After having a fit of errors loading for the first time that required me to dick around with display settings and update various DirectX things I managed to get into the game without it loading as a plain black screen.

To start I have to quote Affian…this game is essentially Half-life 2 + F.E.A.R. + Fallout 3.

It is like Half-Life 2 in that it has various puzzle elements which aren’t necessary but can prove useful like finding all the lighting systems in a tunnel and powering them all down to force the enemy to come closer to you than they usually would. Also like Half-Life you can choose whether or not you want to strategically take down enemies by blasting barrels/pushing them off platforms or just throwing more bullets at them…typically the latter option appeals to me more.

It is like F.E.A.R. in that there are various psychic creatures that try to stuff with your head…most humans go insane at their psychic touch but you (playing as Artyom) are somewhat immune and thus you are sought after to help people out. Occasionally you are assaulted with a bright white screen which seemingly blasts you into an alternate reality that the enemy controls…in much the same way F.E.A.R. does.

It is like Fallout 3 in that everything is shit coloured and apocalyptic. There are mutant beasts roaming the tunnels and the surface and you will have many skirmishes with them which drives you mental as they come in large packs and you will use all your ammo on all your guns trying to stop them…leaving you no bullets and no time to reload and thus you end up slashing like a madman with a knife. You also have various bits of equipment like Fallout 3 that helps you to survive the deadly forces against you. One of the more fun ones is the gas mask…you have filters on your mask that constantly need replacing else toxic fumes start getting you. Not only that, it can be broken and cracked in combat so you have to be very careful when and where you choose to use it.

As far as the story goes its a strange blend of sci-fi and post-apocalyptic action, you live in Moscow Russia after the world has been devastated by nuclear war and humanity has only been able to survive there due to the metro tunnel systems underground. Much of humanity has been simply obliterated or mutated, in the cases I have seen so far we have giant clawed hunchbacked zombie things, the same thing again but with wings and some long limbed super psychic creatures designed to play with your mind.

You play as Artyom who is also the narrator and you are tasked (well initially at least) to get to Polis station to seek help from the Rangers who are elite guards of the tunnels. Along the way you will fight the creatures of the surface and tunnels, Nazi loyalists, Russian Communists and various forms of bandits. On top of that, when you least expect it you can be hit from psychic attacks which make your life difficult and throughout the game you are forced to constantly stop and assess your current situation. Should you choose not to check your approaches and your rear occasionally, you will end up making a move that will kill you or you will be flanked and eaten/shot.

Much of the metro system is dominated by old technology and various pieces of human ingenuity as the war devastated all manner of useful objects. You are forced to move around using trams powered by hand and you will have to navigate through ramshackle towns using only a compass and without a world map.

Most of the guns I have used for combat so far look pretty worn down but operational…you cant expect to find a pretty new M4A1 lying about and thus you are forced to use various inaccurate assault rifles and strange weapons like a BB rifle that is powered with a hand pump…fail to pump at the right times and you’ll be firing weak bullets.

The visuals of the game are rather stunning and impressive. When I managed to surface walk for the first time I found myself looking around in circles at all the destroyed scenery and the ruins of Moscow and the tunnels hold their own in their gritty reality. I only had one qualm with the graphics and that is there is only a possible 3 colours in the game: Bright green (signifying nuclear radiation), Light blue (signifying psychic/strange presence) and Brown (signifying EVERYTHING else). While Affian was not terribly pleased with my take on the graphics, you only have to look at the above two screenshots to see that clothes, walls, creatures, vehicles, guns and ground is all painted a horrible brown colour.

Sure it could be worse and its only a small issue but it just annoys me when all you see is one colour walking about in what could be some truly amazing scenery.

Also I need to make a note on the Physics and Gameplay aspects:

The physics: Usually they perform admirably but there are a few annoying issues. Any wall that is not dead flat can be strafed straight up giving you a massive field of view of the area in front of you as well as allowing you to dodge any passing objects. Explosives have an amazing ability to damage you through walls and sandbags…I threw a grenade over a low sandbag wall and dodged behind a concrete wall and the resulting explosion killed me even though the wall and sandbags were completely intact. There is also the occasional clipping on an object and getting stuck for a few seconds but its rare so isn’t really worth worrying about.

The gameplay: A few things that will frustrate the living shit out of you are that bullets are money in this world. If you have military grade ammo (big shiny powerful rounds) then you can trade them in for various goods as a form of currency. However you can also set your gun to fire these rounds which is costly but they are more powerful than standard ammo. What is REALLY annoying is when you don’t realise you have switched ammo and you start firing your money away into some weak enemies skulls only to have a cry later. Another thing that annoys me is that there is 4 slots for weapons: 1 for melee, 1 for pistol/sidearm, 1 for automatic weapon, 1 for pneumatic weapon. What would be nice is if there were simply 1 for melee and 3 for everything else. When you find an AK47 you are forced to either ditch your wonderful silenced “bastard” gun for it while you hold on to your pathetic pistol and shotgun. Then you get an awesome automatic shotgun with a bayonet attached but you have to ditch it should you want a sniper or specialist pump action gun like the BB gun…its just plain annoying…its like the game is forcing you to get good at all areas of combat which prevents you from specialising in any one.

