If I'm not mistaken, the emailed codes were for access to the private beta. The UC3 codes are for early access to a public beta next year.

Public beta next year? Doesn't the game come out the last week of 2011?

Ah...that makes sense I suppose.

Awesome awesome awesome night tonight. 10 people showed up...see if I can do this from memory:

• Friz
• Nic
• Nicholls82
• R2
• Slider
• Ogs
• Shumway
• Cruz
• Cactus
• Spatula

So much funny shit I don't even know where to start. Highlights for me were:

• The first Knives and Nades was a riot. I literally hurt from laughing so hard.
  
• The second one in the dome in Garden Showdown will forever be called "The Blender". 9 guys knifing and nading in that tiny space was batshit crazy!
  
• 4 man TOW kill on the last map
  
• Hearing R2 and Nic talk shit to each other again...missed that. "Your driving is worse than my shooting!"
  
• Traci asks me what the difference between Nic and Nicholls, and I answer "One pitches and the other catches." I almost made a Penn reference there, but thought it might be too soon.
  
• Red team is a man up and goes up 3 - 0 on Archipelago, and I went all Gandolf on them to keep them from taking a fourth. "You shall not...pass!" I ended up with some absurd number of kills that map.
  
• Team damage was on, and team kills were...frequent...and funny.
  
• Slider launched me absurdly far in a jeep on Island Outpost...way out in the water. One of my flag runs on that map was epic. Game ended in a 2-2 tie.
  
• Spatula is on the other team and rolling out of my base with my flag and says "Cover me!" just as I'm flying in. I say "I'll cover you...with my balls!" and drop a fat cluster bomb on him and I think R2. R2 says "You didn't specify that you wanted to be covered but not with his balls."

I can't remember the last time I laughed so hard, and it's such a contrast with what I've been experiencing in BF3. I kind of thought I was over Warhawk, but that was really a blast. Really appreciate you guys coming out to play.

I'm so pissed I couldn't make it last night. By the time I came home from the game I had a migraine and just needed to go to bed. Ugh. Fucking Pittsburgh weather is killing me. Can we please please please play again next week??

I had a blast last night. We should definitely do it again.

I had a blast last night as did anyone who ran into my jeeps.

I still think the game itself sucks. I just have fun laughing at and with you guys.

P.S. Any one of you regulars want my private beta key? I received the PSN email too.

blasphemy!

How would you feel playing a game a time or two that's pretty outdated against guys that have been playing it for at least 2 years longer? It really sucks for me. I get way out-douched. Which is why I have to take advantage when I have a chance.

Oh we've been playing it for much longer than that.

Yes please.

@ Shum, we (most of us anyway) have a long history of giving people space to explore and practice. For some reason, I had the idea that you'd played more than you have. Sorry about that.

One other funny moment that I remembered:

Somebody (some random Nic or R2) was crowding me pretty bad with a Warhawk and unleashing all kinds of firepower. Since it was so close, I lit it up with a flamethrower and talked a good bit of smack afterwards...some combination of "Is that all you got?", "Come at me bro!" and "Bring that shit to me!"

Awesome stuff.

YGM! No worries about the the douche. Like I said, The most enjoyable part was the banter anyway. Besides, I didn't finish last in the knives and 'nades match I was around for, which was cool.

Muchos gracias Shum!!!!

Going to download now.

So, how is it?

So I played some Starhawk today.

And while some aspects of the dynamic building construction are interesting additions to the multiplayer environments... It's just way toooooooooo... busy. Part of Warhawk's charm was its simplicity. This ain't it.

I knew it.

I haven't gotten a chance to play yet...had a dinner thing last night and set it to download as I went to bed the other night.

I'll probably check it out after dinner tonight.

I'll echo this sentiment and add that based on what I'm seeing in the beta, I'm deeply disappointed.

Maybe the single player trains you in some way for this mess, but right now, it's terrible. It really feels more like Red Faction than Warhawk, and it's not as good as either game in its own right.

Warhawk is perfect in its simplicity and speed...just make it again with upgraded graphics, new maps and a single player campaign, and you are virtually guaranteed sales to folks who played the first one. I don't even know WTF this is or who it's supposed to be for, but it's going to flop in a huge way if this beta is any indication of what it's all about.

I can't figure out the intended audience either. Honestly it feels a little bit like the gameplay for that Transformers game. the issues with the game aren't a beta thing. I hope I'm wrong. Unless something changes this isn't even worth the purchase based on the benefit of the doubt.

I'm sure I'll give it another shot...just didn't think the shooting felt right, and the pace was kind of off.

I was also kind of bummed that vehicles weren't readily available when you spawn.

I could see it being fun to just play as a tower defense game though.

It was all very odd. True. Tower defense was really the only strength of the gameplay itself. But as a multiplayer arena it's a very odd thing. The weapons bit was annoying. The vehicles are annoying. I couldn't find a decent gun anywhere unless I killed a guy. And because I didn't have a decent gun, I could hardly ever kill anyone. Needing to build something to get at vehicle was an okay concept but the vehicles never respawned. Also running around in the Starhawk "suit" was kinda cool. But at the same time, completely unintuitive. It's essentially an anime mech game forced into the Warhawk multiplayer concept with diminishing returns.

I wonder when they plan on killing the regular Warhawk servers.

The dedicated Warhawk servers are just a bank of PS3s...pretty sure it will be a while. Or at least as long as the PS3 is selling and the game is available as a new product or on the PSN store.

I'm not a technical expert or anything, but on our games, my understanding is that my PS3 is the actual server and their system isn't doing anything beyond the matchmaking in the background...if they are even doing that.