Welcome to the Battlefield

In what seems like a lifetime ago EA release Battlefield 1942. At the time this game was a breath of fresh air into the crowded world of online FPS games. No longer was combat constrained to the squad based warfare of games like Counterstrike, now you could drive tanks or pilot aircraft onto the field. Online deathmatches could contain up to 64 players and things would frequently become hectic. Your position would be overrun by infantry so you'd send tanks into the fray. The enemy would combat this with aircraft and you feel obliged to match. Soon the skys would be alive with planes, the open roads choked with armour and troops on foot would haunt every building. I remember many epic battles taking place over a single point, each side would fight relentlessly to secure the map in a never ending struggle to win.

This was followed by Battlefield Vietnam. A personal favourite of the series it was the same style of warfare only this time in Vietnam (surprisingly). The weapons of war were updated to reflect the times, Huey's would buzz overhead dropping off troops and supplying ground support blaring out tunes from the era and Flight of The Valkyries, it was once again a battle were each game could either way. Napalm would light up the jungle and the ever present snipers were always lurking to dispatch those foolish enough to walk into their crosshairs. Despite the fact that it contained some major flaws it was still great fun and the larger battles would always make me want to come back for more.

Then we have Battlefield 2.



This is probably one of the best online FPS of the time. It came when everybody was stuck doing World War 2 games still, and in my opinion they had become a bit boring. As much fun as they were, I craved more modern guns, tanks and aircraft. Battlefield 2 delivered. Set in modern times it pitted America, Europe, China and the fictional Middle Eastern Coalition in a fictional war. the story wasn't the strong point in this game but it didn't need to be. It added a vast arsenal of new weapons, equipment and vehicles to the fray and quickly surpassed the original in popularity. The servers would be alive with matches every night and I have many stories of wins, defeats and near misses. Times when it looked like the situation was dire and then a perfectly times artillery strike would even the odds. At it's best battles were close fought with the winner be decided in the closing moments. BF2 also received multiple add-on packs that added yet more new maps, weapons, vehicles and destruction to the series. These would also spawn epic battles for control points. The one set on the Great Wall of China was deeply enjoyed and always gave a steady battle that would swing one way and then the other. Of note was the Armoured Fury add-on that brought the war to American soil and introduced the A-10 Thunderbolt II, a plane that I consider one of the best is existence and could destroy all in it's path.



After this we were given Battlefield 2142.

Video Games | Battlefield 2142 | Game Intro

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

Set in the near future we were armed with futuristic assault rifles, tanks and gunships. While the popularity didn't meet that of BF2 it did quickly become a popular game and once again lead to many moments that made everything worth it. Many of the features were the same, take and hold control points on a map to claim victory, though they did add a new mode where you would fight to take down an enemy Titan, a huge flying battlestation that would dispense troops and firepower onto the field. One major improvement in the series with this one was with flying. It was easier to control the gunships and transports and this made playing much more enjoyable and much less frustrating. I became quite adept with the transport craft to the point that when I was actually accepted into a guild I usually became the designated driver. There were many a time when me and my squad would seize a control point from the enemy, me charging in at high speed, the guns of my squad blazing and cutting down troops, tanks and walkers left, right and centre. We would take the control point, killing all who stood in our way, toss out all our mines, and then take off before the enemy had a chance to retaliate. Instead on artillery strikes you had EMP strikes in this game, and I remember one time we were being chased my a gunship in our slow, lumbering transport craft. With nothing else to do to get ride of it I flew through a EMP barrage to see if he would follow. He did, and while we passed through unharmed he was struck, lost power and fell crashing to the ground. It was moments like that that made the game worth while. Equally fun times were had defending or attacking Titans. Once the shields were down a battle could be ended if you brought the opposing teams Titan down by destroying the core. This of course was no easy task.