Anyway so far I am liking the game even if it is prone to crashing randomly when I kill an enemy or am killed myself…I would honestly love this game a lot more if they had a quick save function (or even a save function at all) because more often than not you are forced to travel and fight for 10 minutes only to die and restart it…annoying as hell. I’ll likely be playing this game slowly as I really should be doing more tech work than gaming but I will give a full review of the game should I actually complete it.

Also as for Just Cause 2, I really cant be arsed playing it…it seemed like a good game but its too much of a straight buggy console port for me to care. Metro 2033 is almost a console port in that I have to play with all the mouse sensitivity settings in game set to 0 for me to be able to turn without doing full circles.

So I couldn’t play the game…not a good start, but I’ve had worse. To be perfectly honest I knew it would happen, the BETA was so unpolished and needed more work to be truly complete…but now its becoming a Battlefield thing. Each and every game simply sucks until about 1.4 patch.

Anyway I have had a good crack at multiplayer and finished single player in one sitting to make sure it would crash, so I will do this review in two parts.

But first a quick background on what the game is:

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is the typical Modern Warfare world saving sort of game. A pitched battle between super powers, the Russians and the US…every Americans wet dream. Unfortunately EA have not quite figured out that the rest of the world doesn’t really like the US marines and special forces all that much which is why Soap and Price from the Modern Warfare series were received so well.

In true Battlefield tradition this game is set over large battlefields in most cases and makes use of stationary guns, tanks, planes, helicopters, road vehicles etc. It’s not the usual Modern Warfare troop conflict which I both like and dislike…the idea to me of “battlefield” combat is that you realise that you are simply a small part of a war machine…however when this game puts you in the troop combat position you become Ramirez, the guy that has to do EVERYTHING.

If you have played any Battlefield game mixed with any modern warfare game then you will feel comfortable in how to play.

Single Player:

As said before, I had to complete the Single player game in one hit to make sure I could finish it and to be honest I was disappointed. Firstly I played on low graphics as I always did on the BETA because it means you load twice as fast as every other person in the game in MP and thus you get the tanks/UAV at the start. However there is only one setting for both MP and SP so I had to change it for both to get SP to full graphics…but who cares…my point is: Play on high graphics…its about ten times better than low, its actually amazing.

Premise: You are an elite combat force promoted to a spec-ops position on the Battlefield due to your deeds in combat. You have to traverse the world and infiltrate enemy territory to gain control of a weapon that utilises EMP technology that will basically knock out the entire power grid from the US and allow the Russians to invade. In the famous words of Robin Williams: “DE JA FUCKING VU!” We did all this shit in Modern Warfare 2! What the hell?!

Unfortunately unlike MW2 your “elite” force consists of four all-American blokes which makes for a frustrating American propaganda game. You have the cliche Texan (although not fat), the token black Sergeant, the nerd guy that talks to much and the unsung hero known as Marlowe who you play as. Somehow you are four normal soldiers that can simply “adapt” to become amazing spec ops units that can save the “world” (I shit you not, you are only there to save the US but each time they mention it they talk about “the world”).

You travel into various locations around the world and make assaults on key locations to gain information about this “world/US” destroying technology. About the only thing I enjoyed with the entire single player campaign is the Helicopter pilot who was just hilarious.

Anyway gameplay time.

It is shit…well…the first half was fun, getting into it all…but it was so frustrating that it became shit…no matter how good the firefights were. Let me tell you this, play on easy mode. I played on normal mode which is apparently for “experienced” players…which I definitely am. Problem is, the difficulty curve is out of this world. In the initial missions the only thing that could kill you was heavy MG’s, in the later missions you were being triple head shotted by guys you couldnt see.

You can have at all times two main guns as well as various tools like C4 (which never gets used) and a Gustav RPG. The thing is, in games like MW you have to strategically use guns. Typically you keep your preferred weapon as well as an enemy weapon of sorts to make sure you never run out of ammo. In this game ammo is EVERYWHERE. You will NEVER run out no matter what you do so just pick your favourite weapon of choice and take an RPG as your second weapon so that you can destroy tanks, buildings and walls.

I’m going to give you one piece of advice here: Take the QBU-88 T88 semi-auto sniper rifle with red dot sights. It kills everything in one shot, is supremely accurate and can be used like a shotgun. I used it from about 1/3rd the way in all the way to the end because it was so damned easy to use.

