Nutty about games!

Last night I logged into BF2142 with my other half Steve, and had rather a lot of fun!  We played on Northern Strike servers, large and small. One titan server was tiny but most enjoyable - shooting Steve’s char in the face with my Clark shotgun a few times was quite theraputic after the day I’d had! Was awarded a Gold Star for coming top; only out of 5 people but it didn’t matter to me, I was waaaaay ahead on points to boot. Unlocked frag grenades at last too! Of course Steve played great as usual and was awarded a number of badges and pins. We both especially enjoyed driving around in the Goliath - a great way to gain points and rack up a few kills too (especially as a support character reloading it).

Now, I am not great at this game - far from it (check out my rubbish stats), but it really doesn’t matter to me. I have played far too many RPGs in the last six years to be as hot as most people with a rifle. Many point out my kill/death ratio and laugh, but I’m not that intent on killing people in this game. I much prefer to run around with my ammo hub! I have now found that if I join a squad and follow them with my hub out I gain more points than if I try to kill people. Of course Titan defense is now great with my Clark shotgun, as I can just hang around waiting for them to drop in, holding my shotgun with my turret aimed on them - great fun!

If you’re not sure what I am talking about as you do not have this game I recommend you try it - it can be bought for a tenner now at Game and the Northern Strike expansion pack is about a fiver (you can get these even cheaper ifyou shop around online). It costs nothing to play online and there are countless servers for you to choose from with full-on action; well worth the money. Try reading the reviews here and here. As long as you are playing with friends you will likely never get bored of this game; I often try to avoid playing as it is so addictive!

If you log on to the game look out for Melindi or Bymz0r and we will show you the ropes. Well, I will probably show you how to play very badly…but I’ll try my best anyway! We could always have a laugh on Ventrilo whatever happens, especially when I have been on the vino!

Browsing the Nanowrimo forum entitled Age Group: 20’s I noticed a distinct lack of those who, like myself, are in their late (very late in my case!) twenties, or those who have children. I decided a new thread was in order and expected no replies. Wrong! Out of the woodwork come a whole host of people; many with children, others with pets who they would like to believe are as demanding as children (I beg to differ!) but all with very busy lives and not very much time at all to write.

This brings me to the question - why are we doing this? I know that 50,000 words may not seem like very much when compared to full size adult novels of 200,000 words (and the rest) but I assure you, to write that amount of words in a mere 30 days is no mean feat when your life is a neverending cycle of mess and chaos!

I currently have an overflowing washbasket of clothes I am now unable to dry thanks to cold, rainy days and lack of a tumble dryer;  you can no longer see our lounge carpet due to the wall to wall toys, and no matter how many times I pick them up they magically reappear on the floor in seconds. From dawn until dusk I am asked neverending questions such as “I want a drink”, “I’m hungry”, “I need a wee”….not to mention my youngest child’s very cute but endless repetition of the word ‘Mummy’.

After the boys are in bed and settled, around 8pm, comes the ultimate obstacle - my boyfriend. He likes nothing more than to sit next to me on his computer with music on full blast, or American dramas complete with horrific murders galore blaring out on his speakers, the ear-piercing gun and bomb blasts when he is playing Battlefield 2142, and worst of all - Skype. I have always said he would make an amazingly good town crier or foghorn because damn he is loud! I also think perhaps slightly deaf as he truly doesn’t believe he is so noisy. When you spend every day with children you truly learn what noise is!

Others hoping to complete Nano this year have full time jobs to contend with as well as children. Some also have the added stress of school, and others personal difficulties. I really wish them all the best because I know I am going to find this difficult and I don’t work or study right now.

But why the struggle for so many? I have to admit, I don’t know. We all have our reasons. I am doing Nano because I have always wanted to write a book and never really got around to doing it properly, and I didn’t manage last time around. I want to prove to myself that I can do it. Okay…and perhaps because I am just a little bit bonkers. Is that a good enough excuse? It is for me.

We recently started playing Battlefield 2142, and the change from the ‘quest/raiding’ of WoW to ’shoot-em and scream at the screen’ awakened a longing for another online shooter we used to play a few years ago - Planetside.

When we first started out we played for hours every evening and weekend - having no children back then did wonders for our gaming time - and we had our own outfit. Friends also used to play and we would shout and scream into voice comms into the wee hours.  Back then I had a stealthy character who used to sneak into bases and hack consoles. I was pretty poor at it, but I had fun trying! Next I changed to a combat engineering class - my fave - where I would lay turrets and mines to kill unsuspecting troops. Oh how I love my AMS too.

The game has come a long way since that and not only is there a whole new area with new vehicles through the Core Combat expansion, but can you now command giant mechs or BFR’s and they changed the layout of the world.

What did it for us though was the prospect of a whole new expanded engineering skill system, which now boasts Fortification, Assault and Advanced Engineering (a combination of the two), with new flying and stealthed turrets to boot.

Get the game downloaded, join Vanu Sovereignty, and message N1GHTSH4D3 in game (yeh, stoopid name I know) - you’ll have great fun, I promise.