‘TAAAAAAAANK!’ I scream, flopping belly down in what I hope is enough of a rise to provide cover from the metal beast’s mounted MG. Two of my squad members become a fine red mist and the thing begins to move. As my buddy yells into the headset for a sitrep, the MG opens up and my little hillock evaporates in a spray of bullets. Game over.
Ah, realism. In shooter camps, reactions to realism tend towards two extremes: those who love it, and those who hate it. A lot of people don’t want their headshots marred by having to walk a kilometre over rough terrain to their objective, or would rather regenerate health by hiding behind small walls instead of limping along slowly for the next half hour and bitching because they’ve taken a bullet to the shin. Read more ›
Aug 29 2010 by Christi MacPherson [BeardyBrave] Filed In: Articles
I was a naysayer. I’ll admit it. My first thoughts when I saw the iPad were “it’s just a giant iPhone…”, and my thinking stayed that way for months. Cynical of apple’s attitude towards those that make their products and those that buy them and full of scorn for those that fell for the apple marketing magic. You know what I mean when I mention those ads that would have you believe that they invented cut and paste, or the right mouse button, or multitasking…
Despite playing Final Fantasy XI for many years I had my greatest adventure with some friends recently. We saved the world! Squee!
I can’t believe we actually finished the Chains of Promathia storyline and
what’s even more incredible is that 5 year old content still looks so
fresh. The last battle is straight out of Phantasy Star Online. You’ve been teleported
to an area where it looks like the world is inside a giant goldfish bowl
and your characters are standing on the glass of the bowl looking down
onto the game world. The samurai companion you’ve been helping has
stunned your companions with the flat of his Great Katana and it’s up to
you and your party to ascend to the goldfish bowl to defeat Promathia.
In a previous cutscene you’ve seen the Chains holding Promathia
shattered and the God is now released and threatens the game world. So,
you descend into the basement of the palace and are then transported
out to said goldfish bowl. You get another cutscene where 3 Taru
combine to cast FF fave spell Meteor which wipes some of your allies
again and you then take on Promathia himself. It’s totally amazing to
run around on the glass of the bowl fighting and looking down upon the
world that you’ve explored so extensively. ‘Twas an epic battle with 4
people but we were never really threatened – to be fair it’s a level 75
battle but now the cap’s at 80 it’s possible with less than 6 players.
The battle ends and Altana, the true Goddess of the game world, cries
tears onto the battlefield and your character appears being splashed
with said saltyness and you learn something about the power of the
crystal inside yourself yada yada whilst the most evocative FF music
strums in the background. Stupendous.
Oh, and they film themselves doing it and timelapse it and put it on YouTube… just to show everyone else what we could be doing but aren’t, and also partially to show off, but I suspect mostly because they find it amusing to do so.
Aug 06 2010 by Rory Marquis [Roridge] Filed In: Articles
Two weekends ago while watching The Crazies on Blu-Ray It wasn’t very far in until there was a flicker followed by the sound of something powering down. My PS3 had bought the farm.
Image courtesy of YLOD.net
In an desperate attempt for it not to be totally dead I repeatedly did the following actions, which all resulted the same way; with beepbeepbeep and a flashing red light: Read more ›
Even though the poor Scottish accent makes me cringe, I just had to post this vid up. Made me laugh and I can’t wait for this anyway. NA release is now April 20th btw. Can’t find word of a Euro release date, but the devs have linked them closely so it can’t be far away from April 20th we reckon.
I’m a bush. A very deadly bush with a suppressed sniper rifle. Picking off anyone who gets within 2 feet of the stairs to our bunker. Unfortunately someone has spotted the deadly bush-that-I-am and is sprinting round behind me. His burst of speed makes him visible on my radar and I spot the blip. I stop, drop and crawl away – making not even the slightest noise through the mic to give myself away. I crawl round behind him as he stands over the bush-that-was-me wondering, vocally, where the hell I went. I knife him in the back. Then I take his gun ( I was almost out of ammo anyway ) and kill his mates with it.
Feb 10 2010 by Christi MacPherson [BeardyBrave] Filed In: Action Adventure, News
Rumours are floating around the ether that the next Demon’s Souls is set for a Japanese release this autumn which, if you ask us, is right up there with the second coming ( that one’s free Munja ) … um … anyway we’re quite excited by the idea as we loved the first one.
It’s all based on a podcast from Dengeki Games and is getting a lot of fans hot under the collar. Read more ›
Fumanstu continues his weekly series on games and his life. This week he talks about MAG and Global Agenda. He would also like to point out that he’s managed two in a row. Go him! He likes 7-up and writing about himself in the third person.
