As if it needed proving, I don't know everything about guns (even though I like to think of myself as a bit 'knowledgable')! Today I came across some info about the Russian AEK-971 which - I am now embarrassed to admit - I thought was one of those 'made-up' computer game weapons (similar to the AK107 in ArmA2).

When I first saw the AEK-971 in Bad Company 2 I did smirk, but now I'm laughing on the other side of my face. But even more surprising is that while everyone who plays Bad Company 2 raves about the AN-94 assault rifle I actually found that the AEK-971 was nicer to use (despite it being default infantry rifle).

The reason this is so surprising is that the AEK-971 and AN-94 were competitors in the Russian military trials to find a replacement for the current AK74 infantry rifle. But while the AN-94 eventually came out on top it wasn't universally adopted by the Russian army because of it's complexity - and ironically the Russians are now looking again at the AEK-971 which they now consider to be more accurate than the AN94!

Well, I'll go to the foot of our stairs!

Useful links:

> Wikipedia entry for the real AEK-971 rifle
> Battlefield Wiki entry for the BC2 AEK-971 rifle

It is with a much excitement tinged with a little sadness that I received my replacement Belkin n52 te game pad today. My old n52 (pictured above right) has been without doubt one of the best pieces of computer gaming kit that I have ever bought and I simply cannot game without one now.

However, time has taken it's toll and I wanted to replace my trusty n52 before the inevitable happened, so I bought the newest version - the n52 Tournament Edition - from Amazon.co.uk for £31. I think this is a terrific price for such an indespensible accessory, especially when you consider that the n52's nearest rival - the Logitech G13 Gameboard - is double the price.

My only initial misgivings are that the new n52te software does not seem to be able to import my old n52 game setups - so I have to start from scratch. But, mehhhh!

Couldn't resist the nostalgia of Ghost Recon Classic as STEAM is now selling this at rock bottom prices. You can now buy the whole original series - Ghost Recon, Desert Siege and Island Thunder - for just £9!

As much as I love Bad Company 2 or CoD: Black Ops and their fantastic graphical realism I do like a bit of retro gaming on occasion and like to go back to my battlefield FPS roots. Ghost Recon was the first tactical military shooter I played on my Apple Macintosh computer and it was also the first game that really introduced me to multipler gaming as our office had little lunchtime Ghost Recon tournaments!

One additional inducement is that there are huge amounts of free DLC for this game. For example, the accompanying screenshots show a mod called Udmurtia Spetsnaz, which gives you access to a host of Russian Spetsnaz uniforms and weapons (the map is, fittingly, Red Square).

However intense and realistic gaming experience modern games like BC2 of CoD:BO provide, sometimes it's just nice to kick back and enjoy the more sedate gaming of a time gone by! LOL

Links:

> Ghost Recon series on STEAM online store

> The Ghost Recon community at GhostRecon.net
> The free Udmurtia Spetsnaz mod at GhostRecon.net

I was hoping for an early start and a full days gaming on the release of this hugely anticipated game add-on, but this thing 'Christma' and the associated shopping got in the way. Despite my late start I did manage to get some Bad Company 2 Vietnam play late night and made this short movie of my first attempt. There is a bit of action and a bit of scenery sightseeing and I didn't particularly distinguish myself, but it was absolutely amazing fun!

I was joined a bit later of by a couple of other members of the BIG team (who managed to slip their leashes and get away from the pre-Christmas preparations) and we were able to get a little squad based play under our belts.

The initial consensus about this new game (as this is what it feels like) is very positive indeed, in fact everyone agrees that it was very under priced and we all would have been happy to have paid the full cost of a normal game - it is that good. I was particularly surprised and a little aggrieved as I had recently forked out £40 for Call of Duty Black Ops and I have to say that BC2 Vietnam gives you a far superior gaming experience for just a quarter of the cost of that over-hyped piece of nonsense!

If I had any complaints about BC2 'Nam it is my usual nit-picking about authenticity of the choice of guns - though it is nowhere near as bad as the horrendous historical errors made in CoD: BO. Both my team mates and myself felt it would have been nicer to have a fixed set of faction weapons, so the VC ended up playing with Soviet weapons by default and the same for the American side. But that is a small niggle.

I could groan about the use of the Uzi and MAC 10 smgs instead of something a little more authentic - like a Madsen M50 or Swedish Carl Gustav M45 which were both widely used by US forces who needed a 9mm SMG - but that seemed a little churlish when, at the end of the day, the complete package was so well done.

