When it comes to gaming, there is no love lost with the Americans, more specifically the younger ones, they are bulshy, load mouthed and quite frankly obnoxious, the Sunday just passed did nothing to change my opinion!!
Playing in a general Team Death Match with 2 or 3 other clan members we're having a great scrap, Crazy was being owned by an Aussie player, the banter was flowing back and fore between him and the other clan members then an American turns up! 
The game quickly turns south, this idiot decides to be derogatory towards everyone he came across and killed, at the end of the game (which this american won) he decided to have a go at anyone and everyone who told him to back off and shut up, at the point when he starts talking about sexual acts with other players mothers, I put him on mute.
The following game (having kept this kid on mute) was a joy, the Aussie player, one of my clan and myself, ran circles around this kid, everywhere he turned one of us was one him, this wasn't a well planned tactical exercise, it just happened, I like to think it was karma, he was so far down the summary table at the end of the game, he didn't hang around, he left.
Maybe it's my age, it's not like I'm the quietest player, a banter with the best of them, but this trash talking is completely unnecessary, I wish Xbox Live would give us the option to kick a player out of a public room, maybe if more than half the players voted for a particular player to leave then the system would kick them ..... just a thought.  In the mean time, I guess I just have to avoid spotty faced Americans!!

One thing about being  in your early 40's with a 16 month old son, you really start to appreciate your free time more!!  My Xbox time has dwindled to 2 nights per week (which is two more than all my mates thought I was going to get when they found out I was going to be a dad!!) so when they come round, I really look forward to jumping on and causing some carnage and mayhem.  Number 1 son, always has his bath and gets to bed bang on time, giving me enough time to clean up after him (his collection of books and blocks, enough to build a new library!!) ensuring that I can get online by 7.30pm, after that my wife knows she will get no sense from me!!  The only interaction we have for the rest of the night is when she goes to bed, then she comes through to say good night and revels in the thought and the deed of getting me killed while she is distracting me .......... most annoying, especially as don't need to be distracted to get killed repeatedly, but hey, its all part of the game night ritual :-)

Wednesday night is normally zombie killing night but this week one of the team was in bed with a rather bad virus and the other was out of town on business, so there was no zombie killing this week.  I jumped on to Black Ops and had an hour of Free For All hardcore matches, started off in the middle of the pack and by the time the hour was up I actually won a game, this being a highly irregular occurrance, I decided to quit whilst I was ahead, history normally repeats itself on these occasions and I am likely to have been sitting at the bottom of the pile on the next game, so it was back on to Mass Effect 2

The rest of the night then vanished, 4 hours of running around part of the galaxy, recruiting a new  character called "Grunt" and an old character whom I had met on the original Mass Effect called "Tali".  In between recruiting these characters I completed a couple of sub plots and upgraded the "Normandy" and some key weapons.  I can't help but wonder what the "Illusive Man's" real agenda is, I'm not convinced he has the human race's best interest at heart, I guess I'll find out soon enough.  On saying that, I think I am happy for my character "Crazy Shepherd" not to be working for the Alliance, quite frankly they seem to be a bunch of pompous idiots, typical politicians, concerned with their own gains rather than the bigger picture!!

Listen to me, anyone might think I am talking about something in real life, guess I just get really immersed in the game ........... thats why I am so impressed with the game, looking forward to Sunday night already!!!

I don't know what it is about Black Ops, Zombie map Ascension, myself, MIB & Dino (see Crazy's Allies) have been hammering away at this map for months and just can't get anywhere!!  Wednesday night, zombie killing night has turned into a weekly night of frustration, as always we all start off positive, uttering words like "right lets get into, L20 tonight!!", we use a process of fragging zombies to get crawlers towards the end of a level, this then gives the time to open up the map (usually around level 8 onwards), have a couple of cracks at the crate to upgrade our weapons and to use the transporter in each of the key areas to set the rocket off and open up "packerpunch".  Up to this point we normally do alright, once we open up the map, hopefully have an HK21, a Zappy gun or maybe a Thunder Gun, we spend the next couple of rounds avoiding getting killed and a massing money so we can reach the 5,000 needed to "packer punch" our weapons.  

Here we are motoring through, reasonably happy with our progress, we all packer punched our weapons, we even have a couple of perks when at L16 monkeys get dropped on us, now normally we defend "speed cola" and annihilate the zombies as they try and come up the stairs, this time for some stupid reason, we decided to defend "Jugger Nog", major mistake, we all piled into the little area where the Jugger Nog machine sits to defend it, half a dozen monkeys descend on us and that it's it ..... game over!!    To say I was a bit pissed, was probably an understatement but hey, we all make mistakes, next time, we'll stick to what we know, defend Speed Cola, replace everything else afterwards!!

