Tag Archives: FPS

Games

Research & Development – The Mod

Leave a comment

hl2 2009-08-02 21-35-40-18_reduced

I’ve been playing an awful lot of strategy games these days, so getting through Research & Development over the weekend made for a nice change of pace. It’s a mod that requires Half-Life 2: Episode 2 and it’s been winning praises all over the net. It can be downloaded for free from ModDb. The main focus of the mod is on puzzles. There are action sequences as well with plenty of enemies out to kill you, but the player never gets an actual weapon. Instead, with the help of the trusty Half-Life 2 gravity gun, you’re supposed to use your wits to figure how to defeat your enemies and get to the next area.

The most fervent of the mod’s admirers have compared it to Portal, but I wouldn’t go quite that far. For the most part, the puzzles are cool without being really clever and are difficult enough to be satisfying to solve without being too frustrating. The hardest part is probably figuring where to go next, as opposed to what to do, as sometimes the only exit from an area is a tiny crawlspace. The lack of any narrative hurts it too. At least Portal cleverly put its puzzles within the context of a scientific experiment that’s supposed to be filled with puzzles.

All in all, a mod that’s well worth downloading and checking out, especially if you liked the puzzley elements of the Half-Life 2 games. Personally, I liked the action elements more than the puzzley ones, so I’m somewhat lukewarm on this mod. Not bad for a relatively short game, but I wouldn’t want to devote the time for a full length version. It certainly is a very impressive effort for just a one-man team. Just be sure to play in short bursts or your brain might hurt.

hl2 2009-07-31 22-53-55-70_reduced

Games

Far Cry 2 Tips

4 Comments

screenshot0018_reduced

I haven’t spent enough actual time in Far Cry 2 to call myself any kind of expert on it. Still, from my one play through of the game and miscellaneous advice I’ve gleaned from various forums, here are some tips that someone playing for the first time might find useful:

  • Buying a weapon provides an infinite supply of that weapon from any armoury. Also inside the armoury and each safe house are storage cases for each of the three weapons slots. Whatever weapon you put into a storage case will stay there regardless of where you access the case from. This allows you to arm yourself with a particular weapon while travelling to a mission location and then switch to another weapon at a nearby safe house once you get close to actually do the mission. You do have to purchase the cases as separate upgrades before you can use them.
  • Buying the vehicle upgrades increases the damage it can take while you’re driving it and greatly reduces the time it takes to repair it.
  • Stealth is a completely viable option, especially once you’ve purchased the camouflage suit upgrade. Do note that contrary to what you might expect, sneaking up to an enemy from behind and killing him with the machete is not stealthy because he will invariably cry out before he dies. You need to use a silenced weapon to headshot the enemy for him to die silently. Also note that if you leave the body when other enemies can see it, they will raise the alarm, ruining the stealth option.

Continue reading Far Cry 2 Tips →

Games

A Game: Far Cry 2

4 Comments

screenshot0019_reduced

Out of all the things that have been said of Far Cry 2, one single line by Kieron Gillen resonates most with me: this is one awfully brave game. Consider, for example, that you likely spend more time driving around dirt paths than shooting at enemies. Or that in a game that is supposed to present you with a realistic recreation of Africa, the only people who populate it are invariably and implacably hostile to you. Or that instead of drawing inspiration from Hollywood action movies like so many shooters do, the source material here is Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.

All this is brave because Far Cry 2 is unashamedly and undoubtedly a shooter. Given the goals it tries to accomplish and the design elements it tries to incorporate, one would think that it would make more sense for it to be a role-playing game or an action adventure game. But it’s not only a shooter but a first-person shooter with all of the conventions and controls of the genre. You move around with the familiar WASD, right-clicking zooms in on an enemy, use number keys to select weapons and generally try to kill everyone in sight. There is no Gears of Wars style cover system. If you want to take cover from enemy fire, you manually move to put an object between you and the enemy just as you did back in Doom.

Continue reading A Game: Far Cry 2 →

Games

The Dark Heart of Africa

1 Comment

screenshot0001_reduced

I’ve been looking to play something a little more actioney and a little less cerebral after finishing Space Rangers 2 earlier this month. Ideally, I’d be playing either Grand Theft Auto IV or Saint’s Row 2 right about now, but the PC ports of both of these games turned out to be nothing short of awful. I’ll probably break down and get one or both one of these days anyway, but not right now. Far Cry 2 wasn’t a game that was originally on my must-buy radar at all, but it generated some very interesting and conflicted discussion on QT3 and Tom Chick named it as his best game of 2008, so that’s how I found myself in the dark heart of Africa.

