Memoirs of a Grizzled Gamer

Fixing Battleground Europe AKA World War II Online!

2008-07-15T08:53:00.001-07:00

Hello dear readers, I appologise deeply for the seven month gap between updates and all but life in general and what not.

Recently, I resubbed to WW2OL which is the daddy of the rare genre known as the massively multiplater first person shooter. For those who don't know what it is about, it is a Iron Man Realistic FPS based on the early war European Front with the BEF and a non certain heavily fortified wall obsessed French Army against the German Wehrmacht. Said MMO is made by a small Independent Studio called Cornered Rat Software (An apt name considering the juggernaughts of the MMO Industry like Blizzard, Cryptic and SOE to compete against) a small ground of Programmers in good old Texas.

Now, I love WW2OL. It is incredibly unique, a combination of pure PVP, FPS and Realism with a huge dash of Flight, Tank and Navy Sim combined. Alas, it has problems. Monitor punching, desk breaking instant unsubscription causing problems that has kept this gem limping in second lane when, egad things like PlanetSide and SWG get more attention. This little list is my own way of coping with such problems, I am sure CRS and Battleground Europe will eventually get there day if the MMO Industry keeps bombarding us with low shoddy fantasy MMO's.

Scale Down The European Front Slighty:

Now, looking at the in game map I noticed that a huge chunk of lower France, east Germany and the Netherlands don't have ANY roads, towns, cities, villages or factories due to the fact by now it is established where most of the action in Western Europe takes place (the game is currently fighting the War for the forty fifth time now) so I propose a little shaving and shelving off of those abandoned areas of Europe until the Western Front is re-populated to the point where it is needed. This will relieve the server and everyones load times a little bit. Other ways of transport that won't encourage camping or cheap gameplay like having trains and cars with limited amounts of fuel that won't spawn would be also be a good idea on cutting back the tiring trecks around this moon-esqe landscape to find action.

Upgrade The Graphics:

The Graphics are the game, whilst not being as bad as when the game first started out in 1999, are to the casual gamer about as appealing as a plate of Mash Potato. They aren't terrible, you can put up with them and focus on the gameplay but lets face it even todays low end PC and Server systems can handle nicely detailed and smooth polygons and Bitmaps, heck EVEN Physics. I suggest working on the terrain first followed by Infantry models and finally things like buildings, weather and the huge amount of vehicles at last. It would be nice not to lag slightly when zooming in on my Rifles iron sights to make my kill with these graphics I would admit, thus costing me precious seconds of reaction time.

Installing VOIP:

Lets face it. TeamSpeak is a hassle to set up and after finally passing numerious anti-opposing front spy checks and registering one won't use the damn thing when he finds out only fifty people are using it when he plays. Get a seperate company to code in the software at the same time. Once this is fixed the game will see a lot more people working together instead of lone wolfing, getting fed up and unsubscribing. Bonus points if a SFX of old fashioned radio cracking signify people activating it in game. People will actually crew Tanks, Planes and Boats because they can communicate and react much quicker.

Improving the UI and Web Site:

The WW2OL Website is another brilliant bonus for the game, who doesn't love checking out detailed combat statisitics, getting medals and reading about your kick ass killing spree in the nicely done Newspaper which reports the progress of the campaign, what is being researched and produced and how bad the Kill/Death ratio for your Army is. However, this could be improved greatly with more detail and letting the Generals of each army proof read and submit player stories and reports .

The game UI is also slightly clunky. It takes forever to figuire out where to find action for a new player and pretty much kicks the whole crewing system up the ass by being an obscure out of the way panel at the spawn screen. The loading screens are cute with all this random WW2 Trivia combined with screenshots of the game and War era images but there are too few of them. And the music, god! Have some different tracks of the old war era music.

Encouraging Team Work:

Team Work in this game is budding but strugging, the temptation to go lone wolf is incredibly great. Of course, it ends up with you getting killed seconds later. Encourage soldiers to group up or at least pair with a soldier with a Rifle or SMG if you have a AT Rifle for back up. Have Soldiers of a certain rank auto-mark their killers when they die, let Officers give certain buffs that give soldiers a tiny bit more stamina when it comes to damage and speed. Give points to players working together on the field or crewing planes and tanks. The gesture system is cute, but map them to keys instead of .annoyingcommand because typing things out in FPS games gets the unwary killed very easily. Add some voice commands too, like a certain less realistic WW2 Online FPS and give CO's a Battlefield 2 esqe ability to draw on the map.

Drop the Credit Card Required Option for the Free Trial:

People like an easy to download and play game CRS, so drop the annoying issue for people to put credit card details to play. To some more paranoid people, this seems suspicious whilst other lazy people will just shrug and close the browser. If you wish to stop people abusing free trials just keep track of IP addresses or E-Mail addresses instead. More people will play the trial and consider getting account if they can just download, register and boot up.

As I type this, CSR works hard in making this game better than before and they are doing very well considering the fact this game is now 7 years old. With Unity II on the way and a Chinese Release hopefully they will scrape enough cash together to make a few more epic changes and pull in a few thousand more players. When that happens, maybe they will eventually release the infamous North African, Pacific or Soviet Fronts onto our desktops.

Team Fortress 2 Maps: Likes and Dislikes!

2008-01-24T03:46:00.000-08:00

The thing for todays update is this. After playing TF2 for a month, spending most of my time on the default VALVE maps (Only a few custom maps that are not an eyesore/badly released/custom gimmicks are worth mentioning at the moment) it is time for me to spill my guts (not really, My keyboard is crap as it is these days) and tell the interweb what I like, dislike and wish to see on these battlefields of comical gruesome genocide.

Name: cti_2fort

My Likes: Ah, 2fort. One of my personal favourites and one of the only official Capture The Flag type maps VALVE has seen fit to bestow apon the TF2 community. Based on the classic Quake Era of Team Fortress with a new interior and exterior look that fits the style of TF2 like a glove as a deranged Pet Detective once said and despite the clean sterile look in the picture, soaked with the blood of many who defy me. Why do I love 2fort? On a good server with a decent team, it is a map that can make a game last longer than the usual 20-15 minutes. This is however, also a bad bad thing I'll cover below too. The old school game mode and time extension are not the only plusses. I love how VALVE decided to give us several ways in getting into the enemy base as a lovely fuck you to all those annoying campers out there.

Seeing as I mainly a Pyro Class player, 2fort is my favourite map to defend the base in simply because of the fact there is so many routes to ambush, hide and backtrack. Think you and your Heavy buddy is going to push through because our Engineers are stacking turrets somewhere outside our base? Wrong buddy. Not if I set you alight via dropping from the grate from the sniper deck interior space.

My Dislikes: The stalemate, Oh god the stalemate! Nothing is more annoying playing a game of 2fort where you have a team full of idiots on both sides. People seem to sometimes think that TF2 is HL2 Death Match. It isn't. Your kill/death ratio does not count. It is not on the scoreboard, so it doesn't count. Quit camping, and either be a Scout or Spy and blow up all those stacked freaking turrets now. Stalemates in all TF2 maps are bad, but a 2fort Stalemate can lead to hours of repitition which leads to boredom.

I also despise the fact the open decks of the fort appeal to the whiny kiddy bitch sniper every gamer has in hit. When you see more than 2 Snipers on the deck, or more against a single player panic, go Spy, stab and end the insanity.

Personally, I think 2fort should have another route added in and VALVE should make a slightly larger version for servers that go over 24. Also, more things to blow up plz :(. And living, gibbable chickens.

Name: cp_well

My Likes: Well might be my favourite control point map by look alone. A train yard that sort of reminds me of the good bit of the Blue Shift Half Like expansion between two factories. The battle for the middle control point is also amusingly epic, as you must not be also aware of being out flanked by enemy team members but you must awesome beware of the two trains of death. Nothing is more amusing (Or annoying) than falling prey to these vicious beasts because through the miricle of coding VALVE have made them appear when you least need them to.

The design of the map is also a haven for those Demoman and Soldier chappies who love to jump to higher places. You can easily get into the building for the middle point of the map to gain the advantage at the possible cost of scorched toenails or missing the odd ankle. This map is also chock a block full of places when an eagle eyed Engineer can set up his or her turret. My Sentry kill cherry was lost on this map, just outside to the left of the middle spawn. A Pyro met my level one turret. Sigh.

It also has some watery bits where Spies and Scouts can sneak through. The reason for the name in the first place. It also have huge fricking missles outside the HQ spawn rooms. Awesome.

My Dislikes:

This map is a pain in the ass if you want to be sniper. Seriously. The Battlements are oddly designed, as if they were thrown in at the last minute. Also, the chutes that lead to the moat have an irritating one way only feature. Once you go out, you stay out. A shame if you leap in after some Pyro BBQ's you. Also, like 2fort this map suffers sentry camping. Sentry camping is where several Engineers place turrets right on the door stop of the enemy HQ. Which is sort of, you know, unfair.

It wouldn't suck if the Battlements for snipers were not such a death trap. Aside from that, Well is pretty much an okay well balanced map. It could also do with a few more middle points, but that could go under an extension sort of thing.

Name: cp_granary

Another control point map, which takes place at a Granary Silo. Which is pretty unique place to fight a violent epic battle. It also full of Cargo Containers, another VALVE art fetish from the days of Half Life. Those Cargo Containers are easy to access with the right kind of jump. Like well, it shares the same sort of design. Neutral point in the middle, Red and Blue base at the far top and bottom. In fact, I admit when I first started playing this map and well I kept mixing the two up. It is a common mistake.

This map is gold for Soldiers and Heavies, as death is impossible to escape from the wide sweeping corridoors. The Snipers also have a few choice places to snipe from. Also, it wouldn't be a map set in the Half Life universe without vents to crawl around, which makes Spy infiltration a lot easier. The middle neutral control point of the map is the perfect battleground for the epic Scout Rush. Plenty of cover to hide behind and jump on.

Dislikes: None. Seriously. Granary is the perfect map for a quick TF2 fix, It looks good and adheres to classic map design. No class is gimped on this map. All it needs is the odd pile of grain you can trample into the bloody corpses of your slain foes for the lol.

Name: cp_dustbowl

My Likes: Another Quake era map redone for the fans, Dustbowl is a map of tension and bloody conquest in dusty late gold rush eras mines. The map is devided into several different areas which can be unlocked if the Red teams advances against the Blu team by capturing the single point. Blu team can win by simply keeping the Red team back as the clock counts down. Like Gravel Pit, teams should be stacked by the classes of the offensive or defensive varieties with Blu and Red.

Visually, the map is excellent. It however, could do with a little bit more bloom. Dustbowl is THE map for close combat. If you want to kill a guy with a melee weapon, this is your map. The best section, in my opinion for the map is the second one with the mine and the little outpost outside it. Players here can easily perfect their skills as Demomen as Medic, as either class is a must for both sides during the game.

Each little section also has an alternate route for attack, which like always is quite handy.

My Dislikes: The first section. The control point is simply too close to the spawn point. Seriously. A short walk away. In other words, a good offence can simply sweep away what little defence is assembled because of the BLU team is trying to camp the main spawn point entry way. This doesn't work, becuase they forget the side entry point and the small canyon entry point. Moving that point back a little would make the map last longer on certain rounds.

Name: cp_gravelpit

My Likes: This is one of the new boys, a different type of control point compared to the simple go to a point and stand there. Gravel Pit, a map set in a quarry somewhere Midwest America needs you to take a certain point first. To unlock one of the other points, or both. In other words, this map promotes pure offence or pure defence. In other words, hardcore Heavies, Demomen, Pyro, Soldiers and Medic will love this map. Sniper, Engineers or Spies will not.

Point A, B and C are completely unique. All the CP are in structures, from easy to defend (Point B, which is usually the bloodiest of the map) to the hardest to defend (Despite being on a tower, a simple Pyro can easily ruin every defenders day ontop of Point C). A series of tunnels and the odd warehouse leads to all areas of the map which hosts the points which leads to some interesting ways of getting there (Go the riskier bloody route, or attempt a sneak attack with a spy?)

Gravel Pit is also one of those maps scattered with handy bits of cover of both sides, because, you WILL need it. Especially if you are the attacker. Demomans grenades love bouncing off stuff, including the odd rock and landing at their own masters feet.

My Dislikes:

Turrets should not be allowed to be built ontop of point B's freaking roof. That is annoyingly unfair, since it makes cover worthless. I don't mind death from above from the rockets of some Soldier or a Snipers bullet, but a Level 3 turret just makes the grinding assault annoyingly worthless. Also Valve, do something about Point C. At least make the platform on the top a little bigger.

Name: tc_hydro

My Likes:

Hydro is a biiiiig map. Really big map. Several different maps combined with one. It also has another VALVE art staple. A Dam, A Dam that suspiciously looks like the one in Half Life. You know the one. Territorial Control is an interesting sort of gameplay mode. Red and Blu team own half the map and are given a random section to right in at the start of the game. This happens until most of the map is taken. To do this, you must take the singe control point on the enemies team while guarding yours. This map is one of the most unique in my opinion, and Hydro maps when both teams have decent skill can take the longest or next to 2fort, most likey to end in sudden death themed Stalemates.

I can't quite pin down the area I like of this map. It is the one with the dish ontop and the CP inside, where you can attack the enemy CP from the slope or go into the bedrock of the canyon. I suspect a lot of VALVE artists had Half Life waves of nostalgia. I wouldn't be surprised if Red and Blue were fighting over construction rights of Black Mesa it very self.

Demomen players will espcially lover the interior control point node areas of the map.

My Dislikes:

With a really poor team, Hydro is not fun. But that is pretty much true in most maps. I have no other dislikes for Hydro really. This map must have got the most attention during design because it has areas for everything. Heights and cover for Soldiers and Heavies with ze Medic, narrow rock corridoors for the Pyro, nice little bits of cover for Snipers and Sentries to hide and plenty of alternate routes for Spies to cloak and sneak though.

The only bit of improvement I suggest is adding a new area, where we're fight ontop of the very Dam it self.

In the future, when Badlands and Goldrush are released, I'll do an extension for this article and bring up a few of the best custom maps for TF2 as well.

The DO's and DO NOT Rules of Assassination

2008-01-19T17:49:00.000-08:00

Dear all ICT Agents, due to some rather disturbing and not at all amusing incidents that certain several agents have committed (47 is not the only guilty party, Agent 69) we shall hear by publish the list of incidents that have been committed and criticise them extremely. Many Bothans died to give us this information. If some of you remember, we hired you to kill them.

It is advised after the incident of Agent 22, humming Weird Al's 'I think I am a clone now around 47 is suicidal. ICT does not cover for losses of life of this kind.

Corpse Disposal:

DO:

Tuck discreetly out of sight from prying eyes that may alert the authorities or your contact.

DO NOT:

Play with them and place them in a series of poses indicating sexual conduct. Just because they were mostly bad people doesn't mean their carcasses are giant rag dolls for your amusement. This includes you, 47!

Be ware the discovery of a corpse in most instances will be a bad bad thing. Rarely will your Targets goons shrug and go back to picking their noses and will instead flee, increase security procautions or actually start looking for you.

The following areas are bad for corpse disposal: In plain open sight, sprawled infront of a window, left laid infront of a door and infront of your target and his security.

Is it really mature for paid grown Assassins to do this?

Disguise and Infiltration:

DO:

Adapt a disguise of somebody close to or unsuspected by your clients target by any means possibly necessary.

DO NOT:

As much as people hate Christmas these days as well as Children, killing the local shop Father Christmas and taking his clothes does not at all help you with your mission and make you unsuspected to acts of murder. All it does it make you stick out like a sore thumb and give children and survivors horribly festivity themed nightmares. Keeping your weapon hidden also is a big help, Santa rarely packs heat these days.

Please remember, if you are going to dress like this remember the missing details. Like the beard, lack of gun and scent of death.

Also note, dressing up as somebody who is a different race will not cut it these days. Criminal Syndicates are not as racially diverse as we think, despite the times.

Please also note, that Metal Detectors do detect metal, but carring massive fucking bombs also arouses general suspicion. In the future, consider a convinient window with a semi-filled Dumpster underneath.

Equipment:

Do:

Bring the best but lightest and most quiet your money can buy. Also, specialist equipment, compass and kevlar is a must.

Do Not:

Buy the fucking Minigun. You are a HITMAN, not the Terminator.

Please remember, despite the fact the ICT allows a certain freedom when equiping yourself for a mission that in Assassination, being sublte is the greatest weapon. That and having the sense to not choose the largest, heaviest and loudest cannon on your gift list. It simply makes the job harder when you are trying to blend in with a massive Minigun on your person. The thing in my trousers excuse does not work.

Also make note that being cheap also does not cut it. Not every gun you will find on the dead corpse of your targets oddly large group of body guards will be loaded with an entire clip. Rare cases show that to cover the cost of such security, targets skimp on actual ammunition with the guns.

Kevlar is also a must if you are prone to amateur blunders. Please remember, that buying the helmet for emergencies is actually a good idea especially if your big pink bald slaphead with the barcode on the back is the easiest target to hit ever. Also, consider bringing a box of plasters to cover that thing up 47. It is amazing it has not been noticed yet.

Also, inform the ICT that you have been given our older models of portable buggy laptop computers as our early maps are horribly horribly useless. Getting lost is never a good idea when taking part in a hit.

Escape:

Do:

Slip out quietly, with target eliminated, most equipment bought or hired on your person with the suit without any unessiscary deaths.

Do Not:

Blast out of your former targets location, armed with the loudest most inaccurare assault rifle caked in blood wearing your boxes and screaming like an idiot without your equipment while wasting hundreds of SWAT teams and innocent people.

The ICT is and likes to be a mostly secret organisation due to the fact of todays modern ethics, however it sometimes is really hard to keep secret when we're constantly bribing for some of your Rambo-esqe mistakes. This is not the movies, Agents. Causing such emotional and physical damage makes ripples. Some ripples so damn expensive, we will eventually have to dump you all and just go into the Pastry business because Assassination is so damn tricky.

Nobody hires a crude noisy Assassin that draws attention to his or her self. They might as well do the bloody job yourselves. Remember, getting paid is more important than your body count in the next days newspaper.

The List

2008-01-14T05:21:00.000-08:00

A quick entry today folks, I searched the vast recesses of my memory and hammered out a crude list of games I've played and owned with the PC since 1998.

Boxed and STEAM games:
Theme Park.
Cannon Fodder.
Theme Hospital.
The Simpsons Cartoon Studio.
Discworld.
Gangsters 2.
Star Wars: Force Commander.
Commandos 2.
The Sims.
The Sims 2.
Cossacks: European Wars.
Cossacks: The Art of War.
Battlefield 1942 and Road To Rome.
Shogun Total War.
Mystery of The Druids.
Medievil Total War.
Jedi Knight Academy.
Rise of Nations.
Half Life 2.
Call of Duty.
Black and White.
Black and White 2.
Command and Conquer Red Alert.
Command and Conquer Red Alert 2.
Star Wars Galaxies.
Star Wars Galaxies Jump to Lightspeed.
Star Wars: Republic Commando.
Rome: Total War.
City of Heroes.
City of Villains.
Counter Strike Source.
HL2 DM.
Sid Meirs Pirates!
Warcraft III.
Warcraft III Frozen Throne.
Half Life Source.
Opposing Force.
Blue Shift.
Half 2 Episode 1.
Half Life 2 Episode 2.
Portal.
Team Fortress 2.
Cossacks 2.
Civilization I, II and IV.
Civilization IV War Lords.
Warhammer 40k Dawn of War.
SiN.
SiN Episode Emergence.
Final Fantasy 7.
The Ship.
Soldner.
Garrys Mod 10.
Il-2 Sturmovok.
American Conquest.
Red Orchestra.
Day of Defeat Source.
Beyond Good and Evil.
Morrowind.
KOTOR 1 and KOTOR 2.
Red Alert A Path Beyond.
Evil Genius.
Republic The Revolution.
Max Payne.
Max Payne 2.
Star Wars: Empire At War.
Star Wars: Empire At War Forces of Corruption.
The Movies.
Homeworld 2.
Halo.
Star Wars: Battlefront 2.
Battlefield Vietnam.
Baldurs Gate.
Planetside.
World War 2 Online.
FarCry.
Rollercoaster Tycoon 3.
Broken Sword 1 and 2.
Peggle.

