Diary Of A Wimpy Vin Pt2

Day one was a bit a slog for me and I will admit to aching a little bit the next day. My personal Fuel Print shows quite clearly that I lack in both fitness and athleticism (a fact it loves to point out by comparing me to the few friends I have with Nike+ as well as the prints of the two personal trainers). Thankfully, the folks at Nike aren't in this to poke fun at fatties and cripples. The software has preselected which exercises it thinks I would most benefit from and it has allowed me to select precisely which days I can fit my new program in to. Unfortunately for me, my next session was the very next day.

Week One

The sign up and fitness test don’t truly count as your first week, so ‘week one’ starts on your next session (I signed up on the Tuesday, with my first session on Wednesday) and in my personal program I went for three days a week. This input spat out two strength and one cardio session a week for the next four weeks. Each session starts with a good range of warm up exercises and motions that seem to be tailored to get the muscles you’ll be using up to temperature for the upcoming drills. It’s pretty much the same as the fitness tests. The trainer will describe to you what is expected of you, you get into position and complete either the targeted reps or time limit. What’s clever here is the game constantly analyses your movements to try to give tips on how you can improve and get more out of the drill.

My first proper session is a strength workout so once I’m warmed up (read: knackered) it’s straight into my prescribed drills. Nike makes a habit of informing you that strength training is different from weight training in that it’s designed to increase your ‘explosiveness’ (whatever the hell that means) and should keep you burning calories even after you've finished working out. The drills basically boil down to a series of long, slow and determined movements such as push-ups, lunges and squats. Keeping in time is key, too fast or too slow will result in sub-par rep and a sound bite from the trainer.

After the 25 minute workout, I’m given the option to do another round of exercises if I felt particular in the zone (I didn't, and nor did I fancy accepting a challenge in my current state). There are some achievements related to this but I pretty much dying so maybe next time. Then there’s a brief cool-down section to stretch out and bring the workout to close.

Cardio sessions are a little different in that they are all about movement, constant and quick movement, to really get your blood pumping and get a decent sweat on. These sessions are really about proper calorie burning in real time. The drills have a really good mix from bog standard stuff like jogging on the spot to mini game style drill that have you dodging balls or trying to fit through gaps in a glass wall.

After my first week, I’d managed to burn around 400 calories (that’s two pints of lager!) and gained something in the region of 900 Nike fuel points (more on those in a future article). I feel pretty good that I’m actually doing some exercise and I only really had one day of muscle ache while my body got used to the new movements. I did feel like shit straight after one or two of the sessions but I can already feel them getting easier, just.

Next up…Getting used to the routine in week 2!

Diary Of A Wimpy Vin Pt1

Originally posted on PixelBedlam Going to the gym has never inspired me. I join up and go solidly for a few weeks then something breaks my routine (be it illness or car troubles) and I remember how easy it was to NOT go. I severely doubt I’m the only one with this lack of commitment to exercise, especially amongst us gamer types. What can be done with us? How about attaching achievements to it? Enter Nike+ Kinect Training, the latest in a line of kinect based exercise software. Yes, I hear the Internets collective groan of apathy at the slightest mention of motion technology but bare with me as I take you on a journey through my prescribed four week program! DAY ONE That’s right kids, day one is so huge it needs its own article! First things first, make sure your KinectID is set up properly as this will aid your experience no end. Once you put the disc in, it will guide you straight to the set up where you can enter critical info like height, weight and age. This, of course, is not compulsory but let face it, now is not the time to be getting all shy about your weight when your standing in your living room in your pants prancing about in front of your TV. After all, the point is to track your progress accurately. Right, we’re all set up. The next step is brief assessment of your capabilities. In my opinion, this is where the software shines above its direct competitors. Using a few basic movements, the pixelised on-screen trainer will be able to tell if you have balance issues, one stronger leg, problems keeping your back straight and that’s just the problems I had! Think of this as a calibration for your future experience. Straight after this is without a doubt the hardest Nike+ Session you will have. The fitness test. My god am I unfit. By this time, you will have selected which trainer you prefer (obviously I picked the woman, who wants to stare at a bloke the whole time?!) and your personal aim you desire from the program. ‘Get Strong’ focuses on slow, methodical exercises to build up power, ‘Get Lean’ is mostly cardio and ‘Get Toned’ is a decent mixture of the two. I digress, the fitness test is a series of quick movements designed to test your fitness and athleticism, the result of which gives you your Nike+ ‘Fuel Print’. The main idea behind this is to run the test at the beginning and end of your program (or whenever you want) to gauge any improvement and progress. After your test, the software will ask you to choose which days of the week you want to commit to (yes, that right. The dreaded word) and will build an exercise regime based around your goals, strengths and weaknesses by selecting relevant moves from a huge matrix. That’s day one over for now. If you’re feeling brave, or not as dead as I felt, you can jump straight into some unprogrammed sessions or challenges. Personally, I went straight to the shower. I mentioned before about the difficulty of the fitness test. This isn't necessarily about being unfit. I’m not overweight and I have a reasonably active job. The problem is, with life in general, your body is a machine of repetition. Nike+ Kinect will challenge muscles in your body that you never knew you had. Some of the exercises feel really difficult and my body protested at this new strain for the next 24 hours. Next up, the rest of week one!