As I said before the whole of the single player campaign is cliche American “trooper” propaganda where they try make “heros” but end up making retards. Here is a classic example: “Bravo two (my squad), there is some heavy artillery about to rain down on your location, I tried to delay them as much as I could but they’re beginning to fire”, “Oh shit sarge! Thats where the guy we need is!”, “Well lets go get him”.

You then procede to literally run through an artillery shelling…

Then about an hour later the Sergeant is like: “I’m too old for this shit I was supposed to retire, I have two kids, wife etc…oh! mortar bombing?! RUN THROUGH IT LOL!”

I kid you not…its stupid. In fact, if you play it learn this: After the mortar bombings…everything becomes insanely hard for no reason.

Time to talk about AI. There is none. Your team mates cant hit anything and when they do, it does little to no damage. So in effect your squad is entirely useless in every form of the word. If you dont do things in order like clear an area before moving on, you will come across a vast array of bugs. I came across dead ends because I didn’t trigger a movie, I came across invulnerable enemies as I needed to trigger an event before they could die, I got stuck in buildings as I waited for my teammates to shoot and kill one guy in open ground. It was highly annoying. Not to mention that your teammates dont move smoothly, they simply teleport around the battlefield as you advance. In one of the inital missions I got pinned down by two rpg’s, a heavy MG and about six guys with rifles but my squad hadn’t triggered the “move up” command yet so just stood in safety around the corner.

RAGE OMG SRSLY WTF?!

You will come across impossibly hard missions even on normal mode, like the truck stealing mission…the only way I could get through it was to spam grenade launcher at everything that moved while they had RPG’s and heavy MG’s returning fire killing me either instantly or in two to three hits, it was rubbish unnecessarily frustrating. Apparently I am to think of it as a “challenge” when simply put it was just stupidly hard.

So I dont think I’ll go into the single player more, in a word it was frustrating. The difficulty curve was all over the place and the story didnt make sense, not to mention the all-American HOOAH-ness of it all which no one bar Americans cares about.

Multiplayer:

In all honesty I got this game purely for the multiplayer. Unfortunately however it retains many of the bugs that the BETA had, the rego is still dodgy, searching for servers still takes forever, video lag still exists even on highend systems, crashes, no “hold” on ironsights – only toggle. However the core gameplay carried on through and the multiplayer is still hugely intense and fast paced and I love it.

I raised a point in my BETA impressions post that your level pretty much told you were you would be on the scoreboard. In MW you could still top a score board with low level perks and guns like the M16 with penetrating rounds or something, in BC2 you will struggle. We take in a squad of four experienced guys, usually two medics, one assault and one engineer and we all work together on vent but one high level guy will simply have too much cool stuff for us to be useful against him. I came across a medic with flak jacket and full level LMG, I unleashed about 30 bullets into him close range and he simply turned around and shot me dead…and walked off. So my point here is, expect to suck. Once you start getting unlocks you will get better.

The one level we have come to enjoy (I have forgotten the name) starts as a beach assault on small islands and ends up in your team assaulting up and over a large hill. The battlefield is littered with stationary weapons and vehicles and it is small…so the fighting gets REAL intense which makes the game so worth it.

There are many types of Multiplayer gameplay most of which you would expect but the game lacks in proper team management so most of the time you will be against a stacked team…which sucks.

Quick outline on the game types:

Rush: 16v16 match on a large battlefield where the attackers must smash through the defenders and destroy communications stations and force the enemy back. Typically the assaulting force will have the best firepower to start with but by the end the defenders will have some serious fire support to aid them.

Squad Rush: 4v4 troop combat without vehicles. Similar type to Rush but involves much more squad orientated combat, you need to work together to advance/defend.

Conquest: Typical capture and hold mission. Whoever holds the most points will force the enemy tickets down meaning they have to move harder and faster to gain the points back. This gametype involves a LOT of stealthy flanking missions which will drive you nuts when you’re on defence.

Squad Deathmatch: Squads of 4 will get together and battle it out for kills until they reach a kill limit, simple combat and usually has one light vehicle for a single squad to command.

I’ll keep talking if I’m not careful so I had better cut myself short here. Essentially if you’re going to get the game, get it purely for the multiplayer and make sure you are prepared to stick it out and put time into it as you will get sick of having crap weapons. If you can, try organise to play with friends on vent/TS as this not only makes the game a lot more fun, it also allows you to make tactics on the fly. The guys I play with (budda and co) always proves funny. Budda causes havoc, especially when he tries to fly, Gamgee is the pub hero who just wins all the time, Fairy rages too much, Fredzz is a good team player though

See you all on the battlefield!

Game gets 8/10, Multiplayer is buggy but really fun, stuff the single player.

