A Guide to Battlefield 4: Solo PTFO

Hello readers, welcome to the second installment of "A Guide to Battlefield 4" where I will be outlining some basic solo tactics to help you better PTFO. So if you want to stay alive on the Battlefield, I suggest you pay attention, soldier.

Stick Together, Team!
This one should be a no-brainer. Battlefield is a team-based game, so, remember to stick by your team. More importantly, stick with your squad because everything you do to support them will net you additional points. If separate from your squad, try and get back to them or at the very least, back up your team. By working together, you can capture objectives faster and have additional firepower when faced with the enemy. Plus, you can get ammo, health, revives and repairs if your team/squad knows what they're doing.

Target Spotted
Always remember to spam the spot button when you see an enemy and they aren't shooting at you. If you can manage to spot while shooting or being shot at, even better! Spotting gives a massive advantage not just to you but your team because the pesky enemy has a floating dorito over his head and appears on the minimap. This gives you and your team the tactical advantage of knowing where the enemy is and having them sighted in for friendly artillery (either the M142 rocket truck or the M224 mortar).

Hey! I Need a Ride!
Chances are, if you've played Battlefield 4 enough, you've heard the above phrase. Try to stop for your team or squad when you're in a vehicle to give them a ride to the next objective because it's just the nice thing to do. I'm sure you've spent a lot of time hoofing it if you've played many a Battlefield game where you just wish there were a vehicle so you could just get where you want to go, so, do the nice thing and offer people a ride. Of course, common sense should also dictate that you don't stop in the middle of a firefight and offer a ride, make sure it's clear and safe for you to stop and pick up passengers.

How to Defibrillate Correctly
Did you know that you can charge up the defib paddles before reviving someone to give them full health? It takes some experience to know when the paddles fully charge up but don't just do a quick tap revive when you have time, because your revivee will need to recover their health from a measly 20 points meaning they have a significant disadvantage if they get shot. If you do go through with a low health revive, at least throw down a health pack or health bag to accelerate their healing. Also, for the love of Battlefield, check your surroundings before you revive. No one likes a Rambo revive. Don't just revive people just because you can, it's a waste of their life and a waste of your life when you revive someone when there are enemies still around shooting at you. Consider the situation and act accordingly.

Recon 101
While I think that people can play the game however they want, don't be that guy camping halfway across the god-damned map contributing nothing to the team. If you want to be a sniper, fine, but at least spot some enemies, lay down some suppressing fire, deploy a SOFLAM or designate vehicles with the PLD. Don't just lie there thinking about the next headshot, it's just selfish. Alternately, be an aggressive recon, equip a DMR or shotgun or carbine and run around pew-pewing people and dropping motion sensors everywhere.

The Wolf Among Us (Episode 1: Faith) Review

Hello readers, it's been a while since I did a review but that's because I haven't really bought or played anything really review-worthy is current months until the January PSN sale rolled around and I picked up a season pass for The Wolf Among Us because it was cheap and I've been told many times that Telltale Games' The Walking Dead was one of the best games ever.

