GTA4 Shenanigans

written by Blain Newport on Saturday, January 9, 2010

Chris' laptop wouldn't go for GTA4 multiplayer, but some of the PA folks on Steam organized a Friday night hootenanny. We started out just messing around, and had so much fun doing it that we never stopped to get organized.

At first it was just driving and shooting each other. I mostly drove by people who were fighting and dropped grenades out the window. But eventually we decided to hit up the airport and get some nicer rides.



There's something about the washed out visuals and flying through the city in attack choppers that reminded me strongly of The Matrix. But we were just grabbing them to get out to the GTA4 equivalent of Ellis Island, where we did the obvious thing.



running over people with forklifts

That's not obvious? Well, maybe not. But it is pretty hilarious. Those vertical bars are part of the forklift I'm driving. I always drive first person in GTA4. Third person is extra sloppy, and the game's driving is too sloppy already.

After we got bored with that, we decided to try some precision chopper maneuvering. Carefully coaching the pilot, I managed to secure this lovely vantage point.



They replaced the Statue of Liberty's torch with a cup of coffee. I assume that's supposed to be satire, saying the US has traded the light of liberty for overpriced creature comforts. Meh.

Eventually someone had the bright idea to go hit up a ramp where we could all try to jump from one island to another.



The bus didn't make it, but that wasn't really the point. How often do you get to jump off a ramp in a bus?



Some guys enjoyed standing on the ramp so that the oncoming car would hurl them into the water. It was fun to watch. In this particular case, a couple cars hit each other and slid over the ramp and low speed. How low?



I think the front tire is clipping through my character's ankle. It took a lot of restraint to stay still for that picture.

Speaking of restraint, many people had none and would stand on the ramp but try to shoot the driver out of any car attempting the jump. Spoilsports. But they gave me this amazing picture, so I can't complain too much.

Keepalive: Mercenaries 2

written by Blain Newport on Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Here is a quickie pictorial of the stupid things we did in Mercs 2 on co-op Tuesday. Chris named his character Baby Snafu. This is definitely an extension of the Joint Ops Baby Clan. :)


This is Chris dropping a car into a bunch of cars we put together.


Cars are basically bombs.


So the next logical step was to put together more cars.


Even to the point where Chris was trying to stack them on top of each other.


I took a bunch of pictures, but I think the early stages of the fireball are the most impressive.


This is Chris leaping off of a helipad to try to get close enough to grapple an enemy transport chopper in mid-air.


So instead of cars, we could drop tanks. It turns out that's dull because tanks are too durable to explode when dropped. But we were really excited the first time we did it. :)

Mandatory Assclownery (Assassin's Creed)

written on Wednesday, April 1, 2009

I spent some more time just messing around with Assassin's Creed. Much like Burnout, I appreciate the effort, even if I think the final product has significant problems. So I wanted to give the game more attention.

It was fun. This was surprising to me. In story mode, it always felt like I could never quite do what I wanted. I couldn't assassinate a target by throwing a knife from within a crowd. I couldn't always target who I wanted because the game was designed for analog sticks and not keyboard controls, et cetera.

But when I had no goals any more besides wandering around and messing with guards, I actually enjoyed myself. Sure, I'd still occasionally get stuck on stuff or encounter other little frustrations, but when there was no goal to fail, no progress to lose, and I just didn't care. I still say playing the campaign proper is a three. But fooling around and being a dork is a four.

So again, as with Burnout, I have made video contrition.

While leading the guards on merry chases around the city, I was reminded of the sped up chases on The Benny Hill Show. I looked up Assassin's Creed clips using the theme song from that show (Yakety Sax) and was profoundly disappointed. None of them captured the feel of the Benny Hill chases. So I killed two birds (my contrition and the lack of a proper Benny Hill style Assassin's Creed video on YouTube) with one stone by recording and uploading the following.



MediaFire Upload

You may remember that I initially said it was easier to just slaughter twenty guys than run away. That is obviously no longer the case. I've spent enough time messing around that I can toy with a rampaging herd of guards indefinitely. I retract my earlier statement about running away being broken. (I called it stealth, but it's really running away.)

It can be unreliable, and since I was using it when a fight was going poorly, it was unreliable enough to get me killed. But it's going too far to say it's flat out broken.

Game Journal: Arx Fatalis

written on Sunday, Feb. 8, 2009

GAME JOURNALS CONTAIN SPOILERS. DEAL WITH IT PINK BOY.

