Eternity and a day

Well it's been a long while since I posted on here, I won't bore you with the details but to cut a long story short I have been earning money and learning a trade. That's good, right? Self improvement and all that? Yeah big surprise, I still play videogames. I thought I would write something about an indie game that I recently picked up and do my part to help out the little guys. Because you know, all the big industry names will be reading this. Anyway, here are some words about a little title called Castleminer Z.


 A couple of friends of mine recently directed my attention to an indie game for the XBox 360 by the name of Castleminer Z. I have no doubt they stumbled across this title whilst scrolling through all the hilariously named indie games that pop up on a weekly basis. With gems such as "Miner Dig Deep" and "Cherry Poke Prison" it is good for a laugh, if nothing else. But as it turns out, this one was actually worth paying attention to. Castleminer is cut from the Minecraft school of "block em' up" gameplay, where the focus is hitting cubes with a pickaxe so that you may place said cubes atop other cubes and live among the cubes and mate with their cube women. Alright, I may have been projecting my dreams of a cuboid wife, but the rest is fairly accurate. I have one major issue with these games. What happens when the creative juices stop flowing? You have grown out of the Lego phase and the blocks are left littering the floor like an ocean of tiny painful landmines. However, Castleminer offers something more and for this reason it is worth the price tag of 80 Microsoft points (which in real person money is between 50p and £).

 Yes that's right mining fans, this is where the "Z" part of Castleminer Z comes in. And if you hadn't guessed it already, Z refers to zombies. I know,a mind-blowing revelation. If your interest leans more towards the building aspect of this title this game may not be for you. If this applies to you then firstly I think you should actually have a career in the architectural business making something tangible and not spending hours building virtual structures brick by brick, and secondly you may find Castleminer's building aspect rather lacking. The blocks are less dynamic than let's say Minecraft for example, and you have less choice in building material. That being said, the combat- heavy focus blends very well with the building and mining elements to create a rather unique gaming experience. Fancy recreating the great wall of China and gunning down an endless undead horde with AK47s from the ramparts? Why the hell not, it's Castleminer Z! Basically you have a choice between survival and endurance modes. Survival is your basic do what you feel like mode- build a castle out of mud, pretend you are in Chile and seal your friends in a mine for several months, that sort of thing. Endurance on the other hand is a whole different kettle of sharks. The aim is to get as far away from the starting area as physically possible- all the while fighting off leagues of angry zombies. Endurance mode is really where the game comes into it's own.

 Succeeding in endurance mode isn't as simple as walking from one side of the world to the other. Did you learn nothing from The Lord Of The Rings? As you progress, you will traverse new biomes and consequently encounter new terrain variations and obstacles. Unfortunately you will have no time to take in the scenery due to the massive increase in enemies- the further you travel, the more they will spawn. And these aren't shuffling Romero comedy zombies- these are the running, jumping tear your brains out through your colon breed. If that wasn't bad enough a dragon will attempt to melt you into a quivering puddle of blood and urine every time you enter a new area. If you haven't picked up on the theme, basically this mode is incredibly difficult and not for the faint of hearted. Your journey will be beset by woe and misery, 90% of the expedition will be made underground, and you will learn to shun the sunlight like a subterranean mole man. Even death is unforgiving, if you are making the trip alone, you will respawn back at block zero upon death's embrace. If you are with a friend you may spawn on them, of course if they are knee-deep in zombie sinew this isn't exactly a blessing. There is no end to endurance mode as far as I am aware, essentially the world is infinitely generated, however there is a set goal; if you manage the impossible and reach block 4000 by surviving hell on earth and defeat the undead dragon, you will be rewarded with dragon endurance- a new game mode. I would prefer a medal and enough hard cash to secure an early retirement, but at least it's something. My top tip is to make a decent assault rife out of bloodstones and diamonds (yes, that's entirely possible) and bring enough ammunition to topple parliament thrice over, then build an immense bridge into the horizon.

 Now of course being an indie title there are a few issues that you will have to overlook. The graphics are not what you would call groundbreaking by any means, but with that in mind I would say the textures aren't half bad considering the notable handicap of lacking significant developer funding. My main qualm lies with the weaponry available in the game. The sights appear to have been aligned by a drunk pirate. They are not exactly accurate to where you are aiming and as a result if you are aiming for a headshot, well you aren't, simply put. And for some reason bullets seem to arc significantly, if you are aiming at a target at range your best bet is to aim about 10 ft above and make like William Tell. Honestly though I should shut up and stop complaining as this is probably the most fun you can have for 50p since they removed the solvent from glue sticks.

