First Foray into Multiplayer: Part Three - Battlefield 4

In Part One, we looked at Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag and Blacklight: Retribution. In Part Two, we looked at Call of Duty: Ghosts. Now, we'll get into Battlefield 4

People often compare COD and the Battlefield franchise, but these games are worlds apart when it comes to multiplayer. Okay, the single-player games are similar, but that’s expected. The multiplayer area is where where things really diverge.

What Makes the Multiplayer Special?

Battlefield offers huge playground where nearly anything can happen. You can create your own stories. Even though I’m terrible at gaming, I’ve done some cool things here.

My team was getting sniped from the top of the tallest structure on the Rogue Transmission map. I was able to climb all the way up to the top of the tower without getting shot, snuck up behind the two snipers and killed them. I then leapt off the top of the tower and opened my parachute at the last minute. I landed in front of an enemy LAV, which was about to destroy me when an engineer from my team destroyed it. All of this was unplanned. It just happened.

That’s just one of the stories that shows the magic of Battlefield. These sorts of things happen with regularity in these matches.

Once you get used to the gunplay and the different classes (I like playing Assault class), it’s a blast, and I highly recommend it – even to people who don’t usually like to play multiplayer.

One of the only things that is frustrating is getting killed by vehicles – I’ve been hunted by tanks and helicopters, but even that is sort of fun, at least when I can get away from them. I’m also not a big fan of getting owned by recon snipers from halfway across the map, but that’s part of the game too. The other times I did (and I die a lot in this game), it’s because I made a mistake or got outplayed by better players. I like that. It makes me strive to be better.

The Bugs

What about all those bugs and other issues everyone is talking about? Well, I think I’ve been fortunate because I haven’t really encountered too many issues.

Sure, I’ve had a few. I will occasionally get some frustrating lag that makes the game virtually unplayable, but I’ve put more than thirty hours into the multiplayer already and have only had that happen on a few matches. I think the kids today are calling the type of lag I get “rubberbanding”.

Another issue is that it sometimes seems like bullets and hits aren’t registering properly. Again, this was minor and it doesn’t seem to happen to me very often.

The Most Fun

So far, I’ve had the most fun when playing Battlefield 4 out of all of the multiplayer games I’ve tried. It haunts my dreams. I do wish more people would use their microphones, as it could be fun to squad up with some players and come up with actual strategies.

I pity any squad that has to put up with my ineptitude though. I did come in #2 on this match, but you can still see from my score that it wasn't much of a feat.

I am the Gomer Pyle of Battlefield. There are stormtroopers and Cobra infantry with better kill/death ratios than I have. I still love it though, and I am getting slowly better.

If you’ve been playing Battlefield 4, how do you like it? Feel free to share your gripes, and some of your cool war stories here in the comments.

First Foray into Multiplayer: Part Two - Call of Duty: Ghosts

In Part One, we covered Blacklight: Retribution and Assassin’s Creed. Now, we’ll move onward to COD.

Call of Duty: Ghosts

This is the Big Boss of multiplayer games from what I hear.

I’ve found that the people here do talk more than they do on the other games. At least that’s the case on the Free-for-All servers I’ve been playing.

However, no one has ever said anything nice. I’m sure there are tons of wonderful, friendly COD players out there who aren’t full of hate, vitriol, racism, and misogyny, but I’m having trouble finding them.

I used to be a hospital corpsman many years ago, and I’m no stranger to swearing – it can be an art form. I also understand that a deathmatch game can call for some trash talk, but there’s a difference between trash talking someone with style and just dropping racist words and F-bombs. It’s an interesting and somewhat disturbing look into human nature.

It isn’t usually kids talking smack here either, which was what I’d initially heard. It was grown ass adults. Let’s look at some of the things I’ve heard.

I heard one father (who may have left his microphone on by mistake) teaching his child racist terms).

I heard one adult woman calling people names that would make a pirate blush.

I heard a man with a French accent claiming that he was a DJ and that he was horny.

More people telling me about Leetle Beach. Again, more on that in a later post.

