TerminalBoredom

RC Vacation

On the first day of my vacation, I check the mail and the new battery pack I’d ordered for the Rustler at the beginning of the week had arrived. I immediately hop in the car and rush to M&M High Tech for a new charger in what would be the first of many visits over the next few days.

I get the charger home, get everything hooked up, have the battery charging, and call the Fat Man. Pack is all charged up, it’s a nice day, & I’m ready for some backyard bashing. The Rustler immediately starts freaking out & doing what it wants to do regardless of what I’m telling it to do with the controller, which is the exact opposite of the usual desired effect. So after spending close to an hour replacing the receiver, it’s finally ready to drive. I get a whopping 3 and a half minutes of blazing fast runtime when I clip the swingset with a back wheel and snap the a-arm mount right off the chassis. Back to M&M, four hours to replace, and I’m done for the night.

The next day we’re back in business again. We decide to go up behind the mall, which is one of my favorite places to run, to do some off-road bashing & jump some of the big shale piles. At one point I nearly took Paul’s head off from a jump that went somewhat unexpectedly. That pretty much sums up how the past few days have gone. Bad landings from attempting to make jumps that had undesirable consequences. To make a long story short, the broken parts list from the past couple days:

• 1 rear bearing carrier
• 1 rear A-arm
• 2 blown shock caps
• 1 cracked wheel
• Grand total of 6 trips to M&M for parts

Then, yesterday morning, while attempting to recreate the jump that broke a control arm on the Clodbuster, I managed to completely snap the chassis right in front of the gearbox. Unfortunately M&M didn’t have a chassis in stock. They ordered one for me, but it won’t be in until Wednesday. So after changing out all 4 a-arms with new RPM replacements & mounting all new wheels & tires, I came up with a quick and dirty patch job to keep it running until the new chassis arrives. I’ll just have to try to show some self-restraint for the next few days, which isn’t one of my strong suits.

But once Wednesday gets here & brings my new chassis along with it, before I take the time to switch everything over to it, I fully intend to stress test the hell out of my patch job and see what kind of abuse the old chassis is capable of withstanding.

Bulletstorm

This game first caught my attention in a Penny Arcade strip. I then promptly forgot about it until the other night when the television was randomly on & a commercial came on for it. It managed to catch my attention & I looked into it further & was rather intrigued.

Picked it up at Gamestop last night & spent the majority of my day off trying it out. In short, Gabe is right, slow motion ass blasting is a game changer.

I’m usually not a real big fan of first person shooters. I mainly keep it limited to games such as Bioshock & Half Life, that are more than just a frag-fest. Most of the big FPS like Gears of War & Call of Duty require skills that I don’t possess, like caution, self-control, & strategy.

Bulletstorm plays to the reckless abandon & John Wayne style grunt charges that make up my playstyle. You are constantly doing stupidly dangerous things to progress thru the levels while your AI companions point out what an idiot you are. Anyone that’s spent a significant amount of time gaming w/me can surely appreciate what a good fit a game like this is for me.

The storyline is mediocre, at best. Basically just enough to give you a semi-believable reason for the mass violence that ensues throughout the game, & the cutscenes fill the purpose of transitioning between the level types & giving more opportunity for dick jokes, not-so-subtle gay cracks, & lots & lots of swearing.

When the action kicks in, however, it does so with a vengeance, & you find yourself thrown headfirst into a frenzied combination of kicking & throwing enemies into things while cutting others down w/the arsenal you have at your disposal. The violence is graphic & totally over the top, & the more insane & inventive your kills get, the more points you score. Points are used to buy upgrades & ammo for your weapons, so you can go on to do more insane & more inventive violence.

So if charging headlong into ridiculous enemy encounters with only your wits & some big guns to get you thru alive sounds like an enjoyable & fulfilling experience to you, then you should definitely give Bulletstorm a look.