No Game, All Pain

As a lot of you already know, the Playstation network has been down for a couple of weeks now. For those who don't know, after the hack attempt that froze up Sony's servers, there was a pretty major "security breach" on Sony's network. There have been warnings all over the internet that account holders should change passwords and keep an eye on their credit card and bank statements. Immediately after the security breach, Sony's servers were shut down for "maintenance" as they attempt to encrypt all of our information again. Also, as always, Sony jumps into legal action, and investigation is taking place in many different federal investigation agencies. Sony went after someone who leaked information to get into the console, and they get DDoS attacks from a community that felt wronged? Makes perfect sense. Whether this helped the real criminals gain access to account information is unknown to me, but it is a bit of a coincidence that all of this is happening in such a short amount of time.

Many of the people who don't have lucrative assets tied to their PSN credit account are worried about the Console itself. Will the breach mess with our trophies? What about cloud saves through Playstation Plus service? Will we get any kind of compensation for the time and money lost because the servers had to be shut down? Of course Sony has only said positive things regarding gameplay careers, but any company in a tight spot like this would only want to tell their customers the best. I wouldn't really be surprised if the sync process for trophies goes haywire, especially with millions of users all doing it at the same time.

I'd hate to lose this.

The games I were playing before the network shutdown were MAG and MvC3. MAG is an online only game. Everthing you do is with other people. MvC isn't strictly online, but I dont really have anyone to play it with at home. Besides, the trophies I need to get for it are online trophies. With the network down, I can't play either of these. Sad, I know. There are some offline games I need to work on though, even if I'm not 100% in the mood to play them.

I don't know about you guys, but I have a huge gaming backlog. I play games whenever I'm in the mood to play it. Believe it or not, there was a time where I WASN'T in the mood to play MAG. At that point, I was playing Fallout New Vegas and Disgaea 3. Once my mood changes, I'll pick up a different game. It isn't always about what is new and hot. Today, I feel like failing more at Mirror's Edge(post on this coming soon), so I'll probably play that and New Vegas in between.

Of course, if I had an Xbox, I could be playing that. But...no lol I'm fine with my PS3 that I can't play online with. Please get everything up and running soon Sony, I'm dyin' over here!

The Platinum Road - MAG and Bayonetta

I know I haven't made a post in a while. But you can trust that I have been playing PLENTY of games in the last week. I was lucky enough to get Marvel VS Capcom 3 from Chelsea for our anniversary. I'm borrowing Killzone 3 from a pal at work. But, of course, the things that are taking up my time are Bayonetta and (as always)MAG.

Bayonetta
Having beaten the game on normal, getting the platinum trophy is supposed to be easy.
1) Beat game on normal.
2) Finish off Alfhiem portals.
3) Farm halos(money) from the chapter 7 boss until you can unlock the cheat codes for the best items.
4) Use the super items to beat the game on Hard and Extra hard difficulties.
Of course, I would want to beat the harder difficulties without putting cheat codes into the game. On Hard mode, not only do enemies attack more often, and at a faster rate, Harder enemies are put into more of the spawn points. By that, I mean the first chapter on Hard mode will have higher tier enemies where you would expect to find low tier ones. It is actually pretty fun, I'm just worried about what I will find in the later chapters. Even worse yet, harder difficulties.
But after completing all the difficulties, there are a few minor trophies that should be easy enough to get. Things like performing a number of counter attacks without getting hit, finding hidden book pages, etc.

Mag
I am still playing MAG, which is one of the best multiplayer shooter games on the market. My trophy status for the game is 70% now, which I'm pretty proud of. However, I am now working on a trophy that is EXTREMELY annoying, the Head Hunter.
1) Finish Head Hunter Trophy. That is 5 Silver Bullet Ribbons - killing 10 enemies with headshots in 1 match, the Longshot Ribbon - killing 3 enemies at 120m in 1 match, and the Sniper Master Medal - killing 1000 enemies with the sniper rifle over the course or your career.