Like The Walking Dead, Telltale has created another choice-driven point-and-click adventure game based on pre-existing material for The Wolf Among Us, specifically, the Fables comic book series written by Bill Willingham and published by DC Comics Vertigo imprint. The story takes place in the Fables universe some time after an unspecified event that forces various characters from famous fairy tales and stories, collectively referred to as "Fables", from their original homeland to New York City where they've set up a sanctuary in the form of Fabletown, a second home to the Fables that is hidden from the "mundane" world by various forms of magic. You play as Sheriff Bigby Wolf, formerly known as the Big Bad Wolf from Little Red Riding Hood as well as the Three Little Pigs, tasked with protecting the Fables and investigating any crimes related to the Fabletown community. Equally feared and hated by the Fable population, Bigby is nevertheless a competent detective trying to do his best as sheriff.  The first thing you notice when the game starts playing is the crisp and gorgeous art design. Although the graphics are a little inconsistent especially when it comes to the environment with some areas detailed gorgeously while others look a little lacklustre, the game has a beautiful comic book look and feel to it. The character design is especially outstanding although the characters seem to share very little aesthetic similarity with their comic book counterparts. Particularly Bigby, who is a lot less ferocious and bestial than his comic book appearance. Snow White is also very different from what she looks like in the comics with the key distinction being she looks less weary and bitter at the world. Understandable as The Wolf Among Us takes place before the comics. Perhaps the events of the game contribute to her future world-weariness and cynicism.  Gameplay-wise, The Wolf Among Us is more akin to a point-and-click adventure with the odd quick-time event than a real fully interactive game. I'm not necessarily saying that's a bad thing, it's just how the game works. And at least from my point of view, it's pretty effective. It gives you some degree of choice in how you respond to people and that has consequences in the future as highlighted by the notifications saying something along the lines of "She'll remember that" or "Toad noticed what you said". The game is fascinating, particularly the premise, but my main issue is that choices don't have full weight, at least in the short term. I ran through the game a few times choosing different verbal responses and sometimes even choosing not to say anything and the outcome was almost always the same. I get that the game is ramping up to the finale like a television series but it feels really linear and forcing you down a chosen path. There is of course nothing inherently wrong with that aside from the fact that the game is sold on the basis of choice and to me, it feels like choice is an illusion.  In other words, the game is pretty interesting and has me sold on the next episode but I'm wary of whether Telltale will be able to deliver the impact that my fellow gamers have told me they were able to achieve in The Walking Dead. Furthermore, the interesting premise is what keeps this game interesting for me and the credit should partially be given to Bill Willingham, who created Fables which is something I definitely recommend people start reading. In conclusion, give this game a play but perhaps temper expectations until the final episode, I suspect it might not deliver the impact that people expect but that's just me.

A Guide to Battlefield 4: PTFO Basics

If you've played Battlefield for more than an hour, you'll probably have heard or see the term "PTFO" get thrown around. For those who are terrible at using the internet to search for the meaning of this term or those who just like hanging around this terrible excuse for a blog, today's your lucky day because I will be breaking down what it means to PTFO in Battlefield 4 (or any Battlefield game, really).

Defining PTFO
"PTFO" stands for Play the F**king Objective as some of you will no doubt have learned. The "F" in "PTFO" arises from the frustration many veteran players have with noobs or lone wolf players who apparently bought the game under the impression that getting kills is much more important than taking the objective and helping your team. If you want to make sick montages with your long-range sniper kills or maintain a super-high K/D ratio, please play Domination, Team Deathmatch or Squad Deathmatch because those three game modes emphasise killing the enemy above all else. If you want to play Conquest, Rush, Obliteration or Defuse, then please contribute by playing the objective.

Learn to Play, Mother Truckers: How to PTFO
If you take "PTFO" literally, you'd think that all it means is to capture flags in Conquest, arm/defuse MCOMs in Rush and make a mad dash for the bomb in Obliteration. While this is what you should be doing in the first place, that's not what "PTFO" is all about. Playing the objective is all well and good but you have to make sure that you're playing the objective right. Don't just throw yourself blindly at an objective, value your life because it might make the difference between winning and losing during those hard-fought and ridiculously close matches.

For example, there's no point capturing an objective in Conquest if you know you can't hold it. You'd be wasting time better suited to defending an objective you can hold. Alternately, there's no point assaulting a heavily-defended objective because you'll just be wasting tickets and giving the enemy team some free kills. Ah, but what about if you are an attacker on Rush, you may ask. Well, don't just throw yourself at the objective. Watch the enemy, determine if there are any weak points in their defence and flank like your life depends on it because it very often does. If it looks like they have an impregnable defence, then send up some armour or send in the EOD bots. Where there's a will, there's a way.

At the end of the day, to PTFO means to contribute to the team towards victory. As long as you're doing something for the team, that's PTFO and you'll be considered a valuable member of the community. If you don't, that's fine but know that you'll probably one day find a torrent of swear words headed your way. I don't like telling people how to play but this is a team-oriented game, so, put aside your lone wolf tendencies and help your team out.