On patchy patches

  So its been a while since I have posted anything here. There are reasons for this, the first of which being the untimely demise of my laptop. Farewell, old friend. May you enjoy your twilight years as an expensive paperweight. The second being the start of a new job, and subsequent search for a better job with actual hours and actual pay. I know in a recent post (well, I use the term recent loosely) I claimed I would be writing more frequently. I know, I lied. Unlike you dear reader, I am not perfect. But for now, I have been reminded of the existence of desktops, so lets get down to business.

      My time away gave me time to sit down and play some games. First off I am going to talk about Battlefield 3, I have rekindled my love affair with this game and it has really been eating up the hours. Since I last spoke about this title, Dice released a patch that addressed some of the game breaking issues. For example, people can no longer ride recon drones up buildings to snipe you from space. The USAS12 automatic shotgun is now slightly less of a hatred-spitting bile cannon, now you can actually survive at least 30% of encounters with this weapon. The FAMAS also received the same treatment and now spews lead at a slightly reduced rate, now it kills you in 0.5 seconds instead of 0.01. Joy of joys. Basically Dice caringly tweaked every single weapon to feel and act in a unique way, making them more akin to their real life counterparts and of course in some instances simply for balancing issues. Before I move on I will briefly mention one of the new glitches that has spawned from this patch, which of course is being exploited by every Tom Dick and Harry before Dice can address it. For reasons unknown, the under slung shotgun attachment when used with the G3A3 is bugged when combined with dart ammunition. Basically instead of firing darts, the shotgun fires G3A3 rounds. And naturally a shotgun blast of high velocity 7.62 rounds is insanely brutal- not to mention a violation of the Geneva convention- and will one hit kill anything in its way, even maintaining this lethality at longer ranges. Needles to say, this has become the new USAS12 for all the creme de la creme of the Battlefield 3 community.

       Anyway whorish glitches aside, with this patch Dice and EA also implemented a rent-a-server system. This allows any player to pay for their own server for varying durations, ranging from 24 hours to an entire week. Anyone can join these servers, however they will be cast under the watchful eye of the server owner and the scrutiny of his private army of admins. Personally I did not think this feature would take as the most significant servers will cost you an arm and a leg. But as it stands the default Dice-EA servers have been lost in a deluge of crudely named player-owned servers, including gems such as "The hunt for Saddam" and "peeing blood is fun." Now, the majority of these servers impose rules that I can respect and agree with. The most common of which being no spawn killing and no using shotguns.Violation of these rules will usually result in removal from the server, and in some cases even a ban. Sounds perfect, in practise. However, as the admins of these servers have the power to do this at any time I cant help but feel the system has become somewhat exploited. I have lost count of how many times I have been kicked from a server simply for killing the admin. Now you can tell a bad loser without even needing a headset. I have also noticed this seems to happen most frequently in German servers, leading me to rather unfairly assume that the angry German kid is the picture of a typical German gamer. It's fine, I will just keep playing Battlefield until I am banned from every server, and I still wont mention the war. It has just occurred to me that I have prattled on about Battlefield 3 for longer than originally intended, so I will save my Minecraft rant for next time. Stay tuned for that and more. Peace.

Top 5 stupid ways to die

Following my last post I have been inspired to throw down a list of my top 5 stupid ways to die in games. And believe me I know a thing or two about dying in stupid ways- this is like the Darwin awards of gaming. So saddle up and get ready to meet your maker prematurely, here is my top 5 stupid ways to die

5. Halo Reach- reflective civilians

Bungie introduced an interesting technique to prevent players from murdering civilians in Halo Reach. My only guess is that the citizens of Reach were influenced by Adam West's Family Guy persona and installed tiny bullet sized shields within their bodies, because every time I shoot a civilian on the Exodus mission my gun backfires and I instantly die. Then I become the laughing stock of everyone. I know I shouldn't be shooting civilians and I understand why Bungie have done this, but 100% of these incidents have been accidental. Crossfire mainly. Being a city, the damn place is swarming with civilians, often being held aloft by the very enemies you are trying to save them from. So in the chaos of a firefight and with the input lag present in co op, it can be very easy to shoot a civilian by mistake. I think death is a harsh punishment for such an incident, especially when you are attempting a perfect run. I would settle for -1000 points or a health penalty, but instant death? Come on...

