MyPcHealth Blog

Punkbuster



So since the release of the Punkbuster 2.287 :

Monday 01.23.2012 [11:30PM]
Version 2.287 of the PB Client for BF3 has been released to our PB Master Servers for auto-update and to our website download page. This is a maintenance release.

I have not been able to play BF3 without being kicked. I don’t even make it into the game before I’m kicked. Punkbuster gives you a message saying you are being kicked for 0 minutes and gives the restriction/reason as nothing. Also I was receiving you were disconnected from the game. I was pretty annoyed as I spent ages trying to uninstall / reinstall Punkbuster. I tried deleting all the registry entries and files from the local profile. Absolutely nothing worked for me. Interestingly I have just been to the Punkbuster website today and found this a new release :

Thursday 01.26.2012 [4:30PM]
Version 2.288 of the PB Client for BF3 has been released to our PB Master Servers for auto-update and to our website download page. This update addresses a problem many players were having with version 2.287 regarding anti-virus conflicts.

So hopefully when I get a chance later to update it everything will be ok. But considering all the problems I have will BF3 I may have to consider my options and play something else.….

To get the latest version of the software visit the Punkbuster website.

Fifa 12

I absolutely love football games and spend many hours playing them. So I thought I would write my thoughts on Fifa 12. Every time a new version of Fifa comes out I dread what changes they may have made. It seems you only just seem to get used to it and then they change it again. So the major change they I can’t stand although I’m sure I will get used to is the pressing/tackling of primary and secondary players. The circle button is now a tackle button, using x to press no longer continues in to tackle when you get close. Be warned if you press the circle button when you’re not near the ball your defender will do a stupid big step thing that will put him on the back foot and you will lose momentum and the attacker will breeze past you. It’s so frustrating especially when circle button used to be used to call a second defender to press the ball. The second defender “press” button has been changed to R1 and it no makes it more awkward to press with your defender and a second defender. It’s a seemingly small change but really makes a serious difference in game play and as a consequence it has become a lot harder to defend.

Graphics and gameplay have always been excellent. The way the players move are life like, however again in a real life game often a player who makes a slide tackle and wins the ball is quicker to his feet than the player he tackles unfortunately this is still not the case in Fifa. You can tackle time after time and still not win the ball. In regards to graphics and gameplay there are still a few bugs with the game. One of which you lose the graphic for aiming the penalty or not getting the kits coming up. They have however improved on the game jumping stopping, then jumping on, although it’s not fixed.

Moving on to the features of Fifa 12, they have changed up how the online ranking works. Now you play in a division and get points for winning and drawing a match. You get promoted to a higher division if you hit the required points or relegated if you don’t get out of the relegation points target. Not a bad system and obviously it pairs you up with players in your division and with similar strength team to the one you picked. In Fifa 12 you pick the team before it pairs you up so none of this swapping team to counteract the strengths or weaknesses of your opponents. Once your team is locked in it goes off and finds an opponent and you can’t change your team. Another feature is the ability to play Fifa for money, but unless you are excellent at the game I think I wouldn’t bother.

What I’m most disappointed on is they still have not created a section where you can play 2v2 easily. The only way you can do it is by joining a 2v2 lounge. Join a session and hope that more than 2 players each side join. If they do you either have to wait for them to leave or shout at them or quit yourself. Its absolutely ridiculous, you should be able to limit the session to 4 players that way no-one else can join and mess it up. Please EA sort that out. It would also be nice if when I have a friend round my friend and I can play us Vs two other people online. Currently you can only play 1 player on the console and the others online.

Overall it’s a great game but to be honest would most people buy it weren’t for the new league and squad updates and the fact that it’s like sheep following the herd?? ………. probably not.

For a list of new features/extras visit the EA Fifa website

So yesterday Virgin Broadband announced it was increasing its speeds for over 4 million customers. That’s great, but to be honest has really annoyed me.

So before I get started I just want to compare a couple of prices to you up to 30meg on Virgin approximately £29 and Orange up to 20mb approximately £18. That’s a difference of 33% I know you may get slightly better speed with virgin, but you could also reduce oranges cost to £13 if you have a mobile with them… There are other companies like orange, such as sky, Bethere offering similar packages to Orange’s with similar costs.

So here we go with the annoying bit:

• I live only 2.2km away from the exchange.
• I live on the outskirts of a CITY!
• I’m certainly not rural.
• However out of the 20meg on copper line deals I will only ever receive 4mb.