As someone with 6000+ Assault Rifle Kills, this is pretty hard for me. As of me typing this(12PM), I am at 330 kills with the sniper rifle. I started at 270 this morning(9AM), meaning It is possible to get 100 kills a day, making the trophy very obtainable. This is done using a my typical medic/resistance/athletic build with a lot of points poured into the Sniper Skill Tree. Recoil and Reload speed are pretty important, but probably the most important skill is the Fire Rate.

Once those are done, you have 2 options for weapons, you can go for the one-bullet-one-kill approach which uses the most powerful sniper rifle available, coupled with the lowest Fire Rate. This is definitely a long rang weapon, and you will be massacred at mid to short range.

The other option is the "battle rifle" with the fastest fire rate. Combined with the Fire Rate Skill, it can shoot as fast as a pistol. At short ranges, this is amazing, and when you aim high, you can clear rooms of people with headshots. Unfortunately, the weapon won't one-shot anyone when attacking the body, so if you want to be a "true sniper", you may have to go with the other gun. I personally switch between both. Battle rifle on maps where I have to go to objectives (Domination, Escalation), and Sniper Rifle for everything Else (Sabotage, Acquisition, Interdiction.)

2) After that is "the big ones." The gold trophy for collecting 58 medals and the silver trophy for obtaining 40 ribbons. So far, I have 35/58-66 medals and 35/40-48 ribbons. The remain ribbons are easy. There are things like killing 10 players from both sides of Escalation, repairing ONE bridge, destroying/repairing 2 sensor array, repairing 2 vehicles, and getting 10 kills with the vehicle turret. Medals on the other hand are a different story, and I need a lot of them. A lot of the medals are actually obtained through getting Ribbons, which makes things a little more annoying. Since I need THIRTEEN for the trophy, here's a list of the easiest/mandatory ones:
The Streaker - Killing streak of 15.
Sniper Specialist - Kill 1000 enemies with the sniper rifle.
Silver Field Engineer - Repair 10 bridges across your career.
Master Engineer - Repair 10000 units of damage.
Combat Mechanic - Repair 25 vehicles.
Skeet Practice - Kill 100 Paratroopers.
Sidearm Master Specialist - Killing 250 enemies with a sidearm.
Rocket Man - Killing 50 enemies with a bunker turret rocket.
Gold Command Medal - Winning 100 battles as squad leader.
Screaming Eagle - Parachuting into battle 500 times.
Roadside Assistance - Capture 10 Interdiction points.
Mortar Support - Repairing 25 Mortar Batteries.
Mortar Demolition - Destroying 50 Mortar Batteries.
That's 13, and none of them are terribly difficult, just time consuming.

I really want to go back and finish some trophy hunting on older games. Dante's Inferno, Mirror's Edge, and the infamous Sonic Unleashed are the main ones that poke at my brain. Dante's Inferno is actually supposed to be easy. Sonic...well, let's say that Sonic is about 70% skill and 30% luck. Mirror's Edge requires a fair amount of skill. I don't have any videos to show you guys, but the skill I'm talking about is for inputting commands into the Dual Shock 3. Some call that skill, some don't, but for me, it can get pretty hardcore. What sucks is that failing at Mirror's Edge is as bad as Sonic, you start the level from the beginning. Difference is that Mirror's Edge levels take 4-9 minutes, and each failure chips a little piece of your patience away.

Someday though!

Up Close and Personal

Once I got to level 51 on MAG, I decided to take a break from grinding on Raven to get a trophy that I needed. Up Close and Personal is not the most difficult trophy in the game, but for your average player, it is a little overwhelming. Basically, to get the trophy you have to get the Combat Melee Ribbon 5 times. To get that ribbon, you have to knife-kill 15 enemies in 1 match. Sound simple? "MAG maps have 32-125 people on them to knife. Sounds like a walk in the park if you ask me. You barely have to kill 10% of them once each!." On some maps, and in some rounds, yeah it is "easier". But it definitely requires some skill. You could go into Domination and see a line of 32 people you want to knife. But can you walk past their barrage of bullets? How about the 4 turrets firing at your squad? Mortar Strikes? Still sound simple?

