Three Frags Left...

Ultrakill LAN 2012

2012-01-09T22:59:00.001-08:00

Recently I hosted another Ultrakill LAN after the somewhat failure that was the last mini-one, with people leaving and not playing games all over the place. This one went somewhat better. In fact, this one was probably more like the LANs of old that I remember in my highschool days. A dedicated and keen crew playing multiple games in a somewhat undisturbed peace makes for true LAN experiences, something I witness rarely these days.

I think the magic ingredient is, as mentioned, to play lot of different game types at a moderate pace. Roughly 2hrs a game is plenty and gives everyone the opportunity to shine at games they are most comfortable with. Providing that you participate, it is humbling to get your ass whooped in X game repeatedly when you know you did the whooping not too long ago in Y game. It makes your random victories in Y game more satisfying, but keeps the gaming environment fair and friendly.

Despite some ... differences in opinion between participants, I think everyone got along well enough and I look forward to hosting another one sometime in the middle of this year. Granted, anyone who attended this recent LAN will be the first to be invited.

I am still irritated about the demo recording for Sven Coop getting corrupted though. It would have easily been the most hilarious and insane footage from the LAN by far and made the associated video that much more entertaining.

Terrible Yet Beautiful

2011-12-29T01:42:00.000-08:00

It is not often that I play games in the vein of GTA 3 anymore. After San Andreas, I was done. Not because it was a bad game or anything. I just felt the genre didn't have anything else to offer me.

Just Cause 2 proved me wrong in that regard, as insane and explosion-porn-like as it was. I would say however that it kept me interested mainly because it wasn't about rival gangs and hoods in a stereotypical American city, but rather an oppressed island nation fighting back against the government. It was incredibly open, diverse and looked and played great. Being a game where you are essentially spiderman with a gun will do that.

I didn't have much of an interest in Saint's Row The Third when it came out. It seemed to me like just another GTA clone that would probably be worse than GTAIV was, which apparently was boring and had lost its charm. I wouldn't have purchased the game if I wasn't informed of its $20 price tag from greenmangaming, but since buying and playing it I am glad I did. I think there is a lesson in this, that being that your non-experienced impressions can occasionally be wrong and you should go to the effort to making up your own mind in an informed manner. There isn't really much to say about it so far (not even 1/2 way through atm) so I will simply post this picture/comic of your everyday encounter with innocent citizens in this digital world:

... terrible, yet beautiful. All it needs is a trollface.

Edit: Video testing coop gameplay.

My horror story

2011-12-20T17:16:00.000-08:00

Edit: I should probably mention this earlier in this post lest anyone get the wrong impression. I don't dislike consoles or the games that are best designed for them. There are, in fact, many games that I think excel on console and should only ever be played on console. Fighting, driving, sports, shmups and platform games are all examples of these. My issue lies when games and more importantly, game design suffers when games that shouldn't be built for consoles are. It is of my strong opinion that both RTS and FPS games fall into this domain, and why I have such a seething resentment for FPS games that are built exclusively for the console market. It should never have happened to FPS games and they are worse off today because of it...

Recently I attended a social event organised by my university colleagues and I to play some games that involved catchup options in modern games. To provide an example of what a catchup option is, think of the Ultra bar that charges slowly when you take damage in Street Fighter IV. It is something that allows a losing player to equalise the playing field, should they know how to effectively employ it. A lot of fighting, racing and even FPS games have them. I do not have a problem with catchup options as I am all for allowing players who are losing considerably, slight advantages for them to still remain competitive. As long as they don't tip the balance in an overpowered manner or effectively rubberband the winning players from their deserved position. I am, however, totally against options that allow a winning player to continue winning ... but that is a heated topic for a later date.

So ... this event. We played a number of games and people generally had fun. There isn't really much to say about the specifics of what happened as it would probably seem pretty boring to an observer/outsider. There was, however, one thing that stood out dramatically for me which is why I am making this post. I consider it a brainfuck of epic proportions now that I think about it, mainly because it both proves and hammers home everything that I despise about console FPS games. Yes, it's one of these posts again. Sif not.

While I was busy fighting some people in SSFIV (a game I still consider to be terrible at), I couldn't help but notice that Halo Reach was being started up on the TV adjacent to the one a group of us were playing on. I wasn't aware of there being catchup options in a game like Halo Reach. In fact, I was quite certain (and still am) that there are not, as it is in fact the opposite of catchup with the whole regenerating shields/HP bullshit that it spawned in the last generation of shooters. Nevertheless, for some bizarre reason, I was curious as to why everyone was so keen to try it out. What was I missing?

As the afternoon continued, I noticed some people were giving up and handing controllers over to others. It seemed like some of the people, namely the ones who wanted to play the game in the first place, were feeding off the less competent in a rather egoic fashion to the point where the less fluent were not willing to contribute anymore. Some of the non-fluent players openly admitted to finding both the genre (FPS) and the method of control (360 controller) to be cumbersome, which I remember thinking was a fair statement at the time. I did not inquire as to what their preferred genre or method of control was as I was too busy pullling off an Akuma Ultra, but it did irk me somewhat. Eventually my sparring partner and I had enough of fighting each other and surrendered the game to another two people, so I made my way to the other television, only to squint at it in utter disbelief. Now, we were playing on rather large 50" TV's at a reasonably close distance. Admittedly my eyesight is not perfect, but it wasn't so much a resolution issue as it was a framerate and visual clarity related one. I suppose the 360 shouldn't be expected to run four instances of the game (at least from a UI point of view) in four separate windows for four players with any respectable visual magnificence, but it seriously looked like something from the early 2000's. But then I noticed that one of the screens wasn't moving. There was also a controller on a seat where someone had given up and just left it there. I don't know why I did it, and I regret doing it even now, but something akin to the competitive berserker I knew in my early years of UT99 fired at that point, so I grabbed the controller and sat down.

I remember being quite enthusiastic. "Why not?" I thought. Surely they can't be as bad as I have been preaching all these years. Maybe I have just been a misinformed, biased lunatic and simply havn't gotten over the hump that is the torture of using a controller for playing FPS games. If I could get past that, maybe I could look past all the other bullshit that evolved as a result of it.

Below is a graph of my enthusiasm over time:

Note: The game played was actually Halo Reach, but it is essentially the same

Roughly linear, it took me less than a minute to go from a highly enthused, keen-for-frags young man to a blank faced, eye-twitching Hannibal Lecter, observing the silly man who could not play his instrument properly in the orchestra. To an extent, that pun is two-fold. I was watching a tiny screen of a player not doing things correctly ... but I was watching it from a player who knew how to DO them correctly. You see, in that less than a minute of play I had performed the following sequence of events:

Turned around, taking a good second or two
Moved to the end of a corridor, in what seemed like a year of gameplay
Realised it was a non-obvious dead end with nothing in it and and frowned at the point of the corridor
Walked back down the corridor, looking back at the SSFIV screen longingly while doing so
Exploded around a corner from a grenade not thrown at me
Respawned back in the corridor
Ogled worriedly at the responsiveness, speed and sensitivity of the controls
Started a gunfight with someone who got the jump on me
Noticed the significant amount of auto-aim granted
Still managed to shoot walls and windows more than I shot the dude
After a year, killed him (I think I had more shield regenned due to floating around jumping)
Got one shotted in melee
Respawned back in the corridor

If I wasn't holding a controller I think I would have face-palmed around about that point. I continued playing for a few more minutes, longer than what that graph suggests (you get the point though). At some point I found a sprint button and laughed out loud at the meager increase in speed it offered, sacrificing aim. Everything. Everything I had been saying and ranting about for the last few years was still true. Worse in fact, if that was possible. I remember thinking how had we come from the glorious days of Quake, UT and Half-life to this shamble of game play and mechanics? The precision of keyboard and mouse, the multi-task capability of the PC, the flexibility of graphical and control settings, the variable and ever increasing speed of the internet, LANs where everyone would bring their own terminal and comfortably do what they wanted, when they wanted, how they wanted ...

... to sitting in a stinky, cramped room around a TV, squinting at 1/4 of a screen, trying to make out the environment from the UI/weapon, taking forever to do anything using a horrible control peripheral with a horrible control scheme, fighting the game more than I am playing the game, a game that is apparently a FPS and supposedly a good one at that. HOW!!!?? Why is this considered normal, good and fun? This has to be the shittest FPS experience I can think of!

Halo Reach - your average frag video (recent)

The thing is, it is considered normal. Not just by the developers, the publishers and the general media. By the consumers. This is apparently what the average consumer wants and what the average consumer considers to be an enjoyable FPS experience. At some point during my play I actually glanced at my opponents/colleagues in bewilderment, eyebrows raised, to see their reactions. They were having a ball! Laughing, joking, merry as can be. I felt sick. Have I really been missing something important all these years? Hours of fun playing console FPS games with friends, squinting my eyes into blindness at 1/4 of screens every weekend? My god, surely the problem wasn't me ...

But then I looked at their screens. At what they were doing. The simplest of movements. No vertical aiming. No circle-strafing. Chasing someone for ages with a powersword, to kill them instantly only when they stopped moving. No jumping. Camping on weapon/player spawns. No defensive retreats, no running backwards pot-shotting around corners. No strafing, checking corners, looking behind for an instant to check for chasers. No sense of awareness, no sense of self-preservation, no strategy and no plan.

Nothing that I was doing and everything that I wasn't doing.

It was then that I realised ... that they were all just a bunch of scrubs. To them, seeing enemy and running forwards while pressing fire was the limit of their FPS capability. Even with auto-aim, wrestling to keep the crosshair on a target using the horror that is console controls WAS the challenge. Everything and anything that goes beyond that exceeds their ability to perform in a multi-task manner ... and I couldn't blame them. I was struggling to perform 1/2 the shit I was doing in a timely manner and more often than not, it was getting me killed. So used to circle-strafing a target while engaging, quickly checking a door way while bunny-hopping, checking for respawns and equalising distance based on enemy location/firepower that it was actually inhibiting my ability to play the game. Simply put ... you CAN'T! At least in any acceptable amount of time. The sluggish controls of the console controller and the responsiveness translated into the game are not worth the effort of doing. So you are quite literally forced to just move forward and shoot if you want to have the advantage over someone you come across. You meet them, you shoot before they shoot, you wrestle to keep the crosshair on them and whoever did that better wins. Gee-fucking-gee!

Quake 3: Arena - your average frag video (old)

I remember back in the day I would have struggled with this even on keyboard and mouse. Aiming, moving and shooting were the limits of my skill. Over time however, it became muscle memory, a reflex that is instinctively ingrained in the way I play these games. I don't think about it, and I think for a lot of people who grew up playing FPS games on PC it would be the same. So you consider other things, get better at other techniques, learn weapon mechanics and so on and so forth. Not for every game, but at least for those that offer them. When you go 'back' to a game where all you really have to think about is aiming, moving and shooting because that's all you really can do ... it's hard to break out of habits. I want to do certain things and I just cant do them. This is, in my opinion, a problem.

I didn't voice my opinion of the game at the time, mainly because I knew it would have gone on deaf ears and because it wasn't what other people wanted to hear. As much of an elitist prick I can be on this blog at times, I know when my views are not welcome in a social situation. So, I swallowed my pride, took my helping of fail and smiled politely when the owner of the game boasted of their score at the end, repeatedly. Remaining humble and collected was more of a challenge to me than expressing my opinion, something I think more people should do more often concerning other topics in life. I did quietly kick his ass at SSFIV later though :)

So, to cut a long story short, this event can be summed up as a realisation of two things:

Console FPS games (like Halo Reach) are not designed to allow players to employ many of the techniques, skills and logic that origintated from their PC ancestors
People enjoy playing the aim-move-shoot mini-game that essentially is these sorts of games nowadays because its all you can do and because it is in itself a challenge due to the impracticality of the controller

Subconsciously I have always known this, but to see it laid out in front of me from a first-hand, social experience is horrifying.

My Diablo III beta experience

2011-12-14T02:01:00.000-08:00

After receiving the opportunity to try out the Diablo III beta from a friend, I have come to the following conclusion: I am going to fuck up the final year of my PhD because of this game. Let me explain...

I have always had a strange relationship with Diablo. I never played the first one and was introduced to the second one roughly the time it was released by a cousin of mine. He was addicted to the game and explained how it was affecting his first year university studies. I gave it a go and didn't really see the appeal. Too much clicky, not enough rewardy is probably what I was thinking at the time. After a couple of hours I grew bored and shelved it with the intention of never playing it again.

Oh what a fool I was! But how was I to know? How was I to KNOW!? It's the numbers, you see. Oh yes, it was ... it was the numbers ...

sif not

So ... it was the numbers. Anyone who has played an RPG seriously or dabbled into the likes of games such as WoW will know what I am talking about. You 'see' numbers, whether they be related to your health or armour or critical strike chance or perhaps the damage you are doing, and so you ... see ... them. You see? See, the numbers are how they get you. It's like licking grains of crack every time you see and mentally process what they are. Low on health, a big crit, fuck tons of armour. The numbers don't lie, and your ability to maintain and fix a situation using other numbers is somewhat satisfying. You can be a terrible mathematician and still enjoy the process of observing big red numbers above your avatar, refilling your health bar with green numbers while simultaneously pressing buttons to make orange and white numbers appear on the enemies. It's all to do with numbers and people's want/desire to manipulate and rectify them.

Now, that probably sounds a bit insane. It probably is. In a normal situation, the previous scenario would likely be described by a regular fellow as (for example) "killing an elite who is doing a lot of damage to you while you pot and spam your abilities". That sounds more like a game, doesn't it? Still, while you may think you are looking at textured polygonal meshes translating and animating in three dimensional coordinate space, you are still undertaking the process of manipulating and rectifying numbers. It's just prettied up a bit to deceive you from your true nature - that you are obsessed and compelled towards changing numbers. Forever.

You're your yore

What the flying fuck am I talking about? Well, let's get back to what I was originally describing with my early Diablo experiences. It didn't take long for the numbers to haunt me back in the year 2000. As much as I thought I didn't want to play the game, I just could not let my health pool be that low. That axe could probably have used an upgrade too, hitting only from 3-6. What about that sash? It's only got 1 armour, is cracked and looks like shit! Come on, have some style at least. And so it began. I did eventually stop playing the game some time in 2002, though my high-school friends and I eventually picked it up again in our final year and eventually took it into first year of university. While some awesome moments did arise from that (e.g. the fabled Ratmen incident), Diablo slowly slipped away in the face of bigger, prettier and more time consuming games of similar nature. By which I mean World of Warcraft.

"Fuck! I died" - The Ratmen Incident

So, Diablo III. This post is already getting stupidly long and I don't care about going back and making it shorter so I will sum up my experiences of the beta so far in bullet point format:

• The beta is overall far too easy. No enemies, not even the boss at the end, really pose a challenge
• It was incredibly short
• It doesn't actually look that great. This is something I have a problem with Blizzard and their latest games. While I am all for performance, their production timelines are confusing
• It's very dark and gloomy. Hopefully this changes as the game continues
• Combat is somewhat boring and repetitive early on. This is unfortunately the nature of these sort of games though
• Sound design is excellent
• It feels very similar to Diablo II, albeit a few changes here and there (e.g. Artisans)
• Killing/destruction streaks give you incentive to pop the shit when you fight a screen filled horde of enemies
• It is addictive
• I will more than likely buy the game when it is released

So, with that out of the way we can get to the most important part of this post. Oh yes...

... that being the NUMBERS!!!!!! GLORIOUS NUMBERS!!!!! Mwaahaahaglrgrgrll!!!

HUEHUEHUEHUEEHUEHEUHUEH!!!

Wllaarrgrala!! Wllaarrgralaaaaa!!!!

BOOOOOMMM!!!! BOM!!

Glleeenerghg!!!!

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!

awww...

Berserker Rage: Sated

2011-12-01T20:23:00.001-08:00

Not really much to say about this except that it is likely the last Skyrim execution video I will make. I have done enough executing to last me a lifetime, and that was before I even started Frapsing for this video. Now I can play and enjoy the game more without my framerate dropping to 30 fps everytime I find a dude to kill.

I have went for a slightly different editing procedure this time, not using heroic/trailer music and instead using a couple of tracks blending into each other. They are from X-Men: First Class and were used to make the video seem a little bit darker/edgier. Not entirely sure if I am happy with the results. I think heroic music just suits the world of Skyrim better.

Additionally, I have improved upon my original Skyrim weapon after painfully leveling alchemy, the only profession I actually regard as taking some skill and effort to level properly (unlike facerolling smithing and enchanting). This is mainly because you actually have to find the vast majority of the ingredients you need to make stuff (to simply level) instead of just rocking up and buying out a vendors supplies and making 50 iron daggers. The following 2h Daedric Greatsword I have appropriately renamed as 'The Soulreaver' (sif not Legacy of Kain) is the result of this process and in all honesty, a complete waste of time. Even on master, the game has become too easy as these weapons just do too much damage. I don't think this damage was intended by the developer.

"The descent had destroyed me... and yet, I lived"

This is with both Berserker Rage (100% extra) and a Fortify two-hand damage potion (130% extra) activated.

2011 Game Roundup

2011-11-24T19:06:00.000-08:00

Well, the year is nearly up and it is unlikely that I will be buying anymore games other than what I have pre-ordered and are still yet to be released. I honestly think that this year has been the best year in games for a long, LONG time. Possibly up to and including a decade, depending on how you look at things, but I will get to that.

The point of this post is really to contradict a belief that I and many other people (some notable critics e.g. Yahtzee) believe in terms of rating a game: you cannot rate a piece of artwork/entertainment numerically. As leisurely activities and appealing media are and always have been subjective in nature, applying a value out of 5, 10 or 100 for the masses to decide over is a little silly. What works and appeals for one person is not necessarily the same for everyone. Nevertheless, it is a little hard to make this post without ranking things in at least an order of appreciation, so I have decided that just this once I will break this rule and rate the following games I have played this year out of 10 in ascending order. I will however say that these values represent how much that I, and only I, enjoyed each of the following games and that YOU may and should have an entirely different opinion. Which is perfectly fine.

Bulletstorm - 5.5/10

Ugh. The utter dismay I express and disappointment I have for Epic Games, making this abomination of blissful theoretical oldskool design but awful modern FPS execution is one I cannot forgive. A misleading advertising campaign (Duty Calls parody video, "kill with skill" trailers?), a horrible PC port and just bad, boring, linear game design has put this game as the worst game I have played this year. Yes, I know I am biased with the whole console FPS perspective thing I have going. But the fact it is Epic Games, forgetting their once strong and proud Unreal Tournament, PC fanbase and cashing in with the console Gears of War crowd just makes it all the more bitter. While I still love their old games pre-UT3, I have come to despise the company that made them. It is their design philosophies and trends that are the cancer which plagues much of modern AAA game design these days.

this is probably the best part of the whole game, but still manages to suck

Duke Nukem - 6/10

Duke Nukem was just a bad game. There isn't really much to say. It is by no means the worst game ever and there were even bits of it that were kinda cool and funny. However, after over 11 years of production, the shamble that was released mid 2011 is inexcusable. I don't blame Gearbox Software. They were merely picking up the corpse left by 3D Realms and tried stuffing some life into it for as cheap as possible. For them it was a profit deal. Like Bulletstorm it suffered from modern-day FPS syndrome, but not quite as bad as Bulletstorm did. Mainly it was regenerating health and the inability to carry more than 2 weapons that threw the towel in for me. The King did not return.

maybe if he did less of this and more ass kicking while lacking bubblegum supplies ...

Crysis 2 - 6.5/10

I loved the original Crysis and its expansion Warhead. They were easily the best shooters of 2007/8 and they are still some of the best looking games ever made. Don't get me wrong, Crysis 2 is gorgeous as well, but goddamit. Going from kilometers of lush tropical beaches and snowy mountain ranges to cramped, cement buildings in a fucking American city was just stupid in my opinion. God I hate cities. GARRGH. Linear design, fucked up story, barely any advances graphically (used Dx9 on release) and far too many cutscenes and quicktime events. Like the sequels to the original film The Matrix, Crysis 2 is a game I prefer not to remember.

no! don't look!

Rage - 6.5/10

Despite the textures in this game looking like absolute turd, the game play is actually decent. It was not, however, decent enough for me to not get bored after arriving at the first major town though. I don't know what it is about this game but I just cannot get stuck into it. There is just something inherently ... noobish ... about it. Like you are being led by the nose by some invisible man, telling you where to go without you knowing it. I think the illusion of free space, but not actually HAVING free space to move and explore things creates this feeling for me. I feel trapped. I don't want to help any of these cunts and the inability to just fuck off and do my own thing really bugs me. I had decreasing levels of expectation for this game leading up to its release and its console FPS design was not unexpected when I eventually got my hands on it. I don't think iD have gone completely the way of Epic Games just yet. I still have hopes for them delivering in the future...

this is actually a texture in the game

F.3.A.R - 7/10

Still yet to finish this game, but it has been ok so far. I actually quite like the story, the tale of two evil but powerful brothers coming to terms with both their and their mother's existance is unique, at least to other video game stories. While it has the same bullshit weapon restrictions, regenerating HP and cover systems that make my eye twitch every time I indulge in them, the gore and pacing of the game is still interesting enough. A spiritual successor to Max Payne's bulletime, the enhanced reflexes of the protagonist makes for some entertaining weapon play at the very least.

hello

Marvel Vs Capcom 3 - 7/10

This is a decent game and I probably would have rated it higher if not for one simple reason: fighting games are multiplayer games. As I seem to be the only person I know who is avidly interested (but still terrible) at fighting games, getting other people to play and enjoy fighting games too is almost impossible. I have made posts about the merits of playing fighting games before so I won't repeat myself here. Nevertheless, MvC3 is slick, stylish and fast as hell, but suffers from being a little too dumbed downed and ... incomplete, for lack of a better description. Dumbed down it may be, you won't see many new people picking up and playing this game as it is still one of the most complex and mechanically confusing fighting games out there, second only to MvC2.

i wonder if she plays basketball...

Dirt 3 - 7/10

There is nothing really wrong with this game, it's just that it is nothing really special and new compared to Dirt 2, a game I enjoyed far more. While GRID is still the undisputed champion of Codemaster's last few racing game titles (for me), Dirt 3 doesn't really raise the bar on any level. In fact, I would go so far as to say it actually looks and plays worse than Dirt 2. When it boils down to it, I wish I didn't buy this game, basically.

if only

Sanctum - 7/10

Interesting game concept, something I have thought about myself many times but never thought would actually be successful. Turns out there are people who are interested in FPS tower defense though. For a cheap, indie game there are few complaints about it but there are definitely elements that could be better. The DLC is a bit of a dick move though.

ass rockets ftw

Street Fighter 3: Third Strike Online - 7/10

Again, a fighting game and again it suffers from the same personal flaw of mine: No one I know wants to play it. Still, as a remake of a decade old game, it still has some nostalgic and historic aspects to it. The game that put some of the best Street Fighter players where they are today (e.g. Daigo) is easy to play but hard to master, especially the parry mechanic. Maybe I should take it online, like the name implies...

well, at least two of these ladies play basketball. clearly the one on the right

Magicka - 7/10

This game had a lot of appeal early on in the piece, but fell off rather slowly as time went by. I'm not sure what exactly is the cause for this. It might be that it gets repetitive and annoying remembering and plugging in the same spell combinations over and over and over again, sometimes having risky or unexpected results. Comical at first but later frustrating down the track. Additionally, playing with people who have played it much more than you have, making frequent use of overpowered, non-team oriented spells gets a little annoying. Especially when they get you killed.

blaaaaaaaaaaarrrrgh!!!

Spacemarine - 7.5/10

A tiny bit disappointing but overall a good game, Spacemarine satisfied my need to kill greenskins ... and then some! While the singleplayer was enjoyable, with random spurts of godlike jump-pack goodness, the most fun I had was with the free DLC survival mode Exterminatus. Most definitely a challenge, it was the only foraging I did into the game's online multiplayer, something that seemed rather enjoyable for the brief bit of time I spent with it. I imagine if I hadn't had so much to do and had so many other games to finish, I would return to this game's multiplayer for a second helping.

it really, really is ...

Trackmania 2 - 7.5/10

If your need is for speed, then Trackmania will definitely do the trick for you this year. As crazy as ever, Trackmania 2 is pretty much the original with a slight facelift and an interesting theme. I could not justify forking out the money for this one but luckily I was gifted it by a friend. It's fun, I'll give it that, but from a purely competitive point of view it is not really my type of racing game. That is because you aren't really racing, but competing for times. Without direct means of influencing the success or failure of my opponents, they feel less like opponents and more like ... other people who are just trying to get a good time on a track. To me that makes the game slightly less engaging.

i iz driving car!

Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition - 7.5/10

This isn't really an entirely new game, being an expansion pack for Super Street Fighter 4. Arcade Edition just adds some tweaks, balances and 4 new characters. Two of them I fucking hate (Yun + Yang), mainly because they seem uninspired and do nothing but add to the sausage fest that is the SF4 roster. Evil Ryu and Oni are at least interesting aesthetically and add some interesting gameplay mechanics (air dashing, chargeable ultras). Personally I would have enjoyed the expansion much more if they added a few more female characters to the mix, possibly Elena and R.Mika. That would have made it perfect.

now that's just uncalled for

Portal 2 - 7.5/10

I totally forgot about this game. As big as it was and enjoyable to play as it could be at times, I guess it just slipped off my radar after awhile. That might be because of its limited replayability. Solve a puzzle once and there really isn't anything else to it, unless you are extremely forgetful. Some of the puzzles were genuinely challenging and mind boggles, and coop with a friend could be entertaining at times. I will probably come back to it in a year or so for another run, but it was never the sort of game I was going to get down on my hands and knees and worship as a god. As much as I like and respect Valve, their most recent games just havn't been kicking it for me as much as their older ones. I'm sure they have something refreshing in the works though.

its kinda scary this chick is more cut than most dudes

Serious Sam 3: BFE - 9/10

Bit of a jump from 7.5 to 9, huh? I guess I didn't really play anything that I felt only just fell short of being awesome. Speaking of awesome, SS3:BFE is the shit. I will probably do a more detailed review of this at a later point, but for the moment this will suffice. After over a decade of waiting, a company, Croteam, has finally decided to pop its head up amongst the sea of garbage and say "Hey, this stinks. Let's go back to the way things used to be", with, in my opinion, resounding success. While there are very slight traces of modern FPS game design in here, some of which are alien in a Serious Sam game (reloading, ironsights, sprinting, melee), they are but minor nuances to the overall experience that is shooting into a horde of monsters while running for your life over some sand dunes. To be fair though, some of those minor nuances can detract from the experience. Reloading gets you killed more often than not, but sprinting is actually a useful addition. Melee is ok I guess, not something you really focus on at all. Ironsights though? I really don't see the point of it being in the game except to make modern FPS players feel slightly more at home ... at least initially. I almost feel Croteam have put it in just to troll you as you won't be using it at all later on (you move slower while ironsighted). Actually, I feel the first few levels are just one big troll fest by the developer, resembling something out of COD or Doom 3 before finally dropping you in an arena and saying "Sup bro? Heard of strafing bro? You'll hear about it now. BRO". The latter levels become increasingly more chaotic, almost to the absurd level. I don't think I have openly swore in joy at an FPS game since UT2k4, so it is kind of sad to know that the game probably won't sell very well. It will inevitably get average ratings and being PC only (for the moment), will be ignored by 99% of the FPS community. However, I cannot see how you could use a controller for this game at all (vertical aiming). Still, the best FPS I have played this year, paying true homage to the oldskool games of skill and fun. Hmmmm. Excuse me ... I have something in my eye ...

come at me bros!!!