Actually, I'm tired of Arx Fatalis and I'm tired of writing posts about games I don't care about. So here are some baldfaced lies about screen shots from the game.



Relatively deep in the dungeon, the snake ladies run a fancy spa. For thirty gold you can get the couples package which includes a soak in the hot springs, facial, body chocolate, and barefoot massage. It's really a tail massage since they don't have feet, but the marketing snake ladies thought "bare tail massage" might send the wrong message.



After blowing all my gold on body chocolate, I made a stab at selling my services as an ersatz faith healer in some of the more run down caverns. Here I am treating a Rat Man with a bad knee. It's mostly a light show with just enough heat for the mark to feel like it's doing something. That plus the placebo effect is usually enough for me to get paid and beat feet. Sure, it's slimy, but I've got mouths to feed. Well, one big fat mouth, anyway.



Meet Chester. What, you thought I was talking about my own big fat mouth?

Some troll gave me this grub thing, about two feet long, as a pet. You don't turn down troll generosity (unless your skull is club proof), so I took him home. He was about as cute as a two foot maggot could be, which means it took all of three days for me to get sick of feeding him and replacing stuff he burned through with his acid spit up.

I threw him down a hole in the slime cave out back. I don't know if it was the slime or what, but something down there was Grade A grub chow. Now I have to find ways to come up with enough money to buy him a pig a day. I think it would have been cheaper to just move. Do maggots have homing instincts?

Oblivion: On the Road Again

Meet Porkins. Okay, his name isn't really Porkins. But the game didn't give him a name, so I get call him Porkins after the short lived X-Wing pilot. He's warning me about Daedra (the demons of the game world) being around and to stay on the road. He didn't need to. I was going to anyway. Regardless, it's nice to know there are guards around.



And Magul apparently didn't get too far in the six hours I was asleep. But on closer inspection of her "Paint" horse, it appears to be made of painted concrete, so that's understandable.

[Encounter Not Pictured]
A cat man jumped out of a bush and demanded my money or my life. I have FRAPS taking screenshots automatically every sixty seconds. It took less time than that for me to evaluate his offer, refuse it, watch Porkins, Magul, and the other two nearby guards dispatch him, and loot the body. It's good to have friends (and dedicated civil servants).

After moving further up the road, I came to a small inn.



I talked to the guy sitting out front in the middle of the night. I asked him about the local rumors and he repeatedly told me that province so and so is the breadbasket of Tamriel. I don't know if he didn't like me, didn't really know anything, or just thought that this information was somehow crucial to a lizard man such as myself.

The inn patrons indoors had more interesting things to say.



Apparently there are demon worshipers on some island somewhere. And the innkeeper wants me to kill a Necromancer. I distinctly remember the readme file for Oscuro's saying Necromancers are level 20-25, so we won't be taking her up on that bounty any time soon. Nope it's time to hit the road again.

**Aside**
I downloaded better textures for more than just the scenery. It seems pretty stupid, but I actually found myself admiring the high res food textures. I probably would never have noticed the originals (as being good or bad looking) if I hadn't downloaded a mod specifically for them. I'm concerned about how using the mods has diverted my attention. If I'm spending my time evaluating the aesthetic merits of high resolution cheese instead of killing stuff, how can that possibly be an improvement?

Well, I got to write a sentence that included the phrase "aesthetic merits of high resolution cheese". That was pretty awesome. :D
**End Aside**

Oblivion: Makin' Friends

I creep up to the ruins. Again, since I'm using Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul, I have no idea what may be up here. I know there's going to be a point in the game where I need to run for my life, I just don't know when it is. I can hear voices. There are humans up here. Bandits would be a lot higher level than rats and goblins, I'd expect. I creep around a corner to take a look.

Aaah! JERKS!

Even though I was sneaking, this cleric saw me from twenty meters, cast a spell on herself and charged me, with her more heavily armored friend in tow. I ran. I ran a lot. I ran out of the ruins and up the hill. I came to a fork in the road. I looked down the hill and saw my pursuers still doing what pursuers do. I took the right fork and ran. I ran a lot. When I finally looked back and saw this...

I finally relaxed and stopped running.


Aaah! Orc lady on a horse!

