Pros:

• Played on Riot! Games stage for League of Legends (LoL) and lost horribly! My screen was one of the highlighted ones and it was not a good game for me… maybe this should also be a con…
• Played in a Battlefield 3 mini-tournament with the new expansion pack CQB.  I came in tied for 5th but ended up 6th or 7th score wise.  Not bad for a tourney of 16.
• Cosplay and lots of it this year!
• High-Rez studios releasing Smite, another MOBA type game like LoL only in a 3rd person point of view.

• Double Dragon Neon! This game brings back memories
• Lots of free-to-play games coming out
• Won a t-shirt at Ghost Recon for winning our match
• Torchlight 2, Diablo 3 betas on PC for 30 minutes

I can’t tell you how frustrated I was when I joined the beta. After playing CoD:BO for months (getting to 9th prestige), I entered back into the world of PC first person shooter (FPS) gaming. The learning curve wasn’t too hard as I’ve always been a PC gamer, but the learning curve for BF3 was incredibly harder than I had imagined.

I had a couple of weeks to enjoy BF3 until Modern Warfare 3 (MW3) came out.  Like CoD:BO, MW3 was fast paced, easy and required some strategy, but not to the level of BF3 did.  And within a week of MW3′s release, I played the game twice.  The rest of my gaming December was filled with BF3.  Why?

Tanks, helicopters, jets and more tanks!

In MW3, the game is very linear.  You worry about your other opponents who are also ground forces.  Once in awhile, you’ll get the killstreak helicopter or airstrike, but those can be easily shot down with a rocket launcher.  Otherwise, you worry about those on the ground.  Fast forward to BF3!  Tanks, helicopters and jets that you as a player can drive/pilot.  You can blow up buildings, collapse them and all inside. You can destroy barricades, lay down anti-tank mines or hop in an anti-air vehicle and shoot down those pesky choppers.  In the case of BF3, you not only need to worry about ground forces (other players), but you need to also watch out for tanks that patrol, light-armored vehicles (LAVs) that can transport others to objectives, or even jeeps that can run you over!  And that’s not mentioning helicopters that can spot you, shoot you down or blow up the building you are hiding in.  Battlefield 3 adds that extra dimension and strategy that Modern Warfare 3 can’t and that is vehicles.  How do you defend or attack your opponent who is steam-rolling you in an M1 Abrams tank?

Alright, enough about the game.  I’ve spent entirely way too much time playing but I’ve had a lot of fun.  If you’d like to add me, check my stats or play with me, feel free to shoot me a message and I’ll be more than happy to join you.  I now leave you with some screenshots and a short video by jackfrags!

My Battlelog Profile

[Disclaimer: I took more than these pictures but put the better ones up. And be sure to visit TechRepublic which used my pictures too]

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 V

Star Wars Unleashed II

Call of Duty: Black Ops

Monday Night Combat

Star Wars: The Old Republic

Think back to Nate’s Second life post about how online games can transcend into real life relationships… not just romantic, but friendships as well.

Bringing gamers face to face (sfx360)

Wombat – cheapassgamer.com:   you need to let people into your lives, especially when writing or gaming.

Derek:  toooldtoplay (real life)… building a community relationship and it is important when we get older to maintain those relationships

Derek 2 – toooldtoplay.com:    Website for older gamers and wanted to build a community where when you play games with people for years, you should meet them to make that final connection.  It starts as a rooted friendship.  Cultivation of friendships into everyday life.  There is no lost time when you meet your “friends” online in real life since you talk and communicate with them daily.

PAX is a “safe” environment where people can meet gamers.  But you can use meetup.com to start a local gaming club.

In Derek’s situation, it was the reverse where he started with real-life friends and as they grew older and started having families, they used gaming to rekindle their friendships.

Usually, online gaming friendships are on par, if not better, than some “RL” (real life) friendships.

Waterboard:  You have your work world (or real life) vs. gaming world.  The stigma is still there when you tell people you game.  Talking to co-workers about gaming can be difficult.

But how do you handle people who you need to kick out, or don’t like?  Gaming behavior rehab?  You need to take the time to see where others are coming from and find that middle ground to make things work.

Use of social media (Facebook and Twitter) and gaming to find others who have the same interests and brings people closer together.  It is great for game developers as well to not only use it for marketing, but to really make their customers feel involved and to empower them with new games, ideas and interactive events.

