Well, I had planned on doing a pretty extensive write-up about my thoughts on the integrity of some of the game media websites as of late, but for now I'm going to put this off. I am working very exclusively on my entry for the YoYo Games Winter Competition, trying to get everything finished for the December 23 deadline. It's been quite hectic, and I'll be glad when I can finally use my spare time to relax again!
That said, the game is coming along well. It's not quite as big as I had hoped it might be in the beginning, but procrastination and other obligations have kept me from making it something huge for the sake of the competition. Depending on how well the game is received, I might just give it the Reflect treatment after all the dust has settled. And despite the frantic development schedule, it's definitely been fun so far - I will be glad to have participated in the first YYG contest, regardless of the outcome (providing I finish, of course). At the very least, it's been fun carving out a game in a genre I haven't yet explored very much.
I'm finally ready to spill the beans on what exactly the game is though, so here goes! The name of the game is Sun Sun Der, and though it's a pretty standard kind of "shmup," I've been using the game Imperishable Night (a "bullet hell" style game) and some friendly advice from Cactus to mold the idea into something (hopefully) more memorable.
Not to overdo anything, I've kept the story for the game relatively simple, to reflect the relatively simple gameplay. This is all subject to change, but basically, you play as Friga, the spirit / guardian of winter. Every winter solstice, the spirits of the sun / summer must leave the earth to make way for the winter spirits to take over. Predictably, this year those spirits have refused to leave, so Friga must fight them and force the winter season to begin. Sure, it sounds a little silly... but I think setting up a serious and involved story for a game where a flying woman with blue hair kills hordes of fireflies would be infinitely worse.
So there you have it. Maybe not a particularly ground-breaking experience, but hopefully a visually pleasant, fun, and somewhat challenging game will await! Enjoy the screenshots above, comment, and thanks for reading!
So the demo for Crysis has been out for about 2 weeks now. If you've been dying to try it out (and see how poorly it runs on that computer you keep telling everyone is "practically new"), download it and have a go. I nabbed the demo via torrent a day or two after it came out, and am only now getting around to talking about it.
"But isn't Crysis a hotly anticipated game?" you ask. "Haven't people been waiting months - nay, years - to try this?" you also ask.
"Indeed," I answer, taking a long, blank look out the window. "But it sucks."
Yup, I said it. I went there. I can feel the shock you harbor. The outrage.
Crysis sucks. If I wanted to spend 5 minutes scoping out a digital enemy base, only to run in and get gunned down by the one dude I couldn't see, I'd re-install Far Cry. As much as EA / Crytek continues to try to persuade you that Crysis is not a sequel to Far Cry, it might as well be. The two are basically the same game, disregarding some incredible graphics and a few lame superpowers. Before I explain myself further (I think you're probably still somewhat aghast), feast your eyes on these screenshots. Even sans interesting gameplay, Crysis does sport some fantastic visuals, and for that, I give the team behind it their due credit.
So now that your eyes have had a brief glimpse of what the future of gaming may hold for them, let's return back to reality, where things aren't always as good as they seem.
To be honest, I was mostly interested in trying out Crysis not because I am genuinely interested in playing the game, but because like so many others, I wanted to see how my machine stacked up against the beastly graphics it contains. To that effect, I came away somewhat impressed. Though the game didn't always run as well as I wanted it to, the graphics are stupendous, even at lower detail settings and resolutions. The foliage is thick and lush, sways gently in the wind, bends away from you as you crawl through it, and generally acts just the way you'd expect it to. The textures were very detailed, down to tiny specks of dust in the road and on the various beaches.
The special effects are also particularly good. Your view is obscured by water droplets as you enter and exit the sea, your armor's cloaking effect looks a little bit more like what I would expect a real cloaking device to look like, and everything is casting shadows down, sometimes with light rays from the sun spilling through. In fact, aside from all the heavily armed mercenaries constantly trying to pepper you with bullets, Crysis is probably about as close as you could get to a virtual tropical getaway. So where does the holiday go sour?