Oh wait. She's nice. I can talk to her. What's this bribe button for? Oh! She likes me now! Great! At least one person in the kingdom of Tamriel doesn't want to kill me. Boss. Wait. Did I hire her? Is she my adventuring buddy now? No. She's just riding off down the road. Okay. I guess I should go back and see what those jerks in the ruins are up to now that it's getting light out again.



Now imagine yourself in my place. Hiding behind a rock looking down into the ruins, not knowing where the bad guys are, and not wanting to get any closer for fear that you might find out. The hard way.

You see something on your right. Oh no! It's the cleric! No. It's Magul. What's she doing here? She's headed right into the ruins. She's got a sword out. She's running in.

Oh crap! I better back her up!

I see the cleric. Time for some thunk thunk.



So here's me, trying to shoot arrows into the cleric faster than she can heal herself while my new orc friend is chasing her armored companion around like he was an unruly orc child.



And she beat him down!

Wow.

I would like to take this opportunity to express my profound regret at not having purchased this game sooner.

A Little More Grinding: Age of Empires 3: Asian Dynasties

I spent some more time unlocking cards in Asian Dynasties, and just in case this is somehow news to you, I like goofy stuff. Here is a screenshot of a particularly delightful moment.



It's not just delightful because I'm pummeling an enemy's city. It's not just delightful because my clan is named after a cartoon rabbit and the currently selected character is Dr. McNinja. No, the icing on this particular cake is that I had my music library on random play and the triumphant marching section of Monty Python's "Every Sperm is Sacred" was blaring away as my cannon's blazed.

That's one thing I take for granted on the PC. I can listen to any music while playing any game. It's a small thing, but for creating a moment like this, it is priceless. And I'm so looking forward to capping fools in GTA IV for the PC to Braggadocio I can hardly contemplate it. I know. Crime Spree would be more appropriate. I'm sure it will have it's time in the sun too. But who doesn't want to be blowing up cop cars with an RPG when the lyric "I stand seventy seven feet tall" is defiantly declared?

Nobody.

That's who.

Back to Asian Dynasties, I'm actually getting a little sick of playing the Japanese. Ninjas are a cool idea, but in the game they're not so cool. Yeah. It's fun to disrupt enemy supply lines by harassing the peasants with ninja archers. But it's too much micro management. If you go up and look at that screen shot again you'll see that I've got tons of resources I'm not using. I don't have time to wage war and screw around trying to assassinate enemy explorers, which aren't much of a threat to begin with.

**Aside**
It bears mentioning at this point that this is why StarCraft is still the greatest cooperative RTS ever made. By letting multiple people control the same team (instead of multiple teams fighting together), it allowed for divisions of labor. Someone could do recon and assasinations. Someone could just build bases. Someone could manage the air force. Most RTS games are just too much for me to absorb. But with the StarCraft model of cooperative play, they were much more manageable. Everyone could explore and learn to exploit their particular area of the game, compare notes, and improve quickly as opposed to constantly jumping all around the interface and getting frazzled. If Company of Heroes had had this type of play, we probably wouldn't have abandoned it after one LAN party. I've been listening to Shawn Elliot of 1UP (formerly of Computer Gaming World and Games for Windows Magazine) go on for almost a year about how much he's enjoyed the multiplayer in the game. Admittedly, he's playing against people and not the AI, like we do at our LAN parties, but I still feel like we're missing out on the game when I hear him talk about it.
**End Aside**

Plus my samurai always break formation and run off to get themselves killed. They're dumb. And finally, the monks I start the game with are moderately cool, but I think the only way I can hire more is to recruit them as mercenaries (for way too much gold). I want more, and more awesomer, monks. So I'm switching to Chinese.

And yes, I was just listening to Monty Python's "I Like Chinese" while playing. :D

"Griefers" :)

I don't remember if I mentioned it, but I'm playing WoW again. Because I'm playing with an old friend, it's a lot easier to stick with it.

After visiting the enchanting trainer in the back of Uldamon, we run into some skull level alliance. That means they are at least ten levels higher than we are. They challenge us to duels, make chicken noises; all the disrespectful behavior morons do when they think there are no consequences. We set our Do Not Disturb flags, thereby shutting down their duel requests, Sangie spits on them, and we take off for the outpost. They follow.

