Tag: Gaming

Battlefield 6: Liberation Peak is the best map in the Open Beta

Battlefield 6 Liberation Peak Mountains and Sniper

Battlefield 6’s Liberation Peak was probably one of the best maps of the open beta. I am guy who loves snow and this map just scratches that itch in more ways than one.

In comparison with the infantry heavy Empire State map, Liberation peak allows for the player to breathe and for tactics to matter instead of constantly worrying about soldiers behind you or in nearby buildings. Unlike that map, Liberation Peak uses space in a way that similar to Monte Grappe in Battlefield 1. Natural formations allow for snipers to hide behind rocks and mountain passes give the map a character which is missing in some of the maps such as Siege of Cairo and Empire State.

In my opinion, those urban maps are simply too cluttered and filed with cars and rubble. It is hard to make out what you are seeing and it turns the matches into whack a mole games where one guy slips by and you race to capture yet another location in the rear.

I believe that they will be improving these maps before the release of the full game.

What Liberation Peak reminds me of those classic Battlefield maps from before Battlefield 3. They were just huge maps where you could use vehicles or infantry and just walk around. It made it tough for hackers as they would be more exposed to attack from the air or snipers.

This map is a very interesting rendition of Tajikistan, a country of mountains and beautiful peaks which have snowtops; it is a truly beautiful and amazing place.

Battlefield 6 Liberation Peak Apache Nato Base

That’s what I love about. Honestly, it has that atmosphere that I love in the winter: it has that crisp and cold and most importantly, clean air.

Google Search and the Paywall: A consequence of near monopolistic power

Google is a company that has been controlling the search market in its grip for well over 20 years at this point. While the company offers many convenient services, it has also become a monopoly. Some people would disagree with that but the company is one and also is also dominating in mobile phones with the android operating system. There is a need for the internet to untangle from this monopolistic system that Google has made. Just for the interests of keeping the internet interesting and useful for many types of people, that is important. However, one of the main reasons why I am focusing on this issue is because of paywalls on news sites.

Paywalls used to be rarer in the past. Only really the WSJ (Wall Street Journal) had them in a significant way. However, as time has gone on and the internet went from a place for bragging rights to a necessity for someone to be able to have a journalism career, paywalls have been going up across cyberspace. The building of walls across the internet feels like an admission of failure of the internet’s ability to reduce the cost of producing news. I have seen it in real-time here; this is not a change that one sees through generations but it happened after 2008 and we have seen more and more paywalls.

Google’s inability to categorize paywalls is huge issue. Their unwillingness to categorize websites to make it more useful to the public shows their institutional inertia. The company makes billions upon billions of dollars on advertising, yet it is unable to even pay attention to its search engine that made it popular in the 2000s.

Why is Google so unwilling to change?

It’s because they are comfortable in taking ad revenue from sites. Changing that revenue stream would make them take a hit and they can only tolerate having more and more revenue streaming into it.

If Google was to take its search engine seriously, it would take a hit to its reputation. It would have to respond to all the calls about it having a monopoly on the internet and manipulating people’s minds. They would have to make the legacy outlets which seek to maintain their power have to play by the rules rather just allowing them to regurgitate what the ruling parties want to see.

Paywalled sites do need to not show up in the search results. Many of these sites are business sites that often hide their arcane language away from public view. The internet should be divided up into small kingdoms where you have to pay entry fees to get into the castle.

Google’s unwillingness to categorize such things show that monopolies that hold onto power for so long have a way of shaping the whole culture around them. The internet, once free and vibrant, is becoming yet another shopping mall where everything has a price.

Having free access to information on the internet isn’t a right but essential aspect to cyberspace.

Battlefield 2042: A Compromise between COD Gamers and Battlefield Gamers

Battlefield 2042 is considered by many to be a dark horse in the franchise. I would even say that it is dark age. While the game was successful on launch, it seems that the streamers and video makers on YouTube have been more negative on it than in comparison to Battlefield 1. Even on the Battlefield subreddit, there is more negative reactions to it than positive reactions. Here are my thoughts on the game.

Battlefield 2042 is a game that seeks to replicate 2006’s Battlefield 2142 without it going into far future history. One of the reasons I speculate this is because to the ossification of the modern warfare themes in FPS games since the release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. The 2007 release of Modern Warfare was immensely successful and turned Call of Duty from a game about World War 2 to a game series that just happened to have World War 2 as an occasional setting.

Battlefield 2042 is a intriguing game with some flaws in it. My main issue with it is the skins in the game. While some people may say that is mostly about aesthetics, I see it as how the games have been becoming less serious. Running around with women soldiers who shoot you in the back or in close quarters isn’t believable even with all the various science-fiction elements in it.

The thing that I like about it is the maps in the game.

One of the maps take place in a South Korean city which is centered around the struggle for a data center.

The data center looks likes more futuristic in comparison to the rest of the map here. It has a great atmosphere which contrasts with the rest of everything else you see here.

In many ways, the old Battlefield games before Battlefield 3 were rather bland graphically. With the Frostbite engine, Battlefield 2142 would have looked much better and more stylistically interesting here at representing the 22nd Century. With AI becoming more important in our society, it may be possible to remake these games.