‘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.

For me, realism in shooters became something to pay attention to after the release of Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising. A long time console-head, my experience of shooters included all the modern ‘greats’ of warfare, yet none of them captured my attention for more than a month or two. Single player became repetitive and multiplayer became an exercise in pinpoint cartography – not exactly fun gaming, though millions of people paying for overpriced DLC seem to disagree. OFP: DR brought home realism in a whole new way – one bullet could kill me. I had to plan my assaults around the terrain, control multiple squads over multiple objectives. A new world had opened. Codemasters rather sadly dropped support five months after release, and all hope of new content vanished into so many forum rants and shattered dreams.

So it was, after those heady days that I turned my head towards the world of PC gaming for the first time in twelve years. I’d done some research on Bohemia Interactive’s ‘ARMA’ series, the spiritual successor to the original Operation Flashpoint (originally a BIS title, the license now owned by Codemasters), and after a catastrophic laptop failure forced the purchase of a new PC – how could I resist taking a peek?

Fortunately, the death of my laptop coincided with the release of Bohemia’s first major expansion for the ARMA2 series: Operation Arrowhead. Set in a fictional desert country, rather unimaginatively named ‘Takistan’, the game expands on ARMA2’s history of massive open maps, complex, unscripted AI and bone-crunching realism.

Six hefty campaign missions take you through the US response to a military insurgency, and manage to encompass a wide variety of warfare. Operation Arrowhead includes several enhancements to the original ARMA2, including one of the most realistic (and visually impressive) renderings of thermal imaging seen in a combat sim, remote UAV target painting and portable mortars, and nearly all of them play a part in the campaign missions. The whole campaign can be played co-operatively, with the added touch that co-op players are given their own squads and objectives within the mission area. Several single mission ‘scenarios’ are included as well (also with co-op support) for extra replayability.

ARMA2’s famously complicated mission editor has received a boost in the form of a huge amount of new content for modders and mission makers to play with. A whole set of new, lovingly rendered vehicles, weapons and enemies allow plenty of possibilities, and the expansion includes three enormous maps for editors to play around with. Of particular note is the town generator, an editor module that creates a fully formed small ‘Afghan’ town instantly without requiring tedious manual building placement – and of course, it’s nearly all compatible with existing ARMA2 content.

Operation Arrowhead’s multiplayer options link directly into the existing ARMA2 servers and content, and includes a dizzying array of co-op and competitive modes, with Arrowhead owners being restricted to the maps and units provided in the expansion. ARMA2 can be linked with Arrowhead to create ‘Combined Ops’, integrating the two games into one menu interface, and allowing cross utilisation of editor content.

In terms of gameplay, Operation Arrowhead is every bit as punishing as its predecessors. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been dropped in an eyeblink, without ever knowing where the shot came from. I’ve been torn to pieces by machine gun fire, smeared into a fine paste by badly aimed anti-tank rockets and cowered in abject fear for what seemed like an eternity waiting for my Javelin to lock on.  You might have a kilometre or two to cover in the course of a mission; multiple objectives, all undertaken with the ever-present fear that any combat encounter could be your end. It’s either them or you.

Screams over VOIP as the tank beside you evaporates in a flash of RPG fire. Checking and rechecking your sights as you wait for the helicopter carrying your target to drone slowly over the early morning desert. Sweeping small villages house to house, muscles tensed for the slightest sound, scanning hills for hints of movement. The still, silent wait before the inevitable assault. All this is Operation Arrowhead, just as it was with ARMA2, and no written review can do that feeling justice – you have to play it, to form your own stories, before you’ll realise exactly how special it is.

Realism, despite it’s merits, does not guarantee a lack of flaws. The engine itself, while powerful, is beginning to show its age. It still takes a beast of a machine to get top-level performance from a game this resource hungry – the game will look perfectly fine on an all-round ‘Normal’ graphics setting, but even the most powerful machine will suffer some stuttering on texture load-in, and the occasional LOD issue. Due to the game’s unscripted nature, occasional issues can surface with the AI as well; vehicle pathfinding in particular can often go awry without warning, forcing you to back up and wait for your units to regroup. While issues like this are forgivable (and to some extent unavoidable) in a game of this nature, the AI has only received a minor improvement over ARMA2.

