Movember 2013

Hi All,

That wonderful time of the year when Movember returns and peace is restored across the galaxy....

Due to popular demand I have decided to alter the Mo design slightly as we move towards gaining more sponsors, a few designs came into mind but two stood out for me.

The Mini Mo, this is where I will grow my normal over the lip but then have a smaller one etched in under my bottom lip without touching the other.

But the one which got the vote this year and makes me think of Star Wars all over is..... The Dual Mo. Every time I think of the name Dual Mo it makes me think of the epic Star Wars battle between Qui Gon, Obi Wan and Darth Maul. The soundtrack to this battle was named "Duel of the Fates".

The Dual Mo is just that, two mo's instead of one, here's an early photo. I've carved one in the normal spot and another underneath my bottom lip.

So far its been received with mix reactions, majority from my work are shocked but hey - I'm not doing this for approval, this is for charity!

This year I've started off a little slow as I was interstate for the first week until now, so all my normal emails pleading for donations went out rather late and subsequently my donations tally isn't looking healthy at the mo.

I'm confident though of it moving towards the $1k mark, I've been participating in Movember now for 8/9 years and in all that time I think I've missed raising $1k only once. So it makes me proud that I've been able to raise approx $7k to this fantastic charity, one which is growing in popularity at a rapid rate. When I first started Movember then was in its infant stages, not many knew of the charity - now its all over the media and expanding all over the world!

Looking on the website the Movember event started with as little as 30 people back in 2003 and has propelled into a massive 1.1 Million participants in 2012. Back then the idea was born but no real funds raised, in its first real fundraising year, 2004, Movember raised a total of $54,000... Compare this to a staggering $141.5 Million in 2012 and you have yourselves a massive event!

So, with those stats now comes my plea. As I mentioned I've raised approx $7k in the history of my Movember, This isn't enough and I aim to push towards $10k and beyond. I do this for the charity only, no personal gain - One month a year of having a Mo which most will laugh at is a small price to pay for this great event.

Please, hop online by clicking this link: http://mobro.co/TonyRogers This is the link to my Mo Space, please check out and donate anything you can - remember everything over $2 is tax deductible and greatly appreciated.

Regards

Bo_Gas

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 - PS3

I was thinking about this last night, why have I not written an article about possibly my most favourite game of all time!

Years ago I was sitting at home playing Star Wars Knights of The Old Republic on my then Xbox when my brother in law asked if I had bought the new Modern Warfare 2 game and played it online. I said no as I have an Xbox and haven't bothered to buy a 12 month access to play online but hadn't really played much of the COD series as yet.

I went down to his place and he showed me the PS3, I did consider getting one as I heard the graphics were better and it had a Blu ray player also but I ended up going with the Xbox for 2 reasons, 1) It was by far cheaper and 2) It had Knights of The Old Republic...

We played Call of Duty Modern Warfare on split screen and online, I asked how much it costs per year for online access and he said... nothing... I stood there like a stunned mullet, nothing??

I loved COD, it was unbelievable - Immediately I was hooked and was now on the hunt for a PS3.

A few months later my Xbox died with a bad lens or something the repair man stated, the cost for the new parts was substantial and thought well why spend the $$'s on something I want to get rid of anyway so immediately began the search for the best available priced PS3.

Luckily it was Xmas and both my boy and I had been good that year so Santa decided he would give us a joint present and delivered us a brand new PS3.

News broke of the next instalment of the COD series was due for release shortly, Modern Warfare (MW) 3, I hadn't even played 2 yet so we immediately bought a copy and began our "Free" online journey.

MW2 was great, I absolutely loved it, so did my son, as we began to play Team Deathmatch religiously for the next few months in the lead up to the release of MW3. My brother in law, at that stage, talked me into using the SCAR-L as the main weapon of choice, I agreed after a few games using it. The makers for me had this as one of the nicest ones to use whilst it calmly stayed on target with hardly any kickback.

Issue for me was the Kills. I had a habit back then of quite simply running into the kill zone and getting killed by much more experienced players, instead of learning the map and learning what way players usually will run to and spawn from.

With our pennies saved up (Aussie $$'s actually...) MW3 was released.