Battlefield 3 Review*

*Originally posted on 7bitarcade.com

Consoles have been in the multiplayer spotlight for some years now but it wasn’t always so. Before Xbox Live and PSN the only way to get a console online was to buy a Network adapter for your PS2, configure it for four hours then try to find a game that the other ten people in the world who completed the former were playing. Go back even further and the only device capable of such a feat was your trusty Personal Computer. It’s in this sector of history we discover the origins of Battlefield.

The key to the Battlefield heritage, whether set in the past or present, has been its heavy emphasis on vehicular combat. Rather than facing off in the direct firing line of idiots dual wielding AA12’s, players could jump into tanks, jeeps, APCs, fighters, bombers, water craft, anti-aircraft guns and mounted machine-guns. It took computerised warfare away from the simple man v man aspect seen previously and turned it into, well, a battlefield.

Recently, DICE and EA have been playing around with the Battlefield formula and trying to get the consoles users onboard, starting out with the extremely poor Battlefield 2: Modern Combat and then moving onto two story driven games. I, personally, didn’t enjoy Bad Company. It’s single player campaign felt a bit out of sorts and almost entirely unrealistic and, at the time, I wasn’t even hooked up to Xbox Live (for shame) so the multiplayer aspect passed me by completely. So when Bad Company 2 was released and I was initially put off by my experiences of its predecessor. How wrong I was is a story for another time.

Here we are then, Battlefield 3. A direct sequel to the PC only Battlefield 2, the aim is take everything learned from the previous games and produce the ultimate Battlefield experience across all platforms whilst appealing to as broad a demographic as possible. By and large, this is exactly what DICE have achieved (although some eagle-eyed readers noting my score will know its not exactly perfect). The new Frostbite 2 engine looks superb, even on the consoles, creating excellent lighting effects and shadows that actually change the gamplay.

Although, on the 360 at least, disc one is multiplayer, I feel I should first tackle the single player campaign relegated to disc two. Moving away from the rag-tag crew of B Company, we are given an entirely new plot arc centred around Staff Sergeant Blackburn’s efforts to prevent nuclear attacks on US and French soil. The majority of the story cutscenes are played out in a ‘present day’ fashion with all the action taking place in flashbacks while Blackburn attempts to explain himself to the CIA. It’s not exactly the most original story going, having only just been similarly tackled by Black Ops only last year. However, the resulting gameplay is mostly engaging and fun to play through.

I did manage to break the gameplay on several occasions. At one stage, my AI comrades were waiting for me by a closed door only to stand in silence for a good 15 seconds before they finally tripped into action and opened the door for me. At another point, just before a certain fight involving some Russians, I was idly standing next to my squad while they were talking about the mission when I literally died on the spot. I had been run over by the trucks on my own side! Add to this some truly horrendous quick time events that have absolutely no place in an FPS and you begin to understand why the campaign was relegated to Disc 2! The moments are easy to anticipate though as they are the only sections where your squadmates make you go in first. The real bread and butter of Battlefield will be found in the multiplayer.

