written by Blain Newport on Wednesday, 31 August, 2011
I took a notebook to PAX. I wrote quick impressions of sixteen games from the show floor. Because I don't hate you, I'll just discuss the interesting bits.
First off, the best experiences I had were not on the show floor.
Bushido Blade
I had spent all day in lines. And playing Red Faction: Armageddon in console freeplay had only confirmed what I'd heard about it being less interesting than Guerilla. Then I wandered over to classic freeplay and saw three guys playing Bushido Blade on PS1.
The only other time I've played Bushido Blade was at the first PAX back in 2004. It's a technical and challenging dueling game where one hit can kill. But if everybody playing sucks at it, it is a hilarious collection of lucky and unlucky accidents. At one point my legs had been crippled and I was flopping towards my opponent like a fish, trying to stab him in the shin. It turned my entire day around.
Left 4 Dead 2
During one of the gauntlet sections (where zombies spawn infinitely until you run a maze and flip a switch), I crouched in front of the group with a fire axe and began singing "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" as I cut down the constant flow of zombies in front of us. One of my companions started singing as well and it was magical. It could only have been better if I'd been using an oar and we'd sung a proper round.
And now, for the less awesome show floor. Feel free to skim or stop reading if it gets dull.
Alice: Madness Returns in 3D
The game isn't new, and the tech isn't new, but this was the first time that I spent more than a minute actually sitting down and playing anything in 3D. Honestly, I didn't think the 3D added too much. I didn't find myself being more certain of my jumps or combat positioning. What I did find myself doing was moving the camera to angles that were worse for gameplay just to put more stuff in the foreground so that I (and the people watching) could see the 3D.
Since I started recording game video, it jumped out at me how much a player can enhance an experience by paying more attention to camera movement and positioning. Heck, in some games, you fight the camera more than the enemies. 3D made playing camera man a little more rewarding, but not so much that I'd pay extra for it.
Firefall
Firefall will be a free to play futuristic action MMO. The teams on the demo I played were so mismatched that I don't really want to play it now. Such are the dangers of running largely unattended demos at a convention. At least in the Brink demo last year the devs tried to give advice to the losing side. When one of the Firefall stations went down, the employee I told didn't even seem to care.
Battlefield 3
A lot of people are really hopeful about BF3. My feelings are less positive. They demoed no vehicle combat at PAX. They are not selling on Steam. They will only have servers available until EA wants players to buy something else. Mod support is highly unlikely. And the co-op is only two player. I can't imagine what it would take for me to care about BF3. That game is going to be dead and buried, and I'll still be playing BF2 (with the Nations at War mod).
Twisted Metal
I was never big on the Twisted Metal combat driving games, but (once I figured out where the accelerator was) the new version seemed both a little easier to get in to, and presented more variety. There was a semi with turrets on it's trailer. Friendly cars could drive into the truck and man a turret. I drove an ambulance that shot homing gurneys with crazy people covered in dynamite on them. If I had a PS3, I'd definitely keep an eye on it.
Everything Else
Dead Island
Beating up zombies is fun, but the five minute demo leads me to suspect that the devs are just as worried as I am about its longevity.
Black Knight Sword
It's a side scroller with a nice paper art style and lots going on in the background, but the jumping bits kill the momentum.
Bloodrayne Betrayal
It looks like a decent side scroller. I just wish Dust: An Elysian Tale had come out. With stuff like Black Knight Sword and Bloodrayne Betrayal out, it may get buried.
Dragon's Dogma
It's Lord of the Rings meets Monster Hunter. It felt a bit sluggish, but it has potential.
Asura's Wrath
Oh, Japan. The realistic art style and attempts at gravitas belie a very cartoony action sensibility. It felt like Dragonball for people who think they're too cool for Dragonball.
Charlie Murder
Another Final Fight game for Xbox Live Arcade. Meh.
Retro City Rampage
I don't know if it's just because I'm old enough to have played the 2D GTA games, but it does nothing for me.
Lord of the Rings: War in the North
I enjoyed the action game version of Return of the King. It had a lot of issues, but the connection with the films and passable combat were enough for me to have fun. The demo of War in the North might be as good, but this many years later, that's pretty disappointing. Maybe it's just the segment they chose to show, but the combat looked very bland. The only reaction to attacks I saw were damage numbers or death. That's fine for tower defense, but action games need more feedback and give and take, in my opinion.
Resistance 3
I played a little deathmatch. It was alright. But I've heard that the best part of Resistance is the crazy weapons (which makes sense coming from the developers of Ratchet and Clank), and I didn't have time to experiment with them much in the hurly-burly.
Counter-Strike: Global Operations
It's still Counter-Strike. I would have thought Valve would want to show off more of the new stuff to bring in new players, but they seem focused on people who still want to play de_dust for the billionth time. I suppose there are a lot of them, but they already have the game they want, don't they?
Path of Exile
PoE played like a slightly less refined Titan Quest. Still, I liked Titan Quest a lot. They also gave me some beta or demo disk, so I'll likely try it out.
Rage
It pretty much looks like expected. It's pretty, but the need to show off enemy behavior has turned them into bullet sponges that make the guns feel wimpy. We'll see.
Vessel
It's an indie platformer where you use fluid dynamics and creatures made of fluid to solve puzzles. I was pretty impressed with the puzzle design and the way the game valued the player's time by not forcing the player to run all the way to the edge of the screen before loading the next puzzle. It was fine until the lava area. I sprayed water on it until the surface looked safe, but then it would crack and I'd die instantly. After almost completely solidifying it and still dieing, I moved on.
Showing posts with label previews. Show all posts
Showing posts with label previews. Show all posts
31 August, 2011
10 September, 2010
PAX 2010: Games
written by Blain Newport on Friday, 10 September, 2010
Motion Controls
Most of the Kinect demos were two players at once (and didn't look very interesting), so I only ended up playing Dance Central, which was fun. We keep hearing so many things about how one Kinect feature or another "will be added later". From what I could see, Kinect even had a hard time distinguishing the player from the background. There were enough people lined up to play it (and I've seen it often enough on Amazon's hourly sales charts) that I suspect it will sell some units. But I don't see anything there for me personally.
I at least tried a couple games with Move. There was a Lord of the Rings kiddie brawler. It played like a Wii game. I tried more mature fare with the Move edition of Heavy Rain. The the guy demoing the game was very nice, but the controls and icons were confusing. I've heard the standard controls are terrible, but the Move controls definitely aren't good.
Except for Dance Central, it looks like game developers still haven't got their minds around motion control.
On a related note, OnLive could be good for some people. It will let them play high end console and PC games without high end hardware. But the first time I pressed the fire button in Just Cause 2 and waited half a second for the guy on-screen to fire, I knew it wasn't ever going to be for me.
Plus the business model sucks. :P
Favorite Game
Gear - A bunch of the DigiPen games were installed on all of the PC freeplay stations. My favorite was Gear. The level design, physics, and scale were just right to keep me feeling like I was just barely in control. Trying to go through as much of the game as possible without touching the ground also helped keep it interesting.
Not Exciting, But Solid
The vast majority of the games I played were well made, but didn't really excite me. If you like the sorts of games they are, you'll probably like them.
The Ball - first person puzzler where you get a giant metal ball through a maze (needs some "standing on the ball" mechanics)
The Conduit 2 - Wii sci-fi FPS
Vanquish - Gears of War but more mecha (and minus co-op)
Hunted - Gears of the Rings
Infamous 2 - shoot lightning; climb on stuff
Lost in Shadow - maneuver through shadow casting puzzles
Two Worlds II - like Gothic 3, but with lots of customization (combat needs more zing)
Force Unleashed 2 - decent fantasy brawler
Solace - medium low difficulty bullet hell shooter with very good production values
Disappointments
Star Wars: The Old Republic: I played a quest and a half as the Imperial Agent. Aside from taking cover and a dialog tree it was a standard, boring MMO.
Darkspore (action RPG using Spore creatures): There just didn't seem to be much to do in the demo shown.
Monaco: Maybe it was just because the group I played with ran around like chickens with their heads cut off and could never seem to get to the exit, but I was hoping for more from the winner of the IGF.
