Marvel Enterprises, Inc is changing its name to Marvel Entertainment. That doesn't impress you? Well along with this change comes the news that a LOAD of new movies will be coming out - here are some excerpts taken from MSN MONEY :

"Marvel said it will use the seven-year, $525 million nonrecourse debt facility to finance up to 10 films based on characters such as Captain America, Nick Fury and the Avengers."

and paragraph or so later it mentions some of the characters we should be seeing:
"Marvel said the 10 characters in the arrangement are Captain America, The Avengers, Nick Fury, Black Panther, Ant-Man, Cloak & Dagger, Dr. Strange, Hawkeye, Power Pack, and Shang-Chi. Each film is expected to have a budget of up to $165 million dollars and a rating no more restrictive than PG-13."

Kinda cool i guess, but when is SHE-HULK gonna make an appearance!!!!

Being a "gamer's blog" it seems only natural that I actually present posts from ACTUAL GAMEPLAY. Last night joining in for some BF2 action was the pabbers (those frequenting pabgames.com) and the Fats (pretty much the same people but for nostalgia i segregate them); i'd tell you more about it, but you'd just stare @ me with indifference.

We jumped on the Pab server, but as you can read in a previous post, it is staring death in the face due to inactivity and the economic pressures that EA exerts. So, after awhile of dorking around we hopped over onto a 24/7 Kaboom server which granted us more targets to shoot at.

The main objective of this blog since it probably isn't very apparent is the Murphy's Law manifests itself very creatively in the occurances of my many, many repeateded virtual deaths while playing BF2.

• 1>starting out with the more common- the Spawn directly in front of your enemy death - usually while your enemy ALSO happens to be sporting a TANK which is completely HOT this time of year


• 2>the OH LOOK its raining ARTILLERY SHELLS AS I Spawn death >>>> one of my favorites after waiting 20 seconds to spawn (usually after falling dead because of #1)


• 3>the Apparently Bunny Hopping makes you invincible reverse death. This is when you are bearing down on your enemy with your fully loaded automatic weapon in which you unload the clip on the poor sucker who is hopping around like an idiot reloading or switching weapons or SOMETHING; running out of bullets you change to your pistol and expend its clip into the seemingly helpless soldier who finally finds a weapon and shoots you once dead. sigh, i really need my sites checked.


• 4>now it gets stranger- once i was Apache-ing around and an enemy sneaks into an anti-air missile turret and fires away a great shot that basically headshots me right in the cockpit but doesnt explode the copter. instead i watch helplessly as the unguided copter makes its way down and falls on a teammate.(your welcome ChaosButters)


• 5>So our squad is taking a flag point; an enemy blackhawk attempts to inhibit our movements- someone takes it out and it crashes onto the roof of a large building next to our squad. I look up to find the hulking flaming wreckage rolling off the roof... and onto me. Yes, i died.

Well there's more and more, but brevity calls me to stop for now. Geez, didnt even get into mine teamkills from riding with folks who apparently don't view BIG RED SKULL AND CROSSBONESas a Warning Sign that perhaps you SHOULDNT attempt to drive thru a particular area. Drunken copter pilots and jets who think all ground units ARE THE ENEMY as they make bombing runs were not explored either.
So if you see me online, and and i'm in your sites- please, make it quick.

A dejected post hangs over at Pabgames. Simply, it states that a readily playable and quality Battlefield 2 server is falling by the wayside. Not having spoken to the admin at the time of this writing; one can only surmise that the reasoning lies in economics. Sad to see it go down but it is understandable.

But then the "who's to blame? " question sets in. For Pab it is a 2 fold answer. One has to do with our number of PAB regulars who actually regularly play. We all have diverse interests & lifestyles; and at our current number - unless all of us are in game at the same time there just isn't enough to populate a ranked server (which actually partly falls under point two which is coming next). When we plan out a night of game; we can get public traffic to the said server, but otherwise theres just not enough of us that regularly play to keep Pab on the radar of public gamers looking for a good server to play on.