It galls me when I read of other people on forums living double the distance from their exchange and receive 7-8mb. So when I hear stories about “extra speed” It frustrates the hell out of me. So I stuck with rural broadband speeds unless I want to pay a ridiculous premium.

I then think there is a glimmer of hope when BT Openreach introduce FTTC program. This is where they deliver fibre to the cabinets outside your house, essentially allowing others to compete with Virgin. Will it come at an extra cost? probably! So here comes the next bit. So back in August 2011 I looked up my exchange to check for a date when the FTTC would have been completed. I was informed it would be in Dec 11. This date has now passed and I bet you can guess what hasn’t been completed! But that was ok, because I checked at the beginning of Dec 11 and they said it had been pushed back to Feb 12. Ok, so I will have to wait a little longer. I now go on there and check and there is no completion date for my exchange only saying “sometime in the future”. Yet the 2 exchanges in the centre of the CITY have been done and the exchanges either side of mine are “coming soon”. I am absolutely gutted with OpenReach and the whole broadband FTTC saga. All I want is broadband of 10-20meg for less than £20. Is that really to too much to ask?

Anyway if you wish to check where your nearest exchange is, you can check here.

If you wish to check your status on FTTC delivery in your area you, you can check here.

OnLive is a new service that is due to be released in June in America and there is no release date for Europe yet. It’s promising to start the demise of console computers as we know it. The service will be a monthly subscription will promise games on demand streamed from the internet. You will then either pay for the games or you can rent them online. It will not require any downloads or a console to put a disc into. All that is a required is an inexpensive piece of hardware that connects to your internet connection that allows your PC or TV to connect to the service. The service relies on massive central server power to send out the information to terminals in houses. They expect to set up many of these centres so no-one is further than 1000miles from them.

Ok so to my thoughts on this new innovation in gaming.

Let’s start with cost as this is important to everyone. For Instance a PS3 in the UK at the moment can cost £250 and OnLive will cost equivalent to £9.99 in the UK. So if you use your PS3 for 2 years it will be the same cost as Onlive. With the PS3 also coming with a Blue Ray player that’s worth about £90, you could argue that you only need to play the PS3 for 14 months to equal the same cost as OnLive. It does appear it’s a cunning way to get you tied into a contract for gaming.

Moving on to quality of gaming. I’m seriously concerned that fact that this is all streamed. Gaming already has is issues of lag online, so unless this issue has been address it will be a short lived “innovation”. Nobody seems to have asked the question about downtime? If your internet service goes down or their servers fail does this means no gaming what so ever? Not even single player...... where will you get your gaming fix.

I am trying to find positives about this system so here goes In theory you won’t ever have to pay for an upgrade as it should all be done centrally and you won’t ever have to visit a shop or spend hours downloading to buy a game. If you are careless with your disks and leave them lying around and they get damaged or lost then again this is a good system for you.

I thought I would sum it up in a simple list of pro’s and con’s.

Pro’s

No Downloads, No Discs, No Console to purchase and take up space, No Upgrades required.

Con’s

Possible Contracts, Possible connection issues with lag etc, No Gaming if your internet goes down. Flexibility of device, No additional add-on’s such as a Blue Ray player.

I’m not convinced cost is a pro or con for OnLive.

Overall it will be interesting to see if it lives up to its hype, I’m not so convinced that streaming games will work at this moment in time, it may just become another wash out.

Fifa 11

Ahhhh the wonders..... or not. Well it promised so much and has delivered quite a lot less to be perfectly honest. 5 stars it has been given by various reviewers ..... I mean do they really play the game or just load it up and say “that looks pretty” ? For the rest of us who actually play the game they might actually realise is so frustrating. So let’s start with one of the most annoying “features” of fifa 11.

Game Freezes / pause / lag

There is nothing better than stretching your wingers legs, he dodges one tackle then crosses the ball into the box. Your striker about to rise for the cross then .......FREEZE !!! the game freezes for 1-2 seconds then kicks back into life and no doubt you missed the point where you were meant to shoot and it is cleared by a defender. I mean yeah this is ok and you wouldn’t mind, but this happens 2-3 times EVERY GAME! I really hope they release a patch to fix this problem.

Crashed

I never had a problem with fifa 10, but in fifa 11 on a couple of occasions while playing online the game has just stopped responding and I have had to quit and go back in. I can get to the play station menu, but the game is not responding to any controls. Well done EA !

Player not moving and scenery issues

I have had incidents where I’m waiting for a game to load and the arena character doesn’t move. Feels like I’m going back to the spectrum days where I have to wait in boredom for my game to load! Not only that, sometimes the scenery brightness is screwed. You get an incredibly dark pitch and player and then stupidly bright graphics on the walls and sky. Brilliant!

