I haven't played any BF in a loooong long time. Might have to fire up BFBC2 tomorrow on my day off and knife some noobs.

Yup came with the VIP code and bf1943 code and both worked fine despite having August 2011 expiry dates

Are there the same BF3 DLC on PS3 as on PC?

As far as I know the official DLC is the same across all platforms (PS3, PC, and 360), although PS3 has some kind of deal where they've been getting everything a week before everyone else. There's already been 4 expansion packs, and there's one more coming in March.

I hopped on for a minute yesterday after lunch just to make sure I could still get online in the game, and it worked fine...not sure what that was about the other day. I also discovered that I was really really rusty.

You guys want to plan a night to squad up...maybe take over a server?

Will add you to my friends list Cardiff...look for frizby.

I should be on later tonight.

Saw the invite Cardiff...was going in to send you one.

@ OG and Spatch...great to see you guys out in the Battlefield!

I was absurdly rusty but still had a couple of decent runs. Forget sometimes how fun this game is.

I'm sure you guys heard me laughing maniacally and yelling "yeah, keep reviving each other bitches", but I have to describe what was going down.

It was at Alpha on Nelson Bay, and I was running toward the house and was just by the car. The back wall on the closet was blown out, so I had a direct line of sight right through the front door by the stairs. I don't think the other team knew that wall was gone, and it was funny because it's your first instinct to run in that door for cover.

Anyway, I shoot a guy coming through the door and his buddy revives him. I shoot them and somebody else revives one of them, so I shoot them both...rinse...repeat for about 30 seconds solid. It was ultimately 10-12 kills, and it was literally like shooting fish in a barrel with a stream of guys reviving and spawning in and running through that door.

Also in above scenario, they were capping our flag, so I was also getting team protect bonus points (30 per kill, I think). As a direct result of that sequence I ended up getting the Ace Pin handily despite an otherwise so-so round.

I've been on Netflix a bit lately, just watching Young Indiana Jones and Robotech with my son, and I keep seeing Cardiff come on. I always check to see if he's still on when the episode ends so I can "give him the tour", but he's off by the time I switch over.

I've officially reached the point where I'm thinking about Battlefield more than Borderlands 2...even though I have a new DLC to play in that game. I think I'll go back to Borderlands if/when they do a level cap or if/when one of you guys wants to roll a character with me. But for now, I'm officially back in...capping flags, mining the joint up and shooting bitches in their faces.

Edit...just realized I have the last FIVE posts on here...that's some bullshit right there. ****monkeys.

Had a Cardiff sighting yesterday. I dropped in his game, but he didn't appear to be mic'd and was playing Heavy Metal (the only bad map in the game). Still, I had enough time to jump in a buggy with him and shoot a dude or two.

Later, Diecast jumped in my game and got my tags on a fluke play where I thought I'd shot him enough to kill him and had moved on to the next guy. I didn't even realize he was in the game...

Then we squaded up and got in some fairly epic games on Port Valdez with Spatula jumping in the second one. Great times!

Yup I was on there and indeed didn't have my Mic on and also had the sound turned way down since my fiancee was home early from work due to snow and was trying to catch up on work for a while last night.

I think that was the game that froze on me. I hate that map between the choppers and the bugs! Next time I'm on I'll be sure to throw my mic on!

I keep meaning to post some photos I took of some fun game stat screens with a story or two. One of these days.

Cardiff, feel free to request me. I play once or twice a week and am noob-friendly.

No worries. I was cruising some other maps and planned to send you an invite once I'd found a good one, but you were off by the time I'd settled in.

When that map pops up, you'll see half the lobby disappear, and almost none of the regulars on here plays through it when it come up in the rotation. It's just a haven for snipers and you spend all of your time looking for a vehicle while being sniped, taking long walks while being sniped, being bored while being sniped and being hounded by helicopters while being sniped. It's also the map that tends to freeze the game the most, I suspect because of all the vehicles and the sheer size. It is BY FAR the biggest map in the game and is way too big for 24 people.

Fortunately, aside from Heavy Metal, there isn't a single other map in the game that I don't love, and there are a ton of maps. Arica Harbor is probably the next worst (or perhaps least best). It's a bit tight and tends to be a twitch fest, and it has an absurdly high ticket count so it takes forever, but it's still pretty well designed for what it is.

I'm not saying Heavy Metal is amazing and that snipers aren't still all over the place but I've taken a shine to it the last few months. Lots of great spots for mines (especially on Bravo), and if you're good on the AA gun no reason you can't take out a few choppers and snipers with it over the course of the round. The real game is at Bravo - hold that and have blueberries keep Alpha or Charlie as often as possible or run over to the one closest to your deployment as needed and get back to Bravo. Also a great place for tags with all the snipers and even though there's a lot of wide open spaces I found an Assault with C4 or an Engineer with a Carl Gustav can take down tanks and CAVs without being guaranteed to be blown up first.

