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.
Showing posts with label Mods. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mods. Show all posts
Monday, January 14, 2008
Friday, January 11, 2008
My love/hate relationship with Empire At War
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.
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.
Thursday, December 13, 2007
A Battlefield 1942 Veteran Remembers
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...
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...
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?
Friday, November 30, 2007
Praising Mods!
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.
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.
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