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - 9.5/10

It is hard to describe this game. There is so much to do and be and kill that it almost becomes something more than a game. Hell, some of the guild based quest lines are more engaging than entire AAA games made today, which is saying a lot. Atmospheric would probably be one word. Immersive would be another. I have made enough posts about it already for my view to be expressed. An excellent game, an excellent PC game (despite a few issues) and as far as singleplayer RPG experiences go, you will be hard pressed to find something better. I think everyone will get something out of Skyrim because it really gives.

i am so totally immersed right now ...

Shogun Total War 2 - 9.5/10

This isn't the final game on this list because it was better than Skyrim but because it is equivalent to it. It is funny that out of the three best games I played this year, one of them was the first game I played. Still, it resounded and lasted all the way up to now, inevitably ranking high for the sheer amount of hours and enjoyment I got from this game. Dominating Japan with a friend in a coop campaign has resulted in some of the most memorable gaming experiences I have had, something that few titles do for me these days. Great soundtrack, solid multiplayer and just an ... enlightening theme is what makes this game. Again, I have mentioned this all before so I won't recant it now.

die motherfuckers!!!

And that's it. These are the games I have played enough of this year to form a solid opinion on. While they are mainly FPS games there is still a decent mix (fighting, racing, RTS, RPG) on both console and PC to not limit myself with. Where is, you may ask, Arkham City, for example? Good question. While I did buy the game this year, I am still yet to finish Arkham Asylum, a game I started late last year. It will likely be one of the games I complete next year at some point. I seriously have too many games to play, with many still to come on the horizon. Most notable are Tekken Tag Tournament 2, Street Fighter x Tekken and undoubtedly Diablo III. Then there's Max Payne 3, Torchlight 2, Farcry 3, Soul Calibur V, Aliens: Colonial Marines ...

... O.o

I think I probably play too many games :S

The fruits of ones labor

2011-11-23T02:23:00.000-08:00

This wont be a long post.

Skyrim is an addictive game. Anyone who has seen me on Steam recently has probably noticed this. I should probably cut back a bit. After my most recent effort, I probably will.

After marrying Lydia, giving her a Daedric Greatsword, Bow and set of armour like myself, I began the insane process of enchanting all of our shit to give us the highest potential damage output that we, combined, could achieve while still maintaining some utility (stamina draining bows, magicka draining weapons, magic resist amulets/rings). Long story short I have resulted with the following weapon. Well, two of them to be precise:

my precious...

Having a wife for a companion in this game is also ... interesting. After reading articles like this it is not hard to understand how people can become attached to certain things in this game. It does a good job of making you care. Lydia was easily the best choice for me, and makes a wicked apple pie, if you know what I mean :). Having another me running around in scary gear also has its merits, especially if I am too busy looting a corpse, confident that she will clean up the rest of the army of bad guys in the room we just walked into. I don't take her out all the time though. Someone's gotta clean the house...

She cooks an apple pie for you and it is good - wtf did you think I meant!?

Anyways, the following two screenshots sum up the result of this ... relatively easy but still time consuming mission to make high quality Skyrim gear. The target is an Elder Dragon, one of the highest HP enemy dragons in the game:

Needless to say I will probably be increasing the difficulty very shortly :S

Edit: Thought I would put this here too instead of making a new post. Fuck I laughed when this happened. Lucky I was frapsing at the time too.

Berserker Rage Addendum

2011-11-19T06:20:00.000-08:00

Because my previous post's related video inspired at least two people I know to deck themselves in steel and crop the chop, as well as the fact I was still not done with the Skyforge Steel Greatsword, I decided to make another execution compilation video from clips I had left over. This video is my character from levels 15-28 (the previous is from level 12-20) and contains a couple of rare executions you don't see too often (forward thrust, downwards beheading).

As I have picked up on the main quest again, further leveled my smithing and started leveling my enchanting, the game has become noticeably more difficult. Often I will be pitted against enemies decked in steel plate brandishing orcish or even glass weapons, or alternatively multiple mages at once. This has got me thinking about the difficulty scaling in the game and how it seems to scale higher the more progressed you are in your skills (and consequently level), as well as increasing difficulty based on your narrative progression. Essentially what this means is someone who is doing nothing but hit things with a 1h sword and not following the main quest will find the game much easier than someone who is power leveling their skills or primary questline (or both).

What this creates is an interesting, dynamically changing difficulty that isn't overwhelming for newbies getting used to the ropes, but isn't stupidly easy for people who are really getting stuck into multiple things. It is an interesting way to balance a game and certainly allows room for re-playability. I like it.

I will probably make one more post/video about Skyrim before I consider it covered, probably involving me running around in a newly crafted daedric or dragonplate set and doing all manner of funky things with weird enchantments.

Berserker Rage

2011-11-15T03:04:00.000-08:00

There was a time, roughly a few months ago, when if you would say something like "Skyrim is coming out in November", I would have glanced over at you and delivered the most unsympathetic "meh" I could muster. Truly, that was a time of blissful ignorance, unwavering in the face of hype generated from both friends and the media alike. However, in the last few months, things have changed. It might be due to a lack of a true singleplayer game in years. Perhaps I just wanted to escape from the real world for awhile and feel something akin to what games like WoW and Diablo II did back in the day. Whatever the case may be, I did end up buying The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim on day one in a shop in Australia (blasphemy, I know!) and have played it for a solid 40 hrs since release. At this point in time that calculates to an average of 10 hrs a day. Jesus Christ!!!

it is undoubtedly a pretty game

I am not sure why I decided to be a 2 hander wielding, heavy armor wearing orc. Actually that is a lie, I know exactly why. I wanted to hit things. Really fucking hard. To vent some frustration perhaps? Who knows. While I could do this in real life, waving a stick around in the back yard beating the crap out of trees and shit, the observations by onlookers and outcomes thereof would not be entirely desirable. Beating the shit out of entities in a virtual world will suffice for now. Who ever said games were not suitable as stress relief should be beaten to death with a stick. By me.

hadouken!

Really, this is my Skyrim experience in a nutshell: I am a big dude running around hitting things. However, unlike previous Elder Scrolls games, I have not returned to a state of murderous glee, slaying everything and everyone in sight. This might be because I actually paid for this game or because I have matured slightly since my youth, but there is definitely a method to my madness. I make few enemies and I make fewer friends, always choosing the most silent, shortest path should it be available. I build my own equipment, I mine my own ore and I work legitimately for the gold I have earnt (i.e. no stealing). Morally, I think the character I am playing is the type of person I would be should I be placed in the world of Skyrim.

tatsumaki!

Holy shit ... I am role playing.

Meh. Whatever. It is still fun. Generallly speaking I think I have gone for the easy-mode-pve sway of things with my character's build and playstyle, literally carving through enemies and territories with relative ease. Admittedly, it is simple. Charge at a dude, chop him, crit his face, loot corpse. Repeat. This has been greatly assisted by getting a Skyforge Steel Greatsword incredibly early in the game which is apparently comparable to the Elven and Ebony variations that appear much later. While at times it does feel like god mode, I do have a kryptonite. Mages. Motherfucking mages, especially frost ones, draining stamina and slowing you indefinitely. What was always incredibly one sided in WoW (i.e. warrior vs frost mage) is now the case in Skyrim. My general strategy for countering these pricks is to either funnel them into a choke point and ambush them from a forced point blank range, or strafe in concentric circles, getting closer each time to the (hopefully) out of mana asshole in the middle. Both require appropriate environments to be successful and even then are a gamble at best.

shoryuken!

Other than that, there isn't really much to say other than what can be garnered from review sites. The UI is consolified and is a headache to use on occasions. Certain systems could be explained better, especially for newbies (binding weapons, soul gems etc). The NPC interactions still feel incredibly static and unimmersive, though the animations are a vast improvement over the other games in the series. When it comes down to it though, Skyrim has been an excellent hitting simulator and will probably rank as one of the best games I have played this year. I will save that topic for another post though.

For the moment though, enjoy this overly dramatic montage of executions with the Skyforge Steel Greatsword on my Orc berserker:

A Rolling Thunder

2011-10-26T18:37:00.000-07:00

Inspired by this trailer of the upcoming movie Warhorse, I thought for awhile about my somewhat unhealthy obsession with large groups of equines running over and into things. It would seem that every time I buy a Total War game, the very first thing I do is steer an army of heavy cavalry into a much larger army of peasants (or equivalent unit) and observe the results with childish glee. Who wouldn't? Those peasants with their rags and clubs think they're so good. Got what's coming to them in my opinion.

Seriously though, the horse would have to be the most under-appreciated and almost completely forgotten mammal that has helped mankind get where it is today. For thousands of years they have carried our carts, ploughs and fat arses all over the world for travel, agriculture and especially warfare. I cannot imagine what it would be like charging into battle with a regiment of cavalry, let alone being on the receiving end of one. I imagine the horses would be pretty pissed off though, especially after carrying some poncy British knight half way across the world only to die in the Crusades. Nevertheless, enjoy the following video I made of horses from various movies carrying lazy bastards into battle.

I imagine if I would have been raised on a farm with horses I would probably have become quite a fanatic. May we never have to use these beautiful animals for warfare ever again.

Noteworthy fact:
The last successful horse charge ever performed in a military operation was the Battle of Beersheba (1917) in WWI, performed by the Australian 4th Light Horse Brigade. They charged across two miles of open ground in the face of both artillery and machine gun fire. Its probably because the fort had the word 'beer' in it as to why Aussies even attempted it.

Rage Quit

2011-10-22T20:01:00.000-07:00

I really don't know what to make of this game. Game play wise it is probably above average. It is a driving based FPS game with some RPG elements thrown in. I am kind of bored with the whole post-apocalyptic setting in games, especially when they are represented wholly by desert wastelands. Fallout 3 and Borderlands have sated my (apparent) appetite for it long in advance, so it really could just be a case of me not finding the environment interesting. At all. But, I have to say it. Rage looks like shit, and it makes me sad.

It makes me sad for a variety of reasons, the biggest being the simple fact that this is supposed to be iD Game's ( a company I have enjoyed previous games from) new engine technology. Over five years in the making, Rage and its engine are supposed to be the new benchmark for making games. I can see the appeal of the technology (streaming texture/geometric environments) but really, they should have pulled a Crysis and made this for PC only because this sorry console port looks fucking terrible in my opinion. It's not so much the lighting/rendering/polygon count as it is entirely to do with the textures. They are god awful, and the game suffers because of it.

Now I am not usually one to fuss too much over graphics. Sure, I like them. I go to great lengths to see them. Hell, I am a fucking PC Gamer ffs, so it does matter to me. But, if the game play isn't there as well then you won't find me playing it for long. Not to mention I play plenty of games (on console and PC) that you would hardly call state-of-the-art visually. However, my confusion when it comes to Rage has been all the talk about how good the game looks, from console and PC users alike. "Hmmph" I thought to myself, getting my hopes up once again. "Maybe it will look good after all".

Perhaps it is better if I explain my observation in a certain way. The following screenshot of some steps is from Doom II:
Doom II (1994) was also made by iD Games. It uses the same engine as Doom (1993), which for the time was an incredible piece of technology. Sure, you can easily make out the pixels in its 8-16bit texture palette, but for the time it was considered incredibly realistic. The colours/detail of the textures don't detract from the gameplay as everything kinda looks the same anyway, so it all fits nicely. The game is still incredibly playable even today. It is a game I frequently revisit to remind myself about aspects of game design and system architecture as it was a game that pushed your PC to its limits back in the day.

Let's jump a few years ahead. The following screenshot is some steps from Unreal Tournament:
Unreal Tournament (1999) is possibly my favourite game of all time. Released in what I still consider to be the best year in gaming, ever, UT99 was also a game that gave your PC a run for its money. In an era when AGP video cards were actively coming into distribution, games like UT99 were taking things like detailed textures and dynamic lighting very seriously. Besides this, UT99 was enjoyable as hell, looked like a beast and was/is an absolute gem of a LAN game.

The following screenshot is some steps and ridges from Quake III: Arena:
Quake III: Arena, also made by iD Games, was released late 1999. A direct competitor to UT99, it was/is a solid arena shooter. There is perhaps no better arena shooter for measuring skill and efficiency in FPS games than Quake III. It also boasted a significant texture palette, probably slightly better than UT99's and definitely was a benchmark for its time. Unlike UT99, however, it ran quite well on systems due to highly optimized rendering and network code in the format of iD tech's new gaming technology (i.e. iD tech 3).

The following screenshot is from Doom III:
Doom III (2004) was a strange game. It was rather hit and miss for certain audiences, especially those who were a fan more of the frenetic run and gun action of its older brothers. Game play squabbles aside, the game did look great, even with its default textures. Although the game has not aged well, looking rather bad comparatively to modern game's rendering engines, for its time it was considered state of the art.

The following screenshots of some ground is from Crysis:
Impressive huh? Despite the discontent people have for this game (something I have never understood) Crysis (2007) looked absolutely incredible. Taking full advantage of new technologies such as bump-mapping and dynamically lit textures, Crysis made the ground in games look almost photo-realistic. I say almost as, like all textures, repetition patterns emerge if you look at them closely enough (marked above). Nevertheless, it was a minor non-issue to an otherwise stunning game that, admittedly, kicked the shit out of your computer and raped it dead. In my opinion it is the last game to come out that was truly ahead of its time and nothing since then has beat it from a technology-vs-year standpoint.

The following screenshot is of a sidewalk curb in Rage:
-_-
WTF is this greasy looking shit covered excuse for a texture doing up in my curb yo?! I think I could vomit onto some dry leaves and come up with something better looking than that. Seriously. This looks fucking horrible, and it is everywhere. All over the damn place. Sure, there are some interesting crease lines and possibly unique cracks in the cement, but jesus christ! Does it really have to look that bad. The problem is, I know this is just a low resolution version of the textures they were actually working with. John Carmack has even stated there is a HD texture pack in the works so the game doesn't look so shithouse on PC. But ... why? Why would they not publish the game with said HD textures in the first place? What possible motive could they have for releasing their game with highly compressed, blurry, indistinguishable textures at all?

.... do I really need to say it?

Don't be fooled. No new engine is going to magically overcome the limitations of hardware that is going on 6 years old. No game studio is going to stop developing for the masses, even at the expense of the quality of their games. Don't listen to people who don't know wtf they are talking about, who are looking through a kaleidoscope from the wrong end. Most of all, don't believe what you see in screenshots solely used for advertising and marketing. What may seem like a beautiful, lens flare filled vista of the vast horizon....
.... is nothing but a fake distraction from the giant turd you are crouching on:

Those are the times

2011-10-15T04:14:00.000-07:00

I wasn't originally going to start off this post by talking about this, but sometimes sifting through the mass of utter crap on Youtube can be really depressing. Usually I have posts that are loaded with videos when I am too lazy to discuss something original and sometimes the amount of searching you need to do to find the right videos is fucking absurd. Often you get these shitty videos of a dude with parkinson's disease filming a TV screen on their phone with the holocaust roaring in the background, limiting your ability to both see and hear wtf is going on. Often these videos are the most watched and liked, which I cannot fathom to any extent. I dunno, maybe I am too picky, but I really cannot understand how people can think these sorts of videos are worth even putting on youtube, let alone their constant ability to record stuff while having an obvious seizure.

Anyway, my frustration comes from trying to find some non-hyped up game play of the upcoming CS game Global Offensive. In my frustration in finding anything decent on youtube I have had to look elsewhere, and found something that made me cringe just a little. Basically its CS:GO on Xbox 360 ...

:S
I think what makes it that much more painful to watch (at least for me) is the simple fact that in any of the engagements the guy gets into in the first few minutes would be over in less than a second or two in both CS 1.6 and Source. It's like ... Deagle, point at head, click. Over. Quick, clean, easy. This is CS, the game that birthed the whole 'Boom Headshot' theme (from Pure Pwnage) and here we see two clowns jumping around emptying clips into walls more then they are emptying them into man. It almost looks like a mod for Halo. Maybe the people playing aren't very good, but to me it just shows the obvious difference in control between PC and console for FPS games ... and it bugs me. It bugs me because it should not be considered 'fine' and 'normal' by industry standards, both developer and consumer based.

Nevertheless, branching away from the occasional pile of steaming that Youtube can be at times, one does stumble across absolute gems of video. This is particularly the case concerning an e-sports, fighting game documentary of a player in the US. Taking on the likes of Daigo and Justin Wong at Evo 2010, Mike Ross is the star of FOCUS, an incredibly well put together story about his happenings in the big league of professional Street Fighter IV play.

There are a growing number of videos such as this (e.g. Beyond the Game) emerging slowly over time, which in my opinion can only do good for both the e-sports scene and the gaming industry as a whole. Showing the humanity behind these 'players of games' and exposing the fact that for some, e-sports can and are a profitable venture is a step towards un-demonizing the perspective many people have towards games and game development. Especially in this country.

Roughly this time of the year I start looking forward to things that are on the horizon. While I personally think that this has been one of the best years for games in a long, long time, some of the best stuff is yet to be released. I may just be in a RPG mode, perhaps from playing too much LoL and withdrawal symptoms from WoW, but Skyrim, Torchlight 2 and Diablo 3 are all ranking highly on my list of most anticipated. It would be excellent if we could get a group of us playing Diablo 3 at once, or at least playing it concurrently (not necessarily together). Here's hoping it is as addictive and time consuming as its previous iterations. No surer way of fucking up my PhD research than playing an addictive game too much.

Other than games though (and I should talk about things other than games), the announcement of Evangelion 3.0: The Quickening is also rather tasty. The name though (and I am sure this has been done to death) is rather ironic in the sense that it has been in production for fucking ages. Almost twice as long as the previous installment, which took 50% longer than the one before that. At least Asuka is coming back as a pirate with a sniper rifle this time, shooting things in space. Some kind of cosmic hybrid of LoL's Gangplank and Caitlyn methinks, yarr!

Speaking of LoL (yeah, sif not weave an entire blog post compositionally into some shit about LoL by what seems like random topics), Dominion has been an interesting distraction from classic SR, something that I feel I am infinitely worse at because of it. It is a strange beast though, favouring the tanky dps, mobile and ranged/global ult characters harder than ever. While I find my strongest characters are Ryze, Yorick and Xin, almost every game I play has an enemy Akali, Jax, Rammus, Shaco, Ezreal, Heimer or Gangplank in it. Some of these characters massively counter my favourite picks (e.g. Xin vs Jax) so making a smart choice in blind pick is somewhat impossible. Still, many enjoyable moments have occurred, solo and frequently with friends. The following video demonstrates some of our awesome powah!!

Special thanks to PanicsX, hotpies, MorePieNow, m1ch3ck and fooolishfool for being cannon fodder for the enemy.

To kill a Mordekaiser: Xin Zhao

2011-09-18T02:46:00.000-07:00

In addition to that old video of me killing a terrible Mord ... as Mord (so annoying -_-), I thought I would upload one that is even more faceroll as Xin. Technically, since the recent changes to Mord, it is actually a lot harder to 1v1 Mord without creeps because he now generates even more shield off champions. I have also improved the video quality significantly after mucking around with some rendering settings, so this video should look beautiful at 720p at fullscreen. Expect future videos to be just as good.

However, it is worth noting that Mord is almost useless as his early game farm is now rather impossible, provided you aren't fighting brain-dead opponents.

Faceroll

2011-09-10T20:26:00.000-07:00

After many months, it is finally complete. After a weekend of editing and another week of rendering (20 fucking hours for both quality versions -_-) and uploading, Faceroll is finally online.

Recommend watching in fullscreen at 720p. I would force these settings by default but Youtube's new iframe object eludes me and I cannot be fucked figuring it out for the moment.

If you are unable to view the Youtube video (blocked in some countries), or would prefer to download the SQ version as a single file, please use the this Depositfiles link.

Overall, I am not super happy with the final product. This isn't so much because of the number of shots I received, but more so the quality of them. They could be better. More awesome. More exciting. To an extent I have tried to beef up the not so exciting shots with editing that tries to direct the observer, which works to a degree. However I have not went overboard on the editing this time. This is partly because of time available and partly because I think an editor of video should be able to distinguish when less (editing) is in fact more. In principle I have gone for this approach.

I don't think I will edit another big LoL video for at least a year. Until then I would highly recommend Frapsing your own replays because it is unlikely I will be viewing them anytime soon with any form of enthusiasm.

The Guessing Game

2011-08-09T03:07:00.000-07:00

Usually I will use this silly blog of mine to post some random crap I have been doing or thinking, sometimes in the form of a video but more often in the form of a rant. As much as I would like to think that this space is above the popular and socially acknowledged communication mediums also used for this sort of thing (including crap like Facebook and Twitter) I know that most of the time it probably isn't. Most blogs, including this one, will only ever bring up topics of interest to the author, and while they may be more expository and informative then some fool on Facebook exclaiming how drunk they got last Friday, they really are just more concentrated versions of the same thing. I am interested in things->I write them up onto a place->you digest them and contemplate their meanings. I would like to think they are somewhat less egotistic than say ... the average twitter post ("Hey! Look what I am doing. I am oh so happy!") but I am not so courageous to actually make that claim without some form of quantitative evidence. As much as I may try to justify my actions and fill these posts with things that I believe to be interesting, I know that deep down, even subconsciously, they are but bundled up expressions of the same deal.

The difference is I don't care who reads this.

So, with that out of the way, I will now do exactly what I described above. Often spurred by 'discussions' with certain friends of mine, the concept of what I describe as 'mechanical skill' has been fluttering around in my brain more often than not, for various reasons. This has been further punctuated by random interesting reads in the field of AI such as this, which form part of my weekly research for my PhD. The idea of implementing AI techniques that mimic those performed by human players is an interesting area of the domain, especially in terms of leveling the playing field and creating realistic agent behaviours. It is also ... simply refreshing to see that other people are out there that think like I do concerning the topic, proving that I am at least not entirely crazy (or that there are at least two of us who are). This is especially the case in regards to the amount of criticism I get about my PhD from certain supervisors of mine.

Still, the mechanical skill necessary in games is an interesting game design topic, primarily because it can determine two important factors of a game: the game's learning curve and its overall difficulty or skillcap. Mechanical skill relates to the accuracy, speed and appropriateness of the user's input with the peripheral/s controlling their game play. In simpler terms, how good you are with a touchscreen, gamepad, joystick, keyboard or mouse. Games of all types have varying degrees of this mechanical skill. If you compare something like Angry birds to Tekken 6, you can see this difference factor quite clearly. One has only several button presses a minute whereas the other has tens, if not hundreds (depending on how good you are or how hard you are facerolling).

Eddy Gordo (right) - The epitome of mechanical skill

However, a higher degree of mechanical skill doesn't necessarily equate to a more difficult game. You would hardly call chess a game of extreme mechanical skill, yet it is a game that is viewed to be incredibly complex and skill based to the point where large amounts of money are still being devoted to making the ultimate chess playing AI. Some games of high mechanical skill, such as Starcraft 2, are more to do with sustained repetition and speed of execution. Others, such as Street Fighter IV, are more reaction based with timely input of button combinations at opportune moments. First Person Shooters like Quake 3 have a mechanical input control that can be seen to require extreme precision, above all things. Even Guitar Hero (and clones) has a strong mechanical skill factor that requires some nimbleness and dexterity on the user's part. They are all incredibly skillful games that lean heavily on the mechanical skill side of things, some warranting e-sport status around the globe.

There are others though that may not rank so highly on the mechanical skill side of things, but still considered somewhat skillful games. Racing games and DotA clones fall into this category, some of which also have e-sport status. In a racing game, the number of actions per minute and timing of actions may not be so different from one person to another, yet clear proficiencies in games like Trackmania are obvious in the online community. Here, experience and understanding of the game's physics are more important. In League of Legends, the input and actions of an amateur player may be little different from that of a pro, yet a clear distinction in their skill differences can be seen in other areas (teamwork, knowledge, itemisation, ability to last hit etc). While most, if not all games have some form of mechanical input which inherently requires some degree of skill, not all games have the same depth of input required by the player. This aspect alone is what turns many people on and off certain games. People like your mum.

The learning curve of a game has a significant mechanical skill component to it, many of which can seem demanding at first. Street Fighter 3: Third Strike introduced a parry system that was far ahead of its time and considered too difficult to adapt to, even for veterans. To a person learning to play an FPS game, competency of aim with a keyboard and mouse comes only after many hours of practice. Hitting buttons on a controller is easy enough. Hitting them in reaction to certain events, especially in sequence, comes only after many failed attempts. An example of this can be seen in my attempt to learn how to play Street Fighter IV. Embarrassingly, there was a time when I was so terrible at this game (I still am) that I couldn't even pull off a Super/Ultra combo without repeated attempts. Of course, having endless chances to pull off a combo like that doesn't happen often in the game itself, so it is absolutely essential that a player can perform something like that first time and everytime they input it. Failure to do so results in losing. Even in League of Legends, playing a new champion has subtle differences in mechanical skill as you learn things such as their attack animation, abilities, attack ranges and hitbox size. This may cause you to tunnel vision somewhat when playing them for the first few times, adjusting to their components slowly over time. The first time I played Urgot, I found his control to be bewildering and irritating. Now? It is something I have gotten used to and not generally a problem.

Chogath's hitbox is both a blessing and a curse. It is enormous. Just like your mum.

When it comes down to it though, all human mechanical skill in the moment to moment game play can be based on one's own uncertainty and ability to guess. Whether this be correcting your mouse aim ever so slightly, blocking immediately after dashing, tapping right repeatedly around a corner or getting in range to throw your Ultimate, everything we do concerning mechanical input in games is based on our feedback response with the games output and our desire to make the game state more desirable for ourselves. Often, we don't know what is going to happen, we are merely assessing the visible situation and positioning ourselves in such a way to perform whatever we have in mind most appropriately. This comes in the form of the duration of a keypress, the velocity of a mouse move, the distance of a drawn skillshot and the placement of a cursor. We perform these tasks effortlessly without even thinking, but they are such a crucial and fundamental component of how we play games that they are often disregarded completely in their design. I know this as it is especially the case in the design of game AI.

Basically, I guess this is what I am trying to say: games should focus more on making the mechanical processes required to play them easier for new players. However, this should never, ever be interpreted as making the game easier to play. A game that is somewhat easy to play mechanically will require other areas through which skill can be injected, and if not available, can cause serious problems in terms of player motivations. If anything, it should be seen as the potential for making even more complex control schemes that can be both unique and demanding for players, but developed in such a way that they can adapt to them slowly over time. Then, and only then, will we see humanity pursuing the development of the next chess, instead of consistently simplistic games becoming increasingly playable by everything and everyone.

Including your mum.

Note: Somewhere in here is my usual rant about FPS games and skill. I am sure you can find it.

Your face is a fighting game

2011-08-02T21:43:00.000-07:00

Yeah, cop that.

Evolution 2011 was perhaps less exciting overall than previous Evo's, but still had its moments. Some of the highlights in the following video were some I managed to watch myself and I must say, watching a live-stream tournament like this concurrently with others, you do get pretty worked up. Especially when you only just notice your mouth is on the floor with chips falling out of it. I have to remember not to eat at my computer...

Daigo, unfortunately, did not win SSFIV:AE though, which is a loss for quiet, humble gamers everywhere. I am not a quiet, humble gamer. Actually come to think of it, I only know a few people who (really) are. My point is, he should win the tournament on these characteristics alone, as a parody to the vast majority of the other contestants, some who are so cocky that they literally dance in their seat (see above video) ... which is kinda weird. Not to mention American.

HAADOUUKEN!!!!!

It is not I who am crazy ...

2011-07-12T18:55:00.000-07:00

... it is I WHO AM MAD!!!!!!!

Once more into the fray!

2011-07-03T07:16:00.000-07:00

Upon writing this, Duke Nukem: Forever has been released for roughly a month. It was not a great game. However, at the same time, it was not a bad game. It, like Bulletstorm before it, is a game that suffers from conflicting game play mechanics that, for a lot of people, destroy the potential experience a game like it should offer. Once again, I blame modern FPS game play mechanics and the need to appease a crowd of simple minded, non-resource-manageable 'realism' obsessed kids that think Halo and Call of Duty are the greatest and most skillful FPS games ever made.