Yeah, I need to work on my editting lol

I basically did mine on the Suppression Maps. You have 32 people to work with. Ten to Fifteen Minute rounds, so if you fail miserably, you will be ejected quickly. Suppression also has most of the worst MAG players, including snipers that always go to the same spot even though I will knife them each time. But best of all is there is less fear of disconnecting or freezing in Suppression. The chance is there, but it is less likely to happen. You run around with the Sensor Jammer, and as much movement speed as possible. Medical Kit is a must(as with any build) since chances are, no one will be aiding you if you get hit. Some people recommend heavier armor so that you can survive enemy knives, but I put the points instead into Raven's best Assault Rifle. The suppressor keeps enemies from hearing you and giving away your position. I tried my best NOT to shoot people, but you will wind up in situations where the enemy is too far to run and knife, and they are preparing to open fire.

Rinse and repeat a dozen times and I finally got the trophy. Sorry for no picture, I was too slow.

Now that that is over, I have gone back to leveling my character. The next ribbons to tackle are Combat Sidearm, Shotgun, Machine Gun, Sniper Rifle, and various other things. They are mostly like the Combat Melee Ribbon, "do this specific action X amount of times." None of them are very difficult, perhaps except the grenade ribbon. I do think I will at least get to level 60 before I try those. I did decide to "Vet" back to Valor after achieving the maximum level in Raven.

In other news, I actually bought a Sharp Shooter today for the cool price of $25.00(Never buy at full retail unless you get something in return!). It is... a challenge. I only tried the Killzone 2 demo on it, with the same settings as in my first playthrough. Needless to say, I got stomped. I did some quick changes to my turn speed and Deadzone, and still got the same results. My reticule moves too much to control with the sharpshooter. Or perhaps, not the reticule...maybe it is my Deadzone? I don't know. I almost feel like I play so close to the camera, that movements are exaggerated. So even "at rest" I am in danger of sending the camera in a frenzy because each twitch in my hand moves the controller. Moving the room around may be the answer.

I do want to get good at the Sharp Shooter. As of right now, I am probably "Mediocre" with the move controller in anything competitive. With the Sharp Shooter, I am "Might as well turn the gun around and shoot myself." Playing MAG with the sharp shooter is a scary thought though. I can hardly imagine using something like that while trying to mow down a room of people. The controller feels a lot more stable in high stress situations, but that would be skill wouldn't it?

Someday lol. Guess I better start practicing.

I hate Raven

MAG is still a pretty big part of my gaming time. I started out on SVER, then about 2 months ago I finally vetted over to Valor. I maxed out my character over there, which is reason to move to the third and final PMC for my trophy...Raven.





SVER is the largest PMC in MAG. It also has a large number of good players and huge clans that play together. So when you play with or against SVER, you are bound to have a MASS of dots on your screen, and some of them are probably good at the game!
Valor is the smallest PMC on MAG. I would say that, by ratio, Valor has an equal or MORE good players on it than SVER, simply because of the "diehard fans" who want to make Valor good. Unfortunately, numbers can outweigh how good you are, and this is Valor's problem.
Now Raven...Raven is the 2nd largest PMC. In my opinion it has the WORST players on it, and the ration of good players to bad ones is obscene. The appeal of Raven is that its the futuristic, leaders of the world. They do own more contracts than Valor but mostly because of their numbers. A platoon of idiots can still a quarter of a platoon of good players.

Where's my proof you ask? Well, I didn't take too many pictures, but there is a problem when a level 8 10 or 12 Player is getting 1st place MVP in modes like aquisition and domination. Especially during attacks, no low level player should ever consistently place in the MVP.








