DROPSUITS:the only thing you will ever need!

If there is only one thing you spend your good hard earned SP, ISK, and AUR on it should be on dropsuits. When if first started playing Dust I made the mistake of investing all my SP on weapons, and that was a very painful lesson. I cannot stress enough to you how important they are. They are the key factor to being successful in the world of Dust 514. It doesn't matter what type of weapon you are slanging, if you dropsuit sucks you will become a dead merc very fast.

There are four types of dropsuits: Scout, Assault, Heavy, and Logistics.

Scout: The Scout suit is a light weight suit that is made for mobility which is done by sacrificing protection. There are also stealth perks that go along with the scout such as radar jamming, but primarily this suit is used for fast moving across the map. However this suit lacks the CPU to carry anything other than small arms.
Assault: The Assault suit is the jack of all trades suit. It provides good protection, and solid mobility. It is capable carrying a range of weaponry from small arms to anti-tank and logistical support.
Heavy: This is the Juggernaut suit of the game. It has high levels of protection, has a very high CPU, so you are able to carry anything in the game. However, this suit is extremely slow and bulky.
Logistics: The Log suit is very similar to the assault except instead of carrying weapons, the wearer of this suit will be able to carry more support items, and will be able to hack turrets, NODs, and vehicles much faster than any other dropsuit.

     Every suit sounds amazing in their own way, and they are up to a point. The Heavy suit is by far the most disadvantaged suit in the game. All the massive firepower it brings is quickly neutralized by how incredible slow it is. The armor it comes with is higher than norm, but not by that much. Making the risk vs reward for this suit not very good. If the suit becomes damaged by a grenade, its armor level sinks to that of the Scout, and after that it is very quick work to kill the wearer of the Heavy suit.
    The Scout suit is third in my book, and it only beats the Heavy suit because of the flawed shooting mechanics, which makes it extremely hard to shoot a Scout wearer. However once shot, its pretty much game over. The stealth perks are nice until you get within the line of sight of someone. Most of the suit in the game have a very futuristic techno look to them, so trying to sneak across a sandy colored map in a bright white and green Scout suit is almost impossible.
    For me it is almost a tie between the Assault and the Logistics. I only pick Assault over it because of my style of play is more front line than support. The balance between protection and mobility are what makes this suit really stand out from the rest. In the assault suit you are able to better avoid getting shot, and also when you are shot, it is nowhere near as devastating as it would be if you were wearing a Scout suit. Also, most people choose a Scout suit because they want to play the role of a sniper in the game. The assault suit is able to utilize the sniper rifle, and provide much better protection, which almost makes the Scout obsolete. The Assault suit is also capable of using anti-tank weapons, and also medical support items as well. Meaning you can kill a tank, help a friend, be very mobile, be protected, and carry the needed firepower to fight in the trenches. All this adds up to make the Assault suit the clear victor, and the suit you should use if you want to be successful in the world of Dust 514.

Review of Dust 514

Dust 514 is a game that is very innovative because of it's integration with the PC game EVE online. When I first heard about this, I was very intrigued and was looking forward to the release of Dust. However, for all of its innovation, there are still a lot of problems that plague this game.

Presentation: I have read many comments from other bloggers about how awful this game looks. The general consensus about the graphics is that they are extremely outdated for a game that was released so late in the career of PlayStation 3. Although I do not think the game itself looks "awful", I do agree that it is disappointing to see such lack of effort on the part of the game developer  CCP. One aspect of the presentation that has not been discussed is the fact that all the weapons look identical to each other. Meaning that all the sniper rifles look the same, all the assault rifles look the same, and the heavy weapons look the same as well. This makes it very difficult to determine how best to fight the enemy you are going up against. It is impossible to tell how powerful of a weapon the enemy is wielding. Only after you are killed do you find out what exactly it was that killed you.  All that being said, I don't really care all that much on how the game looks so much, I mostly care if it is enjoyable to play.