I already loved playing the Campaign of both MW & MW2 and was really looking forward to where the story was going for this one, the thing I love about the COD series is the storyline in which it has moved - I never really got into the Black Ops versions but found MW to be a brilliantly told storyline which I had hoped a filmmaker out there would take note of and have a trilogy brought out!

MW3's storyline was outstanding, starting with the evacuation of MacTavish in Afghanistan, to then help reclaim US states recently occupied by the Russian invasion.

Alot of people could have said the game could be centred around the reclaiming of the US but the developers didn't stop there. The team lead by Captain Price, Yuri, Nikolai & MacTavish go hell bent on tracking down the main cause of all of this devastation, Makarov.

The team journey through the far reaches of the world in their pursuit of Makarov going on tips of his whereabouts as they cross through Sierra Leone, Somalia, Prague & Dubai.

The developers didn't stop here as in true COD nature you also switch players and spend time fighting with Team Metal lead by Sgt Frost whether your in Lower Manhatten helping blow up a Russian Sub, destroying a jamming tower on top of the New York Stock Exchange or fighting for survival in Paris!

The ending is just unreal, 3 months after the war has finished Price, Yuri, and Nikolai finally track down Makarov at the Burj Al Arab hotel in Dubai. Price and Yuri, dressed as Juggernauts, make their way into the hotel and proceed to the top level in pursuit of Makarov just as his helicopter is approaching for escape. As they make their way through the atrium and casino a Little Bird decimates the upper levels of the hotel and as a result both Price & Yuri are badly wounded, Yuri infact is impaled on a metal rod.

Yuri insists Price goes after Makarov and reluctantly he does, Price proceeds to hijack the escape helicopter and kills the pilots - but in the process the controls are damaged forcing it to crash land on the roof where Makarov is waiting. Makarov, just about to end it all for Price is seconds away but is confronted by the badly wounded Yuri who manages to buy time for Price!

Sadly, Makarov is able to defeat and kill Yuri. Yuri's actions and heroic feat was able to give Price enough time to gather himself and wrap a steel cable around his neck. Price then smashes the glass floor under them which kills Makarov!

Price survives the fall and smokes a cigar infront of his corpse.

Brilliant, just absolutely brilliant - it was a joy to play and kept you on the edge of your seat the whole time. If they don't make a proper movie about this then there's something wrong, a full trilogy or full movie would be brilliant and millions would flock to see it.

But the developers for me really topped the cake with the Multiplayer menu.

Multiplayer allows you to jump online and fight alongside and against other players from all over the world, at any point during the game I am fighting with and against fellow Australians but also could be people from America, Britain, India, Russia, France etc.

At the start you are given basic guns and add on's to help you begin your journey to Level 80. You not only increase your experience but also the weapons too. Each time you reach the next required level for items you can gain cool stuff to add to the guns like a ACOG Sights, Extra Mags, Silencer etc.

Strike Packages also allow you awesome bonuses when you get on a kill streak, you have the option to select Assualt, Support or Specialist.

Assualt requires you to record multiple kills without being killed, with each streak you get too you gain your selected items such as Care Packages, Juggernauts etc.

Support allows you to gain items whilst still being killed, beauty is it doesn't reset after each time you get killed.

Specialist is another which resets after each time you die, so the more experienced and stealth players generally use this - this package gives the player perks for optimum performance.

Once you get to Level 80 you can Prestige, the Prestige allows you to reset back to Level 1 but use a token each time to buy items to keep going forward. So if your a big fan of a certain weapon you can use your token to buy it to use once you've Prestiged.

As far as I'm aware there is no set limit on the amount of times you Prestige, currently I think we've Prestiged 12 times and have racked up a heap of cool weapons to use.

The Maps that the developers have added are just awesome too, the original Maps contain differing levels for each type of player. Some Maps are awesome if you prefer Sniping or running through with Akimbo machine pistols for quick kills like in Hardhat.

My favourite Maps right now are Hardhat, Seatown, Terminal and Dome. Hardhat & Dome I love running through with Akimbo machine pistols and an MP7 - these maps are generally where I rack up more kills than others as I tend to go hard in getting kills. Seatown & Terminal I tend to be a bit more reserved as I prefer to use my Sniper rifle and see how I can go without getting killed as much.