For starters, the gameplay is not new. As you might be able to guess, this is my major gripe from the Crysis demo. I understand that there's only so much one can do to make a game stand out from the rest as far as gameplay goes, especially in such a saturated genre at the FPS genre, but let's get real here; the lack of innovation in commercial games is wearing thin. EA can spend the big bucks and build a team of talented, competent people who can make your computer render an almost photo-realistic exotic island, complete with real-time physics, a vast sound scape, and some of the best digital effects yet seen on computer games. They can take years to make all these things. And yet, despite all this, nobody could come in and deliver a new idea as far as the flow and mechanics of the game are concerned? Not one person?
Secondly (and despite my love and praise for the visuals), pushing the limits of current generation graphics cards is lame. I know that every now and then, the bar must be moved up a notch, and to some extent, I buy into this. But to move the bar up (and subsequently, the hardware requirements) way beyond everything but the most expensive computer is ludicrous. Basically, it boils down to this - Crysis is a game that asks you to update your rig to play it the way it was meant to be played.
12 years ago, I upgraded for Wolfenstein 3D. 2 years after that, I upgraded to play Quake II, and a year or so after that, Half-Life and Quake III. In the next few years I would upgrade my rig to play Morrowind, Grand Theft Auto III, Half-Life 2, and Oblivion. These games were epic, ground-breaking titles. They changed the way games were made, and played. They asked you to upgrade, but promised the satisfaction of an entirely new experience. Crysis offers you Far cry with better graphics. Big frickin' deal.
So to sum up my thoughts on Crysis (based on the demo) - great graphics, cool physics, neat effects, nice sound, mediocre gameplay, and awful system requirements. I hope that the small chunk of game I bit off in the Crysis demo wasn't indicative of what the entire game is like, and if that is the case, I'll happily give it another go when the full product comes out (and happens to fall into my lap somehow). Until then though, I remain impressed and not impressed at the same time. And I hate that.
I'm going to buy it. Well, providing it runs on WinXP (since it's one of those "Games for Windows" things), I'm going to buy it. It'll actually be out quite soon - November 6, last time I checked. Why is this post-worthy, you ask? Because I already own it for my Xbox 360, I answer.
Not really an earth-shattering revelation, I know. But it's noteworthy to me because, aside from a few dozen copies of Tetris, Worms, and various retro games, I don't normally buy games for multiple platforms. Call me frugal, but when a game comes out for two or more systems I happen to own, it's decision time - how much does the game cost on each platform? How does the game play on each system? How does it look and sound? Which version might my friends get?
I'm going to go ahead and go multi-platform with Gears though, because there's going to be a bit of new content coming to the PC version, the editor (providing there is one) will be fun to play around with, and I'm confident that my PC will be able to do the game even better justice than my 360 did, as far as visuals and control go. Slight spoilers ahead as I explain myself here.
If you've played Gears of War, you probably remember the part where, as you and your squad run to get into the fixed "junker," a huge creature (a "Brumak") comes around the corner and chases your ride. Exciting the first time through, but disappointing that it's the only appearance of this creature, and in a non-playable portion of the game at that. Apparently, due to time constraints, Epic just wasn't able to include the chapter continuing this brute... but with the luxury of an extra year to work and of course, the huge pile of cash that Gears for 360 amassed, they've gotten this segment of the game up to snuff, and will be including it in the PC version. Finally - an extended portion of a game coming to the PC!
Another perk to PC gaming is the tinkering. I've spent hours and hours playing around with game editors, like Quake Army Knife, Valve Hammer, and UnrealEd; I'm hoping I can do the same with Gears. I've not read anything about an editor for the upcoming PC release, but considering Epic's past games, I practically expect it. If no Gears editor arrives, it won't necessarily be a deal-breaker for me, but it will be disappointing.