After all of these the series left the PC and moved to the consoles with Bad Company. This added destructible scenery to the mix and looked brilliant, it was just a shame that I could not afford a Xbox 360 or PS3 and therefore missed out. Luckily we have Bad Company 2 out in March which returns once again to the PC, and from the looks of things I'm excited about this one.

Video Games | Battlefield: Bad Company 2 | GC 09: Squad Stories Trailer

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

God, that music at the end still makes me shiver with excitement!

Yet More Notes

Look! I found more random scribblings!

Speedboats and dirt bike tracks

I have no idea as to what I was thinking when I wrote this down, maybe speedboats on flooded dirt bike tracks doing jumps? Who knows.

Sword Fight Health Plan

I do remember this one. The idea was to make exercise fun and dangerous, or more so then it is already. Each person in the event would be given a wooden sword and a small wooden shield or buckler to be attached to their off arm. Pirate hats are optional but encouraged. Then in order to exercise the group would just have a massive sword fight using whatever obstacles that present themselves to their advantage. The fight would continue until someone gets seriously hurt or all included are too exhausted to do any more. Any real violence would be discouraged, after all the idea is to keep the fight going, not end it with a wooden sword impaled in ones chest. Now reading this it may sound stupid but I bet that once you're kitted up and things get going you won't want to stop, plus all the jumping, running, swashing and buckling will make a good work out. I have yet to find a good place for supplies or any willing volunteers to actually try this out, but if they are out there hit me up.

The Hall of Mirrors

This is based on a dream I had a while back, it was a very vivid dream, one that left me more confused and disorientated then usual. In this dream I was in a vast castle, more specifically a long hallway with a bunch of antique mirrors mounted on a track system. I could move the mirrors along this track, they would appear or disappear into recesses which where too narrow for me to fit through. Each mirror portrayed another world or reality and I found that I could enter this just by walking through the glass. As I explored these new realms I found that they were not of my own creation but rather dream worlds created by other people. I would hop from one to the other observing peoples dreams and I even found that with a bit of practice I could change them. It was all rather bizarre. Now things got confusing when I woke up for the first time. I was unaware that I was actually still asleep at this point so I actively went looking for people who I'd seen in my dreams and asked them if they remembered what had happened in their dreams. Of course non of them remembered a thing and I returned more intrigued then ever as to what had transpired. It was after I went back to sleep (I was still dreaming in real life here) and woke up in the real world that I became really confused. The entire thing felt so real and yet I had no way to prove that it was. I even felt pain from where I had injured myself in one of these dream worlds. As I said this left me disoriented for some time and I have just put the whole thing off as some crazy dream, but still, it freaks me out a bit.

That's it for now.

Notes

I knew I had ideas. Back when I was working I would routinely write down ideas that materialised in my head and draw things that are often quite disturbing. I should point out that I am really quite bad at drawing as a whole so don't expect any of these to be scanned in or anything. I can draw guns and other weapons pretty well though, so there's something. Anyway, here's a run down of some of my better thoughts:

Nukes

I have always had a fascination for weapons of mass destruction, of the nuclear bombs have got to be some of the best. The sound they make is wonderful and the mushroom cloud produced is a work of art, albeit a destructive one. There are plenty of videos on nuclear explosions online, all of them are quite pretty and act as a grim reminder at how man can do anything so long as we have a good reason, or a bad one, either seems to work. However special mention goes to Stargate, specifically Stargate Atlantis. For those who don't know the Stargate series is a sci-fi show where they always seem to able to fix a problem with a enhanced nuclear weapon. For example here they detonate a nuke above their base to convince the bad aliens they have blown themselves up, a noble idea. The best sequence though is this:



Now if I had one of those then this world would be a very different place.

The Murderous Mrs Fletcher

This relates to Murder She Wrote, a quite awful show about a writer, one Jessica Fletcher, who always seems to appear just before someone gets murdered and will inevitably solve it while the local law enforcement chase the wrong person. Considering how many people die in her presence am I the only one who suspects her to be a serial killer? Think about it, she arrives somewhere, someone dies and then she 'solves' the case. Coincidence I think not! Also her home town must have the highest death rate of the world, the shear number of people who meet their end there is just insane.