Unable to rotate screen – free kicks.

Exactly that, on occasion I have not been able to direct free kicks. I don’t know if some of these issues are team related.

Online Quitters

The biggest bug bear of this game and they have not fixed it since Fifa 10 is quitting. The first 3 games I had online and the people quit on me to save their ranking and score. I was 3-0 up, 2-0 up and even just 1-0 and people were quitting on me. Surely they can introduce some sort of penalty for quitting a game early, like -50 points. It would certainly stop some of it. I know people just turn the console off half way through a game and the connection drops, but again give them a 50 point penalty or something. Even if the internet connection goes through an honest problem give them a penalty. I mean surely it’s not going to happen that often and if it does they know they need to fix their internet. 30-40 % of games are quit and that’s a ridiculous amount so surely someone could do something about it.

Update : It appeared a patch was applied to fix this. If you quit or lose connection/turn off the console you now recieve a points penalty although of what amount im usure. Also if someone quits on you you receive points again how many im unsure

Negative Points

Loving the online play (except lag 2 or three times a game), but it’s pretty annoying when you receive negative result points when you win the match. It’s hard enough to get points when people constantly quit on you so this just adds insult to injury.

A Positive point!
Oh yes I found one. I do like the feature that you can see the actual premiership results scrolling along the bottom of the screen while setting up a head to head. Nice touch.

EVE ONLINE

Eve Online is a Massively Multiplayer Online Role playing game (MMORPG) that is complex with areas to suit all gamers. You are a pilot that has the universe at his finger tips all you have to do is step out of the space station and realise your potential. Whether you decide to go into industry and manufacture ships, weapons and fittings for the warmongers, dabble in the black market, run missions for your agents or become a pirate mercenary. There are always choices to take, paths to go down, but with every choice there are consequences. Be sure you choose the right destiny for you.

The game can be quite slow to start with but patience is rewarded with a rich diversity of ships, weapons and fittings. With more skills levels to train than you can shake a stick at it’s important to plan out how your character wants to be developed. It’s not always all out action but when you do find a fight the adrenaline will flow and you’ll be back for more.

Here’s a little story from a small corporation called HJ and a battle in they had in a system in eve.

HJ
Irion
Kelmor
Vale
Jools

Flexible Demeanour
Azrael
Chococat

The largest, longest and most expensive battle of the war occurred last night in the system of Eystur. By the end a total of five vessels were burning wrecks waiting to be salvaged by the scavengers of the system.

Azrael of Flexible Demeanour was outside the HJ station in a Vexor class cruiser hoping to entice one of the HJ fleet members into engaging him. Kelmor was cloaked and checking out possible safe spots whilst keeping an eye on enemy movements in his Helios class Covert Operations Frigate. Jools was cloaked outside the station in his Nemesis class Stealth Bomber watching Azrael and feeding Intel to the HJ who were docked at the station or at various other locations in system.

Vale then decided to take the bait and undocked his Drake Battlecruiser. He waited for a response from Azrael but got none. So he locked Azrael and opened fire. The Vexor started to take heavy damage and at this point Chococat of Flex appeared in their Cerberus Heavy Assault Cruiser. Jools decided it was time show his hand and decloaked. Locking onto the Cerberus and preparing to engage. Kelmor docked his Helios and launched something with weapons, his Ishkur Assault Frigate, he then moved to attack the Vexor. Meanwhile elsewhere in the system the massive bulk of Irion's Typhoon Battleship began to slowly align in order to warp in on Vale.

Vale and Kelmor had damaged the Vexor enough that it had to retreat but Vale was having problems surviving the damage being done to him by the Cerberus, and the drones from the Vexor had forced Kelmor to retreat to a safe spot. Irion at this point was watching the waves of the warp tunnel rush silently past his ship waiting not so patiently to join the battle.

The Vexor now warped back into the battle despite still being heavily damaged. Jools changed target from the Cerberus to the Vexor and fired. Irion's Typhoon finally made its' grand entrance, landing almost on top of the Vexor. It targeted and fired on the Vexor just as the cruise missiles from Jools reached their target. The Vexor was annihilated and Azrael warped his pod away. Vale's Drake then succumbed to missile bombardment it was receiving and exploded. Vale set his pod on course for the station to grab another ship.

The mighty Typhoon class Battleship now began chasing down the Cerberus. Kelmor returned to the station and docked to repair before relaunching his Ishkur, now concentrating on the enemy drones. The Cerberus opened fire on the Typhoon in protest to being chased.