Above: Big Clan team mate 'BIG Dewey' resplendent in his VC pyjamas and coolie hat!The bottom line is that we all really enjoyed BC2 'Nam, it was a instant hit as far as we were concerned, the maps were beautiful, the weapons and character animations and graphics appeared to have been improved over the original BC2 ones and the game play - which had apparently been re-balanced to favour close-in fighting - was very exciting indeed.

There were some glitches regarding EA's game database - with some players finding their scores repeatedly reset to zero - but this seemed to be a case of first day jitters. Otherwise EA have, in my opinion, put the nail in the coffin of the terminally ill Call of Duty franchise.

Milgeek rating:

After a particularly high scoring game of Bad Company 2 this morning - where I scored 98 kills on BiT's 1000 ticket server - I wondered to myself whether I could actually get a 100+ kills in a game?

Now I know there are some terribly 'leet' players out there who could probably get a century of kills in an ordinary ticket game of BC2, but I am certainly not 'leet'! So the extra long 1000 ticket game at least offered me a chance to to rack up the kills if I really pulled my finger out (before today my best score on a 1K BC2 server was 78 kills).

Well after a intense day I managed to finally do it and broke the 100 kill score line by one kill!

Server information: Best in Tactics 'High Score - 1000 TiX - Atakama Only - www.bestintactics.com

Here's the moment I got my hundredth kill in all it's glory - as you can see I got so flustered that it was going to be K100 - with just a few tickets left in the game - that I thumbled the whole thing and splattered a full mag at him before I finally got him! LOL

This game has been bubbling under the radar for quite a while now, but it looks like it is starting to reach the pre-release marking stage. Homefront is Terminator re-imagined (no getting round it), but instead of hoards of Arnie T1s the North Koreans have taken over beloved America!

Now the first thing that struck me - in fact the first two things really - was the graphics, the quality isn't great even compared to Bad Company 2 but moreover it all reminds me of a game called Frontlines: Fuel of War. The whole style is a little more 'gamey' than the CoD/MoH 'semi-sim' model - and by gamey I do mean it is a little bit stinky!

Still, we all do like the idea of playing a resistance and this unpretentious out-and-out piece of gaming might be refreshing compared to the CoD/MoH incessant drive for 'realism'. I await some real gameplay footage and news of the multiplayer modes (all we know is that they will be 32 player).

Yet another of my poor old gaming mice bit the dust recently. I tend to go through a lot of gaming mice due to my gaming rage attacks (with mice inevitably flying across the room)! :)

With my Logitech G5 dead I have had to resort to my 'emergency spare' Razor Diamondback and it hasn't been a happy substitution. The Diamondback is a small mouse which has forced me to change my gaming stance to a 'calw' instead of my preferred 'paw' hand position (I have big hands and like to hold my had flat over a large mouse - hence 'paw'). While hand position is a personal preference I find the claw method gives me cramp in my hand after prolonged use.

My first preference for a new mouse was the rather sexy looking Saitek RAT 5. The key selling points of this mouse were it 4000 dpi resolution and its adjustable size (to suit differing hand sizes). While I didn't like the price tag of £56 I did like the idea that it might fit my large hands because of it's advanced ergonomics - well, until I actually saw it in PC World in Leeds that is...It's tiny!

It was while I was looking through the different gaming mice in PC World that I came across the old model (2007/8) Microsoft Sidewinder. At only £29 it is one of the cheaper 'gaming' mice available, and yet it comes with many of the knick-knacks and facilities you would normally associate with much more expensive mice.

Above: The older model Microsoft Sidewinder gaming mouse. This is available from Amazon.co.uk - though I did notice the price has now risen to £33 since I ordered mine. Actually if you dig about on Amazon you will still find the previous model of this version for just £23! Click on the above image to go to the Microsoft Sidewinder product page for more in-depth info.

With integrated weights bay - so you can adjust the weight of the mouse to get the right surface friction for you - and large Teflon type mice 'feet' this mouse has a better heft to it than lighter general PC mice. Add to this it's adjustable resolution (up to 2000 dpi) and its additional side mounted buttons and it makes a neat little package.

Actually, what swung it for me - over other gaming mice - was its generally larger physical size and its rather unusual vertically placed side buttons. Most gaming mice you come across have two thumb activated side buttons which are places in a horizontal arrangement. To me this is rather silly as humans do not have the ability to suddenly increase and decrease the length of their thumbs at will - meaning you have to slightly adjust the position of your hand on the mouse when using these side buttons.

The MS Sidewinder has vertically positioned side buttons, which means you slimply move your thumb up and down to activate them - far more natural in my opinion.