I actually stopped playing at the strip club section, much to the dismay of my inner 12 yr old

I don't really care about Duke, how he behaves, his sexist attitude, his immaturity and all that crap. To me he is simply a video game character. If people want to get all worked up and feel somehow offended by his actions then that's their problem. What I do find rather absurd though is the amount of general hate and malice the game has received, especially from non-fans of the series. If you were a long-time fan of Duke Nukem 3D and felt let down by its rather late sequel, fair enough. If you are simply a sheep, jumping on the bandwagon of negativity and hate, describing how terrible the game is without having even played the damn thing, then to you I present my most exasperated and fatigued '/sigh' face I can muster. Wanting to hate something or simply disliking something to be part of the cool club is one of the most despicable things I can think of, and something that is both common and unmentioned in our society (regarding other topics of course). Also, comparing something like DN:F's facial animations to that of LA Noire and describing that to be completely unacceptable in a game nowadays is like complaining that Doom II had a lack of bunny rabbits in it. It was not designed for it, so who the fuck cares?

I am by no means defending DN:F. I played it and found it to be a pretty standard modern day shooter in my opinion. You could at least jump. There are just times that I see social trends emerging across the gaming community that irk me somewhat, especially when they are unwarranted. Nevertheless, I am reminded of why, generally speaking, I dislike most modern day FPS games, and so, comma, I have decided to make a short list of 5 more aspects that should be included in FPS games if you want them to be a success:

1. More than two weapons
Yep. This 'press-button-to-change-to-other-weapon' bullshit has to go. I don't care how realistic it is for a super soldier (lol?) to only be able to carry two weapons, the fact of the matter is that the more weapons a player is allowed to character, the more fun they potentially can have. That means there should be more ammo scattered around the place for said weapons. That means maps should support said weapon/ammo variety. That means they should stop being fucking linear, funneling the player towards the next ammo dump for them to refill at. It is obvious how aspects like this bleed into one another from a design perspective and how something as simple as reducing the number of weapons a player can hold has totally destroyed the explorative qualities of an entire genre.

2. Faster game speed
I have brought this up before, but relating more to the movement speed of the player's avatar. Now I am proposing that the speed of FPS games be increased as a whole. Basically for the same reasons. A slow game is boring and a boring game has limited re-playability. Think about it. What are some of the old arcade-like games you come back to every now and then? Were they, to a point, fast in terms of game play? Why was that enjoyable? Exactly.

Zankuu Hadouken!

3. Movement speed options
Again, something I have mentioned many times, but not clearly enough for it to be considered a principle design factor. Dodge-jumping, bunny hopping, rocket/grenade jumping, jump-pads, jetpacks, accelerators. All mechanics employed by oldskool FPS games that gave speed and freedom of movement to players both skilled and newbie alike. Sure, mastery of a technique works in favour for those who have mastered it. Sure, this gives said players an advantage. What's stopping everyone from learning these new and interesting techniques? They should be embraced and encouraged instead of shunned and removed, and if you can't do it on a controller ... well then maybe you are using the wrong platform mate.

4. Modability
Some of the best games ever made have come from mods. Some of these games have gone to e-sport levels, and still are today (CS 1.6/Source, DOTA). When you provide games with open source development tools, you effectively hand control of your game's potential fame and enterprise to the gaming community. This should be seen as a good thing. Look at Valve. They started from a small company using the code from ID Game's Quake 2 engine. They are now in charge of the world's most popular software distribution network because of the success of mods made for Half-life.

Lauren: The best bot in any game outside of Xan and Xaero

5. Bots
A dying breed, but FPS games with factory made bots are so rare nowadays it is saddening. The last proper game to support true FPS player-like bots was actually UT3 released in 2007. To an extent, this is understandable. The explosion that has been multiplayer gaming has removed the need for a company to even consider programming AI to do the same tasks as a player, except worse. Why would anyone make bots? The answer isn't so straightforward, but it does exist. First and foremost, there does exist a breed of player that enjoys playing offline and experimenting with game mechanics without having the face the troll/rage fest that is the average online experience. For example, the birth of Coop Vs AI in League of Legends has shown how beneficial experimentation can be in non-serious games. Secondly, having an AI framework allows even more possibilities for both custom gaming and modding by the community. Players willing to fight outnumbered against hordes of AI opponents have traditionally been in for a thrilling time, cooperating with other human players to work the system and perform the impossible. Translation: fun.

Personally I feel things are starting to come around. People are slowly seeing just how boring and mindless some of today's FPS game play mechanics are that a slight resurgence of the oldskool design philosophies are coming through. They may not have reached the minds of developers yet, but the community is becoming slightly more aware of it each week. Perhaps it is worth hoping after all.

Also, Doom II had a bunny rabbit in it. So ... yeah.

Random forums posts worth mentioning

2011-06-16T04:16:00.000-07:00

Gaming forums are ... strange beasts. A source for trolling for some, a source of QQ for others and a source of entertainment and knowledge for those willing to seek out the information they desire. I am not a big forum poster. Probably the most posts I have ever made was on the old WoW forum boards years ago, and that number of posts probably wouldn't exceed ten in the years that I used to play that game. Generally speaking, unless I have something insightful or meaningful to say, posting on forums is not really worth my time.

However, about a month ago, one of the two Escapist forum posts I have ever made was selected as being a 'Letter to the Editor'. I'm not really sure what that means, but basically it was selected because it was apparently a good post with something interesting being said. I thought this was rather unusual and amusing considering the thousands of posts a site like that would receive a day, let alone a week. That either says something really bad about the average forum poster, or maybe I just got lucky and posted something meaningful when someone high up was looking. It's not really important.

What is important was the context of the post, in reply to Yahtzee's article about action not being finisher porn in fighting and action games. It was a follow up to his review on Mortal Kombat, a review where I think he kind of missed the point of the game. Nevertheless, after reading through the posts of the articles associated forum, I became slightly irritated at the complete disregard for how the concept was being seen from a competitive standpoint. As I have always been in support of competitive gaming I made the following reply:

"I feel something that should be mentioned here is how these over-the-top powerful moves/combos tie into the competitive fighting game scene, and how infrequently they are actually used. Besides MvC3, attempting to get off these sort of moves is incredibly risky and are not of great priority. Most of the time they are blocked or whiff (miss) as competitive players are so very used to avoiding them or anticipating them in the first place.

From a casual point of view (I am a casual myself), fighting games may seem like they are entirely about these super/hyper/ultra/X-ray moves. You see them in all the trailers and there is so much emphasis on them in the media. Really though, these moves form a very small part of a fighting game's actual mechanics and should be seen as merely a catchup option if someone is getting owned. A competitive player is more likely to burn their super/xray bar through enhanced attacks then leaving the whole thing for said move, mainly because it is more advantageous for them to do so. The sparring or 'footsies' of a fighting game is what a competitive player is focusing on 90% of the time. Should said 'footsies' allow them a small window of opportunity to properly place one of these special moves, then great! If you watch enough tournament videos you will know that it is THIS that entertains and awes the crowd, not the special move itself. This is because at the competitive level, successfully getting off one of these moves is not easy. It is incredibly hard.

I guess what I am trying to say is that people are probably looking at these moves the wrong way and thinking of them in the wrong light. Yes, for the casual beating up his friend who doesn't know how to block these moves can get boring and probably pull the action away for both of them. But for two people who are actually fighting competitively, getting these moves off are significant, difficult and highly entertaining.

Example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDnaTmGHb1g&t=10m10s

Also, fatalities are nothing more than glorified finishing moves. You don't have to do them. Anyone complaining about how they are forcing unnecessary gore porn down your throat is just silly.

- TinmanX"

I'm sure no one actually read the post, being the typical forum readers that everyone is, so I didn't think much about it at the time. The truth is though that using fighting games as a benchmark for game play analysis is a useful tool, not just because of the competitive community that surrounds them, but also the amount of tweaking and balance changes necessary to make them competitive. Unlike most games (save maybe a Blizzard RTS), fighting games must undergo serious stress tests to find bugs, exploits and generally overpowered moves and characters that could break the game. This is because patching a console game is a little more tricky than patching a PC game, and releasing a broken product straight off the bat is never a good idea for a game that is purely competitive. The process is however never entirely foolproof.

I only just realised this comparative strength when reading another fellow's opinion on Vladimir in League of Legends. Vladimir, as of writing this, is still seen to be an incredibly powerful champion, overly powerful in fact, by most of the community, including the competitive scene where he is either consistently played or banned. Ironically he also used a fighting game (SF4) to get his point across, and to me (at least) he makes a good point about character balance and the community's perception of it:

"Vlad players take the term "Vlad is OP" as a personal attack, and the ones who scream it just got rolled by said Vlad, it's the same way people think Morde/Trynd/Xin/whoever just facerolled them are OP. The problem with Vlad is, has been stated before, tournament results are obvious signs that something is wrong.

I can bring up other games in this arguement. Lets see Sagat from the original SF4, that.

That was OP.

However, at the same time people claimed the blanka ball strategy to be OP.

People complained about both, and due to a lot of QQ about such things as the blanka ball strat and the Bison headstomp strat, people treated it the same, until in high level play it became apparent, and people still tried to treat it the same (However once you completely bypass the skill-level and enter the most controlled "control group" you can get, scientifically speaking, the results don't lie.)

The difference being Sagats chip damage and fast recovery times, mixed with ease of use turned out to be a global issue, seeing as someone SPAMMING Tiger Shots actually beat Daigo. (Anyone who follows fighting games/evo tournies knows the epicness that is the Daigo.)

This Vlad issue is very similar. Sagat, in SSF4, got his chip damage nerfed and his recovery time lowered. He is still INCREDIBLY viable but not as easily picked up as before.

Blanka however, WAS a case of people just not understanding the mechanics as you didn't see someone go to top tier in a tournament using that strategy, yet lower level players still claimed it was overpowered.

... I feel I trailed off at the end there, but you should get the gist of it.

SF4 = Sagat
LoL = Vlad
Sagat = Vlad = Something is truly wrong

SF4 = Blanka
LoL = Morde
Blanka = Morde = People simply don't understand enough to counter it yet
(Also the irony of Morde es #1 and Blanka being from brazil is hilarious.)"

- Krimlin

I'm sure we could use many other games or scenarios to explain the same kind of balance relationship, but he makes a fair point. Often I see people complain about things in games being overpowered, cheap or just unfair. Most of the time this can be traced back to a lack of understanding on how certain mechanics work. In the case of League of Legends, most characters that may seem incredibly powerful for newcomers become standard problems later down the track when a player becomes more experienced. For example, Mordekaiser can be nuked, CCed or just simply ignored, with no real escape options at his disposal. Tyrndamere is slightly more complex, but a combination of well timed CC, ignites and general teamwork can shut one down very easily. Karthus' Ult can be countered by having decent support, MR items (Banshee's, Hexdrinker) or generally just not playing like shit. Be wary of Teemo's and Shaco's popping in and out of bushes with low health: a hoard of traps await you. True stealth characters are even easier, providing you have the gold to afford an appropriate ward or elixir. The list goes on...

I guess my point at the end of all this is that everything in gaming, from what people perceive to be unfair, to things in games that they feel are unnecessary, has a different side of the coin which can usually be garnered via experience or just general understanding. So the next time you want to cry aimbot at that ridiculous sniper in Quake, cheap to the invincible 2-shotting Tyrndamere in LoL or think your most recent kill in any game is a result of you being better than them, think about the situation and see if your point of view could in fact be wrong.

... unless it's a Vladimir.

You were killed by an Asian

2011-05-29T21:57:00.000-07:00

In League of Legends, my first encounter with Xin Zhao (or Bob as he is reffered to on occasion) was a scary experience. I believe it was my 3rd week of playing, roughly level 10, and I had just picked up Mordekaiser (hue) not 3 days prior. This was back in the day when I was commonly posted to mid which, while I usually dominated with the man of metal, I can happily say I don't miss one bit. Having never encountered a Xin before, I was immediately rather cautious of the fellow. That spear looked painful and that ridiculous ponytail impractical in every sense of the word. It was clear he possessed some sort of sorcerous black arts for it to be attached to his head and for him to not to have some sort of hernia.

pull my finger

I think I died at level three. A charge, a knockup, a corpse. I don't think I realised what had actually happened until I noticed I wasn't moving and my screen was grey. As you may have expected, my response was a typical "WTF!!?". This was strange. Dying on Mord at that level (pre-changes) usually was. I think it took me a few more attempts, usually resulting in a death, to get a basic understanding of Mr Zhao, that being this: he will kill you 1v1.

Today, that more or less still holds true, but to a much less degree. After receiving nerfs both to him and tanky dps in general, Xin is not the monster he used to be. He is very killable if you know what you are doing. Comparitively there are better champions at doing some of the specific things he can do, but still not really any that do all of them together which is why I think I decided to pick him up. To be honest, I hated the bastard after that game. Powered of the over kind my opinion was. I didn't pick him up so much as to play him but more to counter him as much as I could on any character I played. It was not till I started playing him in serious matches that I learnt of his glaring play style issues, some that I guess should have been obvious, but probably weren't on the receiving end of his ... spear. Ahem.

Anyways, Xin is a beast in a melee. It is of my opinion that he is essentially designed to be an offtank/initiator/assassin. I say this because in a teamfight with Xin, when you go in, you either stay in or you die. This is because he has nothing outside of summoner spells to get himself out of hairy situations. To an extent you can use his slow and knockup to save yourself, but when retreating from multiple opponents, charging back into the fray and autoattacking 3 times is not the healthiest decision. On a character like Tyrndamere (-_-) you could sucessfully pull something like this off, spin back through the enemy team, aoe slow while they are still facing the other way (without even being near them) and spin off into the horizon. Or you could just press R.

My point is, with Xin, I was finally playing a character where positioning and choosing your battles wisely is very important. With Mord, it isn't a problem. You stroll in and out of combat like you are the guy at the party no one wants to talk to. With Shen it's even less of one, dashing and porting out of harms way with relative ease. With Xin you must choose your fights appropriately, often exchanging places with the tank to either mop up or 'Xinitiate' for your team. After that ... you faceroll. Seriously. Buttons. Push all of them. Now. Your summoner spell/s (ghost) and item activateables (Sword of the Divine, Ghostblade, Omen) too. Get in there and kill everything. That is your mission. His Ultimate speaks volumes of "initiate with this spell", giving you up to 90 free MR and Armor for 6 seconds, depending on how many people you hit with it and chopping off up to 30% of their current HP (before mitigation). If the enemy has any sense, which most of them do, they will look at you and try to kill you. I mean, he is an asian afterall. Racist pricks.

CHARACTER: Xin, STATUS: Fucked

This is usually the point where you die. In my months of playing and fighting Xin I have seen this occur all too frequently. Fight starts, Xin (or I) goes in, everyones bars turn red, ponytailed man falls on ground or seen running for the hills. The truth of the matter is unless you are completely dominating the enemy, you cannot afford to just build offensive items and expect to do well. Sure, you may gib a guy every teamfight, but is that really worth you dying straight away? The answer should be no. Your abilities, while somewhat useless for saving your own hide, are excellent for peeling enemies, keeping them in place and slowing them almost indefinetly. They also do decent damage even without full dps gear. In a nutshell, you are more threatening and useful if you are HARDER to kill, not because you won't be doing as much damage but because you will survive longer TO DO MORE. You don't do any damage when you are dead.

Which brings me to my final component of my Xin Zhao ... review ... thing. Whatever this is. His items. Out of all the characters that I have mucked around with in LoL, he has gone under the most revisions by far. The problem derives from the fact that he is so good at killing another person 1v1 because his spells are designed for shutting them down and melting them. This makes his ability to farm creeps abysmal, especially when laning against anything ranged. Autoattack in melee becomes your worst enemy, and your creep kills suffers massively if you don't get the advantage quickly. So unless you go out of your way to gank the shit out of the enemy your income will suck donkey balls. Getting the most out of the limited gold he earns is the key here, which means that having a standard build for fighting every team is non-sensical. As much as you should never have a standard build for any character, Xin is the only character that I play where I consider the enemy as a team, individually (laning) and item wise (i.e. theirs) constantly throughout the game. What you buy on him for the current situation is key to winning the next fight and consequently the game. The following is something I mixed up as an example of possible builds I would use, but centred around a longer game buying items that give me gold. The buying of these items are in relative order of importance at the time, but could be rotated depending on the situation. Should the game be under different circumstances (e.g. fighting a Tyrndamere, stacking massive armor, all tanky dps etc) I would be buying different items altogether.

It is probably safe to say, however, that these sort of build decisions are common amongst all LoL players.

Lololololol

2011-05-27T19:25:00.000-07:00

A couple of days ago a few friends and I played some LoL. For once in a very long time (perhaps ever!) we won three (3) games in a row as a premade team. It was an enjoyable night, one with many memories both good and negative.

Even though I don't really have time to spare, I said fuck it and made a short video anyway. This video highlights some of the more interesting moments that happened that night ... although really it is just me on Xin killing everything. This is also a mere taste of what one can expect when I finally get round to editing a much larger video and with weeks (not hours) to spare editing it. There is a strong, linear correlation as to how good a video looks and how long was spent on it.

Unfortunately LoL Replay doesn't support teammate healthbars unless you are looking/looked at them recently. I believe this is a limitation of the actual game engine however and not something the 3rd party programmers can easily remedy. In any case it has prevented me from happily recording a few teammate instances due to a lack of HP bars being shown.

My thoughts on Apple

2011-05-22T20:08:00.000-07:00

Oh boy. This is bound to cause some controversy. Usually I avoid this topic like the plague, mainly because I know where I stand and I don't really care about discussing it to or convincing anyone else otherwise. Everyone has the right to their own opinion. What you prefer and what works best for you is something that you yourself know and no-one else should be able to tell for you. Unless you are incredibly naive.

I should probably also mention that this article does not relate to anyone who would read this or that I would call a friend. While many of my friends use Apple products, they are but the tip of the iceberg in terms of what I am bringing up here. In short terms, anyone who is actually reading this need not be concerned. I am not talking about you.

My problem with the discourse concerning the Apple brand is when my opinion is brought into question about it, usually by the overly energetic, hip, young 'creative' professionals I seem to encounter on a daily basis. You may categorize some of these characters as 'Apple fanboys'. I prefer to call them deluded. While I have nothing against people's opinions, I am against people thinking that their own opinion about things needs to be heard constantly, as well as the fact that their own opinion is superior (i.e. more vocal). This supposed superiority of opinion also somehow makes opposition less credible, for whatever reason, and therefore owners of opposing opinions are somehow regarded with peculiarity. While this is general human nature, to disregard someone else's opinions and beliefs and brand them as heretics, it is also rather stupid, particularly concerning technology in this day and age.

So what has brought about my slight frustration about this Apple topic, especially now? Well, mainly this. I currently sit in a cubicle with four chaps of roughly the same age. They all (all) use Apple products extensively. I believe I am the only one among them that doesn't own and has never owned an Apple product. I probably would be seen as the outcast if I wasn't the most progressed among us. Nevertheless, this does cause some problems to arise daily, especially concerning topics of software compatibility, discussion of technology and their general uses. Because of this, I find the issue being brought up far too frequently and although I attempt to stay out of it as much as I can (I have work to do afterall), there are moments where I am forced to directly and unwillingly contribute. I am really quite an antisocial bastard aren't I?

So, my justification behind my choices usually starts like this. First of all, I am not one for social looks and trends. It is actually my strongest argument against Apple products, strangely enough. They are admittedly shiny. People like new, fancy and especially shiny things. Look at me now as I use my new, fancy shiny thing in this public place. Look at how awesome I am with my casual clothes and terrible haircut. I am so hip and cool and using this shiny, overpriced gadget that is catered towards my generation of hip, cool youngsters personifies my existence and speaks volumes of my worth as a human being. I am unemployed but have 7 university degrees and am trying to get into editing movies which I can only do with a Mac. Look at me! LOOK AT ME!!! Me me ME!!! I, I, I! Iphone, iTouch, iPod, iPad! How bout ... iDon'tcare? Yes I know this is a massive over-exaggeration and that many users of Apple products don't think this way at all (or just pretend not to) but there are enough around for it to be a problem. In this increasingly materialistic, egocentric and narcissistic society of facebook, tweeting, constant social interaction and over-opinionated perspectives on 'living', characterizing with and worshipping the shiny, arguably underdog brand that is Apple is not something that should be viewed with respect or awe. If anything, it should be viewed as an evaluation of how spoilt you are, or even how much you are spoiling yourself.

That really is my driving argument. We all do it to an extent. Hell, I know I splurge all over certain types of technology at times. My personal computer is an excellent example. The difference is I don't carry that around with me all the time as I lock the contents of it up in a big, black, steel case where no-one can see it. It is also a conglomeration of many parts from all different brands and models ... so maybe I am not really talking about the same thing here. Put it this way: I once caved into the social pressure of buying a new fancy phone. After minor research I bought a Samsung Galaxy S. It was and still is alright. It has an array of useful features which can be handy at times. Do I actually need these features? No. Can I live happily without them? Yes. Would a cheaper phone from an even less respectable brand been fine. Most definitely. So why did I buy it? The social trends I mentioned previously. Sometimes I am embarrassed to even use it, just for that reason.

The thing is, Apple is apparently different. They appear to be a company that is attempting to cater for your every technological need. From computers, to laptops, media players, phones, tablets etc. Why would you want to buy any other brand besides Apple? Well, this is essentially my second reason, and it isn't the stereotypical corporate domination response you would expect. It is the most basic one. Their damn price. It has vexed me for years how people can fork out that much money for products that do the same thing as others, sometimes even worse. This argument branches into all corners of their platform, from the (in my experience) crap involved using iTunes to their non-generic connection interfaces with other technologies. Alright, sure, sometimes the Apple experience may innately be easier and more user friendly than other interfaces. Is it really worth spending a few hundred more dollars to save yourself a few seconds? Not to mention with a different interface you might understand what is actually going on. Ignorance is sometimes not bliss, and if you take into account how much Apple is actually charging you for their products (compared to others) you may realise just how much they are ripping you off.

My last and weakest argument is that of user control. You have all heard the horror stories of companies like Apple and Sony going tits up when people try to tinker with their products. The court cases, the threats, the lies etc. To me, the idea of having a product I can't modify to my own desire is just bullshit. When that money comes out of my hand, that product and everything about it should be mine to do with as I want. I am not buying it so you can lock me out of certain features depending on my location/tampering, nor should the product become unusable if you do tamper with it. 'Jailbreaking' shouldn't be necessary at all and punishing people for doing so should not even be possible by the owning company. However, never having actually owned an Apple product and having no intent on ever buying one I can say, for the moment, that this issue doesn't really bother me in the slightest. My PS3 on the other hand ...

So, the next time you or someone else asks me why I don't own a Macbook, why I have never owned an iPhone and why I use an assortment of alternative products to fill the apparent 'gap' that is my technological and social life that is so very important ... I will just link you this post. I think it will still be relevant at the time. Generally speaking though, I don't really care. You can use whatever you want. Just let me do the same.

Note: Yes, I am aware that a lot of the pictorial and video based content is outdated. It is more there for entertainment value.

Portal Wombat

2011-05-13T18:10:00.000-07:00

Well then. Here we are again. It is late at night and I am bored and so I shall write some drivel about games. You are lost, possibly confused and/or on hard drugs, attempting to read this drivel. I commend your efforts, but I also question them. Surely there is something else better you can be doing.

Nevertheless ... games. I assume the reason you are here is to read my biased and sometimes confounded opinion on them, so here we go. First off the recent list would be Portal 2. Now, I wouldn't call myself a massive fan of Portal. The original was a good game, don't get me wrong, but I am not fanatical about the series. To me they provide an interesting but forgettable challenge that doesn't really invite me to go and replay them again. Or at least until I know I have forgotten all of the puzzles, because essentially that is what Portal 2 is. Puzzles involving portals with an interesting (and humorous) story thrown over the top. This time round, Valve have gone to great lengths to tell a compelling story exploring various historical aspects of the Aperture Science company and exposing its many abandoned locales to the player. These make for sometimes frustrating puzzle environments as you look for that one hidden bit of white-wall to put your orange portal on to walk/fly through to get to the next area. Certain new technologies and 'goo' types make for interesting portal useage which can be interesting to uncover the first time around. The coop is a bit more of a brain-buster than the singleplayer providing much more difficult challenges involving synchronization of player actions and using each other's portals appropriately. Still, not a game I think I will revisit the singleplayer any time soon. Interesting, entertaining ... but otherwise forgettable. I would love to see what the mod community comes up with though.

Crysis 2. I'm kinda scratching my head as to how I should approach this one. I probably think the best way to describe my opinion of Crysis 2 is like this: I hate cities. I hate them in real life and I hate them in games. They are visually unimpressive and unless designed properly, provide incredibly static, linear and boring game play, which Crysis 2 very much was in my opinion. Even if its New York. The overused, cliché of a city always being destroyed by a monster, aliens or crime overlord just really doesn't do it for me. It's not really even because it is a city. If it were Tokyo, Cairo or even Berlin I probably wouldn't have hated the environment so much. It's because it's an American city that I got pissed off with it. I don't believe I have made an Americanisation rant when it comes to games, and maybe I shouldn't, but to an extent it is true. Especially in recent times with military themed shooters. Oh yes, various American themed forces are here to save the world (i.e. Americans) from enemy X from taking over America ... in America. The rest of the world doesn't matter because America is the centre of the world. It is also partly because the environment is such a downgrade from the original game. In the original Crysis I was running Koreans over on beaches, stalking them through jungles and hiding from aliens in the snow. I was on a holiday! Now? Oh ... you are funneling me towards yet another subway. Walk in a straight line for 200 yards along this street, right. You want me to find another guy in another building? I swear this building is an exact replica of the one that was destroyed in the last 10 minute cutscene you forced me to watch, and you don't want to get me started on the cutscenes. We'll also leave out the whole console-isation and catering for the lowest common denominator (i.e. consoles) technologically, this time :). My overall opinion? Crysis was much better. Maybe not visually (pretty damn close) but singleplayer and multiplayer wise (Crysis Wars), it shits all over Crysis 2.

-_-

Finally, the most recent game I have been playing around with is in fact banned in this country. I'll save that topic for another time. In the meantime, I will say that Mortal Kombat is something I have looked forward to for awhile, and it was definitely worth the wait. I personally believe it is the best fighting game out in recent years and should help raise the bar concerning how lacklustre the genre has been lately. While it is true that fighting games are all really about the fight, the footsies, the dueling between two combatants (sif use a K), there really is no excuse for major titles being released to ONLY be about that. MvC3 is a classic example with very little to offer outside its raw game play. Needless to say, they get boring quickly, especially for the casual player. What MK does differently is add pretty much what every fighting game should have had in the past 5 years. Multiple game modes, a ... really good story mode (seriously), cooperative/tag team modes (which are incredibly fun), an enormous list of unlockables and decent tutorials to slowly break in new players to the genre. It is also a decent fighter, not as complex mechanically as something like SSFIV or MvC3 and not as memory game/buttonmashy as Tekken. It sits snugly somewhere in between. An example of this working effectively can be seen in the new X-Ray moves, which is basically an accumulation of bonus 'energy' from taking/dealing damage. It is similar to Street Fighter's Ultra/Super bars except for one distinct property: its execution. Two buttons, the same two for every character. Dead simple. Why is this good? Well, it means that everyone can get a chance to pull off impressive signature moves at some point regardless of the character they are controlling. How is this balanced? They are blockable, don't have high chip/guard damage, and like in SSFIV, are not so easy to actually get off on a smart player ... but at least you can 'perform' them without breaking your thumbs or brain farting. If you buy one fighting game this year I would highly recommend buying MK. How you go about doing that is up to you.