There is a plethora of different ways in which you can play the Multiplayer Maps, through the basic games such as Team Deathmatch, Team Defender, Domination or you can join the Hardened Menu's and take on the elite.

It also gives you a zombie type game called Infected, at the start of each game the countdown will begin to chose who will be the first infected, players are given set weapons and the first infected keeps that weapon selection to enable them to infect one player to even up the playing field. Infected can be great fun and the games can be quite quick as the infected bolt through with extraordinary speed to knife the unsuspecting victims but it can also be super slow, especially when its Striker v Jugg... throw in Dome and you've got 10 - 15 players all camping up on top of the Dome in Jugg outfits whilst you try like crazy to get up and kill them... Not the easiest of tasks and can be boring if you get it continually...

For me I love having sessions of Team Deathmatch and Domination, there you can either go your own pace like on TD or capture bases on Domination then slaughter the opposition whilst you attempt to hold the base.

Using the headset can be a fun feature, especially if you have a group of friends your keen to chat too, good way to catch up whilst also having fun playing this awesome game. It can have its downside also however, there are alot of extremely rude, arrogant and disrespectful people out there. And even when you report them for Abusive language or something similar nothing seems to happen.

In the end we mostly just mute players now and don't use the headset anymore, just not worth getting in an arguement with a player from the US just because they got upset for being killed hahaha.

One thing I would love the developers to do is to create an extra menu for Multiplayer to put players off against each other Nation versus Nation. Not a daily thing but even like a Fortnightly or Monthly thing, let players sign up for their Nation and allow their points, kills etc to be applied to an overall tally and see which Nation is the best COD players for that period.

Doesn't have to be exactly like this but something similar would be awesome. It's not a compulsory item but a nice addition just to keep everyone interested.

Not that that will be a concern, since I bought the game this is all I have pretty much played. Briefly we will play MLB The Show, AFL Live, FIFA and maybe The Walking Dead. But they are usually brief and a session of COD is always on the cards.

Either way I'm sure once you play this game for the first time it'll be one of those games you just can't turn away from!

I've used photos from the COD website however will try and jump back in at a later date and get some screenshots from my COD login!

I'm going to leave this now and get back to my next session of COD - hope to all see you on there at some stage - look out for me - Bo_Gas.

Top Eleven - Soccer Manager (Game Review)

Here is a great game i've stumbled upon whilst on my return to app games via Facebook.

When I first joined Facebook years ago I was captivated by the ones everyone at the time were playing, Mafia Wars, Farmville, Cafe World etc.. These were ok games and very addictive...

Mafia Wars, like the rest of them, was fun at first but lacked that real ideal of playing it longer than a few months. Mafia Wars was getting annoying, you would build your Mafia and compete against others, was super hard when coming up against Mafia's with 100's of members against your 15...

Farmville, that was fun at first, just like the zombie version, but mundane and became very boring... you grew alot of stuff and collected money - thats about it...

Cafe World, same, you built up your cafe, put some neat stuff in there but after a while you think, What for....

Top Eleven is different, this allows you to control the team, friends and users don't affect your team other than playing against them. Level 1 you are given a team to control, depending on when you start your team could be anywhere, my first season my team was sitting around 12th I think. Ended up finishing 6th after buying a few players with little cash available.

Its taken me until now to realise some of my earlier mistakes, when I first started I played 3 or so friendlies a day, then had my team play their normal league games. Soon realised players fitness levels were way way down and lost alot to injury..

Friendlies are an annoying feature but I don't mind playing them every now and then, when it suits me... I usually will play them for example if I had a late game the night before scheduled and nothing til the next day. This allows ample time for my players to recoup fitness in time for the next game, but I don't play a heap of friendlies, just one or two. I then use the training feature to help raise the players skills and attributes.

So lets take a look at the app version for iphone, its a great version and the developers are putting time and effort into making it better and more like the PC version. It contains alot less options than the PC version has but, is still a great game.

So your given a squad of 22 players, this is made up of 11 starters, 7 subs and 4 reserves. You don't get alot to work with but you will get the odd 4 star and some 3 star players, rest will be mostly 2 star players.

