Battlefield: 

Having played Battlefield 2 for approximately 5 years (My Stats), now, and having before that been an avid player of Battlefield 1942, when I learned that the 2008 Mod of the Year was awarded to a Battlefield Modification, I had to try it.  I have enjoyed the FPS since Wolfenstein, and of all of them that I have played, the Battlefield series seems to consistently deliver the most adrenaline pumping, cinematic, fun action sequences (Though the Action Quake and Action Half-Life 2 games provided a really, really good romp, too).  That being said, my only criticism of most FPS games is generally a lack of realism (Which is why I don't play BF2142 very much even though I have most of the unlocks).  I hate having to shoot a guy 3+ times on average for him to drop, and BF delivers in this sense.  Project reality promised to make sure that this wouldn't be the case, even moreso than BF2.  I was in.

Project Reality:

What is Project Reality (Trailer, Youtube)?  It takes Battlefield from being a "game" to being closer to a "Simulation".  Not completely, fun gameplay elements are kept, but, it moves it towards combat simulation.  Tactics actually matter in this game, and, while it is sometimes disappointing that I can't rely on myself to charge into a room and kill a whole squad, the added lethality of Project Reality increases the necessity for good teamwork and common sense.  This game is not for people with short attention spans or impatient individuals.  The fun of playing Project Reality is the sense of accomplishment that comes with successfully capturing an objective, wiping out an enemy squad, or even assisting another squad in doing so by giving them a helicopter ride.  

The game adds layer after layer of complexity to the game, erasing many of Battlefield's copious "abstractions".  Gone are the ever-present mini-map and UAV scans, easily dropped in mortars, always visible crosshairs on screen, and kill spam.  These are replaced by their real-life equivalents, communication, target lasing and coordination with the commander (Check out the JDAM), iron sights and scopes, and the realism of not knowing whether or not the guy you shot at 200 meters away actually died or not when you saw his turban fall below the hedge he was firing from.  Also missing from PR is the health bar, which has been replaced with a realistic injury model that allows soldiers to be shot and bleed to death.  Very cool, because now that medic is really, really important, since spawning right back up in the battlefield is not quite so easy, and fighting while injured is a difficult task.  

Some more interesting differences between BF2 and PR: 

Project Reality soldiers won't be bunny hopping, dolphin diving, and C4 suicide running (well, the insurgents might do this last one).  Instead, they'll be hiding in windows, outflanking you, landing on rooftops, establishing firebases, and planting IEDs.  You won't find 10 snipers on the enemy team, nor be faced with constant grenade spam.  Kits are limited, and getting close enough to throw a grenade is something you WON'T generally want to try to do.  One man becoming an insurmountable force in your team's tank that he hopped in just before you got there is NOT an element of PR.  You can't use enemy tanks (you don't know how, soldier), and tanks and APCs require 2 people at a minimum to operate properly (the turrets even take about 20 seconds or so to "warm up" and make ready).

One of the first big things you'll notice will be the size of the maps, and the revamped sounds.  Gunshots in the distance give a realistically muffled thunder, while nearby gunshots deliver a loud crack.  Automatic gunfire will resound through an area and tip you off that there's a battle going on in the distance that you might need to be aware of.  Helicopters can be heard from really far away, so, their landing position has to be carefully chosen to avoid ambushes.   You can see far enough into the distance that people look like little ants running around (and this is very well done and adds greatly to the feeling of realism, as, being able to see a whole forest from a mountaintop is both useful and realistic), something that very rarely happens in BF2.

Because assets are worth tickets as well, individuals won't be bee-lining for them and "one-manning" them over to the enemy base just to get blown up.  Server admins will kick you for doing this because it injures your whole team.  Vehicles don't respawn quite so quickly, and, the maps are often 1-4 kilometers in size, which means if you strand your team by wasting vehicles, there's a good chance you've lost the match for them.  As a Project Reality soldier, you'll come to appreciate deeply the efforts of expert helicopter pilots, who follow protocols and understand that their work is often the difference between winning and losing an engagement.  This is a far cry different from the typical "use it till it explodes" mentality of regular Battlefield.  

Being shot really sucks, even almost being shot really sucks, which is a very cool thing.  This makes covering fire useful.  Bullets bouncing off of the ground or walls near your head will cause your screen to blur and darken as you become stressed out from the battle (Check out this video for an example of how it works).  This gives you incentive to not keep your head out in the open, and a good player will even learn to use this to his advantage.