Mods:
Forgotten Hope.
Fortress Forever.
Dystopia.
Battlegrounds 2.
Zombie Master.
Movie Battles.
Terrae Expugnae.
Pirate Ship Wars 10.
Steiners Mod.
SourceFORTS.
Amra Civ IV Mod.
Max Payne 2 Cinematic.
Galactic Conquest.
Zombie Panic SOURCE.

Other:
Runescape.
Discworld MUD.

Yikes, that is a lot of games. A lot of good memories. Not counting my console games, because I barely remember half of them. I rented games when I could from the local DVD/Video Rental place in the past. Now to read a book and have a apple I think.

My love/hate relationship with Empire At War

2008-01-11T04:52:00.000-08:00

I love Star Wars, it aside from books and gaming was one of the first things I geeked out on as a kid during the time they were digitally remastering the Original Trilogy in the cinemas. I sort of blame my father for taking me to see A New Hope for my 8th birthday a long time ago.

And I've supported my own love for the movies by buying a few games made by the once proud now sadly mediorce LucasArts. To be fair, I blame LA a lot for the decline of quality Star Wars games for becoming caught up in the marketing whoreage and hype of the silly bloody prequal movies. Between 2000 and 2005, an army of shoddily done games based on Jedi or the Clone Wars swept out from the HQ of LA and slapped limply against many different console formats and the PC. Many of us loyal fans saw these titles, wept and remembered fondly of X-Wing Versus TIE Fighter, Rogue Squadron or Jedi Knight II.

Knights Of The Old Republic and the slightly buggy sequal have been the ONLY hits in these last couple of years.

One of the biggest Star Wars Gaming mistakes was Star Wars Galaxies, as you have already heard from me. Another brillaint but slightly blundered title is Empire At War, a RTS set during the original trilogy of the Galactic Civil War era of Star Wars. Now, Empire At War doesn't suck. It can be quite entertaining, but there are certain bits made of fail that SHOULD have been fine tuned a little more by the game developers, or scrapped and remade immediatly. Sadly, EaW was part of the last minute marketing for Revenge of The Sith along side the dismal Battlefront 2 and ROTS game. Bugger.

Read on and discover the nitpicks:

Space doesn't work that way!:

Empire at Wars main selling point was suppose to be the epic space battles between the two factions, and for sure these battles can be visually impressive as possible. In the game, named ships can impressively barrage and with detail cause massive chunks of debris to be blown off each other. However, space is oddly strange. Why? BECAUSE SPACE IS GODDAMN LAND BATTLES WITH SPACE SKINS. For some silly, insane and cheap reason LA decided that space didn't need fancy physics like the options for ships to move up or down or have space look and feel like space. Extra annoyingly, they put a frigging grid underneath to remind us we're playing a reskinned land battle with different units. Also, space sometimes can visually be impressive but every battle it is just you, a few tiny Asteroid fields and some odd crappy Nebula randomy littered around. Ugh. Fail. Also, tactics are yawningly simple. Attack the shield generator/hanger hard points then dominate with numbers.

Lack Luster Land Battles:

Land Battles in EaW can sometimes be a pain in the ass. If you are the attacking or defending forces. To win/lose a Land Battle you really just need to have superior numbers attacking or defending. Just get/save the shield Generator, then swamp all the defence points with your units. If you or the enemy have a hero, they must be the first thing over whelmed. Fighting against the Native Units is also equally annoying at times for both sides, since Native Militia are about as useful as an ice cream in the Sahara Desert. The maps too are sometimes too small or the same for some planets. At least, visual wise they don't suck that much.

Awkward Unit Animations:

Land Battle Units seem to walk and act painfully sloooooow, even when they die and about that, using the same death animation where they fall down slowly at the same time is really cheap LA. Couldn't even afford to knock up some crude ragdoll physics at least for the Infantry? for shame. All I can say is, a times thank god there is a button that speeds combat up. Units visually, are alright thankfully unless you have an awful graphics card.

Balance with the factions:

Ah, Balance. A curse on all Star Wars games. The Rebel Alliance traditionally is suppose to be the under equipped old tech using much smaller underdog of the SW Universes but because gaming has to be fair for both sides these days, certain liberties with canon sadly have to be made. That means new units and tech pulled out from nowhere, instead of being edapted from the EU or other movies. Amusingly enough, they do this for the Expansion with the Criminal Tyber Zahn faction but in vanilla EaW prepare to see a few new things like the Tartan Patrol Cruiser, Space Rocket Launchers and that fucking unholy Rebel Artillery unit. At least in space, the Rebels and Empire have the proper advantages. While the Empires Star Destroyers can deal a bitching amount of damage, the Alliance have heavy shielding and fighters not made out of cardboard.

Slow AI:

The AI, unless you are playing on Hard is insanely slow and easy going. They rarely mount a attack on your forces on the reason that they usually pool all their ships into a single fleet and more or less jump randomly from planet to planet. In space or land defence, they can easily be overwhelmed in numbers. The AI cannot be blamed though, since in space or land tactical choices are pretty limited to spamming with numbers or abilities.

So why do I install and play these games? For the feel. Despite game wise, they can be poor at times EaW has the atmosphere that appeals to all Star Wars fans. The music, the symbolic clips from the films, the battlefield on the planets looks and the fact you get to control Darth Vader or the Emperor on a one man slaughter fest. Damn LA for being cheap and simply appealing to the fanboys in us all.

At least, EaW was a very good modding community that unlocks hidden content, improves units stats or animations or simply reinvents the game in total to something a hundred times better than the original vanilla games. Mods like Steiners Mod, or Phoenix Rising for example. So in the final word, EaW is okay, but get it when you know a series of good mods have been released. It would be so worth it to play EaW with a Mod than the sadly slow and dull vanilla version.

A Casual Look At Team Fortress 2 Classes

2007-12-31T03:42:00.001-08:00

Right, Now that I have spent several hours of game time in total playing TF2, racking up my stats and exploring the maps I can now knock up several anecdotes about this comedy genius fragfest now. First, we'll tackle the classes.

Before we begin, all classes have been grouped in a specific order of what their talents might be best at. This doesn't mean the Pyro is exclusive for defence of the Sniper is a pansy in one on one combat. Lets start with Offensive, Defensive and finally support.

The speciality of the offensive classes is quite simple, you must push forwards for victory towards your objective. Or in laymans terms, pwn hard and fast without stopping. A good game has a nice balanced mix of Offensive and Defensive classes with a few Supports mixed in. The Offensive classes will see most of the map and action, as well as a huge amount of their own gibs being gurned over by their oppoment.

Defensive, a no brainer again what these guys do. They keep the bad guys that fragged the offensive dudes from pushing forward. These guys are the wall that protect the capture points or intelligince from being taken. A balanced offence and defence is a must for any game.

Support, These guys do little jobs that help the team, from sniping chokepoints to healing to sneaking behind enemy lines making a mess of their suits these guys are very useful when the a stalemate occurs.

The Heavy:

Strengths:

Lays down a huge column of supressive fire, shouts happily, best melee kill.

Weaknesses:

His own damn speed, fast spies and snipers with fetishes for slow bald men carring heavy guns. Demoman Stickies.

Ah, The Heavy. One of the first. First in the trailer, first into battle and usually the first to headshotted because of his bloody speed. Everyone loves the Heavy, despite the fact they call him fattie. Maybe it is because he is so damn happy with what he does and his simple devotion to his comrade, the Medic and his massive Minigun which he nicknames Sasha. Playing the Heavy is simple, you just need to know where to role and have good skills when it comes to shooting things. A simple tip for new players out there, you can wind your gun up AND fire at the same time. I took me two days to figuire this out.

One of the reasons why my STEAM stats state I have played the Heavy the longest isn't simple devotion, it is the fact for a man of his size and wielding a great big metal gun the Heavy is REALLY REALLY slow. Don't expect to get to the frontline to dramatically alter the course of the battle, unless an Engineer has built a Teleporter. Best taunt? His Shotgun one.

The Scout:

Strengths:

Run, running, jump doge jump, capture point and grab intelligince.

Weaknesses:

Engineers Sentry Guns, Demoman sticky bombs anything really that can cause more than 10 damage a second.

Speed man! Speed, the life of a scout is ususally a short one with either sucess or bitter defeat. You are built for being small, irritating and very hard to hit. Never underestimate a Scout in combat but never assume as a Scout you are invincible. The Levered Scattergun the primary weapon of the Scout is hard hitting but it is nothing compared to the shame of being boinked to death by a Scouts Baseball Bat.

Scouts in capture maps have very few uses, usually at the start of the game or when the enemy team seems to have a crap slow defence. Their real strengths show in maps where Intelligince must be nabbed. Scouts also can capture a CP the fastest, because they count as two players instead of one. So being fragile is worth such a handy talent. Scouts also have this lovely ability called double jump, which I must say is very useful unless you are playing on a very laggy server. All the other classes are failures in the art of the jump, but Scout here has not only mastered height but the ability to change direction in jump too. Awesome.

Best taunt? Either his Scattergun or Baseball bat over the body of a fragged foe.

The Soldier:

Strengths:

Blast Things with Rockets, juggle, jump and possibly sing! And the rocket jump.

Weaknesses:

Fire, explosions and his own Rocket Launcher sometimes.

MAGGOTS! You feel like screaming this out yourself, launching a small barage of rockets at your enemies feet, reloading and then accidentally gibbing yourself into a small light red stain on the concrete floor of the cap point. The Soldier is the jack of all, trades, master of none. It is just you, and your rockets soldier. Of course, that isn't a bad thing. With rockets, you have the highest chances of gibbing the poor suckers on the receiving end. A critical hit on an enemy with a rocket is as glorious as a firework. Just remember, to shoot at the baddies feet first.

A Soldier is excellent for bombardment, clearing out campers and sentry guns and of course, frontal assaults. The best taunt? His melee weapon one. Warms the blood up for killing.

Appearinces wise, the Soldier is quite neat. But everyone loves a good helmet, eh? There is an old saying on the battlefield Soldier, if a Medic can't get a Bull he'll grab a Sheep. Meaning, if there isn't a Heavy around and the Medic is almost charged, you have the luck of being god for about ten seconds in the game. Use it wisely old boy.

The Pyro

Strengths:

Burning. Burning things. People. Building. And runs away a lot.

Weaknesses:

His fellow Pyro, really fast Scouts, Engineers Sentries and open spaces.

The weakest of all three Offensives, The Pyro needs a man with a brain to play him. First thing is first, running out in the open with a flame throwers makes your look like an idiot if there isn't a narrow opening, a team mate or a tunnel to hide in. You need to ambush and BURN your enemy, not get gibbed buy every single weapon on the opposing teams side in an instant. It really can be embarassing. When playing a Pyro, the term patience is a virtue does come to mind. Stalk, hide, ambush and harass the enemy until they burn to a crisp.

Pyros are excellent for sowing the seeds of chaos, especially over the control point. A single agile Pyro can ruin an entire effort in grabbing a point. Make that Pyro you. Pyros are the natural enemy of the Spy, since being cloaked is not flame resistint and the Pyro will enjoy wandering around the place looking for things to burn in his own way. He is a unique charactor, who has no nationality we can confirm and possibly a love to dressing up as a girl as strong as his love for fire.

The best taunt? Hard to choose, But I say his melee weapon one.

The Medic:

Strengths:

Being more agile than other classes, the ability to heal team mates, auto-heal and the uber charges.

Weaknesses:

Being a walking target for everything on the field of battle and the syringe gun.

Ah, The Medic. The legendary jodphur wearing German Mad Scientist Sterotype. A very useful class, the best friend of the Heavy and wieleder of the uber charge. Medics are essential for breaking through enemy lines and well, keeping your team mates alive because Medkits and Med Lockers are few and far between. Medics also heal when they are hurt, making them more durible than other classes on the field.

A good Medic needs good judgement skills and a good sense of direction. The beam of the Healing Gun can only go so far. Soldiers and Heavies are the guys that need the most healing in the heat of battle, as well as Dem0men. Heal Engies when you respawn. Don't bother healing Scouts if they don't stop, Spys because this will easily give their position away. Always heal any team mate on fire, because being set alight is such an inconvinience.

Interesting, the Medics bone saw melee weapon not only has one of the best taunts, but does the most damage in the game compared to the other melee weapons.

The Engineer.

Strengths:

Construction of Death Turrets, Teleporters and Dispensors.

Weaknesses:

Spys and their Sappers, Snipers and running out of metal.

The king of defence, the Engineer, especially when two of them work together should be feared and despised. Why? Because Engineers build turrets. Turrets that camp, and are allowed to camp. A level three twin chaingun turret with a missle launcher can ruin everyones day, unless they have been ubercharged by a Medic. A good Engineer needs to know his base off by heart, mainly the awkward hard to reace places that have excellent killing fields for his turrets. A good Engineer must also be brave and have the balls to leave his gun, go out into the frontline and plant a Teleporter somewhere to speed up slow dudes like the Heavy to get into the action quicker.

Medics must always be suspicious of odd types lurking in the base away from the battlefield. Especially if they stand anywhere near their turrets as their Natural foe, the Spy (Spyicious Sneakous) will stab them in the back, plant sappers causing their equipment to explode and laugh at them before nicking the Intelligince and leaving your base. Engineers can help the construction of their equipment by whacking them harder with their wrenches. Engineers can also recycle the weapons of the fallen for their turret and dispensor needs as well as the odd box of ammo lying around.

Best taunt, his Wrench taunt. Never seen a man so happy.

The Demoman:

Strengths:

Having grenades, being able to set traps with his Sticky Bomb Launcher and essential mastery of basic physics.

Weaknesses:

Lack of any weapon for close combat aside from his melee weapon, being a black scottish cyclops, RELOAD RELOAD GOD RELO-, and being the best choice for enemy Spys to immitate.

The Demoman is god, Always respect the Demoman. He is crusher of turrets, setter of clever but irritating sticky bomb traps and the only chap who can still spam his deadly grenades. The Demomans grenades should also be feared, because they don't do damage like a soggy brillo pad but infact cause death followed by gibs apon contact. The Demoman should be called if the Soldier fails at Sentry Gun removal. The Demoman uber charged by a Medic is fearsome, because he can now dance around his own explosions without any harm.

Not to say the poor chap has his faults. He is the right speed and usually, the right place in battle for a good Spy to copy. An Engineer won't blink is he spots a Demoman lurking around 2-Fort until he is knifed in the back. A Demoman, like the Soldier with his rocket jump, can use one of his bombs to jump to a higher place. Health and speed wise, the Demoman is the Medium of both.

The best taunt? His Pipe Bomb Grenade Launcher one. Nothing can counter that.

The Sniper:

Strengths:

The Scope of Zooming, Quick recharge, excellent secondary ranged weapon and mobile anti-Heavy defence.

Weaknesses:

Lack of Periphial Vision, Butterfly Knives to his back, Laser sight, enemy snipers with quicker reactions and being confused in a close quarters battle.

There is always one in any FPS game, a Sniper Rifle. The Sniper is an impressive class and very well balanced despite the deadliness of his bolt action rifle. His MP-40 looking Sub Machine gun is also very very good when it comes to close quarters combat and has a decent amount of ammo. Snipers may be more fragile than glass being the second weakest class but still put up one hell of a fight.

The charge bit of the Sniper Rifle is surprisingly easily, it does it by it self and is very fast. This however makes the dot of the laser sight very visible to your potential target. Lack all Snipers in all games, it is not common to get killed by something in close quarters because you are busy trying to pick off that nasty bugger of a Sniper on the other side of the map.

The best taunt? His Sniper Rifle one. So true.

The Spy

Strengths:

The deadly backstab, going Predator with cloak, the ability to disguise and the Magnum of death.

Weaknesses:

Knife is terrible for stabbing anything but the back, can't cloak if holding Intelligince, loses disguise if bumped into or shot by enemy and limited time to cloak.

The Spy, one of everyones favourite classes in TF2 because they are kings of humiliation and trickery. Nothing says pwned more than being humbled by a Spy because your fragging spree has kept you rooted to the same spot facing the same direction way longer than you should have. Good Spys must know where to go on maps and who to disguise as. It is obvious the main way out of the base is out, since everyone and their mothers are watching it on the opposite team. Cloak or not, splash damage of spammed rockets will get you.

Be clever, use alernate routes and get behind enemy lines before disguising. A quick work of warning, never disguise as the Spy or enemy Scout. Your speed will remain the same, and Engineers will shoot you for being a Spy whether you are wearing your colours or not. A clever spy can easily disassemble a ramshackle defence by sapping turrets and other Engineer equipment and kacking off their best players. The best Spy can be healed, then uber charged by an enemy Medic.

The Spy Magnum is deadly, two or three shots should be enough to dispatch your foe. Be careful with your cloaking and teleporting too. And the best taunt, his Magnum one after bloody combat.

So, that is it. Next TF2 update will be about the maps, my likes and dislikes of them and general pleas to VALVE for some more of them.

Christmas Gaming Bonanza!

2007-12-28T04:41:00.000-08:00

Oy vey, Christmas finished and my birthday and it seems I've been given quite a few requested games to waste time on and write about.

First off, The Crowning Jewl of the Set is The Orange Box. Despite being a few months late, I finally get all the Portal references people are dropping and indulge in heavy cartoon themed violence every now and then now. I am planning to play HL2 Episode 2 somewhat in the new year. I also received a Sold Out version of Broken Sword 1 and 2. Praise the gift givers! I've never actually played Broken Sword 2.

I also got Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 and the expansion. At last, it seems the gaming circle is complete seeing one of my first true PC Games was Theme Park in 1998. I am looking forward to opening my cheekily named Theme Park once more and erecting Rollercoasters I'd never ride in real life.

My Sisters received a copy of The Sims 2, which I will be borrowing when I can for a quick go. I remember the fun of the original, and I am pleased to see while peeking over my sisters shoulder a huge amount of change has happened, especially in the area of customisation.

I have also nabbed a Copy of Black and White 2, and the Empire At War expansion. So in the next few months, I'll be smashing things with a crowbar, being god, watching over my little Sim Families, creating my own Disney and taking over the Galaxy with crime. Action packed!

I'll update if I find/buy anymore games, but at the moment my biggest problem is HD space. Never be cheap with HD space with games these days, trust me, At least have a 100 Gigabyte HD minimum people!

Oh, and an amusing gem I dug up from SomethingAwful earlier for those interested. Apparently, the SA Goons (Or forum goers for those who don't read SA) MS Painted a series of game characters in their old age, sad yet greatly amusing:

http://www.somethingawful.com/d/comedy-goldmine/ms-paint-video.php?page=1

Quality Machinima I Like

2007-12-22T06:59:00.000-08:00

Entertainment these days is a funny thing, you will find more good things on the internet that the actual Television. One of the more original things is the gaming art of Machinima, which turns simple games where you shoot somebody in the head to something more artistic (Or really badly edited footage of you shooting somebody in the head in black and white online).

Like the Silver Age of Hollywood, Machinima has also begun to shine making us laugh, cry or cry wtf?!.

In this entry I am going to list a few notable single Machiis (I'm not sure what the proper term is for more than one, so I winged it) or Machinma series on the web with appropriate links. I'll also vaguely ramble about them enough to make them appealing enough to be checked out.

Rooster Teeth Productions AKA Red Versus Blue:

The guys (And eventually, girls) that started the mainstream modern movement of Machinima should get a little bit more recognition for more than just RvB. They've also done PANICS (A short series based on FEAR) The Stranger Hood (The Sims 2) and a series based on that Rubbish Fantasy Shoot 'Em Up Game.