There is no excuse to this. For those who don't play MAG, there is a definite skill tree that turns your character from a sucky one to a good one. At level 8 you(I) have:
1) The most Basic guns. No extended clip, no sight, no foregrip for recoil, nothing but the basics.
2) A medical kit with 0 Range(meaning to heal or resuscitate, you have to be right next to a person), the slowest and weakest heal in the game, the slowest recast on resuscitate, and resuscitates don't revive people at maximum health.
3) The most basic armor that WILL slow you down. Also, you run slower than 80% of other characters AND you can not sprint very well.
4) 20 Less Hp than 90% of all other players.

All of this together means that, even with incredible skill, any character over level 30(max level is SEVENTY) should easily outperform you. This goes to show that Raven is terrible.

Currently, I am level 45. I do want to Platinum this game, so there are a few things I have to do for trophies. Once you get 14000CP(money) you can by a sensory jammer, one of the most expensive items in the game. What that does is it masks you from enemy radar, great for getting the Combat Melee Ribbon. Basically, I have to kill 15 enemies in 1 match, and I have to do that with every weapon type in the game. So sensor jammer + knife for a whole match, light machine gun, sniper rifle, combat shotgun, side arm(pistol), and grenade. Then I have to snipe paratroopers for a while until I kill 100(and I am REALLY bad at sniping.)

I love MAG to death, but Raven is soooooooooo bad I can't stand it. I'm thinking about vetting back to valor in the end. Raven has one of the best Assault Rifles in the game(when used with the 4x scope), so that will be missed. Nothing else will lol.

Blogging Step 2-2: Better videos

Like I said in the last post, I broke down and returned all my items for the Hauppauge HD PVR.

It's actually a pretty nice piece of hardware. The way it works is that you plug your PS3 into it with the component video cables. Then you plug the PVR into your TV with its component cables and into the computer with the USB cable provided. Using the program provided you can capture the gameplay you are making, while playing it in 720p or 1080i on your television. The results are outstanding and I am perfectly satisfied with it.

This is an example(albeit a bad one lol) of more MAG gameplay on youtube with the PVR. You can view it in 720pHD. My computer does cause the video to lag a little in the initial playback, but a quick alt-tab fixes it, and viewing it on my girlfriend's computer shows no issues at all.





I really need to find a program that can edit(for free) the MPEG4 files that the PVR makes. I can make videos more often and prune them for everyone to enjoy if I had a good program. I had a KungFu Rider video I wanted to upload, until I realized that it had a bad picture of me at the end of it lol(the game takes random pictures of you).

So yeah, expect more once I find that program. Then I'll probably have voice-overs to give some detail on what's happening in the video. The blog will have a few recurring things.
Trophy help (Not full walkthroughs, but I'll definently showcase a couple that I am working on.)
Reviews
Requests. Anyone can email me at boogiepopphantom05@hotmail.com for requesting a bit of footage from the games listed on the Library.
Dedicated Game Videos. Things like MAG, Sonic, and other games that I play often will have random videos uploaded here and there.

Blogging Step 2: Posting videos

I actually started both this blog and the Yugioh blog at the same time. Yugioh is easy to make posts about, but Video Games are a little different. You see, I didn't want to just post pictures of games, or someone ELSE's videos about them. I wanted to show my readers my own gaming. So I bought the Pinnacle Dazzle 100 PVR to record everything and then upload it to youtube(until I can find a batter site, if one exists.) This is an example of Dazzle in action:

As you can see, the video quality is decent as best, and there is a little artifacting at the bottom of the video. The real problem though was playing it on my 32" LCD. Sonic was manageable, but when I got into better games the difficulty skyrocketed. Dazzle takes composite videos, so the best it can record at is 420i. Playing a game in 420i on a 32" TV is complete garbage though. I actually took back the unit and all the cables I bought in order to upgrade to HD recording hardware.


Playing MAG in SD is terrrrrrrible. Somehow I got MVP in that match with such terrible scores, and we still lost lol. I just can't stand it, there's no way I could supply videos for this blog if I was playing in Standard Definition. That's why I bit the bullet and bought the Hauppage HD PVR, which is supposed to be one of the top ranked recording devices for the PS# (as ranked by the Internet). I havent gotten to try it yet, but when I do it will be right here in a blog post.