The Rusted Musket

“I am not asking anyone to accept Christianity if his best reasoning tells him that the weight of evidence is against it. That is not the point at which Faith comes in.” ¹

It’s important to be able to define certain words, “Faith” is just such a word, “Doppelganger” another. That opening quote from CS Lewis is interesting to me because I think it highlights how more than a few people view Faith, as a dumb unreasonable thing. I don’t think Faith is as dumb and unreasonable a thing as some suppose. I think it more probable that people have dumb unreasonable Faith definitions.

Faith for Lewis was interwoven with reason, reason in lock step with belief, kept steadfast by Faith; for it is almost a certainty that once a man “decides that the weight of evidence is for it” he will experience within the next few weeks a personal crises, or his friends will voice their collective displeasure and because of this  “emotions will rise up” and assault his belief. ¹ Faith then, is the ability to maintain core holding’s despite fancies and mood, for without Faith in this respect you can “never be either a sound Christian or even a sound atheist, but just a creature dithering to and fro, with its beliefs really dependent on the weather and the state of its digestion.” Which is interesting to me for this Faith definition rightly implies faith usage, even among “faithless” or the “scientific.”

I would like to end with a simple summation of my Faith definition, it starts out with a little Hebrews 11.1 and ends with a little Lewis:

Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. It is the habit of telling moods where they get off.

The other day I passed a young man sadly walking down a semi busy thoroughfare.

He looked so forlorn

He was wearing a t-shirt with scorpion stinger encapsulated within a red triangle looking thing (+1 to the peoples who know the t-shirt origin)

I thought to myself that this young man must be sad because he’s walking to his destination, not driving; because driving, as you know, is normal. I then thought to myself how bizarre it was that I felt driving was the normal method of humanoid travel rather than us bipeds using our legs…

Perspective – Perspective

Let me start this review stating the kind of video gamer I am. I mainly game on the PC and I play a range of games, from RPGs (The Witcher anyone?) to all types of strategy (Turn based, real time, hybrids), the occasional MMO (Rift and EVE Online ATM) and lastly I play the occastional FPS preferring multiplayer oriented ones. My current FPS of choice is Battlefield Bad Company 2. I’m not a fan of COD, though it is a decently put together game the selfish and frantic gameplay is not my cup of tea. I like team based complex FPSs that reward good teamwork (since I like to play with friends).

That leads me to this game. My friends and I are losing interest in BF:BC2 since we’ve all put 200+ hours into it and have been playing it since beta. So I heard about Brink and the teamwork based gameplay and thought that I would try it out and let my pals know how it is. Well I played for several hours yesterday and have to say that while the premise is good, the game is overall just blah. It has a few cool ideas and the setting is fun, but there is just nothing about it that really stands out so it just ends up feeling like another run of the mill shooter. Personally I think it has similar gameplay to say a Unreal Tournament game.

So nitty gritty. The graphics are good, character models and levels aren’t bad. I think the guy’s heads look funny but anyway… The customization aspect is nice, but to be honest not anything revolutionary. The most basic of RPGs allowed this level of customization for years. The weapons, which are arguably one of the most important parts of a FPS, are rather blah. There isn’t a lot of differentiation between them. One SMG feels very much like another. The ARs are very similar as well and the grenades are very underwhelming.

For those singleplayer people, you can play by yourself and get a decent storyline, but lets be honest, this is really just a multiplayer game. Even the singleplayer is meant to be played online. The story is decent, I haven’t finished it, but it is basically just do objectives with teammates, not much different than playing the multiplayer component. The only real difference is the videos before and after.

One of my bigger complaints is the lack of in game stats and the ease that everything is unlocked. There is no staying power in the game. I still play BF:BC2 because its fun, but also because I get cool stats to look at and there are still guns to platinum. With Brink, everything is unlocked within 10 hours and while there is a decent amount of experimenting to try after it is all unlocked, since there is no in game stats and no crazy high levels to get there is less incentive to play. For instance, in BF:BC2 I have played well over 200 hours and I still have about 5 levels to go to get to 50. It isn’t my only incentive to play, but it gives me a little something to work towards.

Anywho, its not a bad game, but I doubt I’ll be playing it that much and I really don’t expect the online community to stick around.

Yesterday my friend Dan gave me a Gears 3 Beta invite code, we united our powers later that night.

I got “double buried” (a term I invented to describe death by double barrel sawed off shotgun) and curb stomped a lot and somewhere in between these events Dan started calling me something altogether different; instead of “Kenuchfleck,” my normal handle, he started calling me “Ken-flo.”

It made my noobishness not seem so bad, the new nickname that is, especially when I decided to use the OP’d double barrel myself…

Update: Even with the double barrel I still stink…

So maybe it isn’t as slick as COD, nor does it have destruction 2.0, and yes, Crysis graphics are about three generations beyond. That said, Homefront is definitely better than Medal of Honor and if Homefront misses the mark I believe it more accurate to say it’s aiming for something altogether different, which truth be told, is just fine.

The Story – Red Dawn Redux

Some might declare Homefront’s plot improbable junk but compared with COD’s Manchurian candidate and Battlefield’s gold crates I find Homefront’s plot to be the most believable of the three. I mean, the specter of inflation, gas prices on the rise, and social unrest all play into the hand of the cataclysmal. (Did anyone catch the Wolverine reference?) The escalation of world events retold via 61 newsclippings scattered throughout the game was actually one of the things I enjoyed most. They helped paint a fantastic, yet probable scenario as to how we got from here to there; very very good fiction.

So, I felt the campaign was short but good, the story really couldn’t support anything of length. The mission set pieces were fine and mostly memorable. All the campaign cheevo’s are possible, worth a playthrough or two but the legs of the game are multiplayer…

Mulitplay – Surprised by Depth

Pros:

- With format, menu, and challange cues taken from COD, I found myself happy and familiar with offerings both old and new.

- The kit selection is like BF2142, with different slots for different things, I dig it.

- Battlepoints (BP) are cool, your prowess is rewarded with call-ins and character buffs – counter strikish.

- Maps are real big, lots of places to hide yourself.

- Guns are great (the Diablo SMG ftw; it’s also one of the best video game gun variants I’ve seen in years)

- Sound effects are fantastic, better than COD, M-16 has a snappy sweet semi auto action groove!

- Great environmental art direction, reminded me of a cross between Terminator Salvation, Jericho, and The Road.

Cons:

- This is a perfect game for squads, yet there are no squad options, this sucks. I don’t have any friends so I haven’t done this but I assume setting up an xbox live party squads you up, but I dont’ know for sure.

- Almost a hundred cheevo’s tied with “partying up” which is lame, I don’t have 16 friends to party up with to unlock those blasted cheevos.

- Game can look fugly, xbox 360 pushed to the max. Team USA comes off as a bright green looking dudes, real easy to see

- No destructible environments. Once you get used to Battlefield you just lament the fact that your M1A1 gets snagged on rubble.

Favorite gameplay moment:

- No bigger heart-pounding moment than when I hit Threat Level 5. I was on foot with low ammo and charging headlong into the enemy with time running out. It was simply awesome!

Bottom Line:

I liked the game, not a long haul type of game, but good non-the-less. If you’re looking to score this off of Ebay be aware that you need an online pass to play multiplayer beyond lvl 5, it’ll run you about $10.