In before Log talks about how she does it all the time.

I think you were by default since you made the original comment.

Though I have to wonder whether or not an underwire would present an advantage or disadvantage for that activity.

Someone needs to do this research and let us know.  FOR SCIENCE!!!

Review of Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City is up.

http://www.thezombiehunters.com/forum/index.php?topic=350.msg121958#msg121958

Short story is... it's worth playing.

[Recently Completed:]

 Recently Completed:Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City, the Steam “Complete” edition that includes all DLC.

System: PC

Time Spent:Just under 20 hours so far though I’ve done none of the multiplayer yet and still have skills and weapons to unlock so I’ll probably be playing it for a while yet.  This solely covers the original U.S.S. and the DLC Echo Six single player campaigns.  The 20 hours does include replaying a few of the missions and dicking around with different loadouts and characters.

The Story: You are back in Raccoon city with a chance to play as the bad guys!  Ever wonder what it would be like to be on Umbrella’s side?  Ever want to shoot that pretty boy Leon Kennedy right in the middle of his stupid haircut/face?  Here’s your chance.

The Disclaimer:  Before I get into the review I want to give a little bit of my own background with the RE: Series.  Way back in the predawn mists of time I didn’t yet have a Playstation.  I did have a Sega Saturn though (yes they really existed) and someone gave me a copy of the first Resident Evil Saturn port for either my birthday or Christmas when it first came out.  This was back when the original PS One version of RE had green blood or some nonsense and the Saturn version was considered awesome because it had red blood.  Long story short I played the shit out of that game.  (And played it even more when the dual shock director’s cut eventually came out on the PS One.) and by the time RE two came out I had a PS One and a brand new shiny copy of Resident Evil 2.  I loved RE:2, in many way I still consider it to be the best in the series and I literally lost count of how many times I played it.  That first foray into Raccoon city is burned indelibly in my mind.  RE: 3 had me back in Raccoon City again facing Jill’s Nemesis and I also played that game into the ground (culminating in an epic session where I beat the entire game in less than two hours without saving and a friend who sat there watching me do it was like, “did that just happen?”  Yes it did and it was awesome.)  I of course went on to play Code Veronica when it came out on the PS2 but the next games in the series that REALLY sank their hooks into me were again set in Raccoon City, the Outbreak Files.  I played those games (especially the first one) obsessively, collecting as much of the minutia as I could and grinding XP to unlock all the characters and character alternates.  The online multiplayer was a BLAST and I really wish Capcom would re-release the Outbreak games for Xbox live or something so they could be experienced again the way they were meant to.  The point I’m getting at is I’ve been a LONG time Resident Evil fan and as far as fictional locations go, I can’t think of one I’ve spent more time in than Raccoon City.  So I was pretty excited when I heard about RE:ORC.  But then I kept hearing pretty negative reviews and held off buying it until it was recently on sale.  I can say right off it was well worth the almost fourteen bucks I spent.  But did it really deserve the harsh reviews it’s received?  Let’s take a look.

The Good:
+ The graphics are serviceable.  Aspects that could have used improvement are character animations for enemy soldiers (they almost always look stiff and unnatural) and the zombies could have used some more model variety and more varied animations.  Some areas appear too shiny, which I wasn’t sure if that was a side effect of the graphics engine or if they were stylistically trying to make it look like it had just finished raining.  Some light sources cause excessive lens flare which normally is a nitpick but in one area it actually impacted your ability to engage the enemy.  But overall it ran smooth, I didn’t see any real graphical glitches and the main characters were animated well.

+ I never have gotten the hang of playing third person shooters with a mouse/keyboard so once again I used my 360 controller.  Controls took a little to get used to but they worked.  Aim seems sort of “floaty” sometimes but a lot of engagements are fast paced at minimal range so it rarely feels like an issue.  I will say I liked the variety of moves available.  Which I’ll touch on in the next section.

