BF2: Special Forces - First Impressions

First impressions after a night of play are awesome. The game is insane. Played 4 maps and every one of them was brilliant. With very few vehicles, most of which are light - there is never any feeling that the infantry are underpowered. Heaps of the map settings are based indoors, so the practice of getting raped by skilled chopper pilots is well downplayed.

The nighttime maprs are especially cool - I was on one where the US are assaulting this clifftop monastery type of thing on a tiny island. We get near the top, and one of the squad members puts a grappling hook up to the wall to pull us up, then the sniper fires a zipline over to the main building for everyone to zoom in. The occupants of the building we are assaulting are all wearing NVGs. The support guy chucks tear gas in there and they come choking out into machine gun fire.
















Another map played is kind of a naval bit - rebels assaulting a US carrier - the entire fight is infantry based on the deck and lower compartments of the carrier. The only way we won it as US was to move as a squad and clear each compartment down the length of the carrier. Real close & personal combat.

Really basic description would be to say - put the battlefield physics into counterstrike style maps, throw in very cool assault vehicles, gadgets and the squad based system of BF2, and you pretty much have it.

Known issues to date are having to reinstall the 1.12 patch to get the bloody thing working in the first place, and some lag/data issues getting stats updated to either EA (for some) or to BF2S for just about everyone. More personal pics of some of the new basic combat badges to follow.

We Shall Fear No Evil...

*Finally* after much heartache, deaths and teamkilling - have that last elusive basic combat piece for the First Sergeant unlock. And unbelievably, no stat-padding was required. Feelings of joy and accomplishment with this one. Still figure on the aviator ribbon being impossible, but give it time....

With Special Forces now out (and a copy being delivered this week), all sorts of new stuff to be posted.

Prior Quotes of the Day

14/11/2005: Telling computer guys that they need to have permission to quote things is like having to tell little children about Death. Ted Nelson

8/11/2005: People says Microsoft paid 14 million dollars for using the Rolling Stones song "Start me up" in their commercials. This is wrong. Microsoft paid 14 million dollars only for a part of the song. For instance, they didn't use the line "You'll make a grown man cry".

7/11/2005: You teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test.
George W Bush

3/11/2005: I see that you're drinking 1%. Is that because you think you're fat? Cause you're not... and you could drink whole if you wanted. Napoleon Dynamite

2/11/2005: Never wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides; the pig likes it.
George Bernard Shaw

30/10/2005: You can't run from death forever..... but you can make the bastard work for it.

28/10/2005: Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.

The only way to go.....

OK, so i have often wondered just how much Coke it would take to kill me.....and the internet has provided the answer...its like some kind of magical knowledge engine...assuming all you need to know relates to pr0n or killing yourself...

i have no more to say...just follow the link to caffienated doom!

btw...it would take 399 cans of Coke to kill me.....

http://www.energyfiend.com/death-by-caffeine/



{k}

PINQY Fire Extinguisher

The fact that a fire extinguisher saves lives should be enough for people to have at least one in their homes. But nooo, even the humble fire extinguisher has to look good and match your contemporary modern decor.

This PinQy is only 5.5-inches tall, apparently the smallest fire extinguisher ever (um, this is a good thing?). It’s meant to put out small fires, and lightweight enough so that children, elderly, and the disabled can use it.

Okay, so that last bit makes the PinQy seem more reasonable. And it does look kinda (like a hand grenade) cute… agh, I’m getting suckered in by the shiny red ball! Not too sure where you can get one, as this may be an Europe-only product. Which is just as well, since the regular-sized ones probably do a better job anyway.

PinQy [PinQY via Shiny Shiny]
[Review from Gizmodo]

SA Telecom Insanity

Apologies for not attributing this to the original author - had been a forward of a forward. Australians may complain about average download rates or prices compared to places like Korea - South Africa has things way worse.

Note: by way of comparison, you can get 12Mbit download speeds to the home with 80Gb bandwidth a month for A$120 a month (~R550) - including $30 line rental…. and we complain that things are substandard…:-

We all know that Telkom has ridiculously high telecoms charges -that's no secret. But whenever a comparison is made to other countries, Telkom has a tantrum like a spoilt child stating that it's unfair to compare South Africa to other countries.

I decided to do a little comparison to show how expensive it really is... so here are the results of the investigation. I compared the time and costs involved in downloading 100GB of data over Telkom's fastest ADSL offering (1Mbps) with the time and costs involved in flying to Hong Kong, visiting an Internet cafe,downloading 100GB of data at their fastest speed (1Gbps), and flyingback.

Yep... that's quite a challenge! And here are the details:
TelkomLine speed =3D 1Mbps
Download Size =3D 100GB
Estimated Download Time 9.5 days

ISP (34 x 3GB accounts @ R269) =3D R 9, 146.00
Line Rental (ADSL) =3D R 680.00
Line Rental (Residential Voice) =3D R 92.28
TOTAL =3D R 9,918.28 (AUD ~$2020)

Hong KongLine speed =3D 1Gbps
Download Size =3D 100GB
Estimated Download Time 13 minutes
Flight (SAA) =3D R 7,942.00
Internet Caf=E9 (average cost @ HKD20) =3D R 17.43
TOTAL =3D R 7,959.43 (AUD ~$1620)

Difference: Hong Kong is cheaper by R 1,958.85 (AUD ~$400)

So to sum up... it's cheaper and quicker to fly to Hong Kong if you want to download 100GB of data!I haven't got the time to work out where the two converge, but it justshows how badly we're being ripped off!

Forgive me father for I have sinned...

http://www.jesuschristsuperstore.net/

{k}

Robots are fun

http://www.izmojuki.com/

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