Game play: The game play, to me is the most important part of any game. This aspect of Dust 514 is the quite possibly the Achilles heal. Actually it is more like an Achilles chest since it is a major part of the game. Trying to aim at anything in the game is extremely hard and not in a good way. The controls over compensate for every movement you make , and there is a huge delay from when you move the thumbstick and when it actually registers in the game. Further more the movement speed is slow, so making large adjustments is very frustrating. However, my opinion of this matter might be bias because I am a Marine Corps combat vet and I always read way more into the shooting mechanics of a game then most people do, but I think everyone will agree that it needs to be fixed immediately. Forget trying to be a sniper in the game as well. The sniper class is probably the worst out of all of them. There is this (for lack of a better phrase) scope wobble is extremely annoying. That combined with the fact that moving the gun while looking through the scope is slower than people run, makes it almost impossible to be an effective combatant in the game. It seems very strange as this is suppose to be futuristic combat, where you dawn a "drop suit" that is capable of so much advanced action, except being able to hold a gun straight. It really takes away from the basic premises of the game.
  The four fighting classes of Dust are very similar to that of the Battlefield series. You have your rifleman or assault, you have your anti armor, you have your sniper class, and you finally have your medic/ engineer. However this is where the similarities end. In battlefield you are able to upgrade your class but doing well and earning points while you are playing that role. Meaning,  if you get a lot of kills as a riflemen, then you get more points for your riflemen class. In dust you only get general skill points for how well you do. This is all fine and well, however when get to the higher upgrades it cost in the millions range to get them. This means that sooner or later your character is going to have to commit to one class. This is a huge negative in my book because it really limits what you are able to do in the game. You are still able to switch classes all through the match you are in, however if you switch to a class that you have not been upgrading, you will not be very effective.
  This game has a lot of negatives about it and it is very disappointing because this game had been in its Beta testing for over a year. This means that the developer CCP had long known about the problems of the game and refused to do anything about it.
  However with all the flaws of this game, I still love to play it. I love the concept of being interconnected with other platforms, and the RPG/ upgrading ability you have in the game is the largest I have ever seen. After you get over the cliff of a learning curve, and are able to let go of your frustrations with the mechanics of it, the game it quite enjoyable. It is something I see my self continuing to play for a long time, taking long breaks and coming back to it. CCP has been continuously releasing patches to fix certain the problems of the game, but not as fast as most people would like. If I had to give it a rating out of 10 I would give it a 6, because of the terrible mechanics, but a pretty cool 6.

Intro to Dust

For those of you who have prior knowledge of Dust 514 I don't mean to insult your intelligence with this first post, I just feel it is important to give a brief overview of what Dust actually is. 
  Dust is a first person shooter that is directly linked to the popular PC game EVE Online. This is the first game of its kind (that I know of) that links two different games together from two different platforms at the same time. essentially what this means is that the actions done by a player in EVE directly impacts what happens in Dust. The connection is quite simple actually. EVE online players take the role of elite star ship pilots, and leaders of corporations. I will explain corporations later on. Dust 514 players are the ground combat component to EVE's aerial combat.
  As a player of Dust you take charge of a mercenary from one of the 4 clans, Amarr, Gallante, Caldari, and minmatar. there are also bloodlines you can choose, but I will explain that during my upcoming review of dust. the basic jest of the game is not that much different the Battlefield series. However, there are only a few battle options to choose from. The first one is called Ambush, which is more commonly known, and referred to as deathmatch. the object of this battle is to deplete the other teams clone reserves before time runs out. The second choice is called skirmish. In this mode, the object is to hack into different automated null cannons that target the opposing forces MCC (mobile command center). There are also two other game modes, however they are just spin offs of the Ambush, and Skirmish modes. At the the end of each match the players receive ISK and SP. ISK is the monetary system Dust uses for players to use that the market place to buy new gear. SP is skill points, which players you upgrade their abilities. This is probably the most important, and attractive aspect of DUST 514 because how massive the upgrade process is. Aside from fighting in regular matches, you can opt to fight in corporation battles. corporations hire mercs to do their bidding while they attempt to take over different planets and solar systems. There are about as many planets in Dust as there are in the milky way galaxy. Depending on which corporation you fight for, they are able to provide you with different equipment on the ground to help you will the battle. The more you win, the more powerful your corporation becomes, the better equipment you are able to receive from you star ship counter parts. 
   This was a very quick " down and dirty" of Dust 514, I will go into further detail when I give my review of the game.