Brink (thought I forgot again, didn't you)
Brink wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either. The demo level seemed to heavily favor the defending side. The fancy movement system didn't seem to amount to much more than a sprint button that enabled mantling. The developers were constantly telling us to change classes, which I thought the objective system was supposed to do. When I followed the objective system it led me to the wrong side of a locked door. And with no bots in the match, there's no way to tell if the game will be suitable for Ozone's co-op events. The verdict is very much out on Brink.
Full Disclosure
I picked up free T-shirts for Brink, Fallout New Vegas, Hunted, Two Worlds II (two shirts because they had a "wear our t-shirt tomorrow and get a second design" promotion which tickled my fancy), and the Weekend Confirmed podcast.
Also, I saw a lot of games that could have fallen into the Not Exciting, But Solid category, (Kirby's Epic Yarn; Donkey Kong Country; Rage; New Vegas) but I only list titles I got hands-on with.
And as always, these are short demos. They may not reflect the final quality of the full games. And these are just my opinions based on my experiences in a crowded, noisy convention setting.
Motion Controls
Most of the Kinect demos were two players at once (and didn't look very interesting), so I only ended up playing Dance Central, which was fun. We keep hearing so many things about how one Kinect feature or another "will be added later". From what I could see, Kinect even had a hard time distinguishing the player from the background. There were enough people lined up to play it (and I've seen it often enough on Amazon's hourly sales charts) that I suspect it will sell some units. But I don't see anything there for me personally.
I at least tried a couple games with Move. There was a Lord of the Rings kiddie brawler. It played like a Wii game. I tried more mature fare with the Move edition of Heavy Rain. The the guy demoing the game was very nice, but the controls and icons were confusing. I've heard the standard controls are terrible, but the Move controls definitely aren't good.
Except for Dance Central, it looks like game developers still haven't got their minds around motion control.
On a related note, OnLive could be good for some people. It will let them play high end console and PC games without high end hardware. But the first time I pressed the fire button in Just Cause 2 and waited half a second for the guy on-screen to fire, I knew it wasn't ever going to be for me.
Plus the business model sucks. :P
Favorite Game
Gear - A bunch of the DigiPen games were installed on all of the PC freeplay stations. My favorite was Gear. The level design, physics, and scale were just right to keep me feeling like I was just barely in control. Trying to go through as much of the game as possible without touching the ground also helped keep it interesting.
Not Exciting, But Solid
The vast majority of the games I played were well made, but didn't really excite me. If you like the sorts of games they are, you'll probably like them.
The Ball - first person puzzler where you get a giant metal ball through a maze (needs some "standing on the ball" mechanics)
The Conduit 2 - Wii sci-fi FPS
Vanquish - Gears of War but more mecha (and minus co-op)
Hunted - Gears of the Rings
Infamous 2 - shoot lightning; climb on stuff
Lost in Shadow - maneuver through shadow casting puzzles
Two Worlds II - like Gothic 3, but with lots of customization (combat needs more zing)
Force Unleashed 2 - decent fantasy brawler
Solace - medium low difficulty bullet hell shooter with very good production values
Disappointments
Star Wars: The Old Republic: I played a quest and a half as the Imperial Agent. Aside from taking cover and a dialog tree it was a standard, boring MMO.
Darkspore (action RPG using Spore creatures): There just didn't seem to be much to do in the demo shown.
Monaco: Maybe it was just because the group I played with ran around like chickens with their heads cut off and could never seem to get to the exit, but I was hoping for more from the winner of the IGF.
Brink (thought I forgot again, didn't you)
Brink wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either. The demo level seemed to heavily favor the defending side. The fancy movement system didn't seem to amount to much more than a sprint button that enabled mantling. The developers were constantly telling us to change classes, which I thought the objective system was supposed to do. When I followed the objective system it led me to the wrong side of a locked door. And with no bots in the match, there's no way to tell if the game will be suitable for Ozone's co-op events. The verdict is very much out on Brink.
Full Disclosure
I picked up free T-shirts for Brink, Fallout New Vegas, Hunted, Two Worlds II (two shirts because they had a "wear our t-shirt tomorrow and get a second design" promotion which tickled my fancy), and the Weekend Confirmed podcast.
Also, I saw a lot of games that could have fallen into the Not Exciting, But Solid category, (Kirby's Epic Yarn; Donkey Kong Country; Rage; New Vegas) but I only list titles I got hands-on with.
And as always, these are short demos. They may not reflect the final quality of the full games. And these are just my opinions based on my experiences in a crowded, noisy convention setting.
30 November, 2007
Game Buying Decisions
I got to the end of writing this article and decided that one of the last points in it was so good it needed to be at the start.
And in big letters.
Every Purchase is a Gamble
We now return you to your regularly scheduled stream of consciousness, already in progress.
And in big letters.
Every Purchase is a Gamble
We now return you to your regularly scheduled stream of consciousness, already in progress.
If you're interested in a game, play a demo. Sure, demos have their own limitations as they may only show off the best environments and gameplay may turn to crap in the late game (Half-Life 1?), but you can get a feel for the vast majority of games from their demos. If there's no demo, well, consider that your first warning. Why is there no demo? There are usually two reasons, schedule pressure so severe that there isn't time for a demo and / or the publisher knows the game is so bad that a demo would hurt sales. Neither reason is good as schedule pressure often results in games that are almost really good, but have those few hindrances that make them super annoying. (Mass Effect?)
But you're still interested. The game's from a franchise you love. Previews are looking awesome. RED FLAG! Previews always look awesome. That's their job. If the preview didn't look awesome, the publisher wouldn't have released it. Movie trailers are the same way. Only a movie or game that's complete garbage can fail to produce an awesome trailer. But what about gameplay videos, you say? That's not much different than a trailer, really. It's the best environments and often played by an amazingly skilled game tester showing off the flashiest moves.
But you're still interested. Great. Wait. About a week after the game's been out, hit metacritic or rotten tomatoes (but maybe not game rankings as they're owned by the same folks who fired Jeff Gerstmann) to see what the critics think. Hit the boards to see if the opinions there seem to be in line with the scores. If you really know your tastes, make sure they're addressed. I've seen people (after a few pages of other people's opinions) bring up specific questions to be sure their pet peeves aren't going to ruin a game for them.
If you're really lucky, you'll be able to find that one reviewer that you always agree with who gets a review copy in advance and can tell you the day the game comes out whether you'll like it. If so, great! But for the most part, you're much safer looking at the aggregate. It's harder to bribe and doesn't care if one reviewer had a bad day when reviewing the game.
At the end of the day, you're making a purchase, not just with your money, but with the play time you're expecting to put into the game. If two minutes on metacritic and one hour of checking the boards is too much trouble for the $60 and ten hours of your life you expect to spend playing the thing, well, you have only yourself to blame.
But my friends will be playing it immediately! Spoilers will be everywhere! Hey. I feel you. I don't play most games until months or years after they come out, so I've had a lot of stuff spoiled. But most reviewers and boards are pretty sensitive about trying not to spoil the game during the first week or so (and many sites even beyond that).
It's just a question of priorities. Do you value your money and time, or the "freshness"? If you can look that $60 in the face and say, I am willing to throw you away because I'm so sure I need to have this experience fresh, go for it! Good luck! Just remember not to let your desperation for that imagined killer experience and despair over the $60 you no longer have turn into anger, at anyone but yourself. You took a gamble you knew wasn't 100%. You lost. It happens. That's what life's about.
But you're still interested. The game's from a franchise you love. Previews are looking awesome. RED FLAG! Previews always look awesome. That's their job. If the preview didn't look awesome, the publisher wouldn't have released it. Movie trailers are the same way. Only a movie or game that's complete garbage can fail to produce an awesome trailer. But what about gameplay videos, you say? That's not much different than a trailer, really. It's the best environments and often played by an amazingly skilled game tester showing off the flashiest moves.
But you're still interested. Great. Wait. About a week after the game's been out, hit metacritic or rotten tomatoes (but maybe not game rankings as they're owned by the same folks who fired Jeff Gerstmann) to see what the critics think. Hit the boards to see if the opinions there seem to be in line with the scores. If you really know your tastes, make sure they're addressed. I've seen people (after a few pages of other people's opinions) bring up specific questions to be sure their pet peeves aren't going to ruin a game for them.
If you're really lucky, you'll be able to find that one reviewer that you always agree with who gets a review copy in advance and can tell you the day the game comes out whether you'll like it. If so, great! But for the most part, you're much safer looking at the aggregate. It's harder to bribe and doesn't care if one reviewer had a bad day when reviewing the game.
