I first downloaded the demo when it was released on a Saturday. I played about 10 minutes of the single player option and decided that it couldn’t hold a candle to Call of Duty 4 and deleted it from my XBox. But then I started hearing buzz around the office about how awesome the multiplayer was. So I re-downloaded it this weekend and played some of the online. And wow.

I’ve never played a Battlefield game before, which may be why I was so impressed. But the large scale combat felt like what I really wanted Halo Big Team Battle to be. Vehicles, changing objectives, 12 on 12 combat, and working with a smaller group of players. Here are some of the key awesome things about the game.

The maps are huge… really big, except the goals are really tight, so you end up using only a small portion of the map at a time, however, the large scale lets you flank and run around to your hearts delight. The bigger maps have vehicles which let you clear the map quickly when needed and really add a new level to the game, since there are certain weapons that are useless against vehicles and certain weapons that are useful only against vehicles. Team work becomes more and more important.

I never thought I’d play a good 12 vs 12 game on a console. There are simply too many problems to overcome. Typically, XBox Live has used player hosting, where one of the players is chosen to host the game and his internet connection becomes crucially important. If this one person has a poor connection or a connection that can’t support all the players, then the whole game suffers. For this reason, most XBox Live games are limited to 16 total players. Also, voice chat is crucial on XBox Live, and when you get on a team with 11 other people, the chat channel would be ridiculous. Bad Company overcomes these challenges in two ways. Firstly, to prevent lag, EA is hosting the servers for the online modes. So your games are hosted on servers with fast connections and enough power to process everything. Secondly, the big twelve person teams are divided up into three squads of four. So you work with your three friends to accomplish the goals with your team. It’s how I already played Call of Duty (muting everyone I didn’t know in the chat), so it feels awesome here.

Finally, destructible environments… some games have this to a minor amount, but Bad Company takes it to the next level. Almost any wall in this game can be destroyed with an explosion or a tank running through it. Coming up to a building with an objective in it from behind? No door back there?? That’s cool, just blast your way in. It feels REALLY GOOD to achieve goals this way. No longer are sniper perches godlike, sniper in a small window that nobody can see? Blast it with an RPG or a grenade from your assault rifles grenade launcher and suddenly that small window is a huge opening.

The game puts a large amount of weight on team work. No one person can do it all, and being in a squad of 4 lets you use each class types skills to the fullest, and you can always spawn with your squad when you respawn, so having a guy who’s only job might be to get inside the enemy base and stay alive isn’t that bad. The game rewards you for all this team work and everyone is useful. It’s really incredible.

After playing the demo for an hour, I went out and bought it. I expected there to be more game types for multiplayer, but sadly there was still just the one, Gold Rush. It’s not bad, and the additional maps each make this game type play a little differently. Basically there are attackers and defenders. The defenders have two crates at their base to defend and the attackers try to destroy those crates by heavily attacking them or planting charges on them. When the attackers blow up two crates, the defenders fall back to another base and the action repeats. The attackers win when all crates are destroyed (usually 8 to 10) and the defenders win when the attackers reinforcements run out. It’s fun and really emphasizes the features present in the game. There is supposed to be another type named Conquest coming out for download soon and I can’t wait.

My recommendation, GO BUY THIS GAME RIGHT NOW!

• Carcassonne
• Catan
• Lost Cities
• Uno
• Ticket To Ride
• Wits And Wagers
• Chessmaster
• Spyglass Boardgames (Chess, Backgammon, Checkers)

They are all awesome, they are all XBL enabled and support the maximum number or players. You really can’t beat it. So if board games are your thing, you should really get on the boat. This is the future!

So, let’s see… how awesome is Kelsey? Well, she’s pretty awesome.

WARNING: GUY GUSHING BELOW, YOU’VE BEEN WARNED

Let’s start with video games which are super important. For Valentines Day she bought me a Halo 3 XBox 360 carrying bag so I wouldn’t risk damaging my system when I brought it to work or to Tulsa. She got me Madden 08 and Scene It! for our 1 year anniversary. She went to Blockbuster at 10am to get GTA IV for me when it came out. She also went to Best Buy with me at midnight to wait for Halo 3. She lets me play all the games I want. She’s also pretty good at Guitar Hero, Rock Band, and games that turn multi-million dollar movies into Legos.