+ Weapon variety is good.  It’s probably become fairly apparent from my reviews but I like games that give me a broad choice of weapons.  This game quite literally has it all.  Assault rifles, the classic tommy gun, sniper rifles, SMGs, pistols, suppressed variants of almost all the above, shotguns and LMGs.  You can also get your hands on rocket launchers and grenade launchers throughout various missions.  The flow of combat once you get used to the controls is smooth.  RE:OCR uses a cover system very much like the one in the new Tomb Raider where there is no “locking on”, you just move to cover or away from it.  Aim/fire is pretty standard, the innovations I liked were the “quick draw” and the close quarters combat or “CQC” mechanics.  Normally to switch from your primary to your second weapon or back you tap the weapon swap button.  “Quick draw” allows you to hold the weapon swap button and you instantly draw your sidearm.  Where this differs from normal sidearm use is instead of aiming and pulling the trigger you merely point towards the enemy (in an almost 360 arc around you) and you auto fire at available targets.  It’s hard to describe but it 1, looks cool and 2, can be a fast way to clear a path.  This maneuver is especially handy when you run your primary weapon dry because it is substantially faster than reloading.  I liked the CQC because it offers more variety than simply “mash b to stab with your knife.”   In addition to mashing b you can perform “brutal kills” where you grapple with an enemy then finish them off or grab enemies (including zombies) and use them as shields.  You can also shoulder ram to get past enemies blocking your path or dive for cover.  

+ Gadgets and skills are somewhat related so I’ll cover them both together.  There are three basic gadget types.  First aid sprays, anti virus sprays and grenades (stun, incendiary, fragmentation and flares.)  What class you choose effects how many of each you can carry.  For instance I usually use the recon class which can only carry 1 first aid spray (which heals most damage and can also heal nearby partners) and 1 anti virus spray (which cures infection and has a similar area effect.)  Medics can buff their skills to boost their aid spray capacity and even start with a spray by default.  The six classes are Recon (can turn invisible and mimic enemies among other things) Surveillance (have perks for finding items and enemies) Medic (pretty self explanatory) Field Scientist (carries more anti-virus sprays and has abilities to control zombies and such) Assault class specializes in combat skills boosting accuracy and damage and there is a Demolitions class that can defuse bombs faster, disarm the laser trip mines you’ll encounter and I believe they can carry more grenades though I’m not sure, haven’t used them yet.  In single player you don’t really get the benefit of having multiple classes since the AI is dumb as a post but I can see how good teamwork can greatly improve the chances of survival.  

+ Level design is adequate.  Nothing really fancy, if you’ve spent a lot of time in Raccoon City before you’ll recognize some of the areas which is cool but if you haven’t it’s just a lot of urban hell and some high tech labs infested with bad things.

+  Cameos by “big name” characters.  While I was disappointed none of the characters from the Outbreak games made any kind of appearance you do encounter Jill Valentine, Leon Kennedy, Carlos Olivera, Claire Refield, Sherry Birkin and her dear old dad, and some of the lesser well known but still appreciated characters like HUNK.   Of course the Nemesis rears his ugly stapled head a few times as well.  And you’ll get an even greater appreciation for his ridiculous durability.

+  Mission variety.  While there aren’t enough missions in my opinion they did at least give you a pretty wide variety of things to do during them.  One mission centered on reprogramming the Nemesis tyrant, another is about knocking out the power to Raccoon City.  I enjoyed almost all the missions though I was a little disappointed that a lot of the Spec Ops DLC missions retread most of the same areas as the original game missions.  Though I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised but at least the objectives were different and how/when you traversed areas was also different.

The Bad:
-  Both campaigns are short.  Only seven levels a piece and each level is between thirty to forty-five minutes, I did go over an hour a couple times when I was really scouring for items.  I think a lot of this games replay value is supposed to be in the multi player modes I haven’t touched yet.

-   Enemy variety was sparse.  You have zombies a plenty but even there the zombies are surprisingly non varied, as in a small mob (less then ten zombies) you’re likely to see two or three of each model.  Also the zombies move WAY faster than the standard Raccoon City era zombies did back in the day.  There is another even faster and tougher “Crimson Head” zombie variant which is basically a palette swapped zombie.  Hunters are encountered on occasion, lickers rarely, dogs even more rarely.  You fight a surprising amount of humans (either us special forces or umbrella soldiers depending on what side you’re on) and tyrant variants pop up now and again.  Oh, and head crabs.  Those appear in this game also.  You’ll also encounter some tougher palette swapped versions of hunters and soldiers on rare occasion.  

- The game is officially considered non-canon.  Really the only reason this was done was because while being given the chance to play the bad guys you can execute Leon, Claire and capture Sherry Birkin for Umbrella.  Obviously this would significantly alter the Resident Evil Timeline.  But calling it non canon kind of bugs me because it ultimately makes you feel like what you’re doing has no real impact in the RE world.  Though I will say when choosing not to execute Leon and Claire and vowing to go gut Umbrella from the inside out made me REALLY want to play THAT as a sequel to this game.  So put me down for “fingers crossed for bad ass sequel.”