At the end of the day, you're making a purchase, not just with your money, but with the play time you're expecting to put into the game. If two minutes on metacritic and one hour of checking the boards is too much trouble for the $60 and ten hours of your life you expect to spend playing the thing, well, you have only yourself to blame.
But my friends will be playing it immediately! Spoilers will be everywhere! Hey. I feel you. I don't play most games until months or years after they come out, so I've had a lot of stuff spoiled. But most reviewers and boards are pretty sensitive about trying not to spoil the game during the first week or so (and many sites even beyond that).
It's just a question of priorities. Do you value your money and time, or the "freshness"? If you can look that $60 in the face and say, I am willing to throw you away because I'm so sure I need to have this experience fresh, go for it! Good luck! Just remember not to let your desperation for that imagined killer experience and despair over the $60 you no longer have turn into anger, at anyone but yourself. You took a gamble you knew wasn't 100%. You lost. It happens. That's what life's about.
Sure you can vent by bitching about the misleading previews, trailers, demos, etc. But that's what they're there for, to excite you into buying the sizzle without knowing if there ever really was a steak. Just realize that you're essentially saying you were too ignorant or impatient to see past the industry standard lies. But then, if these unflattering words describe you, you're most people (or advertising wouldn't work), so maybe I should shut up before you form an internet mob and stab me with your internet pitchforks.
24 September, 2007
Team Fortress 2 Preview
I downloaded the TF2 beta last week. Between the really nice deal that is The Orange Box, and the fact that I'd been feeling like I wanted to be involved with at least one phenomenon this year while it was actually happening (as opposed to the year (or more) later bargain shopping I normally engage in).
TF2 is a first person shooter. As you might gather from the name, it's team based. A lot of FPS games make that claim, but few deliver like TF2. I listened to the commentary tracks they have for three of the levels, and the designers are very explicit about (among other things) that they wanted to make sure the classes needed each other. Heavies are slow (super slow while firing their mini-gun) and attract a lot of attention, so they need a medic to stay standing. Snipers are great at range, but are likely to get demolished by most other classes at close range. Scouts are quick and pack some real punch, but generally get destroyed by the engineer's turrets because of their low health. The Demo Man can bust up groups of enemies with his grenades and lay nasty traps with his "pipe bombs". (They look more like tiny mines, to me.) But he's weak at a distance where his projectiles can be easily avoided. There are nine classes, so I could go on about this all day. These are the early days of the game, so no dominant strategies have emerged yet. Hopefully the game will prove balanced enough that other than having a diverse team and a few sentries in key positions, the game never will get too stale.
The Pyro is the only character people seem have little use for. I love the Pyro, personally, but I don't mind sucking as long as I get to set people on fire once in a while. Also the Pyro has hilarious voice samples. You can't understand any of them because of the protective mask he wears. Totally worthless, but awesome (some would argue just like the Pyro himself). On servers with friendly fire enabled, I would say the Pyro is indeed, nearly worthless. Most servers don't enable FF, though, so the Pyro is great at detecting enemy spies by giving everyone a squirt. If the spy is detected, he keeps burning, even if he cloaks, so a couple shotgun blasts can finish the job.
Friendly fire's a thorny issue, though. Should a Pyro be able to run into a room while a friendly Demo Man's grenades are going off all around him and a medic is standing in the middle of the inferno he's creating, healing him? It seems favor the offense a little, doesn't it? True, the defenders can have a Pyro, Medic, and Demo Man of their own at work, but as long as the people on the point live, the point is being captured. I don't really mind this emphasis on offense. In theory it keeps the matches short. But there are some "achievements" linked to defending on certain maps that are more a matter of lucking into a very unbalanced team situation rather than actual skill.
Of course, if you don't care for luck, just keep joining until you get an open slot on a clan server, with the clan. The clan teams are already forming the dominant strategies. Playing against them is like trying to rally The Washington Generals. Remember, we're not even out of beta yet, and some people are already putting "newbie friendly" or "new players welcome" in the server name so people won't be scared off. Of course, that's somewhat true of all games. You don't go onto a clan server for CounterStrike and expect to win. But you do expect to be able to get kills. And if you're working against a well oiled machine in TF2, that might not be very realistic.
That scout was charged up by the medic to 150% health, so he's not likely to go down so quick, and if you do wound him and try to chase him back to the medic, the engineer's got a nice upgraded turret waiting for you, provided you make it past the pipe bombs the Demo Man laid and the Sniper, covering that big open area. Yeah, you're pretty much boned.
But that's mostly me trying to find fault. Nobody else (including Bungie) has managed to make skill based matchmaking work.
The game is a lot of fun. It looks great. It keeps a high framerate, even on my older machine. And if you break down The Orange Box into the three new offerings (Portal, Episode 2, and TF2), it's only $15. If you're a gamer you want it (or you have it already).
TF2 is a first person shooter. As you might gather from the name, it's team based. A lot of FPS games make that claim, but few deliver like TF2. I listened to the commentary tracks they have for three of the levels, and the designers are very explicit about (among other things) that they wanted to make sure the classes needed each other. Heavies are slow (super slow while firing their mini-gun) and attract a lot of attention, so they need a medic to stay standing. Snipers are great at range, but are likely to get demolished by most other classes at close range. Scouts are quick and pack some real punch, but generally get destroyed by the engineer's turrets because of their low health. The Demo Man can bust up groups of enemies with his grenades and lay nasty traps with his "pipe bombs". (They look more like tiny mines, to me.) But he's weak at a distance where his projectiles can be easily avoided. There are nine classes, so I could go on about this all day. These are the early days of the game, so no dominant strategies have emerged yet. Hopefully the game will prove balanced enough that other than having a diverse team and a few sentries in key positions, the game never will get too stale.
The Pyro is the only character people seem have little use for. I love the Pyro, personally, but I don't mind sucking as long as I get to set people on fire once in a while. Also the Pyro has hilarious voice samples. You can't understand any of them because of the protective mask he wears. Totally worthless, but awesome (some would argue just like the Pyro himself). On servers with friendly fire enabled, I would say the Pyro is indeed, nearly worthless. Most servers don't enable FF, though, so the Pyro is great at detecting enemy spies by giving everyone a squirt. If the spy is detected, he keeps burning, even if he cloaks, so a couple shotgun blasts can finish the job.
Friendly fire's a thorny issue, though. Should a Pyro be able to run into a room while a friendly Demo Man's grenades are going off all around him and a medic is standing in the middle of the inferno he's creating, healing him? It seems favor the offense a little, doesn't it? True, the defenders can have a Pyro, Medic, and Demo Man of their own at work, but as long as the people on the point live, the point is being captured. I don't really mind this emphasis on offense. In theory it keeps the matches short. But there are some "achievements" linked to defending on certain maps that are more a matter of lucking into a very unbalanced team situation rather than actual skill.
Of course, if you don't care for luck, just keep joining until you get an open slot on a clan server, with the clan. The clan teams are already forming the dominant strategies. Playing against them is like trying to rally The Washington Generals. Remember, we're not even out of beta yet, and some people are already putting "newbie friendly" or "new players welcome" in the server name so people won't be scared off. Of course, that's somewhat true of all games. You don't go onto a clan server for CounterStrike and expect to win. But you do expect to be able to get kills. And if you're working against a well oiled machine in TF2, that might not be very realistic.
That scout was charged up by the medic to 150% health, so he's not likely to go down so quick, and if you do wound him and try to chase him back to the medic, the engineer's got a nice upgraded turret waiting for you, provided you make it past the pipe bombs the Demo Man laid and the Sniper, covering that big open area. Yeah, you're pretty much boned.
But that's mostly me trying to find fault. Nobody else (including Bungie) has managed to make skill based matchmaking work.
The game is a lot of fun. It looks great. It keeps a high framerate, even on my older machine. And if you break down The Orange Box into the three new offerings (Portal, Episode 2, and TF2), it's only $15. If you're a gamer you want it (or you have it already).
27 August, 2007
PAX 2007: The Games
Here's the rundown of the games I played at PAX and how I felt about them. There are a number of other games I watched, but I'll keep those opinions to myself for now.
Recently Released Games
Overlord
Evil Pikmin. I never got very far in Pikmin 2 (the only Pikmin I own), but the joy of watching goblins wreck stuff would probably keep me playing Overlord for longer. It certainly kept the people watching me play it entertained. The lack of a map is a significant fun killer and time waster, though. I'd look around for a good FAQ or set of maps online before trying to have fun with this one.