Video Game Time Machine: Arkham Asylum

Hello readers, new series again. This time with a twist. It's a new series about older video games. When I say old, I mean anything from classics like Pong to more recent classics like Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, depending on what older game I decide to go back to. This time we're looking at Batman: Arkham Asylum from 2009, which although seems like a fairly short time ago, is nearly a whopping five years.

When Arkham Asylum first hit the shelves, I must admit I was rather sceptical about the quality of the game and felt that perhaps it was an attempt by the video games industry to latch on to the successes of both Batman Begins (2005) and The Dark Knight (2008). It wasn't until later that I realised Arkham Asylum was made by Rocksteady Studios, who made one of my favourite games on the PS2, Urban Chaos: Riot Response and was penned by Paul Dini, one of my favourite writers from Batman: The Animated Series and various DC comics as well as the creator of one Dr. Harleen Quinzel, better known as Joker's moll, Harley Quinn.

I think my favourite part of the game is the brilliant plot and backstory-rich setting of Arkham Asylum with a fantastic cast that combines staple Batman characters with new interesting characters who I can easily see transitioning into the comics. While the game seems to primarily target Batman and DC Comics fans, it toes an extremely fine line that welcomes people new to the Batman/DC universe, sometimes crossing a little too far into the fan section with the near encyclopaedic knowledge of the DC Universe needed to solve the Riddler's riddles legitimately but the gameplay, plot, voice acting, visuals and level design is enough to win over the casual gamer.

Going back in Arkham Asylum, I was a little startled by the contrast between the cinematics and gameplay graphics with the gameplay graphics having aged very well while the cinematics look a little lacklustre, almost too the point of quite extreme screen-tearing on a LED TV. Being a veteran of Arkham City, the combat system feels a little clunky with movement and fighting being less smooth than City but ultimately still feeling quite satisfying. Detective Mode is also useable at all times because the imaging has less contrast than in City and feels a little like a cheat some times because I can see hidden enemies, voiding the potential jumpscares written into the game. The riddles are a lot harder in Asylum if you're not a Batman or DC Comics fan because they often refer a lot to some less obvious Batman lore. As an avid Batman comics reader, it was mostly easy but it's a little unfair to some less avid comic book readers.

Overall, Arkham Asylum holds up very well in contrast to its successors and is one of those games you can just slap on and start playing again without feeling lost or feeling like your skills have seriously atrophied.

A Guide to Battlefield 4: Game Modes

Having recently purchased Battlefield 4 and seeing as many people will have hopped on to the Battlefield bandwagon for the first time or from other franchises, I thought I'd write up a series of articles covering everything from game modes to maps to weapons to classes etc. written from the perspective of a Battlefield veteran. This week, we'll be visiting game modes where I'll break down the different types of game modes and my overall strategy for each.

Conquest

The classic Battlefield game mode involves capturing and holding a majority of flags to bleed the enemy team's tickets where both sides usually have 400 tickets each. Typically there are 3 to 5 flags depending on the map with the centre flag being the most contested by both sides. Vehicles are extremely important in Conquest as they provide much needed force multipliers in tough situations and maps are often so large that walking will be an absolute pain, especially when snipers are out in force. 

The best way to approach Conquest as a new player is to explore the map as much as you can. Two things will guarantee victory in Conquest, a good team and map knowledge. Having a good team is sort of a 50/50 gamble every time you join a server unless you have 11 other friends to play with you on the same team so learning the map is a must if you want to win. Most importantly, find flank routes and look out for heavily populated enemy areas. You want to avoid heavily populated enemy areas or alternately, bombard them with the mortar or the M142 HIMARS on the map Zavod 311. Flanking is key especially when the enemy has most of the objectives locked down. An effective squad who knows how to flank can take objectives while the team is being held down by the enemy at spawn. Or at the very least break out of the spawn and do some damage to the enemy from behind.

