So you want to form your own esports team

So I've had this idea of going to this nearby pc cafe to play games with friends. Well, I've finally made the plans and I'm having a small meetup with friends (just three confirmed at the moment) at Planet Cyber in Woodland Hills. The initial goal of this was to hang out with my best friends, play pc games, and enjoy each others' company. But this idea has since grown into a bigger idea-what if I could create my own amateur esports and/or competitive team?

This seems super difficult but it is feasible. At the time currently I have two friends who would definitely be down for sure. Four more and we have a competitive Overwatch team to work with. I'm also interested in playing Team Fortress competitively as well, although that game is pretty dead in that aspect. There's other games to think about too, like Heroes of the Storm. I'm pretty good at all these games but we'd probably end up focusing on Overwatch and playing Team Fortress for fun. So the focus would be on those two games.

For the Overwatch team I would main Ana, Mercy, Lucio, and Zenyatta. For Team Fortress I'd play medic but have secondary scout, pyro, and soldier. One of my friends plays a mean Soldier 76. And the other one is a great Winston and Roadhog. These three confirmed friends are all pretty good Team Fortress players. One of them even has like 8000 hours on the game. Wowza!

This is an idea I'll talk about to the guys and see if they would be interested. If not, I can always place an ad on Meetup and find some serious gamers who would be down for this. I think in the long run I will have to end up doing this but because this idea is just in the blueprint stage I will ask the people I know first.

Sounds super fun but it won't be easy finding the right people with the skills and synchronicity for frags and team based fps's. Looking forward to seeing how this plays out.

See ya later space cowboys

Steam summer sale

In case you didn't know the Steam summer sale has been going on for a while. It ends on the 4th of July-really soon! If you wanted to pick up any of those triple A titles or indie games now is your last chance!

My friend got me Fallout 2 because he heard me talking about wanting to try out the older Fallouts. I mentioned to him that I thought the idea of a turn based Fallout sounded cool. It was only $5.99, not too shabby. What a great friend!

I figured I'd talk about some of the highlighted deals.

The Fallout franchise is 40-50% off. I really only wanted Fallout 2 as I have Fallout 3 and New Vegas. Plus I share my steam account with my brother who owns Fallout 4 so I can play it whenever he's not logged on. Fallout is a great series-definitely one of the best pc gaming series. 

Call of Duty Black Ops III is 50% off. I've actually wanted to get this game for a while but I held off-for good reason. I played the beta and it was great. But once the game came out for $60 I felt that was too much for what the game offered. My friend has a multiplayer competitive map only version that I can always play if I want to play it again.

Metal Gear Solid The Phantom Pain is 30% off. I've always wanted to play this game because it got god-like reviews and everybody under the sun was praising it. I haven't played a Metal Gear game since I played an older one on Gamecube as a kid. I used to love doing stealth takedowns and stuffing the bodies into lockers. Great experience. 10/10 would play again.

Rocket League is 40% off. This is a game I like to play with my friend when we chill. I've always wanted to pick it up but again, I've held off because its a game I'd only want to play when my friend is in the same room. The game offers a lot for an indie title.

Undertale is 30% off. This is another one of those must play games that I haven't played. Now that its so cheap I will probably look into it more. I dig indie retro style games because it gives me something different from the mostly multiplayer experience that I indulge in everyday. Sometimes you need to take a step back and enjoy a single player game.

The Witcher franchise is 50-85% off. I've always wanted to play The Witcher 3 the Wild Hunt. It's another one of those must play triple A titles that the gaming media hyped up-for good reason. The game is amazing.

Age of Empires HD Edition is $2.99. The original Age of Empires was one of the best rts (real time strategy games) ever made. I was just a second grader when I was playing it with my childhood friend from. We used to get a kick out of the elephant ram units. For this price it would be a shame not to pick it up.

Counter Strike Global Offensive is 50% off. If you like shooters and don't have this game yet do yourself a favor and pick it up. You won't regret it. Competitive. Massive player-base. Fun.