If I had any complaint about this mouse it would be the relatively low resolution - most new gaming mice are sporting 4000-5600dpi these days - and its horrendous ergonomics. Unlike many new mice this Sidewinder does not have a 'thumb wing' or recess to support the thumb during play.

However, I over-looked this emission because none of my old mice had this design feature either (so I wasn't missing anything) and neither have I had any resolution over 2000dpi before. In short, at just £29 the older version MS Sidewinder was just what I wanted. (There is a new range of Sidewinder mice with higher resolutions and funkier designs but these are all about the £40+ price mark.)

Finally, to accompany my new mouse I bought a new gaming mat too. I usually just play on a bare desktop surface but this does have its disadvantages. First of all my desktop does tent to get a but sticky due to drinks spillages and also its beech effect laminate does cause a little rumble when my muse moves over it (cause by the slight undulation in the surface causes by teh mock wood grain effect).

The new gaming mat is a Coolermaster CS-M 'Weapon of Choice' soft type mat. I know some players prefer medium-hard playing surfaces but I have had a hard mat in the past (a lovely Razor hard playing surface) but, again, didn't like the feeling of the mouse as it travelled over it....Yes, I am a bit of a game geek!

Above: The Coolermaster CS-M soft gaming mat. At 45.5 x 28.5cm in side it is a medium sized mat which is single sided with a rubberised bottom surface. Click on the image to go to the CS-M product page for additional info.

The new soft surface not only muffles any tactile friction during mouse movement by also has a little bit of give under the downward pressure of the weight of my hand on the mouse - which is rather comfortable. Also, the addition of a large black mouse mat to my desk surface is a visual reminder for me NOT to put my cup down in that area! (Reducing sticky desk syndrome!)

Finally, The Coolermaster CS-M comes with a nice sillouette of an AK-47 on it (hense 'Wepaon of Choice') and that can't be a bad thing can it?

A wee while ago I had a bit of a rant about the media uproar and political interference regarding computer game content and whether a topical theme - in this case 'Medal of Honor: Reboot' - was a 'suitable one' (bearing in mind that no other entertainment narratives;- like books or films - are similarly constrained).

Well, the BBC is off on one again - this time the target is the forthcoming SAW game...

Now, personally I do feel that the SAW series of movies are distasteful - but there is a snobbishness out there in 'arty world' that says if you term the movie as having an arty meaning you can do just about anything...Slasher flicks like SAW et all are not covered by this cart blanche...And neither are computer games!

There is a huge misconception regarding computer games and the influence they exert - primarily, I suppose, because they are mostly - BUT NOT ALWAYS - marketed to young people. 

While it seems perfectly adequate for 'caring parents' that the government (or certification body) slaps an '15' or '18' certificate on a movie - and thus the curse is miraculously lifted - certification on games does not seem to eb enough for some people ( --- in fact neither is the simple democratic right for people who do not think they will like the content to simpley not to buy it! ---)...

A lot of people - including my wife it has to be said - do not understand that computer gaming is also an ADULT pastime, and not just the haven of children whose little minds might be twisted by the nature of the content. It's really about time that we stop middle-class, namby-pamby, hippy parents trying to spoil everyone's fun because they don't have the balls to tell their kids 'NO' ('...you can't have that game')!

So - just how far can you blow a player using a load of mines in BC2? Thanks to the BIG clan members we now have a definitive answer...

I forgot to add - the guinea-pigs were BIG-Paddy and myself - BIG Ranger!

I have for some time now been languishing with speeds of just 6mb/s using my old Thompson Speedtouch - a bit frustating as I am told that my exchange is capable of up to 20mb/s (contension dependant).

For online gaming and voice comms this speed has been a little bit of a liability as my ping could soar, so I was glad to hear that my broadband supplier - Demon.net - has just introduced a special 'Gaming' package which has traffic prioratisation. Called 'Demon Gamer Pro' the new package is actually less than my old home business account at an introductory price of £21.99 a month and comes with a free wireless router!

As much of my recent braodband woes originiate with my use of my 'emergency' router - as my expensive 3Com wireless router went 'bang!' - the provision of a newer model router modem was a nice bonus.

Anyway, the upshot of all this is a nice new - and very satisfying - 14mb/s broadband speed. It's not often you get a better service AND have a reduction in price - oh happy day!

Above: My SpeedTest.net results - on the left my old speed and on the right my new enhanced speed with 'Demon Gamer Pro'.

> Demon Gamer Pro

> SpeedTest.net