BIS have clearly put more effort into the campaign and accompanying story, and while this is to be applauded, the voice acting veers wildly between generic and cringeworthy throughout. Newcomers expecting Hollywood production values and epic cutscenes will be disappointed, and the inclusion of Arrowheads’ newer features during missions can occasionally feel forced. The mission editor (where many ARMA vets feel the ‘real’ game lies), while nearly limitless in scope still relies on complex, manually written code to achieve many of the more interesting actions (a helicopter extraction, for example) and has received little in the way of interface improvements since the original Operation Flashpoint in 2001. As it stands, learning to code is a significant barrier to new players wanting to use the editor, and the editing community can be both obstructive and genuinely helpful in equal measure, with only limited information provided by BIS.

So we’re back to those two extremes again. Another ‘Marmite’ game. Maybe you’ll hate it for the occasional bugs, or because the story doesn’t have an idiot with a moustache and lots of dramatic cutscenes. Maybe you’ll hate it because you don’t want to have to trudge an hour in the rain with a full pack just to kill a few bad guys. You just want to Rambo it up for half an hour. It doesn’t matter that some guy will always be behind that helicopter; you know he’ll be there, and exactly where to go to kill him.

Or you’ll be one of those people who loves it. Maybe you’re an ex-military guy who plays these games to keep him sharp, and yells in game about how you did something just like this way back when. Maybe you’re just bored of corridor shooters and regen health and want bullets to mean something again. Maybe you want to trudge an hour in the rain with a full pack. Sicko.

Maybe you want a shooter that’s genuinely unpredictable, a game that stuffs Rambo and rewards teamwork, planning and careful execution. It doesn’t matter that it’s hard. You want a game that creates stories, whether they’re accompanied by screams of horror the elation of victory. Sometimes both.

Me? I’m just in it for the sniping.

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…

But then they ensnared me with utterly lick-able polish. First Flipboard, which drew me in to the idea of a forever changing dynamic, personal magazine. That was the app that may have been free yet cost me hundreds of pounds. I had to have it, I had to have an iPad to have it. At that point I could justify anything. I had a PSP and I had a DS. I also had a Sony ebook reader. All things that could easily be replaced by the iPad. They all swiftly went on eBay to pay for my new pride and joy. Little did I know just how well this thing would render them totally and utterly obsolete.

I take my iPad everywhere, I listen to music, post on the web, am writing this blog post, watch the news, read comics, read books and most importantly play games on it. And oh what games at oh what price! I had no idea the quality, and the value that was about to hit me straight in the face. I have been buying games and apps everyday for the last two weeks solid because I am like a kid in a candy store, and still I reckon I haven’t spent more than the equivalent of two games for the DS or PSP.

I’ve forced myself to stop ( well except for buying this blogging app … ) and concentrate on the games I’ve bought. Get value out of them and give them a chance to shine. Dungeon Hunter, Osmos, Madden 11, Mirror’s Edge, Pocket Legends, Let’s Golf 2, the beautiful Samurai HD and so many of the others deserve a chance in the sun. How long that’ll last I don’t know. My wallet is already twitching at the prospect of a rally game on the ipad sometime in September. Help me…

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.

Sorry for the spoilers but you know. Bizzarely I have to wait until Japanese
midnight to pick up my rewards and final cutscenes. Best reward being a
swimsuit that has the ability to teleport you once a week to Purponorgo
Island, a secluded tropical island once a week. Marvellous. Roll on
4pm. Thanks to Shifta (PSO comment!) and Bushybob!

The thing was we hadn’t even planned to do this. I was having a quiet day at work – voluntary day. I had my laptop. I happened to have my mobile broadband dongle. I happened to log into the game to see what was happening and, shuzam!, 4-5 hours had passed and we’d saved the world.

I’d love it if people took the time to post their own epic experiences and battles in the games that you’ve played. Have you saved the world? Have you discovered a secret cave where you sit and watch the sun go down? Perhaps a kindly soul has helped you in game? Oh, I’m gushing! *ahem

They develop other games for fun really they do.

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.

For some reason crappress Wordpress wont let me embed the video, so here is a link… which has a much much lower level of impressiveness Metagun Timelapse.

If you wanna play the game (rather than watch the timelapse) here’s a helpful linky Metagun (free of course).

Let’s talk about Notch. What a guy. This is a guy who decided to quit his job as a games developer and focus on making his own games. Now “games developer” is a bit of a far cry from what you or I might consider games development… more like scratch card flash games (http://www.king.com/). Not to knock, a game is a game… right gamers?

Notch is a guy who clearly had enough of having enough and decided to branch out on his own and do indie games development and maybe he might earn a few quid to keep him going.