The Doom franchise is 40-50% off. The new Doom game has been tempting but I've held off because I heard the multiplayer wasn't as good as the single player. I've never played a Doom game but maybe now is the time.

Left 4 Dead 2 is 80% off. For this low a price and the chance to shoot thousands of zombies you would be messing up if you didn't already have this game. Not to mention the pvp combat can be fun too.

Civilization V is 75% off. This is another one of those must play pc titles. It's on every best pc games list that I've ever seen. It must be great. Although it seems like a complex rts game that I might not understand at first, if I give it a shot and learn the mechanics I might really like it. This is another one I'm definitely interested in.

Hyper Light Drifter is 20% off. Not much of a sale but I've heard great things about the game. That it's as difficult as Dark Souls with the sprites of an indie dev team. I think it would make a great game for my stream.

So I'll keep the list there because these are the games I'm the most interested in. I've come to the conclusion that I should get Civilization V and Hyper Light Drifter. Can't go wrong with that. Not bad Steam. Not bad at all. 

FPS gaming event at Fire and Dice

     Today was the first time I've ever gone to Fire and Dice for an event that was not a Smash tournament. It turned out to be super fun! My friend recommended that we go because he saw that they were having an fps (first person shooter) gaming event on meetup.com. This is the first time I've ever gone to an event that was posted on meetup and it turned out to be a pleasant experience.
     We got there around 4:30 pm (it started at 4) and there was only like five dudes there plus the three guys who run Fad. We started things out by playing some Call of Duty Black Ops II, a super good game that I've played quite a bit despite not really being much of a first person shooter fan. We played zombies and it turned out to be pretty lame. We only lasted 8 rounds lol. Not sure how that happened but once we started playing four player free for all that was when the real fun started. Because there was so few people we all got our own monitor and xbox 360 to play on, and we just played in a local lan connection game. I really shine in Black Ops II because of the Mtar, a super good assault rifle that I annihilate with. My friend won the first game by a couple kills but I wasn't far behind. I think he won again the second time. The third time I tied the game with him. And the last match we played I won by a good couple kills. It was truly satisfying defeating my friend and these random dudes I just met because my friend is a super good fps gamer that destroys most people at shooters. He's the kind of guy who's born to play shooters. He should play Call of Duty, Counter Strike, or Team Fortress 2 competitively for money, he's that good. He was once a part of a competitive Team Fortress 2 team but he's no longer doing it for some reason
     After we played Call of Duty me and my friend threw down for a large pizza with one of the guys and we ate. Not the best pizza in the world but it certainly filled our stomachs. Then we played Gears of War III horde mode. It was kind of exhausting because unending hordes of monsters isn't really my thing but in the end it turned out to be pretty fun. It was the second time I've ever played Gears of War III and I don't think I quite get the duck and cover mechanics the game has to offer. However, we were only playing on casual mode which was pretty easy. Starting around the 26th round things started to get increasingly more difficult. Keep in mind that there are only 50 rounds in total. In the end we only made up to the 30th round, which had a boss fight. At that point I was very tired and disoriented from playing so much xbox that I wasn't really trying. But it was a good experience and my first time playing horde mode on Gears.
     Later, we went to my friends house and played the Overwatch beta. I find Overwatch to be very energetic and in your face but its also kind of a cluster-fuck if you don't know what the heroes do and how to play them. I'll have to play more of it at my friends pad when we hang out. I really like the game and the whole idea of heroes having their own special abilities and ways to play. That differs heavily from other shooters except maybe Team Fortress 2, which created that idea in fps gaming. We can see today that Call of Duty tried to do something similar in Black Ops III but I don't think they pulled it off very well. It's just another generic Call of Duty really.
     Lastly, playing so well in CoD today made me realize that I'm pretty good at shooters. I should play them more often on PC. I'm interested in playing more Team Fortress 2 for sure because my friend still plays that a lot. In fact, we used to play it a lot while talking on our headsets. Also, my brother is in the beta for Overwatch so hopefully he'll let me use his account to play it. First person shooters can be a blast sometimes. It was a good day off from work! If Fire and Dice continues to do more events like this I would definitely be down to go if I'm free.