Finally, I've been much more excited about Gears for PC since I got a chance to try out the Unreal 3 demo on my PC (you can read about that here). Granted, my PC ain't no slouch - but when new games that you've seen lots of wild and crazy screenshots of start coming out, and your PC is a few months old, you start to get nervous. After seeing Unreal 3 run at a perfectly silky smooth framerate with all the goodies maxed out, I'm not worried about Gear at all - in fact, I'm quite looking forward to seeing it run on my rig (and on my 22" monitor!).
I'm also anxious to try the game with a mouse and keyboard. Don't get me wrong, I didn't much mind the double thumbstick control on the 360... it actually wasn't too bad, since the pace of the game is slower than your standard action game. Still, I'm a die-hard PC gamer, and as such I will never deny the absolute control a mouse and keyboard combo can provide. I think that this addition to Gears will revive the gameplay a bit for me as well.
And with that, I'm off. I've got a torrent of the Crysis demo downloading (hopefully it's the right one, since there seems to be two floating around...), and a night of gameage to play. Thanks for reading!
Last weekend, I logged onto one of my favorite gaming industry news blogs, Joystiq, and was surprised to see that the demo for the upcoming Unreal Tournament 3 was out for PC. After a few minutes of finding no other place to download than FilePlanet (complete with a 45 minute wait in the queue), I decided I might as well just Torrent it. Since this was already quite late on Saturday night, I slept through the download, and then got up on Sunday morning, ready to play.
Installation was quick, starting the game slightly less quick, but once in, things were nice and fast. For some reason (probably thanks to a poorly running demo of the Unreal Engine 3 powered Roboblitz on my old GeForce 6800 GTS), I was not expecting Unreal Tournament 3 to run very well, even on my newer computer (which packs a GeForce 8800 GTS). Instead, I was treated to a silky smooth frame rate, even with all the details maxed out, running at 1680x1050. I imagine that the game scales back for lower-end systems fairly well, as the Unreal Engine 3 seems as solid an entry as the first two iterations.
Graphically, Unreal Tournament 3 is just what you would expect from a sequel to Unreal Tournament 2004. The few environments included with the demo were packed with detail, and everything looks gritty right down the smallest bit of grass. The weapons have gotten a complete visual overhaul, and each one has an almost absurd amount of detail. When you get a a chance to actually see one of them (I'll get to that in a minute), the characters also look excellent, as did the various environmental effects, like waterfalls, fountains, etc. The engine coats everything with a soft HDR lighting effect, and like Gears of War, the game has a very brownish-rusty look to it. In fact, if you've played Gears of War, you'll almost expect to see Marcus Fenix himself running around with you on the various maps - the artistic influence of Gears of War is very prevalent in the UT3 demo. That's not a bad thing though, since Gears of War is easily one of the most visually stylish games I've ever seen.
The sound, while less notable than the graphics, is typical UT fair. I cannot presently remember if the game had music in it or not; if it did (and I will load up the game again soon to make sure), it was likely the standard techno stuff that you expect to hear behind all the sounds of gunfire and mayhem. And even though I really didn't expect much more than this, some part of me is disappointed... Maybe because of Gears of War's epic orchestral soundtrack, or the lack of more memorable tunes like those heard in the Unreal Tournament 2003 demo, I just get the feeling that more could be done with the series' musical accompaniment. Sound effects are of course, spot-on. Footsteps, explosions, bullets, vehicles, and everything in between sound just as I thought they should, and they often echoed the visual grittiness of the game very well. My only other concern with the sound was the slight repetitiveness of the auto-taunts, but this will be a non-issue in the final game when there is more than one character to play.
The gameplay in Unreal Tournament 3 looks to be a mix of old and new. While playing the demo, every weapon I encountered was from the previous game (UT2004). Every vehicle was as well, except for the huge spidery Matrix thing, and with only a few slight changes to the way most of the old familiars worked. A hover-board was one of the larger "vehicular" additions to the game, which allows players to move around the sometimes enormous battlefields quickly.