First things first…I KNOW THIS IS A BETA AND I KNOW I SHOULDN’T BE JUDGING IT UNTIL RELEASE! Seriously, there’s always someone that points out the obvious…and to that someone I need to say that because I am aware of the Beta status, I am also able to predict somewhat what will be seen in the final edition…so stfu.

Im gonna keep this simple by simply listing what I like and dislike:

Pros:

• Intense and fast paced gameplay. The rush mode (only one available in the beta) is super intense and requires strategic attacks and retreats.
• The voice acting while I didnt really like the “quality” of voice acting, I really liked its placement. I mean you could be walking along and your teammate gets sniped next to you, your character will instantly yell out: “OH SHIT THERE’S A SHOOTER OUT THERE!” or something similar…its wonderful and frequent without the same voice saying the same thing over and over.
• One button to rule them all. Pressing Q will do a vast host of things…at least most of the time. If you’re looking at an enemy it will declare his location for your teammates, if you’re looking at an objective it will declare that objective as a priority target…and so on.
• Bullet fall. You shoot a bullet over distance and it will fall…you shoot a rocket over distance and it will most likely land about 20m short of your target…this makes for a challenging experience.
• Shit blows up yo! If some asshat sniper is camping in a room with a tiny window, shoot a rocket at the wall…et viola…larger window.
• Anyone can blow up the objectives by planting a timed charge on it, however a scout class can dump hordes of C4 on it and take it out in one go (seriously no one realises this).
• Vehicle gameplay…in most games that you have tanks, you use it as a tank. In this game if you charge your tank in, you will lose it…You need to play it strategically.
• No Prone! I HATE proners with a passion…so this is one thing I am supremely happy to see gone
• Upgrades. You know how you love to upgrade and get new guns in the Modern Warfare series? Well BC2 has you well covered with a vast array of perks, weapons and gadgets for you to use.

Cons:

• Upgrades. You know how you hate those assholes in Modern Warfare that had all the awesome guns that you didnt? Well BC2 does exactly the same…but I believe it does it worse. The initial gun for engineer (my preferred class) has 20 rounds…and due to the useless hitreg in this game those 20 rounds will not be enough to kill anything…which is just plain stupid.
• Lag. While this issue is being sorted out its still a raging nuisance that apparently only occurs on PC’s. Put it this way, I play all my games on 1920×1200 on full AA and I still manage about 60fps which I am happy with. In BC2Beta, I have to put all my graphics settings to low to be able to get a managable FPS from the game…so retarded.
• Hitreg. As stated before, the hitreg in this game (the beta at least) is beyond shocking…You will waste entire clips to kill someone and god forbid if they are any sort of distance away from you…cause NOTHING will hurt them. Rockets can go off right next to you and you will stand unharmed…knifing is next to useless unless the enemy is standing dead still because if they even flinch…you’ll miss. It’s frustrating and annoying and a game killer if the dev’s are not careful.
• Adding to the above point, ‘double-KO’ scenarios are annoying…when I’m right in front of an enemy and I blast him with my shotgun and he retaliates with a few rounds of his rifle…only one of us should die. I will shoot him clean off his feet yet somehow even though he is dead, his bullets magically lodge themselves into my chest post mortem. Ugh
• Knife. It has no reg, its slow, its autoaim sucks. Useless.
• No tap out…I am not a fan of suiciding, if I run out of ammo I will charge the enemy in hopes to do as much damage as I can before I respawn…when I die however I do not have the option to “tap out” and wait for spawn…so if some maniacal medic charges in to rez me when I only have 3 pistol rounds left, I have no choice…I have to fight on…and die again.
• Helicopters are back! I love piloting helicopters and all…but when you simply cant shoot one out of the sky, it starts getting ridiculous. At one point, 2 guys in a chopper simply flew around our spawn killing our tanks and antiair weapons before we could use them…and unless you have a high level engineer with targeting optics or w/e they are, you cant use homing missles on the damned thing. SO YOU CANT KILL IT! Rockets travel too slow to hit such a small target in the air. Annoying.
• No “aim down sights”. You can “toggle” iron sights as with Modern Warfare…but you cant opt to simply look down sights when you right click…which is hellishly frustrating because you constantly have to slam right click as well as left click to get the correct firing mode in a close quarters firefight.

Anyway there are a few more Pros and cons but I shall leave it there…I love the gameplay but theres just too much left to be desired. EA did their typical thing of focusing on fancy bits and pieces and less on core gameplay which is annoying…but I still have hopes for this game as if they fix a few little niggles then it would be largely playable.

That said however, I doubt it will be fixed in time for its March release…so expect to run into trouble

Hi-Rez have announced the release date for Global Agenda!