Now, the game itself is fun and frenetic, a fast-paced. You need fast reflexes and a faster trigger finger. Also, stay the hell away from the damned dogs in that game. They’ll tear you apart.

Of course, the game does have some issues with campers, some of whom camp near spawn spots and others that camp prone near dead bodies. At first, it can be frustrating, but once you realize it’s part of the game and you can’t do anything to stop someone from playing the game the way they want to play it, you can have fun.

I do.

I’m terrible at it, but I still have fun. As soon as I increase my skills a bit more, I’ll branch out into the other game modes as well.

What’s been your experience with the COD franchise? Have I just been unlucky in finding players that like to spout off rotten things about race, religion, and sexual preference, or is this par for the Call of Duty course?

In the next post, we'll look at Battlefield 4 in Part Three.

First Foray into Multiplayer: Part One

I’ve played games for ages, but I never really got on board with the whole multiplayer thing. It had never really appealed to me, so I avoided it.

Of course, as you’ve probably noticed from most of the promised games of this generation (Destiny, Titanfall, The Division, etc.), there is a huge push toward multiplayer for quite a few top tier games. So, I figured that when I got my PS4 at launch, I would dip my toes into the water of multiplayer to see what it was all about.

I’d heard things good and bad about online play, but I had to see for myself. I even bought a Turtle Beach headset. Granted, I got one of the cheaper headsets because I didn’t want to break the bank on something that I might not actually enjoy.

Thus far, I’ve tried out only a few games. Here are my thoughts, and experiences on each.

First though, I’ve found that most people, even though they have their headsets plugged in, don’t speak. They just listen. So that’s what I’ve been doing… listening to the random people noise.

Blacklight: Retribution

This was the first game I tried, as it is a free download on the PSN, and I generally tend to enjoy free. It is a multiplayer only first person shooter, and I really want to like the game. However, being free to play, it does have some issues.

I’ve had server drops, problems with matchmaking, epic lag and other similar issues. However, when the game works, it really can be fun. I like the visor mechanic that lets you see through walls, which adds a new level of strategy and tension.

The game needs some work though for the lag and framerate drops I and other players have been having. I know it’s free, but if they expect folks like me to pay for their in-game items, they’d better have a game that actually works well.

It can be fun, but it can also be frustrating.

This game also happened to be the first place I where I heard about Leetle Beach. More on that in another post though.

Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag

I haven’t had as much time to play this one as much as I would like. It seems fun, and I will probably revisit this game with another post later. However, I jumped in and had no idea what I was doing, so I got my rear handed to me constantly. Although, chances are good the same thing would happen even if I did have a clue.

I really like the idea that it is different from the usual first person shooters out there, and I look forward to trying it again.

In Part Two of the post (out on January 29) we’ll look at my first experiences with Call of Duty: Ghosts multiplayer. Feel free to regale us with tales of your own multiplayer experiences here in the comments!

Welcome to A Geek on Games

Here it is. The inaugural post.

Welcome to AGOG: A Geek on Games.

So, what's this blog gonna be about?

Well, mostly, it will be about video games. I love them and find them to be a wonderful form of entertainment.  I'm not terribly great at them though. In fact, some might even call me abysmal. Once I start streaming, you'll see that for yourselves.

Sometimes, I'll talk about movies or comics or other things that might be a bit on the geeky and nerdy side. Pretty much whatever strikes me and fits the blog's overall tone. I might throw in some out there posts and photos that really don't have much to do with anything at all too, just to keep it interesting.

It will be slow going at first, but I'll try to nail down a blog schedule here within the next few weeks or so. I'm a freelance writer by trade, so finding time to write for the blog should not be too difficult. Of course, sometimes my weeks are hectic, so I can't make any promises. I'll shoot for posting at least twice a week though.

Here's a preview of some of the topics that I'll be writing about in the first couple of posts:

• My experiences with multiplayer (I'm a newcomer to multiplayer)
• Leetle Beach (you'll see what I mean)
• Battlefield 4, COD: Ghosts, Assassin's Creed, and more
• My most anticipated games of the year

It's all about finding the groove right now.

Well, that's not much of a first post, but it should give you an idea of what's coming. I hope you find it interesting enough to come back!