My FPS experience

I've been gaming a lot lately, doing what I usually do on the daily. I've been playing a lot more fps (first person shooters) games and I noticed I'm actually pretty good at them. Fps games can sometimes be a little tricky at first because there are just so many factors that go into shooters. Most of it just comes down to whoever is the more skilled player will take out the player who is less skilled than him. But in certain cases (like mine), I just usually end up getting lucky, and that ain't bad. I feel like a lot of fps skill is kind of based on luck because you can ambush people when they weren't on their guard and stuff like that. I was always terrible at playing Call of Duty, like on Xbox360, but when I switched over the PC I became much better. The mouse and keyboard is idea for aiming and looking down sites because it is more precise than a controller. When my brother got me CoD: Advanced Warfare I became really good at shooting games because I learned the play style. Also, it doesn't hurt than Advanced Warfare is a more tactical Call of Duty, nowhere near as campy as CoD: Ghosts. Eventually I became so good that I was always 1st or 2nd on the leader boards in every game.

     And then I just stopped playing. I felt like I'd exhausted everything in the game and eventually the whole Advanced Warfare community just stopped playing. Also, there were a lot of hackers on the PC version. It made for horrible games with the hacking so obvious that every time you spawned you would immediately die. That was how bad it got. I'm not sure if anythings been fixed regarding the game but I highly doubt it now that there's a new CoD game out called Black Ops III. That was pretty much the end of fps games for me.

     Until I met a new friend. He's super into fps games and he's pretty good at them. We started playing Team Fortress 2 and its been a blast. Its really getting me back into fps games because I'm realizing they are more fun with friends talking on discord. I got a really cool gun in Team Fortress that vaporizes enemy players in 1 or 2 hits. It's really fucking good! But I still have problems with the aiming system in Team Fortress 2. Perhaps I have to play with a higher sensitivity or something. It's a great game, probably the best shooter out there. At my friends house I even got to play Overwatch once. He coached me through a game and I played amazing well.

     And then when Battlefront III came out I was playing that for a while. I still am actually. I find the shooting in the game to be vastly different from any other kinds of fps games. I'm still at a loss at how to play this game really. In addition, I got Unreal Tournament III at Goodwill once and I've got it set up so that I can play on private servers online and still play the game online even though the original game servers are down. I used to be a beast at Unreal Tournament III on the Xbox360, back in the day. Unreal Tournament is another one of those fps games that you just have to play at least once. It's an amazing shooting experience, the best arena shooter.

      But when I got into the Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex multiplayer game beta I realized I'm actually pretty damn good at fps games. One part of why I do so well in GotS (Ghost in the Shell) is that the maps are designed in a way that you will be punished for camping or staying in one spot for a long time. Keep in mind that I only play team deathmatch because whenever I try doing the other game modes it takes forever to find players and I always just end up leaving the queue. So this game is all about running and gunning, basically the same tactics as in Battlefront III. The better you are at run and gun, the better player you will be. That's my basic tactic, just run, look for enemy players, then shoot. Run around some more and repeat. Somehow I've done amazing well with this tactic. I average like 20 kills a game and sometimes I even get more than that. Not bad for a game that's still in early access. I highly recommend this game by the way.

     The thing that this game has going for it is the name and the brand. Ghost in the Shell is a beloved anime and I can only imagine what kinds of things they will add to the game once its polished and released after beta. I feel like the graphics are meh and that the abilities of the Operatives (basically the same system as in Black Ops III, where you choose a hero and they have special abilities) don't really help you out in any significant way. Since when are shooters becoming like mobas? I find the abilities not that important because even if somebody is using their ability they can be taken out easily with a gun shot. However, this game shines in its game play.