Mario Strikers Charged
This was my favorite game of PAX. But it's also the only co-op I played at PAX, so that stands to reason. No game is as exciting as the crazy kids (Hey Tyson!) who scream and high five after every goal, especially if you're one of them. My big ass thumbs would often hit the home button when trying to pass under duress, and jumping up to the D-pad for sliding was awkward. Perhaps I should have rested my thumb on the D-pad, but that didn't feel right. Maybe my hands are just too big. Is anyone ever going to release first party controllers in more than one size?
Unreleased Games
Castle Crashers
I was never that thrilled about Castle Crashers. Then I played it. I'm still not thrilled, but I'm pleased. It's still impossible too see what's going on when the special attacks are flying, but it's a good casual game. Online co-op would be the big draw.
Conan
Hacking off appendages is fun. Doing the special kills when you parry at just the right time is cool (although I don't play enough Xbox to remember where the buttons are to pull them off regularly). The health jugs that Conan chugalugs to regain health are a nice touch. You do feel like your fighting the exact same guys over and over though.
De Blob
I played it twice. It's reminds me a little of Jet Grind Radio without the actual grinding. I didn't see much variety in the tasks you undertake, but then it was just a few minutes with a demo.
Lair
I couldn't get into the controls at all. There didn't seem to be any reason to not fly with the left thumbstick as it's only function (letting you look around) caused so much motion blur it was more harm than help. Also, constantly kicking your dragon for speed got old almost instantly. Maybe I just need more practice to get the feel of the game, but it's looking like Lair may well deserve that 6.5 from EGM.
Timeshift
I'd heard this game had a troubled development. It looked like one of the better FPS at the show to me, so it looks like they went back and did the right thing. At the end of the day, I predict fail for it though. It feels rather like Project: Snowblind, a competent effort without enough setting it apart to draw a big audience.
Turok
Killing stuff with a knife is fun. I'm hoping for a PC version. I'm rubbish at aiming with thumbsticks.
Metroid Prime 3
I was really worried after playing with the menus and reading the reviews of Red Steel that the Wiimote couldn't do shooters. The Prime 3 demo made me a believer. Sure, it's still a tich laggy, but it was good enough, and yanking robots out of the air with the grapple was cool. A lot of people take issue with it's linear design as opposed to the old exploration based Metroid games, but I got bored searching and quit every Metroid game I've played thus far, so it's all good for me.
Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
Some people (mostly Shane Bettenhausen) are raving about this game. Why is that? Aiming is meh. The cover mechanics aren't anything new. The slo-mo during melee felt forced and out of place. Everything's so green it's easy to get turned around. (Did I miss some sort of goal indicator?) And your movement abilities aren't new or interesting. It looked nice, but not nearly nice enough to justify the hype.
Wrap Up
Despite the number of games I played at PAX, I don't feel like I played much of anything that was actually new. Even BioShock, the game everybody was talking about, is an evolutionary branch on the Looking Glass tree which goes all the way back to Ultima Underworld. That said, there were a lot of solid, fun titles I'll be happy to pick out of the bargain bin by the time the new console or PC I'll need to play them on is at a decent price point.
Recently Released Games
Overlord
Evil Pikmin. I never got very far in Pikmin 2 (the only Pikmin I own), but the joy of watching goblins wreck stuff would probably keep me playing Overlord for longer. It certainly kept the people watching me play it entertained. The lack of a map is a significant fun killer and time waster, though. I'd look around for a good FAQ or set of maps online before trying to have fun with this one.
Mario Strikers Charged
This was my favorite game of PAX. But it's also the only co-op I played at PAX, so that stands to reason. No game is as exciting as the crazy kids (Hey Tyson!) who scream and high five after every goal, especially if you're one of them. My big ass thumbs would often hit the home button when trying to pass under duress, and jumping up to the D-pad for sliding was awkward. Perhaps I should have rested my thumb on the D-pad, but that didn't feel right. Maybe my hands are just too big. Is anyone ever going to release first party controllers in more than one size?
Unreleased Games
Castle Crashers
I was never that thrilled about Castle Crashers. Then I played it. I'm still not thrilled, but I'm pleased. It's still impossible too see what's going on when the special attacks are flying, but it's a good casual game. Online co-op would be the big draw.
Conan
Hacking off appendages is fun. Doing the special kills when you parry at just the right time is cool (although I don't play enough Xbox to remember where the buttons are to pull them off regularly). The health jugs that Conan chugalugs to regain health are a nice touch. You do feel like your fighting the exact same guys over and over though.
De Blob
I played it twice. It's reminds me a little of Jet Grind Radio without the actual grinding. I didn't see much variety in the tasks you undertake, but then it was just a few minutes with a demo.
Lair
I couldn't get into the controls at all. There didn't seem to be any reason to not fly with the left thumbstick as it's only function (letting you look around) caused so much motion blur it was more harm than help. Also, constantly kicking your dragon for speed got old almost instantly. Maybe I just need more practice to get the feel of the game, but it's looking like Lair may well deserve that 6.5 from EGM.
Timeshift
I'd heard this game had a troubled development. It looked like one of the better FPS at the show to me, so it looks like they went back and did the right thing. At the end of the day, I predict fail for it though. It feels rather like Project: Snowblind, a competent effort without enough setting it apart to draw a big audience.
Turok
Killing stuff with a knife is fun. I'm hoping for a PC version. I'm rubbish at aiming with thumbsticks.
Metroid Prime 3
I was really worried after playing with the menus and reading the reviews of Red Steel that the Wiimote couldn't do shooters. The Prime 3 demo made me a believer. Sure, it's still a tich laggy, but it was good enough, and yanking robots out of the air with the grapple was cool. A lot of people take issue with it's linear design as opposed to the old exploration based Metroid games, but I got bored searching and quit every Metroid game I've played thus far, so it's all good for me.
Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
Some people (mostly Shane Bettenhausen) are raving about this game. Why is that? Aiming is meh. The cover mechanics aren't anything new. The slo-mo during melee felt forced and out of place. Everything's so green it's easy to get turned around. (Did I miss some sort of goal indicator?) And your movement abilities aren't new or interesting. It looked nice, but not nearly nice enough to justify the hype.
Wrap Up
Despite the number of games I played at PAX, I don't feel like I played much of anything that was actually new. Even BioShock, the game everybody was talking about, is an evolutionary branch on the Looking Glass tree which goes all the way back to Ultima Underworld. That said, there were a lot of solid, fun titles I'll be happy to pick out of the bargain bin by the time the new console or PC I'll need to play them on is at a decent price point.
26 July, 2007
What I'm Playing (and Manhunt ramble)
Most of my gaming now feels very casual. For the most part, I play WoW. WoW is more socializing than game. Don't get me wrong, I'm on WoWWiki or Allakhazam looking stuff up all the time. We're doing ramparts soon, so I need fire resist. It's mostly just a pain, but makes me feel like I'm earning credit with people by putting in extra effort. It's probably worth mentioning that our guild is all people who know each other in real life, so I'm putting in more effort to please them than I probably would otherwise. I probably shouldn't though. They mostly don't notice or care. I bust my ass doing research, collecting mats, and questing just to get berated because I forgot to remind someone to get milk on the way home from boardgame night.
Outside of WoW, I'm mostly just playing fluff. Cheap old games that are fun to blow through on easy. BloodRayne 2, King Kong, Prince of Persia: Warrior Within, Armed & Dangerous. I consider games like this (when turned down to easy difficulty) the purest form of escape. They're like running around in the parking lot making whooshing noises to pretend that you're Superman.
There is one other game I'm playing. Because of the controversy surrounding its successor (and because Mike enjoyed it), I picked up a headset and a copy of Manhunt. So far I'm not impressed. It's a stealth game where the major mechanic seems to be find a shadow, make a noise, when the bad guy gets tired of staring into the shadow and turns around, kill him. Repeat until... yawn. Whoops. I was going to say repeat until bored but became too bored to finish the sentence. The gory canned animations really aren't that big a deal to me. Pan's Labyrinth had way worse face stabbing, and exploding a guy's head with a baseball bat seems more comical than horrific to me. Maybe if the graphics weren't so dated it'd be scarier.