All attention now turned to the Cerberus as Irion managed to get it scrammed, webbed and neutralised. Removing its ability to warp away, get out of range or power its' modules. It did however force Jools to warp away as it targeted him. Jools headed to another station before turning around and warping straight back into the battle.

Vale had now undocked a crow interceptor and grabbed all the loot he could find from the wrecked ships so far and then redocked as he came under fire from the Cerberus again. With Jools back in the fight and Vale changing ship once more, fire continued to rain down on the Cerberus which was slowly losing shield strength.

As expected Azrael then returned, now in a Harbinger Battlecruiser and began to attack Irion's Typhoon. The Cerberus was now in serious trouble as its' shields failed and the armour and hull that kept the vacuum out melted in short order. Vale was now back in the battle with his Blackbird ECM cruiser. He targeted the newly arrived Harbinger and began to Jam its' targeting systems to reduce the damage it was causing to Irion's Typhoon.

The Cerberus finally gave up the fight and exploded, leaving Chococat sitting in a pod to watch the remainder of the battle. Now the Nemesis, Iskur, Blackbird and Typhoon concentrated all fire on the Harbinger's incredibly tough armour. The Harbinger had directed all of its' drones onto the Typhoon and was also firing on it whenever it was able to acquire a target lock.

Irion was deciding whether or not to run as his ships shields and armour were gone and he was relying on a damage control system that was holding his hull together. At this point the Harbinger's armour failed and it started to take structure damage so Irion decided his ship would stay in the battle to the bitter end. Irion reported he was down to 5% structure and we could see that the Harbinger had no more than 10% structure itself. The two ships exploded within seconds of one another and the surviving Nemesis, Iskur and Blackbird of the HJ fleet grabbed the spoils from the wrecked ships having control of the battlefield and then docked safely.

It is believed HJ came off better than Flex in terms of Isk lost due to the mostly tech I fittings on the lost HJ ships compared to the Tech II fitted ships of Flex but HJ cannot afford such losses on a day to day basis so in this war of attrition Flex will ultimately win. It was still a great day for HJ to win the battlefield and claim the spoils.

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If you want to have your handheld and be talked through a game this is not the game for you, but if you like a game with seamless possibilities and a diverse learning curve, with plenty of action and a universe economy based on supply and demand. This is the game for you.

Demon's Souls on PS3 - By Helljumpers RJ

Basically a PS3-exclusive action RPG that has an old school playstyle (1 life, no checkpoints, no in-level saves, tough monsters, monsters fully respawn on death) with some twists for modern gaming. The pvp is one of these twists.

I'll explain the basic mechanics of the pvp system. You play through the game either alive, or in soul form. If you're in soul form you can "invade" another player's game (it automatches for equivalent level) and try and kill them as a Black Phantom. They then either have to kill you or get to the boss to get rid of you. If you get them, you resurrect in your own game world with their souls.

So, I'd been playing a bit of pve and with not enough time left in the evening to try the next world (see points above ref. saving/checkpoints) I thought I'd try invading for a bit.

First attempt, I jump into this guy's world and find him not far from the start, facing away from the level start. He isn't moving, which is a little strange (he gets a big message to let him know he's being invaded). So I try and sneak up on him round the corner to backstab him. I'm totally inept and screw it up, so he starts moving. He's a melee character and I'm a caster, so I try and roll around and zap him, while he tries to roll around and thump me. He's making better progress than me, mainly because I realise I've got a shite selection of spells memorised that are pinging off him. Anyway, he's got me on the edge when I roll back out of range.. straight into an explosive mine cart. BOOM! I'm a goner and lose a level, but he gets no benefit from the kill.

I head back to base to reselect spells and kit then head back in to try again. This time, when I arrive the guy is basically running towards me ready to go. He's obviously experienced and I run for it to try and get some distance. He keeps bearing down on me and then starts setting about with a sword (he appears to be a melee/healer type). Anyway, he's busy handing my arse to me when he steps a bit to close to one of the monsters on the level. This thing then imbeds a huge pickaxe through his back knocking most of his health off and knocking him down. Seizing the opportunity I rush him flailing wildly with my sword and hack at him. He doesn't manage to recover and goes down. I'm starting chuckling to myself at his bad luck when I realise that the damn monster got the last hit and I gained nothing but s@*ts and giggles.