Currently his game has sold over 73,000 copies (by my count that’s more than APB >_> … too soon?).  At €9.95 a copy, by my recckoning he is in profit to the tune of over €720,000. Oh, and by the way, this game is only in ALPHA!!!! Plus the sales figures rise by the hundreds every day. EDIT: in the time it took me to write this he sold 78 copies. EDIT2: Make that 102 copies.

The game in question is Minecraft. I am not going to review the game as FuManStu has already done a great job here. I am not even sure this is worthy of a blog post, but I think that Notch deserves major props for his work thus far.

Notch is my kind of guy:

• He describes Minecraft as “…a game about placing blocks while running from skeletons. Or something like that..Here, watch this video of me testing rollercoasters in the game instead:”
  But that is it! That is pretty much the limit of this mans self promotion.
• He has already made shed loads of money from a game he openly admits he got the idea while playing a game, that is graphically very similar, called Infiniminer. Which fits my personal philosophy “just because it is done, doesn’t mean that it isn’t worth doing again” also known as “Simpsons Already Did It“
• His personal work philosophy (although some what tongue in cheek I feel) is work for a week, then take a weeks holiday.
• He has single handedly destroyed the myth that you can’t really use Java to write games.

So, go play Minecraft (even if you only try the free version for a muck about), or there are always the other games Notch has done, for free, like the fantastic Left 4k Dead or Meg4kMan to name but two.

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:

• Off and On at the power then pressing “on”.

• Off and On at the power then pressing “eject”.

• Off at the power then holding “eject” and On at the power.

[Which makes me wonder why they made a console where you can not manually eject the disc... I guess because it looks pretty]

Conclusion: PS3 would not start, disc stuck inside, three beeps and red light.

Diagnosis: RLOD.
(I don’t think it was the YLOD because on the videos I’ve seen the system winds up and can eject the disc, mine didn’t even do that, but I could be wrong, either way read “screwed”)

Having read that that Sony are not like Microsoft I already knew that they would never exchange it for free because it was 2 years old and out of warranty. But being a boy I tried to demand they did it anyway, and several Sony employees all repeatedly told me they would not.

My options were:

1. Pay £245 or more for a new PS3 slim.
   Which I don’t have enough money for.

1. Pay Sony £131 directly for a reconditioned PS3.
   Which only comes with a three month warranty.
2. Pay someone privately to fix it.
   Which comes with a one month warranty (three if lucky and spend a bit more).
3. Open it up, attempt to eject the disc myself and do the “heat gun fix“.
   For which I am far too lazy and don’t own a head gun.
4. Drive to Sony in Basingstoke and throw the PS3 at them.
   I should make a notable mention at this point that the UK Sony HQ is on “Jays Close”.

After much complaining on Twitter (here, here and some consolation from Brave here) and spending several times on the phone to Sony (telling them I would never buy a Sony product again and telling them I was taking my [phantom] brand new Sony TV back) I reached the realisation of something I already knew; I would not be getting a reconditioned PS3 for free.

At this point there was only one thing I had left in my armoury I could use, my secret weapon, my own personal Spartan Laser, my weapon of mass consumer consumption.

I set my wife on them.

Two days later, I still had to pay £131 but I have a reconditioned PS3 (which is more “like new” than the free 360 I got), a 12 month warranty (in writing) and a free game.

\o/ girls, because you can do anything better than boys.

Edit: I also now have a spare hard drive with a PS3 operating system that allows the install of another OS.

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.

UPDATE: Actually, I’m an idiot. Our own spies had confirmed the 23rd of April not so long ago. Sorry Munja.

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.

Deep.

Ambitious.

Cavernous.

Massive. Action. Game.

Big simply doesn’t cut it with MAG. Big is peanuts to MAG. MAG is huge. MAG is vast. If you ask me, MAG is one of the most important shooters to be made in recent times. If nothing else it shows that console gamers can cope with vast. They can cope with massive and that, done right, Chaos is not Invention’s evil twin. Its mother would be proud…

Let’s get one thing straight from the off. I have a very limited attention span. I often half-jest that it’s about 40 hours long, then I get bored and move on. It’s only a half joke though. Dragon Age is a prime example, 40 hours in I’m only halfway through and can’t now bear to crank the thing up again. This is a worry when it comes to big hardcore games as, generally, I don’t have the time or the will to persevere with them ( Demon’s Souls being my one exception ). It’s especially a worry with a game that possesses a gaping time-maw like MAG’s.

