Too Much Free Time.

College has been pretty mellow the first couple of weeks into it, not much I can say on it yet. My 2nd year English class is going well, though keeps me pretty busy during the day. Psychology just has a ton of reading and so far the classes have been extremely dull. Sociology is awesome, but if you miss a class you're effed, pretty much everything covered in tests is just talked about by the professor.

So, since I haven't been 'that' busy with College, I've been playing a lot of games in my free time. I decided to buy Ratchet and Clank Future: Quest for Booty for 15 bucks. It took up about four hours of my time, which isn't bad for the price considering the game is extremely well polished and up to par in quality with other Ratchet titles; it's just shorter. I wish Quest for Booty had Trophy support though, which apparently many people at Insomniac wanted to do (Listen to Full Moon Podcast) but ran out of development time. I also wished there were a little more platform mechanics in this game since this is what the Ratchet series does best in and a little less awkward 3rd person shooter gameplay. If you're a Ratchet fan, or if you want to know if you're a Ratchet fan before investing more in Tools of Destruction check it out. People on the fence might be a bit too bothered with the overall length of the game.

I love two stick shooters, so everyday I go to sleep crying when arguably the best two stick shooter is on a console I don't yet own. My solution? Buy the DS version. Geometry Wars: Galaxies came in the mail a few weeks ago and once I figured out the control scheme I liked I think I played it for about five hours straight. It's a bit awkward to play a two stick shooter on the DS, but considering the controls and stylus/button/screen combination is completely customizable, eventually you'll find a set-up you can get the high scores with. The difference between Galaxy and Retro Evolved is that you complete different planets where the grid you play on is often very different (not just your rectangle anymore). A lot of the same enemies are present in Galaxy, but there are quite a few (and annoying) new additions. Accompanying you is a drone which you can upgraded by getting higher and higher scores in a given planet, or upgraded into something else by spending geoms, which are collected when you destroy enemies. Harder Galaxies containing more planets are also purchased with the geom currency. There is a medal system for each planet, pushing you to try and achieve the next medal score shown in the top right of your screen. Buy this game if you're an arcade shooter fan, despite the clumsiness of the DS controls initially, you wont be disappointed. Also included with the game is a full version of Retro Evolved which is game shareable to other nearby DS users. A few different multiplayer game types are included but I have yet to try them.

Most of my time the last week has been spent playing Battlefield: Bad Company. I have never really been sold on any online console shooter (halo isn't my thing) until now. The controls on the PS3 are so smooth, I don't miss the keyboard/mouse at all for this game. I'm a big fan of the Battlefield series, I have been playing Battlefield games on the PC for years, but I was a bit worried coming into Bad Company. For one thing, they spent a lot of money and time into developing a singleplayer mode, with the split focus I wasn't sure they could deliver a good multiplayer FPS as well. Well it turns out they made a great multiplayer shooter (no surprise for dice) and a terrible solo campaign. The pacing in singleplayer drives me insane, every five minutes the action is broken by a small cut scene (which you are unable to skip) of boring dialogue explaining what the next objective is. Most of the time I spent playing the game was driving to the next objective because it was so damn long in between different battle sequences the drive would often take longer than the fight afterwards. The AI in Bad Company left me feeling a little disappointed. The enemies would intelligently flank you at times (which was nice), but they would also do things that defy all logic. For instance if an enemy is in a firefight with a fellow teammate and you pop your head up? He will automatically switch to you, no matter how good your cover, or even before you start shooting. The enemy AI seems to always know where 'you' are. You can't hope to sneak around and flank, because as soon as they have a line of sight on you, no matter how many bushes obscuring your figure, they will shoot at you. What's interesting is that your team possesses none of these qualities and often wont even shoot at enemies right in front of their face, leaving the enemy soldier to shoot past your teammate right at you, blocking you of a clear shot.

The Battlefield franchise isn't famous for its amazing singleplayer experience though. What shines in Bad Company is (no surprise) the Multiplayer. It's everything you would come to expect from a Battlefield game. Tanks, helicopters, jeeps. Different classes of soldier. The five soldier classes in Bad Company are: Assault, Demolition, Recon, Support, and Specialist. All the classes have a particular use and you'll actually find all of them being used evenly across most of the maps. The support class no longer gives ammo (like in 2142) but is the only class that drops med-packs for team mates. I thought this was interesting because no class in Bad Company drops ammo crates anymore, instead ammo is just randomly scattered throughout the map or can be picked up from dead soldier's kits; I'm not sure I like this new ammo system yet. Bad Company suffers from some typical gun balance issues. To avoid 'noob-tubing' grenade launcher attachments for the assault class rifles do almost no splash damage, but can easily blow open walls, grenades suffer from the same problem. Shotguns, for some reason, do realistic damage versus the feathered touch of any explosive. You will often find people shotgun rushing your team and being able to one shot people from 20-25 yards away. Small balance issues like that will probably get fixed in a future patch (Battlefield games are always being updated).
Right now, there are two gameplay types in Bad Company Multiplayer; Gold Rush and Conquest. People familiar with past Battlefield games will be familiar with Conquest, a simple capture and hold more zones than the enemy type of thing, but gold rush is what Bad Company is about. One team has a mission to defend to gold crates, while the opposing team must attack and destroy these crates. Once the initial two crates are destroyed, defenders must retreat to their next base and defend their next two crates. The attackers win by capturing the last two crates in the enemies home base (which is usually about 3-4 stages). The Defenders win by depleting the reinforcements of the attackers. This mode is really great because there is very little 'down' time. You aren't bored, looking for where all the fighting is very much. You know eventually that shit is going to get real near those crates.

The graphics in Bad Company are well done and the environmental damage mechanics are amazing. The only downsides to Bad Company is the minor gun balance issues as well as the fact there is no clan system set up yet (what the fuck?). I also wish there was a way to take off the slight assist to aiming (maybe there is an option, but I haven't found it) since it can make your crosshair move in weird directions sometimes. Trophy support coming this fall... Good times, great game, buy it.

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