Richard Hobbs

First, the trailer… (WARNING: This clip contains violence!)

NOTE: If you can’t see the video above, click here

So… this is arguably the most anticipated game “of the decade” according to some. For me it was perhaps the most anticipated game of the year, with Forza Motorsport 3 following closely in second place.

I plan on reviewing Forza Motorsport 3 at some point as well, by the way, but I want to make a Forza 3 video first. The making of this video is currently unfortunately hindered by a bug in the ffmpeg video encoding utility, which I’m hoping will be fixed at some point soon!

Anyway, back to Modern Warfare 2…

The game plays out a fictional war between Russia and the United States and is a direct follow-on from the “Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare” game. Take a look at Wikipedia for the full plot.

I should also mention, at this point, that the game contains a somewhat controversial scene (which players can decide to skip at the start of the game) in which Russian terrorists open fire in a Russian airport before shooting the under-cover American operative to make it look like American terrorists had opened fire, thereby causing a war to break out between Russia and the US. This has, not surprisingly, caused the game to be banned in Russia, despite the idea seeming to be making the Russian terrorists look like the bad guys, as opposed to the country of Russia itself. Lots of information can be found about this on the web, of course, if you wish to know more!

Now some actual gameplay (WARNING: This clip also contains violence!)…

NOTE: If you can’t see the video above, click here

As you can see, the storyline is relatively gruesome, as are the graphics, but as a game from the “first person shooter” genre, I think it’s pretty amazing! As a nice bedtime story, it’s obviously awful.

There are many things I like about this game, and a few I dislike. I like the graphics, the suspense, the feeling of panic that often sets in (within the realm of computer gaming, anyway!) and the overall realism. This game still obviously contains computer-generated graphics, but they look more realistic than any game I’ve seen in life so far. Much more movie-like than previous games, especially in 1080p.

I also like the multiplayer side of the game – it’s highly addictive. Each time you shoot one of the enemy, you gain “XP” points. As you gain XP, you level up and gain access to better weapons, skills, titles and ranks. There is obviously a need to keep playing because the more you play, the better you get, the bigger your weapons become and the more you can beat your opponent!

I dislike, however, how short the single-player campaign is – it took me 6-7 hours on my first play through and given that Half Life 2 kept me interested for 40 hours, and Fallout 3 for 75 hours, 6-7 hours is kinda short. I’m not expecting Fallout 3-type time scales with a game like Modern Warfare 2, but I still felt it was a little short for my liking.

One thing I have just begun to attempt is the single-player campaign again, but this time on “Veteran” difficulty instead of “Recruit”. This will almost certainly take a lot longer, but will also be much more difficult. I am about 30 minutes in so far and have already “died” 15 times or so. We’ll see how that goes over the coming weeks.

There is one area I’m undecided about – “Special Ops”. For some reason, I’m finding the Special Ops much harder than the single-player campaign. It’s not that they are not as enjoyable, they certainly are, but they do seem more difficult. This wouldn’t be a problem if it weren’t for the fact that they seem to be so much more difficult, that I’m struggling to achieve anything in any of them whatsoever! I’m sure I will improve though, as time goes on, especially with all the multiplayer time I’m putting in!

Overall, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is arguably my favourite game of the year, and possibly of the last 2-3 years. Perhaps it’s tied at the top spot with Forza Motorsport 3. I need to let the initial excitement wear off first, wait 6 months and see which of the two I’m still playing. Then I can decide which one is my favourite!

Well, that is just about everything I can think of saying about Modern Warfare 2, so I think I’ll end it there!

Well… after a long search (which I’ll attempt to summarise below) and a fair amount of effort, the Matchless is up and running again! It does need to be run in, however, which is going to involve riding 500 miles at 30-35mph! This, of course,  is far from ideal, but it must be done to ensure long life of the new piston rings, and no engine seizing! Anyway… onto the story since the last post.

The piston I picked up from AMC Classic Spares, although the correct diameter, was definitely the wrong one (this was not their fault, I might add) and although it could potentially be milled out, I decided to wait and see if a proper, original, BHB piston was ever going to turn up. This piston is therefore sitting on my shelf right now, waiting for me to sell it back to AMC Classic Spares if they’ll take it!

The main problem was that even if it could be milled, the metal underneath the milled area would have been very thin, and the reinforcement ridges built into the casting of my original piston don’t exist on this new one, so it would be far from ideal in this situation.

Having almost given up on the new piston, I started to phone the rest of the places on my list, in the UK and abroad! I even, accidentally, woke up someone at home in Australia at 4am, having got the timezones 4 or 5 hours out compared with the UK! I knew it was morning over there, given that it was evening over here, but I wasn’t sure how early in the morning it was. I figured that given this was a business, if the business was closed I could leave a message, but it was actually a house phone, so there it was – the call at 4am!