A single guy in a jet no longer scores 100 kills in a match and locks down the entire enemy team, as in Battlefield 2.

Reviving a fallen comrade is no longer just a quick shock.  Now you have to actually stick him with an epipen and apply bandages until he stops bleeding, a process that takes about 30-40 seconds... sometimes you even have to "resuscitate". 

Another cool difference is that the squad leader is a bit more important now.  He's no longer a roaming spawn point.  He and two others must establish a spawn point somewhere in the field.  But, there's more to him than that, with access to the "officer" kit, the squad leader can actually deploy structures, and with the help of his squad, establish foxholes, machine gun nests, sandbag walls, and the like, all of which can be put to use to devastating effect in the hands of a talented squad leader.  This is cool, because now instead of having just 1 commander and 32 guys, you end up with a commander, 5-7 squad leaders, and a collection of people working under each of those, each filling a useful, fun to play role.  

This all comes together and results in a more rich, deep gameplay, that is equally more rewarding. 

Battlefield vs. Project Reality  

Ultimately, does Project Reality REPLACE Battlefield 2 in my gaming collection, or do I still play both?

Well, that's a tough question.  I am excited to see what changes they have made in 1.50 for BF2, it's rumored to fix many of the small grievances I've lived with for 5 years in the series.  Ultimately, for the past 2 weeks, yes, it has consumed my gameplay, pulling me away from BF2, Counterstrike, and my various other source mods and MMO gaming (even pulling me out of a couple coveted closed betas that I'm in right now, yeesh).  So, for me, they have taken a great thing that I am seasoned with, and made it wholly different in enough ways that I am excited to play again, so, the PR team gets mad props for that (did I just say "mad props"?  Hello 1997).  I do warn, however, that the game is NOT for everyone, as there is a relatively steep learning curve that will seperate serious gamers from casual gamers fairly quickly (Training servers are constantly running and you are encouraged to go there to train, learn how to fly, learn the kits or how to request them, to lase, to drive tanks, etc).

There are of course, a few glaring problems here and there, such as how the kits work and the timers involved which could be worked on a little, and maybe just a couple more transport vehicles here and there on some of the larger maps (there are lulls in the action, unfortunately) would be welcome, but overall, I haven't had this much fun gaming in years.  

It's easy to think that "more realism" = "less fun", but that's not true.  More realism, done the way Project Reality has done it, is definitely more fun.  While it's cool to play Battlefield 2's more "action movie" version of warfare, the gut-wrenching, "keep your head down and return-fire", covering-fire-is-useful, "oh-my-God pop smoke and get the fuck out of here!", "Let's sneak around the side of this mosque while they're engaged from the west!", "Enemy fire incoming from heading 2-2-5!!!" version of video game warfare is so much more rewarding to be a part of, that I'm not sure if I'll ever click that little "2" on my desktop again.

How to Play:

It's easy (But make sure your microphone works, it's really important in PR!):

1) Make sure you've got BF2 installed and patched up (not 100% sure if it works with 1.5 beta at time of this writing).

2) Go over to www.realitymod.com and click "downloads".  MAKE SURE YOU GET BOTH CORE AND LEVELS DOWNLOADS.  They are each in the 1.5 gig range for a big 3 gigabyte download, but, if you stick with the game and make it over the learning curve, it's worth it.  (I suggest Orbit Downloader for use with any browser, as it will greatly speed up the download for you.)

3) Run the Core installer, then the Levels installer.

4) Click the icon that the levels installer put on your desktop, click training, pick a server, and start learning.  

5) When you're ready (probably an hour or two later after step 4), click on deployment, pick a server, and get in the game. 

If you want to meet up with me in game, use the chat link to the right to find me.  I'm JK JudgeX in game, generally tagging along with JK Tenchi and/or JK Mikado.  We'll gladly train you up and accept you into our squad if you're a decent player.

I've waited for this game to come out for, ohhh, well, since I imagined they would create it as a natural extension and continuation in the Total War series, so, back when ROME: Total War came out.  The Total War series is amongst my favorite titles, and I own all of them, and most expansions, from Shogun up to Medieval II.

So, I was incredibly delighted to be informed by Steam that a demo for Empire was ready to be played.  I dropped everything I was doing and started the install process.

