Robert C

You really didn't miss anything. Last night had me wishing they'd allow you to set some parameters for random DM selection. If I could have set it to Rockstar created only last night, I damn sure would've. One match was so bad I bailed and took off, very slowly of course, in a dump truck. I took it off that jump into the ocean we were using last week. Wasn't nearly as spectacular as taking a fully loaded logging truck off, but it was still better than that stupid match.

I just join random DMs. I wind up quitting before the match starts about 80% of the time because people seem to have this fascination with doing terrible matches. Prison Thugz has been replaced with a hundred other random crappy melee DMs. Or by matches like the one I did last night that started me at the top of a skyscraper. I had to parachute down to get into the action, and then there were tanks at ground level. Every single person that voted crapped on that one, other than the guy that made it. I usually only do random DMs at times where there's not many folks from the crew online, because I end up quitting out so often after seeing the match description. If you happen to be on when I'm doing a DM, the invites go out automatically even though I never host. stout has wisely ignored hundreds of them. Did a couple matches back to back last night against guys that were definitely not fooling around. 5 dudes from the same crew. I wound up 4/11 in the second match, and felt fortunate to do that well. I took my own advice and hunkered down a couple times just to try to get my bearings. And that was on a map I where I normally do well.

Looking at that list, I'm happiest that they fixed the invisibility cloak deal. I did a Lodge DM where one of the opponents was doing that. All you could see was his head, neck and arms. It was a pain in the ass, but it didn't make the poor guy immune to buckshot. Auto-target is my friend. Skull tat is 500 headshots. I'm pretty much only doing DMs any time I'm not playing with crew, so I'm closing in on a lot of combat/weapons unlocks. I'm pretty close to LSPD tint on the AP pistol and assault shotgun. I'm also going to be pedantic and put LSPD tint on my special carbine only after I get 600 kills with that. I'm really close to that one.

That first DM we did was on a map I almost always do well on so that helped. Plus I managed to headshot just about everybody I shot, so they went down quickly. I was a menace on that offroad race, just due to pure incompetence. The strategy was basically to avoid me till you could find a safe place to pass, then just trust your luck. JT got by me first, and then I managed to singlehandedly block everybody else for about 5 seconds by spinning out on a tight corner. I got a boatload of headshots from being forced to use crappy weapons in close quarters last night, and ended up unlocking the skull tat. My character is now even uglier than before. And I managed my first Mary Lou kill last night. So I've now Mary Lou-ed one person, and in return have had it done to me about 500 times. Also got screwed in a DM last night where we had more kills than the other team but still lost. We were tied with about 3 seconds left, when I spotted an enemy and shot him. He died almost exactly as time expired, and I got credit for the kill. Match ended up at 29 kills for us, 28 for them, but they got the win. Only thing I can think of is that I managed to commit suicide earlier in the match by shooting a propane tank while standing to close. Maybe that had something to do with it.

Boneyard is pretty easy to solo, as long as you play it really, really conservatively. The only real danger is guys flanking you to the outside. As long as you prevent that, it's really hard for them go get you. melraz and I did another one with just 2 of us - I think it was Railyard or something like that. Those are the only 2 I've done with less than a full crew. I normally don't mind people getting killed a lot on my team, because it still happens to me with alarming regularity. There's an exception to every rule though. I did a 15 minute no limit match yesterday with randoms in the cemetery. I got on one good streak and ended up about 25 to 10, and several other teammates had really good kill totals, but we got beat by about 25 kills. I was pretty puzzled by that till I looked at out bottom two guys at the end. One was 9 kills / 32 deaths. The other was 9/36. I can't imagine getting my head kicked in that badly without going to hide in a corner and lick my wounds.

Those two back to deathmatches pretty much came down to 2 things. I've played those two enough times to have them figured out pretty well, and know where to go. I haven't mastered free roaming combat well enough, so it all comes down to positioning for me a lot of times. The other thing is that you had a bunch of witless idiots on your team, especially for the Getaway match. I was set up at the end of a narrow alleyway that provides no cover for anybody coming through. I must've kill 9 or 10 people in there in about 2 minutes. After a while I stopped even bothering to aim and just fired blindly down the alleyway. I'm still trying to figure out the thought process. Who looks at a space like that, with a couple of dead bodies already in it, and bloodstains where others had been and thinks that looks "Hmm. That looks safe. I'll run right down that directly towards that spot that provides perfect cover for a hidden opponent."?

