Holiday Gaming - online GRAW, EF, RK

Over the past two weeks I've dabbled a bit in online media for gaming. Surprise surprise.

Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter - classic shoot 'em up for the thinking player. Have had it for a year or so and played single player on desktop, not the best at it (still haven't finished the programmed scenarios). High tension game, however, big maps and difficult scenarios with good sound and graphics. Here is the link to a user video on youtube which shows someone playing through the mission I have gotten stalled on (in the mass fire fight at the end). This dude makes it look easy.

Anyway, after maybe a year of having the game I finally 'patched' the game with the official patch and had a look at the multiplayer function. There seems to always be a dozen or more games going on online at any time, most of them being cooperative games on usergenerated missions. It's a game of small interlocking fire teams and rests a lot on observation and tactical movement. Good fun. Also of some interest is that one can make one's own machine act as a server. This is especially useful here in Australia considering the usually high 'ping' penalty we pay for living here (most game servers being on the other side of the planet).

East Front II - continue into turn 3 of the 1941 scenario of what looks like a russion cavalry brigade and tank regiment attacking a string of isolated german company's at a number of crossroads etc. The russian tanks appear poised to 'overrun' in the next turn.

Renaissance Kingdoms - Since I last wrote of this here I have done a stint as Field Marshal of the Royal Scottish Army, backing on to a term of about two months as Deputised Field Marshal while my predecessor underwent court martial procedures. My own time as Field Marshal was marked by a Court Martial of none other than my ingame wife, with me having to determine penalty once the Military Council had determined guilt. My penalty managed to upset nearly everyone to some degree for some reason. That was before Christmas. After Christmas I faced a vote of no confidence amongst the army as a result of the High Command being mighty upset at what they saw as the leniency of the penalty I had handed down in the court martial.

The no confidence vote was taken in each of the three regiments, the officer corps and the high command. These five results were tallied, equally weighted, and I ended up losing my job by one vote. The High Command voted against me and the officers did, but galloway and glasgow regiments supported me. There was only one vote cast in Ayr Regiment and it was against me and effectively determined the whole show. Ironically, this voter made clear that he thought the decision was fair and just but that I shouldn't have been the one to make it due my relation to the accused. I won the majority of the votes but lost in the tactics of it over the xmas new year break. So my character gets to live a normal life again after over a year as general of a regiment and then effectively as a warrior lawyer in the military courts as field marshal.

An unexpected turn indeed.