     The first thing you notice when you play team deathmatch is that everybody is playing it as a team. Nobody is going out like little Rambo's like in Call of Duty. It feels like a tactical Counter Strike match where you have to disable the bomb. Everybody's moving in like a squad and not just going in death after death. They're using their head and playing smart. This has helped me learn to be more patient in shooters and not just try to shoot an enemy when I first see them. Sometimes you want to hide behind corners, wait for them to shoot and they have to reload, or just flank them by taking an alternate route on the map and just rushing them. This is all basic stuff to fps gamers but I had to learn all of this myself. I just got the hang of it recently and its been a blast! This Ghost in the Shell game has been my catalyst fps game and now I'm hooked.

     I'm going to keep trying to improve in Battlefront III, keep up with Team Fortress 2 with my friend, play Unreal Tournament III, and definitely keep playing Ghost in the Shell. The beauty of fps games is that you don't have to invest too much time into them for you to have a good time. You can be very casual with it and play a few matches before bed. I've only really been playing a bit here and there and its been very rewarding and satisfying. Nothing feels better than getting that headshot kill, double kill, and possibly even triple kill and being on top of the leader boards with the most kills. The number one fps game I'm looking out for Overwatch. I'm hoping that it comes out sometime later this year. But we don't really know for sure when it will come out. Overwatch is going to be a huge game. Even in beta I can see that it has so much potential as another great Blizzard game. Watch out for its release maybe sometime this year. Shooters can be a little hard to get into at first because it might feel like a steep learning curve, but once you get the hang of it you can just annihilate online. It's good, clean fun!

Back to work, I've got a good rhythm going!

   

     Today I went back to work after a long three day weekend of gaming, guitar, and hanging out with my friends and family. It was refreshing to go back to work because work is good for the soul and is necessary in order to buy all the things we want-in my case food and games. I've got a much better attitude coming back to work and I'm going to do my best there. I would say there's dignity in any kind of work, even in the retail service industry. In addition, I'm waking up earlier at around noon everyday to work on guitar, game, and eat before I go to work. It's been working out for me pretty well. I've been playing Mario Kart 8 and Smash lately as well as Call of Duty Advanced Warfare and Ghosts. I gotta say that Ghosts is the most campy CoD game I've ever played. I think all people do in that game is just sit and wait for people to walk by to snipe them. Its quite difficult for me to play. I'm not the best CoD player in the world but I'd like to become better.. It doesn't take rocket science or amazing motor skills. But it does take a fast trigger finger. But when it comes down to it, all you're doing is running and shooting with a mouse and keyboard. It seems easy until you go up against some good people online. That's the best part of online gaming-testing your skills against real people.
     Also, I'm thinking about all the other stuff I'm going to need to get for my Wii and other games in general. For one thing, there's Metal Gear Solid: The Phantom Pain. I really want to get it after seeing the 9.5 it got in Game Informer and the 9 out 10 AngryJoe (YouTube personality) gave it on YouTube. Then there's things I need like a Wii Remote Plus and the Mario Kart wheel that I want just to try driving with. Then there's Street Fighter V that I want to get for the PC. I just checked it out on the Steam page and if you pre-purchase it you'll be able to play the beta, and tons of people are playing the beta. I was talking to a friend I work with today and he said for the first time in a game they are doing cross servers for the PS4 and PC in SFV! I also want to get this cool Solid Snake shirt because I became a Snake fan after owning my friends in Brawl with him. These are all things to think about for the holidays. Some of this stuff I could get my older brother too because he would totally play the Phantom Pain and Street Fighter. Also, my brother ordered the new steam controller so I'm looking forward to seeing how that owl looking thing works out for him.
     On a side note my younger brother sent me our old copy of Super Smash Brothers Melee as a birthday gift. He was even able to find our old memory card so I'll have everything unlocked when I play it with my buds. Whatta guy!