Last weekend saw the launch of MAG for the PS3 and Global Agenda on the PC. On the surface these games have a fair bit in common, most notably a RPG style character progression and a real emphasis on working as a team. However, both games come at these shared themes from two very different angles.
Looking at character progression first, MAG gives you the freedom of the entire skill tree to select from. You get a skill point every time you level up. using your skill points you purchase from items that are roughly grouped into ‘classes’, depending on where your predominant points are spent the game will assign you a class so that squad members can see what you’re rough role in the squad is going to be. Items in the skill tree include weapons, attachments etc. After assigning points in the skill tree its important to remember to go and set up your equipment as you won’t automatically start using the new items. You can swap between loadouts before you spawn allowing you to react to the demands of a map. Its a great system because it allows you to start off boosting what you feel comfortable with before branching out into other areas.
GA features a much more tightly controlled system. When you create your character you choose from one of 4 classes and from that point onward you are only levelling within that class. Every level will earn you access to new equipment (which will cause different effects) or skill points. Skill points are spent within a fairly standard RPG skill tree. You can then configure your loadout before a match or at the spawn point in a map, which gives you a degree of on the fly customisation for your character.
Notice that both systems are largely the same, MAG is provides slightly more options because it doesn’t tie you to a class right from the very start. Otherwise, however, they both follow the same template of earning equipment and configuring your character through that equipment. As a system, it works really well grounding the empowerment of your character with a degree of logic.
Moving onto to looking at how both games encourage teamwork and there is far less commonality. MAG’s philosophy is simple, acting on your own (with a few sniper exceptions, that demand skills of their own) will get you killed, usually before you can do anything of any use. Work together though – and the game dangles many carrots like increased XP and resuscitation to encourage this – and you will find that you’re far more effective. Playing MAG well requires that you forget many of the lessons that other shooters will have taught you.
GA takes a different standpoint entirely by making characters much much harder to kill. There are no headshots or instant kills in GA. A one on one fight will usually result in one of the players retreating before getting killed. Effective play requires that players combine skills on enemies (or each other in the case of healing and buffs) to take them down and accomplish objectives.
In short GA encourages you to work together by ensuring that all abilities combine and become much more effective whereas MAG places you in situations where you are completely ineffective without others.
Finally, a short tale taken from a match in MAG to illustrate how it all hangs together.
In a defensive match we were tasked with holding an objective against the enemy. If the enemy was able to take the both the forward objectives they would then be able to mount an attack on the main objective. There was roughly three access points to our defensive area and our team had taken up positions to try and cover these points. I was moving around between the three points attempting to provide heals and rez’s where necessary and the odd bit of covering fire. In one particular push from the enemy they made it through one of the points and we rallied to force them back. We had lost one of our bunkers (spawn points) and we desperately needed it back to ensure that we didn’t have to waste time running back to the fight when we died. The squad leader issued the order to repair the bunker and I moved towards the bunker. As I moved in I could see a squadmate, already crouched down repairing. Too late I saw the incoming enemy and raised my weapon to try and protect my squaddie but before I could fire, he was down, bleeding out in front the bunker. Snapping off a few shots I took revenge for my fallen comrade and I ensured I finished the job to prevent any unfortunate respawns. Turning my attention to my squadmate, I swapped to my medkit and had him back up on his feet in no time. We turned our attention to the bunker, with a quick swap to the repair tool, we had the bunker up and working in no time. Thus ensuring that the rest of the team could continue to return to the battle as soon as possible. With a swift virtual nod to each other, we moved onto the next objective.
Fumanstu continues his weekly series about the games in his life. This week he talks about MAG and Global Agenda and how they share some common game systems. He would also like to point out that he’s managed two posts in a row. Go him! He likes 7-up and writing about himself in the third person. Read more ›
Through contacts on various MH fansites, myself and Chris managed to bag a VIP invitation to a promotional presentation of Monster Hunter Tri on the Wii by Capcom. With trusted reassurance from Tenebra, the community Manager of Capcom EU, we arrived intact at the Science Museum in London. A lavish breakfast of bagels and cocktail sticks adorned with cheese and pineapple awaited, fortunately the more astute of us had snaffled a full English prior to entry and left the varied morsels to avaricious game journalists. However, the coffee was much appreciated.
Side entrance to the Science Museum in London - the special exhibits today include cheese and pineapple on sticks
) … um … anyway we’re quite excited by the idea 