Also the "director" talking into your headset, egging you on and reveling in your kills, was supposed to be a big part of the experience. I bought a headset, just for this game. I've been largely disappointed. From the first time the director said "kill this #%*#", I knew that he had a preset number of audio barks for whenever I got into the kill position. And his post-kill wanking is totally random. Sometimes he praises you lavishly for a crappy kill and remains completely silent when you pull of a level three kill. The only post kill bark I enjoyed was after I killed a guy with the nailgun and he said something like "Nice shooting, pardner."
These are preliminary opinions, of course. I haven't finished the game yet. But so far, the game's pretty dull and the gore is no big deal. Some gamers who have seen and even played Manhunt 2 say it's about the same or even tamer than the original. The original only lets you unlock certain things if you do extra nasty kills while the sequel gives you a nicer ending if you try to be less violent. If that's the case, it sounds like the ESRB rated Manhunt 2 wrong. Likely it's caving to pressure groups and / or taking retribution for the Hot Coffee scandal.
Meh. If it was a better game, I'd care more.
Outside of WoW, I'm mostly just playing fluff. Cheap old games that are fun to blow through on easy. BloodRayne 2, King Kong, Prince of Persia: Warrior Within, Armed & Dangerous. I consider games like this (when turned down to easy difficulty) the purest form of escape. They're like running around in the parking lot making whooshing noises to pretend that you're Superman.
There is one other game I'm playing. Because of the controversy surrounding its successor (and because Mike enjoyed it), I picked up a headset and a copy of Manhunt. So far I'm not impressed. It's a stealth game where the major mechanic seems to be find a shadow, make a noise, when the bad guy gets tired of staring into the shadow and turns around, kill him. Repeat until... yawn. Whoops. I was going to say repeat until bored but became too bored to finish the sentence. The gory canned animations really aren't that big a deal to me. Pan's Labyrinth had way worse face stabbing, and exploding a guy's head with a baseball bat seems more comical than horrific to me. Maybe if the graphics weren't so dated it'd be scarier.
Also the "director" talking into your headset, egging you on and reveling in your kills, was supposed to be a big part of the experience. I bought a headset, just for this game. I've been largely disappointed. From the first time the director said "kill this #%*#", I knew that he had a preset number of audio barks for whenever I got into the kill position. And his post-kill wanking is totally random. Sometimes he praises you lavishly for a crappy kill and remains completely silent when you pull of a level three kill. The only post kill bark I enjoyed was after I killed a guy with the nailgun and he said something like "Nice shooting, pardner."
These are preliminary opinions, of course. I haven't finished the game yet. But so far, the game's pretty dull and the gore is no big deal. Some gamers who have seen and even played Manhunt 2 say it's about the same or even tamer than the original. The original only lets you unlock certain things if you do extra nasty kills while the sequel gives you a nicer ending if you try to be less violent. If that's the case, it sounds like the ESRB rated Manhunt 2 wrong. Likely it's caving to pressure groups and / or taking retribution for the Hot Coffee scandal.
Meh. If it was a better game, I'd care more.
13 September, 2005
Bugs (JO)
Starship Troopers Demo
Reaction seems to be heavily divided on the Blues News forums regarding the quality of this demos. I fall on the "it's crap" side. The guns are pea shooters. This in itself is not a bad thing, if it forces some kind of strategy. In this game, it just forces a lot of backpedaling. Only Serious Sam forces as much backpedaling, and that was my least favorite aspect of that game as well. The pathetically underpowered grenades didn't help at all. The controls are totally unresponsive on higher detail levels. That's just bad coding. The inability to use turrets at the base was frustrating. Even with the difficulty on easy, surviving the wave of bugs that swarm over you when you pick up the mine layer is very difficult. I tried three times. By that time the lack of quality of the demo and fact that you can't save and so have to work your way to the overly difficult encounter (Easy means easy.) all over again had burned up all of its fun potential, and I uninstalled it. Sometimes games don't really come together until the final polishing stages. This game would have to get pretty spectacular reviews for me to bother finding out if that was its problem
Joint Ops
Mike has been conducting more experiments with high explosives. I swear, if we could just strap our satchel charges to our chests and become suicide bombers we would. In the meantime we settle for escapades like last night where we took out two apcs with nothing more than our satchels and a raft. We were doing the same to boats, but boats are much better equipped to handle rafts and much more aware of rafts as a legitimate threat since any monkey with a pistol can shoot the unprotected crew of a boat. Here we are doing the Charlie Chaplin heel kick at getting wasted by an enemy boat.
So we landed helicopters on them.
Here, Mike lands on the docs next to an enemy in a boat.
Here, everything goes boom.
Sure, our kill to death ratio isn't that great, but we laugh our asses off. I figured out how to use the line in plugin for WinAmp to record our games in progress. My windows startup noise is now from a little maneuver I executed. A tango had stolen an APC and was killing people in our base. I threw a flashbang in the front, blinding him. I ran around the back and threw a satchel in. I yelled a battlecry, clicked my clicker, and enjoyed the boom. So satisfying. In the future I may find a place to post those sound files so that you can enjoy them. I'm recording low fidelity MP3s, about 7 megs an hour, but I'll make sure to slice out just the highlights if I post them. I would be sorely tempted to post last nights, but for some reason only the microphone was recording, not the game noise and Mike's silly comments.
Reaction seems to be heavily divided on the Blues News forums regarding the quality of this demos. I fall on the "it's crap" side. The guns are pea shooters. This in itself is not a bad thing, if it forces some kind of strategy. In this game, it just forces a lot of backpedaling. Only Serious Sam forces as much backpedaling, and that was my least favorite aspect of that game as well. The pathetically underpowered grenades didn't help at all. The controls are totally unresponsive on higher detail levels. That's just bad coding. The inability to use turrets at the base was frustrating. Even with the difficulty on easy, surviving the wave of bugs that swarm over you when you pick up the mine layer is very difficult. I tried three times. By that time the lack of quality of the demo and fact that you can't save and so have to work your way to the overly difficult encounter (Easy means easy.) all over again had burned up all of its fun potential, and I uninstalled it. Sometimes games don't really come together until the final polishing stages. This game would have to get pretty spectacular reviews for me to bother finding out if that was its problem
Joint Ops
Mike has been conducting more experiments with high explosives. I swear, if we could just strap our satchel charges to our chests and become suicide bombers we would. In the meantime we settle for escapades like last night where we took out two apcs with nothing more than our satchels and a raft. We were doing the same to boats, but boats are much better equipped to handle rafts and much more aware of rafts as a legitimate threat since any monkey with a pistol can shoot the unprotected crew of a boat. Here we are doing the Charlie Chaplin heel kick at getting wasted by an enemy boat.
So we landed helicopters on them.
Here, Mike lands on the docs next to an enemy in a boat.
Here, everything goes boom.
Sure, our kill to death ratio isn't that great, but we laugh our asses off. I figured out how to use the line in plugin for WinAmp to record our games in progress. My windows startup noise is now from a little maneuver I executed. A tango had stolen an APC and was killing people in our base. I threw a flashbang in the front, blinding him. I ran around the back and threw a satchel in. I yelled a battlecry, clicked my clicker, and enjoyed the boom. So satisfying. In the future I may find a place to post those sound files so that you can enjoy them. I'm recording low fidelity MP3s, about 7 megs an hour, but I'll make sure to slice out just the highlights if I post them. I would be sorely tempted to post last nights, but for some reason only the microphone was recording, not the game noise and Mike's silly comments.
09 September, 2005
BWAAAAAhahahaha (JO)
It's been a while. I took a break from gaming for a while. Now that I'm back, here's what I've been up to.
Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War
I probably should have kicked up the difficulty on this one. As it was, I could always follow a two step process. Secure resource point. Take next resource point. I never had to restart a map. Heck, I had a hard time losing troops, and with the tiny unit caps in the game, that means I would have had to deliberately throw men to the wolves to build more cool units. Mind you terminators would have been worth it, but I'm not that ruthless when I don't feel any serious pressure.
Sid Meier's Pirates!