Now that has been an ongoing thing with any game that Pab sets up a dedicated server- and its a struggle that can be lived with. Point 2 is a little tougher to accept. Being the ever present whiner - there are some gripes to be shared concerning EA's dealings with dedicated server hosting. In business terms, hyping up a ranking system where players stats are accumulated and recorded allowing for a RPG-like "leveling up" AND then making server admins PAY to be able to make use of the system - well thats just a real tempting kinda business arrangement for EA. And I bet it 's been going well for EA. Neglecting to research price figures or numbers of EA's success with this Pay to be Ranked plan (mainly as i just dont want to know); I can only imagine that since NOT being ranked server takes away a portion of the game that we paid 50 bucks to own; this tends to gnudge most folks toward ranked servers. Ego and weapons unlocking will also push people towards ranked servers. Thank you EA for trying to milk as much money from our already sore breasts as you can.

I've read that online ranking will be a part of ET:Quake Wars - lets hope its a free system and i am expecting it to be as I dont believe Splash Damage to be as greedy as EA is.

Once everyone has unlocked the available weapons, and gotten tired of the ego trips- maybe they'll come back to unranked servers? One prohibiter of this will be that apparently the unlocked weapons only work in ranked servers, again THANK YOU EA. Anyone's nipples suddenly hurt?

LucasArts, a company that has erected some of the worst yet still purchased games ever. When you talk about a company that can sell you frozen poop on a stick but sell it because of name sentimentality, you just have to think LucasArts.
Well instead of turkey LucasArts is giving us Battlefront II to chomp on, as it’s slated for a November release. Now when the original was released, Electronic Arts was soon to release Battlefield 2 with all the new textures and physics that BF2 entails. I wondered at that time why not just hold off on the Battlefront project and use the new BF2 engine for overall better quality. Well of course, economics couldn’t support that notion so then I hoped for a Battlefront II that would oblige my needs for better graphics and physics. Judging by the videos, it is tough to tell if the graphics are much updated so this question is still unanswered.
Phillip Hong is one of the many producers working on the Battlefront II project (he worked on the original too). And at LucasArts you can read logs from his developers diary to gain insight into the production of this sequel. Remember those computer controlled Jedi/Sith that would run around slicing and dicing? Well in the sequel they plan to have these actually be controllable characters that you can play, a reward for gaining certain objectives. The game looks to cover Episodes 1 – 6 so you’re likely to see ole Vader in his youth as well as prime. Hong stated that they wanted to take some of those battles that are just touched on in the films and make them the backdrops of ongoing battles in-game. Ever wonder if producers ever sneak in a game? Each had their own teams that would fight it out within the latest build once a week, then have feedback session to discuss bugs, ideas, and to gloat I’m sure.
Questions I pose would include:

• is it built on the BF2 engines
• will the vehicles have better control and not feel so clunky and cumbersome
• will the server browser not suck @!$
• will the new space based maps with their dogfight be cool, think the tie-fighter sim
• will there be wookies?

I can answer that last one, there WILL be wookies (judging from the trailer) … but will they be shaven?

F.E.A.R (First Encounter Assault Recon) - the new FPS from Monolith and Vivendi is slated for an October 2005 release. I had the chance to play the beta multiplayer of this sweet new action, so lets slow-mo it for some retrospect.
The options and server interface was pretty user friendly. All the usual customizations are changeable, and thank goodness as the default keybinds left some to be desired. After binding my keys I was off to the server browser. Finding a basic but adequate server browser (at least at this stage, remember it is a beta), the only gametype options were DM/TDM. Jumping in a server with some pals - we opted for some team deathmatch action. In game visuals are pretty good! Crisp details and good shadows were up to par with HL2 in the medium video settings. In fact I found it to look fairly similar to Half-Life 2's deathmatch graphics. Speed-wise, was again similar to HL2, but not as fast as Unreal Tournament 2004. Walking around I kept bumping into stuff and they would appropriately “get bumped.” The physics proved to be especially fun in one instance in which some explosive device had blown a teammate apart and I got to use his severed arm as a hockey puck; I made a total mess for the maids.
Monolith didn’t chinch on detailed bump mapping as stray shots in the walls have a nice 3d look; you can almost poke your finger right in them. Explosive devices emit a great translucent shockwave effect; and the flame effects from torched items look warm and inviting.
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