It is to be released on the 1st Feb 2010 and is up for pre-order now in Steam and Amazon.com.

Pre-Order benifits include:

• Beta Access
• Exclusive head gear
• Reserve your Player and Agency names
• Pre-Download the game

You also get the option to sign up for one month free access to the Global Agenda: Conquest subscription content.

So whatever, I went ahead and played the Single Player…because goddamn I LOVED MW1′s SP and played it quite a few times.

Firstly, let me just get this out of the way…while I disliked IW for failing with the MP, I did expect a successful sequel to MW1.

What I got however was a load of Hollywood bullshit.

The first one had some seriously epic scenes, from the fights with packs of dogs to the sneaking past entire armies in ghillie suits. And when the nuke went off and blew you out of the sky and you tried to crawl to safety, it was purely intense.
However in this one, you get those all the time! Every single mission has some sort of OTT intense scene that ruins the entire feel!

The only time I felt true intensity was when I was belaying down a hill upside-down to stab a guy in the heart, then it flashes your view to see the stunned look in the guys eyes as he died. I was like: “Holy crap I just killed a guy! … of course this was after massacring hundreds of thousands of pathetic troops…but it just felt WAY more intense and even managed me to say: “woah…” out loud.

As Fireryda said in his post the SP is disjointed…it makes no sense and you get no feel for your character. I cant remember any of the names of the characters I played as simply because they really held no sway. For some reason, every enemy targeted you…regardless of where you were and all of your team mates relied completely on you. Presumably it was to allow you to play the hero, but in the end, you weren’t the hero anyway, in the final battle you simply assist to win! SO THERE WAS NO POINT!

On that note, the final battle…ugh. Below is a little spoiler, but man it pissed me off:
Ok in the first game, Captain Price flicks you a gun, you lift it up and blast the shit out of that dickhead with one arm…in this one Captain Price and Captain McTavish (THE TWO MOST ELITE SPEC OPS IN THE FUCKING GAME) cant take down one pen pushing General. They both shoot the guy out of a Helicopter while taking damage themselves from falling off a waterfall and proceed to fight the guy in melee…IN WHICH HE WINS! AGAINST TWO TRAINED AND ACTIVE SPEC OPS GUYS! ONE HAD A KNIFE!

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF-

Seriously I raged so hard…what a SHIT way to end the game, it was as if they simply said: “Hmmm…lets recreate the exact same scene as the first game…but after our two heroes obliterate entire armies…lets just make them weak so we can fill in the plot…because to hell with actually thinking about writing decent script!”

Anyway, if you were a huge fan of MW1′s SP, you may be disappointed with MW2′s…the combat isnt flowing, there are WAY too many guns to choose from, you dont know what you’re supposed to be doing half the time and you just end up walking towards HUD arrows while shooting anything that moves (On that note…How the hell did all those Russians get to the US in the first place? How also did they take the damned whitehouse?!). There were far too many “epic” moments which made the feel dissipate and I honestly wish above all other things that they had simply not found the need to introduce and waste time on so many “innovative” gameplay aspects like Ice Pick climbing, driving a boat or jet ski etc and just stuck to core gameplay aspects where you are the pivotal role behind crushing the terrorists but you do it with humility and respect, instead of constantly trying to be the “hero”.

Also more stealth options that didnt mimic EXACTLY the same scenes as the first (pretty sure they even reused the vocals too) would have been awesome…I honestly got sick of constant impossible gun battles that I came out unscathed, I would have preferred to actually act as Spec Ops rather than just an invulnerable dude with a shitload of guns.

Also you will never use your secondary weapon…ever…

Final Word: It was average to say the least…I have complained before about how I hate Hollywood blockbuster movies currently because of their lack of good plot and writing and sheer bravado and special effects…its annoying and if games are starting to catch on, then I honestly fear for where this world is heading…

Idiocracy here we come!

Global Agenda is an upcoming “spy-fi” MMO by Hi-Rez Studios that is currently in the early stages of closed beta. Global agenda is built on the Unreal 3 engine and set on Earth in the 22nd century where after a global disaster open warfare became a thing of the past forcing conflict into covert operations.

To quote Hi-Rez:

In the wake of severe global disaster, the political face of 22nd century earth has changed and player-created factions scheme against each other for power. Traditional full-scale wars a thing of the past, factions must rely on covert agencies, teams of elite special operatives able to seize and defend key facilities. The future of humanity is their battleground, where knowledge is power, technology is a race, and everyone has an agenda.

The players control the world of Global Agenda, forging alliances with their peers and executing lightning strikes against their enemies. They determine which factions to aid and which to oppose, while the only thing that stands in their way is other agencies.

So we have our setting, a world of extreme technologies and covert faction based warfare.

Gameplay

Ok, we know that Global Agenda is an online MMO that involves Factions and Fighting, but what makes this one stand out from the rest?