In fact, they are so good god help any Machinima series where a character has the slighest trait from a character IN RvB (Despite the fact that characters in some Machinma have to act crazy because people don't make subtle animations in most games where you shoot bullets into people) that some fucking idiot will be leave a poorly spelt comment informing other viewers.

RvB is about two teams of Spartan armour wearing Marines stuck in the Blood Gulch map in an alternative timeline to the original HALO, Where they beat the nasty aliens and civil war began. Both teams are full of people who simply became soldiers because they could shoot guns, not because of their personalities. Nobody here is well adjusted. In fact, the characters of the infamous anime Neon Genesis Evangelion are hyper active and friendly compared to these guys.

The writing for RvB is very very good. There are moments that will make you laugh your head off, or nod in agreement. It is also one of the longest running Machinima ever. The series makes a leap from Halo to Halo 2 on the 3rd season and rumours are that RvB IF made will take place in Halo 3 with a different set of maladjusted future soldiers. The success of RvB is pretty awesome, because you can buy DVDs of the thing instead of spending hours on the internet looking for each episode. Which is a good idea, because the quality of the 1st series outside the DVD is pretty poor.

You can find Rooster Teeth's website here, Where they host some of the episodes of most of their machinima and the forums themselves.

http://rvb.roosterteeth.com/home.php

Lit Fuse Productions:

While RvB is the leading Machinima when it comes to Halo, Lit Fuse covers mainly Half Life 2 and several other VALVE games in their little portfolio. Lit Fuse was eventually conceived from several famous Posters of the HL2 GMOD Comic making community, PHW forums. Led by the plucky Michael and eccentric Steinmann, the team work hard to provide some quality stuff to watch.

The War Of The Servers, A two hour long War of The Worlds Parody set in Gmod is one of their best, other quality mentions are the excellent done Ignis Solus in Team Fortress 2 which is simply done easily using the games animations and the simple noclip STEAM console command. They also did Maintenance Man which is an amusing take on the events of early HL2 Episode 1 from the Combines POV and are working on the amusing Civil Protection series.

Lit Fuse Films are long and have a rather majestic soundtrack compared to the usual five minute bites of most web Machinima and are must sees for the obsessive VALVE/HL2 fans out there. Their Website hosts in site flash browsers and links to most of their materiel. I seriously suggest checking out Ignis Solus especially if you a TF2 Pyro fan. Lit Fuse also has a STEAM Community you can join if you want to help out somehow with their projects or just hang out.

http://litfusefilms.com/

The Janus Syndicate:

http://janus-syndicate.com/?page_id=5

While Lit Fuse is the big, bold and majestic son of HL2 Machinima, The Janus Syndicate are a smaller but more original grass roots movements. Old that Lit Fuse (They have been doing stuff since the original Counter Strike) the The Janus Syndicate which has been revived by quite a few FacePunch forum members and help focuses more on the humour spectrum of the HL2 Universe at large.

The JS work on Independent Projects from time to time, much like Lit Fuse but also have several rather interesting Machinma series under their belts. My favourite one of these is HL2 Mod Tod, where a man named Tod jumps plays an online HL2 Mod with his only friend, a mic and sort of reviews the mod amongst planned and accidental improvised comedy. The Janus Syndicate loves to parody things, even more than Lit Fuse as you will see if you watch Dirty Garry (A Gmod RP Dirty Harry Parody) and Dr Strangeman (A General HL2 Universe Pardody of Dr Strangelove).

The JS host all their works on YouTube, all links of which appear on their constantly updated website with a forum. They also have a very friendly STEAM Community you can join if you want to help or just hang out with them.

I also suggest checking out the first episode of The GMAD Squad too.

http://janus-syndicate.com/?page_id=5

Smooth Few Films:

One of the newer studios, Smooth Few Films currently are working on only two series at the moment, the Counter Strike Source based Leet World and something involving Halo 3.

The Leet World is interesting, Because Counter Strike Source is an untouched medium when it comes to long term Machinima. The premise with The Leet Word is quite simply, The Counter Terrorists and Terrorists taking part in a Reality Show. They live in the ramshacke house that is the Militia hostage rescue map. The Counter Terrorists and Terrorists each have a rather unique personality. They Producers use a mix of Counter Strike Source and GMOD 10 for filming, which gives them certain liberties like Lit Fuse and Janus Studios thanks to Mods and other stuff that can easily be put into the game.

I mentioned the Leet World at the start of the blog, but here is the website where you can watch or download most of their episodes. You can also find The Leet World on YouTube.

http://www.theleetworld.com/

The Horsemen of the Apocaypse the guys behind The Fortress:

These guys are quite new but they are also pioneers of independent TF2 Machinima, they have decided to do something quite unique for The Fortress. Instead of the series being about the characters in the game, it is sort of about the (voices) of the players playing the game, sort of RPing their parts in total. The series is quite unique, because due to the fact you will get people that in real life nothing like their TF2 counter parts (For example, A Woman plays The Heavy and amusingly, the guy playing the Scout class sounds just like him!). Sort of hardcore philosphy hidden amongst the witty humour.

The only thing The Fortress needs to improve is time (As well as maybe tone the camp factor down of the gay Engineer. Nothing wrong with being gay I am not at all homophobic, but dammit that sterotype is annoying).

These guys also have their own STEAM Community, as well as a forumsite where you can download their videos. Like The Leet World, most of their episodes are currently on YouTube.

http://www.team-brh.com/thefortress/

Nurdbots Guide To Online Mic Users

2007-12-19T16:15:00.000-08:00

In this modern broadbandtastic headshot a minute respawn a second word of online gaming, we don't have time like we used to type OMG YOU HACKER into the six line sized box that is public chat in online gaming. Yes, thanks to the rise of technology these days gamers would rather use a mic with or without a headset, instead of replying in the distracting method of typing out or using pre-recorded voice commands to inform the team that their collective asses were being kicked.

At last, you can finally scream through your cheap three pound mic with relish and accuse somebody of being a hacking fag slut, with your speakers on high, hand on chest and TK macro at the ready. I myself, thanks to the last few years of casual gaming on STEAM game servers have researched, rechecked, tore up, fabricated, tore up and finally released a list of the several categories of the most infamous of Mic users in the gaming battlefields. Read on and learn, my unwashed masses!

Captain Tactical Strategy:

Captain TS is a strange creature, he is a man who knows from the deep pit of his soul that he himself can only lead his fellow gamer into winning the game by using teamwork, following his orders and doing the objective. Sadly, Captain TS is also extremely naive thinking that his fellow public server gamers are a team of loyal, hard thinking and intelligent group of people instead of lone wolf assholes with the suicidal urges of a Lemming high on quality speed wearing Rollerskates while visiting Dover for the Weekend.

And for that, he will, most of the time be ignored by fellow gamers much to his dismay and frustration. Sometimes, he will even get aggressive and lose his cool picking fights with other players, arguing over against fellow Mic users or text types alike. He usually is either a guy who was once the leader of a rather decent amateur Professional Clan in the old Quake or CS era of gaming or less commonly an actual Military Officer in real life who is a gamer.

The Master DJ:

His name does what it says on the tin, The Master DJ loves music and WILL share it with you throughout the entire game, piping it through his microphone either for an application made for playing music in the game online or (god help you) forgoing quality and playing a cheap CD Player really loud next to his mic on the desktop. The man rarely speaks himself, too busy rocking out with his cock out while everyone trying to communicate in attempts to beating the opposite team is being drowned out by the latest POS that is in the charts or some awful Techno rubbish.

Master DJ actually has a sense of humour, and sometimes will even grant requests to friendly players on the server. Oddly enough, the Master DJ has an evolutionary spin off, the LAWL Master DJ. The LAWL Master DJ plays sound, either clips or actual rather embarrassing music from a series of Internet memes. He will also attempt failing at being ironically funny too. It is theorised he is the offshoot of the Token Internet Asshole and Master DJ's mother.

The Token Asshole:

Like everything else with humanity involving something more than a single person, there is an asshole in the online mic using gaming community. The Token Asshole is usually a 14 year old teenage male, or a male in his late thirties. Both share the same common affliction of not shutting the fuck up and hanging themselves. The Token Asshole, has one objective. To annoy everyone for laughs.

How they do this, is in a variety of ways. From barking out random offensive and racist terms as casual and loud as if it was the thirties again over the mic, to screaming, screeching, farting, arguing with their mothers or in general creating an echo with their speakers on purpose. They will not care for you, the team or even the game they are playing. We suspect now these people have decided their ultimate aim in the universe is to be banned from every online game ever to gain the crown of King Asshole.

The TA loves to piss off Captain TS, Constantly accusing him of being a different sexuality over the mic, pettily arguing with him or just drowning him out so the game can be lost quicker. The Internet asshole almost has a creepy modern day Michael Jackson effect with the Kid.

The Kid:

Considering parents these days are quite liberal and gaming appeals to almost everyone now, It isn't usual you will get the odd visit or two by The Kid, his voice when using the mic instantly tipping off how old he is in a second. Now, remember to go easy on the fellow. Yeah sure, your age you were more interested in cartoon and not going to school but this guy could become a
pro-gamer or hardcore modder in the future. So to be space, be cool with him.

The Kid is usually quite competent at times and gets along great with everyone. He however, has two major down sides. The first is, being a child, he is quite impressionable and chances are he'll become friends with the Internet Asshole, who teaches him that is quite all right to keep dropping the N-bomb and using other colourful language on the mic during the game us quite fair and fun. He also rarely has a hot sister in her late teens, willing to kick him off, take over and talk on the mic.

Negative Dude:
Woe betide if you can hear the Negative Dude, woe to you more if he is on your team because being the delightful confident and patriotic person he is will keep informing that A, we're losing and B, we suck because we are losing. Amusingly enough, Negative Dude himself is rarely above average in such situations and refuses to acknowledge the fact the reason the team is losing is because he is sapping morale, will not shut up and generally sounds funny.

However, the Negative Dude can actually, but rarely sort of cheer up when he is certain things are going the teams way he is on. If not, he'll usually just switch sides to the opposite team who immediatly begin to lose horribly.

Foreign Guy:

This one is usually quite rare, the Foreign Guy is simply a poor soul who has wondered into a random server and is speaking his langauge fluently not getting until it is too late that the server he has joined doesn't have a major multi-lingual population. You yourself can easily become the Foreign Guy if you join a server which is clearly marked by the name as a French/Spanish/German/Chinese speaking server. Sadly, Foreign Guys who can't speak or type english yet use the mic are destined to be kicked for the amount of confusion it could cause. We know a majority of gamers have trouble understanding the basic commands of online gaming in english after all.

The Foreign Guy is the second favourite target of the internet asshole, hopefully however foreign guy has no idea what the hell the Internet Asshole is saying to him.

Documentary: Rise of the Video Game

2007-12-18T14:25:00.000-08:00

A short post today readers, but a rather interesting one.

The Discovery Channel recently has begun airing a several part documentary basically about the history of the electronic game. This little program of around forty minutes covers the creation of gaming as secret hobbies of Cold War Technicians right up to to days multi-million dollars industry.

The program is full of some very interesting tidbits not even Wikipedia knows (Until some anal person puts them in the thing at least) like the origin of why Pacman was Pacman and how the September the 11th Terrorist Attack helped the War Gaming platform. A lot of key players of gaming are interviewed in the program too.

I have the Veoh Links here, each link is a full episode that requires you to register with Veoh and download their player (Both are free and not at all buggy). They are worth watching indeed.

Level 1:
http://www.veoh.com/videos/v1571248E3fqmwNW
Level 2:
http://www.veoh.com/videos/v15720553SxXjfCh
Level 3:
http://www.veoh.com/videos/v1622155ymCZMYQC
Level 4:
http://www.veoh.com/videos/v1641365kTByTTtJ

Mod Play: Empires 2.0

2007-12-17T14:02:00.001-08:00

Yes boys and girls, it it is time once more for another edition of Mod Play!

I have a gun! At last! Now world, you put YOUR hands up!

Name: Empires 2.0

Game: Half Life 2.

Type: Multiplayer FPS/RTS Hybred.

War! Hah! Good God, What is it good for? Fun apparently...

Now Empires has a small history, It was originally a Battlefield 1942 Mod which would explain the slight resemblance to the Models, The grid map and the diverse list of user friendly mechanised killing machines which you don't usually see much bigger than a few vehicles in your average HL2 Mod. Vehicles aside from the Buggy and Air boat were rare in HL2 mods because of the SOURCE engine at the time, but the Mod as you can see has worked around such problems and benefitted greatly with a huge amount of engine upgrades since 2004.

Soldiers in Empires are attracted to free ammoz like gazelles to watering holes.

The FPS bit is also quite BF1942-esqe. You and your fellow grunts must capture the Refineries dotted around the map while icing as much as the enemy possible with various weapons and vehicles. The RTS bit, with the Commander, places buildings down, organises the Squads of Infantry to actually do something instead of the usual anarchy in these sort of games for rewards that unlock the further skills for their classes (we'll get into that in a little bit) and help win the game for their side. The Commander (Who at the start of each round is elected) also has a RTS view of the entire map without fog of war inside his own vehicle, the Command Vehicle. If this is eliminated, the game is lost. Destroying the Command Vehicle is one of the easier ways to win a game. The other is to simply smash the opposite teams tickets down to 1 and kill all the Engineers to stop them re spawning. The attrition way. Commanders can also research and upgrade their teams technology giving them better vehicles, improved body armour and improving the damage dealt to the enemy forces with ease.

I am the Angel of Death. There will be no survivors.

They flushed away a perfectly good Engineer, only a little blood on him!

There are three different games modes, The RTS mode where bases must be built and tickets wore down until you smash the enemy commander with your bigger better armoured army as well as the classic Conquest where your team must capture strategic areas of the map in man on man urban combat. The 3rd mode, escort I have sadly not played but with a title like that I imagine it has something to do with keeping your Commander alive and moving.

Lots of manly uniformed men holding manly guns about to do a deal of great manly things Like dying manly! and shooting manly!

In fact, Empires was one of the first FPS multiplayer game with the RTS Commander Modded in modern times . So when you are having fun as the Commander in Battlefield 2 or 2142 thank Empires for adding this little system, otherwise we'd have something cheaper and less appealing. It actually is sort of fun, when you listen to your Commanders orders and get something right. Don't be too upset somehow is a Donkey instead of a Lion is elected leader and has no idea what the hell is doing. Empires is also one of the games where a Mic is incredibly useful. The interface DOES of course come with an excellent menu of voice commands but a mic usually makes thinks easier getting your Commanders attention and also adds a layer of amusement to the game.

We have got to stop conscripting the blind, they are terrible at this.

We know of the bone of the game, you cry, but what of the meat? Empires 2.0 has lots of it. In addition to over 12 unique maps for the game, all of them very well done (some Imported and Retooled for the SOURCE Engine from the BF1942 version) the two armies of the game the Northern Faction (Crazy Yellow Loving Slav Rebels) and the Brenodi Empire (Evil-Commie Nazi's!) have two unique styles with not only their appearances, but with their vehicles, weapons and buildings too. Each side however, has the same four combat classes. Rifleman, Scout, Engineer and Grenadier.

Two APCS depart a Brendoni Empire base, destined to spawn nubs into war!

You can ride shotgun in most of the vehicles, and shoot from the top too!

Rifleman is the jack of all trades, master of none. He can choose between the normal Rifle, the heavier offensive version or the MG for defence and suppressive fire. Scout is your typical Artillery Spotter and Saboteur Commando. Engineer can build buildings and walls, heal and revive fallen comrades and upgrade turret defences with ease. Grenadiers are masters of everything explosive. They can drop bombs onto campers with Mortars, Shatter armoured hulls with their Anti-Tank Rocket Launcher or drop mines that are hazard to man and machine. All classes can help an Engineer build up structures and walls by helping with the welding by pressing E.

The Engineers humble pocket Calculator, creator of Empires.

Engineers can drop Ammo and Health Supply crates for Infantry

for when the base armoury is too far away or the player is too fat/lazy.

The FPS bit gets even more diverse with classes and skills as well as selectable weapons. For example, after joining Bravo Squad I choose to be a Scout. Tapping the B key, I choose my first skill (You get a free skill point for joining and working with squads, which makes not going solo even more appealing) cloak and then instead of the sniper rifle grab a machine pistol and Flash bang Grenade. I catch a ride with the APC leaving the base, leave halfway through the intended route and sneak behind enemy lines to disrupt Engineers Turret production by cloak, shoot and sabotage. As I gain points for the kills and damage, I will soon unlock up to three more skills for myself as I gain Rambo-esqe experience from the battlefield.

Tense stand offs between Tanks overrunning Engineer outposts happen a lot.

The Mortar, A Campers worst nightmare.

Vehicles in the game can also be customised. You can choose what kind of engine to put in your APC to make it faster or go up hills better, or to make your tank heavier with that extra grenade launcher. Most vehicles can be multi-crewed, the most useful vehicle in the game next to the Commanders little Camper van is the APC, which is a mobile spawn point players can spawn from as long as it is standing on its own two wheels. Vehicles cost resources to spawn and create, and unlike BF1942, wasting one is a pretty serious offence. Luckily, Commanders have an option to limit what the Vehicle Factory can produce, or just decide what needs to be built so rounds are not spoilt by smacktards building waves of pointless jeeps.

Two cannons good! One cannon bad!

When playing the game, you will indeed have some excellent moments like I have had and will keep on having. Desperately building a wall with two Engineers under enemy APC turret fire, watching in satisfaction as you dive behind cover a fully loaded Northern faction jeep rolls over your mine, sneaking deep behind enemy lines and sabotaging their refineries or simply getting a kill with the Shotgun Pistol. Yes. That is one of the Northern Faction sidearms, a Pistol that fires shot. It has the best animations I have seen in ages on a HL2 game weapon. All the guns in the game are pretty, from the Brendoni Empires Engineer SMGs, To the Northern Factions Steam punk looking Landmines. However, melee combat is also there, in the Halo-esqe manly form of beating an enemy to death with your weapon. Most of the non-scoped or Machine Gun Rifles also have iron sights. Deep joy!

Look! The Shottie Pistol, and the Rebel Wall Fortifcation.

Northern faction Mine, Cutest Mine Ever.

Empires 2.0 at the moment as a pretty successful player count when it comes to a HL2 Mod, On average around 200-300 players are playing. The main appeal to the thing I expect, is mostly the vehicles and promised tactical and team work moments of the game. It is indeed something a little different from the usual frag and smash of HL2 Multiplayer gaming. The maps and general atmosphere of the game is very well done indeed. The interface needs a little more tweaking and the models need to look a little bit more pretty (Both promised in the up coming updated SOURCE Engine update, along with flying vehicles) and the sticky grenades of the Rifleman have an annoying habit of not, well sticking to a rampaging blood thirsty target when needed. You will also need to do a little bit of keymapping.

Angered and lonely due to years of war, Soldiers communicate their feelings through the means of bullet graffiti.

The next update should be very good for Empires, because it is increasing the highest player cap to 64 player. I have never heard of a HL2 Mod with that many players before and I will be quite interest indeed to see how this one does turn out. Hopefully, It won't lag and we will see some magnificent battles. The Installer file for the game is pretty large (Over 700 Megabytes) and I suggest the most reliable way in downloading the game is to simply join Filefront and use their IGN Downloader Client. It gets the job done efficiently.

Good Leadership and teamwork ensures you stride over the corpses of your fallen enemy...

...or gets you reduced to a bloody splatter on the landscape because of smacktardation.

Empires is lovely Mod, revived from the BF1942 Engine to the SOURCE Engine and your Empires need you soldier to fight in this crazy ragdoll physics explosive Warfest! Right now! Join Squad Bravo on the double man! And pick up a Rifle. Remember to press F10 in the game for all the info and you need and for god sake, don't become a Commander. Please. Don't waste noble, intelligent and well loved tickets. And your soldiers lives too, I guess.

