Assassins Creed Brotherhood Connection Hapyness

You may remember Assassins Creed from such posts as Assassins Creed Brotherhood AKA You can’t Run but You can Hide! and Assassins Creed Brotherhood Connection Madness. If you do, then you will recall that we had been hit with the dreaded “the session is unreachable” issue that a LOT of people seem to be suffering from.

If you have not read the previous articles, or have no understanding of the mentioned issue I’ll provide a quick recap. *Wayne’s World recap music*

Me & PlanetPete can join a group and play together no problem, and CampyPhil & MIAdave can play together no problem. BUT if anyone tries to join the other group they get “the session is unreachable” So neither PlanetPete or Myself can play against the other two, and neither of them can play against us.

Now our original thought was that maybe it was an odd routing issue, with them being in a different part of the UK to us, Well luckily PlanetPete went to visit them and took his hard-drive with him. And with his hard drive plugged into MIADaves’s xbox he was able to join me, yet with MIADave’s hard drive plugged in “session is unreachable

It makes no SENSE!!!!

Well PlanetPete recently purchased the Da Vinci DLC, and before installing it he deleted all the previous system updates and the downloaded Animus Project Update 2.0. He then bought and installed the Animus Project Update 3.0 (Da Vinci). After this we discovered that we could no longer play online together, but he could play with CampyPhil & MIADave.

SO. I deleted my DLC & updates. I then decided to work upwards in order. Animus Project Update 1.0, Animus Project Update 2.0, then started the game and let it do it’s own system updates. After this was complete I tested playing against CampyPhil and was able to play fine.

It seems to me that there was a conflict between DLC versions. PlanetPete & Myself downloaded ours a while before the other two. So there must have been a change at some point which causes a conflict. So if you are getting the dreaded “session is unreachable” while trying to play with friends, then delete all downloaded content from your XBOX Dashboard, and re download them.

Let us know if this solves your conflict.

A happy GothNinja prowling the roofs of buildings hunting his pray with a concealed gun.

Modern Warfare Camping V Ruining

Modern Warfare2 (MW2) is the sixth instalment in the Call of Duty (COD) Series. And its a game I’ve been playing a bit of recently, since it is the lowest common denominator among the group of :- PlanetPete, CampyPhil, MIAdave, StabbyJason & Myself. And since we’ve been playing private matches a lot, I’ve been plying TDM online to unlock better weapons/perks.

Playing online I have noticed the voice channel is now mostly filled with insults, threats, and abuse (a lot more than it ever used to be). And its all aimed in the same direction. Against anyone staying in one spot  (Camping) or using sniper rifles, or scopes, thermal, claymores, or any tactic or action that is not just running around with a high unlocked gun and shooting (Run N’ Gun)

Now the main contention seems to be, that if you do anything other than Run N’ Gun you are 1)Cheating, 2)Not playing the Game correctly, 3)Scum, 4)A noob, 5)INSERT ANY DEROGATORY TERM, 6)Not worth playing with, 7)etc.  And you should just quit playing the game since your cheating is ruining it for everyone else.All this with more filth and swear words than I ever heard working on building sites.

This abuse has got me thinking. If snipers, scopes, thermal, are cheating and are not to be used then why does the game have these weapons, accessories, & perks? Why in the default class list you are given is there a sniper? since you can not Run N’ Gun with a sniper rifle?

Also why is anyone not doing the Run N’ Gun wrong? the game is set up to handle multiple types of game play. Some people like running about and shooting when they see people mindlessly, where as other people prefer the more stealthy killing of snipers, knives, etc.  Why is either one wrong? the games Modern Warfare, and warfare has many ways?

So can we please just accept everyone plays games in different ways, and just get along, If you keep getting killed by a Camper when you run into one building, stop running in, try throwing a grenade, or run about another part of the map.

The one that gets me is I’ve seen some of these people who verbally abuse campers until they quit the game, hide in a corner and shoot people then a bit later run to a different corner and hide to shoot people, well is that not “Camping“?

So people, we are all gamers, lets learn to play nice together, and if it really bugs you people using the weapons, perks, & tactics the game providers, then maybe you should find a different FPS that does not have those weapons and go play there, and let those of us who don’t mind what tactics people use to be able to play the game without listening to the abuse.

Footnote:

I’m adding this out of fairness, I do like the sniper in COD, I like sneaky, stealthy, clever kills. I like using my brain, and I remember my ACF training, “see without being seen, kill without being killed“. But saying that, I have 1of5 classes set up as a sniper, the other 4 are run n’ gun classes, so I play both, and I don’t mind what other people do.

Hell, maybe we should start accusing those with huge HD TV’s as cheating as they can see better than those with small old TV’s?

Assassins Creed Brotherhood AKA You can’t Run but You can Hide!

Last night I was sitting with my feet up watching an episode of Babylon 5 as part of #TheGreatBab5Watch, following on from #TheGreatTNGReWatch (These are matters for a different post). Anyway, there I was just finishing the episode that was on, and considering if I should start the next episode or make a trip to the fridge for a cold beer when *ding ding* My mobile goes off with a message from PlanetPete “Internet playing up still? I’m on acb“. Well that made my decision for me, I’d not played on online for a while, and had only had one game of Assassins Creed Brotherhood online, so it seemed a great Idea.