I think the main difference that this game offers is the style of combat, covert, so rather than trying to emulate large scale warfare like some other MMOs have tried (and in my mind failed) to do you have a world where you get the feeling of this huge conflict going on and that you are intricately tied up in it without needing those giant epic battles. Instead you get small intense skirmishes with opposing agencies over territory and technologies.

The other thing that it has to over (and from what you read its main selling point) other MMOs is it’s alliance based territorial PvP system. This is the system that drives the game, it powers a player run world where various Alliances and Agencies are fighting for control of territory, resources and technology all to aid themselves in defending against other agencies who want your resources.

Player Classes

Global Agenda offers 4 classes for your perusal: Assault, Recon, Medic and Robotics. Each class have a variety of styles and roles that they can play in a team.

Assault offers you power, ranging from a frontline tank with think armour and a kickass chain gun to a more supporting role lobbing grenades and explosives at your enemies.

Recon is your scout, he can offer styles like cloaking and melee assassination to the sniper picking off foes at long range.

Medic, guess what he can be a medic, yup your classic healer class. Problem with healer classes is that they tend to lack offensive power making them annoying to play on your own and they also tend to get abused by idiots who think having a healer in your team makes them immortal (it’s your fault when they die of course). BUT here we have an offensive healer specialising in strong poisons and wielding a Bio Rifle, should be interesting

Then we come to the Robotic class, one I can’t find too much info on but he’s your engineer building turrets to support a defensive line or combat drones to help push back the enemy.

From what I can gather you can change your loadout between missions and by the sounds of it this mean re-speccing which is always an awesome feature that allows you to change your play style as you need to and as you feel like it.

Costs

Now then, this is an MMO. Most high quality MMOs want your money and this one is no different and its pricing model stands thus:

You buy the game either through somewhere like Steam or I’m guessing in brick and mortar stores. Once you have it you can play to your heart’s content but it’s limited, Hi-Rez released a statement detailing how the pricing works and what you get for it. When you buy the game you get most of the content but to get access to things like Access to “Alliance vs. Alliance (AvA) World Domination gameplay” and “Ongoing Co-Op content at max character level”. Basically PvE you get with the game, for ongoing content and epic PvP you have to pay. Seems fair enough you pay for the game once and you then sub to get the ongoing stuff.

They have listed the game as costing US$49.99MSRP and the Sub is listed at $12.99 per month, $11.49/mo for 3 months or $9.99/mo for 6 months.

And So…

…This is looking to be quite the epic game with massive covert battles, fighting for conquest over an entire world, and as EVE Online has shown us, a well created territory system ends up with endless gameplay without the dominance of one group (not for long anyway) because when you’re the biggest, everyone is against you.

I’ll leave you with a video that shows more than I could ever explain in words.

Firstly, if you’re a L4D fan and you haven’t tried L4D2 yet, you will not be disappointed. Ignore all the crap that happened with boycotting and whatnot, it may still look like L4D but it has some new stuff…and god knows I love new stuff.

For example, there are now melee weapons that range from a frying pan through to a chainsaw…A CHAINSAW! You remember those times where horde smashed down a corridor running violently at you after you got boomed? Yea..well…Chainsaw takes care of that. You get the opportunity to paint the walls with zombie gore (as well as your screen!) with each swing of your axe or bat as well as being able to help repel hordes when you’re being surrounded.

There are 6 new playable “movies”…of course L4D loves turning its campaigns into stylised movies with posters and credits and the like. Here’s a SS I stole from IGN:

From the left, our new playable actors are Nick, Rochelle, Coach and Ellis.

One thing I have to say though…these characters are not as likeable as their predecessors. I liked playing as the old characters because they all had their own charm…this time however I only like playing as Nick so I can run round spamming “TITS!” everytime I use the chat system

Anyway I dont want to go into a massive amount of detail for this game because simply put I haven’t played it a hell of a lot due to a lack of local dedicated servers with players on them T_T

Lets talk features that make it stand out from L4D:

Firstly there’s more standard missions with some guru’s working on bringing L4D’s missions into L4D2. 6 Playable movies, all completely unique with unique area zombies…like swamp zombies, SWAT zombies and hazmat zombies.

Theres a SHITload more weapons. Where before we had either a generic pistol, generic smg, generic shotgun etc…now theres different types of shotguns, different types of pistols (hells yea deagle) and various combat rifles/SMG’s. Theres also a shit ton of snipers…but lets be honest, who uses those?

There’s also boomer bile in canisters…which you can biff at your enemies and make the hordes attack them instead of you.