The spawns in that deathmatch with the transformers are really awful if you happen to spawn outside. Every time that happened to me I would get killed again before I got to cover. I have no idea how deathmatch winners get chosen if there is a tie. I did one the other day that was the most boring one ever. I was never able to find a member of the other team until the 30 second warning, and by then he was too far off to reach. It started 3 on 3, and ended up 1 on 1 after 4 guys quit. There were no kills, and I don't think anybody even fired a shot in anger. It ended up giving me the win. I can think of the possible reasons: 1 - random chance 2 - I was a higher level than the guy that lost 3 - I did kill a few random civilians after I got really, really bored The weirdest one I've seen was one with a 40 kill limit. It was neck and neck. At the end of the match, the other team had 40 kills, and my team had 41. They got the win. The only thing I could think of there was that our last 2 kills came in the last second or 2 after they got to 40, but before the match really ended.

Multiple garages on the way too. Now I can buy even more supercars I don't need. At least I'll finally have room for a motorcycle/muscle car/sports classic/etc. Maybe. The mental state thing should be fun. Gotta agree with RUkered. I'm guessing the night shift brotherhood's dots will be glowing like we've been vacationing in Chernobyl. Really they ought to have melraz's "Oh Hell Yeah!" broadcast to everybody on the server when he joins.

The guy we took out at the LSC must've come out and wondered what the hell he had wandered into. Six heavily armed lunatics were waiting for him. His car got pretty shot to shit, but I put the fire out with the firetruck, and I think somebody was able to drive it off. I got a shot of y'all doing the last ambulance jump into the ocean, but I didn't zoom in enough to get a really good picture. I was afraid I'd miss it if I zoomed too much. I had fun taking an 18 wheeler off the same jump, especially since the radio started playing Convoy as soon as I jacked the truck.

Last night was good stuff in a "I wonder if I can pull this off?" way. Highlights were surviving the crash of an airborne dump truck and managing to parachute into said dump truck while Herby was driving it down the road. No gaming for me till Sunday or Monday, so that'll have to suffice for a bit.

I hate having to remember to change the targeting setting between freemode and deathmatches. Of course, while I'm at it, I would kill for the ability to block missions from popping up in my random queue, though the last update did improve that issue dramatically. If they do come up with 420 related stuff, it'll make freemode that much more enjoyable. I already target anybody with that in their name.

Going into Freemode by yourself isn't your wisest choice. You can do stuff by yourself in a closed session - like missions designed for 1-2 players. You also can earn cash and RP by doing races and parachutes jumps by yourself but that is a grind. The best is to hook up with members of the crew (there are active members on both the PS3 and 360) who will gladly help you rank up quickly. I still run into a bunch of low level people when I join random things, so you won't be the only one. Freemode can get you killed at any level. I'm 130+, and like to think I'm pretty decent at it by now, but I still get taken to school more often than I would care to admit. stout, misanthrope and I beat the hell out of a level 350+ guy last night. There are a few missions that will give you about $20K, and will probably level you up every time you play them till you get a bit higher. You can't access those directly, but if you're on 360 somebody that can access them is usually up for doing them with you.

I'm guessing stout and I will get some pretty nasty messages from the guy we were messing with last night. My personal favorite was getting the cops to kill him for us by pissing them off right on top of him. Dan, you're definitely Mary Lou. The rest of us haven't mastered the tumbling skills required to get Olympic gold in the floor exercise yet. Your landing right on top of me during that match at the airstrip was nice though. I'm looking down, and suddenly I see your feet standing right next to me. Anybody that questions why I want owned weapons just has to look at how I did last night in those two pistol only deathmatches - I spent the entire time looking at those damned losing streak visuals. Then I got my assault shotgun back for the Lodge match and all was right with the world, even if Dan did shoot me 25 times in the match. I'll be on some tonight, and I'll be down for online carnage, freemode or otherwise. After today I won't be on at all till Sunday or Monday.

I'll probably be up for some good, clean GTA tonight. stout, mis, Herby and I ran into a server full of clowns last night and promptly cleared the lot of them out of there. They were the most pathetic crowd I've encountered yet. It took maybe 50 kills to run off the entire server. There were 3 guys from one crew that might as well change its name to roadkill. Started off with stout going for a Simeon car. some dude with a bounty came after him, but stout introduced him to the business end of his shotgun down by the docks. I ran the guy over 3 times in a row, then blew him up once with a sticky once he finally found a car. Stout gunned him down a couple more times before he finally got away. We found him in downtown by Simeon's dealership with his two crewmates and decided to pay a visit. Got down there, and wound up running over one of 2 guys that popped up right in front of me in the middle of the street. Somebody else got the other one. Turned out to be that group of 3. They all bailed out before we could even manage to start shooting. That just set the tone for the whole server. People would come at us, die once or twice, and take off. On the other hand, I got my ass absolutely kicked in a deathmatch earlier. At one point I was at 1 kill to about 13 deaths. I had to make a miraculous comeback just to finish at a craptacular 12 kills to 24 deaths.