Speaking of 'quickly' though, there is something I really need to say about this game: it's too fast. I'm not sure if the speed of the game was intentionally increased or not, but generally when playing online I felt like I had entered one of those twitchy midway games you see at the fair, where you have to shoot targets as quickly and precisely as possible (and mostly you just sit there shooting wildly into empty air). Due to thoughtful weapon placement, nearly every time I spawned I found myself with a flak gun, rocket launcher, or rail gun, but more often than not, it seemed almost impossible to shoot other players with any of these guns. As far as I can tell, in the current build of UT3, the player speeds have been significantly increased over the last version, while the weapons speeds have not. This makes it impossible to score a kill with just about any weapon in the game at medium range and upwards. After a few desperate attempts to rocket people, it was back to the minigun and scoring some lucky kills with ricocheting flak shells. Slightly frustrating.
All in all, I really liked the demo, even if it didn't stray too far from the normal Unreal Tournament formula. I hope that something is done about the weapon speed / player speed issues in a later build (they have time, after all - the game is set to be released on November 19). I'm not sure if I'll be buying yet, but I'll have my eye on it. In any case, thanks for reading, and please post your thoughts on UT3, I'd like to hear them!
I've got a little piece of paper resting comfortably in my wallet right now. It conspires with recent purchases made by my credit card; it conspires to completely undo my productivity. You read about the damages to my productivity last week with my scribbling about Team Fortress 2... now brace yourself for the monster that this little piece of paper will unleash upon my free time. This small snipped of ribbon paper has printed upon it proof that I have paid the $5 pre-order fee at my local GameStop. Halo 3 will be in my hands this afternoon.
I could have picked it up last night. At about 10:30 PM, I called GameStop to see how many people were standing in line, and at only about 40, it seemed the wait would not be unreasonable if I headed over at around 11. When 11 came, however, I felt a sudden urge of sleepiness... and since my girlfriend was over for the night, and I did not want to leave her alone at my apartment so late in the night, I decided I'd skip the midnight release, and instead get plenty of rest, so that I may enjoy the game to it's fullest this afternoon. And so I plan on stopping at the very appropriately titled GameStop on my way home from work, picking up Halo 3, and playing through the campaign on co-op with my brother and a friend.
I'm actually somewhat excited at the prospect of playing Halo 3, which is surprising because a week ago, I was not. After being talked into a pre-order by my brother I knew I would enjoy the game, but since I thought the first game was only above par, and have never even played the second game, getting pumped up about the third seemed a bit ludicrous.
When the reviews started pouring in, I read them... and I think that amidst all the Halo soda promotions, commercials, and media hype, they were what most got me in the mood to play. As I have read, not only does the game have four-player cooperative play, something that will probably make the game worth it for me in itself, but it also has some really neat customization and replay features which will be great to play around with, if they are anything near what they are cracked up to be.
I am a PC gamer at heart, so the lack of customization in console games has always kept me from getting too close to many of my favorite games... and while Halo 3 will still be short of a full-blown level editor, it is taking a step in the right direction with the Forge, a kind of mini level editor, which allows you to change elements in levels, add and remove objects, etc. - all while people are playing the level! The replay system I mentioned sounds as equally cool, where everything you do in Halo 3 is recorded to a replay file, which you can view later on, using different camera angles, speeds, etc., and which you can then upload to the internet for others to watch. Sending my friends video clips of my shooting them in the face will never get old, let me tell you.
So all that, combined with my growing love for Team Fortress 2, and then the eventual rest of Orange Box coming in soon, makes for a very large chunk of my free time being eaten up by pure entertainment. Of course, I won't let every one of my priorities drop - I've really got to get to work on the update to Reflect, and continue one of my many game projects - but still... it's gonna be difficult to divvy up the time!
In any case, it's good to be a gamer right now... so if you play Halo 3, maybe I'll kill you online sometime! Thanks for reading!