-  I think I mentioned earlier that the companion AI is dumb as a brick most of the time.  For instance the medic class will hold first aid sprays when I’m on the edge of death and other times is very generous with their healing.  I can’t figure out what triggers their behaviors.  And occasionally the demo class will just spam grenades even when no enemies are around.  That one I thought was kind of cool though, it reminded me of playing on Xbox live with retarded 12 year olds but without the trashtalking and racism.
 
A bit of discussion on the nature of Resident Evil games:  I’ve heard the criticism in regards to ORC that it “isn’t really a Resident Evil game, it’s just a shooter with an RE paint job.”  I’m not really sure how that criticism holds water though.  For me the hallmarks of a Resident Evil game are as follows:  Fixed camera, t (or g) virus zombies, obscure puzzles with cranks and whatnot.  Resident Evil 4 broke away from almost all of those and last time I checked most people consider it a Resident Evil game.  So maybe the secret is add Leon Kennedy?  Well ORC has Leon so it must be a Resident Evil game.

Better Than: This is tough, ORC certainly doesn’t displace any of the classic RE games or 4.  I haven’t played 5 or 6 (well I played a demo for five and that was plenty for me.) So I guess it’s better than 5?

Worse Than: Resident Evil Outbreak.  Outbreak melded the “classic” Resident Evil with multiplayer in a way that still hasn’t been equaled and even the “offline” Outbreak was better because you had some level of control over your AI companions through the rudimentary order system.

Overall: B:  While this game is certainly not perfect it really was nice to be back in Raccoon City again.   And the game has intense nail biting moments, like luring the Nemesis between steel smelters while my entire team lay dead and I couldn’t even move because the zombies were packed in that tight around me. And I triumphed bitches, because I’ve been fighting zombies in Raccoon City for that long.  Hopefully for even longer if they release a sequel…

Last Light looks really good but I still need to beat the first Metro.  I got stuck on one of the rail shooter segments and haven't gone back to it.

I beat both of the single player campaigns for Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City so I'll probably post a review shortly.  Though I do plan to keep playing it to check out the multi player and to keep unlocking character skills and weapons.

I don't think it's exaggerating when I say I'm probably one of the "original" forum crazies.  The only name that sticks out at me who was here before me (beside Jenny obviously) is JayEdge and he hasn't posted in years. 

No wait, review of the members by registration date shows Maxwell beats me by two days.

But I can't all the credit for how long I've been here.  Despite the fact that I'm sure this webcomic would have eventually crossed my radar I have to give credit to Randy from Something Positive for his early plugs when this comic was in its infancy.   Like when Katies coat was a different color and Charlie had his detachable limbs and all that.  Those were the days.  And I can remember I had an epic rant about gaming dice at one point that no longer exists.  I'm rambling.  And I'm drunk.  Definitely rambling.

Well that escalated quickly.

You forgot this.

Bound in Blood was very good.  Did you pre order Gunslingers?  I'm on the fence.

Been playing RE: Operation Raccoon City.  So far I'm liking it.

The Shadow was ungodly accurate for a pistol.  I went nuts when I got the .50 cal suppressed sniper, if a guy was a dot on the horizon I could smoke him.  Big fun.

And on that note my review of Far Cry 3 is up.

http://www.thezombiehunters.com/forum/index.php?topic=350.msg121914#msg121914

Short Story is I liked it.

[Recently Completed:]

Recently Completed: Far Cry 3 (Including all Pre-order/Bonus/Premium DLC)

System: PC

Time Spent: Game stats show 35ish hours for my 100% completion.

The Story: You are a spoiled rich kid captured by pirates and slave traders on a remote tropical island!  Jason Brody, his older and younger brothers and their friends/girlfriends sky dive onto an island and things quickly go about as wrong as possible.  Jason escapes and sets out trying to rescue everyone, and while he’s at it he joins a local tribe, gets a mystical tattoo, grabs a gun and machete (sadly this Jason lacks a hockey mask) and proceeds to tear across the island like an unholy terror.  Will he save his friends?  Will he become a soulless killing machine?  Will he manage to make extinct species even more extinct?  Let’s find out.

The Good:
+ The graphics are very good.   A hall mark of the Far Cry series since the original has been the ludicrous draw distance of the game engine and this continues to offer more of the same as well as even higher detail levels and better shading than FC2, and FC2 already looked fucking gorgeous on my PC.  While I had no graphical or performance problems with this game it IS the first game I’ve played that caused my PCIE slot for my vid card to hit 60 degrees Celsius which triggers my comps first high temp warning.  Granted this was on a hot day (about 80 Fahrenheit), I hadn’t installed the AC in my window yet and I hadn’t cleaned dust out of my comp at my usual weekly schedule.  After getting the dust out and the temperature dropping a bit it hasn’t recurred but the point I’m making is if you max out the settings it will put a strain on your system.  I haven’t played it on the 360 but one of my friends who has told me it looked much better on the PC.