4. Uncontrollably falling down

(Kudos if you get the reference.)This relates to any game in which you have a health scale that counts backwards from 100 until you die at 0 health. Logically. In these games, damage is dealt by attrition. Numbering your health is a good means of gauging how much fire you can handle, or how much damage your weapon will do to enemies. However there is a massive lack of foresight present in such games when fall damage is thrown into the mix. I have lost track of how many times I have had my organs turned to paste from sustained gunfire and escaped a battle with such dire health that my head is probably held on by a thread. And then during my escape I hop a garden fence or jump off a 1st story roof, and then a fall that might at worst sprain your ankle in real life turns out to be fatal simply because it deals 5 fall damage out of the 4 health I have remaining. After surviving 13 bullets to the legs, a 7ft drop really shouldn't kill you. If this were true 50 Cent would have a terrible phobia of curbs.

3. Haze stupid fucking church death

See my previous entry for the full version of events. Basically I was crushed by a church bell tower which falls down in a scripted event, only with very little warning. So if you happen to be stood in the exact area it falls purely by coincidence, you can kiss your sweet ass goodbye. This area happens to be behind the LMG that you need to be using during this section, so its probably happened to a few people. My main concern is that I was killed by mankind's pointless obsession with building huge obnoxious monuments to religious figures. If that heli had crashed into a KFC I would not have had this problem.

2. CoD super knife

The melee mechanic introduced into CoD titles in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (as far as I am aware) almost takes the number one spot for stupid game deaths. Every time I am killed by a knife in a game of CoD, I die a little inside. Basically, knifing in CoD is as simple as clicking a button. There is very little break in the action- your character produces a knife out of nowhere in a slashing motion and then it disappears back into whichever orifice you released it from. To top it off, it kills enemies instantly. My main qualm with this is the massive lack of balancing or general logic involved. In the same game, you can shoot someone with a .50 caliber anti-material rifle and they will survive. Sure you might live through something like that in real life, but you would not live well. That thing would punch a hole the size of a bowling ball in whatever it hits, so the fact you can shrug off a .50 cal to the torso yet die from a knife grazing your elbow just blows my mind. Unless it causes your internal organs to eject out of any opening I cant make sense out of it.

1. Battlefield 3 non deaths

Now you can die in some pretty stupid ways in Battlefield. There must be literally hundreds of ways to die, even once you get past the obvious getting shot, blown up by a tank, ran over by an APC, etc etc. You can get crushed by falling buildings, have mortars dropped on your head, get shot from a sniper so far away you cant even see them, hell you can even be road-killed by an MAV- which is basically an expensive remote controlled mini helicopter which has the combined mass of a dinner plate. But the worst deaths are the deaths that happen seemingly for no reason- anything that leads to the prompt "suicide" or "bad luck." Again there are many ways in which this can happen, each more moronic than the last. A personal favorite is the exploding car. If you are near a car that explodes, it will kill you. Always .Now this means a teammate can trigger a car to explode and teamkill you just because he can. In game modes where friendly fire isn't active it always fills me with joy when a teammate finds a way to blow me up. Similarly, friendlies can bail out of a moving jeep and because the jeep is now considered idle and not friendly, it can still run you over. But these are not the worst of the bunch, oh no. I have had instances where I have just been taking a leisurely stroll down the road and I have dropped dead for no reason, only to see "bad luck." Like a distant explosion gave my character a severe heart attack, or he just died of a sudden brain aneurysm. Taking realism to the next level perhaps? No, I think that is more "bad coding" than "bad luck." Even still there are plenty of other ways to randomly die in Battlefield, such as mantling a 3ft wall and dying from a drop as short as your leg, or jumping off a low balcony only to get caught in an infinite loop of plummeting thus lengthening the fall distance to lethal proportions, or even random explosions seemingly caused simply because you exist. Its no wonder BF3 has snagged the no.1 spot for me.

On the subject of stupid deaths, here's one I made earlier. This time the stupidity was on my behalf. Enjoy.

Out with the old, in with the new

   I am going to take some time out to write about a few old titles I recently played for the first time. Yesterday, my friend brought around a few older Playstation 3 exclusives which we decided to play of both curiosity and response to hype. The first of which was Resistance, the original Resistance that is. Now I didn't realise at first just how old this game was, but noticeably it hasn't aged well, so that was the first clue. Immediately it reminded me of Call of Duty 2, both graphically and in the way the controls were handled. To be fair I think the two titles must have been released around a similar time. However I had heard comparisons between Resistance and Halo, claims that Resistance was Halo for the PS3. So I decided to persist with the graphical issue for a short while. Now I'm not sure whether this is simply down to nostalgia for me, but in my eyes Halo is just leagues ahead. In design, gameplay, Halo even seems to have aged better and it was a title from the original Xbox. My main issue with Resistance was the AI- the enemies are eager to just stand still in the open and fire wildly in your direction. And when you have an assault rifle that can track marked targets, it quickly became a turkey shoot. The gameplay reminded me of Unreal Tournament- though to be fair any game where you can run and gun and still be as accurate as using controlled aimed fire will remind me of Unreal Tournament. Considering the game seems to be going for a serious tone, this was not a good thing. After 3 missions of shooting the same enemies in the same way we decided to call it a day. Maybe I should give the game a chance to improve, or perhaps play the sequels and see how they went down. 