From the detail and size of the maps to the beautifully well thought out progression system. It all deserves so much more time than any reviewer, amateur or otherwise, could possibly give it. In fact it’s so cavernous that there is almost no way to do the whole game justice in one review. Doing so would lead to skimming of important detail or be a tome the size of War and Peace. Neither option is palatable to me, so I’m going to concentrate on my particular speciality and hope that it gives you a taste of the incredible, overwhelming depth available to those willing to put some effort into the game.

My speciality? I’m a camping git. I am a sniper. I’m not just a sniper though, I’m a Raven sniper. And that my friend, makes me a fucking ninja. Well now I am. The first 15 hours or so? I was a cowering little dormouse. In fact for the first 5 hours I was a bullet magnet until I finally learned not to rush in with the rest of the squad, instead giving them support from the rear. Picking off as many of their foes as I possibly could before they reached each other. Now I’ve  nearly hit 50 hours and I dinged 1000 kills with the sniper rifle long ago. I’m still learning new tricks and being spawned in new areas of the maps available to me. And crucially… I’m not bored. Not even slightly.

But let’s get some basics out of the way first. When you first load up MAG you’re faced with a tough choice. Which faction should you fight for? RAVEN, VALOR or SVER? For some it won’t be much of a choice as they’ll simply choose the faction their mates are fighting for. Nonetheless it’s a commitment. You only have one save attached to your PSN profile. If you want to join another faction you have to delete that save and start again, losing all your XP when you do it. It makes a statement about what the game expects of you right from the off. It expects your heart and soul. If you want to do well, then you need to persevere. It points it’s finger at you and says “We want YOU”. In my case from that moment forward the Shadow War, and RAVEN, had a dedicated recruit.

The differences between the factions are actually surprisingly marked. The blurb says that RAVEN has the high-tech advantage, VALOR is battlefield proven with more diverse tactics available to them, and SVER is more guerilla warfare focussed. I’m not sure how much of that is just marketing spiel but I did pick up an enemy sniper rifle from a rival’s corpse recently to find it completely different to the weapons I have access to. It had an amazing fire rate balanced by a lack of bullet capacity. It went through 100 bullets in about 10 seconds, guaranteeing a medium range kill but making you visible and defenceless. It’s a hit and run rifle. Forcing a different style of gameplay more akin to the guerilla warfare the blurb mentions. The RAVEN sniper is less visible, forced to be much more thoughtful about his sniping spots. Less mobile, perhaps, but a lot more precise. It’s all very clever if you ask me.

After that it’s a case of being gradually introduced to the game modes and slowly finding a specialisation that fits you. To start with you’ll probably have access to only the Suppression mode, which is small beer for MAG. 32 player team deathmatch and one map. This is considered the training area for each faction, so as a RAVEN member you would only play against other RAVEN players. It’s still big enough to require some learning but with a level or two under your belt you should feel comfortable enough to move on to one of the larger, newly unlocked modes where the meat of the game really lies.

I think the technical term for this is fish in a barrel.

First up – Sabotage. 32 vs 32, faction vs faction attack and defend. As is the case with all the large scale modes, each faction has it’s own home map. That map is the one you defend. Whenever you play on an away map you attack. This means you always start at the same end of each map. That might seem like a recipe for boredom but for me it’s an anchor point. The maps are so large, so well designed and detailed that if not for some familiarity in the spawn points they’d be all but impossible to learn. The design of a Sabotage map splits the 32 man platoon into 2 sections each consisting of 2 squads of 8. You can go anywhere you like in the map but are likely to have orders to defend either point A or point B. Should A and B both fall  then the attackers are allowed to push on to point C. Detonate explosives there and it’s game over. It’s a beautifully simple structure which ( combined with great map design ) really emphasises the need to think tactically.

Incentives are in place to keep squads together and “on message” too; any decent squad leader will use those incentives effectively, allowing squad-mates to get bonus XP for downing enemies and healing allies within a designated area. It’s very effective as a tool to promote teamwork and for the most part works really well. I’ve found myself in a real groove here. Light, suppressed rifle, and mines equipped along with Medikit. Acoustic locator ( a device which shows long distance shots on your HUD ) sacrificed so that I can get everything in within the weight limit. A weight limit which seems fine to begin with, I might add, but soon forces you to make some critical decisions about what kit you unlock and carry, and how you might specialise. When defending, I sprint to place my mines at our bunker, rush to reload with fresh mines, dart back to comfy sniper spot and start to pick off the incoming enemy. Any that get past me or my squad get nailed by the mines, at which point I rush back to replace them. In between I’m darting out to bring people back to life, saving them the wait and long run involved in respawning. It all works rather nicely, most of the time.