It was suggested since I was unfamiliar with the game that we would play a couple of rounds in a private match, before playing on open games online with groups of people. I must say the private matches first was needed to get into the needed mindset. Now we were playing Hunted(I think the game types called) *EDIT: “I Have been reminded the name was ‘Manhunt'” Basically ‘Hide & Seek’ with a death thrown in at the end. There are two groups, One are assassins with the job of finding and killing the other group, who are trying their best to hide. You then switch half way through.

acb-characters (more…)

From The Games Cabinet – Fallout: New Vegas

You wake up in a doctors office with no memory of how you got there, the last thing you remember was getting a job to deliver a simple package to someone. After further investigation you discover you were waylaying on route, shot in the head and buried alive. Luckily this incident was spotted, and your body was dug up and taken to the nearest doctor. Now you must find out why you were shot, who shot you, and claim VENGEANCE!

No, this is not the plot of some Cheap Western (Or the Japanese original) but the rough starting plot of the new Role-Playing game in the Fallout series by Obsidian Entertainment. Yes “Fallout: New Vegas”.

 

The game is set about four years after the events of “Fallout 3″, and is located in the post-apocalyptic Las Vegas, Nevada and the Mojave Desert known as the “Mojave Wasteland“. Yes, its a post-apocalyptic world with mutated creatures attacking travelers, legions of slavers, cannibals, criminals killing their way across the land, and Las Vegas is still doing trade as the gambling capital of the world. This is the world you are playing in.

The game play is similar to Fallout 3, well it is running the same game engine. Once again you can have companions, only this time they are more useful, and you can have one humanoid and one none humanoid companion. The greatest difference in my opinion is the addition of crafting. In the old game you had to scavenge for ammunition for your weapons or keep purchasing new ones, in this one you can use workbenches, or reloading stations to make your own ammunition using empty cases, powder and lead. Or you can make tools, equipment, repair items using the scrap you salvage as you travel. You can even use campfires to cook up things, I think this makes it a lot more realistic since most post-apocalyptic travelers would pick up a few real world survival skills.

 

Like any good RPG, you get to select your skill sets & bonuses as you advance in levels, pick what Armour & weapons you use (I am currently running around in a kilt with a machete thanks to pre-order DLC). You can even customise your ammunition (Armour Piercing, Overcharged Cells, Shrapnel in you dynamite) & add accessories to your firearms (Scopes, Silencers, Etc). You also get to pick which quests you will take, and if you will be nice or evil, which faction to side with, and how you will interact with the inhabitants. You can complete the game by just following you own quest for Vengeance, only you will miss out on so much more fun by doing that.

I would say this game is well worth getting (Hey, I lost the last weekend to this game), and any any fans of the series, or the RPG genre, or anything post-apocalyptic need this game in their collection.

“Better dead than Red” But Even Better “Red Dead Redemption”

At the weekend I had a cunning plan. A plan so cunning, you could say “it was as cunning as a fox  who’s just been appointed Professor of Cunning at Oxford University“. Now that’s cunning!

Before I tell my cunning plan, I need to set the scene, or at least explain the events leading up to “The Cunning Plan“.  It all starts on a Saturday morning, not any old Saturday morning but the start of a three day Bank Holiday weekend. It starts with a man with a stupidly long list of things he really needs to do, and no inclination to do any of them. Well I’d been putting off stuff for weeks/months/years. I am spod watch me idle!

So I really needed to make some headway into the growing pile that was the task-list. It was while contemplating this that “The Cunning Plan” was hatched.

You see it came to me as if whispered into my ear by the angel or devil that sits on my shoulder (I always get those two mixed up). I would get myself the game “Red Dead Redemption” that I had read so much about on different peoples Blog’s and which so far had good write-ups.  So I would go get myself this game and place it in a prominent position. And if I completed a load of tasks then I could treat myself to playing the game. I am Male, Watch me get bribed!

Plan formed, I quickly made a list of the most pressing tasks on my Whiteboard and headed out to the shops. The first shop I tried was sold out, The second did not even have it listed as a released game, The third shop turned out to be a cake shop, The fourth was a constitutional right, Luckily the fifth was more promising.  I just had one pitfall to pass.

I entered the shop to be confronted by a series of displays for the iPad, There was box’s of them all looking new and shiny. I know I’m waiting for the none mac tablets to be released but I am a geek, I love new technology. The draw of the shiny almost drew me in, but I rolled a 20 on my resist willpower, and was able to pass.  I made it to the game section to spot the “SOLD OUT” sign on the Xbox360 section of the game. Luckily they had one left in the PS3 section, so I was saved, the game bought, and I returned home.

So there I was, Task list on whiteboard, prize for completion in hand. What could go wrong?

Well, the thing is the game may not have worked, and needed replacing which would annoy me after completing my tasks. So what harm could there be in just throwing it into ps3 and checking its ok. I could just watch the intro and then turn it off when I was sure it worked. I could do that couldn’t I?

And that was the moment “The Cunning Plan” failed. and the weekend vanished. In my defence the game is great. Wide open landscapes to ride over, all the wildlife, random encounters, missions, fun. I don’t think I’ve done any of the plot elements of the game yet. I’ve just wandered the land killing & Skinning animals, shooting the rope on people being hanged, and generally killing people. Oh and I’m on my eighth or ninth horse.  I’ve met several people walking alone in the desert who’ve asked for help, only to pull me off my mount and ride off on it when I’ve gone to help. Which means I then have to shoot my horse dead so it falls on the horse thief while i then walk over and shoot them in the legs and arms, and leave them lying bleeding on the floor.

Oh. I guess I could just shoot the rider dead and leave the horse alive? Hummm never considered that.

I do recommend the game to anyone. Unless you really have other stuff you need to do first.