In this week’s Top Tier Tips, WiNGSPANTT answers questions about PC gaming, murdering unsuspecting adults, and maiming very-suspecting children.

I recently spoke to Tyler of Ninjalemon’s Reviews and Tactics, a new gaming blog about (surprise!) gaming impressions and strategy. I was immediately impressed by the quality of his work and the content of his character, so I agreed to post one of his inaugural pieces as a Guest Article on Top Tier Tactics. If you enjoy it, go check out the rest of Ninjalemon’s offerings. Because when life hands you Ninjalemons… good luck finding them later!

I promised it and now it is here: an analysis of the weapons of Battlefield Bad Company 2: Vietnam, or at least, those in the Assault kit. For this series, I’m going to split the kits into five groups: the four main kits and general all-kit weapons.

Why? Because I know that my attention span is taxed just by looking at a web page for more than a couple seconds, so yours must be at least ten or so. You are reading this, I should think.

Let’s jump right in with Assault and begin with the ten ton elephant in the room: the Ak-47. I know Swordsman75 has already done his Briefing Room episodes on these, but I want to give a more specialized analysis of the weapons than he did. I plan to include ballistics, or at least, the ballistics as I see them…

Today, ArenaNet unveiled the 6th Guild Wars 2 profession, the Guardian. While there’s been a fairly steady release of profession profiles for the past few months, the Guardian is the first class new to Guild Wars 2. The Warrior, Ranger, Necromancer, and Elementalist have gotten revamps, sure, but here was something never-before-seen.

So, what the hell is a Guardian exactly, other than a crappy spell from Diablo?

Today, I want to talk to you all about something known as “‘voting with your wallet.” The concept is simple: if you don’t like something, you don’t buy it; if you do like something, you buy it. This is also known as the ‘competition factor’ in capitalism because it can create competition between shops to make it so that people buy your stuff and not that asshole down the street’s stuff. Maybe you give your customers more for their money or your quality of stock is superior, or maybe you’re offering some sort of buy 1/get 1 free deal . Either way, you’re encouraging people to go to your shop and buy your stuff so that you make money. Delicious, yummy capitalism.

So, here’s the deal. I’m preparing a new video series to post here, which will serve several different functions. The first is to get myself comfortable with commentary, which is something I need to work on. So far I’m only really good at commentating bad movies, something I enjoy doing. Next, I’ve never edited videos for [...]

2011 has a large number of great games in store. And whether you love shooting things until they die or punching people until they’re hospitalized, there’s something special waiting for your personal sociopathic niche. But we’re not here to talk about you, we’re here for me to dictate my opinion at you while the hidden text between each line slowly brainwashes you into joining my soon-to-be-announced cult.

Enough prelude; let’s check out the list!

What Vietnam is doing is reenforcing this boring playstyle without a viable way for a Recon to use a sniper rifle up close. He has to either grab an automatic, flamethrower or shotgun… but then he’s really better off just playing one of the other three kits.

It’s nearly Australian Christmas, and it appears Valve has left a boatload of presents under the tree for players the world over, regardless of their Australian citizenship status.

Now, before we get too far into this article, I’d like to preface it with a reminder of my stance on the Mann Co. Store. The verdict? Don’t even think about whining about the Mann Co. Store. Imagine your future self looking back on your present self, whining over something as petty as a virtual, optional item shop.

That’s right: it’s really, really sad.

So let’s skip past the judgment and straight into things you actually enjoy:
Guns and other implements of murder!

I spawned in the middle of the ocean on a small island of sand. There were a couple of small land masses around me but the most prominent things were a giant pyramid and a small stone fortress; both were nicely lit with torches to guide me on my midnight swim. Arriving at the fortress, I was greeted by the server owner who gave me a quick overview of the world from his roof. To the North was the Great Awesomatron Pyramid, standing strong for over three days; To the South was Shadow Moses Island and New Wales, connected to the main island by a very well built bridge

Healing right now is hard. It’s as simple as that. Maybe it will eventually get as easy as it was in Wrath, but right now it’s tough. That doesn’t mean you can’t learn it, that doesn’t mean it’s any less fun. But don’t lie to yourself and pretend we’re still playing Wrath, you’ll run OOM doing it. And if I end up in a group with you while you’re doing that, I will hunt you down. I hope this article gives you some insight on what’s so different about healing in Cataclysm, and maybe helped some of you get off the ground.

Serge explains his picks for best games of 2010.