Push death into them!

2011-04-28T23:01:00.000-07:00

Yes. Recently finished a long, domination, coop campaign with a friend in Shogun 2. It took ... a month? I wasn't counting, and we didn't play it all the time. Still, it was an interesting experience with many frustrating and hilarious moments such as:

- Friend fighting 3 different enemies at the same time all in one province, and having his capital ninjaed by another enemy
- Outnumbered in battles, but kiting the AI with cavalry to reduce focus
- Me at certain points generating enough income for both of us
- Building armies worthy of Mordor
- Synchronisation bugs and errors
- Friend having a 65 year old max rank ninja killing everything
- Me bribing an entire enemy army with an army of metsukes and 40000 koku
- Spreading Buddhism over Christianity via means of extermination
- One of my highest ranked generals drowning
- Taking towns of 60 men with armies of ... well over 9000, honestly
- Two asshole armies sitting in a bush trying to ambush us for like 5 years
- Getting harassed continuously by pirates
- Not building a single rocket soldier or siege machine as Hojo
- Assaulting and taking Kyoto with horses

I probably wouldn't do it again for awhile, and if I did it would have to be in a different Total War game. We shall see...

Sanity is for the weak

2011-04-17T00:35:00.000-07:00

Anyone that knows or has met me will notice that, over time, I will say a lot of stupid and confusing shit that may or may not make sense to them. Some of these are of the greeting variety, used primarily to initiate conversation. Others may refer to maladies or genetic disadvantages possessed by the person in question, primarily involving their face. Probably the most dominant, however, are those that involve some exclamation of someone or something getting pwned. In this post I will explain the origins and reasoning behind the usage of some of these remarks and how, generally speaking, they have very little connection to what occurrence they are being used for. At all.

Word(s): Nuked
Definition: To deliver a ludicrous amount of damage onto subject quickly over a short period of time.
Example: "We should nuke Teemo in the next teamfight"
Origins: World of Warcraft
I don't play it anymore but the term Nuked stemmed mainly from playing World of Warcraft and encountering large and difficult PvE mobs or bosses that required focus fire from the entire group. This combined effort of maximum damage output by all members of a party/raid would allow for small windows where phenomenal amounts of damage could be dished out. The useage of damage increasing items and abilities (e.g. Bloodlust) would be used in conjunction with this process.

Word(s): AP POM PYRO
Definition: Mage spells in sequence: Arcane Power + Presence of Mind + Pyroblast
Example: "... and then just come out of the bush and AP POM PYRO him"
Origins: World of Warcraft
Mages in WoW were, for a time, rather dominant at PvP in terms of burst damage. The inclusion of resilience has reduced their effectiveness somewhat and they are now considered one of the most skillful and balanced PvP classes in WoW. However, before the various expansion packs were released, mages could spec a certain way into two of their trees (Arcane and Fire) to specifically unlock the spells Arcane Power, Presence of Mind and Pyroblast. Pyroblast was basically just a huge fireball nuke with something like a 6 second cast time. Arcane Power increased the damage of spells cast by the mage by a flat percentage for a short period of time. Presence of Mind made your next spell cast instant. Combine the three spells in order and you get a fireball hitting for an absolute motherload. Instantly. I imagine it would have been incredibly fun to do this, as demonstrated by the following video. It is a little weird and depending on your taste in music you may find it unbearable to watch. Having a strong tolerance for death metal and a lot of respect for good editing I can say I honestly don't mind it. In some ways it is actually rather artistic.

I believe the idea behind the creation of this guy's videos was to highlight the blatant overpowered-ness of this technique's burst damage in PvP and over-exaggerate the attention given to it. Also sif not be an evil ganking undead motherfucker. HADOOUKEN!!!

Word(s): Two Shotted
Definition: To deliver two hard hitting blows in sequence, killing the opponent
Example: "Lol I just two shotted that dude"
Origins: World of Warcraft
Also from WoW, two shotting mainly came from PvP where certain classes could combine combinations of powerful spells/abilities that would, should the gods of luck grant them favour, both crit an unfortunate player for a large amount. This would result in the opposing player having enough time to realise what was happening, but not enough time to react before they transformed into a corpse. This was considered a hilarious occurrence for the undertaker and extremely displeasing for the victim.

Word(s): Flickshot with a railgun
Definition: To give an opponent the smallest amount of attention possible while delivering enough instant damage to kill them outright
Example: "Should run past him and flickshot him with a railgun"
Origins: Quake 3
While flick-shotting applies to many FPS games (e.g. CS), it is perhaps more resonate in the Quake series for one reason. Bunny-hopping. The desire to move logarithmically faster as time goes on is directly opposed to the objective of the game: killing your opponents. You want to maintain speed, but looking away for any extended period of time will reduce your momentum. However, quickly turning to face your opponent, firing, and turning back during the apex of your jump allows you to keep moving and doing damage. You essentially don't even see your opponent during the proceedure, assuming you are doing it right. It is an incredibly skillful technique involving clever guesstimating, incredibly good hand eye coordination and extreme familiarity with your mouse's sensitivity. I myself have only pulled off a few 'true' flick shots (30-40) in my FPS career that I would consider purely skillful and not just ass. Let's see you do this with a controller:

Word(s): Execute crit for 'amount'
Definition: A melee weapon finishing blow move that exceeds the amount of damage required by a considerable amount
Example: "... while I execute crit this guy for 10 billion"
Origins: World of Warcraft
My word, alot of these examples are from WoW. Just goes to show how that game can affect your brain. Warriors in WoW had a finishing blow move that used to consume all their rage (i.e. damage resource mechanic) into one final fatal blow. A full rage execute was a dangerous situation, something opponents should have been aware of when going to to toe with a warrior. Disarming a fellow warrior when you got within this range was, for example, a viable tactic. A full rage execute that critted on a cloth wearer was ridiculous, sometimes hitting for nearly double the opponents max health. It was for this reason alone that Warrior's Execute was, for a long time, considered the hardest hitting melee ability in the game.

Word(s): Instagibbed
Definition: To shoot/hit someone so hard that they explode into a bloody pile of flesh
Example: "Came around the corner and got instagibbed"
Origins: Unreal Tournament
Pronounced g-i-b (not j-i-b; say gorilla ... now say jorilla. See?), instagibbing actually came from one of my favourite games of all time, the original Unreal Tournament. There used to exist a game mode specifically called 'instagib' where all weapons were replaced with an overpowered version of the shock-rifle which would do 1000 damage per shot. Since you could only have an effective maximum of 349 health/armour points, one shot from this baby and you transformed into a pile of flying flesh and blood. On a low friction, increased game speed server, instagib CTF games became the epitome of teamwork, reflexes and accuracy. Sometimes covering the flag carrier with your own body and soon to be blood spurting limbs was the only way to assist your fellow comrade against the torrent of orange bolts flying your way. It was damn good fun and playable for people of all skill ranges. Unless you are like this guy:

Word(s): Faceroll
Definition: Roll your face across the keyboard to perform skillful execution of abilities
Example: "Xin Zhao is the ultimate faceroll character when it comes to killing a dude"
Origins: Various
It is debateable where, at least for me, this term originated from (WoW, Diablo, fighting games etc.) but a viable alternative to it is 'buttonmash'. Facerolling however requires the individual to apply their face horizontally to the keyboard or controller and smashing or rolling it about. I find circular motions to be the most effective. By doing so, one can press many interesting combinations of buttons that result in epic victories. It is obviously a derogatory term used to describe classes/mechanics that are believed to be utterly skill-less in execution or, in my case, easy enough to play with that you don't even need to think about what you are doing. Because of this ease, you might as well use your face as you clearly don't need eyes to see and you might as well use that massive head of yours for something.

pro skills

Word(s): Focus Attack Dash Cancel (FADC) into Ultra
Definition: Crumple an opponent into a vulnerable state before unleashing on them
Example: "You should Focus Attack the bus driver, Dash to Cancel it and then Ultra him"
Origins: Street Fighter IV
The most recent contribution to this list derived from a moderately complex method of getting your Ultra/Super moves off in SFIV without your opponent blocking/avoiding them. SFIV introduced to the series a focus attack mechanic which you can use to crumple your opponent or absorb damage momentarily, assuming you time it right. You could also use it to cancel moves to skip the animation frames so you could continue into advanced combo attacks (at the cost of super meter). For a beginner, it is an incredibly dexterous and difficult mechanic to execute correctly, especially considering it gives you so many options to chose from if you do. Like Flickshotting, it is one of the actually skillful things a player can do in a game that separates them from the rest.

So next time you hear me say something like "Your face got instagibbed while facerolling" you can now understand that I have not gone completely mad or am not talking in tongues while being possessed by a demon. Rather I am just a confused man replacing more elaborate words with what, in my mind, are more accurate depictions of what is occurring. Also while being possessed by a demon. KABOOM!!!

Musings and Happenings

2011-03-29T20:47:00.000-07:00

While I escape the depressing clutches of uni work, both academic and tutoring relating, I find myself playing a vast variety of games lately. Some of these are new. Some of them are very, very old. It is interesting which of these games I have enjoyed more than others as it says something (at least to me) about the design of games today versus that of yesteryear.

As I expected, Shogun 2 was fantastic. It is probably going to be my favourite PC game of the year. It is polished and refined, something you would expect of Creative Assembly after returning to their roots having learnt everything from the previous iterations of the Total War series. For three days straight I put in roughly 28 hours and completed a domination campaign. I have not spent that much time on a game since I was 'addicted' to WoW in my second year of uni. To clarify what I mean by addiction in a gaming sense, I mean simply playing a game for an unhealthy amount of time, ignoring more important aspects of life. This includes people and housework. So, for three days I did just that, but at the end of it I didn't feel as 'bad' as I used to when I would do the same thing in WoW. Shogun 2 is ... almost a spiritual game, reinforced by the sometimes calming music and zen-like attitude the game forces you to have towards warfare. However, having said that, there is nothing more awe-inspiring than watching your armies march into battle in what is perhaps the best looking RTS game currently on the market. I swear I could listen to the sound of 3000 ashigaru trudging towards their doom forever.

But then there was Bulletstorm. I guess I should have expected the game to be what it is, but me being a fan of the old UT series and of Painkiller still had my hopes up nonetheless. This game makes me want to facepalm so hard that I swear my face would be nothing but a bloody skull by the end of the game. Kill with Skill? Really? Is this really the selling point of this game? There is nothing skillful about the killing in this. It is not hard, nor is constrained by time in any difficult sense of the word. A typical killing scenario involves popping your head over your chest-high wall, looking for a dude to leash, leashing him into the air towards you, looking around for 10 years to find something to kick him into (seriously, you have so much time to do this it isn't even funny) and finally giving him a blast of generic gun type B to assist him on his merry way. Congratulations, here is 500 points. I'm sorry, but this is not killing with skill. It's killing creatively, I will give you that, but when you do it over and over and over again it gets incredibly dull. It's not a bad game by any means. It's just not as good as it COULD have been. Then there are the quick time events, in particular the 'react quickly to this to get points' ones. I shit you not, something will occur and the speed that of which you press a button to automatically look at whatever it is the game wants you to look at will reward you some bonus points. The first time this happened I thought it was a joke, that was how stupid I found it. Then it kept happening. You also can't jump. Yeah. Yahtzee sums up the game pretty well in his Zero Punctuation review of it, mainly it being stuck between the (actually) skillful and fast paced days of old and the retardedly slow and console-like FPS games of today. If you want a clearer picture I recommend watching it.

... can you actually see what is going on here? Yeah, me neither.

Which brings me to my next chapter: games of old. I have been playing an uncanny amount of Doom lately for one simple reason: it is incredibly fun. The amount of media attention and articles revolving around oldskool FPS games of late (something I am quite happy to see) has inspired me to revisit some of these titles again. Doom was the first on the agenda which I actually found rather challenging. Putting it on Ultraviolence and wading straight in, I found myself on occasion being caught off guard by the odd imp or hellknight and almost (almost) jumping out of my seat. I will even admit I even died a few times. Now, to properly bring attention to the gravity of that statement I will inform you of two things. Firstly, I am using a mouselook mod called ZDoom which allows you to use a mouse and look somewhat along the wonky Z axis that Doom permits. Doom was not originally designed for mouselook, so being able to use a mouse gives me an enormous advantage. Secondly, if you have ever played Doom you will know that you can move at almost the speed of sound. So an experienced FPS player dying in Doom with these two aspects in their favour is, at least to me, telling me just how difficult this game really is. Certain sections I found myself just running through to get away from the hordes as I didn't have the ammo or the health to deal with them. Which, and this is important, was actually fun as well. Having to go from Rambo in one room to Houdini in the next reminds me of the importance of resource management (health, ammo, weapons, armor etc.) in these types of FPS games, something that is lacking in almost every new one being released today.

Never fight a drunken hobo weilding a boomstick

I have also recently jumped back into Half-life again after my last nostalgic audio post. While very different from Doom in terms of game play, the concept of resource management is still the same. If you simply want to get through the game you don't need to kill everything, but finding additional pickups may require you to do so anyway. As anyone who has played it will know, the game is constantly throwing new situations at you which are either combat or puzzle based. A good balance between the two (which the game pulls off) makes for very engaging game play that can keep you immersed for hours. Which is what the series is essentially renowned for. Also like Doom, it is not a piece of cake. Many a time I have found myself stumbling over a cliff face in a firefight frenzy or getting flanked by soldiers. Usually stupid things that I would usually check for but have forgotten that a game as old as Half-life has implemented. It is good to see I can still get just as much a kick out of these games as new ones being released today with all their fancy flair and poise. Perhaps even more so...

Blue is a terrible colour. Here, try some red on.

Sif not shoot everything with a shotgun.

Finally, on a much different note, I am slowly putting the pieces of a League of Legends frag video together. So far only two of us have actually submitted any replays (using LoLReplay, an excellent third party recording tool) but hopefully I will have roughly 2-300 clips of various LoL occurrences by the end. An awesome section, a humorous section and possibly a failboat section (which will be both awesome and humorous) will probably suffice in terms of video chapters. I will probably think about it more when the time comes to actually edit it. In the meantime I will entertain myself with smaller projects such as the following:

Time to choose ...

2011-03-08T06:57:00.000-08:00

Nostalgia is a file that removes the rough edges from the good old days. ~Doug Larson

It's late and I'm tired but I yet again find myself trolling through the many wonders of the internet, much like a drunken hobo alongside a busy highway. It's not often I stumble across something that will leave me sleeping content and happy, but this has truly left a smile on my face.

It's the ending/credits music. After bringing down that ugly mofo and fighting off hordes of xenos, getting to listen to this track after a very questionable and non-conclusive ending was, in my opinion, brilliant. The original Half-life is undeniably one of the best games ever made and at least in the top 5 FPS games ever developed. Although I didn't actually play the game when it was first released, when I did manage to get around to it a few years later I remember being awestruck by the ending. Little actually made sense in the game, but it wasn't one of those games that needed to explain itself. A similar ending also occurred in the excellent expansion Opposing Force. It is something I would have liked to seen debuted in the Half-life 2 engine/universe (playing as Corporal Shepherd). A strong war/combat based perspective on the whole ordeal would have worked marvelously.

Now I'm off to dream about shooting marines in the face with a shotgun and fighting off endless waves of aliens with Snarks and a Gauss cannon.

How to make a PC FPS - 10 simple rules

2011-03-03T04:17:00.000-08:00

I never thought I would have to do this. Actually that's a lie. I probably always have secretly wanted to. After so many a lol-shoot-the-man-lol games of recent years, so many that just fail on the PC (yes, the whole console/PC FPS rant again), I'm kind of fed up. Two titles that I will leave unannounced are AGAIN ports of their console counterparts. So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to tell you how to make a successful FPS on PC. I'm not going to talk about the theme of the game or the narrative structure or even the underlying game play mechanics. That's totally your job, and sif I'm going to do your job. What I will do is tell you what you need to have in your game. Or in some cases, what not to have.

1. Do not start your game with "Press the start button to begin".
Why do I need to press start ... to start? Why am I not looking at the main menu right now? What is the point of it to begin with? Why is it even here? In fact ... what start button? There is no start button on a keyboard. The only start button I know of exists on a ... oh. Now I get it. First sign of a bad console port? "Press the start button to begin".

2. Have a customizable graphics/game engine.
So you have either bought a game engine or made your own from scratch. Both are good options, nothing really wrong with either of them. This engine should (should) have a plethora of settings enabling certain input/output options and video parameters. This should range from everything, from anti-aliasing to texture settings. Allow your user to tweak them, and not through hidden config files in some roaming account attached file. A PC gamer wants to make the game look and feel just right. It is the very definition of why we own a PC and play games on them.

3. No mouse acceleration.
Seriously, fuck off. No one likes that shit. We are using a keyboard and motherfucking mouse for Christ's sakes. I don't need my mouse to speed up as I pan to the left because I am already looking at my target. Yes I just did a 180 degree spin instantly. It's what you can do with a mouse and it is not impressive. It is normal. On that note, no aim-assist. Or at least off by default. Using a mouse is precision aiming enough. If I want to shoot someone in the left earlobe than I will god damned shoot them in the left earlobe. I don't want some shit locking onto their head when I am checking out that palm tree behind them. Palm trees need loving too.

4. Have a 'console' with a decent array of commands (no, not the physical console you play on your TV)
From demo-recording to commands turning certain features on/off. Why? Because it will make your game that much more pleasant to play. And navigate. And benchmark. And mod. Do I need to explain why these are good things? Every good LAN game has had admin control commands to both set up games and prevent people from exploiting certain things. Commands allowing a fluent 'console' user to do things quickly on the fly is a good idea.

5. Dedicated server and LAN support
Holy hell. Which bogan from the dumpster thought the current (i.e. lack of) method of delivering modern multiplayer PC games was a good idea? If someone on your development team is suggesting this, shoot them. They are stupid. Yes, I can understand the want for online system security. Yes, I can understand the need for wanting control over all your servers (definetly not the right way to do it in any case). And YES, I can understand that this style of multiplayer gaming is quite popular ... on consoles! We are not playing on a console. We do not want to connect to the internet to play against our housemate who lives in the next room. Even consoles don't impose that insanity. PC gaming is about having options, not limiting them. Think about it. In 10 to 15 years from now, how in hell is someone going to even play your game in multiplayer? Which leads on to ...

6. Anti-consumer DRM
I could write an entire essay on why certain types of DRM are bad and how the whole piracy/punishing your customers model of things just doesn't work. I won't, at least not today. Simply put ... just don't. Games will always be cracked, workarounds devised and online authenticity checks disabled. Sure, you might stop 20% of otherwise illegitimate buyers. But needing to log on to three separate accounts alongside a profile and making an online tag which checks every nano-second to see if you are connected to the net is just awful design. There are many other and better ways of going about this. Take a look at League of Legend's business model. The game is free, and they still make heaps of dough!

7. UI Design, feedback and size matters. Or simply, lack thereof.
Crosshairs, weapons and indicators do not need to take up 1/3rd of the screen. I am not sitting 3 metres from my television. I am sitting a foot away from a monitor which takes up 60% of my view. I can see how much ammo I have very easily thank you, you don't need to flash it across my screen every time it is low. No, a red splash of paint across my view is not a good indication that I am taking damage and am nearly dead. Now I can't see anything you retard! UI elements and indicators do not need to disappear all the time. They should not be blocking my view as they should not be enormous. Where is this guy shooting me from? Is he behind this enormous mountain of a weapon you have me carrying? He was. Now I'm dead. Good.

8. Jumping.
Do you like jumping? I like jumping. Jumping is awesome. You can like ... totally get on top of things by jumping. Especially those chest high walls you see so much of today. Provide enough kinetic energy to yourself while jumping and you can totally jump OVER things. WHOA!!! Did you see that insane wall jump I just did? What about this rocket jump here? You didn't? Why the hell not? Because I can't actually jump you say? WTF? WHY THE FUCK CAN'T I JUMP!!??!!?
Why indeed. Besides games like DOOM, jumping has been in about ... 95% of games? At least games where you control a dude in some way. I don't know where it originated or even why it was introduced recently, but several FPS titles as of late have inhibited your ability to move positively along the Z axis for a brief period of time, at will, completely. Why? WHY!? Was the primary game designer drunk that day when you guys talked about jumping in the game? Is he fat and has something against people jumping? Could you not convince him that jumping is just one of those things a game should have ... like moving forward? I don't need to be able to bunny hop, rocket jump, wall jump or anything that crazy. But I do want to jump. Please let me jump?

9. Mouse support in menus.
Seriously. Wtf is wrong with some of you? You are using a mouse to aim in the game. Mouse support is obviously already in the engine ... in a 3D setting. Remove an axis and now you have 2D mouse support. Hooray!! Of course its never that simple is it. Your mouse support is actually just the code from the right analog stick adjusted to read from a different input peripheral. It was never supposed to exist in the menus, so it never will. Those PC Gamers can just suck it and wrap their cheated hands around yet another terrible console port.

10. Unsimplified controls.
What does any PC MMO, strategy game or flight sim game have in common? If you guessed ... a billion keys to press, then you would be correct. See, there is this device we use. It's called a keyboard. It has lots of buttons. Over quadruple the amount of buttons a controller has, in fact, and that's not including the buttons on another device we call the mouse. Those buttons (should) allow us to do many things. So when you have your insane grenade button that ... oh I don't know, throws a grenade when you tap it and changes grenades when you hold it down ... that is stupid. It takes too long, is inefficient and is stupid. Separate the functions onto different keys and then we can talk. How about that Zoom button you say? Only three levels of zoom after tapping the same button three times? Why not use the scroll-wheel? That gives you a massive number of zoom levels. It's used to change weapons you say? What, all two of them!!!??

Ugh

-_-

It's alive ... IT'S ALIVE!!!

2011-02-28T06:31:00.000-08:00

It is that time of the year again. Well ... half decade, you could say. Roughly every 3 to 3.5 years I have been upgrading my home PC system. Mainly to play games, but also mainly to have a machine that isn't a sloth at certain tasks (e.g. video editing). The last time I did this it was in preparation for games like Crysis and UT3 which the system handled amiably at the time. However, while the system is still competent in many regards, it is starting to show its wrinkles here and there, as well as lacking many of the current gen shinies (e.g. DX11).

This time I decided to take a chance and buy components that I thought to be even more cost efficient and powerful than before. This required me to buy components from approximately five stores from around the country to get the stuff I wanted. Three were from Brisbane, one from Sydney and the other was from eBay, shipped from Melbourne. It sounds ridiculous but there is simply no one store in Australia that stocks only the best of the best.

The list of components were as follows:

- ASRock FATAL1TY P67 PROFESSIONAL
- G.SKILL Ripjaws-X 8GB (4GB x 2) PC3 17000 (DDR3-2133)
- Antec ATX TruePower 750W
- Intel Core i7 2600
- Gigabyte ATI 6970
- Kingston 128G SSD V-Series SATA2 G3
- Random assortment of other minor parts

I also bought an additional case for the retiring computer with the intention for it to be used as a media/guest/LAN computer should the situation arise.

So what did I learn from this experience? Simply put: never do it again. Ordering parts from around the country is fine, especially if you do your research and figure out the credibility of the sources. The problem is Brisbane's courier service. Would you believe that one package that I ordered from Brisbane (online store only) took 6 days longer to deliver than the package I ordered from Melbourne? I'm sorry, but there is no excuse for that level of service. It's just bad, and my faith in Brisbane's courier ability has dropped considerably.

Anyways, this computer (which will incidentally be 'Predator Mk V') should get me through Shogun 2, Crysis 2, FEAR 3 and Rage without so much as a hiccup and probably last me another 3.5 years at least. Lets hope the games during this time will actually have be worth upgrading for :)

Let the Doves Free!!!

2011-02-06T07:01:00.000-08:00

When I was growing up, there was but one cartoon that my sister and I would actively try to watch. Before it was banned from commercial television in Australia, that is. It was Ren and Stimpy and it is probably the cause of my demented sense of humour nowadays.

Why am I bringing it up? Well, when you are a kid you sometimes notice the brilliance of things without even consciously being aware of it. Although your parents and surrounding environment have a tremendous affect on your upbringing, you begin to develop your own interests and hobbies that diverge from your parents and siblings perspectives. Playing computer games is but one of mine.

But before computer games there was cartoons, and although our parents didn't necessarily disapprove of them, they found some (such as Ren and Stimpy) to be a little extreme. With good reason too. Watching some of these episodes back now with a greater understanding of the world gives me an even greater appreciation for the material I grew up on. Ren and Stimpy was much more than the insane adventures of a chihuahua and a cornish rex. It was an introduction to some very adult themes which are hidden subliminally underneath the madness, and an appreciation for brilliant classical music, such as Habanera from Bizet's Carmen. Laugh as you may, but you cannot deny the genius gone into scenes such as the following:

Wilbur Cobb, the old senile gheezer in this scene, is probably my favourite character from the series and even now someone I see myself acting like from time to time. Particularly talking in malapropisms and general 'eggcorn' (eye sea, egg sell lent, hell oh etc). Hell, when I grow old I hope my body falls apart and uncontrollable disgusting things happen. Especially in the presence of my friends and family so I can lean over to them and say...

"You know what I just did? I just pissed myself. You deal with it." - Dylan Moran

Jumping Jack Rabbits!

2011-01-26T19:34:00.001-08:00

As a follow up to my rant about missing arena shooters a few weeks ago, I thought I would make a short post about what exactly 'bunny hopping' is in first person shooters is. Or at least what it should be deemed as.

Many games, especially older ones, had some technique of moving faster than normally intended. Some of these were innocent exploits of in-game physics. Others were hard-coded in. Gaining control of these techniques and using them to your advantage was considered essential to becoming a better player and opened an entirely new avenue of possibilities in terms of player skill and creativity. Moving around a map with efficiency was just as important as shooting your enemy.

One such technique was called 'bunny hopping'. This existed in games such as the Quake and Half-life series which actually are all derivatives of the same engine. In Serious Sam, bunny hopping was coded in and made significantly easier for players to use. In the Unreal Tournament series it was non-existent, but replaced with 'dodge jumping' and other combinations of jumps. The truth is, while most games had some sort of movement enhancing options, they were not all performed the same way.

I will freely admit I am not an expert at bunny hopping in the Quake engine games. In fact I am sure I am pretty terrible at it. Nevertheless, these 'trick jumps' were the sort of thing you naturally picked up on after playing a few hundred games and it was not uncommon to see other players doing it as well online. After pressing jump so many times you begin to get a feel for the physics, and certain situations where you turn the mouse randomly to allow you to accelerate faster than you should. "Why..." you ask, "... should I simply not emulate this all the time?".

Sad as it may be, there seems to be some confusion amongst newer gamers as to what 'bunny hopping' is/was. "It's where you press jump repeatedly" they will say, "making you much harder to hit." Well, half of that is true. When you bunny hop, you do become a little harder to hit. But it is not as simple as pressing jump. As true 'bunny hopping' is remarkably different for every (oldskool) game, I think I will use a simple demonstration.

This is not bunny hopping:

That is called pressing forward and jump repeatedly.

This is bunny hopping:

... and I'm not going to tell you how to do it.

Mainly because you will need a keyboard and mouse to start with.

:)

How absurd!

2011-01-18T20:27:00.000-08:00

Well I just couldn't not put this in.

I mean, who doesn't like a violently insane red-headed angry man shooting laser beams out of their arms and instagibbing people with the most powerful move in a fighting game ever?

No-one, that's who.

And if you're no-one, then you're stupid!

I like my weapons how I like my music ... heavy and metal!