Team Deathmatch

Classic first-person shooter fare. No vehicles and relatively small versions of the existing maps make for exciting close-range firefights. Map knowledge will be a huge help but the only real way to win is with the best weapons and fast reflexes. Unless you're a fantastic sniper or know the map inside out, a carbine or quick-firing assault rifle is recommended for Team Deathmatch. 

There's not much advice to give about Team Deathmatch, it's a relatively simple mode with no real objective or strategy behind it except to kill the enemy.

Obliteration

This brand-spanking new game mode to Battlefield involves a bomb that spawns somewhere in between the two sides and three objectives you must detonate within 20 minutes. The winning team is the one that manages to detonate all three before the 20 minutes elapses or to have more detonated objectives than the other team. Furthermore, the person carrying the bomb is a giant target for everybody, so, it's not a job for the faint-hearted Obliteration is an extremely fun mode and really provides some pulse-pounding action particularly when you are the bomb carrier.

For Obliteration, the only real way to win is to have a really good team that knows how to work together. Always cover the bomb carrier and for the love of God, provide transport for the poor bugger with the target on his back. Also, keep your distance from the blast site because once it detonates it will take out most people near it and even the odd unlucky vehicle that strays too close. Vehicles are a must to carry the bomb carrier to his/her target and to cover the location from enemies attempting to defuse the bomb. Avoid main roads when driving because there will almost always be M15 anti-tank mines or M2 SLAMs on the ground. The helicopter, either transport or scout, is the best bet for delivering the bomb carrier because they're way faster than anything on the ground and really only susceptible to portable anti-air and mobile anti-air.

Rush

A more recent but extremely popular addition to Battlefield involves a set of M-COMs in every base which the defenders must prevent the attackers from detonating. The attackers get 75 tickets only and to win they must detonate the first set of M-COMs to move on to the next set and so on until the final set. The number of M-COMs depends on the map and range from 6 to 10 but will always involve a set of two at each base, no more, no less.

Unfortunately, DICE has tweaked Rush to provide a massive advantage to Defenders on almost every map particularly for the first two M-COMs with perhaps the exception of Golmud Railway and Flood Zone. For defenders, just dig in and take out the swarms of attackers coming at you. Don't forget to watch for snipers as well. If you have a half-decent team, you should be able to win pretty easily as defenders. Most maps have M-COMs in easily defensible positions provided your team isn't too stupid and too aggressive to guard the objectives. For attackers, it's really down to how effective the enemy team is on most maps because there's no real set way to break enemy defences. Having a good team helps but even then the map advantage afforded to defenders is insane. On the bright side, you'll get a go as the defending team so you'll probably get a victory at some point.

Squad Deathmatch

A slight twist on the staple in all first-person shooters, Squad Deathmatch features four 5-man squads duking it out for ultimate victory. Teamwork is crucial because you have less players backing you up and each member of the squad has to pull their own weight because you will effectively be fighting 15 other players with 4 players backing you up.

I wouldn't recommend playing this with randoms. Find some friends or you will be utterly demolished. Aside from having friends to play with, perhaps have a mic to communicate with randoms?

Domination

It's like Conquest without the vehicles on a much smaller scale. Three flags in fairly close proximity with 300 tickets on both sides means that killing is the main means to victory although capturing flags will help bleed the enemy tickets dry. Also it's 20 players on all platforms rather than the typical 24 players or 64 players in other game modes.

Capturing flags is quite important but again the main attraction here is close-quarters fighting particularly around the flag. There's very little time to relax as this is a ridiculously fast-paced game mode with action around every corner. Speed and reflexes are key although having some map knowledge will put you in good stead. Controlling the roofs on Siege of Shanghai and Zavod 311 is a must because you can move to any flag on the map with relative ease and you get a height advantage and positional advantage over the enemy.

Defuse

Basically Search and Destroy for Battlefield. One side arms objectives, the other side defends them. One life then spectator mode if you get killed until the end of the round.

Not sure if there's any tips for this other than sticking together and making sure to stick to whatever cover you can find that isn't destructible.