JT - speaking of Weazel News, how much did you get to see of the carnage Dan and I left in our wake? I'd have loved to be able to capture video of that one roadblock we cleared on the highway by the beach. Explosions were going off for what seemed like forever. Dan is a beast with sticky bombs.

Maybe that's my problem - I never use companions in Fallout, or Elder Scrolls for that matter. I actually found 3 to be easier than NV - aside from Reavers of course, who were much easier to kill in NV. partly that was due to the insane advantage Grim Reaper's Sprint gave in 3. That plus rolling around the Capitol Wasteland with Ol' Painless, Lincoln's Repeater, the Terrible Shotgun, the Reservist's Rifle and the unique Chinese assault Rifle (forget the name of that) meant there were very few things that were a real threat to me after a while. NV did provide the wonderfully creepy ways of getting through some things, especially if you used a female courier.

Crap, I can't even manage to jump onto a train. I tried last night, fell through the middle of a railroad car, and then proceeded to get run over. I am the world's worst hobo.

Fallout 3 is probably my favorite game of the PS3/360 gen. I really didn't care about the actual storyline as much as just running around seeing what I would randomly run into. NV was barely playable for me. I got through it, but it was amazingly frustrating. Cozadores can kiss my ass. I hated those things in NV even more than Reavers in 3. With Reavers I would either shoot out their knees to slow them down and then finish them off with the shotgun or shoot them 3 times and then target a weaker ghoul for my last shot and hope Grim Reaper Sprint would kick in. I never did find a good way to deal with Cozadores.

Yeah, I do try to remember not to leave a session right next to the downtown LSC location. I've got to the point where I actually like the random spawns, because sometimes I can take advantage of it. Samples from just the last few days: - spawned right on top of a guy with a bounty. easiest bounty collection ever. The Dan joined and we pissed off the whole server - spawned near the Simeon high priority car. grabbed it, and some guy with a bounty comes at me. I managed to get to LSC before he got to me, but just barely, in order to plant my bomb. He wasn't able to get me when I came out, but I pissed off some cops and they got both of us. He spawned near the car, and made the predictable grab for it.

I must be the only person that almost never goes to his garage/apartment. Unless I'm swapping out cars, I probably go once a week. I just let the game spawn me wherever I was last, and almost never have a problem with it.

Warrior mystique and all that. I was just teasing JT, but I'm guessing there would be people out there who would be legitimately upset by the idea of a Qunari that didn't fit their idea of what one should be - basically a noble warrior bound by an immutable code of honor.

Speaking of tattoos, I got in a deathmatch with randoms a couple days ago, and immediately noticed that somebody on the other team had the skull and burning heart. I figured we were screwed, and so it turned out to be. I'll eventually get the skull, and maybe the grim reaper, but I don't think I'll ever get to the burning heart.

I figured out you don't have to sit through the entire dance for the hottie award, just start one and then stop it immediately. Saved a ton of time. Not sure I could have sat through 25 times otherwise. One of these days I might have to see what ME3 multiplayer looks like with y'all. I've had the game since release, and played through the single player at least 3 times, but never got on multiplayer. I might be useless though - I haven't played any ME in at least 6 months.

Dinner and timezones meant I didn't get on till 10:30 your time, so I just missed y'all. If it makes you feel any better, my wife and I had that same type of deal Tuesday night, and we've been together 17 years. Yeah, I screwed up, but it was an honest mistake. Once the over the top reaction kicked in, my brain just kind of shut out whatever was said, which pissed her off even more. Air got cleared later, so that was good, but life definitely sucked for a while there.

I got stuck at work till 9 PM, so I didn't get in for job duty. I logged in just in time to help melraz piss off the world in freemode. We were even trying to be nice, playing golf and darts and shit, but everybody wanted some. And then they met melraz and suddenly they didn't want it any longer. We just stayed in one place and let the entire server come to us till they all bailed, except one dude that had enough and stayed way the hell away. I wound up down 50K for the night between ammunition expenditures and insurance payments on people's personal vehicles, even with doing Rooftop Rumble twice. Worth every virtual penny though.