Dim Sum, Sunday Funday

     

     Today was a super fun end to an amazing birthday weekend. I woke up around 11 and we got ready to go to dim sum (Chinese brunch) at our favorite Chinese restaurant A&W Seafood, the one in Northridge. This one is the best one for dim sum and it was great! The food was excellent as always but today we seemed to have a lot more food to go around with our family of four. My favorite thing to eat is the chicken feet. I know that the idea of chicken feet might put some people off but its so tasty, especially with spicy sauce. I also really like the Chinese spare ribs, they're a lot smaller than regular beef and pork ribs but they have so much flavor. Then there's the jook, which is like a salty porridge that tastes good with a bit of soy sauce. Also, we had honey walnut shrimp just because I really like shrimp. It's a lot better than the walnut shrimp that I sometimes get at Panda Express. We also had barbecue pork buns, small custard pies, sticky rice, noodles with barbecued pork inside of them, and this great dessert that feels like a sponge but is sweet and delicious. A&W's has a great atmosphere while you eat. There are tons of other families all around you all eating all this great food. Everyone's talking, eating, and having a great time. It's become one of my favorite restaurants here in the Valley. The thing about dim sum is that you have to know what you want and how to order because sometimes they might not have everything you want. 
     In addition, my parents got me gift cards for Panda Express and Chipolte, not too shabby! They gave me this card that's a little funny. It has these two kids wearing these weird glasses and wearing all this crap all over themselves and it has a funny message in it. It's very me. My dad got a cool pop out birthday card with cash money in it. That cash money though! I talked to my mom the other day and she said my gift would be coming through the mail a little late, I'm hoping there's going to be cash in it (lols). And my younger brother sent me Super Smash Brothers Melee as a gift for me, our original version we had as kids. I'm looking forward to playing Melee with my friends, I think I will wreck them with Fox super hard. I've kind of become used to playing all the variations of Smash lately. If I had to say which one is my favorite I would have to say Brawl because I like Snake in it and I feel like the physics in the game is slower and easier to understand. Smash 4 is a bit faster and more like Melee but still different from Melee, which is more about pure technical skill (in my opinion).
     After lunch we went home and I played some guitar. I hadn't played guitar for damn near a week so I thought I would be super rusty but nope. My hot licks were all there and I even had some good speed. I was focusing my practice routine on just improvising lines, but singing the lines in my head before I play it and then play it on the guitar. It's a really simple exercise that sounds great once you know what you're doing. I was getting all those old timely jazz guitar licks (like from the 30s and 40s) today, licks a la Tal Farlow, Charlie Christain, and Les Paul, although I'm nowhere near any of those guys' level. I was just doing an imitation of their style, and it sounded great surprisingly. Jazz lines are a little weird to figure out because what makes a line jazzy is all these little blue notes and swing them, and you have to know what you're doing to play them. You can't just run up and down scales, which is what I'm more used to coming from a rock/metal background. It was pretty good. In addition, I might be performing on a composition by a friend of the family's called I can't breathe-Eric Gardner. It would be cool to add some violent electric guitar to a piece with a name like that. So I might go to Chicago and perform with a great composer named Frank Abbinanti. I would learn a lot about music rehearsing and performing with him. 
     After guitar stuff I played games. Mostly Smash on the new Wii U. I played an awful lot of four player free for all because I want to become better than my friends at free for all. But realistically free for all isn't all that important, I'm all about the 1v1 game, especially because Fox isn't a great ffa (free for all) character. Then I hopped on the good 'ole pc master-race console. I still haven't forgotten that thing! I played a round of Heroes of the Storm and then saw one of my friends on and I asked him if he wanted to practice against me in Starcraft so we hopped on that game, we were going to go on the beta for Legacy of the Void but there are issues in playing with friends in the beta so we played plain 'ole Heart of the Swarm. Surprisingly I did pretty well against him. The last time we played he crushed me badly every time. Winning in Starcraft is great, its completely different from winning in Smash. Its more of a brainy strategic win and it makes me feel like a million bucks. I've been practicing more because Legacy of the Void is coming out in November and I want to make sure I at least have some skills for the multiplayer game. 
    Lastly, I ended the night with some Call of Duty Advanced Warfare. I find Call of Duty super hard to play but I think that's just because I haven't set up my custom weapons, perks, and load-outs with the proper equipment and guns that I need to fit my play-style. The way I play is a straight up Rambo run and gun type guy, which is totally the way to play Advanced Warfare. Other CoD games you want to camp sometimes and take it easy because running is slow but in Advanced Warfare you can jump and run across the map super fast, because of the exo-suit. It's still a fun game but I think the servers are dead because the only games you can get into are team death-match, nobody is playing any of the other options unfortunately. And now I'm relaxing listening to some Les Paul and Mary Ford. What a great end to a wonderful birthday weekend. Tomorrow I'll go back to work and try not to get fired, haha. 