After phoning all of the places on my list though, I gave up hope of finding one via the web or over the phone and started hoping the adverts placed in the various magazines might throw something up.

Before these were even published though, I received a response on the club web site from a club member in Canada who had an original BHB piston, part number 030148, which had been sitting on his shelf since 1977, which I was welcome to have if I wanted!

So, this piston was posted to the UK, and 12 days later it arrived. Once cleaned up a bit, I revealed the same part number as my cracked piston!

Excellent!

So… into the bike it went, and after 2 hours in the garage, on the 5th kick, the bike started!

The next day I set off around town for a couple of miles to see how the bike ran, and to begin the run-in process, but once the bike warmed up, there was a distinct rattle from somewhere in the engine.

I adjusted the tappets, the day after, and went out again to find that the rattle was still there. When I got home, I adjusted the tappets again (while the bike was still warm this time!) and since then, I think the rattle has gone away.

I’m 35 miles into the run-in period now, and I still can’t hear the rattle, so I guess it really has gone!

The trouble is… I’m now questioning both my memory of the rattle, and my audio observation skills. Perhaps the rattle is still there, and I just can’t hear it for some reason… perhaps the rattle really has gone… perhaps I’m over-analysing things again!

I guess I’ll know for certain when I have a second opinion from someone who actually knows about these things!

Before I get onto the situation with the Matchless, I’ll start with Fallout 3 (mentioned in my previous post) and my Xbox’s new blog!

First of all, Fallout 3… I’ve finished it!

In the end, it took just over 75 hours from start to finish and I’m glad to say I kept “good karma” throughout the game and instead of making my companion enter the highly radiated room in the last moments in order to activate the purifier, I went in myself, thereby paying the ultimate price for the greater good.

This is, of course, still a game, so no price was paid at all. I even borrowed the game from a friend, so literally no price has been paid at all!

I also stick with my previous statement that this is a game I strongly suggest you get hold of if you have the equipment necessary to play it!

So… onto the Xbox’s blog!

There is a site called 360voice.com which acts as a way for your Xbox 360 games console to write it’s own blog posts every day about your gaming habits, achievements gained and other aspects of gameplay.

In actual fact, the games console itself has nothing to do with writing the blog posts (as you may have worked out already!). 360voice.com simply looks at your stats each night and generates a blog post based on that information, which looks suspiciously like it was written by the Xbox itself. It’s kinda funny, and a novelty to have, so here’s a link if you want to have a read: http://360voice.gamerdna.com/tag/fishsponge

Right… now it’s time to talk about the Matchless…

After yesterday’s post, you will know that the piston rings were worn out on the motorbike and needed to be replaced, so this morning I took all the parts to Bill’s house where, after cleaning the valves, re-grinding the valve seats, putting the cylinder head back together, finding and manufacturing an alternative solution to the broken sleeve nut, removing the old piston rings and cleaning out the grooves we went to put in the new piston rings!

Upon putting in both parts of the oil control ring, we discovered it wasn’t rotating as freely as we’d like, so Bill took the ring off and we went to examine the groove a little closer.

It was at this point Bill informed me that the piston appeared to be cracked.

Upon hearing this news, I realised that this was something of a disaster. It’s good that we found it because a cracked piston could disintegrate in the cylinder, destroying large chunks of the engine in the process, but it’s bad that it was cracked because original pistons for a 1966 Matchless G3 350cc short stroke are phenominally hard to find.

I coincidentally inquired at the Spares Scheme while I was there the other day to see if they had any, and the answer was, not surprisingly, “no”!

So anyway, Bill phoned a friend of his to see if he could give any leads as to where to obtain one, and believe it or not, he had a brand new one, in a box, never used, with all the rings, the gudgeon pin a the various other bits you need to install a new piston!

This was unbelievable!

So… this kind chap is going to post the piston to me, I’ll post a cheque to him and hopefully, with a bit of luck, I’ll be up and running soon!

The one thing to note, however, is that with a brand new piston etc… it has to be run in, which involves riding 500 miles no faster than 35mph. Given that the first motorbike run of the season is at the end of March, that gives me around 4 weeks to achieve 500 miles at 35mph or slower if i’m going to make that first run!

Providing the weather holds out, the evenings aren’t too dark, and the bike goes back together as well as I hope it does, that is just achievable in my opinion. A relatively tall order, but just about achievable.

I’ll keep you updated!

I have been playing games on my Xbox 360 a lot since Christmas, mainly because it’s winter and there’s not a lot else to do indoors that’s quite as much fun!

Other than Forza Motorsport 2, Pure and A Kingdom for Keflings I’ve been playing a lot of Fallout 3. I’m over 60 hours into the game now and estimate that I have somewhere between 5 and 10 hours remaining before I reach the end.