+ Ok, this was the game where I gave up my usual “FPS must be played with mouse and keyboard” rule.  I played FC 2 with mouse and keyboard and the driving almost gave me carpal tunnel, I hated driving with the keyboard.  FC3 added even more complexity to the control to the point where I got about half way through remapping everything then just said “fuck it” and turned on my 360 controller.  The controller worked well but I definitely missed the mouse/keyboard precision on a few of the shooting segments, especially when sniping.  That being said the controls were well laid out, made sense and handled reasonably well.

+ They got rid of the diamond hunting from FC2.  I initially loved the diamond hunting in FC2.  Until all the easy diamond drops had been found and I was spending increasing hours scrounging for more to unlock better weapon upgrades at which point it soured pretty quickly.  I did like the fact that the GPS from FC 2 made a cameo appearance in one of the side quests.  In FC3 weapons are unlocked by climbing radio towers (which also reveal map segments sort of like Assassins Creed where high points do the same thing) or you can buy them.  In addition to the weapons you could unlock by activating radio towers you can also unlock special “signature” weapons by doing various tasks.  Looting the dead is also an option but you won’t get access to snazzy upgrades like higher magazine capacity or silencers unless you “own” the weapon.  Which leads to my next point…

+ Weapon choices are great.  There is more than enough weapon variety to suit any playstyle and weapons can be further tuned with attachments.  Silencers, optics, higher capacity magazines, different barrels, even paint jobs can all be mixed and matched however you prefer.   This allows you to use the same gun for multiple applications.  Me?  I put silencers on everything and run pretty much all out stealth which is how I roll.  Which segues nicely into…

+ Open world game play.  Do whatever you want in whatever order you with whatever play style you want.  The game rewards you to take out outposts with stealth by giving you triple the XP for capturing one undetected but the XP in the game is plentiful enough that you can take them all out with shotguns and LMG’s and still max out your skills with no real issues.

+  Hunting rare and exotic animals.  I never really got into the hunting simulator genre but I don’t think the hunter simulator genre offers me the opportunity to after tigers with rocket launchers and flamethrowers.  Though I don’t know that for certain; if they actually do then I’m missing out on something fantastic.  I can remember taking time out from FC2 to watch the zebra run by and things like that but in FC3 the animal life takes on a much more prominent part of the game.  Herd animals are pretty harmless (buffalo can ram the hell out of you if you piss them off) but you can easily find yourself jogging alongside some harmless herd beasts and finding yourself face to face with a jaguar who’s been hunting them.  Most animals can be skinned and in many cases those skins can be used for some sort of crafting and the crafting is of the things that I didn’t like at first but in my opinion one actually makes the game fairly unique.

+  The crafting.  You start out being able to carry one gun, a very limited amount of ammo and barely any money.  How do you upgrade to being able to carry four guns, a ton of ammo, explosives, cash, medicine, arrows and items?  Kill stuff and stitch their bodies into ever improved gear.  It starts out easy enough, but the ingredients get more difficult to obtain (sharkskin, bears and so on) and nearly all the items require a unique animal to complete.  The unique animal hunts are unlocked by clearing outposts and they aren’t as free form as grabbing an RPG and blowing up a run of the mill bear.  They require a specific weapon be used (often the bow) to take out a one of a kind variant like the undying bear , man-eater shark, albino crocodile and so on.  Good times.  Expect frequent mauling when attempting these.  The crafting also includes making syringes from plants that range from healing your wounds to invulnerability with everything in between.  (Yes even being able to sense animals, become more flame retardant, and breathe underwater.)

+  There is a really good variety of mission types to undertake, we’ve already covered outpost clearing, radio tower activation and hunting, there are also… Supply drop missions where you race from point a to point b, usually on a quad runner that handles like a drunken squirrel, assassination missions where you have to take out the target with a knife (these are fun), challenges where you kill enemies within specific parameters (usually with unlimited ammo and these are also very fun), side missions for locals that can range from mundane to wtf, races, target practice, poker games, it goes on and on.

