BFBC2, Mario *Cheat* Kart, Donncha’s PS3, and YouTube

BFBC2 – Battlefield: Bad Company 2
I picked up BFBC2 from Game yesterday for the PS3. Traded in those games I had on Ebay as it was fairly obvious they weren’t going to sell on there – even for a tenner each. I’d worked out that after paying Ebay twice (once for the final valuation fee, then again to withdraw the cash from Paypal) I would probably end up with as much as the trade in price….so to avoid the inevitable bag o’ crap that occurs when selling on Ebay I saved myself the hassle.

How is it? Am I enjoying it? Do I prefer it to MW2?……..Don’t know. It’s still sitting in the cellophane wrapper on the TV table. Hopefully I’ll get on there later tonight.

Unfortunately, BFBC2 means that the Hauppage Fund has taken a hit. For the last time I hope.

Mario *Cheat* Kart
Regular readers will be aware of my views on cheating. If you’re not then check this post, and this one. You may or may not be aware of my love/hate hate/loath relationship with Mario Kart Wii. If you missed those posts then you can find them here and here. Well, my Nintendo Fanboy Mike sent me a text earlier asking if I fancied getting destroyed on Mario Kart Wii again. Glutton for punishment as I am I agreed.

After a couple of one on one races he takes us to the big bad world……which shouldn’t be that bad as this is everyone’s favourite cuddly plumber and chums. The first couple of races were pretty fun actually. 8 – 10 people of varying levels of incompetence is alright. I even managed to come in at a blistering fifth place!

But then something unusual happened. We drive off the line and from behind someone all sparkly with the “doo doo doo do doo do doodoo” music comes barrelling through…… hang on a minute – we’re not even in to the first corner and haven’t passed any boxes so how are they all sparkly and musical? They were sparkly and musical for the entire race – or as I prefer to call it: cheating. I’ve seen it all now – how pathetic do you have to be to cheat on Mario Kart?! “Mario” and “Cheating” are two words that shouldn’t be in the same sentence. I didn’t think it was even possible to cheat on the Wii, but obviously I was wrong…… and it’s put me off that stupid game and console even more than I was before.

Amusingly, and in keeping with my ‘cheating = wanking’ analogy, the cheat’s name was Richard….. yup a Dick.

Donncha’s PS3
It looks like it’s all systems are go – bar a cable – for Donncha and his PS3. He’s already got some BFBC2 games in, so hopefully we can get in a squad and he can act as a human shield show me the ropes.

YouTube
This is literally just a couple of quick things that some people may not be aware of when viewing or uploading to YouTube.
Viewing: On some videos, especially those by Machinima, there are adverts. You can close them off in many cases. However, if you have control of the browser you are using you can do away with them altogether. I don’t know if there are similar add-ons for other browsers but I’m using AdBlock Plus on FireFox – both of which you can get for no monies!

Machinima YouTube video in Google Chrome

The same video in FireFox with AdBlocker Plus

On the subject of FireFox add-ons and YouTube, if you ever feel the need to download a video from there you can use any of a whole host of add-ons available for that very purpose. I’ve been trying to work out which add-on I use, but they pretty much all do the same thing.

And lastly for YouTube – uploading. I know Geoff does it, I do it and a couple of other people do it – but one thing that a lot of people don’t do when uploading videos is to set their work to ‘Private’ until it has finished processing. Even Machinima doesn’t do it which is quite surprising – but is also the reason why the first 20 or so messages on their uploads are always along the lines of “Quality sucks…”.

A couple of uploaders said that doing this messes with the subscription visibility for their subscribers, but I suspect that they chose the Private option after it had completed the upload. The Private option needs to be chosen and saved before the upload completes.

Peas and loaves.

Find me on PSN – evaDlivE

Stimulus Pack, Mario Kart and BFBC2

Just quick post this evening, nothing fancy.

Stimulus Pack
New video from Hutch interviewing FourZeroTwo about the Stimulus Pack.
Points discussed:

• When will it be released for PC and PS3
• Crash and Overgrown
• Any other CoD4 maps being released
• DLC Rumours
• Pricing decisions

And here’s the vid:

Mario Kart Wii

My friend and Nintendo fanboy Mike well and truly made me his bitch on Mario Kart Wii the other night. Apparently you can play up to eight players on the multiplayer, but as he’s the only person I know with a Wii it was just the two of us. I think I was at a slight disadvantage as Mike has unlocked everything and has achieved gold on every track including the mirror cups – while I have about ten hours of play time…. I won one race out of four Grand Prix which is 1/16. However, despite Mike’s flawless sprints around the tracks he told me that he can’t win against other people via the Mario Kart Wii channel – which is rather revealing.

I think that this will be one game that I play with the kids and that’s it. It makes me swear enough when I play against the AI, I think I’d probably have an aneurysm if I played it online.

Stupid Nintendo and their stupid games.