My first impressions of the game after its version of the introductory tram ride: man, is this game hard or am I just getting old? As per standard procedure when playing any type of shooter, I’d turned the difficulty level up one notch from normal. This is a habit I’d developed as shooters have become more and more mainstream and consequently easier. But at hardcore difficulty Far Cry 2 was kicking my ass without breaking a sweat. I’d be minding my own business in the jungle, come under fire and end up dying in short order while I’m running around like a headless chicken trying to see where the hell the bullets are coming from. I’m not ashamed to say that I quickly dropped back to normal difficulty. Things are much more manageable now, but still challenging enough that  get killed regularly if I’m just a little too reckless.

Other than being difficult, the game is also incredibly immersive. I’d followed the prevailing advice on QT3 and turned off music in the game to enhance the effects. I’ve actually been in Africa before, and I agree that this game nails it. Claustrophobic jungle trails that force you to rely on audio cues to know if any enemies are nearby. The overwhelming hugeness and openness of the savannah, so vast that it seems land and sky are joined and the world is a bubble around you. The graphics are quite Crysis level quality, but the fantastic environmental effects, day-night cycles and far greater variety in landscapes more than make up for that. So far, it also seems like it’s going to be quite a bit longer than Crysis or most shooters, so it’s looks like I’m going to be stuck in Africa for a while.

screenshot0004_reduced

Games

Fallout 3 Final Thoughts

2 Comments

Considering the number of posts I’ve written about Fallout 3 already, an official “review” of it wouldn’t be appropriate, so I thought I write a summation of my final thoughts about this game. First up, this is easily the most controversial game of 2008, at least within the gaming community itself. On the one hand, the game has been an undeniable success, selling faster than Bethesda’s previous hit Oblivion and selling more than all of the previous Fallout titles combined. Its review scores are uniformly high across the board, with the PC version in particular being widely recognized as the best across all platforms. This last part is especially impressive given how badly the PC ports of games like Grand Theft Auto IV and Saint’s Row 2 have since turned out.

On the other hand, ever since it was first announced, this game has spawned a small but extremely vocal gang of detractors. Explaining the full history behind all this animosity would take far too long, but the short version is that they call themselves diehard fans of the original Fallout games and are disgusted that Bethesda bought the rights to make this game when, according to their sense of justice, it should have been made by the group behind the original titles. It’s not like there’s no substance to their arguments, but the sheer spittle-spewing vitriol of their attacks makes them look bad, and not unlike what you may find posted on sites like Free Republic and Hillary is 44 on Barack Obama’s inauguration day.

Continue reading Fallout 3 Final Thoughts →

Games

Surviving the Wasteland

3 Comments

I’ve been wandering around the Capital Wasteland for what feels like ages now, but when I look at the map, it’s obvious that there’s still a lot of unexplored territory left. I’m kind of beginning to feel burnt out on the game though and I think I know why: I feel too powerful. There’s literally nothing that I fear out there anymore. A Vertibird dropping an Enclave patrol? A pack of deathclaws? Sentry robots? Bring them on. Between my pack full of explosives, thousands of rounds of ammunition for my unique plasma rifle, an endless supply of stimpacks to keep me healed up and my companion helping out, it’s only a matter of seconds before all my enemies bite the dust.

It’s not just a question of turning the combat difficulty up a notch either. All that does is increase the health and the damage of your enemies. That kills immersiveness because it’s just silly to see an unprotected human head take so many direct hits without turning into a bloody pulp. No, the real problem is that I’m too rich and have too much stuff now, so the Wasteland no longer feels like a forbidding, fearsome place to me. Where once simply stepping out beyond the relative safety of the walls of Megaton felt like an adventure and spotting the bald green head of a Super Mutant was enough to give me pause and think about my approach, I no longer take any care at all travelling. I’m perfectly happy to barrel straight towards my destination knowing that whatever is in my path can’t possibly be any significant threat to me.

Continue reading Surviving the Wasteland →

Games

Fighting in the Wasteland

1 Comment

After playing through a good bit more of Fallout 3, I thought I’d make a series of posts to note some of my observations about the different aspects of the game. This one will focus on the combat. As expected, this works very differently depending on how much you choose to rely on the VATS system. VATS is really a variation of the bullet-time ability introduced in Max Payne except that it pauses everything while you decide what to do and allows you to target specific body parts. While paused, you decide what actions you’re going to perform using your allotment of Action Points, with different weapons costing a different amount of APs to fire. Once you’ve made your decisions, your actions are played out in a slow-motion cinematic which can be cool to watch the first several times.

Continue reading Fighting in the Wasteland →