Call of Duty Advanced Warfare Review

     I talked briefly about this game in a short post about a year ago but here I'll give it a full glorified review. Call of Duty Advanced Warfare is a military science fiction first person shooter developed by Activision (or Blizzard Activision now). Sledehammer games developed the PC, Xbox1, and Playstation4 versions, while High Moon Studios developed the Xbox360 and Playstation3 versions, and Raven Software developed the game's multiplayer and exo-zombies mode. That's a lot of development! The game came out in November 2014. I got the game as a Christmas present from my older brother. Good gift brah. When the game came out it was sort of loved and hated by the gaming community. Some players loved the great single player campaign, the science fiction laser guns(lazors!), and the great graphics. It was considered a commercial success in gaming. Let's talk about the single player campaign first.
     Sledgehammer employed Kevin Spacey and Troy Baker in lead roles and they really make the single player campaign great. The story follows Jack Mitchell of the United States Marine Corp as he joins Atlas, a private military corporation that sells its services to the highest bidder. Eventually he finds out that what he's getting into is a truly evil corporation lead by Kevin Spacey, and he ends up teaming up with some other peeps to take down the entire corporation. I can say right now that there isn't anything unique or surprising in the entire campaign, but there is some great voice acting by Kevin Spacey especially that makes it feel more like a movie rather than just a video gaming, giving the Call of Duty series that extra edge it desperately needs in a single player campaign. There are a couple things I remember even after playing it a year ago.
     There was this one level where you get to burst inside of Atlas using one of their own sort of Gundam type soldier machines, a giant hulking machine with tons of guns and grenades. Another level that was memorable was when you get to go to outer space to destroy this Atlas satellite. The funny thing is that you get to shoot people with guns in outer space. Don't even ask me how that works. And lastly, there is a great level near the end where you're fighting Atlas baddies in the middle of Atlas' little town-square, and there are tons of those Gundam type machines shooting at you and you have to take out all of them! That's one of them in the picture. So there were some memorable moments in the campaign. It's about as long as every other Call of Duty campaign so you can beat it pretty quickly. Now, let's talk about how this game changed the Call of Duty system.
     This game is unlike every other Call of Duty. It's harder to camp in this game because of the exo-suit and exo-abilities. The exo-suit is like this futuristic suit that soldiers from Atlas wear that improves pretty much everything from jump, speed, and strength. Maybe in 2054 we really would have something like it. For one thing the exo-suit can make you jump up super high into the air, Halo style. You get a double jump as well as a little hover in the air as your jumping. Not only that but you also get exo-abilities in this game too. One allows you to cloak for short time, another gives you a hover in the air, and another one gives you super speed. Because of this stuff you can't really say that this is just another Call of Duty game. It's a Call of Duty game with different mechanics and play style. You can literally cover the entire maps in seconds in this game so it's a much different game when it comes to general Call of Duty standards like camping, spawn killing, and quick scoping. It's harder to do all three of those things in this game because players can really get in your face and just wreck you mercilessly. It's pretty cool how they changed the mechanics in a Call of Duty game but it doesn't 'feel' like Call of Duty if you get what I mean, it feels more like Halo or more appropriately Titanfall. This is good because it gives something new to the community but I don't think the community really took to this game, especially on PC. The PC version is the one that I own. Speaking of which.
      The PC version of this game had many bugs and glitches for me. And it turned out that I wasn't the only one with these problems because the forums had all kinds of questions from other gamers saying they were having problems. I was eventually able to fix most of the bugs and constant crashing by tweaking some options and stuff but it was still annoying to deal with-my computer was fairly new at the time and I had a fairly good graphics card. Another thing that went bad with this game is that the PC version is completely dead online. Nobody plays the game anymore. The only game mode you will be able to find games in is Team Deathmatch. Kind of sad because this is actually a fun game. In addition, the game is full of hackers, at least on PC. I got into a game the other day where a guy was going 99 and 2, and everytime I respawned I would die instantly somehow. So not only is it a dead game but its got some hackers, also I believe that this game doesn't use dedicated servers. With that being said, I never got to enjoy the full potential of this game and try out all the game modes. I didn't even buy the exo-zombies dlc because I figured what's the point when there will be nobody to play with. But it ain't all bad.
      Team Deathmatch is still fun in this game, no doubt. It's fun using the science fiction guns like the lasers and the gravity gun. Let me also mention that this game is also an e-Sport, but I don't know how popular it is, if at all. The single player campaign was one of the best in any Call of Duty and perhaps in any first person shooter I've played. Kevin Spacey's acting really made the story enjoyable, although the story is sort of droll. I have friends on steam that still play the game and when they are on I usually join their games. This game is a big change for the Call of Duty series but I don't see them making more games like Advanced Warfare, it's too much of a change from the camp, spawn killing, and quick scoping of the usual Call of Duty player base. Because I had so many problems with this game I give it a 7 out of 10. It would be an 8 but the PC version is dead and I have nobody to play with. Rip Advanced Warfare.
    