The Amazing Epileptic

This is something I came up with during one of the many boring days I had at my former job. The idea is a parody of superheroes and their many powers. See, in this case our unwilling hero has epilepsy and despite his best efforts at preventing crime it will always end with him having a seizure and freaking people out. Often the criminal will use this distraction to make their escape. The idea is in bad taste but since I do actually have epilepsy then it's ok for me to joke about it. Fun fact: I have made a joke about epileptics only to be told of by some random for making fun of them. I promptly told her that I was epileptic and asked what excatly she meant by 'them'. She promptly shut up.

Rock and Roll Airshow

Ahh, I remember this one fondly. During my work I found an airfield that held an airshow to classical music. This struck me as an awesome idea that could be expanded with the proper creative genius. You see the original idea used a handful of propeller driven planes doing stunts, but I say why stop there? My idea involves jets dogfighting to heavy metal, stunts being doing to fast paced electronic music, the loops and rolls in sync with the highs and lows of the music. The finale would be some F-22's doing a low flyby at high-speed, the lights following them as best they can. They would settle on the space shuttle which would launch at the peak of the song playing, the low rumble of it's thrusters providing the bass the end the night. It would be an epic even that would change the lives of all those who attend. Sadly the shuttle is to be decommissioned and replaced by something that is more useful but less cool looking.

A further idea that could be incorporated into this would be the birth of a Hind. The Hind is a Russian attack helicopter and all-round awesome machine. The Mil Mi-26 is the largest transport helicopter in the world and yet another awesome machine. I propose loading a Hind onto one of these Mi-26's and dropping it at it's maximum flight altitude. The Hind would then unpack mid-drop, start up and fly away. I have no idea if a Hind would actually fit in one, though if it could then the Mi-26 would be more then capable of lifting it. Also I doubt you could ready a Hind during the drop down and having it producing enough lift to avoid the Wile E Coyote style slamming into the ground. Either way it's an idea.

That's enough nonsense for now, and quite honestly it's more then I expected. There is even more to come and none if it will make sense.

The Beginning

Welcome one and all! Due to events that were out of my control I have become unemployed, again. Due to this I have quite a bit of free time on in which to do whatever I please. Mostly this has been computer games but there's only so many times one can save the galaxy or shoot astronauts (or cosmonauts if you prefer) before you need to take a break and return to the soul crushing depression that is real life. Now since I studied journalism and am finding that the 140 word limit on Twitter is just not enough I've foolishly decided to start writing stuff here. I have no idea what to expect but I can assure you that by reading it you will become less of a human being, maybe you may even devolve down to the cynical husk which I have become. One can only dream.
First things first, I'm sure the one or two of you reading this don't want to know anything about me, either you already know too much or nothing at all. I find that both of these are unacceptable. Let's just say that I'm a optimistic pessimist, that is to say that I firmly believe that humanity will reach it's best while doing it's worse, there will be more on this later. Other then this I am saying nothing, you will find out more as I go, assuming that I keep this up.

Now lets see, what should my first post be about in earnest? I know, the weather! Right now it's raining, something that is not uncommon where I live. As a small child I use to be scared of thunderstorms, however I got past that I now find them quite exciting. Alas it is too cold now for a thunderstorm but there is still rain. I must admit, I like the rain. I'm not a sunny weather type of person, my ideal conditions would be overcast at best, nothing too bright. As I stated I like the rain, just listening to it is something that I find soothing. I don't mind being in the rain so long as it is a comfortable temperature. Too cold and the enjoyment wears thin but a nice cool or warm rain is a good thing to be in. There's something about it that I just like. It's actually quite hard to find a solid reason, I just do.

Now this is starting to drag on and sound stupid so I'll end it here.