This is my rifle, there are many ones like it, but this is mine. Because I aimbotted it.

Point 'n' Click: The Beloved Dinosaur of Gaming

2007-12-16T10:41:00.000-08:00

A long time ago, before today's fancy high resolution detailed 3D graphics, quality sound and havoc physics engine gaming on PCs used to be quite different. More flat, sprite-esq and easier on the hard drive when it came down to the size. And during those days, there was a genre called point and click games. These games didn't involve shooting thugs in the face or general construction of cities/armies/planet earth or even teaming up with your mates to smack something until it gave you exp. These games were interesting interactive stories.

Nowadays, They have been usurped by the more addictive, pretty and interactive (But still slightly shallow) Plat former RPGS. Just remember, as you bounce happily around with Mario on Mario Galaxies with your Wii your hands are stained with PnC games blood. Your dirty murderer :(.

A few famous titles come to mind, mainly Day of The Tentacle, Monkey Island, Broken Sword and the Discworld trilogy. Instead of shooting nasties in most of these games you had to outwit them, either with your main characters cheeky conversation skills or using random stuff your obsessively stolen all over the place to slat together a crude puzzle using lateral thinking.

Occasionally, mostly with the Broken Sword games you could mess up and have your main character cruelly killed. Many times in my experience poor George Stobbart of the Broken Sword series got shot, imprisoned or fell into a lethal trap because of my cheap assumptions and bad reaction times (Of course, I can reach the heavily armed man, shock him and in the next two second grab the lethal gun!. Ow.)

In these games days, they had the pinnacle of all gaming tech behind them (Very well drawn and rendered art, full voice acting with was a rarity back then where text usually took voices places and professional very well done stories) and were indeed quite a fun way to introduce a family friend into gaming. Funny how Tabloid Newspapers focused on the Dooms and Duke Nukem's of the day, but never cared for Sam and Max Hit the Road or Monkey Island eh?

The stories in these were made out of pure emotion. If you accidentally led your hero into a messy death, you felt horribly guilty. When Rincewind got really sarcastic (Eric Idle does lovely voice acting in games, I do hope we hear more from him) you can't help but snicker and the fictional character match maker inside you screamed at George and Nicole to get together!

This whole field was something that LucasArts was very very good out. Yes, LA did NOT make usually crappy Star Wars tie in games once upon a time many years ago. Back then, they made some golden Star Wars games too but we'll chat about that some other time. Even today, in the mighty year of 2007 Grim Fandango, Day of The Tentacle and the Monkey Island Trilogy cannot be beaten by the recent reappearance of PnC's bastard son.

Yeah, PnC returned majorly a few years ago with the release of Broken Sword 3 in full 3D. A few PnC games come out rarely now of this genre, but a majority of them are dog poo badly knocked up and released by a few amateur gaming companies with barely any experience, funds and a sane deadline. After all, why spend months even years making an action packed FPS with complicated animations, processor hogging explosions and complicated multi player modes when you can hire a few down on their luck porn actors, shove them in a voice studio and hire somebody who can knock togther polygons that resemble homosapien. And chuck in a few hundred bugs with a hack of a script writer fired from the latest series of The Simpsons.

My favourite games of the whole genre, however, have always been the Discworld ones. I've always been a fan of Terry Pratchetts Discworld for as long as I can remember and the Discworld games amused me greatly despite the fact when I got older and read the books discovered that Terry, quite cheekily, borrowed and merged several of his book plots for Discworld 1 (Guards! Guards! crossed with The Light Fantastic) and Discworld 2 (Reaper Man, Soul Music and Moving Pictures). The best one of these was Discworld Noir which took to the 3D plane beautifully and was actually a very well down story. I lost my PSX version of the game and ache to replay the thing sometimes. One of these days, I am going to look in the bargain bin for a PC replacement. Assuming it runs on Windows XP.

So PnC, we wish you well with our sepia tinged nostalgia. Just stop dropping horrible attempts to cash in on your past successes (The recent Sam and Max crap fests) and we wish you the best luck for a proper re-emergence into the gaming industry now that story is the most craved for elements in our digital Rambo/MMO/Dictator binges. Thankfully, a lot of these titles are either sold in Bargain Bin Remastered packs or available to play thanks to the SCUMM application with several others if you own the older DOSS era games. It is such a damn shame we never got a serious Star Wars version of these based on one of the more better expanded Universe Novels.

Oh, and in the words of beloved Guybrush, You apparently fight like a cow.

PVP:The WORST gaming comic ever.

2007-12-14T12:39:00.000-08:00

PVP sucks. No silly, not the actual player versus player combat of games, that would be a sacreligious thing to say anyway.

No, I mean the webcomic. It sucks. Brutally bad. The internet, no doubts has hundreds of webcomic rating from meh to worth reading, but PVP and the creator Scott Kurtz have earned a hated place in my heart for the simple fact that reading one of these comics to me, at least, gives me a sensation of deep hurting.

PVP is bland, boring and has a host of idiot whacky characters that are suppose to be enduring, but instead are all fictional poster children for genocide, torture and the utter destruction of both of Scott Kurtz hands. Scott himself is a terrible artist. Seriously, if you read a PVP comic you will NEVER see a character drawn in any other way but facing you. Garfield does that, and we all know Garfield these last 18 years have sucked horrily. Maybe Kurtz and Henson should team up, and print out their bland comics in every funny section of the newspaper to hurry to headlong rush of doom humanity is currently running.

Also, I hate the characters. The cast are the follow: A balding whiny 'old skool' gamer, his Mac obsessed sunglasses wearing jerk off of a friend, his annoying girl friend, the sterotypical teen power gamer (DIEOFAIDSDIEOFAIDS!) and the stupid fucking whacky monster guy. Apparently, these things have personalities. I can't see any, just ANNOYING REALLY ANNOYING dialogue. Occasionaly, Kurtz likes to take over and tell us about his whacky middle aged Dad in this modern world of techology. Of course, when you are reading a webcomic based on gaming you really don't care. We're here for the humour, pardodies of games and the chance the artist will draw the token gamer chick in something sexy.

Kurtz himself, personality wise, is a despicable blob of a man. He, along with his creepy buddy who created the equally overrated and obnoxious webcomic SinFest pretty much think they rule the whole webcomic community simply because they were the first ones that started putting their badly drawn crap onto merchandice. Scott Kurtz also seems to miss the point of many other webcomics, ones that actual have proper attempts of humour instead awful mac running jokes and Panda attacks.

If you ever see the man in person, dear reader, please inform him that CTRL-ALT-DELETE was a lot funnier just to watch the man himself personally aligh his gravity around him and attempt to harness the power of his ego to crush you. If you sort of like PVP, STOP READING IT NOW. Delete the damn URL from your favourites and look for VG Cats/CTRL-ALT-DELETE/Woody Comics for an actual laugh. You'll thank me after rolling your eyes.

A Battlefield 1942 Veteran Remembers

2007-12-13T14:19:00.000-08:00

Now, in online gaming terms I didn't arrive in the period of old school Quake and CS fragging, but a few years later in 2003. The first actual game where I was put against my fellow man online was Battlefield 1942. Looking back at it now, nothing of this kind of FPS fraggery appealed to me until I read the review of BF1942.

Back in the boring school days of 02 the thought of jumping online and sharing a virtual world war 2 themed Battlefield stocked with all the toys and guns a boy could dream of and eventually I was granted that dream the coming Christmas. I remember my first map, Operation Battle Axe. I spawned in one of the bunkers as a Medic rignt in the thick of combat in that bitter little Battlefield and quickly began my Support Career in FPS games from now on. When I fix somebodies armour in Planetside or heal somebody in a MMO I will always think of my little British Medic, trying to press the Medical Satchel against his wounded comrade under German GM fires.

BF1942 addicted me like crack, I was determined especially to Master the Engineer Class and crush all those in my wake with the one shot one kill bolt action rifle of death. The game it self was incredibly arcadey and as I grew a little older I desired more than the simple cartoony anarchnosims and downloaded Forgotten Hope, which extended me playing the game for an extra three years.

My favourite Vanilla BF1942 map was eventually, after playing quite a few several times over, was El Alamein. I always played for the home team when I could, slapping down Landmines in the middle Control Point and blasting those damn Jerry Planes from the sky in my Ack-Ack Anti-Air gun. Interesting fact, I quite enjoyed using AA guns. The satisfaction of downing those showboating Pilot clowns from the sky and watching the blackened twisted wreckage of their plane slam into the ground after was brillaint.

I was quite rubbish when it came to flying too, I somehow could not master the act of coaxing the buxom and darling mistress of gravity into keeping me steady enough when going into the air. I crashed more than a 3rd World Nation Airline Jumbo Jet and rarely hopped into planes unless they needed a gunner. The latter action saw more action with FH, Especially with the deliciously sexy Bombers.

One thing I HATED in the game was the blasted grenades. The second you saw one of the enemies grenades plink next to you while crawling on the ground over the Bocage bridge (This happens a lot) you know your fragging is inevitible and you groan as your poor avatars body is comically tossed into the air with the cartoony explosion. Another thing that drove me to FH, was the stupid act of balance in making HAND GRENADES do damage to tanks. Madness. As for weapons I loved, The Lee Enfield with the Road to Rome bayonet came the closest to my heart.

Speaking of Tank Damage, next to the Engineer the true Warrior of the BF1942 field of conflicts was that mighty manly man the Anti-Tank guy with his Slow Mo Rocket, Piddily Pistol and Combat Knife against the world of many mean lean killing machines. I remember fondly, Clutching my American issued Bazooka (?) as a Soviet in the Kursk Map hopping around and shooting a German to death easily with my Colt. Thankfully, Tanks in Vanilla Battlefield could only take Three hits to the front and rear and two hits to the side. Makes you thank god they didn't make tank armour like that in real life or the 2nd World War cost of life would have been even more terrible eh?

The most unique maps that BF1942 offered were the Pacific Campaign ones, Because of the Navy Combat. Everyone wanted to crew the Battleship or Destroyers or the sneaky Submarine (The latter requiring the most patient BF1942 player) and simply causes havoc by bombarding the enemy bases. Mastering the Torpedo Bombs during Battle of the Coral Sea was something every player wanted to do, copying the act from the rather nifty Intro Movie.

What really makes me smile, Is remembering playing against the bots of the game as general hands on practice before carting myself online. The AI of the bots in these games was incredibly dismal these days. You can NEVER replicate the random cunning of fighting against a person online (Nowadays, bots have come almost as close as possible) and the things the bots did in 1942 were so insane you would NEVER see such actions on an actual public server.

For example, sometimes Three AT Class boss would go prone and fires their missles at you, despite the fact you are foot and can dodge them like a mouse dodging an OAP driving at half a mile an hour with ease and shoot them in the head. Bots in the game all had habit of crounching and throwing themselves on the ground for no reason. Bots would also spawn camp the areas where vehicles respawned, even long after said means of transport were long taken. Bots were even more addicted to TKing or suiciding than the FF players. Bots were even more terrible at flying planes than me, you had to be careful to not get caught in a plane crash. Bots, no matter how hard the AI was were easy to kill people would only play a single player game just to try out a map they haven't played or to improve their skills. A few years later, Modders of the game managed to pound out something decent from the glitchy coding of the AI and removed all the inane smacktardation code.

Another thing I loved about BF1942, were the useful Radio Commands on the F buttons. Most of the time, people actually used these and they helped a lot to encourage teamwork. It was a custom to F5-F5 an Engineer or Medic for doing their job. The phrases themselves echo still in my brain (MEDIC!, TALLY HO and my personal favourite SCHNELL LOSS) and unlike most command menus you see in the games it is quicky and easy to use.

I played a few Mods to BF1942, All of them excellent total conversations. Battlefield 1918, Galatic Conquest and Forgotten Hope were my personal favourites. I also wanted to get around to playing Desert Combat, Eve of Destruction or the Pirate Mods of the games but never had the time or harddrive space. Most of these mods have continued onto Battlefield 2 or 2142.

Sadly, I haven't been able to play the sequals to Battlefield 1942. Battlefield 2 and 2142 need an extremely better Processor much to my grief. Battlefield 3 doesn't sound that much appealing to me too. I think it is sad EA bought DICE now and we will never see Battlefield Imperial Era or Battlefield Korea.

The influence of the game had spread very well, most FPS games these days go for the old conquest node capture mode they streamlined and the proof that several of the mods have moved on to different engines (SOURCE, Crystis etc) by retaining the streamlined team against team with lots of guns and vehicle action. PlanetSide the MMO remindes me a lot of the game, and is excellent to buy if you are an old junkie like me who wants to capture positions and appear the most on the kill message portion of the screen with your signature weapon icon.

One of these days, I must reinstall and see if a few Vanilla servers are still going...

City of Heroes/Villans: Best MMO ever?

2007-12-12T12:30:00.000-08:00

A City of Heroes. Be honest, one of the first things you can remember loving as a kid was comic boys and the legions of heroes and villains inside them. DC or Marvel, Batman or Spiderman it really didn't matter as long as they kicked the equally costume clad baddies ass to the street corner every time using bad ass powers and amusing subtle dialogue. All screenshots are provided by me thanks to the permission of my heroes and villains (Had to bribe the latter) and I can be reached on the Union server with a /tell to @RedCommissar.

A typical battle in Paragon City these days.

Apparently, Jack Emmert AKA Statesman as he is known in the game felt the same way and around 2000 decided to begin developing a MMO with some of his buddies based not on the typical magic sword and sorcery Evercrap clones but instead, a game based on spandex and Kevlar clad modern warriors of peace and justice. City of Heroes was born, followed four years later by the evil twin known as City of Villains.

Protecting the city, for 300 roubles an hour....

I started playing COH just before the turn of the new year, in late 2005. I rang in 2006 slapping and shooting the crap out of Hellions on the streets of Atlas Park with my main toon Red Commissar (Who I still play faithfully today several years on) and I must say I was simply gobsmacked at how good and original the game was. A few months earlier, I was one of the many rats that fled the sinking ship of Star Wars Galaxies after SOE sabotaged all attempts of a fun original game by introducing the NGE and confirming they and Lucas Arts were determined to copy the crap out of WoW for the phat bucks.

Flying high and dry in Paragon with Red Commissar

COH was the perfect round peg for the round peg hole that was my void in life after leaving SWG. At the time, a majority of MMO games were still Sword and Magic bollocks I was not interested in. I didn't care much for the weak alternatives out there that weren't (Matrix Online was another bitch of SOE and Anarchy Online was ancient). I knew I hit MMO gold when I first started creating Red Commissar with the character creator. Interestingly enough, Internet satire humour Web Site reviewed COH and was actually quite impressed with it.

Mr Necropolis makes hoods Pay, Akimbo Dirty Harry Style!

When creating a Hero/Villain you first choose his/her/its origins. They depend on the types of enhancements as well as what types of powers weaken you or don't effect you. The Hero origins are Natural (Think Batman) Tech (Ironman) Mutant (Spiderman) Science (The Flash) or Magic (Mr Impossible). Villains have the same Origin system. After you have chosen what origin your hero or villain got their powers you must decide what Archetype you must be. With Heroes, you can be the Ranged Blaster, Strongman Tank, Army of One Scrapper, The healing and buffer Defender or the Controller who has the power to weaken, confuse and anti-buff the baddies.

A battle with the Rikti Invaders, possibly the biggest melee ever.

Attacking, WITH MIND BEAMZ!

Villains have different Archetypes to heroes, The Brute is their Tank who gets angrier and tougher when hit more, the Stalker is a Stalker that can cloak and uses Stealth, The Master Mind is a Villain who commands a small group of NPC Thugs to do his dirty work while he buffs and manages them and the Dominator is a mix of Defender and Controller, The Corrupter uses Ranged powers and buffs with his secondaries .

Dr Spelimino, My Master Mind with his hired goons.

This barely free Con will soon to be founder of the Sliderz Hoods.

Once you have chosen your Archetype, you will have quite a few different primary and secondary power sets to choose from. You can grab a single power from each of the two lists as your starter powers.

Dual Blades held by a hawt Demoness. Triple the fun.

Once you choose your Origin and Powers you must create your heroes look, and even back in post Issue 6 COH before they brought over the City of Villains costume parts and post Issue 8 costume stuff, even before the wings and other Invention costume pieces the damn character creator was pretty original for the most part. You can knock up all sorts in that thing, from Mad Pirate Beastman to a Tiny Foxy Schoolgirl with Neon Green hair and whiskers to a massive Alien looking thing with an Afro hair style. Cowboy hats, cat ears, reptile tails, metalic skull masks, bow ties, Tuxedo jackets, chain necklaces, chokers, fingerless gloves, motor cycle boots and trenchcoats at some of the many many many items you can choose from to slap on your potential hero or villain. The character creator has more stuff than Bruce Wayne's Clothes Closet.

They may have numbers, but we have skill and glowy energy stuff!

After that, You name your new hero/villain, give them a catchy phrase that you can activate by pushing F11 and take to the streets to fight the many villains of Paragon or to gain power with Arachnos in the Rogue Isles. Both City of Heroes/Villains have pretty well done and unique Tutorial zones you can skip if you have done them once (But lose out on some of the badges lurking in the areas) and get straight to the streets and your first mission handing outer contact.

Earn your wings in crime fighting to look as mysterious as this guy!

Combat it self was the traditional select baddie to bash and make sure you don't get too tired by keeping an eye on the endurance bar. The combat won me over easily, because it reminded me of the dear departed Pre-CU system of SWG. Heroes or Villains can not only hurt their targets but also stun, slow, poison, hold, knock them back into the air, turn them against their buddies and taunt them with a wide ass arrays of powers. From standard Super Strength to Dark Energy to Web Grenades and Conventional Guns every power here to stock the Arsenals of Paragon Heroes and Rogue Islands Villains. A hero can loot temporary inspirations (Which sort of like feelings and emotions in comic book terms) which can be a small temporary buff that gives them a heroic edge in the heat of battles as well as loot enhancements.

Ho-hum, just a battle against Giant Plant Monsters.

Most of the action you will face in the game will be out on the cities streets, or inside the many missions of the game. You get these missions from your contacts, based on many different storylines. When finished with a contact, they send you to one of two buddies to to do them a favour and so forth. You get special enhancements or the odd badge for completing a story line with your contacts. Another mission is a Task Force, which is like an epic quest. With TF's you and your team of heroes must do a series of missions. The tough thing about Task Forces is that they are serious with the difficulty as well as impossible to do in portions. Nobody can quit your team during a TF and you have to ride the thing out together. They give massive amounts of experience, as well as a badge and some other goodies. They also are more detailed and offer some pretty amazing places to go and fight in. Task Force Contacts are usually in most of the games zones. The final mission type is a Radio/Newspaper mission. These missions send you to a place in the Zone where Criminals are lurking and your must whip their asses. Good for a quick fix of exp and instant gratification. Once you do a series of these missions, you will be sent to an NPC who will send you to a Safeguard or Mayhem missions in which you had to save or smash up a massive part of Paragon under siege from NPC Armies. These contained mini missions where you can get badges and very useful temp powers.

Costume contests, a Great way to win Inf and RP with heroes.

Recently, Since Issue 9 Heroes and Villains can create Enhancements with Salvage in the Universities, as well as costume parts and sell such Salvage on the WoW-esqe Auction Houses. Influence, The 'currency' of the game can be used to not only buy and sell stuff in the houses, but to buy Inspirations and Enhancements from Contacts, to change your costumes at the tailors and to change mission difficulty levels.

You call THAT a blade? THIS, is a blade!

