Motorcycles I Dig

There have been a lot of motorcycle discussions lately, and they all remind me of how short-sighted the American market is. There are only two kinds of motorcycles on the streets: cruisers and crotch rockets. Cruisers are comfortable while crotch rockets offer high performance. There has to be a trade-off with this view. You can get a cruiser and ride comfortably, but you're not going to get up to speed without a good amount of work and lets hope you're not planning on turning or stopping. Or, you can get a crotch rocket and zip around like a bat outta hell, but you'd best have a good chiropractor. There's no middle ground.

There's a secret that the rest of the world seems to know that the American market likes to ignore: there is a middle ground. There are many motorcycles out there that blend our two categories together. They offer great comfort with an upright seating position - not leaning too far back or foreward - and wide handlebars. At the same time, they offer fantastic performance, with powerful engines, superb brakes, and light weight. They go my many names: standard, naked, streetfighter, and more. Here are just a few examples available here in the US, arranged by the numbers.

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Aprilia Tuono 1000 R - 997cc V-Twin, 139 HP, 107 ft. lbs Torque, 408 lbs dry weight

The Aprilia Tuono is generally considered a factory streetfighter. Essentially, it's their (former) flagship crotch rocket with most of the plastic removed and adjusted ergonomics for street riding. Note the wide handlebars instead of clipons, for instance. The performance numbers on this bike are simply astonishing, though the styling may be too much to swallow for a cruiser convert.

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Triumph Speed Triple - 1050cc Triple, 131 HP, 77 ft. lbs Torque, 416 lbs dry weight

It's a beautiful brute of a bike, designed specifically to be a powerhouse on the street. This is the original factory streetfighter. And, yes, it comes in black.

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Ducati Monster 1100 - 1100cc L-Twin, 95 HP, 79.5 ft. lbs Torque, 373 lbs dry weight

The Monster line is classic Ducati. They may be better known for their sportbikes, but the Monster line has nearly always been their best seller. Coming back this year with a laundry list of updates, the latest Monster update looks great without losing touch with it's traditional roots. Now, for two American bikes...

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Buell Lightning XB12Scg - 1200cc V-Twin, 103 HP, 84 ft. lbs Torque, 395 lbs dry weight

Buell is the original American Streetfighter. Taking a lot of cues from the European market and adding a load of innovation, Buell bikes simply rock. Even though they're now owned by Harley Davidson, the creativity surges foreward with their newer models. Aside from the Tuono, none of these major players has torque to match the Buell. There's a new bike for 2009, the 1125CR, but the jury is still out on that beast. In other words, I haven't seen it in person and it isn't photogenic.

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Harley Davidson XR1200 - 1200cc V-Twin, 90 HP, 73.9 ft. lbs Torque, 562 dry weight

This homage to the American classic XR750 was released last year as a European exclusive. Even Harley saw our market as too closed to welcome a "middle ground" bike! It's here in limited supply for 2009, finally, and makes several steps towards breaking away from the typical formula of great looks and weak performance. It's still incredibly heavy and definitely underpowered compared to it's competition, but it's a big step and a beautiful bike. Compare it to a 1200 Sportster, which uses the same engine, and the ergonmic and performance differences are tremendous.

Blockbuster Bends Me Over

I'm cheap. There, I said it. Not frugal, thrifty, cost-effective or otherwise smart with money. I'm cheap, plain and simple. So, when I hit up Blockbuster and spot their "Buy One Used Game $14.99 or Less and Get One Free" deal, my cheap heart stopped dead in its tracks. The most I could possibly end up spending per game would be $7.50? For an Xbox 360 game? I was shocked.