Call of Duty Black Ops III beta, Starting guitar lessons

     I got into the Call of Duty Black Ops III beta on PC today. I'll tell you a little bit about it. From just loading the game and checking out some of the new features, it seems that all fps games are trying to copy each other. For one thing, BoIII has hero characters that you can pick, and they all have unique abilities that only work with that chosen hero. Sounds kind of similar to what I was playing just the other day, the Dirty Bomb beta. Another thing that BoIII has that all fps games already have been doing is the whole parkour running on walls thing-which I believe came from this game called Brink, a game that kind of flopped as a major fps sell. I don't consider myself a fps gamer by any means, and I really suck badly at them but I do have a lot in my pc game collection: Battlefield 4, Titanfall, Cod Advanced Warfare, and Cod Ghosts. What I can say about BoIII is that it is way better than BoII because of the heroes and the way the unique abilities work. It's really like a brand new Call of Duty game even though its really just the same old style gameplay of run and gun, and with people going in like little Rambo's, even on team deathmatch, which is the only gametype I played today. Let me give you the good, the bad, and the nerdy (thumbs up if you get that reference).
     First of all, team deathmatch is a joy to play. It's really really fun. Probably the most fun I've ever had playing a fps game ever. I played for maybe an hour, an hour and a half and I never got bored. I played this hero where after a while you get to use this ability where you use this electric gun, when you shoot them, they get electrocuted. In addition to him I played this female hero who uses a bow and arrow as her special and the arrows explode when they stick to anything. Pretty cool stuff. The guns seem pretty unoriginal and boring. And my biggest complaint about the guns in every CoD game is that they have no fucking recoil. You can go full auto all day and you just don't 'feel' it at all. I like to have some kind of realistic ideas in my games. Its a total fantasy gun game, I get it, but it would be a game changer if the guns worked just a tiny bit more like real guns. In Dirty Bomb, there's a bit of a kickback to the guns, which I definitely prefer. It makes you aim your shots a little bit different, its a better way to shoot in my opinion. Now, if you're looking for a major graphics upgrade you will not find it here. The beta graphics look just the same as Advanced Warfare, maybe only a step up above Ghost, albeit a little bit more colorful because most of these maps in the beta are all outside for some reason, and Advanced Warfare was kind of gun-metal gray for the most part. All I played was team deathmatch so unfortunately I can't really say anything else about the game. But from what I played I am very happy with the game. It's the same CoD gameplay that everyone knows and loves, but there's the twist with the heroes. Also, they didn't go crazy with the futuristic stuff they did in Advanced Warfare. Instead, you're mainly using standard guns, maybe a little bit more advanced than real life weaponry but not complete crazy like the lasers from Aw. I think this will the best CoD to come out in a long time, they've always done a great job with the Black Ops part of the series. Looking forward to participating more in the beta and seeing the finished product in November, the 6th if I recall correctly.
