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.
Showing posts with label Rant. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rant. Show all posts
Sunday, December 9, 2007
Saturday, December 8, 2007
The General State of HL2 Multiplayer Mods
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?
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?
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