To help also, Top Eleven have provided opportunities for you to earn extra cash through sponsorships, at level 1 you can earn $600k in Sponsorship through "Frontmen"... When you crunch it down, you can pick up some very handy 3 or 4 star players for that amount, possibly 3 or 4 players if done correctly...

One item that is worth the gold colour it represents is "Tokens". Tokens allow you to buy extra items and also to bid on players in the trade market, careful though - this is where alot of people waste their tokens while in bidding wars with other users. I once lost 20 tokens just on one 5 star player and still lost the auction...

As a nice bonus, along with Sponsorship $$ terms you can also obtain a Token Sponsor through the Finances section, here you can sign a TV Rights sponsor who will give you tokens on a daily basis, you can either receive one through Nordeus 1 daily regardless or the one I'm with now Speed who gives me bonus tokens if I login consistently each day...

Luck and Patience often gets the player, I've found that if I bid on players early in the morning I will come up against big users who have alot of tokens to use, either by earned through sponsorship or bought with actual $$'s... But i've had more luck getting players, good 5 star players, later in the arvo, the other day for example, I had 4 tokens... I put two dummy bids on two 5 star players finishing in 15 minutes, another one had someone bidding on.

In the second stage of bidding the other user failed to put a bid on and I put one on with 3 seconds to go, nailed a new 5 star midfielder.

Then to my amazement while on the bus heading home from work, the two dummy bids went through without opposition, so I scored a new 5 star GK and a 5 star DEF. In the end 3 5 star players and it only cost me 4 tokens...

If you play around with it you'll find the best time to bid and sell, for me its afternoons, by then most of Europe and US are in bed tucked away from robbing me of tokens and players...

If your lucky enough to finish within the top 7 teams in the league you qualify for the Cup, this is where you play against much harder opponents on the off chance you may beat them. Beauty of Cup is the prize money per game played is big, especially for a level 1 player,

The top 4 teams for each league move into the Champions League, prize money is much lower than Cup but still a great addition if you can reach it... So far this season I haven't done too well in either but the proze money made up for it as i've managed to sign 4 5 star players...

One of the other "nice" functions is the addition of upgrading your stadium and supports, I include this as a nice addition as some of it impacts your team like health and the ground however its just nice to upgrade stuff every 3 days - ie: we're not playing this game to upgrade stadiums so its just a nice compliment to the game.

Most of the upgrades take 3 days to complete however if you want to upgrade the size of your ground your looking around 15 days... You can use tokens to speed this up a bit however my advice would be to save those up and buy players...

As I mentioned previously theres two options, you can try your luck on the transfer market and try and snare a decent player, it definately can happen - you just need to find times best suited to your bidding so you don't get stuck in a bidding war... or, you can save your tokens and buy a 6 star player through the Scout.

The Scout offers you high quality 6 star players at a premium cost, minimum $1m signing fee and each player will set you back 50 tokens. Yep, 50, thats alot for a regular user that doesn't buy tokens with real money... Best advice is to save up your tokens, participate in as many free ways to receive tokens such as watching video's or going in surveys and then target your best player.

The Scout updates 6 times a season, if theres a particular player your keen on but not currently listed best to wait... I recently was looking for a midfielder but only ones on Scout were 28 years old and over, Ideally I wanted a youngy so I held off two days and the scout refreshed, luckily a 22 year old MC appeared with awesome stats, averaged 38 Defence, 39 Attack & 39 Health. Cost me $2.75m but was well worth it!

To compete at Champions League & Cup level you will need to consider stacking your squad, hence using the Scout function, lets be honest, there are players out there that frequently buy huge amounts of tokens with real money - prob nothing else better to spend it on... so if you have high ambitions of winning and taking big titles then you have to compete via tokens...

Training is another great function included, here you can chose to train or rest your players, the more game time and training they get the more they earn skill points to increase your players attributes.

I usually tend to have my starting 11 plus 2 or 3 reserves I keep resting unless no games are on, then the remaining reserves and substitutes I use as train hard. Now I'm definately no expert and I'm probably doing it wrong but this is the way I do it... Seems to work ok and my players not featured in games are still upping their attributes whilst the starting squad upgrade too by working hard in the game.