For those who don’t know, Fallout 3 is an action role-playing game which takes place in the year 2277, 200 years after the nuclear war that devastated the game’s world in an alternate post-WW2 timeline. It’s not a particularly cheerful theme, but it works really well as an action RPG.

The trailer for Fallout 3 is below.

I can’t get rid of the advert that appears after 12 seconds, I’m afraid, but if you click the small grey “x” on the right hand side of the advert when it appears, it should disappear

NOTE: If you can’t see the video above, click here

So anyway, this is a truly excellent game in my opinion and I strongly suggest that if you have the equipment to be able to play such games (a half-decent PC, Xbox 360 or Playstation 3) you get hold of this one!

So anyway, onto the Matchless…

Although I have been riding the motorbike throughout winter (on dry days, after the salt has been washed off the road) ever since last summer the piston rings have been worn out.

More specifically, the bike was burning oil, and both valves were perfectly OK (as per the post “It does appear to be working, but now there’s rain!“), so that leaves only the piston rings!

On Monday this week, I started to take the top of the engine off again, on Tuesday the local expert and friend of mine, Bill, came over to lend a hand and to examine the piston rings, the piston itself and the cylinder and we determined that the piston rings certainly needed replacing. In fact, the scraper ring (which is supposed to keep the oil below the piston) looked like it wasn’t doing anything at all, so there was certainly a problem.

So, off to Kettering I went, on Tuesday afternoon, to speak to John about a sleeve nut (which I’ll come to in a minute), Rick about a new set of piston rings and Jim about a gasket set, which I’ll need to put the bike back together, of course!

Well… I got the gasket set, there’s no such sleeve nut as the one I need, and Rick was at home!

Not to worry though… John phoned Rick, who happened to have the piston rings I needed at home (thanks, Rick!) and was willing to have me pop over on my way home to pick them up!

Rick Edwards, by the way, aka “Piston Ring King” has his own blog here if you are interested, and his knowledge and piston ring collection are like none other, so get in touch if you need anything!

Anyway, regarding the sleeve nut, there is a bracket on top of the engine that secures the top of the engine to the frame, and this bracket is held on with 2 nuts that go on the tops of the double-ended bolts that go into the top of the rocker box, and another nut and bolt that goes through the frame itself.

However, the rear nut was stuck fast when I came to remove it, and was already rounded off due to many years of attempted removal in the past, and to cut a long story short(ish), I had to take a drill to it in order to remove it.

This, unfortunately, left the sleeve nut ruined:

You can’t really tell from this angle, but the washer is stuck fast to the underside of the head, and the head is completely trashed, so basically, I need a new one.

The trouble is, the combination of parts that this sleeve nut is part of seem to be non-standard and therefore impossible to replace, so an alternative solution is required (which Bill and I will hopefully figure out tomorrow)!

So there we go… that’s about all I have to write about at the moment, so I’ll leave you to go and read and bookmark Rick’s blog!

I shall post another update once the bike is back together again.

Well, another good weekend has been had, I’m sure you’ll be glad to know!

Sunday 9th November over here in the UK was Remembrance Day where we pay tribute to, and remember, the fallen of two world wars and other conflicts and this year it was also to mark the 90th anniversary of the end of the First World War.

To honour this day, Imperial War Museum Duxford held a special free admission day with a 2 minute silence at 11:00 and a Remembrance Service at 12:30, among other events such as a truly amazing Spitfire display!

Imperial War Museum, Duxford

The other event of the day was a Royal Enfield Club-organised classic motorcycle run from the Silver Ball Café to IWM Duxford which, of course, I took part in! It was also a perfect opportunity to record a proper classic biking video with my new helmet camera, which I was very pleased about. You can watch the video of the classic bike run here:

- Video of Classic Motorcycle Ride From Silver Ball Cafe To Duxford

I do plan on editing the above video at some point to make a shorter version, but until I get around to it, the above unedited version is all I have! You can, of course, skip through it to your heart’s content or you can watch the entire 53 minutes or so if you are so inclined!

So, anyway, as for Duxford itself, it was a great day as mentioned previously! Lots of things to see, as usual, many of which can be seen in my photos:

- Photos of Classic Motorcycle Ride from Silver Ball Cafe to Duxford and of Duxford itself

The other thing I’ve learned is that the piston rings on the Matchless are letting oil through! Although I’ve been losing oil for a while now, it wasn’t until Sunday when someone finally told me they could smell and occasionally see the oil smoke coming from the exhaust that I realised it wasn’t all coming from the breather pipe and rocker box gasket, so I have my second winter job to do now (the first being to change the oil and clean the filters)!