It's a map that requires patient players because the interactions with the enemy aren't nearly as frequent as in other maps. Ironically, many of the people who find Heavy Duty too slow don't Arica Harbor because it's too fast. I like both for these specific different reasons. They are the two maps on opposite ends of the play pace and thus it forces one to switch up the way he or she plays. To me, this is an interesting way to play. If I wanted to play my favorite way all the time, I'd only use the Carl Gustav and knife (okay, and C4 on snipers...). But since I want to play with the team, I vary it. Heavy Metal forces me to vary it and I've been digging on that.

Actually, I have the same problem with both of them: They both take forever.

Arica Harbor is 300 tickets in Conquest, and it tends to be a grind, and it's even worse if you have a lot of medics reviving tickets, which is usually the case. Heavy Metal is 250 tickets, I think. It's usually a fight over Bravo and it takes forever to get there from Alpha or Charlie, and you hardly ever encounter anybody along the way (unless you get sniped). On both maps, there simply aren't enough kills or objectives to keep the ticket counter moving.

The good news is that there's still Panama Canal, Atacama Desert, White Pass, Laguna Presa, Port Valdez, Nelson Bay, Laguna Alta, Oasis, and Harvest Day and they are all freaking awesome...and I really don't mind Arica Harbor so much.

I was playing a bit earlier and man is it just me or do the 40mm grenade launchers do nothing? I don't think I've managed to kill one person with one yet. Assault as a whole seems to be kind of a weak class but the FS2000 which I just unlocked seems decent.

I also hate those damn choppers, I can't seem to blow one up even with the Tow Missile!

dogmatica, i'll send you a friend request.

The 40mm grenade isn't really used to kill people in normal combat. It's handy when you catch a guy ducking behind a wall though.

I can't emphasize enough how much I think you should start with the medic. It's the easiest class by far to rack up points for upgrades and keep yourself healthy. It's also a blast to run around reviving people, and it doesn't hurt that the best gun for the class is the first one you unlock (M-249 SAW).

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/vbMh5udQnQI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

The only classes I play are medic and engineer, so yeah, not a fan of the Assault class (it's fine for combat but doesn't have much advantage over medic) or Recon (don't like sniper rifles and camping doesn't help the team).

Choppers can be almost entirely ignored other than on one or two maps. I haven't found any reliable way to take them down other than AA guns or the occasional lucky Carl Gustav or Tank shot.

Yeah I tend to stick with medic or engineer but am trying to play enough recon and assault to keep my character close to the same level on all skills. I will check that video out thanks for the link.

Got a couple of games in tonight.

The highlight (and I do this all the time) was running out in the road and shooting at a vehicle to bait the driver into trying to run over me...when I have a mine in the road between us. On this particular turn, the dude in the Hummer tries to run me over, and he has a gunner who is shooting off to the side and apparently another dude riding in back because I got a triple kill. It is truly epic to see a vehicle flip and explode right in front of you with dudes flying out of it.

It's always amusing to think about what they are thinking when I plink their car with my SMG..."Look at this noob...doesn't know his rifle won't hurt me...gonna road kill him...oh shit!"

Unless you're fond of sniper rifles, I recommend unlocking some "all class" weapons or shotguns before playing much Recon.

Assault has good guns, but I just don't think they are any more effective than the LMGs the Medic carries. I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that a good third to half of the Assault guys you see will be carrying a USAS shotgun kit with C4 (you can use the C4 accessory with shotguns).

I think the general consensus out there is that the medic is a bit overpowered, for what it's worth, and its only real weakness is that it is utterly helpless against vehicles.

Friday night bitches.

I hope you're able to go to sleep in peace after that last round. One of the things that helped, I think, was rethinking how I went after their tanks. They blew up any mines near their deployment or closest objectives, true, so I laid out mines on the opposite side of the map in case they flanked us. Sure enough, nabbed three tank kills this way. Also, when they brought their tank around behind Bravo (this is all at Laguna Presa) I went right up behind them with our tank and took it out. Never took a tank there before or specifically mined another area of the map like that so it was cool. Think those tanks brought me over the top for the Ace Pin.

Yeah, that was definitely a good win at the end there.

I got in a few games with OG on Friday night, and I struggled a bit early. I finally got on a roll in a game on White Pass with a couple of long kill streaks and ace by 1000+ points, and I got booted. The game never boots you when you're having a lousy round does it???

And last night I had some great rounds with Spatch and Diecast, along with the other small group we play with (Hawg, Big Hurt, etc.) We had 2/3 or more of our team occupied with people we know, so we were reasonably focused, and we ran into a couple of brutal squads. But we held our own and won more often than we lost, so

Fridays were made for mining the joint up, reviving your buddies and shooting bitches in the face.

I'm working until 11:00pm or so tonight so perhaps late tonight but don't hold your breath.