Battle Field Bad Company 2

I’ve decided I’m going to get BFBC2 on the PS3 next week. I’ve got some games on ebay, and if they don’t sell, then they’ll be traded in against it. I wasn’t too fussed about the game before it came out as Modern Warfare 2 is where all the cool kids were at, plus it’s an EA title and I’m not a huge fan of theirs. But after seeing the different videos that are coming out from the likes of Geoff and StoneFaceLock amongst others and reading about the fun that people such as Donncha have been having with it I think it’s time to swallow my pride and jump on that combat band wagon.

Errr…. that’s it. Thanks for reading.

Peas and loaves.

Find me on PSN – evaDlivE

Weekly-ish Update #3

Thursday Thursday Thursday – it’s Weekly-ish Update Day! This is the Reader’s Digest version of what’s gone on in the past week. This is aimed at new visitors to the blog who may not know what’s going on and as a recap not only for you subscribers, but for me as well. It’s nice to get everything in one place and give any little updates that would be missed on the original post.

Cheating
It’s been an interesting week for the subject of cheating. Premier Call of Duty site codnation.net launched it’s own Boosting/Modded Lobbies section. I initially thought that it was to flag said goings on, but alas it was actually to promote the practice. That made me decide to leave their site and the story is told in the Boosters, Boosting and general disappointment post. I haven’t viewed any of the responses to my Goodbye post on codnation.net, but when I checked the site earlier the Boosting/Modded Lobbies was no longer visible to me. The section is still accessible though so I don’t know what’s going on there.

On the same theme – Wings of Redemption has caused more controversy. This time by allegedly touting the services of a prestige hacker……for a price. The Who is Wings of Redemption post has been updated with that information and given a bit of an overhaul to make it easier to read.

Last on the cheating bus is the announcement from FourZeroTwo on Twitter that they are patching the super fast lobbies. I don’t actually know what these are as it appears they are an Xbox phenomenon, but I do know someone who finds themselves in them all the time…

Links, Link Throughs and The Geoff Effect
As I’ve said before it’s a bit of a surprise to me that people not only read this blog, but come back for more. And it’s great! So thanks everyone who has subscribed and those regular visitors and posters. I would like to make special mention to Geoff (sasbenjr) who has harnessed the power of YouTube and sent an ungodly amount of people this way…..twice

Link throughs from Geoff = many peeps

I was happy getting visitor numbers that barely made double digits so seeing this many visits is mind blowing.
Thanks Geoff, and to everyone else who has linked here – the offer still stands regarding graphics for regular contributors (Geoff, Paul, Donncha etc). I appreciate everyone who takes the time to read and contribute here so please don’t get offended if I haven’t mentioned you by name.

There are a couple of new blogs in the blogroll on the right (and there are also a couple more blogs that I’m subscribed to but haven’t yet added) that you might like to have a look at.

Big post, Little post?
As I have a tendency to post a load of entries within a short amount of time I was concerned that some of you might not appreciate your inbox being flooded with yet another entry from me. So I put it to the polls and so far it’s overwhelmingly (statistically speaking) in favour of the ad hoc posting as opposed to one massive post per day – and only one Spartacus…..

General Gaming
This was the week that wasn’t. I played more Mario Kart on the Wii than Modern Warfare2, plus I was a bit under the weather with the same thing that everyone else seems to have at the moment – basically a cold. Mario Kart Wii still disappoints me, but it’s not as bad as I initially felt. And now that I’ve gone back to a proper FAL loadout MW2 is no longer the mass of donkey balls it was while using the Acog Scope.

I’ve also been watching quite a few BFBC2 videos and so that may on the cards at some point…..

The Hauppage Fund

Minor set back. Normal service will resume shortly…..

YouTube
SneakyMode has joined OnlyUseMeBlade and taken a leave of absence from video making. It’s a shame as he was working on a nice interface and then all of a sudden…..gone. Oh, well, good luck to him.

Meanwhile, my channel (MrCheapkills) is bumbling along as usual. Three to Watch is up to Week 5 – and continues to have a positive response. However, I think I’m going to have to diversify a bit and include at the very least BFBC2 vids.

MW2 Stimulus Pack
Xbox beta testers (hehehe)…. only five days to go! PS3 and PC – end of April apparently. I think we’ll see a resurgence of interest in MW2 from this – despite the grumblings that people have about the price. Personally, I’m looking forward to it and will be raiding the penny jar for this DLC. More info here.

Search Terms
Unfortunately I can’t better “phalanges of pterodactyl” in the search terms used to find this blog. For most of the week the search terms have been pretty constant with the top 5 being:
#5 heartbeat sensor noob
#4 modern warfare 2 vs bad company 2
#3 sasbenjr
#2 wings of redemption
#1 mw2 stimulus map pack

That is pretty much it for this week. There are a couple of other posts that have been made on various things. I hope this has found you well, and hasn’t taken up too much time to read. As ever, thanks for taking the time to read my posts and sharing your thoughts with me and the other readers.

Peas and loaves.

Find me on PSN – evaDlivE