You won't be fighting alone, the best bit is that this game encourages you to team up with the rest of the colourful player populace (You can be side-kicked to do damage to NPC Mobs) and share or fight in your own missions together side by spandex clad side. You can, at level 10, found your very own Super Group (Guild) and build your own Batcave of a base. Bases in COX can be fought over, as well as be used to store the Salvage/Enhancements/Inspirations of the game. You can even invent stuff inside your base without having to go all the way to the pesky Uni or buy and set up Teleporters that take you straight to the Zone instead of going the painful public transportation ways. Going into SG mode earns Prestige that helps expand your Superbadassman Fortress.

Coming soon, In Issue 12, Neighberhood Watch Missions!

Paragon City and TRI both are made from many different, unique and colourful zones full of mucho eye candy in the way of Landmarks, Citizens, Villains and NPC Heroes/Cops/Longbow and the back story of the COH Universe is really interesting. They COH comic books themselves (The early ones like the ones that ship with the COH game box) are worth downloading at the website to read and in game missions, task forces and events are wordy but satisfying to read and bask in.

The beautiful Ouroborous Zone is the latest addition to the game.

COH contains many things I really love or find amusing/awesome. For example, NPC Villains and some of the scenery is rag dolled. Rag doll physics. In an MMO. It simply is beautiful to watch the rag dolled body of a Hellion be punched into the air, and land painfully, legs akimbo on the back of a parked car. Another example of such fun game engine physics is spent shell cases from guns. If you own a Mercenary Mastermind or Blaster with the Assault Rifle Full Auto power you can jump up and down with glee on this massive pile of shells cases, sending them flying up or in all directions. Players who have a Controller with the propel power (Thing The Gravity Gun with Items appearing from nowhere) will love this the most.

Pink Panties? Angry? Likes to fling people with her powers? Dominator.

Another thing that makes me smile is the travel powers. COH comes with many different ways in scaling the city zones from the traditional running really fast or riding on the train to leaping from building to ground to building, Superman flying, Teleporting or fast shoe burning running like The Flash are the four main travel powers of the game. All of which make excellent screenshot fodder. Players can also get their hands on some temporary power Jetpacks lying around, or be buffed by another players travel power.

To a Mid Level Tank, All these guys are easy-peasy.

As you advance in power levels, you first gain a title then you will eventually unlock your cape (level 20) and 2nd costume slot, auras at level 30 with another costume slot, epic powers with level 40 and the final costume slot and finally at level 50 you unlock the 'hidden' Peacebringer/Warshade Origins. These little things, as well as the many badges you can find (Finding a badge allows you to wear the name of it just under the title and also gives you 500 exp) which are littered around the cities, given for doing Task Forces or handed to you for reading plaques in certain orders that tell everyone a little bit of the cities past.

The worst kind of Mad Scientist, One with a Rifle.

My favourite Zone in COH has to be Striga Island, Home of the Fascist Cult Villain The Council (Who replaced the Nazi 5th Column a few years back during one of the Issues) which is full of Council Soldiers, Zombies, Werewolves, The Jetpacked Tech Sky Raider Pirate Mercs and Mafia Soldiers of The Family all crammed together on an Island with a fishing Village on the shore to a Massive Council Base full of the insidious bastards.

Teutonic Hussar, Now with more blue and new sword!

All in all, I love COX. It is one of the MMO games where you will NEVER find anyone that looks like your character. Every hero, heroine, villan or temptress look unique. The game gives you a serious feeling of accomplishment, when your becloaked and glaring your noble Blue Aura smashing hulking MALTA Mech Robots with the flick of your little finger amongst your full diverse team of Super Group members makes you look back and remember your quieter, less known badly costumed self struggling to take down the Hellions and Skulls, Simple Street Gang bangers armed with Knives and Revolver Pistols alone.

A successful Hero has an equally awesome looking crib.

Cryptic every few months updates the game with new issues, which ALWAYS gives the game new content as well as the usual balances and bug fixes. Unlike some MMO's the Nerfbat whines never seem to matter much and so far, the Developers have been pretty good in satisfying their community without pissing them off badly (SOE, Looking at you once more) for monies like most MMO Devs in the past. They also make little updates introducing missions themed on certain Holidays (Christmas, Valentines Day and Halloween are major favourites) which are pretty popular and nice to take part in.

I'll show these guys mayhem. I will mayhem them hard!

PVP is pretty much well served for COX. There are several PVP zones for early, mid and late level players (Two Heroes Versus Villains and One Free For All Zone) as well as The Arena, a massive Stadium Building in several Zones where players can have friendly duels with each other with a massive set of customised options to choose from.

Even Heroes with Sword and Shoulderpad Fetishes love to talk

All in all, City of Heroes is the best MMO out there is you want to don the cape and cowl of a Super Hero. The promised Marvel and DC MMO looks like they will never happen (Which is kind of good anyway, because the amount of canon and back story will annoy RPers) and NCSoft have recently bought Cryptic Studios and now have become a happy family meaning that COH and COH2 will be around and come to us in the next few years.

Recently, Issue 11 has hit the game. It introduces two more powers to the massive pool (Dual Blades and Willpower!) as well as the option to go back in time and take part in missions and contacts you may have missed while leveling up as well as now giving players the option to customise their weapons from the start or at the tailors (Blasters, Tankers, Dual Bladers, Master Minds and Scrappers rejoiced in the streets) or unlock more with certain badges/missions and a new Zone with new missions, a new task force and the promised return of The 5th Column Nazi baddies.

I close simply stating if you are looking for a MMO to have a free trial with, try and get one for COH. You might enjoy it a lot. I do. Up and ATOM folks! MOTHERLAND!

Memories of Star Wars Galaxies Episode II

2007-12-11T12:16:00.000-08:00

Tonight, I'm going to post some more memories I gleaned from my past in classic SWG and entertain you all. This time I will be gleaning a few from my Bria toon. First a little background about how I started out on Bria. Like I mentioned in the previous SWG memory post the CU had hit and driven most of my friends to quitting or migrating to busier servers. Eventually, I decided I was bored hanging around the quiet Cantina in FarStar with nothing but the occasional AFK Entertainer bot for company so I created my toon on the busiest and more notorius server SWG had.That server was Bria. Bria was infamous for several things, it was the first and laggiest server SWG has ever had and it was big on PVP. It was also an AmericanWest Coast server which operated on a different time zone to my previous European server.

I cared not and created my human male (I regret not making any interesting alien toonswhen SWG finally bit the big one) named Akrady Renko. I heard that for once, The GalacticEmpire on Bria was the top dog in the GCW and from the very start when I got SWG I decidedto become an Imperial. I was finally determined to grind up and get a full suit of Stormtrooperarmour. I also decided to grind up a Ranged toon, Pistoleer, Carbineer with a mixture of Scout.
I made the toon my main after the effects of the CU became fully apparent and began playing Ak more than Rom.

I joined the Imperial Navy instead of the Army and worked hard in my training TIE Fighterand soon was wearing the full gear of an Imperial Navy TIE Fighter Pilot. Sadly, I didn't feel Imperial enough. Then I spotted groups of more than one player wearing Stormtrooper armour all around Tatooine, which was once again my playground planet. I asked earnestlyif I could join and it turned out to be an RP guild. I cared not, and begged. I was givenan interview with one of their Officers in the City Cantina where their PA Hall was.

I passed and became a fleging member of Stormtrooper Gamma Company in its glory days.With ST-G, I worked hard and RPed with them to my hearts content even getting the hang of the CUeventually and began hanging around exclusively with them in general. Several members workedhard and helped me slowly earn the FP for purchasing Stormtrooper armour (Before the CU you just neededFP to get the stuff from a recruiter) but eventully one of my friends gave me a lucky break and boughtme a full post CU crafted set of Stormie armour. I was most impressed, But I still needed an assload ofFP to equip and wear it.

One of the interesting things we did in ST-G when we got together and formed a nice littleImperial Platoon full of immaculately armoured Stormtroopers and Officers was either RP PatrolMos Eisley or help the Empire in general on the server by scouting out and removing PVEor rarely, PVP bases on the planet. The experince of storming the first base, getting into cover and shooting out the defensive turrets and then charging in ready to take on the Rebel Soldiers inside with aims to activate the self destruction sequince still is in my fond memories now.

I remember a Veteran, Clad in Clonetrooper Expansion Pack Fodder armour giving me an entireset of Scouttrooper armour for free, much to my friends envy. I loved that armour and I stillwish I wore it, even only just once before I left the game. Sadly, I needed 20k fp to wearand bind each individual piece to me. Towards the late CU, a friend in the Guild also gave me his TIE Interceptor which I never got a chance to equip up and fly.

Apparently, Our PA had to leave the city we were stationed in because the New Mayorwas Pro-Rebel and ST-G resettled on the green Gungan and Spider infested swampy plainsof Naboo in a player city known as Central Dogma. One of our PA Allies, COMPNOR had createdthe city and welcomed us with open arms. From now on, Naboo and Theed Cantina would be mynew home but the Patrols on Mos Eisley never stopped then. I got my favourite home for free for joiningCentral Dogma, before once more it was another small Tatooine Mudhut. The Medium sized Naboohome was huge and I decorated it finerly with furniture, memoirs of my travels and loot.I even kept a Pet Dewback which I couldn't ride because of the CU in the basement. I named him Billy. I used Imperial butter to get him through the doorway.

I remember as the Episode III Hype was getting big that SOE forced LA to unleash a prequal-tastic Expansion called Rage of The Wookiees. With that expansion, we got an entirelynew planet (Kashyssk) which was basically just a huge, laggy and slightly bug filled theme park.I remember reading in the Bria forums the Ryatt Trail Controversies between the ever growingnumber of J3di and Bounty Hunters. I remember myself how laggy it got on this planet for myPC and when the novelty of the new place wore off I rarely went.

The J3di Rift that swallowed the whole game even hit ST-G, A few Commanding Officers and 3rd generation ST-G members began grinding Jedi despite the fact the already anti-canonicalpresence they had on the game and the fundemental rule of nothing BUT Stormtroopers being in a PA based on Stormtroopers. A lot of bad words were said between the Jedi Guys and theFundies and rifts opened. Old school PA members leaving the game or losing interest becausethey were free trial players was also getting common.
The PA needed rebooting and became much more strict after the storm passed.

I rememberwhen players were finally allowed to be passengers in other players speeders, severalnew Landspeeders were introduced into the game including a people carrier that could holdeight people. Two of these were adopted into ST-G and painted Imperial Colours. Our bestcampaign on Corellia involved fourteen of us blasting three PVE Rebel bases and hittingthe Alliance hard on its traditional homeworld.

I had grown to love my Stormtrooper armour so much, I rarely took it off and was eithereither wearing that or the Grey Imperial Officer uniform. I occasionaly wore my casualclothes (Especially during the rift era of the PA where I was removed temporarly) butlike with my other toon I had solidified my 'style'. I also grown attached to theE-11 Mark II Combine, Which you needed to Master Carbineer to wield.

I remember taking part in Mr Bria 2005 at Club Shim on Lok (In SWG slang, A shim is usually a female toon played by a male toon) and wearing nothing but hawtpants, Stormtrooper booties,gloves and my helmet. I sadly did not win, but I got to the semi-finals much to peoples amusement.

Another memory is receiving the Interesting Person Badge from the guy in charge ofall the events, Pex, while touring a little spice party on Tatooine with a small crowdof semi-RPers. Don't ask why an Imperial Stormie was there, he just was. Perks you know?

I remember trying out different physical features with Ak too. At first, he was pale dueto the fact he was going to wear a Pilot suit/Stormtrooper armour all the time. Eventuallyan ID friend made him less pale, gave him a tan and a new haircut. For a while, this wasAk's lady killer look. Eventually, I bored of the tan and asked for a normal pink skin pigmentation. Towards the end of the CU era I experimented and gave Ak a moustache and goatee.

Another fond memory of mine with Ak is defending Bestine during one of the infamous Sand PeopleAttack. Pre-CU Sand People were HARDCORE. I mean it, You'd have trouble with them unless youhad a decently branched skilled Combat Toon or a decent group. The Imperial City of Bestine onTatooine would be flooded with every type of Tusken Raider NPC, from the basic grunts tothe deadly Warlord Chieften who could have pwned my n00b ass easily with one hit. However playersflooded Bestine and pushed the scum back. The fighting came to a climax in the Bestine TownHall building, as small army of every type of players took on the Warlord and his body guards, followedby attacking the mighty Dark Jedi behind the invasion. I remember kneeling on the top of the raised portionof the room firing down into this massive melee with a Tusken Rifle (Oh the irony).

On the night before the NGE was going out, Me and some reformed ST-G buddies armoured up and decided to join in several mass PVP raids while we still could. It was great fun, crushingthe Rebels in Bestine and seizing the Shuttle Port before they could rally enough men to defend it.I remember even getting my first and only PVP kill in my history of the game.

Sadly, My memories with Ak ended painfully once and for all with the sudden mound of poop thatwas the NGE. One of the first blows was having to choose one of the lame 8 classes after losingall my skills from the FOUR diverse classes I had grinded hard for. I choose Officer, whichwas a mistake because it was one of the most gimped classes. Much to my annoyance most ofmy guns which I carried in my pack as a Mini-armoury did not work with Officer and all I couldwield was this piddily generic looking slug pistol. This, along with other stupid changes of the NGEmore or less made my urge to play SWG die inside me.

ST-G had to move again because the NGE sadly killed off the dwinding population of Central Dogma.Infact, ST-G formed a new city on Naboo and our HQ went to its third and final transformationinto the Mustofar bunker. I remember coming back from the little party we had opening the place, sitting downin my Naboo Medium houses bed and logging out. I never logged back in again. I sadly simply lostinterest and did something else. I really sometimes faintly miss Bria, Theed Cantina which instantly emptied after the NGE and my fellow ST-G members including the friends who stuck close to me all times. Thesame goes for my comrades on FarStar.

Maybe one day, we'll meet each other when SWG-Emu is finally completed next year. I would certainlyre-equip my Stormtrooper armour once more for the Galactic Empire.

Stupid RTS Mission Objectives!

2007-12-09T11:58:00.000-08:00

Okay, I'm a little angry at Homeworld 2 right about now after wasting almost forty five minutes just trying to complete the second mission and in general, hundreds of RTS games who more or less have used the same sort of attempts at gameplay that makes me want to punch them in the face with steel gloves with sharp rusty spikes on the knuckles covered with the Ebola Virus.

So below is a list of things in RTS Mission Campaigns that piss me off and make me want to hurl something in the wall in general frustration when I fail the goddamn mission for the fortieth time forcing me use to cheats just to get to the less crappy parts of the campaign. Pay attention future game developers:

The Frustrating As Hell Escort Mission:

The plot of the damn story usually at the early part or middle parts of the games campaign ALWAYS sticks you with some weak ass convoy or units to escort in the middle of a dangerous war zone. Excuse me, But I am the Goddamn Head Commander General of the Pwnsauce National Gun Bang Armed Forces! I am not a goddamn baby sitter. I REFUSE to escort this tiny, slow weakass bunch of units through the RTS version of Baghdad and former Yugoslavia combined. Couldn't you morons in HQ stick this on somebody else? Or, GASP send me to clear this oddly small but heavily held bit of enemy land to the objective and bring the fricking escort later? Why do you NEED to use lightly armoured barely armed vehicles when we can haul this stuff on the back of a plane or something anyway?

The Time Limit:

Gaming is about relaxing, and taking ones time while enjoying myself. So the last goddamn thing I need to is quickly rush and grind out troops, gather resources and get my shit together in only THREE MINUTES before a massive, heavily experienced and odd undetectable to the last second sweeps and crashes into my base while HQ demands me to hurry up. Goddamit, this isn't fun! Time Limits are never fun! Who ACTUALLY likes being rushed in real life? Nobody but sado-masochists I suspect. How about some goddamn recon for a change HQ? Or a decent amount of resources for a decent defence to be slapped together instead just the contents of my piggy bank.

Terribly coded and dumb as a brickwall AI:

Oh goodie, Reinforcements! The cavalry has arrived! we're not going to die! Wait, why are they just standing there, scratching there ass? We're getting overwhelmed down here. Keep going you dumb bastards! NO, DON'T CHARGE TOWARDS THEIR BASE YOU CAN'T TAKE THEM NO NO NO ARGH! Mission Failure!? Seriously, The arrival of your buddies is SUPPOSE to be good a sign that the tide of battle is turning for you at last. Instead, you usually get some meagre forces that somehow think that their Commander is just as good as the main characters and suicide charge either the enemy HQ and their overwhelming numbers and wipe themselves out. They have an annoying habit of standing or leaning against the Escort ignoring the enemy smashing it or getting stuck in the scenery. Instead of hope, we end up with bloody stupid cannon fodder. Just give us new resources instead, HQ.

Endless Objectives:

Nothing is more irritating that arriving on the battlefield, Army freshly assembled and resources strongly rolling it when HQ phones up and changes PWN TEH ENEMY to a massive weekly sized shopping list of main and miniature objectives. Stupidly, 75% of them require you to complete these to the maximum result or suffer the inevitable and punishing mission failure screen and a bruised knuckles for abusing your monitor in the face in frustration. This attempt to mimic the changing face of warfare fails simply because in real life, Napoleon did not have to rescue fifty men unarmed men and their Caravans, Defend several Columns and fight the whole Battle of Austerlitz on his goddamn head.

The AI Backstab:

So, it seems we're finally winning the battle at last right? We've just overcame the cowardly and weak Supply Train Escort, built out defences up, dragged the AI Reinforcements to not kill themselves all at once and JUST managed to finish the ever growing list of must complete tasks. All clear from here right? Nope, prepare for the Allies that sent you the earlier reinforcements to turn on you and send an equally large hoard of enemy soldiers alongside the enemy. Both the enemy and traitor AI will gang up beautifully and crush you in an unstoppable tide of onslaught.

Done! Now RTS Developers, learn to fix your campaigns by removing all crap like these or consider my long time love of RTS gaming dead. And than means, I won't be buying anymore.

The General State of HL2 Multiplayer Mods

2007-12-08T15:06:00.000-08:00

First off, before we begin this little rank have a look at this:

http://www.steampowered.com/v/index.php?area=stats&

Click the bit below the graph and scope out the numbers and come back and read. Done it? Good. I guess you have noticed the Counter Strike three, CS, CSS and Condition Zero being the top dogs when it comes to the most amount of players and active servers. If not, awesome it means finally the HL2 and VALVe gaming community has decided to freaking branch out a little.

Now don't get me wrong. I don't hate CS. I love it, my first article on this thing was about CSS! But I can only play the game now and again and only a few maps before getting satisfied or bored. Occasionally, a new map spices things up a little but that is as exciting as things get with CSS. Shoot the baddies and save the same four terrorists/stop the bomb with uber guns. Nothing else. Yet, I seem to be one of the few these days that actually bothers looking around for alternatives to my online shooting people in the face action.

And apparently, a lot of free very well done Mods and cheap Independent games are out there these days. However, only recently TF2 has barely come close to beating the three CSS games off the chart after years of development. A lot go equally good games however are floundering. It is pretty sad when the most highly populated mod out there is based on an anime where grown muscle men with weird hair scream at each other for majority of an episode before shooting LAZER BEAMZ at each other endlessly. What the bloody hell?

It isn't like there isn't variety, Mr Nurdbot you cry! WRONG. HL2 CTF pretty much spices up HL2 DM which gets old after a few hours with adding two different flag capture modes, Unreal Tournie Runes and some new weapons to main the opposite team with. Insurgency is a Realism based mod set in the curret Iraq Crisis, The Ship is Hitman meets Cluedo with cartoon graphics and style just as good as TF2! Battlegrounds 2 is the only FPS with freaking muskets! Zombie Master and Empires, Fight with or against your RTS god! Hell, Fortress Forever is an excellent Mod for those who want a more gritty old school Team Fortress Classic. Sometimes, Even Garrys Mod Player count is low! Hell, I am surprised one of the daddies of modern Death Match Goldeneye SOURCE has such a low player count too!

