In the past couple of weeks I have really gotten started on BF4. These early days are always a bit of a slog trying to upgrade weapons, classes, and vehicles, but it has been fun nonetheless.

One thing that I have always sucked at across all the Battlefield games, is flying aircraft. I always tend to struggle flying with the mouse, mainly because it is really hard to find a neutral 'centre' point, especially with the helicopters.

The best way to fly is, of course, with a joystick. So I thought "screw this", let's give it a go.

I dusted off  (literally!) the old Logitech Extreme 3D Pro that I had gotten 6 years ago. Other than a bit of retro gaming back then, it hasn't seen much use in the past 5 years.

It took a bit of configuring to get it right, especially to get the various axes (vertical, horizontal, yaw, throttle) working as they should. Throttle is just too much trouble to get working at the moment, so I'll still be using the keyboard for that.

Once I get it going, it's a lot easier to fly, especially the helicopters. There is still a strange issue where, out of the blue, all the axes will invert, which means pushing forward actually pulls up, and pushing left goes right; and that usually ends with a quick crash into the nearest terrain. Still, I'm pretty happy when it works.

Another cool thing about BF4 is the emblems that players can customize. There are some fantastically good ones, and it's amazing to see what people can accomplish with layers of basic shapes, colours, and transparency. Unsurprisingly, there's also lots of penises.

I'm still trying to fight through the single player campaign, but every time I do, someone I know comes online and I end up playing multiplayer with them instead. This weekend has seen some great play; I've leveled up my rank from 6 to 11 in just a few days.

There's still a few bugs and balance issues with the game, but hopefully those will be ironed out soon.