As far as how eccentric I am. She indulges that I spend money on the craziest things just so I can have the most awesome home ever… Which I suppose benefits her as well. When I try to save money for something, she makes it easy on me. She’s gonna decorate the apartment with all kinds of neat things as well to make it look nice. She also keeps it super clean which is commendable.

On top of that, she’s just awesomely hot and I think she got like all A’s last semester in school or somethign. So I’m well on my way to my goal of being a stay at home dad that plays video games all day.

So Kelsey is awesome. That’s that.

Checklist of things acquired so far:
Optoma HD-80: HD Projector
LG LHT-764: 5.1 Surround Home Theater System
Microsoft X-Box 360: Gaming System
Psyclone PSC01: Remote Controlled System Selector
6ft Black Sumo Sac: Giant Squishy Couch Thing (http://sumolounge.com/)
2 Red Sumo Omnis: Giant Bean Bags
Blue Sumo Ottoman: Bean Bag Footrest
Harmony 550 Remote: The Grandaddy Remote, Controls Everything

Things I need:
Projector Screen: I will use Polywall, supposedly better than most expensive screens
Black Felt: Surrounding the screen with a light absorbing material increases contrast
Cheap Black Fabric: To line the walls with black curtains, to absorb light and echo
Speaker Mounts: To position the speakers in the perfect places for the surround effect

Also want:
X10 Infrared Reciever: To be used with the next item
X10 Appliance Control: To dim lights with my remote control
Swivel LCD TV Mount: So I can mount my TV and watch TV while playing XBox

I recently bought an Asus eeePC, and it has changed the way I use computers.

Let me run down the specs before I start my review. There are currently a few different configurations at several different price points from $300 to $500. They are all 900mhz Intel Celeron processors clocked at 630mhz with a 7inch screen that has a resolution of 800×480. They have 3 usb ports, a VGA out port, SD card reader, and laptop lock hole. It also includes 802.11g wifi, and built in speakers.

The varying configurations are as follows:
2g Surf: $300
512mb ram (not upgradeable), 2gb solid state drive, 2.75 hour battery

4g Surf: $350
512mb ram (upgradeable to 2gb), 4gb solid state drive, 2.75 hour battery

4g: $400
512mb ram (upgradeable to 2gb), 4gb solid state drive, 3.5 hour battery, webcam

8g: $500
1gb ram (upgradeable to 2gb), 8gb solid state drive, 3.5 hour battery, webcam

Buying Decision and Model Comparison

I purchased the $400 4g model and a 2gb of ram for $42. I think this is the best deal (obviously, since it’s where I put my money). I’ll detail my buying decision for each of the customizable factors. Firstly, hard drive space. 2gb isn’t very much space, but if you are very budget minded and looking for a web surfing email machine, it will work perfect, but you definitely won’t regret going with one of the 4gb models. For informational purposes, I did manage to install Windows XP (nLited), OpenOffice.org, Firefox, Thunderbird, Miranda, and a few other applications in only 1.61gb of HD space. 4gb is more than enough space for all but the largest applications (Microsoft Office 07 is around 1gb itself, and if you want to use it as a GPS, Microsoft Streets and Trips 08 requires 1gb to 1.5gb of space). Also, don’t forget that it has an SD card reader, you can buy 4gb, 8gb, or 16gb SD cards now, and install applications there (even MS Streets and Trips 08). I felt pretty good about the 4gb hard drive in the end and still like it now.

Next is the memory, the three lower models all have 512mb of ram and the high end 8g has 1gb of ram. I purchased a 2gb memory upgrade along with the laptop, however it did not get here the same time as the laptop, so I got the play with it with only 512mb for a while, and the verdict is that 512mb is plenty of memory. 1gb would be ideal, and 2gb is absolutely overkill. What is important to consider is that because of the solid state hard drive, you are going to want to avoid using a page file if at all possible due to the nature of solid state drive wear. So if your going to be using an application that requires more memory, be sure to buy a 1gb or 2gb memory upgrade with your eeePC or go with the high end model with the 1gb memory installed. During the time that I had only 512mb of memory, I had no problems running with a page file, the only issue I ran into was when I was running Google Earth.