How do I know this? Because I have played MOST of those mods on that damn list over the last few years. And uninstalled them sadly when the numbers drop to the point where only a few decent servers remain. I am a little guilty of that too, but sadly my HD space isn pretty small these days. All of these mods have taken years to put together with extreme dedication by their developers. Occasionally, a Mod gets lucky and is mentioned on STEAM or in a big named PC Games Magazine though sadly sometimes some Mods only get word of mouth via Mod DB and a few hardcore fans. This worries me, if gamers keep on playing Counter Strike and not make the effort to at least try and download and play something new before returning to their comfort food of FPS gaming then why should these people care? Aside from the happy few hoping their hours of their lives going into this free quality entertainment get plucked and employed by VALVE like the creators of Counter Strike and Day of Defeat.

Oh yeah, CS was a Mod once. The sick irony eh? So people do me a favour if you can. If you have the right specs, time and room check some of these Mods out on YouTube or Mod DB. Consider at least giving them a try, you might like fragging somebody outside CSS! who knows?

Mario Kart 64 and Double Dash

2007-12-07T16:25:00.000-08:00

Tonight, we're going to discuss how awesome Mario Kart 64 was and how the Gamecube successor didn't do so well readers.

First off, a little information about Mario Kart. The first Mario Kart was for the Super Nintendo and was released in the early nineties. Mostly sprite based but cutesy, addictive and being of the Super Nintendo games you could play against thee other people it was one of the more successful games Mario tied himself in between saving Princess Peach in the years. A few years later, around 1998 Super Mario Kart 64 came into being. It was bigger, badder and chuck full of eye candy and other up to date things.

Mario Kart 64 was the game that came with the family Nintendo 64. Back then readers, Game Consoles shipped with at least one launch title. I am not sure games consoles still do that, since I haven't bought one myself in years but it was a throwback from the 2D years where a game came installed in the console it self. I loved the game. My family loved the game. People who I didn't know as a kid came into my house and loved the game with us. It was the game that encouraged us to get more than two N64 Controllers.

We all had our favourites. Myself, I loved the Grand Prix racing against the AI as Wario and simply stocking up on Red Shells of Doom or Banans. I could have played the Mushroom Cup forever in those days, simply for the joy of shooting the crap out of Toad from point blank range. To this day, the music for those courses still pounds in head. The quirky theme from Luigi Stadium, The Tropical Music of Calamari Beach and that irritating country crap that played during Moo Moo Farm. And for the first time, you heard the main players of the Mario Saga actually speak. Well, Roar, Honk or Oook in DK, Yoshii and Bowsers case. And to the Voice Actress who did and possibly still does Peach, please stop. You are terrible at this.

A year later, The game had a main competitor (Diddy Kong Racing) made by Rareware that tried to beat Mario Kart 64 by throwing us the PG Conker, Planes and Hovercraft. Aside from spawning several thousand furries and having the most irritating known courses to man it failed and Mario Kart 64 remained strong. It even got a port to the Gameboy Advance. Does anyone still remember the Gameboy Advance?

A few years back, The Family bought a Gamecube for Christmas 2004 and Mario Kart Double Dash was one of the games that came with it (A case of History Repeated I know) and it was fun. I want to be clear, I don HATE Double Dash. I really do like playing it, it looks pretty and it has some of its moments but it made one crucial silly mistake. And that mistake was....

SOLO KART mode. Seriously, would putting in ONE Grand Prix of a few Updated Mario Kart classic maps have hurt dammit? It would have certainly improved the sales for the console a lot more I would think. Sadly, Double Dash was also effected by the Gamecube Stigmata like all Gamecube games at the time strugging against the X-Box and PS2.

Double Dash was still fun though, seeing some of the older Mario Kart characters returning to the game and a few new faces from the more recent Gamecube Mario games popping up too. It also had more Karts, all of which were nicely detailed and felt unique when driving. And you could pick your riders as well as the Kart! Customisation will always be the key to unlocking the key to my heart with most games.

Now a days, The Wii is just behind the X-Box 360 in the so called Console Wars and Nintendo is once more doing good. The question is, Will there be a Mario Kart Wii coming? It seems quite possible. If so, I will certainly by myself and the Family it with the Wii to finish the epic modern Mario Kart trilogy once and for all.

Fun with Garrys Mod 10: Screenshot Showcase 1

2007-12-06T07:46:00.000-08:00

Today my readers I feel simply like posting and commenting some of my favourite little pieces I have down in Gmod 10 in the last few months. I'll talk majorly about the game it self and some of the Online Mini-Mods some other time but for now lets take a look at my portfolio of madness!

This little piece I call Old Fools, capturing the drunk madness that takes the mind of the most strongest of men when submerged into the pits of Alchoholic stupidity. For once, Eli seems to be enjoying himself too.

I call this one Zombie Crowd Surfer, As you can see this man is accomplishing one of mans wildest dreams ever, to surf a crowd of Zombies. It was beautiful as it was brief as seconds later he fell on the floor and the zombies eated him to death. A shame friend, you will live in my Zombie Surviving heart.

Soft Drink Wh0re captures the greed and gluttony of Male 6 when he finally discovers that change in the post Combine World is no longer needed. However, his weight gain makes him perfect Poison Headcrab Zombie fodder for the Legions of the Undead.

Death By Orange Box shows that not even Barney Calhoun, Everyones favourite chirpy and witty former Black Mesa Security Guard and former Civil Protection Officer can resist the binding grip of Team Fortress 2 or Porta and the mantra of frags not foodl. Poor poor Barney, another one for the Tabloids.

Even the girls of DOA with access to a time machine and teleportation devices help fight the war agains the Combine Fascists in the near future of Half Life 2. Truly these brave young scantily clad armed tank riding women should be saluted when they pass in the Earth Liberation victory parade!

Alyx here finally finds out why drinking the tampered Combine Water is a vital rule of survival in the future.

The Gman and Eli have no qualms in jumping on this fresh bed they find in the middle of nowhere, as they say you cannot take the boy out of the Quantom Physics Scientist and Mysterious Alien Fed.

As we see, Doctor Kleiner here has no qualms in rocking out royal on this Piano infront of Lamarr, part of quite the intricate human headcrab mating process we assume.

It seems Alyx had quite the cleft palette before Eli finally paid that Vortigaunt dentist to zap some pretty back into her mouth.

Right, that is all the pics I'll share at the moment. Expect more of these little show cases for the future when I don't have time to knock up a bird slightly amusing wordy article about gaming okay? For now, drink, get fat and jump on a bed readers.

Mod Play: Zombie Master

2007-12-04T12:10:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the first Mod Play, a semi-review/rant/analysation of whatever Mod for whatever game has taken my fancy.

So, Lets begin shall we?

Name: Zombie Master.

Game: Half Life 2.

Type: Multiplayer FPS/RTS Hybred.

Status: Public Beta.

The only way to survive a Zombie Apocalypse it with a man pile!

Now I have been playing ZM for quite a while now, since it was first announced it was going to do the public Beta. That is right, if you were part of the first wave you like me will remember no Mac 10, Endless Servers playing Docks Of The Dead and the wall spawn bug.

But anyway, what is Zombie Master about? Simple. A team of survivors (FPS bit) fighting off a huge crowd of different types of Zombies controlled by a player (The RTS bit) while completing to pull off objectives on the map. The ZM wins by obviously, killing them all. The ZM receives the magic evil resources from Satan I assume when he finally kacks off a player. At the start, ZM has pretty meagre amount of can only spawn the classic Dawn of The Dead style Shambler Zombies (All moaning ammo sponges only good in ganking crowds). The ZM is limited to the amount of Zombies, A hoard (Around fifty-sixty at the most) is currently allowed to be spawned for server and connection reasons.

Now that the Mod has been out for quite a few months, the really shabby amateur mod maps have mostly vanished from the servers and some quite well done ones have popped up in their place. Good maps is THE selling point for ZM, since everything else still is its limited beta form I sadly must say. Map Objectives are usually long and sometimes require team work not camping which is always a plus. You don't HAVE to have a full set of Survivors but enough trigger pullers with decent intelligence and co-ordination to make it out alive is fine. And as if they had enough to worry about, the ZM can manipulate the map setting many traps including devious physics based ones. He also makes a mean Caesar Salad I hear. Caesar Salad of the Damned! Oh, and prepare to stay bleeding if you get hurt. No Medkits/Medics/Medical Dispensers in the Zombie Apocalypse People.

This fellow thinks that camping will save his sorry ass. No. It won't.

The reason why Survivors have such a hard time is because aside from the Shamblers, The ZM has some pretty hardcore Legions of the Dead under his Command. There is the annoying screaming climbing and leaping Banshee (Inspired from the HL2 Fast Zombie) the terrifying deformed giant known as the Hulk or can rip out your lungs with his flick of his wrist and a wiggle of his deformed spinal cord, The Blood Acid hawking floating Drifters (Death by spit, icky) and two more promised Zombie buddies for the future (One who buffs and one who creeps out of nowhere and sets him and things around him with FIRE, sweet sweet fire). The Living have a few tools to hold back these rather hungry corpses.

The Rustic Rifle, The Shotgun, The Mac-10, The Pistol and the Crowbar or Sledgehammer are the current Arsenal of doom for the game at the moment. Each does his own thing, and each one has its own weakness. For example, the Sledgehammer is slow as hell but it sends most Zombies flying with a single manly blow. The Pistol is the jack of all trades master of none weapon and the Shotgun is the ideal defensive weapon while the Mac-10 is the shredder of rotting flesh. You can sort of guess what the Rifle does. Most of the weapons have their own skins, minus Crowbar and Rifle but it IS beta and the Games Forums offer clientside weapon reskins in their custom section if you are that fussy. The gun weapons also chew up their ammo, which is a tendency when fighting a never ending army of undead minions so players are encouraged to conserve, GO FOR THE HEAD or risk trecking back to an ammo spawn point on the map where ammo slowly respawns. I have to say, taking out Zombies with melee weapons is indeed quite a manly thing to do if you can master the timing.

A group of Survivors, Doing what Survivors do.

The average server count for ZM servers is around 10-11 Survivors which is quite balanced, because on the bigger servers the ZM starts off with more resources and gets an arseload more when the more clumsy players meet their horrible ends. Being the ZM is slightly tricky at first, but the games forum has quite a few written and video guides worth looking up. Both the FPS and RTS experience in this game isn't bad at all when you get the hang of it. ZM also has a decent amount of players for a STEAM Mod (Some which sadly suffer from something I'll rant about in the future) and there will always be a nice amount of players online when you connect.

This toilet, a horrible horrible trap by the looks of it!

Now we get to the point where I have to say some mean stuff to keep this thing neutral. ZM is a great mod, and it IS Public Beta so what I have to say isn't bad and all the stuff will forever be cast in stone. Changes will happen in the next update. First complaint, the ever suffering cast of HL2's minor characters are dragged once more into the role of being a players avatars in the FPS world of the Source Engine. Yes, they have the haunted desperate look of survivors but it is sort of weird the fact they are all wearing matching Denim Jumpsuits or dirty Sweaters. Just because it is the apocalypse doesn't mean your guys can dress like members of the Janitors and Beggars Guild people! The Zombies also suffer from HL2 Skin-itus. The Shamblers are all reskinned Sweatshirt dudes who now look quite palid with horrible choice in clothes (Lime Green Shamblers argh) and the Zombies themselves are either HL2 Zombie skins or the corpse skins on the frames. The game also lacks more spooky gruesome sounds which is a must for the horror survival thing.
Another complaint is for the weapons. Now, I kind of understand the Mod wants to level the playing field out a little and not include Military Hardware like Submachine Guns, Assault Rifles or Missile Launchers. But weapons need more variety. In a FPS game, weapons NEED to be interesting because they are the main way you interact with the environment. The current amount of weapons are great, they just need a few tweaks and reskins. Adding a few more weapons would be indeed bitching indeed.
Some talent you have there, Lazlo....

Still, Zombie Master is an awesome mod. Get it. It doesn't take up much room, and you will have to download a majority of maps before connecting but nothing can beat the experience or building a shoddy barricade out of the many crates and other jump on the map and holding a huge hoard back, being chased by leaping Banshees while carrying that needed can or fuel or luring some boob of a Survivor a poorly propped up bridge with a car underneath. My favourite maps that come to mind is Gasdump, With the Tornado trap and the rush to plant the C4 and Blue Velvet when you hold the Zombies off a player trying to take a door down with the wield torch with nothing but a Pistol and bloody Crowbar. ZM should update soon and give us two new weapons, (A Magnum Pistol and Molotov Cocktails) and the Pyro Zombie. See you on the servers!

Remembering Star Wars Galaxies: Episode I

2007-12-03T14:52:00.000-08:00

A long time ago, in a MMO far far away something called fun was happening. That fun was maintained by a rather large amount of players any decent MMO could have wished for playing all sorts of reasons and paying what they owed to the Overlords of that MMO in return for more better quality fun.

Then the Dark Lord, John Smedley stuck with the Combat Upgrade and stunned the community. Of course, being happy resourceful gamers a majority went with it and recovered. Sadly, Dark Lord Smed was jealous at World of Warcrafts Popularity and wanted to pay off the new Boat he bought so he struck again with what is known as the hated NGE, ripping a huge amount of fun from the game and replacing it with cheap copied gimmicks from WoW thus killing at least 95% of its player base overnight.

This, the insanely stupid lag and the fact that 99% of the free land was covered in abandoned houses, towns and harvestors of long quit players was part of the death knell of SWG. Despite all this, the game still is incredibly just surviving today.

The tale of Star Wars Galaxies is indeed a tragic one, one of Alpha Classes Professions going over the top, a tale of overpriced and buggy Expansions and tale of loyal suffering for many players. I was one of them.

But what out weighs the memories of the bad side of the modern Star Wars Galaxies is the good memories. The fun I had, shooting Gungans with my Novice Commandos Flamethrower on Naboo as well as the hours of chat madness in the Mos Eisley and Theed Cantinas come to mind along with many other examples we'll talk about.

In the year 2004 Star Wars Galaxies was doing fine, what with no other alternitive of Star Wars MMO goodness on the market and the up coming Jump To Lightspeed Expansion pack where everyone could finally go into space. There was plenty of things to do including Mastering the 32 diverse Professions and exploring the massive Galaxy with your friends as I discovered when I began my two week free trial in August which I got with my copy of PC Gamer. I choose the European Server FarStar (Well, It was reccomended after all) and breezed through the surprisingly detailed character creator and tutorial. Back then, the SWG Tutorial was pretty neat.

My toons name? Romuski Til. His Profession? Marksman of course. Why wouldn't he use a Blaster Pistol like Han Solo? the starter Planet? Tatooine duh! I AM a big Star Wars nerd after all. Despite the restrictions of the two weeks trial (Not allowed more than 20k credits in your pocket or allowed to own property) I had oodles of fun. After wandering around Eisley, gawking at players and NPC alike I accidently picked up mission where I had to deliver a package to some guy in Mos Espa. Off I went, utterly confused about waypoints and walked a massive circle around the area outside Mos Eisley avoiding death by running like a coward at the slightest hint of a red named NPC. I almost blundered inside the infamous Tusken Bunker, and had a chat with an armoured TKA Twi'lek and his Speederbike outside. I eventually returned to Eisley and ignored the mission. Later, I found out I had a hired Landspeeder (Luke Skywalkers cruddy one from ANH) which I was overjoyed at owning. I remember flying around later in the hunts in first person view.

I remember trying out the turn based combat, and enjoying it. The HAM system, the epic music that played as my character ran about like Benny Hill trying to shoot something that looked like the lovechild between a Toad and Louie Anderson was hilarious yet epic at the same time. Everyone who has played SWG or any pre-WoW MMO has experinced this.

The first thing I did was try and ditch the rather cruddy looking n00b clothes and get myself a sexier blaster. Sort of went well. I traded my Jumpsuit top for a n00b Brawler jacket on the bazaar and bought myself a cruddy CDEF Carbine and spent half an hour playing city outskirts pest Control. Bored of that, I stumbled into the Eisley Cantina to watch an Entertainer to rid the battle fatigue making my n00b skills suck and chatted with a friendly Axe Wielding Brawler. We teamed up and took a mission together. We had to destroy a Kreetle nest. I remember us slowly ploughing through the defending Kreetles, me quite the way away from the next kneeling on my belly sniping with the n00b laser Rifle while Brawler boy chopped away at the Kreetles and nest. Mission done, credits in the back and team disbanded.

I never saw the guy again on FarStar. Maybe he was another free trial guy? A day later, I had saved up enough credits and got my first skills I joined my first Hunt on Tatooine. Now, SWG hunts were EPIC. In the old days, you could have up to twenty players on a single team. Seriously. I am not kidding. These weren't hunts, these were freaking Safari Expeditions into the deserts. Seeing a Column of Speederbikes and Landspeeder (Back then, there was only one. And it only had one seat sonny!) whizz through the desert like some Futuristic Hells Angels was breath taking. The amount of experince and credits on these hunts was well damn worth it, as well as the sights you saw because of the ramdomly placed mission beacons. It was always a delight in seeing all these uniquely dressed and armoured people, including the aliens of SWG (Rodians, Mon Calamari and Wookiees were the favourites) punching, blasting, stabbing or trapping the crap out of the poor creatures of Tatooine.

In between killing colonies of these creatures, we'd stop and make camp thanks to one of the guys who was a Scout or had Novice Scout and a few amateur Entertainers would step up and flaunt or play our battle fatgiue away. There would be jokes to share, trade deals struck and the odd amateur duel (I always remember getting my arse handed to me with these). We even lived off the land, Scouts could always use the bones and hide of the creatures they just killed for the camp tents for example.

The greatest places to go to Tatooine for Experince if you were a Noob in those days was either Fort Tusken or the Squill Cave. Both were popular with n00b, medium and heavy Profession toons as well as both crammed with loot, POI and badges. You HAD to go and explore the entire Squill cave if you dwelled on Luke Skywalkers homeworld. Squill are not nice, they are one of the most agressive damn creatures on the planet too. The mansized Green types were nothing compared to the massive Red ones at the bottom of the cave though. Teams in the Squill Cave that broke up casually risked a lot of damage to their equipment if they died because there is no chance of escaping the place alive without being knocked out more than three times by the huge gank fest crowds inside. I remember seeing my first actual Jedi in action in the Squill Cave, this was before the wave of Jedi that simply became Jedi by visiting POI I may add. I and many players were not yet embittered and Bounty Hunter Jedi conflict was still quite tiny.

Speaking of conflict, I was eventually pulled into the Galactic Civil War. I wasn't much of a PVPer, but I did like the hang with the Rebels in Anchorhead. This was before JTL mind you, and Anchorhead was a pretty hot spot. The Cantina especially. Sometimes, Imperial Players that were overt loved lurking beside that Cantina waiting to gank the foolish n00b that went overt for fun. I certainly didn't go Rebel for the ugly ugly faction armour that is for certain. When JTL rolled around (By now, I was paying subscriber) it was worth it because I joined the Rebel Navy, learned the basics in my Z-95 Headhunter and Y-Wing to finally learn to pilot an X-Wing. A close friend of mine gave an X-Wing chassis away for virtually nothing, I had to fit the parts myself which were cheap to buy or loot from space. I still sort of miss Hurricane, My X-Wing named after the fighter Hawker Hurricane.

I also remember starting my own PA (The games name for Guilds) The Neutral and Pro-Rebel Outlaws and Spaces or as we called ourselves OaS. We eventually became a Rebel PA and has Rebel Officer uniforms tailored for all active members which we wore ocassionaly. By now, I had chosen a proper set of clothes for my toon. Camoflaged Duster Overcoats, Matched with a dark long sleeved shirt, Camo trousers and leather boots. Sometimes I also wore Bone armour gloves to complete the Desert Gunfigher look.