Acquisition is the next mode. 128 players in a 64 v 64 skirmish in which the attackers have to steal two well guarded vehicles. To do this they have to break through a well structured defence of gates, bunkers, AA guns, and all sorts of other great gizmos which are put to use by the chain of command from squad leader to platoon leader to commander. It’s something I’d love to get my hands on but at the moment I feel a sniper is the wrong class to be in command. Not in the thick of things, it feels wrong to be throwing my squad-mates into the fray. Also as a sniper you quite often have to stay silent to avoid alerting nearby enemies to your presence ( proximity voice is used to great effect here ) and a good squad leader is generally fairly vocal. My main role in Acquisition mode has evolved over time. Generally tooled up with a repair kit or mines I’m either repairing damage or protecting the bunker that we initially spawn from whilst using the high position next to the attached gun turret to try and pick off enemy infiltrators from. It’s an interesting role which requires a beady eye on everything around me including nearby AA guns which may need repairing.

Finally there’s the bad boy. Domination – a 256 player, 128 vs 128 mode in which each side is trying to occupy as many designated areas as possible ( oil supply has a lot to with these maps iirc ). The team gets split up into 32 player platoons which in turn get split into 8 player squads. The chain of command keeps things orderly and while you feel part of a massive battle you tend not to feel lost. Admittedly my first couple of games did feel a bit bewildering and I’ve still not settled into a routine on the domination maps but a good leader and a commander with tactical nouse can make it feel like you really are part of something; a feature of the game which will only get enhanced with time. As the players gain experience the tactics will mature and what you will have is a very elegant combination of FPS and RTS. It is imo, a positive way forward for two genres that have shown signs of stagnating over recent years ( I know the sales say otherwise but in my opinion FPS gameplay has moved on very little in the last couple of years ).

Raven ROOL!

For the most part I’ve stuck to Sabotage recently. A desire to learn the maps properly led me to focus on one mode and as I’ve done that I’ve come to notice an almost fractal level of detail in the design. The closer you look the more you see. Little dips in the ridge-line perfect for sniping; sneaky little routes round the back of enemy bases; roofs that you thought you couldn’t reach are actually reachable if you steer hard enough when parachuting in. Heck I found a new camping spot the other day that I ran past every day since launch. It was only when I saw the enemy there that I decided to work out how the hell he got up there.

Everywhere you look, if you look hard enough, there’s a piece of design which can gain you an advantage. It’s  mind-boggling to contemplate, and that’s on the 64 player maps. The 256 player ones are going to take months to learn. Heck, they’re so big that I’m still on occasion spawning in areas that I’d never encountered before. 50 hours in, that’s really something.

MAG is the most rewarding game I’ve ever played. After 30 levels I’ve finally nailed the Most Valuable Player award on a couple of matches and my after-match score has tripled on average. I know the nooks and crannies now; I feel comfortable darting out from my sniper spots to replace mines, heal squad-mates and so on. I feel in control;  MAG is at it’s most beautiful when you feel like that. In fact MAG is a master-class in control. So many chaotic elements. 256 of them to be exact, sometimes mouthy, sometimes borderline sociopaths ( but remarkably, mostly really decent people who want to work as a team ) and still they manage to impose this beautiful structure on it. Look at it this way. I’m so intolerant of fools I generally go into anaphylactic shock when I hear one, yet I use my mic all the time with MAG.  Zipper deserve accolades for this. They won’t get them, but they deserve them.

I see an assault gunner pointing his rifle out of a church window.  I sneak under his nose outside the window unseen as he lets rip at my team-mates. Quickly, I pop two bullets between his eyes and run round to the church door, knowing there will be more inside. I crouch and dart inside, turning and knifing two more guys before they have a chance to pull the trigger. Without stopping I run to the bottom of the bell-tower and insert a suppressed ( an unlock I worked hard to get ) sniper bullet in the back of an enemy sniper’s head. Before I head up the ladder I deploy two mines either side of the bell-tower. I climb up out of the window and onto the roof. As I pick off a couple of snipers from across the map I hear an explosion. Someone had rushed in to wreak their revenge on me, only to be greeted by the mines I had placed earlier. You could probably see my grin from space.

If you’re looking for a squad then look no further. We’ve been playing most nights of late so the more the merrier. Simply sign up to the forum and shout out here.

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.

Thanks to 1UP and VG247.

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.

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.

The annual "How many people can fit on a pipe" competition was off to a slow start.

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.

Linda realised she'd left the gas on.

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.

I can see my house from up here!

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.

The driving lesson could have gone better.

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.