Like all good things, online relationships (and friendships) take time.

3 floors of all day gaming, talks, more gaming and demos.  Now that you’ve seen the map, take a look at the schedule!

I’m trying to find a balance between attending sessions, taking hundreds of pictures, interviews with game companies, hitting the expo floor and demoing some new games.  It won’t be easy, but I need to find time for lunch and dinner in there too!

If there is any session that you want me to take notes on, a podcast of or anything else, please let me know!

What is there to say about an FPS game (first person shooter)? Besides the occasional knife in the back with the random swearing in the game that makes everything more comical, the game is fairly realistic. Let’s take into account sniping… something that everyone usually gets mad at when playing multiplayer. The game takes gravity into the bullet’s physics and in most cases the bullet goes lower than what is normally aimed at. Sounds simple right? The incorporation of real-life physics into games is fairly new, especially when buildings are blown up and you are hit by slabs of concrete… But back to the bullet… imagine sitting there looking through your scope (which is constantly moving up and down due to heart-rate). You are trying to aim for the head and the cross-hairs are lined perfectly with the other player’s head. you shoot and miss because of gravity! So how do you compensate? Aim higher!

Besides gravity, I love demolishing buildings with tanks, rocket launchers and grenades. It just makes the game fun to blow up a shack with a tank and then shoot down a helicopter. Anyways, enough ramble! Check out my really quick killing montage video below!

The game features voiceover talents from the TV series actors as well as help from the writers for the expanded story of Season 1.  This adds a new perspective as Tom Paxton (main character) must infiltrate Fox River State Penitentiary.  Hit the bump for screenshots and the trailer.

Deep Silver
Deep Silver Inc.
2615 Pacific Coast Highway #225
Hermosa Beach
CA 90254-2250
USA
Fax: 1-310-798-7219
techsupport(at)deepsilver.com
http://www.deepsilver.com

I hope to get a lot out of this gaming expo, other than the already carpal tunnel I have nagging me.  And I certainly don’t need the H1Nerd1 either.

I am already anticipating the nerdfest that is gaming and hope to see some awesome new games by the developers listed below.  Note, these are “maybe” games and may not be displayed day of, but we can only hope!  Hit the bump for the entire list.

And if you still want to go, you can’t.  It is already sold out.  I can’t imagine how many tickets were sold, but I’d say in the thousands.  But wait!  You can still go as a volunteer by signing up here.

From the PAX forums:

The games are listed in order of current release date.  Soonest at the top.

• 2K Games:
  • Mafia II
  • Spec Ops: The Line
• EA
  • APB
  • Battlefield: Bad Company 2
  • Dante’s Inferno: Trials of St Lucia
  • Skate 3
  • Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11
  • Medal of Honor
  • Crysis 2
  • Dead Space 2
• Harmonix
  • Green Day: Rock Band
• Microsoft
  • Super Street Fighter IV
  • Lost Planet 2
  • Alan Wake
  • Dead Rising 2
  • Fable III
  • Halo Reach
  • Micorsoft Game Room
  • Natal
• Nintendo
  • WarioWare D.I.Y.
  • Monster Hunter Tri
  • Super Meat Boy
  • Sin and Punishment 2
  • Metroid: Other M
  • Epic Mickey
• NVIDIA
  • Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2
  • Dark Void
  • Resident Evil 5
  • Alan Wake
  • Crysis 2
• Rockstar Games
  • GTA IV: The Lost and Damned (PS3)
  • GTA IV: The Ballad of Gay Tony (PS3)
  • Red Dead Redemption
  • Max Payne 3
  • Agent
• Sega
  • Yakuza 3
  • Iron Man 2
  • Valkyria Chronicles 2
  • After Burner Climax
  • Alpha Protocol
  • Resonance of Fate
• The Behemoth
  • BattleBlock Theater
• Turbine
  • Turbine Next-Gen MMO Project
• Twisted Pixel Games
  • Comic Jumper: The Adventures of Captain Smiley
• Ubisoft
  • Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon 4
  • Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Conviction
  • Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands
  • Tom Clancy’s HAWX
• Wizards of the Coast
  • I don’t know, do you?

Music acts:

• Anamanaguchi
• Jonathan Coulton
• MC Frontalot
• Metroid Metal
• Paul and Storm
• Protomen
• The Video Game Orchestra