     The second game in question was Haze, which I was looking forward to playing because of the mixed reviews it had received. Also being a more recent title I had less concerns about eye strain. From the offset, Haze struck me as loud and obnoxious. You play as a guy in a bright yellow suit surrounded by other annoying macho idiots also in bright yellow suits. Now these guys aren't winning any awards for their fashion sense, but that's not the first issue that sprung to mind. Wearing florescent armor and shouting at the top of your lungs is a great way of asking for a bullet in the face. Sure enough, you stand out like a day time drunk- which as far as the single player goes is not a real issue as the AI is basically psychic anyway, but I could see it being a problem in multiplayer as the other team takes the roll of the rebels who are actually freaking hard to see in the jungle. This made the first mission interesting, I liked how half the time you couldn't see who was shooting at you. Just like Nam, maaaan. You weren't there. Quickly things progressed beyond the interesting jungle environment however, and predictably it wasn't long before we were exploring drab gray industrial areas. Que tedious monotony.

      Basically, it turns out you and your entire squad are pumped up on some kind of super drug. Its like steroids, crack and PCP all rolled into one. Injecting yourself with this drug enhances your reactions, your pain threshold and ability to perceive danger. But take too much and you go crazy and start shooting everything- walls, raccoons, teammates, nothing escapes your drug fueled rage. Also judging by your buddies, it turns you into an unbelievably insufferable prick. The first half of the game I was just waiting for the opportunity to shoot my goddamn teammates in the back of the face. Fortunately the plot twist allows you to silence these morons once and for all. The drug injection is quite interesting as a game mechanic but I don't think its enough to redeem the game entirely. Everything just seems somehow unfinished. Haze strikes me as the type of game that could benefit from a sprint feature- often you find yourself in wide open areas with sporadic cover, and as soon as you start taking fire you are dead in the water. It would be nice to be able to double time it to the conveniently placed waist high cover but instead you will have to make do with flailing your extremities and sponging 500 bullets in a bloody frenzy. It just doesn't feel right being all drugged up and not being able to run around like a maniac.  Remember kids, stay in school.

In Haze, your main weapons are not satisfying enough. Well, in my opinion. The assault rifles are rather bland and lacking features, plus the holo sights are useless as they have no reticule. My response to this issue saw me using the handgun for the entire game, and sniper rifles whenever I could find them. Being that the damn pistol is a hand-cannon that could link to a zoom function in your visor, I saw little use for anything else. And considering my friend was running around trying to take everyone on with throwing knives, between us we ran into some issues when it came to grouped enemies. I have a gripe with the scripted events in Haze as in one instance this led to arguably the most ridiculous death in gaming history, its gotta be in my top five at least. Basically after clearing a town square of enemies, we were tasked with taking down an enemy dropship. After firing off roughly 200 rounds at the damn thing with a fixed LMG, the pilot had the clever idea to fly above me and hover around in my blind spot. My buddy loosed off three rockets into the dropship, but this wasn't enough to bring it down. So I bring out my handgun and let out two rounds into the cockpit- now I don't know if the game even registers the cockpit as a weak point or if it was just a case of dealing attrition damage, but this was enough to bring the dropship crashing down. My celebrations were short lived as the wreckage collides with a church and the bell tower collapses directly on top of me. I was glad we were playing co op because if I had to re play a particularly frustrating section just because I stood in the exact area that a building collapses during a scripted event through sheer dumb luck,  I would be pissed. Suffice to say that was the final nail in the coffin, Haze is probably a game best enjoyed in the same state of intoxication as your character. Otherwise its just one big yellow headache. 

    Now from old titles to a relatively new release, and a game I have not even played. Following a recommendation from an online contact, I have been looking at an intriguing PS3 title called Journey. Now I know what you are thinking and no it has nothing to do with the band. Well, to the best of my knowledge. Either way, this game looks amazing. It is visually breathtaking, and a completely unique concept. This game looks so abstract that I am struggling to find anything to compare it to, its like Wind Waker and Prince of Persia had a love child... through immaculate conception. And it was baptized in melted chocolate and gold. I know you are probably confused. Watch this quick IGN review and all shall become clear. I will definitely be picking up this title, so stay tuned.