On the way back, Sangie realizes she's less than half a bubble from 40 and wants to kill some wolves so we can get that taken care of. (I had previously dinged 40 that night.) The griefers (Kallel and Kaidance on the Muradin server) decide to have some fun with us. The warlock starts fearing the wolves as we fight them. Unlike some other monsters, wolves are actually smart enough to get reinforcements when they are feared. As the new wolves come in, we're fighting two or three at a time. One actually starts chewing on the warlock, but I'm too busy to enjoy it and know that it's not really more than an annoyance for someone that high level.

Sangie wants to go. We're not really in control of the situation. I refuse. Obviously, as my healer, it's really her call, but she accepts it. I've dealt with enough jerks in Joint Ops to know that these are n00bs. Sure, they're way higher level, but griefing is an art, and people who think spamming duel requests to lowbies is comedy are n00bs at griefing.

So we keep fighting. Sangie plays it smart and saves mana for heals, in case we get too many. But we never do. Kaidance keeps fearing any time we do significant damage to a wolf. And since there's two of us, we can get a wolf down to half health in no time. We never have more than three at a time. My health and Sangie's mana never get low. And I'm making sure to put bleeds on all the wolves so they come back two hits away from death. This "griefer" is actually PULLING FOR US! Fabulous!

I couldn't be more pleased, but Sangie's still not feeling it. We still didn't have control of the situation, and at some level it felt like the griefers were still winning. Pallies have a spell that makes it so the mobs can't run. Now Sangie's still just level 39. That warlock is at least fifty. (It turned out she was 59.) But she takes a shot. This part is all very clear to me. We're running over a hill to get another wolf. The griefers are in hot pursuit, still clueless to the fact that they've done nothing but help us so far. Sangie drops her seal on the wolf. The warlock starts to fear... and nothing happens. There's a bigger than life fear icon over the wolf, but it doesn't budge an inch. My clever girl has just schooled a level 59 warlock. Slow thinkers that they are, it takes another wolf or two before they even realize they've been beaten. Sangie dings. We head back to camp, and the last thing they hear as they take off is a hearty Tauren chuckle fading into the distance.

Here's what I consider the moral of the story. People are jerks. Luckily, they are also stupid (myself included).

Seriously, griefing on a PvE server? How bottom of the gene pool do you have to be? Don't give me that Horde vs Alliance crap. When was the last time you actually role-played? The only reason you grief Horde only is because you're too scared you might actually have to deal with the consequences if you griefed Alliance. Of course, that's probably not even true. I'm guessing you're the type of folks who snag ore and chests from Alliance lowbies when you think you can get away with it. You're bad people, and apparently not too bright. Hopefully you grow out of it someday or at least grow a pair and roll PvP.

Theme From Jaws (photo heavy, JO)

duh-nuh

duh-nuh

*click*





duh-nuh

duh-nuh

dundun-duhnuh

dundun-duhnuh

DUHNUHNA!

DUHNUHNA!

*click*


All three of them had different screams . We laughed for days.


duh-nuh

duh-nuh

dundun-duhnuh

dundun-duhnuh

DUHNUHNA!

*click*

Peace Protest (JO)

Some servers don't let you choose what team you want to be on. Sometimes it takes a really long time, joining and rejoining, for Mike and I to get on the same team. One night, we just gave up. But instead of fighting, we started a peace protest. We would find an objective point to rendevous at and start shouting "Cease Fire" at the top of our lungs. Depending on who was trying to take said objective point, one or both of us would usually end up dead. So we started laying down smoke and "yelling for peace". :)


Here's a bold picture of Mike, "yelling for peace" in the midst of our smokescreen. I, less bold, am hiding in the grass (but still yelling).

Pimpin' Majesty and NPCs (JO)

I'm not really a System of a Down fan, but "Pimpin' Majesty" is a great phrase. :)

It's also an apt description of the feeling you get when you fly by a giant enemy transport chopper and turn it into dozens of beautiful pieces of debris.

The way that it instantly turns from giant engine of menace into twirly bits of flittering confetti can only be described as magical.


I think this was a custom user created map where NPCs had been added. It was slightly bizarre to see normal people just standing around in this environment.


Or rather lying around. I didn't kill these people. Mike and I were so taken with the novelty of the novelty of the situation that we just wanted to see what we could do with them.


Here's Mike driving one around on a six wheeler.


She eventually fell off. The fact that the NPCs actually have a slow dog paddling animation was disturbing.


Here's Mike, posing with our new friend. :P