My Review: 

Immediately, people with a similar configuration to me will notice a very long (3+ minute wait) during the initial loading screen.  Why we are forced to wait for so long reading the "bink video" and "Total War" logo is a complete mystery, but, some of us do have this wait.  Directly afterwards, the menu system seemed familiar, but, WOW, this demo is limited!  You get two "tutorials", which are about 95% useless if you're a Total War veteran, and 2 "Single Player Battles".  The campaign mode is absolutely not represented in the demo whatsoever.

Anyway, a few really, really long loading screens later the tutorial is loaded. (What is it doing, Creative Assembly?  Seriously?  We change our video and control options, and then we have to watch a "loading" bar again... why?  That should have been changing like 10 lines in an INI file somewhere.  Stop taking the interface away from the player.)

Ultimately, if you've played Medieval 2 and made use of the bombards and gunpowder weapons in that game, the land-based tutorial and battle example aren't going to offer anything new aside from taking cover behind obstacles and in buildings (which, you don't get to take advantage of as much as the CPU).  The graphics are impressive, with very nice attention to detail on everyone, but the performance is a considerable bit behind Medieval II (probably about 40% slower before lowering settings), while there's not really much improvement in quality(Maybe a 10-20% improvement in graphical quality).

The default control scheme is different from Medieval, using the WASD as default camera movement, Q and E to rotate camera, and so on.  This can easily be remedied in the options, and most veterans of the series will probably revert to old input methods.  The new in battle interface is superior to the prior versions in some ways but also lacking.  The unit cards seem weakened, and gathering information about the status of your soldiers is not as evident as it was before, but it does have a much cleaner and more professional look.  Function ultimately wins over form, but the improvements to form *almost* make up for the loss of function.  Maybe it's just a learning and adjustment issue, time will tell.

The Naval Battles are pretty awesome.  Great graphics, and each ship in your fleet feels like its own entity capable of turning the tide of battle if used correctly.  This portion did not run so well on the test computer, but victory was still relatively easily had.  

Honestly, it may have been a bad move for Creative Assembly/Sega/et al to release this demo, because according to google, several people are already having performance problems with it.  With no Campaign teaser to whet the appetite for carving a new world, all we're left with is an impressive demonstration of the naval battle engine, and a lot more of the "same old, same old" overland battle from the rest of the series.  It probably should have highlighted more of the differences in ground battles in the new game in addition to the ocean tutorial and sample battle.  Furthermore, the campaign mode is what many players play the game for, so it wouldn't have been too much to ask for a small sample campaign to toy with.

Without multiplayer, also, the Demo took this game from my "must buy" list to my "maybe I should read up on the forums for a couple months before I purchase this one" column.  I am still excited to play the full game, and I'm sure it's packed full of awesome surprises (they've been working on it long enough!), but with the way it performed and no insight as to what campaigns will really feel like to play aside from a few review site vids, I think i'll take my time getting this one.

But, anyway, it's a free demo, so give it a shot!

I love my arcade machine.  Built from a vandalized and beaten up old cabinet, and modified to run tons of emulators, it has been a dream of mine forever to have one.

Using a JPAC unit to connect a computer to the old arcade screen, and an X-Arcade do it yourself kit, with some HAPP authentic arcade controls, I managed to breathe life back into this gutted monstrosity, and give it capabilities it only dreamed of having in its previous life.

It's a little rough around the edges (havent gotten around to doing an aesthetic overhaul yet), and I haven't really completely customized the software side of it to the extent that I'd like to, but overall, there's tons of fun to be had on it.  Using MAME as the primary emulator, GameEx as the frontend, and about 13 other emulators for Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo, Virtual Pinball, Daphne Laser Disc games, and everything else, it can play over 8,000 individual games.  

Street Fighter Alpha 3 on a Street Fighter 2 machine really makes me happy.  "Hadouken".

Near future improvements will include a 4 port hub, for the easy attachment of control pads (for better authenticity while playing console games), and I've been considering using wiimotes as light guns and maybe even steering wheels, if I can figure out a really good way to do so.  I'd also like to give it a good coating of paint, replace the plexi-glass front (it's scratched), and mount network attached or good USB external storage inside of it to hold games and applications, so that it's even more modular and able to be backed up easily.  I've added several buttons to the panel in the front, flipper buttons on the sides, and auxilliary "control" buttons to allow swapping between menus in various emulators.

If you ever want details, technical specifications, or help with your own project, let me know!