I haven't finished this one, and I'm not sure I'll bother. I wanted to have fun being an explorer, but the crew on the ships doesn't like exploring, so there's frequent desertions and mutinies. Actually, the mutinies are great. Your men take a ship, then you attack them and take it back, somehow magically ending up with more guns and food then when you started. Still, it takes way too long to get to the point where you're ready to look for lost cities. And the dancing mini game that you have to do over and over to get to that point is pretty lame, too. No, the most fun I had with the game was modding it. I did it as a birthday present for a friend of mine, adding lots of Monty Python quotes and songs and a few other choice blurbs. I also made sails for his ship that more express his personality. The flag says DIE! and the sail has a picture of the cyberdemon from DOOM with the words "Mister Fancy Pants" on it. :) Also, when you're doing well in a sword fight, Matrix music kicks in. Heheh.
Joint Ops
This is where today's update gets its title. I have seen sillier things in Joint Ops than I dared imagine. I even caused some of them. We'll start at the non-silly and work up.
Here I am watching a helicopter leave the enemy main base.
This is on the Sulawa Spaceport map where you have to constantly ferry tanks from your main base to the island where all the objectives are. I swam over to the hovercrafts there and placed satchel charges on them. Someone drove a tank onto one of them and headed out.
So I did the obvious thing.
Next we have a new tactic that I invented. Only and idiot like me could have come up with this. First, you dump satchel charges on a vehicle.
Then you drive up next to an enemy vehicle.
Then you blow yourself up.
As you may notice, the person driving (in this case me) is totally fine. That's because you can't hurt players on your team with your explosives, just yourself. But it gets better. Sometimes, through a bug in the game I don't fully understand yet, you don't even hurt yourself. On one occasion there were three APCs attacking one of our bases. We drove by one, detonating our charges, and blew it up. Both of us survived. Then we restocked the hood, drove by again, and blew up a second APC. Then we got killed, but the point is that as soon as I can figure out what we did that made it so that both of us lived through the explosions, we'll be taking out tanks and APCs left and right. Fear the lowly amphibious jeep. Lowly no more. In fact, you can even attach the charge to a motorcycle, exploding it as you zip between enemy vehicles. You could also jump off the motorcycle as it rolls into the enemy base and detonate the charge from a safe distance. I'll just sum it up by saying that I expect to be enjoying experiments with satchel charges for a while.
But that isn't the topper for the evening. Oh no. Check this out!
Yep. That's a hovercraft parked in the treetops.
Then it fell onto our resupply truck.
I could not stop laughing. I'm also still not sure how His Shadow got the thing up there in the first place, but I give him kudos for a job well done.
Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War
I probably should have kicked up the difficulty on this one. As it was, I could always follow a two step process. Secure resource point. Take next resource point. I never had to restart a map. Heck, I had a hard time losing troops, and with the tiny unit caps in the game, that means I would have had to deliberately throw men to the wolves to build more cool units. Mind you terminators would have been worth it, but I'm not that ruthless when I don't feel any serious pressure.
Sid Meier's Pirates!
I haven't finished this one, and I'm not sure I'll bother. I wanted to have fun being an explorer, but the crew on the ships doesn't like exploring, so there's frequent desertions and mutinies. Actually, the mutinies are great. Your men take a ship, then you attack them and take it back, somehow magically ending up with more guns and food then when you started. Still, it takes way too long to get to the point where you're ready to look for lost cities. And the dancing mini game that you have to do over and over to get to that point is pretty lame, too. No, the most fun I had with the game was modding it. I did it as a birthday present for a friend of mine, adding lots of Monty Python quotes and songs and a few other choice blurbs. I also made sails for his ship that more express his personality. The flag says DIE! and the sail has a picture of the cyberdemon from DOOM with the words "Mister Fancy Pants" on it. :) Also, when you're doing well in a sword fight, Matrix music kicks in. Heheh.
Joint Ops
This is where today's update gets its title. I have seen sillier things in Joint Ops than I dared imagine. I even caused some of them. We'll start at the non-silly and work up.
Here I am watching a helicopter leave the enemy main base.
This is on the Sulawa Spaceport map where you have to constantly ferry tanks from your main base to the island where all the objectives are. I swam over to the hovercrafts there and placed satchel charges on them. Someone drove a tank onto one of them and headed out.
So I did the obvious thing.
Next we have a new tactic that I invented. Only and idiot like me could have come up with this. First, you dump satchel charges on a vehicle.
Then you drive up next to an enemy vehicle.
Then you blow yourself up.
As you may notice, the person driving (in this case me) is totally fine. That's because you can't hurt players on your team with your explosives, just yourself. But it gets better. Sometimes, through a bug in the game I don't fully understand yet, you don't even hurt yourself. On one occasion there were three APCs attacking one of our bases. We drove by one, detonating our charges, and blew it up. Both of us survived. Then we restocked the hood, drove by again, and blew up a second APC. Then we got killed, but the point is that as soon as I can figure out what we did that made it so that both of us lived through the explosions, we'll be taking out tanks and APCs left and right. Fear the lowly amphibious jeep. Lowly no more. In fact, you can even attach the charge to a motorcycle, exploding it as you zip between enemy vehicles. You could also jump off the motorcycle as it rolls into the enemy base and detonate the charge from a safe distance. I'll just sum it up by saying that I expect to be enjoying experiments with satchel charges for a while.
But that isn't the topper for the evening. Oh no. Check this out!
Yep. That's a hovercraft parked in the treetops.
Then it fell onto our resupply truck.
I could not stop laughing. I'm also still not sure how His Shadow got the thing up there in the first place, but I give him kudos for a job well done.
25 August, 2005
Follow Up and a Slam
In a previous post, I said I would talk more about bypassing enemies.
In Neko, bypassing enemies was one of the things I liked about the game. It let me feel a certain sense of freedom, like I had a choice about how to play the game. That can be pretty rare in homebrew games. Heck, it can be pretty rare in all games. [begin stealth game diatribe]
I rarely bypass enemies in supposedly "stealthy" games. It just means more chances to get caught. I kill them all. If I am detected, I have a much better chance at survival because I've reduced their numbers and have a good idea where the bad guys are coming from because I've cleared a lot of rooms already. Why would I do that though? Doesn't that defeat the whole purpose of playing a stealth game in the first place? Yes. It does. But that's because all stealth games I've ever played don't work. I've played Metal Gear Solid. I've played MGS2 (up until the Raiden parts, anyway). I've played Hitman 2. I've played Far Cry. These games all purport to allow stealthy play. But you can be as careful as you like and still get caught. The only way to go through these games in complete stealth is trial and error. Trial and error is not game design. Trial and error means you failed as a game designer by not giving the player the proper tools to tackle the problem and are falling back on the save game system.
And now for the slam.
Snowboard Assassins
The idea was fine: SSX with guns. But the execution is crap. You can't board up half pipes, like you can in SSX. It's hard to tell when you're going to catch air, so it's easy to crash accidentally. It's not easy to shoot people. You don't get much ammo for your main gun, and your secondary gun sucks. The levels I played are dull and sparsely populated. Many of the SSX features are missing, including rail grinds and turbos. And the default control scheme is crap. In fact, the control scheme in general is pretty awful compared to SSX, Tony Hawk, and other trick based games. It's also not even obvious how to finish a level. I boarded to the end. That didn't end the level. Then I blew up all the snowblowers on my way to the end. No dice. I could have gone back and made sure to kill every single bad guy, but there comes a point where you realize that the game you're playing isn't designed well enough to deserve your time. All that said, it's still a lot of fun to pull a method 360 while shooting a guy, but it's not enough to save this game.
I also played a little flash port of an old Macintosh game called Bill the Demon. The graphics were cute, and it was fun to make demon screams and eat people, but it became repetetive very quickly.
In Neko, bypassing enemies was one of the things I liked about the game. It let me feel a certain sense of freedom, like I had a choice about how to play the game. That can be pretty rare in homebrew games. Heck, it can be pretty rare in all games. [begin stealth game diatribe]
I rarely bypass enemies in supposedly "stealthy" games. It just means more chances to get caught. I kill them all. If I am detected, I have a much better chance at survival because I've reduced their numbers and have a good idea where the bad guys are coming from because I've cleared a lot of rooms already. Why would I do that though? Doesn't that defeat the whole purpose of playing a stealth game in the first place? Yes. It does. But that's because all stealth games I've ever played don't work. I've played Metal Gear Solid. I've played MGS2 (up until the Raiden parts, anyway). I've played Hitman 2. I've played Far Cry. These games all purport to allow stealthy play. But you can be as careful as you like and still get caught. The only way to go through these games in complete stealth is trial and error. Trial and error is not game design. Trial and error means you failed as a game designer by not giving the player the proper tools to tackle the problem and are falling back on the save game system.