One week after discovering the sale, I've spent about $75 and walked out with 12 games. That's $6.25 per game. Now, not all of them are the greatest games ever made for the 360, but I definitely got well more than my money's worth from these games. Here's the list:

1. Grand Theft Auto 4
2. Mass Effect
3. Dark Sector
4. Viva Pinata
5. The Club
6. Condemned: Criminal Origins
7. Condemned 2: Bloodshot
8. FlatOut: Ultimate Carnage
9. Sega Revo Rally
10. The Darkness



11. TimeShift
12. Frontlines: Fuel of War

All of those games for $75. That's an unbelievable amount of gaming for, at most, might normally get me a special edition game or two older releases. My cheap heart almost went into shock. I know that not all of these games are the best out there. But there's no way that I can honestly look at a single one of them and say, "Geez, I wish I had my Quarter Pounder Combo instead."
For anyone late to the Blockbuster used game party, the pickin's are slim. I've only played the first five on the list, but I can say that those alone are easily worth $75. The rest are just icing on the cake.

GoW1 vs GoW2 - A bit of perspective

The Map pack has revitalized the rage against GoW2, both here and on Epic's forums. The bugs, the glitches, the gameplay problems. For as angry as many players out there are, I keep thinking about how much more I'm enjoying this game than GoW1. That's set me down the path of comparisons in an effort to put complaints into perspective. Plus, I'm not training anyone this week, so I have time to ramble.

Complaint 1: Matchmaking
It takes forever to get into public matches.

I had huge problems finding matches when the game first came out. Epic released a patch on 11/27 to improve matchmaking and, on 12/11, issued another statement on the matter. ( http://forums.epicgames.com/showthread.php?t=644972 ) In short, they overhauled their server configuration to better take advantage of the patch. In the last week, my experience has improved tremendously. Whether I'm in a group of three, four, or five, the only significant wait is making sure everyone's ready to find a public match. I've had no troubles at all. Hopefully, my experience isn't isolated and maybe it has something to do with playing with a group rather than alone, I don't know, but it's been a breeze.

Remember pre-patch GoW1? Good god, matchmaking was abysmal. They had to patch that crap how many times before it was a remotely acceptable experience. Months, not weeks. And even then, you couldn't party up in a ranked match at all.

Complaint 2: The Chainsaw of Doom
The chainsaw doesn't always lower when you shoot an attacker and it has questionable engagement proximity. It's the noob tool of the apocalypse.

Both before and after patch, the chainsaw in GoW1 was broken. GoW1's pre-patch chainsaw had a vacuum range of about 2-3 body lengths. It ignored cover and could always suck people around a corner. It took months for that thing to be patched and then, after the patch, it was almost entirely worthless. A stiff breeze would lower the thing and the engagement range was literally butt-humping distance.

The GoW2 saw certainly isn't perfect. There are still questionable situations. Most of that is due to lag, though, and you can't bank on it. The engagement range is comparable to the GoW1 saw post-patch but it's far more difficult to lower. That's a great compromise for the gameplay. It takes power away from folks that love to run and gun - whether it's shotgunning or a melee frenzy. It should be tweaked a bit, but it's not far from being ideal. I still scream BS from time to time, but it's rare compared to how it used to be.

Complaint 3: Grenades
Smoke grenades stun is too powerful, frags have a blast radius similar to an atomic bomb, and proximity nades are nearly impossible to counteract.

Remember frags in pre-patch GoW1? You could tag someone from three body lengths away. Everyone was tagging everyone else. It was an absolute mess. Post-patch definitely worked that out, thank god, but it was several months of taggery. Additionally, smoke grenades were almost entirely useless. Sure, they were funny as hell to tag someone with and watch them lose their mind, but they felt like a cheap gesture so you wouldn't have an empty slot.

Adding stun functionality was a stroke of genius. It makes a tremendous impact on area control and adds much-needed balance against power weapons and run and gunners.  From what I've seen, the duration of the stun depends on how close you were to the smoke nade. If it was right up your butt, you can be out for nearly five seconds. That sucks. But then again, if I let you buttplug me with a smoke, that's my fault. Should the extreme end of it be tweaked? Yeah. But it's not unplayable by any stretch.

