The above screenshot depicts the southern deployment zone of a battle map that is so reviled that many players either suicide rush the enemy the moment the match begins or destroy themselves in a fit of pique. Its official name is Malinovka, but its legion of detractors refuses to call it anything but Campinovka. Malinovka wins every “most hated map” poll on the official forums by an order of magnitude and is the subject of endless threads calling for its deletion. I don’t agree. While it’s not my favorite battle map, I appreciate its challenges and enjoy fighting there.
After the jump: why I like going to camp Continue reading →
HUDs used to be essential. Without them, you couldn’t know how much ammo or health you had, or what the score was. Now they’re unfashionable. In the name of immersion, interface engineers do away with as much HUD as possible, or they find ways to integrate it with the game world. Now you read your ammo count off the gun’s built-in display. In Dead Space, your health gauge runs up the spine of your character’s suit.
After the jump, HUD is where the heart is Continue reading →
Just how many cat scares can an American director work into the adaptation of a Bronte novel? Find out on this week’s pocast. Then join us at the 48-minute mark for this week’s 3×3, which is a discussion of movies that take place in a single location. There is surprisingly little fighting about just what that means.
Podcast (movies): Play in new window | Download
Subscribe:
The puzzles are mostly as good as they ever were and the co-op is a minor revelation, but the really outstanding part of Portal 2 is Wheatley. As I wrote in the review:
If there is better voice acting in a game, I haven’t heard it. [Stephen] Merchant and Portal 2 are every bit as ideal a fit of actor with writing as Jack Black in Brutal Legend, Nolan North and Emily Rose in Uncharted, and Ellen McLain in the original Portal.
Thumbs up.
Friday night we all held our collective breath as our beloved Qt3 moved servers. Hahaha ok well we probably looked at more porn or were true degenerates and browsed SA or GAF. I did hold my breath but that was because I ate 5 Guys for dinner (what do they put in those burgers). Anyway it was a small hiccup really and now we’re back and faster than ever! Front page game diaries will bury my column in mere minutes! Tieman’s posts will be ignored at lightning speeds! Qt3 knows a thing or two about this whole internet thing, fella.
Speaking of internet jokes: Sony. Am I right or what?
More on gaming’s special needs child after the jump. Continue reading →
One of the graphically impressive features of Section 8: Prejudice is the way that you spawn in multiplayer. Instead of magically materializing at a location you drop from a ship 5,000 meters (~16,000 feet, ~3 miles) onto the map. This is done in third person (pictured) so you can see all the cool streaking effects and how your battle-hardened avatar casually sways side to side as you plummet.
But it not only looks good, there’s some gameplay in this mechanic beyond a respawn timer.
After the jump, it’s not just for show Continue reading →
My new IS, a Tier 7 Soviet heavy tank, just got deployed to the southwest side of the Murovanka battle map. Murovanka is one of several maps ideally suited for defense. The northeastern deployment zone is dominated by a dense forest that provides fantastic camouflage for stationary tanks, while the southwestern zone boasts a somewhat covered ridge with a commanding view of the battlefield. Both areas also have several indestructible buildings that can shelter tanks from incoming fire.
While the countdown timer is ticking away, I advise my team not to attack the forest until the enemy herd has been somewhat thinned. Long and painful experience has conclusively demonstrated that an early attack into the teeth of their defense is certain to fail. Patience, however, is a winning strategy. Many players can’t stand to sit still for more than a few seconds, no matter how good their cover is or how much sense a defensive strategy makes. Perhaps it’s their FPS background, where “camping is for noobs” seems to be the eternal mantra, or maybe they’re just ritalin-popping adrenaline junkies. On Murovanka, the team with the largest number of impatient players is in serious trouble.
After the jump, my teammates get me killed Continue reading →
I’m in the Skull Dungeon, a warren of chambers spread throughout the bizarro world version of the Lost Woods. I’m getting frustrated. It is at this point that, had I not promised myself to complete the game, that I would quit again. It had been awhile since I played Link to the Past, so at the outset, my reasons for abandoning it in the first place seemed vague and unconvincing. We’re talking about Zelda here! My favorite games! But absence, fondness, etc. Proofing your nostalgia may always be a doomed enterprise.