Anyway, I re-kit and try again. This time the guys is another melee type. We clash near the start of the level and I manage to knock him down to a sliver of health. He then manages to roll behind cover and heal while I try and rush him to finish him off. He wins the race and then beats me down for the win... and I'm sucked off home with nothing :sniff: (hayfever btw, not sorrow;))

So, I'm now really keen to get a blighter properly and try again. This time, when I jump in there's no one around. So, I look around for a bit, then decide to take a shortcut down towards the level boss. He's obviously not gone this way (all crates and stuff intact) but, when I'm about halfway there, I get a message about another phantom being summoned.

Another Demon's Souls mechanic is that if you're alive, you can summon phantoms to help you on difficult level/bosses i.e. a limited co-op mode. So this guy is bringing in assistance to beat me down!

I get to the boss area and there's no one around. I wait for a good 5 minutes but still nothing... So, getting bored, I head back up towards the entrance of the level.

About a minute out, I suddenly hear a ruckus below me by the boss chamber. He's dropped in by the other route and started beating up some of the local monsters! I head back, by which point the area is clear, but I start getting another "Phantom Summoning" message - he's bringing in more help! Bastard! So, I rush towards the boss area summoning protection around myself and find him mid-summon, facing away from me, with his assistant right next to him. I target the host and let rip with spells. He's hit hard before he can react but then manages to roll out of the way. His chum gets in my way so I target him and blast him to under half health, but he doesn't seem to know what to do and is kind of running around frantically doing little (to be fair to this guy, I probably surprised the hell out of him, because he wouldn't have been notified that I was there). The host then comes back round the corner casting at me, but sadly forgot to heal himself:) As he casts so do I and he comes apart in a green mist of souls... Oh Yeah! At this point, I get the message that I've succeeded and resurrect, gaining all of his souls and a big grin knowing I've drained a little bit of fun out of some poor guy's evening.

Having read that back, I'm not sure that I've done the game justice. The game has a deep combat system with parries, dodges and counters, as well as massive flexibility to build the character you want. I've only really just started but at the moment I'm hooked.

It's PS3 exclusive so I'm not sure how many of HJ will get to play it, but if you've got the console then I recommend that you at least rent the game to give it a go.



Part 2

Just buzzing from my first unplanned PVP in DS.

I was running around in Soul Form picking up a few stones from Crystal Lizards when the Soul Sign I'd dropped earlier in the level is triggered and I'm summoned into another world for, what I think is going to be, some co-op action. Instead, as soon as I appear the summoner starts casting again and hits me with a Resurrection spell. I'm kicked back to my own world alive. Not quite what I was expecting and as I was pretty close to the Lizard I was farming I go back to finish the job.

As I'm just starting to slice the lizard I get a splash across the screen telling me that a Black Phantom has invaded. Ah! Because I'm alive and so is the boss on the level I'm on, I'm vulnerable to invasion! I've got farming spells memorised and don't have all my pvp kit on me, so I'm seriously underprepared.

Anyway, I finish off the lizard and duck into an alcove while peaking round the corner to the route I know the BP will come from. Sure enough I see him coming up the stairs. He's kitted in full fluted knights armour with a longsword, but is also carrying a Tower Shield - easily the toughest shield in game. So he's basically tank melee setup. Now, I'm a light build so I know I'll have the mobility advantage. So the plan has to be dodge round him and avoid a slugfest because he'll likely be hitting harder and taking less damage.

As he comes past I step out and go for his flank then roll away. As I come round for another attack, I get hit by a firebomb. Unfortunately, a group of NPCs had been drawn towards me into the fight so I was now outnumbered 4-1. I dance around the BP and cut the NPCs to ribbons but the BP manages to ctach me with a glancing shot. It took off such a measly sliver of health that for a moment I reckon I can just pound this guy into the dust, but then he swaps out the longsword for the Dragon Bone Smasher: the biggest and hardest hitting sword in the game.

The duel then takes a kind of rhythm as I duck in and out knocking his health down with a series of rapid blows until my stamina runs out and I have to roll clear. He occasionally catches me on the way in or out with a blow from the DBS with its huge range. The problem is, I can't do enough damage to him because he can just sit behind his shield block and then pop a grass to heal when I run out of stamina (or am splatted on the floor). I'm running health regen kit, but if I get too low I can just roll out of range and heal, so he can't get me either.

So I switch tactics. While the DBS hits like a truck, its attacks are slow and cumbersome and leave him exposed. Rather than dancing to the side to strike I square up to the guy. I watch and then as soon as he goes for the swing, I roll through it rather than away. While he's still retrieving his tree trunk of a sword from the ground, I spin round and... BACKSTAB! The BP fades out and I have a quiet little chuckle.