Proximity nades take some getting used to, but are mostly fine. The biggest issue is playing this like it's GoW1 and running like a maniac everywhere. Once that habit is broken, they're not really frustrating. At all. I want to test out something I heard - that a smoke nade can set off a proximity nade if it's close enough. If so, that's awesome.

Complaint 4: Weapon Changes
The shotgun doesn't shoot dead-center from the hip anymore. The sniper doesn't insta-down people on a perfect reload.

Thank god. That's nearly all that needs to be said. I'll be thrilled if they don't do anything at all to the shotgun, because it plays brilliantly right now. It takes work to use it. In a game that's touted as "stop and pop" and "use cover always," the GoW1 shotgun was a total deal breaker for me. People put a dot on their screen and never missed a shot; it made me sick.

Same with the sniper. With perfect reloads automatically downing enemies, the sniper rifle suddenly doubled as an aggressive front-line weapon. Long as you kept perfectly reloading, you just needed to hit someone anywhere. It's easier to do that at close range.

I'm largely pleased with the majority of the weapon changes in GoW2. Every single weapon available is useful. The Hammerburst and is no longer a pile of crap, the Boltok isn't second best to the Snub pistol, the Lancer doesn't get it's ass handed to it by the Shotty every time, the chainsaw gets kills, and smoke grenades serve a non-comedic purpose. It's a frickin' miracle that they have managed to balance the weapons so well. It's not perfect, but it's miles ahead of GoW1 in terms of sticking to the advertised gameplay.

Complaint 5: Lag / Host Advantage
The game lags so much - I warp everywhere and the host dominates everyone, it sucks!

I think back to GoW1 and remember the necessity of firing your guns at the start of every match to ascertain lag. I remember how easy it was to pick out the host, too. Not just because of a high score, but because that mofo could one-shot you with the shotgun from what felt like a mile away or drop you with the Lancer in one second. It was unbelievable.

Is lag still there? Hell yes. Is host advantage still there? Absolutely. Even still, I don't feel like either of them are as dramatic as they were before. I'm guessing this is mostly due to the weapon changes.

Complaint 6: Glitches
Shield glitch. Jumping through the wall on Pavilion. Ninja flips against walls.

I counter GoW2's glitches with these from GoW1: Superjumping, "leaving the map" on several maps, and crab walking. There is no way that GoW2's glitches even scratch the surface of the severity of those in GoW1.  A superjumper could get anywhere faster than anyone else and they could launch themselves over your cover and you to shotgun you in the back. Folks that left the map could still fire on those IN the map, gaining an unfair advantage and often dragging the map out to it's full timelimit. Crab walking let people stay low but move just as fast as if they were standing. Again, it took months for these things to be worked out and they were complete game breakers.

Conclusion
I don't really understand all of the outrage that's out there. Maybe that's because I'm not the guy who loved how GoW1 ended up playing versus how it was advertised. For me, GoW1 fell short of what it said it wanted to be. Shotgun running and power weapons trumped the cover system and "stop and pop" gameplay. GoW2, on the other hand, actually works that way. The minutes I spend upset with GoW2 problems don't come close to the hours and hours I spent cursing the first game for not playing the way that I hoped it would.

Just call me "Dirty!"

I played a lot of the first Gears of War in multiplayer. A lot. Even though there were major bugs that players constantly exploited, it was fun. Even when it became a glorified shotgun dance, I still found a way to have fun. At its best, Gears is the closest game I've ever found to my glory days of paintball tournaments. At its worst, it was still fun, just with a lot of reservations and cussing. Time passed.

Along came Gears of War 2. It didn't take long to notice some tremendous changes to multiplayer. The Lancer isn't a joke anymore. The Gnasher isn't the second coming of Christ. The Hammerburst is worth using. Smoke grenades aren't just a silly distraction. All that and more. Bottomline: I'd have to do some digging to find things worth complaining about. Now, it's just a matter of finding time and folks to play with. Sometime after I go pay the $1000 bill for my car service. Hooray.