Before the final release of Battlefield 3, there existed an air of discontent from the fanboys aided quite heavily by the Beta which I covered in a previous article. DICE released a statement soon after listing all the things they were going to fix by the time we would be unwrapping the cellophane on our shiny new obsessions, albeit in a day one patch *shudder*. From the first minute you play in-game it’s clear they have fixed the majority of problems, even if there are a few others rearing their heads.

Fans of the series will not be disappointed. The majority of the maps are gargantuan (maybe even a little too big). All the expected vehicular sexiness is present and correct (including the jet fighter!). And we now have the ability to go prone. There are a few close quarters maps that are more akin to similar shooters, but these shake up the gameplay adequately enough to alleviate any ‘mapathy’ you might other wise incur. It has the same mode set as Bad Company 2 (with the inclusion of the frankly pointless Team Deathmatch option) which will see you attacking/defending MCOM stations, fighting over control of flags and competing in 4v4v4v4 squad deathmatches. Everything feels very Battlefield.

Let me be clear, this game is NOT Call of Duty. If you try to play it like CoD then you WILL die and die frequently. Any keen players of other shooters will first have to adjust not only their play style but also their fundamental way of thinking. Acting like a lone wolf will only hurt your team in the long run, and so will caring about your K/D ratio. On one match I died 10 times and didn’t kill a single opposing soldier but still ended the highest scoring player of the round. I dedicated myself to capturing and defending objectives whilst healing and reviving squadmates. Team actions are paramount to achieving Battlefield greatness. Addionally, the squad member with the highest score is appointed Squad Leader and can dish out objectives to gain more points. It’s a shame as the old Commanders in BF2 could bring a world of hurt onto the enemy.

On your way to attaining glory, you will level up and level up frequently. It seems like you are forever unlocking something new, whether it be a simple upgrade to your weapon or game changing gadgets. There is always something to be working towards, adding to the desire of ‘I’m only 500 points from level 10, I’ll just play the next round’. Each weapon, gadget and vehicle has its own unlock tree, requiring a certain amount of XP to unlock the next item. Then each kit has its own unlocks when you reach XP milestones using that specific kit. Finally, all of the previous plus ribbons and medals are collated into your total XP used to level up, each level giving more unlocks!

The funny thing about this game is it may well have been a perfect 10/10 if Dice would have just completely sacked off single player and spent the extra time refining the multiplayer from the excellence that it is to the supreme greatness it could have been. Let’s face it, not a single person bought BF3 for the campaign and most of us only completed it when EA’s servers were down. It’s highly unlikely that Battlefield 3 will knock MW3 off its throne this year, which is a shame on global scale as its more than capable of it and better in almost every way.

Monday Musing 06/07/09

I’m feeling very music’d out. I’ve played guitar. I’ve played bass. I’ve sung my heart out and beat the crap out of some drums. All of this makes me feel like it’s supposed to, like a Rock Star (or at least someone with musical talent!).
But after all this, I’m not sure I can be bothered any more. I think I’ve finally gotten bored of music games and the endless ‘updates’ are making sure I put the plastic guitar away for good.
I don’t want more peripherals littering my, already full, front room. I don’t want more discs that aren’t compatible with anything else in the past. I don’t want ‘band’ titles. I don’t want ‘greatest hits’ compilations. I want one master game that does it all AND has all the previous songs in one place. I want it to be easier to switch instruments with my gamertag. I want simplicity.

Sort it out developers

Xbox Monday Musing 29/07/09

Here’s a list of people that assumed I’d grow out of playing video games: My parents, all my girlfriends, my work colleagues, my teachers, most people in authority and all of my friends who don’t also play games. But, at 23, I’m still booking days off, closing the curtains, eating junk and not washing or sleeping for three days whenever a new Call Of Duty comes out. Where do these fascinations stem from? Am I destined never to ‘grow up’? Personally, I don’t care. I like being the guy who spends his time after that elusive ‘Mile High Achievement’. Give us more games that remind us of nervously putting in the disc to GTA1 even though we were drastically underage. Balls to growing up, I say.