+  Collectible maps.  I’ve come to accept the fact that almost every game is going to have some kind of crap to collect that gets you cash, XP, or whatever.  I hate games that include a ton of collectibles and have no in game guidance on how to find them.  I refer to this gimmick as “you will buying our hint book.”  Except no one buys hint books anymore.  Now people use the internet.  But it’s still a waste of my time because then I’m tabbing back and forth between the guide I googled and the game screen.  I will however give props to games (like FC3) that give players the ability to buy an in game map listing out the locations or some other in game means of finding them.  FC3 has two real collectibles, letters from Japanese military who were once stationed on the islands and relics related to the different tribal totems.  Loot boxes are also excessively scattered around but there is no XP boost for finding loot boxes nor any achievement tied to finding them all or anything.  I still ended up buying all the loot box maps anyway because I had to spend my money on SOMETHING.  (More on that later.)

+  Game pacing.  The game is paced very well in the sense that I always felt like I had something to do and lot of it is “bite sized” stuff like running to grab a relic or letter, or do a hunt.  It’s the type of “just one more thing” gameplay that will keep you playing until you realize you haven’t slept all weekend.   This coupled with the mild RPG aspect of unlocking skills as you progress really compels you to keep playing.

+ The addition of the hang glider in Far Cry 2 was awesome.  The wingsuit and parachute and Far Cry 3 are better.

And now a word about the DLC:

The DLC that came with my “deluxe” Steam edition was as follows…

The M-700 “Predator” rifle.  A version of the M-700 that comes with a silencer, does more damage than the regular M-700 and has three unique paint jobs.  It was nice to start with but I retired it in favor of the regular M-700 after I unlocked it because I could put a longer range scope on it. 

The Monkey Business missions.  If you’ve collected all of the Lost Letters you know about Hurk.  This expands on his insanity.  These missions are fun in the “What if you were trapped in a war zone with Zach Galifianakis’ character from the Hangover” sort of way.

Lost expedition or something similar…. you explore some old military installations to experience some really obscure Assassin’s Creed references.

Two more DLC bits can be unlocked with “Uplay” points which are a decent scoped .44 magnum revolver and a bonus mission where you search for ludicrous amounts of loose cash in a bunker overrun with rabid dogs.

The Bad:
-  They got rid of the hand held map from Far Cry 2.  The hand held map made driving MUCH easier in FC2 because you didn’t have to keep alternating between the map screen and the game which causes minor load lag every time you want to make sure you’re not taking the wrong fork in the road.  That probably sounds picky but after a while it pissed me off the point where I stayed on foot almost 90% of the game.

-   Maybe it was my playstyle (primarily stealth) but I almost thought the game was too generous resource wise.  Looting bodies and tripping over loot boxes everywhere I turned meant I was always fully stocked with cash.  I bought the loot box maps just to spend the money, same with weapons upgrades I never used and every weapon paint job.  Even with that I still spent the last 15 % of the game leaving cash in my wake because my wallet was too full to carry more.  I know, I know, first world problem.  But it’s possible if I had been a rocket spewing madman with a more uninhibited ammo consumption rate I may have had less expendable cash.

- The mysticism/hallucinogenic drug motif wore a little thin for me.  I can acknowledge that they tried a stylistically interesting way to convey parts of the story but really, there were a few times where I felt like I had missed something awesome for something that more artsy than awesome.

-  Despite the variety of mission types available a lot them started feeling samey after a while.  Like outpost clearing got old well before I cleared all 34.
 
Better Than: Far Cry 2.  A lot of the things I didn’t like about Far Cry 2 (the diamond hunting, the infini-spawn bad guys, the malaria game mechanic) got fixed this time around.  And the protagonist this time had a personality.  I like a guy who can blow up a gun boat and yell “I sunk your battleship” while blaring the “Ride of the Valkyries.”  Also this game injected a healthy sense of humor that the previous title lacked.

Worse Than: There’s not a lot of shooters I can compare to Far Cry 2 and 3 since they have a pretty unique feel to them and there aren’t a lot that are almost entirely non-linear.  So I’ll leave this paragraph pretty much blank.

Overall: A-:  A must play title if you like first person shooters in any form.  Even more so if you want the chance to dive with sharks, look at some of the best video game renderings ever of many animals including manta rays and sea turtles and then set stuff on fire with a flame thrower.

Beat Far Cry 3, I'll probably do a review post later.

My go to "sick" games are the Bard's Tale reboot or the Phoenix Wright games.

Been playing Far Cry 3 like mad.  I've completely cleared both islands of all activities and collectibles, time to finish the last handful of main story quests and I'll be at 100% completion.

Make it Bu'n Dem - Damien Marley/Skrillex

Came across it last week when playing Far Cry 3 (it loops during flame thrower level) and it is a freaking earworm.  I've since proceeded to download it and listen to it an unhealthy amount of times.

Fetch quests can be alright.  Dead Space is mainly fetch quests but the atmosphere carries the game.