Careful though, injuries can strike at any time. For example, I signed a new 5 star striker, his states were in the 40's in attack and is not far off being a 6 star striker. Scored him at a bargain 2 tokens... First game he went out and played really well, didn't score like I hoped but assisted a few and rated highly, then late in the game he suffered a broken leg, prognosis, out for 16 days.... 16 days without a 5 star player is like an eternity... Injuries can also hit during training, so if your actively training players always try to have some that are left as reserves for the starting 11, just incase you lose players in the game and then also backups off your bench through training...

The Club shop is another "Nice" function added in by the games creators, here players can go nuts buying guernseys or patches of their favourite teams, sadly though it only has a handful of teams for you to choose from, so if your a Manchester United fan reading this, sadly you can't get a Man U strip just yet...

The shop is a place where you can send gifts to friends you have added either through the game or via facebook, you can send one gift daily of either a skill point, health pack, morale booster or a rest. These are very handy and you can receive one daily of the all four, so receive one each of the above but you can only send one to friends...

Well now a quick look at how i've gone since joining, i'm into my 4th season, my first I joined really late and won a few games but finished 6th overall.

My 2nd season was much better, I dominated the comp for the whole season, only losing once I think and took the League Title, With that I entered my first Champions League and Cup... I only won one game in Champions League and sadly missed out on progressing, Cup... well I was only really in it for the money haha - I lost both games and came away only with money...

My 3rd season was tougher, I started the season trying to juggle a team around my obligations to League, Champions League and Cup which would sometimes be played same day and I had issues that I would play a League game at 6am and then at 8am I would play a Champions League game... Players would be tired by second game and wouldn't play as well...

So I struggled in League early but fought back midway through, led the league until 4 rounds to go when I dropped the bundle and finished 2nd... Still shaking my head over that as not sure how I drew and lost games against players well under my team....

Anyway still finished second and entered my 2nd campaign for Champions League and Cup.

Cup I managed to win my first 2 games which blew me out of the water, haven't won a cup game before so was a pleasant change... Beauty of it was, $1.58m per game was mine. I lost in straight sets in the Qualifying stage but was happy with how the team performed only narrowly losing - more importantly i received $2.36m per game...

Champions League is still going as we speak, Lost my first two games 3-0 & 1-0, since then i drew my next game 1-1 and just then demolished a team 5-0. So now I'm sitting 2nd on the ladder with 2 rounds to go and a good chance to progress further. Prize money isn't huge for this but I'm just excited to get further considering i've only won 2 champions league games in the career haha.



League, well again I started very slow, had some issues with the formation I was using and found I constantly changed the formation which was impacting the players and how they performed. A friend guided me into using a much better formation and since then have only drawn a game but scored 21-0 in last 4 league games... I'm now sitting 3rd on the ladder and should be good to finish 2nd overall - doubt I can overtake the first placed team.



For me its a great game, very addictive, alot needs to be added to it though and more of the nice functions needed. Personally I'd like to see things like;

*Ability to update squads for each game, so nominate a squad for League, Champions League and Cup
*Extra tournaments where you can buy into and compete against players on your level
*Cheaper players placed on a "Buy" now function, similar to Scout.
*Staff Hiring - ie: Recruiter, Scout, Finance Manager etc.

These are a few of the idea's i've sent to the creators to see if they can add, each has its factor, the main one for me would be the first. What players tend to get stuck on is being asleep while your squads play... sometimes if you have League & Champions League playing close together players can get fatigued.

My idea is in the squad screen have extra menu's available called Champions League & Cup, this way you can nominate which players will play. Now, the onus is completely then on the player, if they don't nominate then you have the default team selected at league level but this could be good.

For example I use 2 DR & 2 DC players which I rotate every game, they're all too good to get rid of and all rate around 7-8 per game so I decided I'd play them every 2nd game. This morning I played League and Champions League within 1.5 hours of each other, would have loved to be able to set my squads the night before for both games rather than one default squad playing each game.

So, if your reading this game and considering playing this going forward I give this a 4 star rating (out of 5).