2011-01-12T20:44:00.000-08:00

If I had more free time on my hands and/or possibly wasn't doing some sort of research already, there is something I would probably look in to a bit more. This something is, quite simply, the appropriateness of certain types of music for gaming and how they can affect the player's performance. It is probably something that doesn't require much investigation as we already know that music does have an incredible affect on how people can behave. Athletes train to certain upbeat, fast paced music to keep their energy flowing and their frame of mind set in the right place. Relaxing cinematography is usually accompanied by likewise music, and not deathmetal. It's not exactly a science.

I'm certain many gamers, myself included, prefer to play their own type of music when playing games. Many a time in Warsong Gulch in WoW I would turn some distortion guitar based metal on, or sometimes the Hellmarch theme from the Command and Conquer series. Some games such as the Unreal Tournament series already nail a particular type on music to the board which depending on your taste can be suitable enough for you. Playing a particular style of music can make you both play a certain way and enhance the mood of the situation. It's almost like taking drugs...

So, during the recent flooding events taking place here, while I have still had electricity I thought I would make a short experimental LoL video. The footage is ... average paced . It's not surprising, it comes from an averagely paced game. Usually you don't feel overexcited or (too) bored when watching footage of someone else playing. But what if you were to over-dramatise the events that were happening? Make the relatively simple game play seem chaotic and incredible through music and simple editing alone?

Recommend changing to high (720p) resolution playback. Tis my first HD video ever uploaded! I don't know about you, but re-watching it back does leave a slightly more titanic edge to the whole thing. I would like to think it is successful, but I guess it depends on your taste in music, really.

Special regard given to hotpies, m1c_ch3ck and MorePieNow who participated in the filming and killing.

Also, a free chocolate given to the first person to tell me where the music in the video is from.

Zero Frags Left?

2010-12-28T07:38:00.000-08:00

Hmmm. This post has been a long time coming. Indeed, while I have hinted at it and beat around the bush with semi-related discussion in the past, this post is something I actually am concerned about for the future of gaming and my general interest in it. I am also not incredibly tired or drunk (I think), so you can safely assume that what you read here is actually what I am thinking. So, equip your Hats of Ranting (+1 to rage generation) and prepare to listen to a grown man piss and moan about seemingly trivial stuff in as callous and pretentious a manner as possible. Well, sort of.

In gaming society today, there is (as I have mentioned many a time before) a slight disconnection between a large number of the major game developers and the PC as a gaming platform. Simply put, the PC is not considered to be the bread and butter, default, go-to platform for making a game anymore. Make a game on a computer you may, but for all intensive purposes it will probably end up being on console. Or on a hand-held. Or on a damn phone. The point is, unless you are an indie developer going through Steam or Blizzard Games, making big titles exclusively for PC (i.e. console ports later) is not considered profitable. A good part of the reasons for this is due to piracy. The general nature of the gaming PC is to provide an open and customisable platform, which inadvertently allows tech savvy people various options for playing a game illegitimately. Write an executable crack, tamper with some config files, adjust network protocols etc. You don’t and can’t do this on a less open, less sophisticated environment like a console. So it is unsurprising that even major players in the market, such as Microsoft, have such a strong foothold in terms of where and how they want to drive the consumer market. They have even publicly stated their stance on developing for the PC, releasing ‘facts’ that both bewilder and stun long time PC gaming fans such as myself. Gotta sell those Halo copies somehow I guess…

I’ve mentioned all this before, so I won’t bring it up in depth again. The main point of this article is quite simple. I miss arena shooters. Seriously. Inside my favorite genre of gaming it would easily be my favorite sub-genre of FPS. The last true arena shooter in my honest opinion was Unreal Tournament 2004. UT3, while good, was a step back from something that could and should have evolved into an epitome of gaming skill. Instead it was tacky, sluggish and tailored for … you guessed it … console players. It has now been 7 years since any form of successor has risen from the ashes of continuously slower, tackier, repetitive and outright boring FPS games. The problem? I don’t think it’s going to change. Games like Call of Duty and Halo are considered the norm nowadays, and why? Their game play is anything but intense. The decision making processes one makes in combat during these games are simplistic and primitive. These kind of games have come into fruition at a time when the console market exploded around them and so they have been branded as the benchmark. The true arena shooters of the past are either forgotten or simply unbeknown…

Now I’m talking about the multi-player, deathmatch/CTF game here, not the single player narrative bull crap everyone cares so much about (and plays once and forgets). The feature component of any FPS game should be that visceral, physical feel to the game play that the player is engrossed in. A good arena shooter (i.e. any shooter that has deathmatch/CTF/domination game modes) should push this experience to the limit. You should be able to literally ‘feel’ your actions and behaviors and intrinsically understand how they affect the current game state for you, without even thinking about it. Your gaming avatar and your control over it should be like a natural extension of your body. The funny thing is, even since the days of Doom and Quake this has been achieved. The level of control given to an adept player just feels … right. You get used to it and the sky literally becomes the limit. A true arena shooter doesn’t impose degenerative rules or chance based game play elements designed to add catch-up or random elements to the game. It should have strong, predefined rules with few restrictions and multiple features to accelerate game play, not hamper it. What the fuck am I talking about? Well let’s see...

It seems that today, most people are content with their control of their FPS character alone. Aim and move, shoot some dudes, jump here and there. Congratulations, you are a casual player. In a not-so-recent article by a dude called Shamus Young (yeah, he has a proper blog) I would personally rank you at about the Duke 3D or Quake level. Why? Well, because that’s where you are if you think your handle of FPS games is good if that’s what you can achieve. There is (or at least there used to be) so much MORE to FPS games than just that. The best way I can describe this is if I draw up some comparative scenarios, so let’s do that:

Scenario A: I’m playing Modern Warfare 2. I have spawned with the best weapons the game currently allows me to use. I just got hit a few times while running past an open doorway. I’m still alive, but I got hit up pretty bad, indicated by the amount of blood on my screen. I have nowhere to escape to, but if I wait a few seconds for my magical invisible health bar to refill, I can come back round the corner and spray the piece of tinfoil the enemy is hiding behind with ½ a clip of overpowered 1 shot headshot, 3 shot body kill machine-gun fire. I aim down the sites to perform this action, severely limiting my view and movement speed, but somehow making me fire 3x more accurately (because I am now aiming a gun). Said enemy dies quite epicly. He also respawns and comes looking for me as I attempt to camp in a similar position. After several engaging moments of looking down a corridor, the enemy appears once again and I again shoot him full of lead. I decide to stay at this vantage point and repeat this activity on several more opponents until I run out of ammo. I then use grenades, for even faster/louder results. When they run out, I then get up and attempt to knife someone with my 10 yard instagib melee button, successfully at first, but dying moments later.

Scenario B: I’m playing Unreal Tournament 2004. All I have is my starting weapon and a sniper rifle. I just got hit a few times while running past an open doorway. I’m still alive, but I got hit up pretty bad, indicated by the low valued numeric symbols on my HUD. I have nowhere to escape to and don’t have regenerating health, so I’m pretty fucked! However, I know my movement speed is my greatest tool. I attempt to double dodge-wall jump back across the open doorway, firing my sniper rifle at the first sight of enemy I see. I surprise my foe with my random aggressive choice of movement and remove his head in the process. I take a tiny bit more damage and am now nearly dead. I want to find health as I know the next engagement with an enemy will be my demise. I move quickly but carefully to the closest known location of a health pack. Unfortunately my previous opponent must have predicted this decision and although he has inferior weaponry, is now guarding the only access to the health pack. Desperate, I make for an alternative route, but as he has full health and I have almost none, I die in the process. AS I DAMN WELL SHOULD!!! I respawn, quickly, and decide my best course of action is to gain a firepower advantage. I head to the rocket launcher, keeping in mind where I think he is and where he could possibly be at this point in time.

I probably sound like a bit of an elitist here, but let’s briefly detail the differences in these two situations in these games:

In MWF2 I spawn with all the equipment you need and have regenerating health, completely taking out the need to prioritize control of parts of the map for various pickups. You run around, shoot people and camp at good locations to kill them instantly with your instagib-machinegun. The ability to shoot through walls negates the need for me to orientate myself appropriately, turning fights into a spray fest. Enemies that die fast/instantly remove the need for me to carefully wear down the opposition to deliver precise killing blows where necessary. Camping in an advantageous, hard to reach location is beneficial for ambushing unsuspecting opponents, especially as I am aiming down the scope and have the RNG machine already in my favour. Although I move slowly, so does everyone else, making hitting people generally quite easy. Grenades and knife usage grant me incredibly easy kills, sometimes without even aiming. I am, overall, a terrible FPS player, but because the skill ceiling in this game is so incredibly low I am actually doing very well. Against people both worse and better than me.

In UT2004, I spawn with the worst weapons in the game. They are situationally viable, but generally speaking, I will get outgunned if I don’t grab something better. Not having the best weapons or regenerating health makes me want to control parts of the map where they exist. This is not easy, especially when other players are doing it as well. People move quickly and have multiple movement options other than just walking/running. They are hard to hit, but so am I making fights more about skill in aiming and less about luck. Not having regenerating health makes the game balanced around how much damage is effectively done in an engagement. I can/will kill someone, even if it takes me a few tries. However it will not be easy. Besides moving quickly they could still have better pickups than I, so I need to take control of that aspect as well. Camping is illogical. I need to think ahead of my opponent and do what I think they would be doing in the same situation. Or sometimes … what they wouldn’t be doing. The skill ceiling in this game is so high, I am sometimes overwhelmed by both the number of things I can/should be doing and the fact that while I am an excellent player, there is still someone out there who is better than me.

… This is just deathmatch. I could bring up other game modes like CTF, but I don’t think it is necessary. I hope from these small descriptions you can begin to see the differences in game play these two games offer. You may argue that MWF2 is not an arena shooter, but what else is there to compare it to nowadays? The truth is MWF2 is simplistic and uncomplicated. UT2004 is not. In fact, in a game like UT2004, you begin to let your intrinsic nature take over when the game play starts moving and flowing like a battle where you have total control. You begin to pull off extraordinary feats of skill, such as stuff like this, which would be accusable for cheating! They probably would be nowadays, but 7 years ago it would have been normal. Maybe lucky, but definitely routine. UT wasn’t the only game though. Even Half-Life and TFC had the components for making extraordinary arena shooter moments, which I think brings to attention the most important aspect about these games in general. You may design a game, perhaps unintentionally, to have a conceived level of control that players will have. If you let this control run a little bit rampant, impose less rules and boundaries on what people can do, then you don’t force people to play in the same box as everyone else. If you let players own creativity and flair come into existence during play … then you can allow players to achieve incredible things such as the following, and be one step closer to making the perfect arena shooter.

The only question remaining is whether or not there will ever be another one?

My noob Banner Designs

2010-12-19T19:04:00.002-08:00

When I did Creative Industries at QUT, I did not really enjoy it. I only did it for about 1.5 years and I didn't like it for a ... variety of reasons, most of which I won't discuss here for the sake of not turning this into a rant. While many of the reasons were to do with my own personal problems with how the Faculty was run/managed, one of the primary ones is that I simply wasn't that great at it.

That's probably a bit of an over-exaggeration. I was mediocre at it. Using Illustrator, Photoshop, After Effects and the various 3D and audio/video editing software was something I quite enjoyed and, although I thought what I was doing was great (as it sometimes was), more often than not it would be regarded as ... mediocre (as it was most of the time). There were people who, for whatever reason, were considered (and were) better at it. So, after awhile I decided this wasn't really the type of work I wanted to get into as it was and always had been more of a hobby for me.

Also, some of the people were fucking douchebags.

Anyways, back on topic. Since I have started this stupid blog of mine, I have gone through quite a few header/logo designs. It has never really been because I was unhappy with the prior one, its more just because it gives me something to do. However, each and everyone has a small history or tale to them, describing what my interests were at the time of their design.

(God I am going to hate myself for doing this...)

The first and longest one to be used was basically supposed to be my two main characters in WoW. Razial and Laizar, both Undead, were Warlock and Warrior respectively (sif she is a Deathknight). The semi-naked pink woman with wings is Bronlissa, Razial's Succubus. She has seduced many a foe while I hadoukened firey death in their direction, from level 30-80. Succubi are awesome, by the way. Other than that, there really isn't much else to it. This was the banner I used when this blog was still for a unit at QUT, talking about game design.

The next one was the beginning of the whole new redesign ... thing. I dunno, I was probably incredibly tired (or drunk) when I made it. Just like I always am whenever I post something on here. I think what was going through my mind at the time was to figure out a way to get 3-4 things combined from different universes and not make it look goofy. The idea would also give me a 'template' to work from, which wouldn't take long to edit as the idea is already in place. Basing the idea around a crosshair in a game I would segregate the quadrants into ... well you have eyes, you can see the damned thing. It's got some Evangelion, some Quake 3, some SFIV, some code and something from Aliens. And yes, Asuka's boobs are enormous. That's why I picked it.

The third one didn't stay up for long. I can actually say I wasn't happy with this one at all. Maybe because it was too similar in content to the second one, but it just didn't give off the right vibe in my opinion. Besides the ~~upskirt~~ upside-down Chun-Li and the nightelf with the enormous rack, their wasn't really anything being said about wtf this blog is about. Which is funny because I don't even know what it is about right now.

The fourth one was actually one I spent a little bit more time on. Instead of just slapping images into each quadrant and rotating it slightly, I chose to implement some of the things I learnt to do with 'leading the eye'. The Unreal Tournament symbol in the background is the focus point of this effect, with the text supporting its circular design. The images themselves were meticulously placed so as to carry over this eye leading business, but probably could have been done better. Raziel, Akuma and a scene from Street Fighter X Tekken were all new, as well as Kerrigan from Starcraft. SC2 was coming out at the time. Seemed only logical to me.

I am probably cutting myself short here when I talk about how easily these are made. They take about 30 mins, most of which is me looking for stupid pictures to put in. Although there isn't much difficulty involved, thinking about how colours and orientation can affect an image is a big thing. Although I am still not happy with this one (text is off), this is probably the most colour and contrast abusing one so far, making pot smoking hippies happy (I assume). Elements of both Marvel Vs Capcom 3 (Morrigan) and League of Legends (Mordekaiser) are new with Akuma and Asuka making returns. Funny how their names are both similar. I've also got this whole ... popping out thing going on. Looks alright I guess. And yes, Asuka's ass is hanging out a mile. That's kinda why I picked it.

Ugh. You can probably tell when it comes to the whole artsy-fartsy side of things ... I really just don't like talking about it. It's not that I don't care, it's just that I really don't get the whole idea of pretending something that someone has done is so incredible, especially when taken out of context. You know that art piece about the black door with the red outline? I can't remember who did it, but when I heard people carrying on about it in Gr 9 art class (yes, I did art back then), I think I cringed a little. It was a black door ... with a red outline.

Anyways, that will do for the moment. Might come back here and spew some more words when I get this bad taste out of my mouth.

The Hand of God

2010-12-06T15:56:00.000-08:00

Gaming has been rather … well I wouldn’t say uninteresting, but certainly slower than normal for me lately. Maybe it is because I haven’t bought a game in many a month or the simple fact that as I am becoming older, simply playing and being interested in the medium is becoming less prevalent. It’s not a bad thing, I guess.

I guess I should mention something university related every once in awhile. The most noticeable thing that has occurred in that area lately would easily be the conference I attended in Wellington for four days. At the Australasian IE2010 this year from the 21st – 23rd of November, I presented my honours work from the year before in front of roughly 40 people, most of which were probably rather uninterested. I met some interesting people and had a few job/study offers from random dudes. Except for another student presenting his topic on sketching in RTS games, I think my topic was certainly much more on the technical end of things (as opposed to conceptual and creative design). Being incredibly tired and disoriented, I ended up treating the presentation much more like I would tutor a classroom of students. Although I relied heavily on my notes, I was strangely much more capable of tackling questions and situations than I previously remember myself being able to do. The many weeks of talking, describing and arguing with students is probably paying off, boosting confidence and general social/discussion skills for the better. It’s a useful thing, I guess.

Apparently the Cataclysm is coming. One day from now to be precise. Ah … World of Warcraft. The fun, immersive, distracting timewaster I have tried to slay many a time in the past. But like all good mobs, its respawn time is short enough for most people to simply stick around until it rears its beautiful, disgusting head once more. Sitting on the fence is the name of the game here. I am simply not convinced. Too many times I have played this game only to have everyone I know either doing their own thing or having no interest in doing things together. PUGging with randoms is the same thing as soloing to me now. It is rather absurd considering how massively multiplayer it is supposed to be. For the first time though, I feel I am completely able to resist the urge, having both more important and more interesting things to do. Besides the possibility of rated battlegrounds … it is exactly the same thing as the previous three iterations. No amount of fancy ‘world changes’ and ‘new spells’ are going to convince me that it isn’t about pressing buttons to get purples. I say I probably won’t be playing it now, but in three weeks I will probably be squawking some WoW jargon to a friend, complaining about an instance.

It is true, but the game I have still been playing the most is good ol’ League of Legends. A free, quick, easy, simple game that everyone should do themselves justice and play. Lately I have been expanding my character roster to include various support and tanking roles. The more important of these roles would be Shen, my first true tank and a rather challenging character to play. By now I have played dozens of games with him and I don’t think I could have tolerated doing PuGs without him. You see, I was kind of spoiled from level 1 by starting off doing 5v5s with 4 of my friends. Generally speaking, they were already above average at the game (debatable, yes, but still). I ‘grew up’ with these people, talking of balanced team comps with sensible numbers of tanks, support and ranged and melee damage dealers. Initially, our rather terrible tactics evolved into more structured and sensible strategies that we derived over the course of several games together. Warding, jungling, timing and positioning became more a matter of instinct and natural group cohesion having it imposed and executed progressively more efficiently, over time. Vent also helped a lot.

So when I finally got around to PuGging properly at around level 12+, I was flabbergasted at how terrible your average player actually was. If they were not disconnecting continuously or AFK, they were usually in a state of total idiocy. Overextending and feeding on both sides was rampant. The idea of jungling and warding was completely alien to them. Arguments about everything were the norm. No support. No covering of lanes. No teamwork. No selflessness. It was pretty much Team Deathmatch from a top down perspective. Also, if you lose, it is apparently the rest of your team’s fault and by no means your own.

So, entering this world of lunacy was a godsend with the character Shen. The ability to teleport to any teammate from anywhere on the map, remove possible enemies from doing damage for a short period of time and absorb a good chunk of it too allowed me to correct the all too frequent mistakes made by so many a team mate. My only wish is if I could do it on a much shorter cooldown and more reliably. Being an energy using character means you are frontloaded in ‘ability’ for roughly 3 of your 4 spells, but being energy reliant means you need to wait for it to recharge in order to use those abilities again, regardless of their actual cooldown. Not worrying about mana is great, but in a 10 second teamfight you need to choose your spells wisely (let alone have the energy to do them in the first place). This is really where the whole difficulty in Shen lies, having the energy to taunt at the right time and the foresight to gauge when you should try and kill someone.

Also his taunt isn’t so straightforward. If you use it to initiate you will taunt nothing but air. Its taunt range is less than the range indicated by the skillshot. You need to be close if not in melee range to effectively get it off (assuming it doesn’t bug and/or lag is taken into account). A clever team will simply disperse or run back from you, making the initiating process sometimes rather difficult. This unnecessary difficulty, as well as his teleporting shield Ultra has convinced me that the most effective way to initiate is to use what people term an offtank (or soak) as a proxy. Usually a tanky dps character that doesn’t have real taunting capabilities, sending them into the thick of the fray solo should bait the enemy into taking him out. The instant he is engaged, teleport on to said friend, grab agro off 2-5 people and force the teamfight to take place on your terms using your abilities as they were designed. Hopefully your dps have come in and engaged at this point.

Of course this process is rather theoretical, and though I have executed and pulled it off with often glorious results, with PuGs or timid teammates it can be quite disastrous. But it is for that very reason that I quite enjoy tanking with Shen. As difficult as it may be to get things working in order, when the planets do align (as they seem to do more often now than before) you can truly bestow the hand of god amongst friend and foe alike. The results are worth the effort:

“The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and there shall no torment touch them”

Look at the pretty explosions!!!

2010-10-28T22:39:00.000-07:00

People often ask me why I don't play TF2 anymore. I don't dislike the game at all. It is what it is, a fun, relatively easy to get into multi-player game that really should appeal to all FPS fans. I played the shit out of it when I first got it in the Orange Box several years ago now. I did have fun and played a wicked Pyro and Soldier at times.

But it didn't keep my attention forever and certainly not as long as some of my friends. As balanced and stylised as the game was, I always felt there was something missing, especially compared to TFC (the only TF game I played besides the Wolfenstein version). On first analysis you would simply say it is lacking two things:

a) A good chunk of game speed
and
b) Grenades.

Now that doesn't seem like much, right? The truth is, it really is. Game speed, whether it be movement (bunny hopping) or even projectile speed play a good part in what you can and cant do. If projectiles are fast but you are slow (even for a Soldier/Heavy) then your options for avoiding incoming damage are limited. You also traverse the map slower and the gameplay (in general) is not as ... frenetic (or something). Moving slowly, even for a Scout or Medic, is not as pacing if only other Scouts or Medics can do it. Simply put, choosing your class in TF2 really locks you into a definitive role where your strengths and weaknesses are incredibly obvious. Some may call this balance and excellent design, and I would have to agree. It is also ... a bit boring.

Grenades. You used to throw them and they would explode. You had your standard grenade, a really big mofo grenade (carried by the Heavy), concussion grenades and even nail spitting grenades (to name a few). I think the Medic and Pyro may have had some other interesting tools too, but whatever. They changed the dynamic of the game in ways you cannot imagine (unless you played it). Concussion grenade jumping was considered a skillful exploitation of game physics, pretty much allowing people to fly. Other classes could do this too, just not as well and not in such a ... conservative fashion (grenade jumping with a proper grenade is not really healthy). Nevertheless, you would sometimes see a bunny hopping Heavy go flying across the screen from a 'big mofo' grenade jump. It was awesome, hilarious ...

... and insane. This is probably what I miss the most about TF2. TFC was absolutely ridiculous. So much random crap happening with people flying and dying everywhere that it was almost impossible to not enjoy yourself. Hell, even dying was freaking awesome sometimes! I'm probably just a sucker for any game that has gratuitous amounts of nonsensical violence occuring so I may need to excuse myself when it comes to areas of apparent 'fun'. But hot damn, the memories of games that would turn into explosion clusterfucks, trying to push a flag through a crowded corridor one metre at a time were incredibly entertaining. Which reminds me! There is one aspect of TF2 that is sorely missing, something they never should have got rid of. Check this out:

Your hear that? You hear that beautiful music? That constant cacophony of explosions and bullets? That's normal in TFC! Sure, that video was a little over the top, but the lack of those explosions and heavy weapons fire is considered unnatual in TFC. People would laugh and say "wtf!?" when it stopped! I could sleep to that noise. All in all, I think that is what I miss about TF2 the most.

Oh I feel like another "State of FPS games" post is coming. Better put my ranting hat on again.

Note: Title of post is a quote from the character Tristana from League of Legends.

Unleashing the Beast

2010-10-23T04:32:00.000-07:00

As someone who is a fan of most competitive games and generally concerned about balance related issues in them, I often search out and watch e-sport type videos scattered on the realms of the net. At the moment they are usually concerned with fighting games, first person shooters and a little game called 'LoL', but there was a time when I would look for videos concerning other game types too (e.g. RTS, racing etc). I am not the sort of person that will meticulously analyse these videos as a method of improving my game as, to be honest, I don't really take gaming THAT seriously. It's a fun hobby which just happens to be related to my chosen career path, one that is looking more bleak every day in this country. If I learn a tip or two then sweet. Otherwise, my reasons for looking for these types of videos are purely for their entertainment value.

Fighting games currently take the cake for being the most entertaining as they show the most direct, in your face PvP action a game can offer. Once you understand the basic mechanics of a game like SFIV, its not hard to get excited about what is happening on screen as well.

The following video is time formatted to show only the relevant section (i.e. not 10+ mins).

Daigo Umehara, the fellow sitting on the left-hand side playing as Ryu, is considered Japan's best player. For those of you who don't understand what happened, he basically used Dhalsim's (stretchy arm dude) greater range to his own advantage, uppercutting his arms at max range and buffering into a super. Incredibly tricky and risky stuff. He is constantly pulling shit like this in these sort of tournaments, surprising (mainly) the western scene with moves people never even thought of. Also while of course, in typical Daigo fashion, remaining perfectly calm about it (-_-). His best example would be his fight against Justin Wong at Evo 2004, parrying a full Chun-li Super at 1 hitpoint. Most people nowadays have already seen this video, as it is considered a legendary moment in gaming, referenced (jokingly) on shows like Pure Pwnage and the like. If you haven't seen it, I would highly recommend looking it up.

Yes, this is an 'awesome sauce' post.

Critiquing the critic

2010-10-14T03:54:00.000-07:00

As I have probably stated before at some point, I have never been a fan of media critics. They are useful in a broader sense in terms of gauging the general popularity of something, but when it comes down to it, a critics opinion is simply that: an opinion. Just because they brand themselves as and like to think themselves as a critic does not mean that their opinion of something is of greater value than someone else's. Sure, they may have a much more educated analysis of something than the average person, but that is to be expected. It's their job. A job which, as the name suggests, purposefully draws upon the negative aspects of something with greater weight than those of merit. What is a critic if they do not criticise, afterall?

There is also the fact that certain critics already will have a point of view prior to reviewing something anyway. As we are all human, favouring certain genres of film, music or games is something we cannot avoid. Do you expect that say ... a critical review of a fighting game to be of significant quality if the reviewer is not a fighting game fan? What if you did want a less experienced reviewer to give their opinions? Should their negative or positive experiences have any sway over your own thoughts and opinions? The answer should be no. As a free willed conscious entity, you have the right to make your own decisions about things. As you should do whenever possible.

Even the popular Zero Punctuation critical game reviews should not be taken seriously, if at all. Mr Croshaw's approach in his video reviews are meant to be for a particular purpose: entertainment. Without his witty, nihilistic approach to poking at what he perceives to be flaws in games and the gaming industry, I doubt anyone would find them particularly funny. While I do find the majority of them to be entertaining and may even agree with the fellow on various points, there are things that I do think he is wrong about. Which is fine. I have opinions about things, many of which I bring up in this blog. However I don't expect you to agree with me at all, nor would I care if you didn't.

I was originally going to steer this post towards the whole 'entertainment as art' side of things, especially how games are not seen to be, but I don't think I will anymore. The simple reason being is that, having thought about it, I don't really care. If games are not considered art, not even the individual components that make up a game (models, music, textures etc), then so what? It is not like it is a bump in the road the gaming community needs to convince of either fixing or of its general existence. Games are about fun, and if art does not equal fun than I couldn't care less about it. Whether it is someone's opinion whether they are or aren't shouldn't affect how or why you play them.

What originally did inspire me to make this post was having just watched the movie Centurion, a recent film that was not granted much attention. Without giving away the plot, everyone I had talked to who had seen it (not many) said it was average, and reviews on Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB would have you agree. While I won't admit it was the best film I have ever seen, it was definetly better than other films which scored higher on these websites (e.g. Robin Hood). In my opinion, anyway. While it had your stereotypical evil and betrayal dudes/dudettes and a very predictable storyline full of ... average dialogue, it wasn't the sort of film that took itself overly seriously. Some parts were even funny in a terrible sort of way. Plus, it had Imogen Poots in it for a few minutes. I've always had a thing for blondes, but after seeing her in 28 weeks later I have definitely been keeping this actress under my radar.

Yowzha!

