You were killed by an Asian

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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 ...

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

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

-_-