I remember dabbling with my skills when I finally discovered I could have as many as I wanted as long as I had the skill points to pay for them (Those were the days, 160 skills points the sky was the limit...) and I picked up Medic to help me and my party on those long hot action packed hunts through the planet of Tatooine. I also recall having Scout for a brief peroid, but dropping it. I Mastered Marksman Eventually and took up the basic Hand To Hand combat of Brawler which was needed for Commando. I also, for fun, became an entertainer. I would bemuse many players in my cantina clad in Blue Winged Hawpants, boots and gloves and play with my Snizzlehorn which was the name of the musical instrument, you rude rude people. Me and a few of my friends busked outside Mos Eisley Cantina in hawtpants and our underwear, using the /sing speak command and singing made up music. Won't see that even in the Special Edition cuts of the Star Wars movies eh?

I remember during the last week of my two week free trial deciding to at least see as much as the Galaxy as possible. I bought some Greener Camo stuff from the Eisley Bazaar and boarded the shuttle for Naboo first, then Corellia and finally Dantooine. It stunned me how each planet was incredibly different. Corellia was full of wild yellow plains and brown earthy beaches as well as the most laggy and densely populated city in the game (Coronet in its Corolag days) and Naboo, green hills and swampy forrests with Spiders (Ugh) and Gungans (KILLKILLKILL).

I also remember, with great pride owning a home in the game. In the free trial, I wasn't allowed to actually own property but a nice lady Twi-lek put a house down for me and let be the co-owner. I tried to decorate the thing at first but I was so busy exploring the game I just logged out there and dumped neat stuff I wanted to keep I looted or bought off the bazaar. I named it Romuskis Dacha. When I finally got the game, I was given the actual house and the contents to me and I searched for a place to plant it myself. I found a rather empty area at the foot of the series of hills surrounding Mos Eisley and dumped it there. A player town was nearby too, with a shuttle port so it was indeed a great place. I started decorating the house too a lot better, even through the thing only had two rooms I managed to fill it up with some spartan furniture and mount my most prized loot and weapons on the wall like a proud space Redneck. As times changed, I too changed my home and its location as well as the property inside the house that grew with my toons experince and wealth. My most prized items in that house were two rugs I had gathered pieces of glue and thread throughout the Galaxy to complete. I remember being offered hundreds of credits for them which I always turned down.

Sadly, When the CU hit sadly FarStar became much more quiet due to the exodus and some of my friends were among them. I closed the PA down because most members were quit, sold the furniture inside and kept the deed for one of the players who bought the Hall from an Architect and started investing more time on my Imperial Bria toon, Akrady Renko.

That toon, dear readers we shall hear from another time in another entry.

Original MMO Game Suggestions!

2007-12-02T07:33:00.000-08:00

Okay, people of the Massive Multiplayer Online Game industry, listen up. It is time to get serious. It is time, as they say to Express Yourself. Like the NWA song, but without the Hip Hop and Drug uses references. Oh wait, you guys at SOE can forget about that bit. Keep snorting that crack and hoping your latest re-attept at making SWG 'Hip' succeeds because it won't.

Lets get to the point. Enough with the Fantasy shite. No more swords, magic and Elves for christ sake. You have defiled Tolkien enough already. No more World of Evercraft VIII clones. Please. I'm begging you guys from the bottom of my heart. That goes for you too, South Korea. We'll take about your MMO games another day.

At the moment, the only original interesting MMO games going are City of Heroes, Second Life, PlanetSide, EVE Online, and Tabula Rasa. The rest are Fantasy Clones, Failed Attempts at cashing in on Franchises of Matrix Online (Cough SOE Cough). Other worthy mentions are A Tale In The Desert 2 and Battleground Europe.

But there is hope for the Industry, as we can see with Pirates of The Burning Sea, Huxley and several other interesting projects being formed. At last it is leaving the Dark Ages of Swords and Magic. If people are going to waste time in front of their PC, they might as well be having fun right? So below, I've composed some crude but slightly detailed descriptions of MMO games I'd like to subscribe too, and waste a few months of my life on in the cold Winter and Spring nights.

Napoleonica Era!

Title a work in progress, Napoleonica Era is set in the late 18th century and early 19th century of Europe during the turmoil of the Napoleonic Wars. This is a mix of MMO RPG and MMO FPS, so turn based combat, with a little clicky shooty action with lots of PVP. You can choose to fight in the British, Prussian, Russian, Spanish, Austrian Armies or take up the Golden Eagle with the French, Italian and Polish Armies led by Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. The players will all start out as Junior NCO Officers and fight for experience, which will eventually promote them up the ranks. The real appeal is creating the Cannon, Cavalry and Musket Heavy action on the battlefield with hundreds or even thousands of men in combat. A majority of the petty grunts will bots, all commanded either by the Players themselves (Who are Officers) or the Big AI Generals. The Battlefields will some of the coasts and Inland Areas of Portugal, Spain, France and Northern Germany. Weather and Supply Wagons as well as day and night will play key features in combat. Player avatars can choose and customise their uniform (Want fresh off the sewing machine laced up Cavalry jackets or a faded bloody Redcoat?) and looting the corpses of the dead will be encouraged. The French or Coalition will win the game if all the Forts and Cities of the Battlefield Areas have fallen!

Democracy: One Player, One Vote!:

A game based on the sleaze, corruption and general chaos of the British Government (US and Asian version of the game will bet set in the Senate or Diet) the player can create a Politician using the heavily detailed character creator (40 different kinds of tweed) and lie, cheat or embezzle their way to the top and become Prime Minister for a Month! The player can either join established Political Parties or form their own, with their own crazy batpoop insane policies and irrelevant Party Symbol (Over 400 to choose from!). PVP and Competition is obviously the main priorities of this game and you will have many ways to annoy your opponents with blackmail, Propaganda, In chat Mud Slinging during Parliamentary Sessions (Sir John L33t is a fag!) and Umbrella on Briefcase on combat. You must all gain influence in the district of London, now renamed Bestminster by also harassing the public NPC. The fun never ends, until the Public finally riot and force you out of your seat. Blackmail, Influencing the Tabloids, Sucking up to the Royal Family and running Irritating Press Conferences non stop on the news, you can do it all with D1P1V. Sort of Republic The Revolution meeting Spitting Image of crack in other words.

The Rusty Wild West:

A game set in a Victorian Era Steampunk Wild West setting, where everyone outside the towns and cities has to fight nature or their fellow man to survive and everyone is out for themselves. This game will be unique, because your player will have the ability to help build your Posses (Guild) Tank Mech and fight for the Gold Mines and Town Supply nodes. Vehicle Combat requires moving fast and taking out key parts of your enemies Fuel Supply, Gear Box or go for the heavily armoured chassis containing the player themselves. The game will also be very player Oriented, Towns need to be actually occupied, lived and stocked by players. NPC presence determines how successful and rich the town is as well as hard it is to be attacked. The character creator will be of course, obviously detailed. This a modern MMO requirement.

Civilization V: Civ Online:

At last, Civ V online. Yes, I know you can play Civ IV online but compared to this, the scale is tiny. Civ V Online will be epic. Each Server will have a massive randomly generated map which changes at the end of each game, each game will go on until a series of players win either by conquering a huge portion of the world under their banner, uniting it or developing massive space colonies outside the world. Instead of the already developed Civilizations the player himself gets to choose his own Leaderhead (Sort of like Eve Online facial features, crossed with the clothes of COX costumes) and either choose a stock flag or upload one from his own PC. His nation will also be randomly assigned a unique unit for each Era with Random stats. Players must struggle with war, diplomacy and surviving the random events and tasks given by The Creator (Server admins). The Tech tree will be expanded and broken up a little to make it last longer, Religions, Corporations and Spying would be also be made more detailed and Relevant. This game would be epic.

Phew, those were only a few suggestions. But I would love to see any of these and play them even just a four day three trial. And just in case, HANDS OF SOE. You are NOT touching any of them.

Praising Mods!

2007-11-30T01:21:00.000-08:00

I love the Mod. That is, Game Modification not the Mod Sub-Culture that originated from the sixties (Mod Wolves are quite a different matter).

My purchases of PC Games have several factors (Re-Playability, Originality, Fun, Specs and Modding if you want the full list) and if a game is more or less open for the successful community that follows to use the tools to transform it into something better or completely different then, Game Developers you've got my sold. Mods are the extreme version of customisation in gaming which also appeals to me.

The first ever Mod I cut my teeth on, what the originally named mod called Mod 1, For Cossacks European Wars (And the Art of War Expansion) which reskinned a huge amount of units and added several more. I was so overjoyed the mass armies of Clone Pikemen and Musket Infantry were gone I cried. At last, many men in the armies of European Wars would not should men on their on side because the blood on their identikit uniforms made them look like the Generic European Red Army.

It also gave me three more cannons. Anything with old fashioned Cannons is awesome. Trust me on this.

Then came Forgotten Hope, for BF1942. I caught the 2nd or 3rd Beta release and it was a pretty big damn Mod. It should be. As much as I loved Battlefield 1942, I hate the rushed design of the 2nd World War (Damn you EA!) , Unrealistic Weapon fire, Tanks with Cardboard armour and Russians not having the PPSh. Downloading the the thing and updates for it was always a hassle, but I think it was worth it because the amount of detail with new armour, weapons and heavily detailed maps based on proper Battles of the 2nd World War was so damn worth it. It also unlocked and added several voice commands for the Axis and Allies as well as introducing the Aussies with the best voice Commands of all. FH plans to return in Battlefield 2 and possibly will be ported over to BF3 (ugh).

Another good Mod? The Creators of Terrae Expungnae for Rome: Total War demand Medals and several Awards for gaming alone. Vanilla Rome Total War is fun, But at times you want tear your hair out at the whacky. Who skinned these Romans? Why is Rome a three state nation!? WTF! PIGS!? DOGS!? Thankfully, TE removed all that rubbish. It also re skinned all the armies, united Rome, added several more factions and revamped the more silly ones (The Egypt is now, thank god Grecian Themed like it was back them instead of Komedy Asterix) made the Campaign Map much much bigger (Right up to India) and tweaked Combat Values with the Units themselves to make it more epic. They also redid the Battlefields in the new map, making each one unique. Worth getting if you want an epic, easier and less silly game of RTW.

The Cinematic Mod of Max Payne is also quite fun. Max swaps his battered leather jacket for a sweeping post Matrix Gun-Fu Trench Coat, shade and stubble as does Mona albeit both contract a lethal form of RSI for holding those heavy hand guns (Trust me, when you unarmed or using the knuckle duster you will know what I mean) and get a load of new guns as well as some excellently reskinned weapons from the usual game. The Minigun and Colt Magnum will be your favourites, they were mine. Also, Bullet time comes with some epic music now and baddies squirt anime-esqe amounts of blood all over the place. Movie epicness in a can.

Star Wars fans, embittered by the odd blandness of Empire At War and the Prequal coat tail rider of the Expansion? Dispair ye not! Empire at War has several promising mods being made our touched up right now, including a Realism Mod (Phoenix Rising) an Extra Content Mod (Steiners Units) or total Conversions that let you play in the Stargate and Battlestar Galactica Universes. Star Wars mods are quite common on both FPS and RTS platforms.

Speaking of Star Wars, tired of the tacky Multiplayer modes in Jedi Academy? Get Movie Battles 2 and enjoying flying around Movie Authentic Maps setting Jedi alight with your Mandalorian Flamethrower. Go on, treat yourself. Just stay clear of those damn Jedi Lightsabers. Different combat system or not, dismemberment still hurts.

Games so open to modding also spawn excellent mini mods, some games like the Garrys Mod and Civ IV evidently show this on their Mod Content Download sites. Modding has even spread to MMO games, like WoW with its crazy client side interface mods and hilarious nude skins. Second Life, The slightly original but slightly creepy at times MMO is infamous for the Modability of it. That is a word now people. On my blog at least.

Even TF2 already has a number of client side mods and tweaked Server Mods coming out now.

I wonder in the history of Modding, has anyone considered going back and Pimping out, let say, Pong. Repaint that white Rectangle Neon Green, make the sound effects scream AWESOME WICKED SICK instead of bleeping when your oppoment doesn't hit back.

I could rant for hours about good Mods, but I don't have the time. Occasional I will do a Mod Mini Review here on this blog, but for now simply check out Mod DB and look out for something you like.

Memories, Mockings & Thoughts on Sid Meirs Civilization

2007-11-28T03:29:00.000-08:00

Today, I'm going to share my memories of Sid Meirs Civilization with you.

Now, I am too young for Civilization 1, Heck, I was a wee kiddie during the Microprose era of gaming more interested in watching cartoons on TV.

But, It all began with Civilization 2, the PlayStation version to exact. This was even before I began serious PC Gaming. The story is basically this, I was hanging around some kid friends house and watching him play the PSX. Bored, I look at the arranged pile of games on his shelf and Civ 2 (His Dads) caught my eye. I asked to borrow it.

It got me hooked. I believe only the Discworld games or Hogs of War kept me on the PSX longer than that game. I even got my best friend addicted to the game, but eventually I had to return it. A few years later, I borrowed a copy of Civ III from a friend in Secondary School and once again found myself glued to my computer chair, wasting an entire weekend on the thing. I also had to return that too.

Several years later in 2004, I grabbed a copy of Civ III from a shelf in a Safeway (Now a Morrisons) Super Market for ten pounds. I played Civ III on and of, But I was quite annoyed that Mods and Online Player were reserved for the damn Expansions packs. Britain was always going to be that horrible shade of Orange forever it seemed.

In the Summer of 07, I grabbed the Civilization Collection Boxset from Amazon. I now have Civ I to IV as well as both Expansions to three and even a little Civ Card Game, Booklet and Extras DVD Rom. In the late Summer, I snagged The War Lords Expansion too. I have both Civ IV and Warlords on my PC, and I'm still playing a game now.

Over the years, The game has changed. A lot. For the good and the bad. For example, I remember the Advisers in Civ 2 were Video Clips of actual people camping it up when you asked for advice. The Military Advisers was of course, my favourite. Like a cheap Kane from Command and Conquer, he demanded me to thrust my sword into the beating hearts of my enemies, Which I would attempt just for him. I couldn't say no. Also, Elvis was the Entertainer Advisor. Elvis is everywhere in the Civ series. The King isn't dead, He is just an aide or tool for a crazed Dictator like me.

I was quite saddened how Advisers were toned down to floating heads in Civ III and then became just plain text and icons for Civ IV. But life is cruel I suppose, and I expect somebody will whack out a Mod with those floaty worried looking heads in the future. Another difference between Civ II and the more modern versions is the Leaders of the Empires.

Instead of having one or two, you had FIVE. Each nation had Five. They were all different of course, but wow. Five! I can recall alone Russia had Lenin, Romanov, Peter The Great, Ivan The Terrible and Tsar Empress Catherine The Great. All the good stuff was text or in game though, the Leaderheads of the Diplomacy were pretty laughable at the time (Paintings, Photos or just a Picture of a Statue. You WILL FEAR EMPEROR MARBLE MAN!)

Civ II however was simple. You either built your Empire up and crushed everyone else, or went the wussy way out and attempted to build the Space Ship. The AI in Civ II was damn well crude though. I am not joking. Sometimes, It was a miracle if they could cobble together a stable Empire. If they declared War on you, they would care not if you had an efficient up to date army and send waves of Cavemen Warriors and Spearmen charging at your Tanks and Armoured Cars. Even at peace, they had an annoying habit of trumping their men all over your Empire making you extremely paranoid. Besides, that is rude. DO I LEAVE MY MASSIVE ARMY OF MUSKETEERS OUTSIDE MY CAPITAL CITY, HENRY THE VIII? NO! I DON'T!

Yes, Civ II was primitive by today's Civilization Standards. There was no borders, or civics or fancy treaties or resources. There was simply war, or peace. And peace was pretty boring, since all you could do was build up your cities/armies and give them rude names . And fear the Barbarians until you could amass the Tech for the gun. War in Civ II was simple, Sprite collided with Sprite, chop or bang sfx went off and you watched the little HP segment bar praying your little guys would win.

Of course, an Airplane would then run out of fuel and land on the Victor of the combat. Civ II was also the only game you could go Ronald Reagan with your Nuclear Weapons, because the only consequences (Fallout) could be easily cleared up by 'Engineers' (which became Workers in Civ III and IV). Nuclear Weapons in that age had an odd habit of hovering Horizontally and staying in cities B&B on their way to their targets. When they had a decency to finally get there and explode, you simply had to move your armour in and take other. No annoying SDI Defence Satellites here folks.

One thing of Civ II that has stuck with me, is the simple Midi-esqe Soundtrack. Dum dum de dum dum de dum! It said it had twelve of these things, but they all sounded the same too me really. One thing I would miss is the option to change the Fog of War look. One of the options was a crude Atlas like background, another the cover of the game it self. Civ III and IV should have kept that baby going at least. Civ II also had the epic Video Clips of wonders being completed. And the most detailed Palaces you could make, Well, Detailed Throne Rooms anyway.

So that was Civ II, Simple but you'd get your Conquering the World with your favourite Nations Empire fix. Lets move on to the Civilization III Era.

So man Evolved, Things became less flat and static. Armies of men became 3D and moved around a lot more, occasionally sneezing or scratching themselves at the same time in a disturbing manner. Resources sprouted across the lands, but needed tending. Men rose up for the cities, donned loinclothes and Plastic Hard Hats and began the job of wrecking the wilderness to get to the precious mines. It is now optional to see if you want a Grid on Shield icons all over the map, you can thankfully turn them off to stop them from spoiling the grand view. Ugh, think of the traffic congestion things could cause too. Instead of decorating a Throne Room, you can now more or less decide how your Palace looks like. It gives you several different styles of buildings. Feel free to mix and match and create something horribly ugly or be boring and choose all the same pieces.

And Empires adopted borders and became efficiently colour coordinated. These were just some of the few changes of the more modernised version of Civilization III. Things are different, yet at the same time some things have never changed. A joy to us all was the coloured influence borders. Nothing is more satisfying than looking at the minimap and seeing the massive size of your Empire brushing against the smaller snarky ones who insist I am compensating. Am not, Greece! or your overseas Colonies.

Workers and Resources were indeed also a welcome addition. Not only was it nice to see them help build roads, little towns and mines around the former Wilderness of your land that gave you a solid sense of change, progress and rising to power but there was something wicked about trading your own workers for some gold to another power. You could also capture them and drag them back to your Empire at gunpoint in times of war. The Workers Improvements and the new Resources brought in the excellent tactics of Attrition when it came to war. Now you could bombard your enemies improvements and roads, making them suffer slowly in movement and general production with your Bombers and Battleships or loot the things with your own Armies for that precious gold.

Also, we finally get to see our Leaders in the flesh. Animated Leaderheads are finally ours. However, the bad news? Only one Leader per nation now. And nations themselves can't change their colour. Poor France, did anyone actually play you I wonder with that horrible shade of pink and creepy butch looking leader of yours? At least, our Leaders had different clothes for each era eh? Who doesn't like Abe The Barbarian? Or Westernised Tokugawa? Or Bowler Shaka Zulu? Leaders also are attached to concepts and Ideologies, and hate certain others which means some nations will always be at each others throats. Pray to god you aren't India led by Gandhi, and find yourself sharing a border with Shaka. Things will get messier than a Raptor Rampaging through a Junior School for Fat Children.

The AI in Civ III, isn't as bad as it was in Civ II. But it had its own little retardation phases. For example, it would make outright insane demands on the diplomacy screen. Many times, Mao wanted me to give back his three cities I took from him in the last two hundred years, all my gold and Fission simply for one Dye resource. Not going to happen, fool. Go force your workers to work themselves to death more. It also thinks upgrading their units is for wussies. They have blind faith their Pikeman can hold off even the most accurate of Nuclear Weaponry. Of course, the AI got tougher and more smart the higher difficulty level you went. And god help you if you Nuke some AI and not be prepared for the massive gang bang of chaos that will follow, believe me on this people. Nuclear Warfare in Civ III isn't a simple forgivable Faux Pas like it was in the previous games.