So I guess the idea of this post is that, generally speaking, you shouldn't blindly take anyone's advice on something. Particularly if it is something you already have a strong gut feeling about. You can't truly form an opinion about something until you try it for yourself and until then, your opinion is kind of void. However, even after having formed a solid opinion, your beliefs don't and shouldn't override someone elses. They are your ideas, and as long as you came upon them via your own means (and not someone elses) then you can voice them as strongly as any 'critic' should. They can't tell you what you do and don't enjoy.

But hey, don't take my word for it. Make up your own mind!

To kill a Mordekaiser

2010-09-27T21:51:00.000-07:00

League of Legends is a game that has kind of been picked up on the run by some of my friends and I. I was never a big fan of DotA (translated: not very good at it), so my skepticism towards LoL when I first started playing it was quite high. Needless to say, it is an improvement over DotA in almost every way, which is not a surprise as it is made by the same people who started the mod in the first place.

It is a lot of fun, something our group of professional facerollers will agree upon. Having known absolutely nothing about the game at all prior to playing it, I was impressed by the way it slowly breaks you in to the mechanics and features the game has to offer. Better yet, it is a game that >5 of us are playing at once, something that has not occurred in ... well ... ever! It is also obvious that we are all getting better too.

However, me being me has chosen an odd way to go about playing this game. Without explaining/spoiling the finer elements for new players (items, stats, runes etc), I have this strange idea that owning one of each specialized type of character and learning to play them properly is the way to go about things. I am probably not alone in this decision, but I do realize it can work both for and against your favour. Well, at least initially. By playing a specific character well means you will know the strengths and limitations of that character, and can get a feel for their performance. However, at the same time you never really learn about the other characters save fighting against them or doing some research (both of which I admittedly do a bit of). So, at least at first, you will still find yourself in some hairy situations that you may consider unfair. What is important to realize is that most of these times, you have brought this on yourself, and there is always something you can or should have done to prevent it. This includes both in the game and out of the game.

One of the first characters I purchased was Mordekaiser, of whom I was incredibly pleased with. All of the research and playstyle analysis I did could not have prepared me for how much fun it is to play this walking wall of steel and spikes. His character role is vague. He has no native crowd control. His direct damage is pitiful. He has virtually no escape options, save for simply slugging it out and hoping for the best. He is incredibly susceptible to ranged characters, especially those that can kite well (e.g. Ashe). His abilities scale terribly with Ability Power (some of the worst ratios in the game). In essence, he isn't really a tank, but unless you gear him to be you don't really get far in a game (i.e. you die).

So what the hell is he good for then? If he can't CC, do good direct damage, tank or even run away, how, you ask, can I possibly enjoy playing this seemingly useless character?

Well, first of all, he pushes like a freight train. Full of lead. That's on fire. Put him in a lane and he will eat everything in it if it is void of enemy players. Put an enemy player in it and he will still push it. Put another enemy player in it? If they are both melee and shit ... he will still push it. Put 3 in? Alright, that's a few too many, but you get the picture. Usually I don't like pushing a lane at all unless I really need the gold now or I can see 4-5 enemy champions somewhere else in the map. Prior to level 14-ish enemies, sitting under your own tower is the best way to guarantee your survival (unless they are tower diving). But when we need to push, Mordekaiser can certainly move the pain train along, killing about 90% of minon waves in his wake. This may seem not to be all that useful but I ask you, when you are killing a tower, what is the tower shooting at? Most of the time it will be your own minions. If you can push 2-3 waves of friendly minions under the enemy tower it is as good as dead.

Besides map control, there is another, more deceptive reason. This may not be so much a trait of Mordekaiser as it is so much something I do in general when laning against my foes (usually solo). However, Mordekaiser's passive ability, being a temporary shield which charges when he does damage (which synergizes well with his abilities) allows him to do it much more efficiently. The term could be described as Obfuscating Stupidity, but I prefer to simply call it 'pretending to be shit'. Purposefully getting too close, walking the wrong way, attacking nothing but air, wasting your cooldowns, reacting far too slow etc. Most of these actions will get any other hero killed, but with Mord, providing you do a little bit of ability damage, you can take a few hits, still push your lane and come out even. Usually the enemy player/s will get cocky. Overextend a bit. Take a few tower hits now and then. As you pretend to panic and (apparently) desperately try and kill the enemy minions to save your lane, you will inevitably push and end up meeting them in the middle. Where they will always end up trying to gank you ...

... at which point you flick the switch and fucking blow their faces off! A Mordekaiser that has been feeding on minions (full shield) and has all his cooldowns up is about the worst 1v1 fight I can think of outside of fighting a Warwick. Hell, even in a 2v1 situation it is bad. Probably worse as your shield will charge that much better (2 aoe targets instead of one). He wont kill you straight away, often making him bad for attempting ganks. But being ganked, where the enemy is committed? Plenty of time to deal his short cooldown, consistent damage. Most of the time I will get a kill employing this technique. At worse I will chase them off and let them think about their actions for awhile. I would like to think this style of combat would confuse most enemy players and hopefully demoralize them on repeated failed attempts. But I guess I can never really know.

This has all got me thinking about how I would actually kill a Mordekaiser if I happened to be laning against one, especially if they were being an asshole like I do. The truth is, having played him, I know exactly what would kill me. Doing damage to him every now and then is pointless as more often than not you will just strip a bit of his shield. Attempting to bring him down face to face as a melee character will probably result in your death (unless you are like dps Garen, Warwick or Bob). Unless you are a ranged kiter or a heavy nuker, you don't have much of a chance.

So here is my list of 5 ways to kill a mockingbird:

Crowd Control. Silences, stuns, snares. Anything to keep Mordekaiser from chaining his abilities will eventually kill him. If he cant keep his shield up he will flop down dead in seconds.
Kiting. This is a given, but if you are ranged and can afford a Rylai's or Frozen Mallet, this will get you a kill on Mordekaiser. Eventually.
Anti-tank items. Almost every guide I have looked at suggest making Mord tankish, and having played him I tend to agree. With that knowledge, stacking Magic Penetration (or Armor Pen, depending on what he is doing) as well as items like Madred's Bloodrazor will allow you to drop him much easier in team fights and solo.
Get him in the jungle. If you are going to gank Mordekaiser, try and do it in the forestry. Pushing lanes he will have >50% shield at least. Walking around between lanes he will have none. Makes sense to me.
Ignore him. Honestly, unless he is rolling a Frozen Mallet and a Rylai's Scepter, he isnt going to catch you, and if he does, he is just going to bonk you on the head a few times before you get within safety. With no CC and no decent direct damage you really have very little to worry about.

But you best be careful in a team fight. Oh my!

Note: League of Legends is made by RiotGames which can be downloaded from their website here.This post has merely detailed the ins and outs of one of the current 60 characters in the game, many of which have unique playstyles. I highly recommend trying this game out. Being free, you have nothing to lose and nothing to complain about.

It flows from heaven to the soul

2010-09-10T21:32:00.001-07:00

Something I haven't really noticed much but only really thought about recently has been the musical score in games and how they affect the user experience. It may just be the games I am playing, but very few games in the last 5-6 years have had any sort of memorable soundtrack to me. No scoring that really captured the mood of the game play and enhanced it to its full potential. A lot of the music you see in games today is mostly orchestral (or orchestrally themed). I have no issues with orchestral music by any means. In fact I consider it to be the pinnacle of live human performance, with such a concentrated and condensed selection of skilled musicians. The thing is I am not sure how well it translates into the average gaming scenario, especially when it is recycled so many times.

When you are playing a game, and I actually mean playing, not watching a cinematic, you are only acutely aware of the music in the background. You are not (and shouldn't be) focusing on the music to any extent. Even in a music game like Audiosurf or Guitar Hero, you are really just reading instructions on screen and responding to them hand-to-eye. The more difficult a game becomes, the less you will focus on the music in a game. However at the same time, the easier it gets the less concentration you need to apply to the game play and the more the music seems to stand out. If the game is boring, you will be focusing on aspects other than the game play (such as audio and visuals) which will bring further attention to their possible inappropriateness.

Ever watched a movie where there is supposed to be a romantic scene between two primary protagonists (usually at the end of a typical Hollywood film), only to find yourself either laughing or rolling your eyes? Chances are you weren't enjoying the film up to that point anyway and found this combination of symphony and 'kissing scene' to be just stupid or over-dramatic. That is because movies, like games, have a state of 'flow' to them. Ideally you want your watchers/players to sit directly in the middle of flow, between extreme annoyance (or tension) and extreme boredom. The most enjoyable session of game play for a player is also found to be in this state. It is of my opinion that within this state, the appropriateness of the music will come into fruition with the ability to either make or break a game.

But enough of the psychology. Lets talk about some interesting music and pretend this blog is just about cool shit and not me ranting on about my crazy ideas for once:

Super Metroid - The Jungle Floor

Besides Samus being one hot bunny in cybernetic armor, her games (at least the old ones) had some really catchy tunes. I remember playing this game on the SNES a LONG time ago, but hearing this track again brought a tear to my otherwise cynical eye. To be young again, free of difficult choices and ignorant of the (mostly) bull crap things which makes up the world is something I think a lot of people want in life. Or at least some of the time. This song brings back faint memories of exploring an abandoned space station, looking for a lost Metroid, with that base slowly coming to life in an Aliens sort of way. There was fear, there was tension but most of all there was adventure. If I remember correctly, this one short track captured those emotions perfectly and is one thing I will give Nintendo for doing right. They sure knew how to make a Metroid game, back in the day.

Dark Reign - Track 5

When you mention the game Dark Reign nowadays, most people will either give you a quizzical expression or immediately think of Auran dispersing over the unfortunate failure that was their last game, Fury. Dark Reign was released at a good time, but its primary competitor Total Annihilation was slightly better. But slightly less than totally awesome is still pretty awesome. From memory, the game offered a very robust A.I system, allowing you to spawn units that would move and fight on the battlefield the way you set them. To expound, you could tell a group of Tachion tanks to fight defensively, continuously moving and patrolling randomly and returning to base to repair themselves when they were damaged. They would then go off and fight again. Battles were immense, almost matching the scale of Total Annihilation at times. Not to mention the story was pretty darn good too, probably the best one for a strategy game at the time (vs TA and SC). On top of all this, it had an incredibly moody, almost tribal like quality to its soundtrack that suited the game well.

While I enjoyed Dark Reign as much as I enjoyed other strategy games (again, I am not prone to favoritism), what I find most astonishing is that it was an Australian game. I don't mean a game made by an Australian team under the wing of an American company, I mean an Australian Game's company game. Our best game, both technologically (for the time) and sales wise. I am disappointed that Auran went under after Fury as I imagined and had hopes to be working there at this point in time.

Soul Reaver - Credits

Another game that I enjoyed for its musical score was the original Soul Reaver. The Legacy of Kain games is a series that is very much under-appreciated in nearly every way I can think of. First of all, the game is essentially about vampires. It's about vampires, but not in the culturally accepted emo/goth, love story, atrocious way that people seem to enjoy watching (Buffy, Twilight etc..). The vampires in this are beasts! Call them mutated, call them highly evolved, they are butchers of humankind and relentless in their methods of our extinction. It is a dark and evil world, not full of awful poetry and bad haircuts. Yes, the Soul Reaver universe is very much an apocalyptic Earth, if it actually was about Earth that is. Long story short, you play as a deceased vampire who is the cross between a zombie and a ghost. You struggle to hold yourself in the physical plain of existence. The ability to morph between the physical and spectral realms (where time stands still) opens up a new world of strategy and problem solving. You think Portal was a challenge? Try playing it with things trying to rip your face off! It was an adventure game and a hard one at that.

It also needed a soundtrack that suited the theme of the game, and not just the universe it was set. The problem solving and navigation elements often required high levels of thought and creativity, especially before jumping into a pit full of ghouls. The tracks were therefore dark and foreboding but had enough pace to them to keep the player thinking and on their toes. I think the team at Crystal Dynamics could not have made a better soundtrack.

UT - Foregone Destruction

Unreal Tournament's Forgone Destruction. It is almost impossible for me to listen to this track and not have the sound of the announcer booming "Headshot!" from somewhere in the back of my mind. If you listen to this track by itself, you probably imagine a journey through some sort of mystical fantasy realm. You would not think it could be used for one of the goriest FPS games of the time, yet when combined in the space-themed CTF map 'Facing Worlds' you would be shown otherwise. The thing about this track is that it is exactly the sort of music in a game that sits well within the balance of flow. You don't really notice it when you are playing, but the simple lack of it deteriorates the experience significantly. Essentially this song is that map and vice versa. It is action oriented but also calms you somewhat when playing. You play well, you don't get angry, you have fun. It is also obvious that the people you are playing with are experiencing the same thing. There is a simple reason CTF-Face is the single most played CTF map ever, at least when NgStats still existed.

The same can be said for a large number of Unreal Tournament tracks (e.g. DM-Deck16's Godown). Synthesized and very basic they may be, they generated that certain 'feel' that UT used to have over other shooters (like Quake 3). They were slick and stylish and made you think and feel that way too. It is for that reason that I have always had a great reverence for the game as it gave me a means of escape and relaxation from the bad things that were happening in my life at the time. Things I would like to forget.

There are plenty more examples I can throw at you (Homeworld, Rez, Red Alert) but I think I have got my message across. Maybe I was just more of an audiophile in my youth, but I am yet to encounter a game that had audio tracks as memorable as any of these games.

Why I hate Monopoly

2010-08-26T06:14:00.000-07:00

I dislike Monopoly, and I am proud to say it. A classic board game invented by the Parker Brothers in 1935 (originally a derivative of 'The Landlord's Game' by Elizabeth Phillips) is a game about being the biggest asshole in the room. Oh yes, this game has made me cringe and roll my eyes in tedious, mindless repetitiveness for many years until the day my sister and I somehow both came to the conclusion that playing it was an utter waste of our time. People don't like to admit they hate things, especially when it comes to entities that existed in a 'high culture' or golden age of society. Holding reverence for classical things seems to give people a sense of importance and a feeling of being more civilized. Whether this be books, music, poetry or in this case ... board games, having respect for the aging and popular things in life qualifies you as a normal person in our glorious modern age of humanity.

For this particular case, Monopoly, I do not respect. I do not like it, and I will explain to you why.

1. It is slow
First of all, I have both won at the game and lost at it. Winning involved me being younger, less opinionative and more excitable, essentially being blinded to its flaws. It also involved everyone just giving up. Losing involved me being exactly the same, except me being one of the ones giving up. The giving up process usually took between 3-4 hours. Most of this time was spent looking at people moving various board pieces, counting their money or counting my own. Or in jail. It takes so long for things to get into motion and so long for anything even remotely resembling a winning condition to emerge that most people remember just how slow the game is and .. give up.

2. It is boring
For the most part, it is a game of attrition. Unless you are playing with people who are not solely relying on the action packed experience of observing a pile of cardboard and plastic for 3-4 hours, you are going to be bored completely out of your mind. Monopoly is fine if it is played with some light, off topic discussion, but mostly people are so engrossed in the experience of doing virtually nothing that they find conversation disruptive. They take the game so stupidly seriously!! You can pretend all you want that you are forming a winning strategy in the back of your mind, but you know you are in the same boat as everyone else. Waiting for your turn to roll so your heart can light up or flop when you land on a spot on the board. Which leads to my next point being that ...

3. It is driven completely by the roll of the dice
I am a Guru for games with skill and balance, and this game has virtually none. It is all luck. You could pretend to be the best monopoly player in the world and get trounced by a newbie learning the ropes with a consistent stream of unlucky dice rolls. Who lands on Mayfair first is not determined by you, and should you get it, you know you did absolutely nothing of worth to get there. Luck. It does not equal skill. And I think people know it, whether they admit it or not. Why? Because ...

4. The game encourages cheating and sleazy behaviour
A presence of luck sets off some part of people's minds that make them become cheating sleazebags. This is particularly true in games or events that actually do require skill and when a player KNOWS they are not going to win without cheating. Steroids in sports are the same as aimbots in FPS games (albeit a significant physical component). In monopoly this translates to giving incorrect change, overcharging, stealing or even innocently landing on someone's property and hoping they don't notice. These are all behaviours you would be fined and possibly sent to jail over in real life. Apparently these activities are "part of the game" and "how its meant to be played". If that's true then this game is sick and I want as little to do with it than I possibly can.

5. It is not a friendly game
Grinding your friends and family into the dust over hours of questionable game-play is sure to create tension. Conflicts can arise, disputes over properties and cheating and getting unlucky. I don't know about other people, but I don't like watching people suffer or be miserable for extended periods of time. This may be the hunter in me talking but giving your prey a quick and painless demise is more humane than torturing them to death. It is also honorable, showing a lack of negative emotion and some personal consideration for your foe, even in death. As much as I hate people in general, I don't like dragging out victories or defeats for hours on end. This just leads to more frustration and more bursts of unqualified glee for whoever it is who thinks they are winning. You are not winning. You are being a wanker.

6. It delivers a terrible message
People living in high society have traditionally had an incredible misunderstanding and under-appreciation for the working class citizens. Look at Marie Antoinette for a prime example. The picture of upper class rich bastards debating and competing for land which possibly houses thousands of citizens while sipping wine glasses and adjusting their monocles is an image I find incredibly disturbing. Depending on your point of view, actual real world monopolies can be a bad thing. Take Microsoft for example. Sure they have made a platform from which the average PC user can globally use and unite, but they completely control that sector of the market. Without competition they have all the say concerning the price of their products (i.e. ridiculously overpriced) and just what gets released.

Want an example? A recent project which was hoping to deliver cross platform gaming between Xbox and PC users was canned when PC users were found to be too dominant. Why? Well the only logical reason is because they want people to keep playing on the Xbox. This shuts down the market for a lot of PC developers in terms of demographics and forces players to play certain games on only one exclusive platform (i.e. Halo - Xbox). Because they control Xbox Live, the (paid) networking interface for the Xbox console, they can simply do whatever they want. There is nothing we can do otherwise.

7. Gambling
I hate gambling

8. It makes me want to punch people in the face!
This is really the main point of this whole post. For all the above reasons, whether people are oblivious to it or not, when I roll that stupid dice and land on your stupid property and have to look at your stupid smug face with its stupid smirk, I literally have to hold myself back from smashing it in. This game makes me incredibly angry, for all the wrong reasons. It is supposed to be a competitive game and yet sometimes there is nothing you can do from being slowly beaten down over time. It is different from the anger I will feel in say, a fighting game. I may tell my friends how much I hate them (jokingly) and how that round was total bullshit, but I know I could have done something about it if I was quick/clever enough. It is my fault. But in monopoly? The reason I am angry is not because of me. It's all on you, you selfish, cheating, poncy, arrogant bastard!

So that is why I hate monopoly. I have rarely enjoyed it. It is one of the few things I actually truly dislike. If you were to play it casually for an hour with some beers and light conversation some time then sure, count me in.

If not, then you are going to want to be real careful playing that game around me...

Anonymity of the Avatar

2010-08-24T19:11:00.001-07:00

This post is a little... muddled, but whatever.

"I love Alma's red eyes. They make her sexy! Who cares if she is a child, she is dead! Fuck her all night long!" - Terminator, Action Trip video comments

I found the above comment by a rather vulgar Action Trip reader to be ... incredibly funny. Not because of the content of the matter, but because of the incredibly straight-forward and easy going manner in which this individual addressed his/her desire to fornicate with an underage girl. Or should I say, ghoul. I imagine your everyday soccer mum, not used to the horrible things people say on the internet, would find this behaviour unacceptable and demand that this pedophile be put to justice. For the rest of us, we just smile, shake our heads and read the next obnoxious comment...

We all know that what people say on the internet is not a good reflection of how a person behaves in society. Being anonymous is a shield, a big sign in red letters informing you to be a douche-bag. Hell, I've done and said offensive and terrible things online before so I am not exempt. For the most part it was actually pretty fun, letting the illogical, frothing-at-the-mouth cave troll side of the human mind come forth in all its glorious stupidity. And all its horror! I can imagine for some, saying completely ridiculous and terrible things can be a form of stress relief (or something). Although for some people, what they say may actually be what they believe/intend to be true :S

Anyways, this got me thinking about people's anonymity in games. I already know some people play games just to be tools. Ganking and corpse camping in WoW, a form of Schadenfreude in gaming format, is a prime example. But that is negative behaviour, reinforcing the idea of being anonymous. There are many other types of player behaviour when gaming, besides this. Some (and hopefully most) people play competitive games to do well, to the best of their ability. Some are genuinely helpful, serious in their attempts to make others understand and improve their game. Some are even so helpful that they may even turn the act of helping into a game of their own:

I think players of games are generally less inclined to be douche-bags primarily because they are required to interact directly with other people. They can be punished, so to speak. Assuming you are not cheating, any game mechanics you exploit can be turned on you. Anything you say in chat, no matter how offensive, is ignorable as it is not the focus of the game. This is of course unless you are actually a good player though (very rare!).

/offtopic
I like to think most people would avoid using 'cheap' tactics in gaming so as not to belittle themselves by once AGAIN using a dominant strategy. This is not always the case however as I found not so long ago in the terribly imbalanced and skill-capped multiplayer of Modern Warfare 2. Noob-tubing, the act of using a grenade launcher attached rifle in combination with the 'Thumper' M79 grenade launcher itself to guarantee yourself at least 4 near instant kills per spawn. Combine this with One man Army and you have a lot more chances. Grenades kill anyone, dead, at any range (except point blank) and at any health. I estimated nearly 70% of players in some of the last games I played using this 'strategy', sometimes with the argument "everyone else is doing it". You could argue that this is equivalent to the AWP wars that Counter-Strike turns into after 15 mins, but I disagree. You spawn from the very start of the game with Noob-tubing equipment in MW2 whereas AWP snipers must play for at least 15 mins, building up their cash for the ultimate weapon. Should they die, they lose it. That's called balance. It disturbs me that modern games developers have totally lost the plot when it comes to it in their games...

Getting back on topic, when you are playing games with friends or in real-life, you try not to be a wanker. People don't like to be associated with their gaming behaviours and disposition. You only have to look at the recent hiatus about Blizzard's real ID system on their forums to understand that. This is because it is either a) not what they like to see themselves as, or b) gaming is generally not seen as a positive thing in the eyes of others. It's still the 'childish' activity of immature people according to older generations. Hell you only have to ask my parents opinion of it to get an incredibly ignorant and biased view on it.

Most people in this world are genuinely good people, even if they don't know it. As ill behaved and awful as they may be online, whether through forums, chat rooms or gaming, they probably are not like that in the real world.

But then again, there are some people who are just ... jerks! Anywhere and everywhere.

On Lazers and Explosions...

2010-08-08T21:29:00.000-07:00

StarCraft 2 has a game within the game (greetings canine!). This game is called Lost Viking, an arcade game booth found in the Catina within the single-player mode. Despite what everyone keeps telling you, it is NOT a 'secret' game. It is placed directly in clear line-of-sight of the player, so anyone playing the single-player should stumble across it. Secrets are not placed directly in front of you.

Anyways, I decided to give it a go one boring night. Having given it about 10 seconds previously before stopping and continuing my campaign, I can honestly say it is a good bit of fun and shows off the modding capabilities of Blizzard's WarCraft 3 Mk II engine (yes, you know what I mean). The game itself is ... well I wouldn't say it is difficult, but it is definitely not a walk in the park. I had no idea what I was doing but still managed to unlock 3 achievements in one hit. The unlocking of those achievements (big display on screen saying you have unlocked something) are also what got me killed. The video below is this game in action. The player is not very good :S

I will probably return to play it at some point and get the 500,000 point achievement, but only because I enjoyed playing it. Achievement whoring is not something I really like doing in games and I personally think its a cheap method of creating re-playability. But that is something I will rant about for another time. My point is I enjoyed the 'mod' which paid tribute to many a Top Down Side Scroller (or Vertical Scroller) of yesteryear. It is a genre of gaming you rarely see being made anymore, which I find disappointing. I also would like to know why.

Depending on who you talk to, some people may regard these kind of games as mindless. You usually start in a ship that shoots peas and eventually deck yourself out with enough firepower to destroy the universe. Things fly at you, you shoot them and they explode. You also move around. Mindless? Well ... yes to a degree. They can also be incredibly skillful, relying on player reactions and destructive creativity in order to a) simply survive and b) achieve the highest score possible. Some can be so incredibly skill based they can even turn people off. A popular example of this is Ikaruga, a TDSS classic where players can morph between light and dark ship variants to either absorb damage or inflict more upon the same/opposite enemy colours. The following video is of someone playing BOTH players (1+2) in this game.

Yeah ... that. That was on Normal. I tried this with one ship and failed miserably. My neanderthal brain just could not grasp the concept of changing colour to absorb incoming enemy fire as I tried to avoid everything with very low success rates. I imagine with practice I would be better, but my first play session was definetly a slap into my gun-ho, 'shoot everything!!' face.

Anyways, these games are fun. Instant fun at that. Sometimes I consider the days before storylines and character development to be the true pinnacle in gaming awesomeness, skill and enjoyment. Historically these games almost seem to have been wiped out since the birth of the First Person Shooter. It almost appears that as games have become more technologically advanced and more like movies and books, the industry has tried to shed the skin of old relics regardless of their success and popularity. Thinking about this inspired me to download Raiden 3, a game ported from the PS2 to PC quite awhile ago. It still looks awesome, is very enjoyable and will possibly cause me to have a epileptic fit sometime in the near future.

So long story short, these types of games is the game type (lol) I intend on making sometime in the near future. It is the sort of game I have been wanting to make since the last year of my degree, instead of involving forklifts and tanks. A work-in-progress Alpha is currently on standby as things are sorted out. I would like to implement a more realistic control scheme in the form of keyboard movement and mouse/controller aiming but at this point it is not set in stone. Hopefully something significant can be completed before the end of the year.

I Can D

2010-08-01T00:19:00.000-07:00

This is sort of an 'awesome sauce' post, just a bit more wall-of-texty. Hopefully it crits you for at least a trillion.

I have always thought the guys behind Blizzard Game's cinematics do an exceptional job. I am sure they outsource a lot of it to some pwnage CGI company, but if it is actually done in-house, then that's even more impressive. Basically it has always been ahead of its time, even back in the day with the now terrible looking WarCraft 2 intro cinematic.

Nowadays it is no different. Having recently finished the campaign in StarCraft 2, I found the non-ingame cinematics to be quite impressive, just like they were in the recent World of WarCraft games. Especially in Wrath. They are presented well narratively and have a certain visual aesthetic to them that separates them from anything else. Some people even mistook the Arthas in the Wrath introduction before he summons the Frostwymre to be a live action actor!

If there ever was to be a film about either the StarCraft, Diablo or WarCraft universes, it should definitely be digital and at least contributed to by Blizzard's cinematic department.

Nubnubnbuububnnbunbubn!!

Jabberwocky Bandwagon of Unconcious Elitism

2010-07-25T07:55:00.001-07:00

I'm not sure if the title of this post accurately portrays what I am trying to describe, and it is a little too late in the night for me to think properly and try and fix it. Whatever. The topic of this ... well, lets be safe and call it a rant now ... is simply about jumping on the elitist bandwagon of a game that appears to have wide community approval in some way or form.

That probably doesn't make sense, so I will use a few direct examples. Counter-strike. World of Warcraft. Halo. Starcraft.

All big games. All popular titles that many people play. All games that, in my opinion, are incredibly overrated.

Now if this was a forum post and not a personal blog, many a fanboy (or fangirl), without even reading the rest, would by now be hitting the reply button and appear to be fending for their lives in defence of their game they hold in such reverence. I expect I would get the full array of responses from "lol noob U sux" to more elaborate, well structured posts describing how "it is funny that you are obviously new to the game and not very good at it". As this isn't a forum, I'm glad I can completely disregard that step and move on.

