Tadd Mencer

Posts Tagged ‘Xbox 360’

Here at the office we just picked up a new game called Battlefield: Bad Company by EA Games. It’s a first person war shooter with a slew of abilities.

My quick reaction – holy crap this is intense!

I haven’t played single player, but we’ve been playing online play and I have to say, not easy. While it’s only  been out for a short while (as of 7-8-08) there are already a slew of people who are just insanely good.

Abilities you have are things from basic snipers to being able to fly helicopters, call in air strikes, shoot cannons (love it) and so much more. The basic weapons are decent, but really have little stopping power.

The things I hate about this game are things like: no dedicated melee button. You have to quickly cycle to your knife if you need it. Which sucks in quick fights. The online play is freakin intense and you don’t change teams from map to map. So if your team sucks bad in a map you’re stuck unless you want to log out and log back in, which we’ve noticed causes problems in which we need to restart the XBox 360.

I figured I’d dig around online and find a few tips and such about the game. This is all I found so far. I’ll update later.

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So I had a meeting yesterday with a co-worker who is an artist type. We have a slew in common and a really cool guy. We regularly play Call of Duty 4 on the XBox 360 (booo hisss!!) and it’s a good time.

At any rate, we talked about projects that we’re both working on or would like to start working on. He mentioned some that would be totally awesome working on and I mentioned my big story I’ve been kicking around for nearly a year now in my head.

He was extremely excited about my story and we’re going to start working on it to get something rolling! I’m really stoked about it. Things are looking up in that aspect. He and I both will be learning Blender because we would like this to really embrace the open source community. Probably use PhotoShop later for the layout and effects – but otherwise we’re rockin’ Blender.  It will really be fun. We already collaborated on a sketch I started earlier today and he really fleshed it out and we talked about movements and reasons for this or that part of the beast. I won’t go into too much detail but if we can get this project rolling it’s going to REALLY kick some major butt. The title will be unleashed when time comes.

So yeah, just wanted to e-squeal in delight. I’m happy about it.

Got a nice happy cold though. YAY!

Ok, I’m going to brag up my job. Why? Because I want to explain why this job is so great for me.

I arrive at around 8:30ish .. and that’s the time I set for myself. My manager said “eh, 8:30 – 8:45 or so” and I just personally decided earlier was better. So I usually get here before 8:30am (I was here at 8:15 today).

I get free breakfast and lunch – everyday. That’s right, they supply bagels, hashbrowns, hot pockets, bacon, eggo waffles and really anything that I might request to eat for breakfast – they’ll get. They also have all kinds of stuff for lunches: microwave dinners, lean pockets, panini, soups … all kinds of stuff. They have awesome single cup coffees (yum) and sodas galore. I think I’ve started actually eating HEALTHIER since working here since 2/3 of the foods are from diet type companies. Heck with two kitchens, you know I’m eating well!

I have a kick butt computer. It’s not top of the line, but DAG it is fast. Two 19″ LCD WideScreen monitors look fantastic. Bluetooth keyboard and mouse. Wacom Intiuos 9×12 tablet … great stuff. I have teh full Adobe Creative Suite CS3 which is fantastic. The new Photoshop is amazing. And I have to admit … I like Vista. It’s pretty slick. Has some nice features on it – though I honestly can live without them.

The job itself is pretty intensive. Fixing graphics sounds pretty lame, but there are a lot of things you need to do -whether it’s a static graphic, animated or a Flash graphic. Compression, branding, borders, disclosures … all kinds of stuff. I’m pretty busy with it, which is good – keeps me out of trouble. I’m also pitching graphic ideas for the new corperate website. Which, I’m hoping I can rock out hardcore.

Did I mention the THREE game systems we have? That’s right, we have a Nintento Wii, Sony Playstation 3 and an XBox 360. They’re on a pretty slick plasma screen … very cool gaming times. Not a ton of great games – but some pretty good ones. COD4, Assassins Creed, Uncharted … good games.

And the to top the cake: The people here are awesome. There isn’t one that I don’t like. Some will probably rub me the wrong way, but overall I like everyone. There are some that I feel more comfortable with right away. Others that kind of grew on me. But I’m feeling pretty happy here. I get lonely sometimes … people get their clicks or get over busy – but overall it’s great.

God is good.