There’s also 3 new special infected types…The Spitter, The Charger and The Jockey to go alongside those old favourites, The Hunter, The Smoker and The Boomer. The Spitter vomits acid over long distances and forces the team to spread out to avoid damage, The Charger smashes through a team and takes one person for a long ass ride to the nearest wall in front of him…where he proceeds to beat the living shit out of him. And the Jockey is a small little guy who leaps on your face and can drag you away from your team amidst all the usual chaos.

All the old special infected have had a make over and now there are female boomers

Also…Witches now wander about while crying and dont stand still…making them VEEEERY annoying indeed.

Alright I’ll cut myself short here, basically if you LOVE zombie survival games then get this game. If you loved L4D but got sick of it, this game will refresh you…it has enough variation and amusing achievements to keep you entertained.

Final score at this stage is a solid 8.5/10. I cant rate it any higher simply because underneath it all, its still a L4D clone but with a host of new stuff. But get it, its fun, its refreshing and my god its fun crushing the horde.

Also, if you are from NZ and looking at getting it…buy it using this link! Just click it, sign up for an account and buy up…its a very good site and has awesome customer service etc…but most importantly you’ll score me $10 each time you sign up and buy a game

We can’t really be a gaming blog without mentioning one of the most anticipated games of this year. That is, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. While still showing the quality of previous Call of Duty titles, I can’t help but feel disappointed with this entry.This short (Yeah.. Right.) review shouldn’t really be taken as if from somebody who has lots of experience with the franchise as personally, I never liked the Call of Duty series much, only playing CoD1 + EXP and CoD4, so I can’t really judge it as well as other people against other entries in the franchise however from the many people I’ve asked, they all agree that this game, while still remarkably good, has quite a lot of faults. This is however a view of the console port of the game. I haven’t played any other CoD’s on console so I can’t really pull out a judgement on that so any technical comparisons will be to the PC version.

The singleplayer for this game is, as with all other installments (or so I’ve heard), fantastic. It is almost perfect in every way. Every battle is atmospheric and immersing, the voice acting from each soldier is superb and the sense of urgency is clearly shown through the actions of the characters. However there is a reason why it’s almost perfect and not perfect and that is because of the setting. Looking at each battle individually, the single player would be superb but looking at a bigger picture of the game, it isn’t that great. The game moves at a far too fast pace, taking you from one place to another with almost no reason why except for the objective at hand. One minute I was running from Russian parasite mobs in a bombed out city to scaling an icy mountain in some random country that I’ve already forgotten. (Or something similar to that in that order). I guess I also have to take note of the controversial airport scene. Honestly, it was mediocre at best and only served as a kick the dog moment for the big bad. Other then that, it wasn’t anything great. I can see how it would be controversial but honestly, I think that going around killing civilians out of pure sadistic pleasure in Grand Theft Auto (I am so guilty of this) is more concerning then an airport massacre in this game as you’re not even required to shoot even 1 civilian. What really bugged me about the single player mode was that it was FAR TOO SHORT. I begun playing this game during the morning and have already finished the campaign by mid afternoon (what’s that? like 5-6 hours?). Most people I know have taken only around 4 hours to clear the game but I was playing on hardened so it took me a bit to clear the game. The difficulty however, isn’t too challenging and, although there might be some frustrating areas, you’ll get by after a few rounds of trial and error and thoughts of where you went wrong.

So in the end, the single player is a great albeit short and unforgettable experience as it’s far too convoluted to make much sense on why you’re trying to reach a certain objective. The gameplay is still great though so if you never really cared what you were doing and what everybody was talking about in the other CoD’s, you’ll be happy with this one, however to others, it’s hard to feel a bit unsatisfied.

Trust me. This is alot more awesome than it looks.

Phew now that that’s over. Time to get onto the Multiplayer aspect. I’m only going to analyze the Spec Ops mode and a brief overview of the other normal multiplayer because frankly, I never really enjoyed the normal multiplayer types as I felt it was far too spammy with nades and etc (In CoD4). Maybe someday I’ll give it a whirl.

So what is Spec Ops mode? It’s the fabled co-op mode that they were promising. Honestly, this mode is a bit of a mixed bag for me. It has its good and bad points but it manages to land on the good side (and with this being CoD, the good side is great and the bad side is just good). It basically consists of a set of missions designed for 2 players to work together. Personally I think this is both a good and bad thing. The good thing is that it allows in a massive amount of mission variety. The bad thing is that, there really isn’t much continuity between missions and with many of them being relatively short, there isn’t much of a punishment system as if you fail, you can start over again without any worries. Sure it may be nice to tackle little side-quests with mate but personally I prefer to work together to a bigger objective through smaller ones with a partner. (You could compare this to RE5 with Mercernaries being Spec Ops and the story mode being a co-op campaign, except imagine it without the RE5 gayness in a CoD setting. Yeah. It would be epic)