Warfare was more or less like it was in Civ II, but a lot more pretty now units have animations and are 3D and all. Artillery actually became more useful, now it could do more than simply damage walls. Like I mentioned earlier, Bombers and Plane have more use too and now instead of the fuel limit just have to be based in cities with Airports. Makes sense now. Nukes can only be transported in Nuclear Submarines. Every nation also has a unique Military Unit. Germany has The deadly Panzer, Russia has Cossack and England (Ugh) has the Man'O'War. Yeah, I know. Sid Meir sucks when it comes to the British in all these games. You can also prepare your economy for War as well for once, which is a nice touch for mass production of Tanks, Guns and Soldiers. Sadly, your government has to pay for maintaining your Armies instead of the cities like the past. Veteran Units also become Generals, which gives a stack of Military Units better Attack and Defence Stats, simply by holding your nations flag and saying Ho! repeatedly during a battle. Who knew Hip-Hop was so inspirational back then?

Diplomacy is much more streamlined too. In Civ II, you needed to train Diplomats to do anything harder in Diplomacy than War/No War. He's been fired in Civ III and forced to become a worker, because I can't see how a guy who sucks so bad in stealing some paperwork can find any more work in the modern world of Civilization III. Nations can trade resources for resources or cash, agree on defence treaties or alliances as well as trade matters too. Hell, if you really have the balls you can use Diplomacy as a tool of appeasement but you are going to need more than two Knights and a wonky Catapault, which the AI sometimes thinks is enough to get me to hand over Orleans. Ain't happening, Joan! Oh, and watch out for Global Warming. It is much more dangerous in the game.

The Tech Tree has been stripped and streamlined too, some Techs dropped while others are merged together. This is pretty good, considering I don't have to waste my time to research the tech that gives my guys the tech to produce the factories that also need a tech to gain access to the resource needed to build a simple ship covered in metal. It also means, we get the kick ass stuff much faster.

Some units got laid off from Civ II. And I mean some. Like I mentioned earlier, Diplomat Smith has exchanged his Dandy Tophat and Coat tails for his Hard Hat. You remember the weird Alpine Soldier? He hung us his skiis. Armoured Car? Gone. Now taped to the sides of Battleships. All those sword carrying guys on the Medieval Ages are now rolled into one Unit. Forts can also be built by the Workers when a certain Tech is learnt, Forts built on certain tiles with good defence stats can improve those stats as well as the defensive stats of a unit fortified inside.

At last, there is another way to win the game that doesn't involve the drawn out process of Nuking nations until they lie down and let you take over. You can win the infamous Cultural Victory. What is Culture? Is the fuel that powers your nation, attracts many people and lets your workers paint your land that lovely colour of yours as far as the eye can see. Monuments and places of Art and learning Attract Culture, as well as unlocking certain tech. You can also control how much your nation invests on throwing those wild parties of yours with your treasury with a slider. You also have a slider to decide how much Boffins will be working on the whole Science thing too, Instead of Researching on what makes Dogs hate Cats like we do in the real World. You can also win with score, so try and be the best at grabbing tech, spending cash and conquering your foes.

However, Civ III alone sucks. The Expansion Packs are the real winners, allowing online play as well as modding and other stuff. And since we're on the RAGE subject, I'd like to ask Sid Meir what was he thinking, when he decided that Big Big Empires diserve such a high Corruption Rate? Trying to satisfy cities full of fussy Gotham and Metrololis-esqe morons around a continent without trying to cripple my War and Expansion Campaigns isn't my idea of fun. If I wanted that stuff, I would have gotten Corruption Buster Tycoon. Curbing Expansion in a game based on nurturing your tiny single citied tribe into a nation is wrong. And I thank my stars they fixed this crap in Civ IV. The Government system is still pretty poor too. It is a simple a matter of getting the right tech, leaving behind the crappy Governments and sticking with just Democracy for Peace and Communism for War.

Lets move onto Civ IV now, shall we? In my general opinion, Civilization IV is pretty much the best one of the three so far. Improving on the mistakes it made in Civ III and expanding some ideas from Civ III possibly inspired by the modding Community, Civ IV is bigger AND badder. For once, the game Engine is awesome. Seriously. The world at the start of a new game looks so pure, beautiful and balanced you almost think it would be a shame to stamp your mark on it, flood it with cities and mines and them bomb the crab out of it in countless wars and Skirmishes.

They've also decided to give some nations more Leaders, some Leaders have different likes and ways of running things than the other chap. For example, Frederick The Great of Germany would rather have his nation brimming with Schools, Universities and Monuments while Kaiser Wilhelm would want Endless rows of Factories and a Strong Lean Mean Army of Square Heads. You can even choose, with a custom game to mix and match Leaderhead Personalities up.

Ah, Customisation! One of the sweet sweet words of modern gaming. Making something yours, not some lame cloned avatar. Yes, games in Civ IV are much more customised than they were with Civ III. You can choose several new different planet layouts, choose to have a flat world where ships collide with invisible wall instead of the cylinder approach as well choose how Vicious Barbarians would be, the length of turns a game will have (from 200 at the smallest to 1200 at the highest) the Victory Conditions, slowing those borders down for a more Settler based approach to gaining land to deciding whether it will always be war or peace, neither the two.

The game also comes with an easy to learn Map Editor and Creator. Yes, you can even use the thing to cheat a little in your game if some bastard AI backstabs you at the wrong moment during your plans for world Conquest. Oh, and Religion is back. Workers seem to also finally learnt how to sail their own boats and can now build Sail Boats and Oil/Gas Platforms on the seas themselves.

It includes four new Victory Conditions too. You can either kiss everyone ass, donate Settlers and tech, switch Religion when asked or give away free stuff for most of the game. When the UN comes to power, they elect you into power as the head of the Club. You win and pass the Resolution to ban Nukes, which makes the post game crushing the World easier. You can also win converting the entire world to your state Religion, By owning 70% of the land including most of the world Population or by simply being the most Cultural Nation on the planet. Much more varied that crushing everyone or running away in a Space Ship.

Also, they got rid of the crap pre-packed easily abused Governments thing. Now you can make your own Government, Mixing and matching the civic system they first knocked up in Alpha Centuri. Yes, at last you can have that Corporate whore of a Theocratic Police State you have dreamed of. Civ IV also packs quite a few more nations that it did have in Civ III, as well as giving them elite units for certain eras.

So on the WARRRGH War side, what has changed? Well, Mr Nuke is no longer that easy going character of the days of Civ II. Mr Nuke is now hated and feared. Mr Nuke can not even leave the city Silo he was built in. And Mr Nuke is 50% screwed if the SDI shields have been installed over the enemy nations airspace. Mr Nuke pretty much is mostly useful in easy Modern Era settings.

Combat it self is pretty different. Units still have health, but percentages and calculations have taken a more active role. Some Monuments and constructions as well as Resources can give all units trained or built in your territory better attack, defence or turn based movement skills. Units can also be trained a huge amount of RPG like talents like better city defence, healing or better defence percentages on tiles. We're a long way from the days where a bigger pile of units could crush a smaller pile people.

So who is the Champion of the Modern Era? Combined Armed Stacks, Filled with Modern Armour, Mechanised Infantry and Mobile SAM and Artillery Trucks. Marines have also been beefed up a little, and have learned how to actually swim and hold their guns without Water Wings this time too. The Warlords Expansion introduces a famous person Unit, known as Warlord who spawns in your Capital after a certain Victory who can be attached to a stack and made leader who upgrades the unit he is attached to, used to build a Military Academy that makes more Elite Armed forces from a certain city or simply attached to the city to help it grow. Warlords are not invincible keep in mind, so don't slap them to any old Unit.

Also, you can't capture Workers anymore. Instead, they get removed from the map. An interesting Warfare tactic is sadly destroyed. Oddly enough, Nuclear Submarines and AEGIS Missile Cruisers are missing from the Navy Unit List, making Naval War smaller and more simple. Caravels can also only carry Workers, Great People, Missionaries or Scouts. Meaning the Colony rush won't happen until you gain access to Galleons. Interestingly though, Submarines can carry the same people as well as Spies. The Military Transport Helicopter returns too, with room for four.

Famous People can now be born in your Cities, Scientists, Entertainers, Merchants and Prophets pop up now and again. You can either make them build their specialist building, join the city and become the Mayor or make them research a tech in a Tech tree. Hell, if you have more than two lying around you can off them for a Golden Age. I'm not sure how killing two great people of the Civilised World can to do. Maybe everyone gets easily jealous in the world of Civ IV. Amusingly, Great People are assigned names from real great people. Recently, Bill Gates popped up in the late Medievil Age of a game I am playing (He was a Merchant). Windows 1422 must have sucked, because a few turns later the same nation start their Golden Age. Oh Bill, when will you learn?

Diplomacy in Civ IV is a more fine tuned version of the Civ III version, without the AI making dumb demands every five minutes. Sadly, for I assume for PC reasons you can no longer trade Workers. Removal of such a feature is stupid though, because SLAVERY is a main civic. You can work people to death in your nation, but as long as they are yours it is okay now. Warlords introduces the concept of Vassilage, so you don't have to eradicate everything that belongs to your rival now, just crush half of him and force him to become part of your extended Empire. Stalin, Who coincidently is a new Leaderhead in the Warlords Expansion would indeed approve. You can either hit a enemy Civ in the face until he begs you his Vassilage or some weaker nations will ask your to be their big brother because their next door Neighber who has a bigger army and a different Religion is not sending them Christmas Cards anymore. Relations have gotten more detailed, you can seriously annoy an entire nation if you keep trading with a guy who not only is a different religion to theirs, but is a Vassel to their Rival. At least now, Civilizations have excuses to hate and war on you.

Speaking of Religion, which appeared in the first Civ III pack one has no way of making sure his state stays worshipping a one god. This makes an attempt to a Religious Victory down right Impossible because by the modern age an average city in Civ IV is worshipping two Religions already. Some Mods have compensated for this by making Inquisition Units that can remove Religion buildible, thank my nations chosen god. Religions themselves are quite interesting, any city in another nations shares your nations Religion you can see it and a certain area around it. Also, if you get a Religious Prophet you have founded a Religion in a certain city (Say Nara) you can build the Religions Shrine Building. Which gets you gold.

They even made the Cultural Border more awesome. Now, like proper maps with coloured in borders the colour it self alighs it self Geograpically beside Rivers and around Mountains. Some of the Resources and most of the improvements are nicely animated too. Zoom in onto your slowly graphically expanding city and not only will you see your cute little Mount Rushmore, but hear the voices of your citizens and a light version of your nations Theme. It seems awesome how the tiny 2D gridded world of Civ has evolved into this massive excellently crafted slowly changing gridless beauty my Riflemen Infantry is defending. Finally in Civ IV, you can actually SEE the impact your nation is making to the world with creation and construction, not just destruction now. Until Global Warming hits. Be careful on how many Nuclear Weapons you use (Or not, because the AI at least in Warlords cares not for Global Warming and uses thoses things more than they actually use their Bombers) and how many Fossil Fuel Power Stations your build because soon, you will be strugging to feed your slowly starving nation. And there isn't a Tech that makes Sand edible in this game.

Sadly, they have removed anything to do with your Palace aside from just rebuilding it in another capital. This sucks. I demand to design my own house dammit, I am a Godly King Emperor of my nation! Fine, I'll make a nest in one of our damn Wonders.

Civ IV has quite a few new wonders, as well as some old ones returning and a few renamed ones too. The 3D movies that were cheaply replaced by graphical pictures in Civ III are back and even better. Sadly, only Wonders still trigger movies. You think by now, Sid would have movies for new Governments, the loss of a Civ or a new Religion being founded too?

Civ IV is built using the PYTHON computer langauge and is incredibly moddable. Mods for Vanilla, Warlords of By The Sword are all over the place at the CivFanatics Website that add new content more in game features or the return of some remodeled favourites removed from the past. Hell, some of these little Mods and Mini Games are already featured inside Shipped Copies of the game.

Civ IV also has an extremely well done online version of the game, which can be played in several different ways. You can now insult somebodies sexuality AND harass them for all their cities for gold online. Be the asshat that was once the AI's job.

I must say in the long run, Civilization has indeed only gotten better. It has became more streamlined, more beatiful looking and more challenging. One can play for weeks, even months before he finishes a game. In time too, annoyingly, the game has gotten pretty big. If you have Civ IV and both Expansions installed as well as a few mods, say goodbye to at least four gigabytes of HD space.

I can't see really how, After the latest Expansion Civ can get any better. Maybe Civ V will be a MMO game, where a server represents an entire World, and a single game can take three months to finish. A game where you can pick a nation name, upload a flag from your HD and cobble together several Elite Units before hopping in and taking on the world for a few lumps of gold, a Mine of Gems and the Fire Axis Studio Wonder.

Civilization and Sid Meinr, The people of the Pooposkosy Empire Federation Salute you and your mad Gold trading glory. Now, give me Civ V for free or I'll blockade your capital!

Go Go Go! Talking bout Counter Strike

2007-11-27T14:46:00.000-08:00

Lately, I've become re-addicted to Counter Strike Source. What can I say, the two minutes chaotic kamikaze violence where your aim is to complete the objective or at least take as many Terrorists or Counter Terrorists down with you is just one of those really addictive formula.

I have a soft spot for CSS. I got it free with my copy of HL2 in 2004 which also had HL2DM on it and I can never uninstall it from my PC.

But one of the aims of my recent re-addiction, was to master the Shotgun of the games. In my eyes, the Shotgun is one of the manliest weapons in gaming next to a Rocket Launcher, Bolt Action Rifle or Dagger. Sure you can cause chaos safely with your fancy pants sniper rifle or have a certain kill with that plastic sub-machinegun that fires more than one bullet a second but a real man gets up and close and bathes in the blood cloud of his decimated enemy. It after all, makes you stronger.

Besides, when guarding a hostage or bombsite which is inside or has a small alleyway or corridoor the Shotgun is indeed going to be the king of the killing field. You can't run away from my three clouds of buckshot, you Scout carrying pansey now. Wish you bought the Desert Eagle now, don't you!

It really is a pleasure for me to kill somebody in CSS with the more bulky, least reputible weapons. It is truly the pwn when somebody gets wasted with the UMP, the Dual Wielded Beretta or that embarassingly expensive Rambo Minime Machine Gun. Mac 10 and Schmidt Machine Pistol kills are also a must too for me. This little facination also helps me with my notorious cheapness. I rarely buy the more expensive guns, I'd rather stack up on a good pistol, armour and nades. It pays off when I can finally afford the Rambo gun with ease.

Another reason I have gotten re-addicted to the game is that I have decided to try more of the custom maps. Office, Dust and Italy are great in moderation but are so goddamn boring. Especially on those forty and fifty map severs. Instant OMG Rush mode right there and then. The current server I play on has some interesting new maps as well as expanded versions of the official ones (rooms, new inter connecting routes and new bomb sites) make for a more interesting and less cramped style of gameplay. Not to mention, shooting down doors and blasting brick walls open for some routes. Who doesn't like random map destruction? huh? huh? Nothing more kick ass that smashing a freaking door with your tiny Bowie Knife. Andy McNabb got nothing on me apparently.

What player model do you choose I also hear you ask? I being a minor Patriot always grab SAS on The CT side and Elite Crew for the CT side. Sometimes, I grab a Navy SEAL or Phoenix Connection to remind me of the early days of CSS too. I'm not much of a fan of the other two newer Terrorist skins. The Winter Camo dude looks odd in most maps and the Guerilla guy looks too portly and high to be a terrorist of El Cubadoroa. You see this guy in a local CSS server, make sure you give him the UMP.

I also must say, CSS Ghosting has some pretty amusing sights from time to time. Watching brave Terrorists or CT's blazing hopeless last stands or witnessing some gormless CT trying to blast some crazy sob Terrorist cutting into his kidney with a bowie knife always makes me laugh. Even the Ragdoll corpses sometimes get blown, shot or slid into some hilariously amusing positions. Despite the graphics and seriousness of a Terrorist Attack, CSS will always have a comical side to me. Either with witty or LOL banter of the dead semi-bored pundits in the chat channel, the (sometimes) funny sound bytes or hearing some chap being snarky on the mic. Wondering around the map, watching people getting wasted and looking and the cheap destruction or your fellow players sprays in most VALVe games is always an interesting experince though.

Another thing amuses me about the game. It is always the same four guys being taken hostage. What power does Old Guy, Middle Aged Guy, Young Guy and Asian Guy hold in the ultra-violent but constantly resetting world of Counter Strike SOURCE? Do they have horrible luck and taste when it comes to going on holiday? Is it a Sick Fetish and they are all members of some Hostage Volunteers Group on MySpace? Could they perhaps know where all the women went in this crazy world of endless death and lolcat sprays? Where they perhaps, NPC's that helped Gman in his crazy quest during Black Mesa and got exiled like Gordon in Half Life? Who knows. All we know is, they are funny to shoot in the foot. I have an intricate theory that Middle Aged Guy owns the floaty invisible shop where everyone buys their weapons at the start of the round and has some sort of deal with the CT. Since he always dies last. Keep an eye on him will you? he could try and sell you some repainted Mac-10 he looted from some newbie Terrorist corpse when you are saving his creepy ass.

Do I have any favourite moments of my own adventures in the game? Recently, I went nuts and got five kills with the Pump Shotgun in the game. Sadly, I could never stop the CT's from disarming the bomb on the same round. Life is cruel, but you respawn still with your gun and new ammo :D. I also recall recently just buying a whole lot of AK's with the team and throwing them on the coffee table in the expanded Office map. It was utterly pointless, but we all got a free Assault Rifle for it!

Now I simply wonder what is left in store for CSS now that The Orange Box is out of the way. VALVe have confirmed that Achivements for it and his grand old man, Counter Strike will be in the works but we want more content. More guns. Chickens in Italy. Spetznatz CT and Escaped Convict Models for both teams.

Right, I'm all out of STEAM. Get it? Anyways, before I go I must mention if you liked Red Versus Blue check out the Leet World Machinma, set in CSS. An excellent parody of all those crap Reality Television shows that is on TV these days with the crazy Ultra Violence of CSS thrown in for win.

Welcome All! Press Start To Play!

2007-11-27T12:37:00.000-08:00

What do you mean, press start to play? where is the start key? OMG OMG OMG. Did you try that weird key then? you know the little one, always skulking around your keyboard under a certain Esc key. That guy. Slap him now. Okay, loading Introduction.

Okay, lets get to introductions. Hello, I am Nurdbot. I am a Gamer. I am going on twenty this December, and I have been gaming since I was eight years old. I've played on several different platforms, starting with the ye olde Sega Master System and working my way up to the mighty gaming rig of today's PC Computers. I'll discuss more on that some other time.

Why am I writing a blog? For several reasons really, one is to blow off the gaming ramblings and other junk floating around in my head. Another reason, I always wanted to be a Gaming Journalist. Writing has always been a hidden little passion of mine, always wanting my attention despite my hobbies and other things that keep me busy.

But enough about me. Lets talk about games. What are my tastes? Well, I suppose. Almost anything really (Barring the Fantasy Grind MMO Clones South Korea pumps out) and I will have a go at something even if only just once.

Yes, I'm my time I have commanded grand armies and empires and fought in more action leaded scenes with twin MG-42 machine guns held in my avatars bulging Arnie like muscles than I have hot dinners. I've hit armies of minions with swords and guns too. I even enjoy building things rather than smashing them, as my Movie Studios and Former Sims can claim.

Oh. And I love Mods too. Mods are the 2nd love of my life in games next to the games themselves. If you are part of a Mod, I love you. Consider that a badge of honour good sir.

So sit back, let the cat out of the room and pop open a can of diet coke or something. Even tea will do. A quick shout out to PC Gamer who in one of their letters to another fellow like me, inspired me to do this. Now, select your team!