So what the hell am I talking about? Besides the fact that I don't even know myself, I am mainly talking about a certain social quality your average gamer seems to exhibit. To describe this as simply as possible, I will break it into 3 steps or 'traits' of exhibition:

Realize a game you play or used to play is incredibly popular (for whatever reason)
Generally pretend or forcibly become knowledgeable on the game in various ways
Argue that said game is the best of its genre and imply that people who disagree don't know what they are talking about. This can be because of inexperience or the fact that you are simply better at the game than them.

There was one point when I remember being a bit of an 'elitist prick' about the original Unreal Tournament. I would like to think I stopped that attitude a long time ago (grade 11) as I find I am generally trying to get people in to games I enjoy at a positive and comfortable pace. The most recent example/s being various fighting games that I am getting in to. Some of my friends are surprisingly good :).

Back on topic however, the attitude I described is something I have run into more frequently as time goes by, especially tutoring games related units at QUT. If you were to ever raise the question "What is the best example of RTS design?", you would get a plethora of people demanding that it has and always will be Starcraft. Some of these people haven't even played the game, or if they have, justify their small playing time as priceless experience and proof towards their unconditional justification. They will state that the game is incredibly popular and 'e-sport' level in Korea, so it must be good! If you disagree with them, you simply don't know what you are talking about or don't understand. You would even find that most of these people have played very few, if ANY other RTS games at all. Hence ... bandwagon elitism.

Now I don't dislike Starcraft, or any other games for that matter. Or Blizzard, really. I think hating something that doesn't really affect you, assuming you can avoid it entirely, is stupid. I eagerly await it's sequel but I will freely admit I am not a fanboy. So me using it as an example in this next point has nothing to do with what the game is. This point is the game's unwavering popularity.

Some people like to think the game made it to where it is all on it's own, but I can tell you now, luck and force of will by Blizzard did more than you think. First of all, the timing and theme of the game were perfect. People were just getting into the sci-fi insanity of Total Annihilation and Dark Reign at the time, and releasing a Warcraft-esque version of the style was very appealing for audiences. You can argue that Blizzard stole many an idea from the Warhammer 40k universe (Protoss = Eldar, Terran = Space Marines, Zerg = Tyranid), a universe which had long been established beforehand, but that is a debate best left for someone who actually cares. At the time, Korea was also exploding into the wonderful world of inter-networking and so, in cafes and libraries all over the country, a particular game was necessary to test their now renowned networking capabilities. The game was fun and addictive, so it is quite understandable if a nation feels a certain connection to a game that in a sense, brought them into the light.

Then there is the fact that Blizzard patched the shit out of it. Still a little company at the time, cradling their new moneymaker and listening to the community was a good call in terms of its longevity. Something like over 15 patches, 5-6 of those being major balance changing additions. You show enough dedication and support to something and people will automatically assume that it must be good. The West caught wind of it's Eastern popularity and (slowly) followed. People say it's the best game ever, so more people play it. The rest is familiar territory.

The game did not introduce any revolutionary concepts or mechanics to the genre besides being (nowadays) a well balanced execution of the tried and true formula. It is not the only game out there that requires high levels of player's skill and speed in an RTS format. It just happens to be the most popular. If you were to ask a fanboy "What is it exactly about Starcraft's actual game components that make it successful?", your response would most likely be gameplay elements that exist in all games, both modern and old, that simply don't have the hype and religious fanbase behind them that Starcraft has. You will hear things like "Starcraft, now there's a game!" and have everyone in the room sagely nod their heads and stroke their beards in agreement without questioning it or understanding why...

So I guess my point after all this is that there are things in life that are really quite trivial (such as games) that are revered for qualities that are either overrated or incredibly commonplace. Some of these things (such as games) don't really matter, but should this attitude be expressed towards other aspects of life like religion or politics, then things can and do get out of hand. I guess I would just like people to think for themselves more often than not, instead of simply jumping on the Jabberwocky* Bandwagon of Unconscious Elitism.

Jabberwocky - a term used to describe something that no one really knows what it is, but whom deny ignorance of its true purpose. Also a nonsense poem about a monster by Lewis Carroll in his novel 'Through the Looking-Glass' written in 1872.

Ultrakill LAN 2010!

2010-07-19T00:21:00.000-07:00

Thanks to everyone who came to the recent Ultrakill LAN! While slightly all over the place with people arriving randomly/not at all and indecisiveness on games being played, I still consider it a success. It is good to know that LANs with >10 people are most definitely still possible. The following is a compilation video of some of the footage from the LAN. While it is unfortunately mostly from my PoV (client side demo recording :S), I have not discarded the many embarrassing and comic moments of me either doing something stupid or getting fragged by various people.

This is just a low quality temporary version for the moment. Not going to upload more than 100mb while I am not at uni :). I have a 500mb HQ version if anyone wants a copy themselves. I am considering making a redux version should I spend the time working out some demo recording tools so I can make the video look more awesome, but we will see...

Official LAN picture (courtesy of Panics):

I was hoping for a total number of 12 people and managed to get close to that with 11 at one given point. In any case, it is the largest 'friends only' LAN I have hosted. However, should something like it happen again I might insist we hire out a hall or larger room somewhere instead.

As long as people remember to bring a chair, fold-able or otherwise...

↓ ↘ → ℗

2010-07-14T01:45:00.000-07:00

Oh em eff gee! Possibly the greatest video ever:

I will freely admit, playing a Street Fighter game has seriously warped my mind ... but I wouldn't have it any other way. For those wondering wtf they are looking at, just look at the HP bars for the majority of the fights. Some of the moves in this are downright hilarious/ridiculous and definitely epilepsy inducing (something I should be wary of).

If only all of life's problems could be solved by throwing flaming balls of plasma at them, the world would be such a better place ...

Something wicked this way comes...

2010-07-06T06:15:00.000-07:00

E3 2010 is over. I paid about as much attention to it as I usually do, mainly seeing it as a medium for various technology and games related companies to advertise their mediocre, unoriginal and sometimes terrible products as revolutionary and innovative. While some bits of media did hold my attention to higher than usual degrees, some seemed a little lacklustre and not very well thought out (e.g. Sony's Move and Microsoft's Kinect campaigns).

:S

Certain games have piqued my interest however and are making me think ahead about what I will be doing/playing a year from now. I will be upgrading my PC when Crysis 2 hits shelves, being the benchmark game for the next generation of gaming, but what components should I be looking at? I have recently revisited both GRID and Crysis (the original) on my PC which both ran slightly worse in Windows 7 than they did in XP 2-3 years ago. This makes me think about the performance differences DX11 could have and the graphical horsepower I will need to run games smoothly on a modern OS. Memory wise, 4GBs will be the bare minimum and with at least decent DDR3 speeds and clock rates (all unknown at this point). Quad core or Dual core? Should I try a SLI/Crossfire setup?

These questions all bare a familiarity to me when I made my gaming PC over 3 years ago, a machine that has lasted me to this point (and admittedly still works fine). It will undoubtedly take me into a fourth year (at which point I will retire it), however the hours of research, benchmarks, comparisons and opinions will inevitably take place several months from now. It should be something I look forward to, but at this point in time I see it little more as a bump in the road towards playing more games that do not truly satisfy my gaming needs.

The truth is, although I look forward to certain titles, part of me knows they will just end up on the shelf to my right, collecting dust alongside so many others. They will entertain me for maybe a week or two, some maybe a month, but they will never be what Unreal Tournament, Half-life, Quake 3, Total Annihilation and Red Alert were back in the day. The problem is I know exactly why...

There are too many games. For someone like me with a genuine interest in so many types and genres and the technologies used to create and run them, these games do not hold my interest for any great length of time. I am never 'stuck' with them like I used to be back in the day. There is also the fact that the vast majority of these games are not actually anything new. Oh they may offer some fancy new weapons or gameplay mechanic for killing your foes, but really, when every game does it, it kind of becomes expected lest it fade away amongst the flow of similarly done games.

There is also the fact that many of these games, particularly First Person Shooters, are evolving gameplay features that eventually become hybrids of each other. The 'ironsights' evolution is a classic example. Why does every FPS game need to have ironsights? Aiming a real gun (which I have performed countless times) is so incredibly different then what is portrayed in games it is almost laughable. Especially when using a scope. Unless you are a cyclops, aiming down a rifle in a game does not look or behave anything like it does in reality. So why attempt to emulate this feature again and again? Why burden an already slowing down genre (in terms of game speed) to badly portray this need to aim a rifle like a 'real soldier'?

Cover systems are another thing. It kind of started with the original Gears of War, but it is hard to place with so many other games borrowing the idea. This need to point out, focus and lock players into a messy system of hiding behind conveniently placed chest high walls and peek-a-boo corners is revolting. What happened to simply pressing crouch or even having lean buttons, or better yet, making a player's character actually move fast enough so their pudgy ass doesn't get blown off every time its hanging around a corner? Needing to press a button to sit behind a wall and then behave differently (take less damage, never die, cannot be seen etc) is incredibly unrealistic and something that should be abolished.

To an extent I do know the reason behind these control nerfs that are now seen as 'features' in the industry. Console gaming. But I won't bring up that point again, at least not in this post...

Nevertheless, I will end this post off on a good note. Although I think Rage, Crysis 2 and Bulletstorm will be both less appealing and successful than their respective companies previous franchises/titles, there is still hope for the genre of fighting games and RTS. Mortal Kombat is coming back and looking as gory as ever, and MvC3 is definitely something worth looking forward too. RUSE is also looking quite promising and should add a new take to an aging RTS scene.

Sooner or later, time will tell ...

Tinman Vs Hotpies - The Ultimate Showdown

2010-06-03T04:51:00.000-07:00

A few days ago one of my old housemates and I tried SSFIV online for the first time. The following is probably one of our better replays (close fights, not so terrible combos, Ultras etc...).

On that note I also recently purchased a Blackmagic Intensity Pro for the purpose of recording HDMI and component video from various sources. It is still not working 100% however, but it is currently better than my previous setup.

Ride to ruin and the world’s ending!!!

2010-05-29T18:34:00.000-07:00

In an effort to do something different on this ‘blog’ for once, I have decided I would instead comment on something other than games. While games and gaming are one of my most frequently engaged hobbies/interests, it is not however the only one I have. Another happens to be anime. However, only slightly.

There is a lot of anime out there that, while I don’t dislike, I don’t see myself watching addictively at any point. I am a fan of serious anime, or anime where things are set in a semi-realistic universe in which characters don’t react and behave ridiculously with their faces turning stupid all of a sudden (aka. Sailor Moon style). I was never into Pokemon or Dragon Ballz or any of that ridiculous nonsense, mainly because to me they seemed a bit too outrageous (and a little childish). No offense to anyone who is a fan though…

Neon Genesis: Evangelion is undoubtedly my favourite anime. It is debatably the best anime of all time. I won’t bother explaining the story because that would be a task within itself, but you should know that the story is nearly 15 years old. One of the first animes to strike an oilwell of success in western countries, it definitely struck a chord with my being when I first watched it on SBS at age 12. I held it in very high regard and still do today. Yes, I am a fanboy. Fuck you.

Nevertheless it is also the topic of this post. Evangelion Rebuild 2.22, a modernised and slightly different take on the original story was recently released on DVD and Blu-Ray in Japan after a cinema release nearly a year before. The Rebuild series of movies intend on bringing the franchise back, one last time, telling the story the way the original series director (Hideaki Anno) wanted to tell it. In my opinion, the movies have been a stunning success and are revolutionizing how anime is made. The level of visual detail, musical score, voice acting (Japanese at least) and minor plot changes have so far made for some incredibly epic and suspenseful story telling. That’s even with knowing how the story goes, or at least how you think it’s going to go…

Simply put, I like epic films. To me they are timeless in their message and infinite in their replay-ability. Any film that at some point creates a spine-tingling moment of overpowering awesomeness is in my opinion, an epic film. Some examples from movies include the last march of the Ents in The Two Towers, the charge of the Rohirrim in the Return of the King and the Dragon opening fire in Avatar. Why am I bringing this up? Because the Evangelion Rebuild movies do it as well.

Maybe I’m just sentimental and nostalgic about watching the original series over a decade ago, but I did find Rebuild 2.22 (and 1.11 before it) to be quite epic. Although a large number of the Angels were squished together to form singular battles, the fights themselves were really quite cool with interesting additions. I don’t enjoy being a critic of anything as I think being a critic is to purposefully draw negativity to things that should really just be enjoyed for what they are, for better or worse. That said, I do have a minor disappointment, that being the level of interaction given to Asuka’s character. The fiery red haired bitch (my favourite character) seemed to almost be given a background role. One of her big fights in the original series was replaced by Mari, a new female character who also seems under developed.

She does have a nice ass though, so I guess she can be forgiven. I suppose it is difficult to fit both the original and new content into a 2 hr sitting. Unlike many forum posts I have read, I actually enjoy and approve of the new story (so far), mainly because it seems even more serious than before. It also helps to view it from an ‘alternate universe’ perspective. Although it certainly has its ‘bizarre’ scenes, the whole Japanese madness that is prevalent in lots of anime is well toned down here which in my opinion appeals to a larger, more adult demographic. Having watched to final ending to 2.22 (after the credits) I am really quite interested to see where they go from here. I really hope they don’t go the way of End of Evangelion …

… but part of me kind of wants them to.

Below: An old AMV I made using original series/movie footage

Awesome Sauce

2010-05-25T06:09:00.000-07:00

The following video is awesome:

I could explain why, but I think I might let the viewer determine it for themselves.

I think I might have a random 'awesome sauce' post every now and then just to make things different. Well, not really.

And sif its not a SF4 video. My fucking blog, I can do what I want. BITCH!!!

The Frag Video

2010-05-19T06:35:00.000-07:00

Ah yes. One of the reasons for many hours of staring at screens in either bewildered amazement or tedious boredom would be because of the 'Frag Video'. I quite like them. Well, the good ones that is. I have much respect for skilled gamers and well edited footage. I have often considered making one myself but have never really dedicated both the playing time and editing time to make anything noteworthy. The only heavy editing videos I have done in recent years were the two short WoW machinima vids which are becoming quite dated at the moment. There is also the fact that I am in dire need of updating my editing tools. Photoshop CS 2, After Effects 2 and Premiere 2, while fantastic products just don't cut it when comparing it to the quality of videos coming out nowadays.

The good videos that is. You will often wade through many a terrible 'frag' video on Youtube until you stumble across one that is worthy of attention. While there is nothing wrong with making a short video for you and your friends to reminisce about, avidly advertising something online for people to download and watch on a registered video site can be a deathwish if your video is crap. I can understand many people don't have the time/resources to make great videos, but as long as you understand that the general viewer wont find your 'amazing skills' that interesting to watch, you will save yourself a lot of disappointment.

So, what is a frag video? There are many answers for that question, but in my opinion (and I consider this a subjective topic) a frag video is a short to medium length video showcasing two things in particular: The skills of the player/s in the video and (to a lesser extent) the skills of the video editor. The video editing component is not entirely necessary, but generally speaking the quality of a frag video will be higher if the video editing is more polished. However, it should be noted that video editing in itself is not (and never was) difficult. There is skill in creativity, but not skill in execution. Given time, a decent video editor can make any piece of footage look amazing.

So with that out of the way, what makes a good frag video? For me (again subjective) the answer is quite simple. Pace. Sure, a video can present the amazing skills of some random dudes, and the editing may be pretty and top notch, but if it doesn't fit the pace of the footage or the chosen music it accompanies ... it becomes incredibly boring. A boring video ceases to be an entertaining one and, in my opinion, ceases to be an effective frag video.

Here are some examples of great frag videos. I would highly recommend watching them on Youtube themselves (double click videos) and watching them in HD if possible.

Quake 3 frag videos are not hard to come by. The pace of the game itself and the amazing shit you can do in it pretty much begs users to make frag videos. In Mecurial we have a fast paced edit with a likewise techno/acid music theme that, in the world of Quaking, fits very well. Shaolin Productions editing is suitable and more importantly, incredibly well synced to the visuals and audio track. Did this video take time to make? Most certainly. Was it worth it? Certainly most.

What's this!? A WoW frag video!!?? Preposterous, how can this be possible? Easily. WoW is a slow game. A very, very slow game, in all considerable aspects. If you want to make a frag video, why not just speed it up? Easy! In Boneshock's first video he did just that, synced it to an ... interesting metal track and did a fine job on the editing. Depending on your taste, this can be entertaining enough, if you are not the kind of person that requires looking at health bars and spell casts to understand what is going on. Unfortunately, this type of video is NOT the type of video you will frequently find on warcraftmovies.com. Most of those videos are lame and uninspired footage of someone doing the same thing the last guy did, but with different music. Most of these videos are Arena videos, and they are usually horribly boring. I can understand someone's joy in making a video about something they consider amazing, but again, advertising it for the world the see and expecting gold is ludicrous.

TF2 is a fantastic looking game for frag videos, and this video shows it quite well. Again it is synced well and has the same qualities of those before it, if a bit more on a dramatic and epic 'theme'. Unfortunately, these sort of frags come all too infrequently in a game like TF2 which may make these frags seem godlike in the eyes of someone who doesn't know any better. As many of these frags are the result of flukes or luck rather than true skill one can be fooled into thinking TF2 is as fast paced and 'bouncy' as a game like Quake 3. It aint. However this should not detract from the fact that the video and the frags it contains are really quite entertaining.

It is difficult to make a Frag video of a fighting game. Most of them turn out to be combo videos, which while impressive, don't really fall into the same category (at least in my opinion). The above video is about the best example I can find of someone creatively trying to make a video using fighting game footage for the sole purpose of entertaining the viewer. For a veteran player, most of the moves will be simplistic, but for a newbie I imagine the video would look more like a trailer if anything. That is not a bad thing by any means and I personally salute this editor's effort at exploring the possibilities of footage editing for a still relatively new game.

There are many more examples I can display of great frag videos, but I believe that will do for the moment. Also, I do not really enjoy being a critic :S.

Successful LAN Checklist

2010-05-10T20:19:00.000-07:00

One can argue that LANs are dying as of late in recent years. They would not be wrong. Often the reason for LANing in the past was because of games not being suitable on the slow connections a decade ago, combined with the proximity to the dedicated server. These factors would often convince people that gathering a group of like-minded individuals into a building for digital entertainment over faster and closer networks was a good idea. They were right.

Of course, the speed of connections today and the games people play are one of the reasons people don't LAN anymore. Hell, some games do not even support the feature in general (Modern Warfare 2, upcoming Starcraft 2), which is really quite sad considering their origins. There is also the fact that the vast majority of games released in the last few years are terrible for LANs, massive in size, no AI/Bots other than singleplayer, requiring 50 security and authorization checks per second and even requiring a constant internet connection. Why not just play at home online?

It is difficult to argue against, but there is one very good reason why people should still LAN. Because they are social events. Yes, you are doing something you enjoy with friends who also enjoy doing it, in close scream-in-your-ear proximity with the capability to easily reflect on awesomeness later. Who wouldn't enjoy that? I can only think of two types of people. The first would be someone who doesn't like other people and the second would be someone who doesn't have any friends.

So providing you do choose to LAN in the future (which you should), there are 5 simple rules that I believe everyone (hosts, participants, guests) should follow to make the experience not irritating for everyone.

1. Headphones. Put them into your sound card and cover your ears with them. Not everyone wants to hear you play the same Queen or Linkin Park song over and over again at full volume. Having speakers on low-medium volume playing the currently played game is fine, but please, consider the well being of the people surrounding you.

2. Many Games. Depending on the duration of the LAN this can vary in size from 0 to ... lets say 10. Playing the same game over and over, while mind blowing for some, can get incredibly boring for others (especially those who are perhaps not that great or are new to it). Screaming "HEADSHOT!" into your friend's face for the 23rd time, while exciting for you, may be both uncomfortable, tedious and deafening for them.

3. Bring discs/files. If you are suggesting a game to play, consider the accessibility of the game for everyone. Wanting to play Doom 3 deathmatch when you don't have the discs, or a cracked version, nor do they and there are 5+ players (Doom 3 DM is 4 players) is worthy of submission to failblog.org. If a game can be bought off steam and files transferred, great. However, if the game costs $90 and you are the only one who has it, fail.

4. Don't be a faggot. Don't cheat. Sitting in a room with several other testosterone induced individuals can be a very a hairy situation. You are there to have fun with friends and getting upset/emo about what happens in games is a real mood breaker. This happens the other way around as well. Boasting and/or inappropriate trash talking can grant you both contempt and punches to the face. Coop gaming is always good neutral ground.

5. Have a plan B. Things will break. Operating Systems will magically uninstall, cables lost, save games deleted, routers explode and of course, networks will shit themselves. Calm down and relax. Unless you are the host, you are moving a piece of hardware (that shouldn't and normally never is) several kilometres to run at an unknown location. You cannot possibly expect things to work smoothly. Bring an extra LAN cable, a copy of your OS, an external HDD with your drivers and DEFINITELY your own power board. NEVER rely on another person. People are shit!

If everyone was to follow these 5 simple rules at/prior to every LAN I can guarantee that the experience will be enjoyable for all!

Going back to school...

2010-05-02T07:55:00.001-07:00

Super Street Fighter 4 was, among other things, released in Australia on my birthday. I have only just recently won my first ever Super Street Fighter 4 fight online. It was against an equally ranked Korean dude using the character Juri.

Here is the video:

I was both incredibly noob and unskillful, but nevertheless I am proud of it. For me it was the most intense and satisfying achievement in gaming in the past year or so. It took me an embarrassing number of tries to get there but I finally beat someone. I am now on the ranked global ladder.

It is really quite bizarre. Amongst my closest friends I would probably be considered reasonable at the game. Certainly able to beat most of them without a hitch. I go online and I get completely and utterly destroyed. The difference in skill between my friends, myself and the average online player is astounding. Despite the fact they are usually rated 1000+ (as opposed to my measly 56 or something), fighting against them feels like an uphill battle from the first move to the part when I am dying in a ball of fire or flying off the screen into oblivion. It is like an entirely new game, one in which I am at the bottom of the food chain.

I remember this feeling. The looking at losing screens again and again, while obviously irritating, does stir an enjoyable competitive fire in one's soul. The knowledge that you are playing an extremely skill based game and that you are not exactly that great at it. Indeed, the last time this happened was nearly a decade ago, back in the year 2000...

The game was Unreal Tournament.

I was what you would call an FPS noob in those days. I was foolish in thinking that control over mouse and keyboard was skill enough. Half-life singleplayer and UT against bots were no trouble, surely human players wouldn't be an issue? Wrong. First online deathmatch game? Bottom of the list. And again. And again. And again.

Oh eventually I got better. Generally speaking I would say I am decent at hardcore FPS games in general. But it was a long road taking many months. Even though I have had breaks I can still come back and cause some serious issues for veteran players of them (eg. Quake Live).

Although I do not plan on taking SSFIV too seriously, it is refreshing and astonishing to find that it is a game where the skill ceiling is far greater than I initially thought. Significantly greater, in fact. For example, the video below shows a typical method for landing Ryu's Ultra successfully on enemy players. This method is said to be pioneered by the professional Japanese fighting game world champion Daigo Umeharo, the Beast.

It may not look like much, but this player is pulling off a light shoryuken, focus attack, dash cancel into 2x quarter circle forward All punch. That is seven individual movements and approximately seventeen 'buttons' (both directional and attack based) being registered all in under a second. Beethoven much?

I will never be able to do that, at least on the default controller. It is just interesting to see quite visually how a professional gamer plays a fighting game as opposed to John 'fAtality' Wendel in a game like Quake 3. There is a big visual difference relating to both mental and physical precision and dexterity. Two elements I admittedly lack when playing any sort of game.

A friend of mine, one who I consider to be one of the best gamers I know, has again started training his mental agility in the form of playing Ut2k4 against progressively higher scaling bots. It is interesting to see as he posts his results as it is something I would like to try out with SSFIV on hardest difficulty. Although I am certain I will get trounced, it will definitely help towards both becoming a better player and (to a degree) a better person too. There is nothing more humbling than losing again and again only for it to pay off and for you to eventually succeed. Who ever said games never taught people the harsh rules of life were wrong. Or drunk.

Despite all this, there is some less pro-gamer oriented news. A large number of my friends and myself have bought the excellent tower defense game Sol Survivor off Steam (some earlier than others). At a mere $10, it has provided more hours of easily coop-able entertainment than some larger brand titles I have bought in the past. It is definitely worth picking up if you feel like some light casual/social gaming at a relaxed pace.

And last but not least, Starcraft 2 Beta. A good friend of mine encouraged me to pre-order the game from EB and providing 85% of the necessary files, I was able to install it without a problem. I am getting some strange frame-skipping every few seconds however, but you cannot not expect that in a Beta. So far I am stuck between two worlds. Part of me wants to argue that Blizzard took nearly 7 years to make a game that to me looks like the original game with a 3D facelift. The other part is saying to stick it out, learn a race (currently Zerg) and try it out competitively. Maybe I will grow to love it. Strategy games have never been my forte so I do not expect to do brilliantly ... but we will see. Oh yes, we will see.....

Blender - 5 reasons to use it

2010-04-01T21:09:00.000-07:00

It's been quite awhile since I talked about something either work or uni related. At the moment, beginning the initial stages of my PhD, uni is going to quite rapidly become my work. I say 'become' and not 'is' because I only just recently acquired a cubicle and laptop to work in/on and am therefore expected to come in to uni to work (instead of bludging at home).

I also tutor. Currently I am teaching students (who are generally pretty good) on the finer aspects of Games Design and the basics of learning a program called Blender. I have been referred to as the 'Blender Guru' but I can honestly say I am quite the noob when it comes to the more aesthetic components of making games. As I am a programmer at heart, my knowledge of texturing, lighting and modeling in games is simplistic at best.

What I have noticed however is that, like last year, there seems to be this incredibly unwarranted and unfair generalisation amongst certain groups that Blender sucks. I am not sure where or how this originated but it has me baffled as to how this decision has come to be. Most of the students commenting negatively about it had not even used it yet. When I did the subject (when it was in its first iteration), we were practically forced to use the program Blender (with only a few exceptions). As my only Game Design tool experience up to that point had been the Unreal and Quake engines (and usually just level design, Unreal Script/QuakeC), I did not exactly see the requirement of using Blender to be a chore. Over the semester, there were mixed views on the engine. However towards the end, having even only scratched the surface of it, I came to the conclusion that it really wasn't that bad. My reasons are explained below.

Note: The videos contained after each point have nothing to do with the actual point's content. They are for demonstration of Blenders capability only

1. It is < 15mb
I do not know of a smaller tool that can do what Blender does for the size it is. I would really like to know, if not just to compare the two. For something that you can literally download within seconds (providing you have a good connection) and transport and install without a hassle, it is difficult to find fault with the mobility and convenience of the program at all.

2. It is free!
People nowadays like money. I like money! It keeps me alive, and living is good (I think). If you look at competitive products (e.g. Unity) you will notice there is a large difference between them. While there are free distributables of certain engines that you can pick up (e.g. UDK), the additional products necessary to make a game (such as modeling programs) are not exactly free themselves. All of this adds up, and not just money wise (refer to point 1).

3. It is not (that) hard to learn
It is not a difficult program. There are thousands of people who have successfully made models, games and machinima using Blender and so can you! I personally think the hatred of Blender's unusual UI stems from simple unfamiliarity with an interface in general. It does not function like Maya or Max, nor is it designed to. When Word 2007 came out I hated it with a burning rage. Eventually however I got used to it. The same thing can be said with using Blender. You just need to use the middle mouse a lot.