Two games later, we reach L16 and all hell breaks loose, I don't know how many times we use the transporter to get out of a tricky situation, just to be inundated by zombies at the landing zone, this particular game was no different, our weapon set wasn't that flash, the three of us land and get bombarded by zombies, MIB & Dino get through after I use the Thunder Gun to clear some space, unfortunately for me, a Zombie drops from the upper level, lands on me and takes me down, within seconds, Dino gets hung up on a stairwell leaving MIB to fight on his own and fight he does.  This level must have lasted at least 10minutes, MIB using his Packer Punched HK21 to mow down wave after wave of zombies finally manges to finish the level.  Dino and I come back for the next level, we grab an AK74 from the wall and defend the tranpsorter for as long as possible before getting over run.  At the transporter landing area, Dino this time, gets taken out, MIB and I manage to get through, I find the crate and  have a go at it, armed with a Thunder Gun and an AK74 the two of us get through L17.  Yes L18 reached, Dino is back with us but that was as far as it was going to go, having transported a couple of times, we all get taken out on the stair wells, with little ammo left, yet again, we fail to reach our goal of 20, more through bad luck rather than bad shooting.  The rest of the night carried on the same vain, the best we got to was L16 on a couple of occasions and for another week L20 eludes us!! 

I can't help but think our strategy is not quite right, if anyone reading this has tips for us to get further, please feel free to let me know by leaving a comment on this blog or contact me directly on Crazy's Intel page

Saw this video on YouTube today, awesome, brings a bit of reality to Zombies, very well done!!

It's Sunday night and as I am wont to do, I jump on to the Xbox360, load up Black Ops and jump into some 'hardcore team death matches", I see a few of the other Gonk Clan members on line, but they are playing with the latest map pack (something I am trying to resist buying, for several reasons that I will go into later).  I through myself into the first game, it has already started, playing in Havanah.  Straight away I get taken out 3 times on spawn, not the best way to start the evening and in defense of the opposition, I don't think they were spawn camping, it was just bad timing on my part. 
Once into it, I got myself 6 kills and one team kill, oops!!  Not a bad bunch of guys, about three games into the evening a hear the dull-sit tones of FergoWGE (a Gonk), joining on the opposite team, I'm thinking, I have a bit of a chance hear to get the kill rate up, as it was, it ended up a bit of a tit for tat sort of game, with a guy called MEATAXEaustin who quite frankly owned everyone in the opposing team (including me), it didn't seem to matter where I spawned, whether I ran or tried to camp (not that I can sit still for long!!) this guy was there laying lead into me and has earned the honor of being first on the Hit List.
The next game was the highlight of the evening, still on Team Death Match, the map, Firing Range, the weapon of choice was a Commando with flame thrower attachment and MEATAXEaustin was on the opposite team.  I start off running into the centre building kill one then get shot, respawn, I start at the bottom of the map I take someone out almost straight away, I work my way up the middle of the map back to the same building, I lay me claymore, take two out before heading up stairs.  I use my spy plane and take out another 3 with the flame thrower (on the stairs) and get my sentry gun crate,  then I jump out the window to get my 7th kill and a chopper (almost unheard of!!), then get killed myself.  Needless to say with the use of my chopper and a sentry gun I do alright, I get the most kills in my team, my team wins the game and to top it off I get the winning kill, completely unheard of (see short clip), and more improtantly I beat MEATAXEaustin, who by now was really getting on my nerves!!

The rest of the evening,was relatively uneventful, I did get a win on Hardcore Free For All and a couple of top three rankings, again, for me, almost completely unheard of, I think I can still count the times I have won a Free For All match on one hand, so I am not complaining.

I said earlier on that I hadn't bought the latest map pack for Black Ops, the reason for this, to be perfectly honest is, I am getting very tired of the whole thing, I might purchase it yet for the zombie map, but at this point in time I am still (with my friends) trying to get through the Ascension Zombie map, we still haven't cleared L17, proving that this map is by far the hardest for as slightly more mature gamers, so until we have nailed it, I really don't have much enthusiasm for spending 1200MS points on something that really isn't going to add any more value!!  I doubt me any developers are ever going to read this, but on the off chance they do, or someone who reads this knows a gaming developer, if you are going to release map pack after map pack, why not add a new game or two, be a little bit more inventive than just producing "another map" for Black Ops they did really well coming up with the Wager Matches, would it be so hard to produce a little extra something along that lines to go with the new maps?  It's just a thought .......

Next time I am online, is likely to be Wednesday for some Zombie killing, will update the blog, hopefully to report that we past L20!!!

BioWare have confirmed that Mass Effect 3 will be released in the first three months of 2012. The development team is laser focused on making sure Mass Effect 3 is the biggest, boldest and best game in the series, ensuring that it exceeds everyone’s expectations.” said Casey Hudson, Executive Producer Mass Effect series.

There are also 2 new Mass Effect 3 screenshots on the Mass Effect website to wet your appetite.

This may well be Crazy's buy of the year, fully destructible environments, all the modern day weapons including the ability to drive tanks, jeeps, helicopters and jet planes all in an environment where it is rumoured the teams are 24 each side!!  Check out this trailer, the graphics are mind blowing!!