Life is a Battlefield

Stardate: 3rd Feb 2007
Listening to: Birds Chirpin'

From time to time I like to miss a post here and there as this furthers the illusion that I have a life. That was my cunning ploy yesterday. I used the time wisely, reminiscing about the simpler days of online gaming, before stats, before tards, before weekly 200MB patches that eventually result in you having v1.83 of a game you no longer remember how to play.

The lifecycle of the EA Battlefield series resembles the human lifecycle:

BF1942 (the childhood years): New and exciting but a study in simplicity. A few spaced inoculations in the form of patches and all is well. An enjoyable time with the feeling that the best is yet to come.

BFV (early adulthood): The mistakes of the past have been learned from, and a new era of excitement begins. Things have evolved from the simple to the functional, with a lot more fun thrown in. The skies resound with music and the battlefield echoes with good-natured taunts and revelry. "You will NOT survive long in THE 'NAM!". Your gun spurts bullets with a velocity and trajectory unlike anything before in your life. Best years of your life.

BF2 (middle age): It's all now serious business, with stats, medals, promotions and associated e-peenery the hot blonde and sportscar of your life. The simple fun and freedom of the past is gone, now you're working for a living in a squad, ordered around by a commander sitting on his arse on a carrier 15 screens away, caring only for the points adding up next to his own name. Your body begins to fail, requiring monthly innoculations that correct one ailment, but have weird side effects that cause something else to fail. Where previously you could lie on your back and hit the roof with your gun, now your bullets dribble lamely out the end. Especially in Blackhawks.

BF2142 (old age): The skies have greyed and all the fun is seeping out of life. You're tired of what you've become, and just want to die, but the doctors at EA wont let you. They keep you alive artificially, even though your life has become a hollow shell of what it formerly was.

So, as a tribute to the simple and fun days of gaming, he's a old movie of me repairing my Mig17 like a joyous airbourne teenager with a stilson wrench. :-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzC1P48ZaWE