4. You don't need to be a programmer to make functional content
I once used an engine called Torque to make a game. I was the programmer. I'll be honest in saying it was a pain, not because it was difficult to code (pfft) but because of the level of abstraction the engine and its entities allowed me to have control over. Everything was prebuilt and the ability to change stuff without going through and radically changing the game dynamics was very limited. I did not really end up making the game I wanted. Blender on the other hand doesn't give you all that. It gives you a physics engine, an empty game loop and the ability to create and apply logic/script to objects in this virtual space. It is a very empty and abstract game environment. The difference is that applying control and game dynamics does not require copious amounts of code as there are tools set up to do it for you at will. Making an object move in Blender from a keypress is dead simple (logicbrick system). Making an object move in Torque was still simple, but required actual code (obviously). Making an object move in an game engine coded from scratch (OpenGL, D3D) is much, much more difficult. Compare 50-100 lines of code to a few mouse clicks and you will see what I mean.

5. It is a sufficient enough tool
For the expectations of the unit I am tutoring, Blender is a more than suitable tool for creating the games we expect students to be making. As nice as visual aesthetics like detailed textures, high polygon count models, fancy lighting and shadow effects may be, if they are not accompanied by a working game with a working game mechanic, they are all for naught. This is Advanced Games DESIGN after all.

The thing about Fighting Games

2010-03-24T19:36:00.000-07:00

First of all I just want to say that I am aware of the nature of my last few posts being primarily about fighting games. Although I don't promise this will be the last, I am aware that it is certainly not the first. Additionally this post is inspired by this article on The Escapist, discussing the nature and future of fighting games (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_246/7327-Fighting-Games-A-Tapped-Out-Genre).

Over the recent 7-9 months I have been very interested in fighting games, primarily Tekken 6 and SFIV. I would argue I am terrible at both, and depending on who you talk to, my friends would probably agree. Presently I eagerly await Super SFIV and will undoubtedly buy it the day it comes out. Out of all of my friends, both school, uni and random, I am the only person I know that actively anticipates these sort of games (besides one other chickzor, but she is special).

Super SFIV Trailer

Recent discussions with friends have led me to believe that they have never really been in to fighting games, or ever have in the past. This is fair enough, although I find it astonishing considering the number of fighting game titles released over the years. Surely they would have bumped into one in the odd occasion...

But this post is not about my friends, rather the gaming community in general. As the mentioned article points out, there has been a slow decline in interest in fighting games over the years, even with the new iterations and reboots as of late. I do not have enough evidence at my disposal to agree or disagree with that proposal, but I will say that the learning curve of fighting games is a major turn off for certain people. Simply put, for newcomers, fighting games have evolved into something that is incredibly difficult to pick up in a single afternoon session of gaming.

MvC2 Combos (Check out last 1.5 mins for awesome sauce)

This is also (at least in my opinion) where the whole issue lies. People nowadays, for whatever reason, do not want to dedicate time to learning a new and complex method of control for every fighting game on the market. This is completely understandable. Even I have not put in anywhere near the hours I used to in Tekken 3 as I have in Tekken 6 (seriously like 1/10 of the time). This perspective, while justifiable, is also flawed.

Fighting games to me have always shared a resemblance to tournament shooters (Counter Strike, Quake 3, Unreal Tournament etc...). They are not about completing a storyline or singleplayer campaign. They are not even about unlocking attributes/characters or grinding currency to slap on new funky looking pieces of crap (something Tekken has unfortunately fallen to). Fighting games have always been about finding a character(s) you are comfortable with and getting better at using them. There is a peculiar Zen-like quality to mastering a character's technique, something akin to when you are on top of your game in a tournament shooter. It is very challenging, especially for the first time, and to an extent, harder than anything an FPS game can throw at you. FPS games carry over the accuracy, the situational awareness and tactics of their related brethren and do not require as much mental transition as learning something entirely new (like a fighting game's mechanics). Fighting games on the other hand offer a much higher degree of challenge (assuming you are attempting to learn them properly) and it is this challenge aspect that people should be focusing on when learning them.

SFIV Ex-Focus System

Nowadays people do not like challenge. They do not like looking at screens where they are told they have lost and to try again. People really do expect to faceroll fighting games and win! If you look at the games of today, appealing to such larger demographics (older, younger, soccer mums etc...) this is a perfectly understandable marketing technique: make games that anyone can be successful at to attract more buyers. When you throw a game, such as a steep learning curve fighting game into the mix, you break the current trend and people who may give fighting games a go for the first time will come to the conclusion that they are too hard or complex to learn. Therefore they hate them.

However there are those who find this challenge aspect of fighting games appealing and rewarding. Whether your pride is immune to losing (or you simply have none), you may find that there is a rich and rewarding experience in playing a fighting game, both properly and skillfully. This skill does not just rely on remembering input controls (hell you could barely call a DPS rotation in WoW 'skill'), often an excuse for resorting to button mashing. It is about 'fighting' your opponent, human or cpu, blocking and evading instictively and applying what you have learnt into brutal (yet beautiful) combo attacks for mega-awesome-wtf-bbq-pwned-nubnubnub-damage!!!

Bryan Fury Combos

And that is essentially where the fun comes from...

Enta Teh Dagron!

2010-02-25T18:07:00.000-08:00

People often ask me what I find so enjoyable about fighting games. I am not really 'good' at them by any means, or at least any more, but I do know they can create some of the best group gaming moments that I can remember. When you have 2-10 people screaming at a television set, mashing almost broken fingers over controllers in frustration wording profanities your mother would go into cardiac arrest over, you know that it has to be a winning formula. It has been for many years. Whether it be Tekken's juggling, Dead or Alive's ... jiggling (:D), Mortal Kombat's Fatalities or even the kooky MvC2's group nuking combos, the majority of the more memorable fights simply turn into who pulls off the last move, who blocks it, who doesn't and who inevitably goes flying across the other side of the screen. It is something I think that latest Street Fighter game/s capture quite well. This short post demonstrates some of the many new Ultra Combos one can push into their best friend's faces again and again (and again and again and again, from different angles!) in the upcoming Super SFIV, coming late April this year to consoles.

I would recommend turning your volume down....

Sure you can!

Her doe can...

In mother Russia, gravity obeys laws of you!

Bringing a knife to a ... normal fight (...?)

[Insert terrible one-liner here]

Yeah.... that

So yes. Next time someone you know is being a bit of a toss pot, just recall the combination of your most powerful fighting game move and remember to school them next time you play them in the game. Or in real life if you prefer...

The state of PC gaming (with a focus on FPS)

2009-10-27T20:09:00.000-07:00

In the last few recent years you have probably heard the lines "PC Gaming is dying" or "PC Games are a shrinking market" or something similar on various shows, websites and blogs. This is generally because, when contrasted to the console gaming market, PC gaming does not attract the numbers or revenue that it's less sophisticated and cheaper cousins permit. PC gaming has and probably always will be the most expensive platform for gaming. But for exactly how long? If PC Gaming is apparently supposed to be going round the bend, then from a competitive standpoint it must not have much life left in the old girl. It has been around the longest and as we all know, all good things must come to an end...

Or do they? Now, I don't want to get off on the wrong foot here. I do not 'dislike' console gaming in any sense. I have great respect for both the Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo franchises. To not have an interest and/or understanding of the technologies and feuds between these 'rival' companies would be detrimental to the area of work I hope to get in to in the future (i.e. Game AI). I do in fact have an extensive past console gaming history, starting off with a NES, then many years later a Playstation then PS2 and now recently intend to buy a PS3 simply for Tekken 6 and God of War III alone. I do in fact think that certain genres of console gaming are superior on home consoles than any other platform, including PC and handheld. These genres (fighting, racing, platformers) are usually done extremely well and, should I still be interested in them, would prefer to play them on console than anything else.

My issue however is with the current rise of games that should not belong on consoles being pushed and developed exclusively for them. As you can guess, I believe FPS games are one of them. The FPS was born on the PC, years before console gaming could even compare on a technical standpoint (which I will discuss later). Admittedly games like Wolfenstein 3D and even Duke Nukem were originally played using just a keyboard, but the birth of the keyboard and mouse control scheme was not too far down the track. In fact, I remember people playing both Hexen and Heretic using both a keyboard and mouse back in the day, a method of control I found utterly mind boggling. The truth is that no game pad or pointing device can compare to the simplicity, accuracy and speed of the keyboard and mouse for FPS games. The mouse to control your aim and the keyboard to control your avatar and actions is a perfect marriage of complete character control that no other game genre can boast of having. So if this is naturally exclusive to the PC, why are consoles now overriding it in terms of FPS popularity and titles?

Halo is a classic example. One of the first FPS games built for console. It worked! It was also incredibly slow, easy and watered down. That was fine for the time, yes. It did in fact bring some new gameplay mechanics that have changed FPS gaming for the better. One such mechanic is the now benchmark abilty to throw grenades through a simple press of a button instead of selecting them as a weapon (a.k.a. Half-life style). I may not entirely agree with this as I have been doing this in FPS games since TFC (and through scripts in HL1) but still, its seen as an improvement on traditional weapon design in FPS. But then you see more recent games like UT3, Bioshock and (dare I say) Borderlands which from what I have experienced and seen all/will bear a very console like feel.

I've met and talked to console 'fanboi's' who while I will admit are nice enough people, have some very ignorant and illogical views on the matter. One such fellow claimed that there is nothing he could not do on a console controller that you can do with a keyboard and mouse. When I asked "well how do you rocket-jump, flick-shot, reflex-snipe, bunny-hop and wall-climb with a controller?". These five abilities are considered to be skillful techniques and control mastery, bordering almost on instinctive play. I got a blank look and a query as to wtf they were. I asked him if he had ever played Half-life or Quake (old FPS titles most people have played) to which his response was that he doesn't play crappy last-gen PC games. I left the conversation at that.

I challenge anyone reading this to mimic the kind of activity seen in this video on a console with a controller:

Console FPS games are watered down, slower and more skill-less games compared to the ones of PC of yesteryear. You look at the differences between Quake 3 and Quake 4. Quake 4 was like many FPS games of today, built for both the PC and console at the same time. It was a fun game, from a single-player perspective. But the multiplayer was nothing like its older brother. It was slow, boring and weapons had enough firepower packed behind them that any lack of skill would still compensate a frag from a bad player. "Well this is ok, for consoles, I guess" was my initial thought. The average console controller was more sluggish, less precise and slower to use than a PC mouse, often with auto-aim features and larger hitscan/box targets to make up for a lack of precision. Even crosshairs were usually larger (i.e. Halo 1's 1/4 of a screen crosshair). But then I found out the awful truth.

Console FPS games are built to be slower. Yes even Halo. Halo on PC was faster, not by much (10%) but still, a speed increase none the less. Even the PS3 and PC versions of UT3 have this trait. This quote from Mark Rein ...

"When you play Halo on PC, you notice the difference too, yeah? This is also the reason why we don't have cross-platform play, between PC and PS3, because you have got to make some compromises for each platform. But you play Halo on console and you find that it's slower too, right…they have to be slower, because your fingers are just not as precise as your whole arm, right? To me the movement and speed as a console gamer is just right."

... I personally do not find to be re-assuring, especially considering the Game Developer's shift in focusing on console games over PC. Why are we taking a step back? Why are we making slower FPS games for a control scheme that does not really support them? Why does the PC gamer have to sit in the shadows, reminiscing of the glorious days when PC FPS was king, considered pro and skillful only to be fed console based badly done ports that are basically Half-life with a face lift?

The answer is money. Now, I dont have a problem with consoles getting FPS games in general, but I do find the stance certain game companies are having on the games they develop. Because consoles are cheaper, because companies don't have to push the boundaries of rendering technologies as hard and because they can make a shitty game and still guarantee some sales ... what possible reason is there to develop games for PC. At least primarily for PC and then console after, anyway? Atm, none. Which brings me to another point about console game development in general. It was never the platform in which you played games on that pushed the boundary of graphics, rendering and sound technologies. It was always the games! If games can be developed on a platform that doesn't change for 5-6 years before its newer model comes out, then the recycling of games engines, code and ideas become mainstream. THIS IS NOT A GOOD THING! Hardware today is far beyond what the most demanding games can manage and considering the most graphically advanced games engine (Crysis -2007) is approaching nearly 2.5 years of age, this gap is just going to continue. Even Crytek (makers of Crysis) have jumped along the console developer bandwagon and do you know what? CryEngine 2.0 looks worse on console than what CryEngine 1.0 looks on PC. CryEngine 2.0 on PC however looks great, but it could look oh so much better....

I am aware I am bordering on ranting here, but the technological progression of games technology is something I am passionate about. Video cards, frame-rates, overclocking and cooling have always been my secret geek fetish ... thing, and although in recent years it may have eased off, I am still interested in the field. Some people say that console games help to increase the efficiency in programming game engines, particularly when the platform starts ageing. This perspective is mainly true. It is also flawed. Code efficiency is usually about memory conservation and increasing the number of clock-cycles your game engine can run at (i.e. processing power required). Reducing the complexity of algorithms and refining them to be more efficient is always great, but this takes time, money and effort. Lots of it! I know because I have had to do it. I say this is flawed as I would rather my game programmers be making the next Unreal Engine or working on a more reaslitic shading algorithm than fucking around trying to make their game work on a 6 year old piece of plastic that you can pick up for less than $200. Its like seeing how many clowns you can fit in your clown car, when the maximum capacity is only 8.

Companies are simply in it for the money. This is fair enough, but horrible single-player storylines, dodgey gameplay mechanics and design choices for apparent AAA titles are unaccounted for in this day and age. The quality of games today suffers because of this game development perspective. Half-life for example was for its time above and beyond everything else in its field. Unreal Tournament and Quake 3? Still the best tournament shooters you can play competitively. You could even say the same for CS 1.6 if you are into the team-work, accuracy and realism based shooters as well. These games are all over 10 years old. I may be getting old, stuck in the 'good old days' but I still feel that gaming and PC gaming in particular is having its own shallow grave dug for it. It's potential is being ignored, its roots forgotten and its gamers either converting or simply losing interest.

"I guess they just don't make them like they used to. Fucking plastic pieces of shit"

Lolwut?

2009-09-19T20:49:00.000-07:00

Lul:
http://www.kotaku.com.au/2009/09/left-4-dead-2-banned-in-australia/

Yeah..... that. Sometimes I really don't understand the motives of our government and its associated ratings board. If you ask me, this latest act of stupidity is merely a publicity stunt to make the general public believe that the current system "cares for the children" and that they are doing a fantastic job at not allowing harmful content get into the wrong hands. You know, 'cause little kids go out and buy these sort of things all the time. The parents aren't responsible for what their children are getting in to, oh no! Let's put the blame on the actual content itself, and make the 95% of responsible, correct-aged non-mentally insane people suffer because our ridiculous rating system doesn't have an R18+ rating. Yeah, let's do that!

Seriously, here are the facts. Young kids playing violent video games is a bad idea, I'm sure you couldn't find many reasons to disagree with that. So is young kids watching porn, movies with harsh language, extreme violence and drug use. The difference between movies and games is that despite the obvious realism differences, movies generally get an R18+ rating if they are believed to contain large quantities of any of the previously mentioned themes. Games, at least in Australia, are not. Instead they are banned, or require modification of the content to reduce gore/swearing levels. There is virtually (virtually lol) any porn or any serious drug use in publicly consumed games to pick on, and despite the media's attempts to expose such non-existent undertakings (i.e. the Mass Effect rampage) games are still seen to be pretty docile when compared to the movies of our era. But, when a game is viewed to have equal depictions of any of the previous themes, well then that's a big problem.

Below: Left 4 Dead 2 Survivors

The average age of a gamer is somewhere around 30, at least in this country. That is pretty damn old! Now admittedly, gamers in this country make up for a rather small demographic. In fact I am quite sure that gaming in general is still viewed in that very critical, cynical light by most people who are not involved in it (and don't understand wtf they are talking about). Still, the fact of the matter is that most people who are serious players of games ARE mature individuals. They have the ability to watch movies with violent or adult content and more than likely have in the past. One more product out of the literal hundreds of thousands on the market is not going to make any difference to their mental condition, which is probably more sane and aware of reality than most others.

The game in question, Left 4 Dead 2, is barely any different from its original. That has often been an argument running over various forums and boards about people NOT wanting to buy the game because it doesn't offer anything significantly new. However, the original was let through just fine, and its original is alot like a vast number of other games currently on the market (Killing Floor, CoD5: Nazi Zombies etc...). It is also very similar to zombie movie franchise 28 X later. The rage virus acts almost identically to the rabies infection in the L4D universe, except for the mutated zombies of course. Sure, L4D2 offers some slightly more personal hand-to-hand combat ...... but these are ZOMBIES FFS!!!! They have been eating people for days! If you don't either avoid them or kill them, they WILL kill you. You are not playing Bob the Butcher and going around slaughtering helpless civilians. You are the helpless civilian trying to survive. How can they possibly come to the conclusion that the game's environment and theme is immoral and inhumane?

Finally, and we come back to our original point here, the game is not meant for children. That's it! I don't know why they can't see this, but the game is not supposed to be bought by people 17 and under. Now I have known (and was for my own age) some very mature adolescents who obviously wont take a game like this seriously. But as far as anti-discrimination laws are concerned, its just easier to label an entire group than pick out select individuals, so stuff it. This game and game's like this are not supposed to be played by young people. Banning them is equivalent to banning porn because adolescents 'could' get their hands on it. The rest of the community has to suffer because of this stupid, ridiculous point of view. Either introduce an R18+ rating, or lose the respect and patience of sensible, mature and annoyed gamers in Australia everywhere.

I leave you now with a famous quote for the parents, from the robot Bender from the cartoon series Futurama:

"And so I ask you this one question. Have you ever tried simply turning off the TV, sitting down with your children, and hitting them?"

Die one thousand deaths!!!

2009-07-16T03:43:00.000-07:00

Holy shit. It's been months since I made a post here. I guess I haven't really played too many games recently, or at least ones that I should talk about in detail. However, I guess over the many months where I havn't said anything, sufficient time has been permitted for at least some form of discussion about gaming occurrences to formulate.

I spose I could start with Call of Duty: World at War, a game I said I would discuss in my last post. To be quite honest with you, I really just thought this as yet another CoD game, except not as good as the Modern Warfare direction they were going with in their previous title. I dunno, I think WWII has been told far too many times, and yet another FPS from the perspective of an allied "hero" is ground that is so familiar it is almost boring. Admittedly, some of the battles are interesting, especially concerning those crazy Japanese bonzai/kamikazi warriors, but still, I have fired enough rounds from a virtual thompson machine gun over the years to feed a small family. You know... if I like sold the ammunition... somehow. Shutup.

You can shoot zombies though. Ah yes, I feel they definitely have taken a page from Valve in this department with implementing a zombie shooting mode. It's decent, and has definitely generated some enjoyable online moments with uni friends Jeremy and Phil. I do seem to lag a bit though, but that's not really a problem. I do think some attention is necessary concerning the difficulty scaling, particularly towards the end. Certain weapons become rather useless and most of the time you end up dying simply because you have run out of ammo. The latter is sort of ok, but the adjusting of the Nazi zombies HP over time (read: dramatically increased) sort of destroys the believability. It should not take 6 shotgun rounds to down a zombie when not 10 minutes ago his mate died to the intentional friendly fire spread as I was shooting Ace Rimmer in the face on purpose. Matches usually end off with all of us sitting in a room shooting at the general image of a doorway with rayguns for the lucky few who have them, which, while not unenjoyable, sort of hinders the significance of all your previous activity up to this point. I would like to be using a different weapon, simply put.

Below: CoD5 - Many zombies were harmed in the making of this movie

Speaking of zombies, Left 4 Dead's new survival mode is an absolute blast. Well, it's not really new anymore, but when it first came out, it was pretty much exactly what the game needed. Ah yes, some classic moments have occurred in the many hours (hours?) that I and three others have sat in various locales, weapons pointing towards entry points where zombies are spewing forth. The most successful team has been myself, Jeremy, Al and Dom on the barn house map, where we survived for our first legitimate 16mins.

Below: Left 4 Dead - Zombie Slam

Lately I have been playing around with custom campaigns, some of which are pretty good. In particular, Death Aboard and Dam It are particularly well done, almost at the production level of Valve's default campaigns. I personally think that this gaming franchise decision has got to be one of the best made of late concerning PC gaming as, although it is not 'fresh', it is executed well enough to maintain appeal for a long time. I avidly look forward to L4D2, and unlike many people QQing on forums and game sites, will happily fork out the dough for more zombie killing madness.

Below: Left 4 Dead - Zombie gangbangs are freaky things

Now I would talk about Killing Floor via Steam, but I have yet to play enough of it online/with friends to form a proper opinion. Maybe next time. Instead, I will bring up a game that was both good, but a bit disappointing, Dawn of War 2. Now I don't claim to be great at strategy games. In fact I am pretty sure I am merely mediocre. Strategy games to me have always seemed more about knowledge and tactics and less about actual raw skill. Admittedly there is some micro involved, particularly in some of the more skill-renowned strategy games (i.e. Starcraft). However, knowing how to rush siege tanks early on to this point at the map consuming only X amount of resources in Y time is not as generically skillful as say accuracy in FPS games. You cannot perform the same move in a different strategy game with different mechanics, whereas your accuracy is always the same no matter what FPS game you play.

Anyway getting back on topic, I did really well in Dawn of War 2. At least in my opinion. And that to me is usually an indication that the game is a little too easy and does not have much depth strategy wise. Taking a company of heroes-esque style of gameplay and slapping on the 40k universe, I found myself face-rolling over everything I encountered. In fact there was only one unit in the entire campaign that gave me any form of challenge, and although I could not kill him, he could not kill me either. It is sort of like playing Diablo 2 with a squad of dudes (who can destroy parts of the environment) as the gear and stat point distribution systems do obviously lend to a RPG feel. Now admittedly I have not had the chance to play this game online, mainly due to the terribad internet connections I have had over the last few months (aka patches). However, for some reason I don't see myself doing too badly. There is definitely strategies in the game to master, but unlike other strategy titles, they don't really require any incredible ingenuity or foresight. It's a simple game, a dumbed down action oriented version of its former. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but for me it was not quite what I was looking for.

But then again, nor was Street Fighter 4. I can't remember what exactly got me interested in buying the game. Maybe a lack of fighting games in recent years did it, or that Tekken 6 is taking so long to come out. In any case, I originally bought it for PS3, but since I have moved houses (i.e. no longer have access to one) I recently traded it in for the PC version. The difference? Nothing really, just now I can vs people online, and fuck me dead, some people are bloody good. I don't usually do too bad if I am in the right frame of mind, but the good thing about SFIV is that it is not really a game you can sucessfully 'spam'. Tekken in particular is a game that suffers from this, where moves are simple to pull off and can do ludicrous damage allowing a noob to simply mash a controller with their face and do reasonably well. Yes, the many times I have fought against people doing this and lost is.... well only a few times, but it is something that should not be allowed in games of this caliber. The last time I actually did face off against someone in Tekken 5 who wasn't a button masher was with one of Jordan's friend, and the results were really quite entertaining (i.e. ridiculously close every time). Nevertheless, button mashers seem to be punished severely by SFIV as the difference between light, medium and hard attacks vary both the damage and global cool down between moves. For instance, if I was to perform a heavy attack which does high damage, and you were quick enough to block it, then you would then have a significant opportunity to do damage to me. A light attack however would not, but nor would it do much damage should it connect. It has a high risk vs reward game play element that I think works incredibly well towards balancing the game.

Below: SFIV - Attack of the leg monster!

Which then brings one to the always controversial topic of WoW. I actually don't really know what to say in this regard as things are pretty much the same. I raid, do heroics, pvp, get annoyed, stop for a few days and then am back in a few more. I guess one thing that has occurred of significance is that I have finally managed to convince myself to stick around to killing Kel'Thuzad in Naxxramas 25, something which was significantly easier than I was led to believe. It is incredible however to see just how much people's egos (including my own) affect their behavior when playing this game. No one thinks they are doing the wrong thing when they are, everyone is convinced their spec is the best and anyone else's is stupid, your dps is only higher than mine because your gear is better (and if it isn't then I keep my mouth shut), watch the tank healers because... you know... you weren't doing that originally anyway, etc. Sometimes I think WoW brings out the worst in some people. I guess I am beginning to see the game from a casual's point of view, that so called 'hardcore' players are really just glorified stat whores who get a kick out of high numbers and purple decorations. Again, one's ego can be a terrible thing...

Below: WoW - Kel'Thuzad's throne

Bah that will do. This is taking far too long. I will talk about my Honours/Thesis in a future post.

Thing with the thing

2009-02-19T22:47:00.000-08:00

Well it's been ahwhile since I posted anything here. Over two months in fact. Bah, sif not.

I have recently become interested in some of the more casual PvE elements of WotLK, considering PvP and arena are (arguably) rather fail at the moment. Although I do enjoy Wintergrasp and the occasional battleground, Rogues can get really frustrating after awhile. Especially the ones that intentionally target/hunt you down for the entire match (easymode pvp). While most people seem to be complaining about the new arch nemesi, the Death Knight, I don't really consider them to be a problem for warlocks seeing as how they counter.... well pretty much everyone who isn't a DK or Ret Pally anyway. No, I think Rogues are enough for me to be annoyed about in PvP for any given time (past or future). Maybe Arcane mages to a lesser extent. Not being able to do anything while getting killed results in the same disgust and irritation as fighting someone who is effectively pressing 2-3 buttons the entire time.

Below: WoW - Wintergrasp

What was I saying.... oh yeah PvE. I have never really been that interested in PvE, mainly due to my impatience and annoyance at lazy/incompetent players. WoW is an easy game, but if I am dotting and wanding and still pulling agro off the tank then there is a problem. Yes, there is always the argument as to why I don't join a guild and/or find good players to roll with but the fact is I don't care about the game enough (or my characters) to warrant the time sink that such an action will do. Also, I don't like being obligated or like not doing what I want to be doing (....?) .
In any case, I have found myself doing so many heroic dungeons as of yet that I have lost count altogether. 165 badges worth, if you can measure it like that. Friend of mine has also achieved lvl 80 DK status and tanked a H Nexus run (reasonably well, I might add). Naxxramas and Sarth shall be next, and who knows after that? I might even ACTUALLY quit this glorious abomination of a game and do something useful instead.

Below: WoW - Suicide is your only option

But enough of the usual WoW ranting (seriously, the game is designed for ranting imo). FEAR 2. Bought, played it, finished it. Had a couple of weird nightmares about it too. Yes, I found FEAR 2 to be genuinely disturbing. But in a weird, good sort of a way. Having finished the original just before playing the sequel (turret level pissed me off), it was interesting to see how much the franchise had advanced both graphically, narratively and ... scareatively (?). I was expecting the same elevator/ladder/crawling out of the shadows techniques of making you jump which I am generally immune to. However what I got was a much more in your face, haunting process as Alma chooses you to torment (with good reason though). The ending was almost exactly what I thought it should be like and was rather shocked when it came true. The bullet-time slomo action ability did make the game rather easy however, finishing it on Hard the first time through dying about 3 times (via enemy soldiers). I would recommend the game to anyone who is a fan of FPS action, suspense/horror games (not survival horror), traumatic movies (some respectable scenes) or anyone just looking for a decent shooter.

Below: FEAR 2 - Not a violent game, by any standards

My Quake Live beta invite also came through. Free game, web-client based. I'm sure I've mentioned it before. Anyways, after a frustrating wait with this connection I managed to download and play my ranking match against a well tuned AI opponent who is designed to kick-start your stats and give you a tier/ranking. I came out with 15 frags and 0 deaths with 35% accuracy and a 5min-something game time. I have no idea where that puts me, but I can't actually check as the next stage actually requires you to download the full Quake Live client which is impossible for me at this point. Nevertheless, I reckon I will probably be giving this a good go when net here is restored to normal.

Anyway, time to get ready for uni. Doing honours and possibly tutoring this year. My supervisor for both is awesome, so it should be good fun. Recently bought Dawn of War II and will possibly try out Call of Duty: World at War in the next coming weeks. Until then.