Battlefield 3

A game review by Mic.

Battlefield 3 is the latest entry in the Battlefield franchise, preceded by Battlefield Bad Company 2, a personal favorite of mine

This review is based solely on the multiplayer, as I am not a huge fan of campaigns in games in general

To sum BF3 into a single word would be difficult, but if  forced to, I would simply say: epic. Now, you may be thinking: "that's the most overused word on the internets" but, it truly is epic

Epic, according to Merriam Webster, is extending beyond the usual or ordinary especially in size or scope.

This is BF3.


BF3 is a game, more of strategy than "Shoot everything in sight", as is found in the Call of Duty franchise.
The main gametypes are Rush, and Conquest. Rush is a somewhat simple gametype, where there are two teams, the attackers and the defenders. The attackers job is to "Rush" forward, and arms a few sets of two M-Com stations, and the defenders must disarm them. The attackers win by arming all M-Com stations, and destroying them. The destruction isn't instant, though, there's an alarm that sounds for a minute or two, then it explodes. The defenders win by killing the attackers so many times that they lose all of their what is called spawn tickets. It's somewhat simple, but far from easy. 
The second gametype is Conquest. Conquest plays much like the gametype of the same name, in most COD games. There are several flags on the map, and you must guard them. The longer you hold a flag, the more spawn tickets the enemy loses

The maps are humongous, but that doesn't make the game boring. Oh, no no no. This game is far from boring. Whether you're the Recon class, the Support class, the Assault class, or the Engineer class, you will most likely ALWAYS have something to do, whether it's assisting a tank by healing it, capturing a flag and guarding it, taking out an enemy sniper, or simply being a boss. 


In all, the controls are fluid, the gameplay is fantastic, and the servers are very good.


The very few negative things I have, are that spawkilling, while not TOO common, is an occasional occurence, and the Online Pass system is a tad annoying. If you're wondering, it does work for all the users on an Xbox, and is free with a new copy of the game.


I give it a 9.5/10

Act of Valor

Movie review by Tahdas

In the Philippines an ice cream truck is blown up in school parking lot by a suicide bomber, killing the American ambassador. Two CIA agents, Ross and Morales,  are suspicious about the bombing; they are suddenly ambushed. Ross is killed.  Morales is abducted and brought to a terrorist compound in the jungle. A team of Navy SEALs are sent to recover her.

Staring active duty Navy SEALs, Act of Valor gives you an idea what SEALs do. Some might say that the point of this film is to get you to join the military, but I don’t think so. The director is trying to give a sense of what it’s like being a SEAL and how self-sacrificing they are.

For an R-rated movie about SEALs, there wasn't much swearing .  I’ve heard more swearing in some PG-13 movies. As for violence, there’s lots of shooting, but it’s not graphic. Agent Morales is tortured but you don’t see that much of it (that’s a good thing!).  Critics have said that the SEALs acting was a little wooden;  actually, compared with some Hollywood actors, the acting wasn’t bad.

I think the film should have been based in Afghanistan instead of the Philippines.  Another problem I had with this movie has to do with the two bad guys (Cristo and Shabal). Abdu Shabal is a convert to Jihad, but it is unrealistic for a convert to have become so powerful. Cristo-who is working with Abdu Shabal- is a Jew who looks like he’s from a Hitler propaganda poster. In case you didn’t know Jihadists hate Jews.

Other than than the things I just mentioned, I thought Act of Valor was one of the better action movie I’ve seen! 

Thanks for reading, 

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Tahdas & Mic.