ARMA II" running through Steam via the launcher, but it's not that big of a deal and I see it as a very temporary condition.
The game is still great but I am definitely looking forward to version 1.7.1, which will introduce new zombie animations, zombie line-of-sight enhancements and an aggro dumping mechanic that will let you escape from zombies without having to kill every last one in the area when things go sideways.
DayZ - http://www.dayzmod.com
Playstation Plus 'til The Last of Us
I have to admit that since I "beat" "SSX" last month, my PS3 has been collecting dust for the most part. Even with the SSD upgrade I did last year, the thing just feels so slow and old and lame compared to my PC, which is totally understandable and expected at this point in its life cycle. Still, I have to hand it Sony. "Playstation Plus" is a really great deal and the only thing that keeps me coming back to their box these days– at least until the handful of games I'm anticipating for it hit.
If you're gaming on a budget and you're trying to find a way to make your dollars go further, "Playstation Plus" is something you need to consider. The amount of free stuff this month alone easily covers the cost of the subscription for a year or two.
Playstation Plus - http://www.playstationplus.com
Development Update
It'll be a few more weeks before I'm ready to announce what I've been working on these past few months, but I can say that development has been fairly rough lately. I ended up having to totally re-think a big chunk of the user interface for the game on iPhone/iPod Touch because some of the concepts I had in mind just don't work on that smaller screen.
A big goal for me with this game is to make it just as playable on iPhone/iPod Touch as it is on iPad. With "Powergrids," I started with the iPad version of the interface, which made it very difficult to create a comparable experience for the smaller form factors. That's not to say that "Powergrids" is unplayable on those devices. In fact, a lot of testing was done to ensure that it is and the current #1 player on the "Classic" leaderboard plays on an iPhone. Still, there's no denying that the game is more challenging to play on the smaller devices than it is on the iPad and that's a disparity that I'm keen to avoid moving forward.
That's it for now. As I said, I'm hoping to make this a weekly post so stay tuned for more. I doubt I'll have time to do much more than this sort of update until the new game is done, but you never know when inspiration will strike. :)
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