Man, am I tired. I got up this morning at the usual early hour, got dressed, made my lunch for the day, and then toyed with the idea of crawling back in bed for about a half hour... until I realized that I had not yet eaten breakfast. After leaving for work, all I could think about while driving on the freeway was just letting my head roll back and dozing off. Now I sit at work, still feeling droopy, but with a slight re-invigoration from a half-finished energy drink. I vow to go to sleep early tonight; almost as soon as I get home, even. But then, for the same reason as last night's lack of sleep, I doubt that I will.Maybe some of you went through a similar experience? You very well could have; I know I wasn't alone last night. Far from it... in fact, I'd wager I was joined in my insomnia by thousands of people. So what caused this mass exodus from sleep last night?
Three words. Well, three words and a number.
Team Fortress 2 beta.
Now I can't say that I was one of the die hard fans of Team Fortress 1, who have waited a decade for this remake of their game to come into reality... nor can I say that I even particularly liked the first game, for that matter. I did, however, fire up Steam the other day and pre-order Orange Box, which I was delightfully surprised to see includes Half-Life 2: Episode 2, Team Fortress 2, Portal, Peggle Ultimate (or something like that), and the opportunity to play the TF2 beta this week. All for only $45 - less than the cost of a full game!
Since I had always planned on purchasing HL2: Ep2, and have been intrigued with TF2 and Portal ever since I've seen some of the fantastical screenshots and character videos, it seemed reasonable to just swipe them all up at once and take advantage of Valve's offer. I figured that the beta of TF2 would give me a good idea of how the game will be when it finally comes out, and at the very least, would give me something to do until Halo 3 comes out next week. So I pre-ordered on saturday, and waited patiently for the monday release of the TF2 beta.
After getting off work yesterday, I fired up Steam, and checked the status of the game. Still unreleased. A quick jump onto the crawling Steam forums gave me the impression that the game was likely not going to come out until the very last minute of the day. So, even though I have to get up at 5:45 AM every day, I made the decision to stay up til midnight, check out the game for a few minutes when it's finally released, and then hit the sack, still getting about 5 hours of sleep. I spent some time updating the next version of the Reflect Games website, and playing a bit of Sam & Max: Episode 1.
Finally, at about 11:45 PM, I decided I'd take a shower and be all set for bed by the time the beta was released. I had already pre-loaded the game on saturday, so as soon as the Valve was to hit the "big red button," I'd be good to go. When I got out of the shower, the game's status had changed to "Updating," but was stuck at 0%, so I restarted Steam. Upon restarting, the game finalized it's pre-load, decrypted it's files, and then reported that all was ready to go. I excitedly pressed "Launch" and watched as Steam began preparing to start the game. And then... nothing. The small window which had appeared to inform me that the game was launching had mysteriously disappeared, and a quick check of the computer's processes told me it was not coming back.
After about 5 minutes of vain attempts to get the game to launch, I disappointedly brought myself back to the forums to see if my situation was the rule, rather than the exception. Sure enough, it seemed nobody was able to play. I spent a few minutes posting messages, and went back to the bathroom to brush my teeth. Having to wait through an entire day of work to try again while the rest of the world played wasn't sounding too great to me.
So I sat down at my computer, resigned to this terrible fate, ready to shut down and go to sleep. When I went to close Steam down, however, I noticed a telltale sign in the taskbar; the little green lights of internet activity were flicking back and forth, and I had no other programs open that would be triggering this activity. Suddenly completely ignorant of how late it was getting, I tried launching the game again, and was met by same the small launch window... which decided to fulfill it's promise this time. I set up my play options, found a server, and joined the fray.
All I can say is that this game is completely awesome. I didn't go to sleep until about 1:30 AM, and despite the fact that I feel completely exhausted, it was worth it.
If you get a chance, try this game out - it's really a great experience. Just try to do it at a time that won't affect your ability to stay awake the next day, hehe.
I'll discuss the updates to Reflect Games later in the week... right now it's back to work time for me! Thanks for reading!