Swings and roundabouts

     So recently I lost my super awesome too-good-to-be-true well paying job, and just for the record it was through no fault of my own. There were no fires or deaths by gross misconduct... this time, just good old fashioned bad luck. Ah, my old friend. I have since discovered I might be slightly resentful towards this development. But I suppose its not all bad. On the plus side I will have more time to spill my brains on here, which is  preferable to spilling my brains on some motel bathroom floor because life throws me a curve ball once in a while. Morbid comparisons aside, the point of this entry is to inform you that I shall be updating my blog more frequently and trying to push things forwards in the writing department, so stay tuned. Everything is okedoke A-OK, whatever that means, and hopefully as history shows frustration shall fuel creativity. Get ready for masterpieces and ear removal. On a lighter and even more unrelated note, I am currently eating shortbread with a braille package and it tastes like whiskey. I am not sure blind people know what they are getting themselves in to here. I think the joke is on me, maybe the braille reads "not suitable for human consumption." If like me you were feeling frustrated today, remember things could be worse. Damn cheese...

30 day video game challenge day 16

    When it comes down to the best videogame cutscenes I find myself scratching my head and thumbing through my memory banks to see if there is any one game that stands out from the crowd. With modern releases, lengthy high budget cutscenes are becoming a common feature. Some titles have even become renowned from their cutscenes alone, such as the later Final Fantasy games and Metal Gear Solid ventures. Now I have not played these titles myself, but from looking on Youtube I can tell they literally have hours of cutscenes filling in narrative and back-story. For me this does not make a good cutscene, it needs to segue in effectively with the game experience. Massive chunky cinematics would break up the gameplay to much for me. If I wanted to watch a film of Final Fantasy, I would go watch Advent Children, and for Metal Gear Solid I would much rather watch Escape From New York and enjoy some Kurt Russell awesomeness. Halo Wars attempted to tackle cutscenes in a similar manor, and while it was cool to see some of the designs and characters from the Halo universe in incredible CGI, I felt that they were massively lacking in substance. The whole scenario felt too much like a Hollywood blockbuster- all action and no grit. Sargent Forge acts like a ass the whole way through and at the grand finale rather than feeling a sense of loss and respect for his ultimate act of sacrifice, I found myself rooting for the giant all consuming implosion. Go go billion degree heat- take that Forge you childish asshat. 

                 I think my personal favorite game for cutscenes would have to be Fable. Nothing special really, they were basically used to showcase some of Fables awesome artwork using a combination of a fresco montage and gripping narration by Zoe Wanamaker. In addition to looking amazing and stylistic, they accomplished what any good cutscene should by tying the story together in a neat and presentable fashion. Simple but effective. Cutscenes these days like to distract the gamer with some bright colors and noisy explosions whilst their character does something awesome. But its easy to forget that it is not in fact you doing something awesome, so what is really the point? That may sound self indulgent, but show me a game where you do not control the main character and I will show you a gaming anomaly. Anyhow, I could totally do a back-flip over a car and shoot the driver in the top of the head whilst on fire, I don't need a scripted scene showcasing someone who isn't me hogging the spotlight. Hollywood cheesiness should be left to high budget brain dead blockbusters, game cutscenes should be all about substance and immersion. You gotta feel it or else the gaming experience is considerably diminished, in my opinion.

30 day video game challenge day 15

      Day 15 asks for screenshots from a game I am currently playing. Now I have been taking some stills of my Battlefield 3 experiences- but being that the game has no replay or screenshot system to speak of and I do not own a capture card, I have been using my iPhone to take crude makeshift pictures. This is extremely problematic in the middle of combat as Battlefield is so fast paced that standing still for .5 seconds will always result in a healthy dose of bullet to the face or shrapnel to the spleen, and using one hand isn't really an option. So with that in mind, the majority of my screenshots to date have been post game scoreboards after particularly eventful matches. I could take the easy way out and pull some quality screenshots off the web, but I prefer the personal touch. Even if all my screenshots are blurry glare-fests. I shall keep this updated as I get some more exciting images, but for now here's some numbers.

42 kills 2 deaths whilst extremely hung over on a map I hate. I love Battlefield.

Myself and some buddies dominating the ace squad spot

Pretend that glare is an explosion and you have a good impression of the chaos of Battlefield

The game may have frozen during this strafing run. But it sure looked cool

If in doubt, snipe some fools.