And now for the slam.
Snowboard Assassins
The idea was fine: SSX with guns. But the execution is crap. You can't board up half pipes, like you can in SSX. It's hard to tell when you're going to catch air, so it's easy to crash accidentally. It's not easy to shoot people. You don't get much ammo for your main gun, and your secondary gun sucks. The levels I played are dull and sparsely populated. Many of the SSX features are missing, including rail grinds and turbos. And the default control scheme is crap. In fact, the control scheme in general is pretty awful compared to SSX, Tony Hawk, and other trick based games. It's also not even obvious how to finish a level. I boarded to the end. That didn't end the level. Then I blew up all the snowblowers on my way to the end. No dice. I could have gone back and made sure to kill every single bad guy, but there comes a point where you realize that the game you're playing isn't designed well enough to deserve your time. All that said, it's still a lot of fun to pull a method 360 while shooting a guy, but it's not enough to save this game.
I also played a little flash port of an old Macintosh game called Bill the Demon. The graphics were cute, and it was fun to make demon screams and eat people, but it became repetetive very quickly.
24 August, 2005
Three Reviews and a Picture (JO)
First our picture. This is us getting killed on one of our golf cart runs. Feel the love. Catch some air. (Thanks to Mike for taking this sweet picture.)
Evil Invasion
Ah yes, the game that made me reinstall Crimsonland (which I registered). Evil Invasion is a fantasy themed Crimsonland minus the cool weapons, simple upgrade system, and fun.
Liero Xtreme
One of the 2DNow forum users (DVDmanDT) turned me onto Liero as a good old low-res game. It's definitely pretty cool, with a huge amount of mods. I particularly like the 8-bit warfare mod where you can use all your old favorites. It had Mario's fire flower, Tapper root beer mugs, the Contra spread gun; Bomberman bombs. It even had a gun that launched the centipede from Centipede. Unfortunately, it crashes a lot, so I'll probably never spend much time with it. Also there was another game along the same lines that had a nicer mouse based control scheme. I wish I could remember the name.
C-Dogs
DVDmanDT also mentioned C-Dogs as something to check out. If it didn't come so highly recommended, I wouldn't have looked twice at it. As it was I played the first couple levels and got painfully bored. Search room by room to find the keys to open the doors to the rooms with the stuff you need to blow up to complete the mission, then return to the start point. The isometric perspective is annoying because my bullets pass through the enemy much of the time. The slide move was cool (although some animation for it would have been cooler). Also, since I don't have DOS sound drivers, I had no sound. I'd call C-Dogs a decent game, but not a classic.
He also mentioned Shadows Over Riva which I had heard of, but I don't have time for RPGs.
Evil Invasion
Ah yes, the game that made me reinstall Crimsonland (which I registered). Evil Invasion is a fantasy themed Crimsonland minus the cool weapons, simple upgrade system, and fun.
Liero Xtreme
One of the 2DNow forum users (DVDmanDT) turned me onto Liero as a good old low-res game. It's definitely pretty cool, with a huge amount of mods. I particularly like the 8-bit warfare mod where you can use all your old favorites. It had Mario's fire flower, Tapper root beer mugs, the Contra spread gun; Bomberman bombs. It even had a gun that launched the centipede from Centipede. Unfortunately, it crashes a lot, so I'll probably never spend much time with it. Also there was another game along the same lines that had a nicer mouse based control scheme. I wish I could remember the name.
C-Dogs
DVDmanDT also mentioned C-Dogs as something to check out. If it didn't come so highly recommended, I wouldn't have looked twice at it. As it was I played the first couple levels and got painfully bored. Search room by room to find the keys to open the doors to the rooms with the stuff you need to blow up to complete the mission, then return to the start point. The isometric perspective is annoying because my bullets pass through the enemy much of the time. The slide move was cool (although some animation for it would have been cooler). Also, since I don't have DOS sound drivers, I had no sound. I'd call C-Dogs a decent game, but not a classic.
He also mentioned Shadows Over Riva which I had heard of, but I don't have time for RPGs.
22 August, 2005
DSGFNL (JO)
So I'm a Dirty, Stinking, Good For Nothing Liar. Here are some more Joint Ops pics. Mike and I are trying to work out an hour in the day we can both set aside for Joint Ops. We both have irregular sleep schedules, so this is probably a Good Idea. In the meantime...
It really amazes me how effective sniping is, but it also amazes me how bad some people are at it. Here's what you do.
Phase one - Go prone. Your shots aren't accurate beyond a couple hundred meters if you don't.
Phase two - Use your binoculars to get set your rifle's scope elevation.
Phase three - Kill.
The kill I got after this was instructive, as well. A raft not too far from the boat started returning fire. Here is me killing him.
The moral of the story? Don't neglect steps one and two! This guy saw me fire on the boat and had me dead to rights. He fired three shots to my one. But because I was prone and used my binoculars, his three missed and my one killed. (And in case your thinking he had the disadvantage of being on a bobbing raft at sea, don't. This is Joint Ops. Unmoving vehicles at sea remain perfectly still.)
Phase four - Move. If you think you've given away your position, or know that there are tenacious sniper hunters about, don't wait for that enemy sniper bullet or knife to cut you down. Of course, if you set up in a position where moving exposes you to more fire than staying put, just lie in the bed you've made and take a few of them with you. Don't forget to set a couple claymores, as well. There are few things in life more satisfying than watching your enemy slip on a shrapnel banana peel.
Thus endeth the lesson.
Time for lesson two. Here I am assaulting an enemy base.
The first defender goes down with a couple three round bursts.
As I enter the bunker, another eats my blade.
As those nearby rush to the defense, they too taste cold steel.
As I lie in wait, the readout in the upper right says our team is winning six to one.
I continue to do the lords work.
An enemy sets a claymore outside, but doesn't live to tell about it. Unfortunately we're losing one to three at this point.
Eventually the inevitable catches up with me.
The moral of the story? You can be the knife god of all time, but if you don't help your team establish a perimeter, it will do you no good. When I recognized that we were winning six to one, I definitely should have taken up a position outside. I believe I was even carrying a rocket launcher which could have helped deal with the APCs that decimated my team.
Heheheh.
I took a look at a couple more indie games, as well.
Flatspace
It's a classic 2D exploration adventure. But you can only visit space stations and talk to ships. One of the main things I loved about StarCon2 and Starflight was exploring planetary surfaces. I also loved that their interfaces were less confusing. I wanted to tractor in some asteroids for money. The documentation never mentioned that I had to have a target lock on the asteroid for the tractor beam to work. And then, after an hour of mineral gathering I accidentally ran into another space ship and instantly died, which in Flatspace means all your save games are deleted. I suppose I could hack the game like Uplink and backup my save files, but Flatspace isn't fun enough to bother.
Lebeth Strikes Back
A guy is trying to make games by taking feedback from the net. If this is the result, it will never go anywhere. The game basically consists of a fifty foot woman standing in the median strip of a highway, batting at trucks. If a truck gets by, she moves further up the highway, making it harder to judge attacks. If she hits the top of the screen, the game is over. Who cares?
It really amazes me how effective sniping is, but it also amazes me how bad some people are at it. Here's what you do.
Phase one - Go prone. Your shots aren't accurate beyond a couple hundred meters if you don't.
Phase two - Use your binoculars to get set your rifle's scope elevation.
Phase three - Kill.
The kill I got after this was instructive, as well. A raft not too far from the boat started returning fire. Here is me killing him.
The moral of the story? Don't neglect steps one and two! This guy saw me fire on the boat and had me dead to rights. He fired three shots to my one. But because I was prone and used my binoculars, his three missed and my one killed. (And in case your thinking he had the disadvantage of being on a bobbing raft at sea, don't. This is Joint Ops. Unmoving vehicles at sea remain perfectly still.)
Phase four - Move. If you think you've given away your position, or know that there are tenacious sniper hunters about, don't wait for that enemy sniper bullet or knife to cut you down. Of course, if you set up in a position where moving exposes you to more fire than staying put, just lie in the bed you've made and take a few of them with you. Don't forget to set a couple claymores, as well. There are few things in life more satisfying than watching your enemy slip on a shrapnel banana peel.
Thus endeth the lesson.
Time for lesson two. Here I am assaulting an enemy base.
The first defender goes down with a couple three round bursts.