If the makers can add more nice features like some I mentioned above it would move my rating up to a 4.5 atleast and push hard towards a 5, its fun, addictive and keeps the player second guessing every game, especially when they draw or lose...

The other positive, you get to play against people from all over the world, and friend them too if they're nice.

Try it out and enjoy!


**Update 24/01/13:

One feature I forgot to mention was the fact you can watch and manage the game as it happens, one good thing about that is should an injury occur you can be there straight away to take the player off. You do have the extra option too if its playing while your away of having automatic players to be subbed on should this happen...



I like to jump in after each game and check out the stats.

Here you can see your substitutions, carded players and scorers.








You can also check the performance of your players and if lucky who from your player scored man of the match.

As well as check below how many supporters attended the game:

Movember

For those that know me, the month of Movember is one of my favourites in the year (besides AFL finals in September...).

Movember in short, is a month for blokes like me to grow a mo, fundraise and basically look silly for a great cause.

Movember was first founded in Melbourne (Australia) 2003 and with just a couple of mates, word spread of their fundraising efforts and more and more wanted to join. Since then it has over 1.9million Mo Bro's and Mo Sista's... Australia, New Zealand, US, Canada, the UK, South Africa, Ireland, Finland, the Netherlands, Spain, Denmark, Norway, Belgium and the Czech Republic all have formal registers online for everyone to join. Its also rumoured that there are people joining and fundraising from Russia to Dubai, Hong Kong to Antarctica, Rio de Janeiro to Mumbai!

Since then a number of celebrities have also joined in support, the odd couple will do it in the US but we have a number of ones joining in Australia which is awesome!

Me, my journey began in 2006 when i heard alot of blokes from work talking about it the year before - some were thinking of doing it so i decided to form a team at work called, Mo Wars - Episode 1 - The Phantom Mo...

The idea was to get us to grow mo's and then dress up as Star Wars characters at the gala event at the end of Movember... Idea was great, for me... pity i'm the only Star Wars fan at my work, so we continued to go with the theme however noone would dress up haha...

Started off strong and we had over 14 participants, some found it hard, both growing a mo as well as fundraising for donations. I had a stellar year through organising Melbourne Cup Sweeps as well as a pre drinks function before the gala party. Sweeps is where we make the donations.. Funny thing about Melbourne Cup, everyone wants the favourites and then the others win.. so people go nuts and buy as many as possible, me i end up spending way too much and never win...

I managed to raise over $1k for that first year which was awesome, since then i've only been able to get over the $1k mark three times however have pushed around the $500,$600 & $800 mark on the other occasions. I haven't kept a good tally however believe i have raised approx $5k since i first joined which i love, can't wait to one day reach $10k & $20k...

Our team continued the themes but last few years many have dropped off, to the point where in 2010 we only had 2 Mo Bro's and 1 Mo Sista... Dark times for our team but we have bolstered the group by extending abroad to our parent company and recruiting members in Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland and Tasmania... We now go by a new name "Team IOOF" however parts of me still refers to Mo Wars... Our team roughly raises approx $5k each year so I believe we've raised around $20k in the six years (allowing for very lean years with hardly anyone joined...)

If your reading this I urge you to get involved somehow, be it by joining and growing a mo as a Mo Bro, join as a Mo Sista and help raise funds and awareness or just simply donate what you can to a participant.

The more we get participating and donating the bigger this event becomes, the more funds the receipients receive to help fund the research and support programs in place to help those affected by Prostate Cancer and Male Depression.

Hey at the end of the day for us participants its a great laugh, some of us can grow big hairy monsters whilst some can only grow what we commonly refer too as a "Lame Mo"...

But its all great fun, we all have a laugh and help raise as much as we can.

So in that month of Movember, keep an eye out for the charity, join up wherever you are in the world by jumping on www.movember.com register a team and go from there, they give you all the tools to email your sponsors, connect via facebook or twitter, print out business cards and posters as well as give out some great prizes both locally and globally for the best and worst Mo's, best themed Mo etc...

If you'd like more information about Movember or would like to know the History and more about receipients such as Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia and BeyondBlue then head to www.movember.com and go from there

Good luck - and i hope to see you all joined up as a Mo Bro or Mo Sista soon (Or one of our donators...)