Montana Fragfest

As many of us know as the Holiday season closes in, the more gaming titles get released.  This year was no exception.  After being burnt out on Team Fortress for the last month or so, I have been diving into many single player experiences.  The list is pretty long so I’ll touch on the key points that made or fucked the game.

First off….

Dead Space (PC)

This game pretty much takes survival horror and re blends it.  It feels like it takes pieces from Resident Evil 4 and Bioshock and mixes it with some RPG elements.  This game uses the over the shoulder 3rd person view which seem to work better for immersion and the scary factor then the First person view.  This game kinda reminded me of what Doom 3 would have been if it was more than a flashlight simulator game.  Its dark in space but its overall dim lit and not completely black.  Doom seemed to get this wrong.  Immersion in a Horror game is all about the aura and the vibe that the maps give you.  And when you just plain old can’t see the map it kind of kills it and turns it into, “I’m scared because there is just shit jumping on me and I can’t see”  Don’t get me wrong Dead Space is full of cliche horror scenes like the typical monster comes out of the wall and attacks you.

The game rides on the pretty common theme of Alone in the Unknown.  The story line is pretty lame though, I’m not going to spoil it but its a bit predicable.  I did however like the weapons.  When I play a game i like to see some originality with the weapons.  Typically in many games there is the pistol, machine gun, and heavy weapon shtick.  Though this is how the weapon cast system is in Dead Space they seem to change it up with the Power node upgrades.  Its a system that allows you to modify and unlock attributes to your weapon with a series of branched out upgrades.   Another thing about this game that I haven’t seen in any other game is that you DON’T want to head shot, you want to take out the limbs.  This adds a fun element to the game.  And craftily flows over to some of the weapons.

As you may have seen from screen shots or videos, some of the weapons shoot out ammo in a line.   These are denoted by the 3 laser sights.  The fun thing is, is that you can choose on the fly how your gun is positioned  to shoot i.e. vertically or horizontally.  So if you want to shoot off an arm the best position is to have your gun shooting top to bottom.  And if you prefer to slow down the enemy you can adjust the weapon to shoot a line of ammo from left to right and take off a leg pretty easily.

The game had a good length to it as well.  It was just long enough to keep you from getting bored of the scenarios that it could throw at you.

Moving on..

Farcry 2

At first I thought I really liked this game.  I had the mind set that it would run just as shitty as Crysis which actually takes away from the overall game play experience.  When I launched this puppy, I found a gorgeous world that actually ran like butter.  Which was surprising, and a total bonus.  A few hours in I was even content with the story.  But after being let out on your own to do whatever (sandbox), it just got old.  My train of thought was lets get some good weapons going immediately.  Well to upgrade your weapons you have to talk to a dealer and he will give you a mission to unlock said cool weapons.  The missions given to you by the dealer are fucking identical every time.  Go to (X) on the map and take out convoy.  The convoy consists of a Truck and 2 Turret mounted hummers.  No difference, every single time.  Which leads me to my next grievance.  The roads are pretty repetitive too, it goes something like this.  1) take out map, 2) find location and drive, 3) drive past check point 4) get out and kill everyone, 5) continue till next check point and repeat.  Its kinda like GTA but the roads have nothing cool on them, its not like your driving down a street and have someone to run over or something to look at.

So at this point I am bored and go to get back on the main story line, which turns out there really isn’t a main story line.  Its pretty much run around and help out whatever faction or what ever friend you make.  I was pretty disappointed.  I tried to go back to the butcher to continue my quest but he wasn’t there.  I walked in and was getting shot at from all around.  And on my objectives all it said was get a mission from random person i.e. gun guy or faction, which I was bored out of my mind with. I need some drive to keep me from continuing.  Some story line to keep me involved.

I’ve had some time on my hands as of late so I have played an beaten most of the game I play.  I will have to talk about Fallout 3 and Call of Duty: WoW and even my aspect on Left 4 Dead.

I thought it might be fun to start a series of posts that are predictions for the up and coming class releases. This will hopefully up out discussion instead of having 1 or 2 arbitrary replies. So to start them off I think I will start with the Sniper.

This one is pretty tough because he already is pretty powerful and has everything he needs. Looking at the past unlocks i.e. the Heavy you can see that the unlocks aren’t even a great improvement as much as an alternative. I can really only predict changes in the current arsenal (who really could have predicted the sandvich?)

I think that they smg is a pretty good gun especially if your trying to chase a spy and he goes invisible. Or just take out a scout that is running by. I think that this could be feasibly adjusted so that you have a extended clip. Instead of 25 rounds you would have 35 but of course the damage would have to be decreased. I think this would benefit trying to track a spy or take out a scout. Another route would be the Natasha scenario, less damage and slows down.

The sniper rifle is pretty good where its at. Its not the AWP you can’t kill with one shot to the leg, and thats how it should be. The only exception is if you charge up and make yourself vulnerable. I think a descent upgrade that wouldn’t be too aggressive would be a wide angle scope. Instead of looking through that circle it would be more like a 16:10 ratio. They could also mess with the charge shot but I’m not sure how that would go down.

I’m going out on a limb and saying that being able to throw a boomerang for a melee would be pretty cool. Limit 1.

BTT

I loved the Max Payne games, basically cause the compelling story line.  The game play wasn’t bad either.  And with every Video Game to Movie transition you can usually tell how shitty its going to be by the Trailer and if Uwe Boll is going to direct it…..which he is not.  So here you go, what do you think.

Well apparently we get some new maps called Arena. Sounds like deathmatch style. Im loving the new map visuals, reminds me of Montana. “Great care was taken to ensure the art style kept to the unique look and time period of the TF2 universe, while still feeling like a departure from the usual maps players are familiar with.”

http://steamgames.com/tf2/heavy/arena.htm

As you may have noticed we decided to change the name of the server for a while. With the recent release of the patch have come many good and just ridiculous things. We always critique the things that we love so this isn’t so much a “bitchy blog” as just a “what the fuck” article.

So Gold Rush is just solid gold. This map has it all. This map makes it equally fun to defend or to deliver the payload. So many different routes to go, both narrow and yet parts are vast. A very matriculate job done by the Valve team, only to be fucked over by stats whores. The first time I encountered this term was when Prox and I used to play Battlefield 2.

Case 1:

You may be asking what I mean by “Fucked over by stats whores”, well here it goes (from my perspective). I load the game up, of course I’m going to try Gold Rush, it just came out. After about 20 minutes of trying I finally get into a server that *isn’t full, *has users playing, and *is not password protected. I decide to do a default move and go soldier. Well apparently I’m the only one who had that single fucking thought in his mind, because In a team of 15 there where 10 medics. WTF.

Read more »