As I enter the bunker, another eats my blade.
As those nearby rush to the defense, they too taste cold steel.
As I lie in wait, the readout in the upper right says our team is winning six to one.
I continue to do the lords work.
An enemy sets a claymore outside, but doesn't live to tell about it. Unfortunately we're losing one to three at this point.
Eventually the inevitable catches up with me.
The moral of the story? You can be the knife god of all time, but if you don't help your team establish a perimeter, it will do you no good. When I recognized that we were winning six to one, I definitely should have taken up a position outside. I believe I was even carrying a rocket launcher which could have helped deal with the APCs that decimated my team.
Heheheh.
I took a look at a couple more indie games, as well.
Flatspace
It's a classic 2D exploration adventure. But you can only visit space stations and talk to ships. One of the main things I loved about StarCon2 and Starflight was exploring planetary surfaces. I also loved that their interfaces were less confusing. I wanted to tractor in some asteroids for money. The documentation never mentioned that I had to have a target lock on the asteroid for the tractor beam to work. And then, after an hour of mineral gathering I accidentally ran into another space ship and instantly died, which in Flatspace means all your save games are deleted. I suppose I could hack the game like Uplink and backup my save files, but Flatspace isn't fun enough to bother.
Lebeth Strikes Back
A guy is trying to make games by taking feedback from the net. If this is the result, it will never go anywhere. The game basically consists of a fifty foot woman standing in the median strip of a highway, batting at trucks. If a truck gets by, she moves further up the highway, making it harder to judge attacks. If she hits the top of the screen, the game is over. Who cares?
21 August, 2005
Just for Mike (JO)
Here's some more Joint Ops for my buddy Mike. We haven't been able to play at the same time, so we're sending each other pictures of our exploits. I tend to play more seriously when I'm on my own, so here's my cavalcade of honor, shame, and laffs.
Here's Straights of Mallac (or Mallaca, the server browser and load screen have different names). It's a sniper paradise with lots of hilly islands. Well, maybe it's not a paradise. A paradise would also include no pesky vehicles. :) But I had a pretty good time on it.
Let the calvalcade of kills commence!
I was really surprised how easy sniping turned out to be after all the complaints I'd heard about it being nerfed (made so ineffective it would be like using a nerf gun) after the expansion came out. I generally just find a good vantage, use the binoculars to get ranges, and go to town. As long as no one is nearby, I can rack up quite a few kills. In fact, here's a double.
Two kills with one bullet: for the army on a budget.
400 meters seems to be the preferred range as it's still close enough to hit slow or unmoving targets, and it's really hard for someone with a regular rifle to shoot back and actually hit anything.
Oh, here's one I took when Mike and I were playing. Some people just don't take the hint. Mike had just blown up a copter on the launchpad, but that didn't stop these nitwits from trying to take off.
Kerflooie!
This is definitely too serious. Even my ten kill knife run isn't very interesting. I won't bother with any other Joint Ops posts unless I get really great, goofy photos.
In other gaming news I tried a couple more freeware games (brought to my attention by tigsource.com, I believe).
Neko
Control a cute kitty and fight bad animals with your yarn ball arsenal. It has pretty good graphics, but the feel is off. You move very slow. I suppose that's expected from a bipedal cat. But you jump very high. Weird. You also jump off of climbing ropes at warp speed for no apparent reason. The level design seem basic but effective. It kept me moving forward by giving me at least a couple different tasks to keep track of. Collect all the milk. Collect yarn for ammo. Use special yarn powers to get buy impassible terrain. Yarnify bad guys or just pass them by. I actually liked the fact that there were more than a few bad guys you could bypass. More about that in my next update.
Nikki the Ninja
Some guy using a game maker utility made this and the next game. The foreground art is 3D. My guess is it's free 3D models from the web, because the backgrounds are total crap by comparisson. The gameplay is pretty bad. You shoot with the mouse and move with the keyboard. I consider Abuse the be the best game in that genre, and I was sick of it by the time the demo was over, much less the actual game. Abuse was too slow. Nikki is both too unresponsive and too slow. Ninja combat should feel quick and precise. It takes what feels like half a second between pressing the attack button and actually attacking. That's totally unacceptable. Ten times that fast is the minimum I'd consider for responsive feel. The problem could also be cleared up with some interim animations showing the wind up. At least I'd have some reason Nikki wasn't attacking quickly and could use the animation to gauge whether I should follow through on the swing or jump away. I could go on all day about improvements that could be made to Nikki, and it's tempting because the game has enough decent ideas to make it worth saving, but I should probably just get back to making my own games.
Duke Nukem: Waiting Forever
It's a fan game by the same guy (or guys) that did Nikki. It's pretty similar in style, but with no free 3D models, the characters are pretty cheesy. I'm going to say this once. If you can't draw, simplify your graphics enough to where it looks like you meant them to be that way. See my earlier demo for an example of this principle in action. If I can do it, pretty much anyone can.
Well, that's it for now. I'm going to try to cut back on the playing and focus on the developing now. If Mike's around, I'm sure we'll give you a Joint Ops screen or two, and like I promised, there'll be some opinions on bypassing bad guys in my next update.
Here's Straights of Mallac (or Mallaca, the server browser and load screen have different names). It's a sniper paradise with lots of hilly islands. Well, maybe it's not a paradise. A paradise would also include no pesky vehicles. :) But I had a pretty good time on it.
Let the calvalcade of kills commence!
I was really surprised how easy sniping turned out to be after all the complaints I'd heard about it being nerfed (made so ineffective it would be like using a nerf gun) after the expansion came out. I generally just find a good vantage, use the binoculars to get ranges, and go to town. As long as no one is nearby, I can rack up quite a few kills. In fact, here's a double.
Two kills with one bullet: for the army on a budget.
400 meters seems to be the preferred range as it's still close enough to hit slow or unmoving targets, and it's really hard for someone with a regular rifle to shoot back and actually hit anything.
Oh, here's one I took when Mike and I were playing. Some people just don't take the hint. Mike had just blown up a copter on the launchpad, but that didn't stop these nitwits from trying to take off.
Kerflooie!
This is definitely too serious. Even my ten kill knife run isn't very interesting. I won't bother with any other Joint Ops posts unless I get really great, goofy photos.
In other gaming news I tried a couple more freeware games (brought to my attention by tigsource.com, I believe).
Neko
Control a cute kitty and fight bad animals with your yarn ball arsenal. It has pretty good graphics, but the feel is off. You move very slow. I suppose that's expected from a bipedal cat. But you jump very high. Weird. You also jump off of climbing ropes at warp speed for no apparent reason. The level design seem basic but effective. It kept me moving forward by giving me at least a couple different tasks to keep track of. Collect all the milk. Collect yarn for ammo. Use special yarn powers to get buy impassible terrain. Yarnify bad guys or just pass them by. I actually liked the fact that there were more than a few bad guys you could bypass. More about that in my next update.
Nikki the Ninja
Some guy using a game maker utility made this and the next game. The foreground art is 3D. My guess is it's free 3D models from the web, because the backgrounds are total crap by comparisson. The gameplay is pretty bad. You shoot with the mouse and move with the keyboard. I consider Abuse the be the best game in that genre, and I was sick of it by the time the demo was over, much less the actual game. Abuse was too slow. Nikki is both too unresponsive and too slow. Ninja combat should feel quick and precise. It takes what feels like half a second between pressing the attack button and actually attacking. That's totally unacceptable. Ten times that fast is the minimum I'd consider for responsive feel. The problem could also be cleared up with some interim animations showing the wind up. At least I'd have some reason Nikki wasn't attacking quickly and could use the animation to gauge whether I should follow through on the swing or jump away. I could go on all day about improvements that could be made to Nikki, and it's tempting because the game has enough decent ideas to make it worth saving, but I should probably just get back to making my own games.
Duke Nukem: Waiting Forever
It's a fan game by the same guy (or guys) that did Nikki. It's pretty similar in style, but with no free 3D models, the characters are pretty cheesy. I'm going to say this once. If you can't draw, simplify your graphics enough to where it looks like you meant them to be that way. See my earlier demo for an example of this principle in action. If I can do it, pretty much anyone can.
Well, that's it for now. I'm going to try to cut back on the playing and focus on the developing now. If Mike's around, I'm sure we'll give you a Joint Ops screen or two, and like I promised, there'll be some opinions on bypassing bad guys in my next update.
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