     Also, starting on Sunday I'm going to be taking guitar lessons from a jazz guitarist that comes to the store I work at. I got to talking to him and I mentioned that he should give me lessons because I'm having a rough time trying to learn how to play jazz on my own. The truth and best idea I think would be for me just to go back to college, even if its just community college. I'm sure I would learn more if I got to play with a band instead of just playing solo guitar, which can be a bit hard to improvise over changes because I can't hear the changes as I'm playing over them. It's a real conundrum for me. I think I will eventually just go back to college because the only way to get better is by playing with real jazz musicians, and I'll find other young musicians like me at schools. Going back to school is something I should've done a while ago but I keep holding off. Anyways, I'm looking forward to the lessons and I hope I can learn stuff and put it to good use. By the way, that's Marty Friedman, the guitar sempai with a bunch of cute Japanese girls. He's one of my favorite guitar players. Not necessarily a jazz guitarist but he does do a lot of jazzy stuff in his playing. 

What I think of Call of Duty Advanced Warfare

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     I beat Call of Duty Advanced Warfare just the other day. I didn't think I was the type of FPS (first person shooter) gamer. You know, all those kids on Xbox live who talk shit and yell into the mike when they play Call of Duty Games. Those kids are annoying and give the Call of Duty series a bad name. Never the less, Advanced Warfare might be the best Call of Duty game since Black Ops. I played the heck out of Black Ops with a friend of mine I met online. If you don't want the story spoilers then don't read any further. 

     The story is simple minded but the interesting thing about it is that it features Kevin Spacey as the leader of this military outfit called Atlas. Your character was part of the marines but you lost your arm in a mission and your best friend, who's Kevin Spacey's son dies. At the funeral Spacey gives you a card and says to see you to get your life back.
     So you meet up with Spacey at his Atlas place and he gives you a mechanical arm and decides you should join Atlas. I won't spoil the story too much but basically Spacey turns out to be a bad guy and you end up joining  a renegade outfit to stop him. It's a little cliche that the good guy turns out to be the bad guy but that's pretty much the story, it doesn't really get anymore complicated than that. However, that doesn't mean that the game-play wasn't fun even if the story was a little lacking in creativity and the character simply had no personality whatsoever.
     The cool thing about this game is that you have an exo-suit that allows you to perform special abilities. You have a jet-pack that allows you to double jump. You have a move where you can move to the left and the right really quick. In addition, you have cloaking and an ability that slows down everything so you can carefully aim down the sight and kill a bunch of guys really fast. This stuff is all really cool and its even in multiplayer.
     The multiplayer is where this game really shines. I would say this is the best part of the game even though I have barely scratched the surface of load-outs, custom weapon slots, and exo-abilities. I know this game will definitely became a big game in E-sports and MLG (Major League Gaming). If I could give this game a rating I would give it a 4 out of 5. It's so good. Although the single player campaign is a bit bland, the multiplayer definitely makes up for it. Great game!