After the jump, can you go home again? Continue reading →
You know it’s a slow week when the only cause for excitement is a downloadable game from the folks who made Super Stardust and Dead Nation. Outland seems like a mostly typical side-scrolling platformer, but with trippy graphics that recall Out of this World*. It’ll be available from Xbox Live on Tuesday and from the Playstation Network whenever Sony gets their act together.
Also out this week are add-ons for Operation Flashpoint and IL-2. And whatever Dark Spore is.
* If you have to ask, you’re too young to know.
For no particularly good reason, several of us will be jumping into an ancient Sony MMO called Vanguard, a relic from the ancient days of yore known as “2007”. Sign up for a free 14-day trial and post your character name here to join us. Furthermore, it’s a bonus experience point weekend, so what better time to get started than now? And stay tuned to this space for a game diary in the coming weeks.
When it was released, I reviewed Vanguard for Computer Games Magazine. It was a collaborative review written with Kelly Wand and editor Steve Bauman. They made fun of me for liking it as much as I did. Well, who’s laughing now? Okay, they are. But who’s playing again Vanguard four years later? That’s right. Me.
And lest you think Vanguard is just another MMO, well…you’re only partly right. It has a hearty combat system, varied character classes, a cool collectible card game to model diplomacy, some of the most interesting crafting you will ever do, and a pretty well realized and expansive world. And with only a single server for the US, it’s not nearly successful enough that you won’t be able to find the other people who happen to be playing.
I’m sitting in the starting area of Karelia in my KV, waiting for the battle to begin. Karelia is one of my favorite battle maps. One team (mine, this time) deploys in the northeast corner on a two-tiered hill that looks like a short, wide wedding cake. The other team starts on a similar hill to the southwest. A road with very little cover runs directly between the two, but most players decide early in their careers that it’s explosive suicide to venture down it.
The northern and southern edges of the map offer much better avenues for attack. The northern axis boasts a number of large boulders that provide shelter from enemy fire, and some of them are even tall enough to block arcing artillery projectiles. The southern route is dominated by a high ridgeline with sheer cliffs on its northern face that can be skirted to the south. The team that commands this approach can move tanks to the top of the ridge and fire down on large portions of the battlefield. Both axes eventually lead to the enemy base which, when captured, ends the fight.
After the jump, choosing and losing Continue reading →
I’ve been known to hold forth on how annoying compulsory deaths are in these community levels. Deaths that are impossible for the player to avoid. Deaths that occur because the level designer was incompetent or lazy, or showing off. I almost wrote this week’s level–Desert 5.0–off and deposited it into that file. Glad I didn’t. Because there’s a difference between an arbitrary death, and a death that teaches you something…namely the rules of the game. This isn’t a great level, by any means, but it taught me a lesson. How to learn the rules through dying and not bitch about it.
Much like how you learn to win a good RTS by losing a few rounds.
Wait…did I say a good RTS?
After the jump, I meant great Continue reading →
“What are you doing?”
As I turn around to face my wife, I hit the small button on the bridge of my guitar. The lightshow on the television screen freezes, and my avatar halts in mid-sneer. The music that had been blasting from the speakers goes silent. The cooing of my son in the bouncy chair next to me becomes the most prominent sound in the room.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“I thought it was no TV until they’re two?” she replies with a pointed but amused expression.
She’s referring to one of the baby books we had read while she was pregnant. In it, the author makes a case for no television before the age of two based on studies that show a worrisome impact on babies’ attention spans later in life.
“This isn’t TV,” I say.
“That’s not a TV?”
“Yes, that’s a TV, but this isn’t TV. It’s Rock Band.”
“I can see that,” she says. “What’s the difference?”
After the jump, the worst possible answer. Continue reading →
The original Section 8 didn’t really have a single player mode. It was a multiplayer skrimish mode tied together with a few cutscenes. This time around Section 8: Prejudice boasts a full-featured single player mode called the Campaign.
After the jump, how the Campaign stacks up (or doesn’t) Continue reading →
See that tank up there? That’s me. No, not the sexy US T29 in the foreground, with the sloped armor, twin aerials, and muzzle-braked cannon. I’m the one behind it. The big olive drab thing that looks like a square box perched on top of a rectangular box. That’s my KV, and I love it. It’s kind of like a bulldog: ugly as sin, tough, loyal, dependable, and the last thing you want to see leaping for your throat.
After the jump, meet the KV, terror of the early game Continue reading →