Finally, there is battery life and the included webcam. For me battery life is one of the most important features, especially with a laptop as portable as this one. I carry it everywhere and bust it out every spare moment to kill time or check my favorite web sites and email. If it only lasted an hour and half or so, I’d be pretty sad. Luckily, even with the low end battery, you get 2 hours and 45 minutes on average, and with the bigger battery you get 3 hours and 30 minutes. Almost 25% battery increase is pretty significant and it really affected my buying decision. And there is also the webcam. I’ll admit, as much as I dislike Macs, I was always envious of that little camera they had built in. I wanted it. You may not. However it is awesome having what it essentially a little video phone with me where ever I go.

Review

This review is of the 4g Asus eeePC. It’s size truly must be seen to be believed. It weighs in at around 2.5lbs, slightly less than the MacBook Air and while not thinner, it leaves a much smaller footprint on your workspace at only 9″x6.5″. The keyboard is slightly smaller than your average desktop keyboard, it’s about 8.5″ wide, and it takes some getting used to. After about 30 minutes I could touch type as accurately as on a desktop. The touch pad is tiny, but you honestly won’t notice as you use it.

The screen is a 7 inch 800×480 LCD with backlight. When I first looked at the Asus eeePC I was immediately turned off by the small screen and low resolution, however, I still wanted an ultra portable computer so I looked at it’s competitors. It appears that 800×480 is pretty much the standard, I couldn’t find anything competitive for the price, so I decided I would try it out. And honestly, it’s not that bad. You can’t really multi-task, but word processing, instant messaging, email, and web browsing all work pretty well on the small screen. For the price and size, the screen is fantastic.

The eeePC does not come with Windows, it comes with a custom version of Linux, which seemed fairly functional for the 2 hours I used it, and it probably perfect for the average user. I used nLite to create a custom Windows XP install that cut all the fat following a guide I found here. This got Windows XP installed in just under 600mb. I used an external DVD drive and the whole process was fairly painless. I am told there are ways to install from a USB stick as well if that is what you have.

Windows XP runs great on this little computer. Due to the slimmed down version of XP I installed as well as the ultra quick solid state disk it boots up fast. Like really fast. From off to usable in 30 seconds. Asus provided drivers for all the hardware for Windows including a utility which lets you set the screen to 800×600 and scroll up and down (so you can change it temporarily for windows that are too tall for the 480 resolution).

The little Celeron 900mhz processor is up for most tasks clocked at 630mhz, browsing the web, watching Youtube, video calls with Skype all work well. I’ve only experienced lag when watching high resolution videos. I was able to watch these videos by clocking the processor to 900mhz temporarily, which is totally safe, just a greater drain on the battery. Asus doesn’t provide a utility to do this unfortunately, but it wasn’t hard to find one online.

It’s great being able to take out the laptop whenever I have some down time and boot it up to browse the web. It connects to any wifi hotspot you can find. I was also able to use my HTC Excalibur Windows Mobile 6 Smartphone as a modem to get internet places that don’t have wifi or don’t have free wifi.

Final Thoughts

If your looking for a portable web browsing machine or something just to have with you that can do most computer tasks, this is great. It’s doesn’t have the power for games, high res photo editing, or video editing, so it’s not going to replace a desktop. But at 2lbs, it’s so light to carry everywhere that you can keep with you always. And the 3 hour battery life is really nice as well. I wholly recommend this computer.

Here are my rankings.

Single Player:

1. Bioshock - Great story, game play, and enviroment.
2. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare - Intense game play.
3. The Orange Box (HL2, HL2 ep1, HL2 ep2, Portal) - Tons of value, unique game play (Portal), great story (HL2).
4. Rock Band - Awesome game play, engrossing, super fun.
5. Halo 3 - Fun mindless action.
6. Assassin’s Creed - Great action if a bit repetitive, good story.

Multiplayer (XBLive)

1. Halo 3 - Tons of players, great fights, fun with friends, fantastic matchmaking system, ranking, awesome co-op.
2. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare - Great team system, fun in game rewards for doing well.
3. The Orange Box (Team Fortress 2) - Unique team play, not enough players on XBox 360 version.

*Rock Band not included as I never played it online.

Multiplayer (Local Console)

1. Rock Band - Completely engrossing experiences, transcends the living room.
2. Halo 3 - Completely awesome co-op. 4 player split screen works great.