The gameplay in these missions is great although the co-op kinda feels redundant in normal mode since you can withstand so many bullets. In veteran however, it is an extremely exhilarating experience where you really have to work together to get to the end successfully. Although the problem is with the bleeding out system. Its a bit like the dieing mode in RE5 except you can’t get killed while in dieing mode. Oh and the timer is huge (In normal you have 2 minutes to reach your partner and revive him, In veteran it’s still a whopping 1 minute). So pretty much the only way to die is for both of you to go into bleeding mode status (Yes a dog ripping out your throat will still leave you bleeding out). In the end it’s all about the experience in playing this with a mate and I must say, the co-op mode is extremely fun with somebody sitting next to you. So even though there are some minor quirks which I was unsatisfied with, this game still managed to squeeze a large amount of enjoyment out of me in being pretty damn awesome.

This could be you and your drinking buddy shooting yetis with guns.

To sum this all up. The single player, although short and disjointed, presents an atmospheric story which is only ruined in the way it’s presented. However the gameplay overcomes this fault leading to an enjoyable experience although not to the extent of CoD4 (debatable, but I think that CoD4′s story made much more sense than this although it doesn’t have as many epic set pieces.) Spec Ops mode is a blast to play with a friend and as long as you have somebody to play it with, the game is worth getting just for this mode alone as it should keep you satisfied for a very long time. (C’mon 25+ missons)

Having only briefly played the PC version of MW2, I can’t really give a definite comparison between the console and PC but what I have noticed is that the PC version feels dumbed down in comparison to its previous incarnations. The most prevalent would be the lack of a leaning system, meaning you have to strafe out into the open to kill things, i.e CS style. This has been in CoD since the early days so it does feel kind of strange without it but it doesn’t impact too much on the gameplay. I’m not sure whether consoles have had a leaning system with their finite amount of buttons so I can’t say that it got dumbed down for consoles but it feels different without leaning. The game also does feel a bit tailored to the console crowd though as some of the missions seem a lot more forgiving in layout. Other then that, it’s still the same core game.

There really isn’t much to say about the MP aspect of the PC version though. A quick google search would tell you just how bad it is. Everything that PC players have taken for granted have been removed. There is no server browser meaning you have to rely on a matchmaking system to get into a game and even then, the game is hosted locally due to the lack of dedicated servers.

The matchmaking itself is quite bad as essentially all you can do is choose the game mode you want to play, meaning you have no say on what map you want and the timer on that map. Hell from my experiences, hardcore mode is only enabled on only a set number of modes. If the host happens to have a bad internet connection then you had better hope he drops out as the host-migration system makes the player with the best internet connection the host (luckily). The lack of dedicated servers really takes its toll on people who game during the non-gaming hours as if the matchmaking system cant find a host close to you then it takes you all the way to hosts in Europe and the USA. Good luck trying to play in there. Gone are the days where you would skim through a server list at the dead of night looking for a local server with a group of people playing on it. The fact that it integrates with steam may deter many but honestly, I have no problem with it as steam works well with what it does. It allows users to communicate while gaming and join eachother’s games easily and it works pretty well at that although it was a hassle at times to get into the same game, it didn’t take too long. Having come from a CS background where dedicated servers were the norm making it easier to play against teams in a distraction-less setting and considering the outrage from CoD4 gamers, the lack of dedicated servers is a bit troubling for MW2 as with its current system, I don’t see how they can efficiently work clan matches together. It seems that Infinity Ward tailored the game to the pub players without much thought for the competitive scene or are too far up their own asses gloating about IWNet to care. I didn’t get too much hands-on time with the MP but these were the pretty obvious issues that really detracted from it in comparison to other games. (I don’t really want to get started about mods)

Don’t worry. Riot Shields actually do that.

Oh and before I forget. The graphics. There’s nothing I can say other than praise for it. While it doesn’t look drastically different from its predecessor, it still looks remarkably good. However the highlights would be the environments. From assaulting an island base’s walls to an escape in a snowmobile in a snowfield to the destroyed cities of America, all of these areas look absolutely fantastic. The weapons look finely detailed and the characters look authentic (although that might not be a good thing during the airport scene. It probably wouldn’t have got that warning if you were shooting barbie dolls).

Dot point form.

Singleplayer

• + Enjoyable gameplay on par with previous entries
• + Immerseful atmosphere that makes you feel you’re part of the action
• + Absolutely breathtaking scenarios
• - Disjointed plot that feels rushed
• - Some plot points don’t feel as dramatic as they should
• - Short

Multiplayer

• + Spec Ops is a blast to play with mates
• + Challenging Spec Ops missions that will keep you playing for a while
• + Same core gameplay that made CoD4 as popular as it is today (Pre-MW2 release)
• + Additional features to the perks, kill-streaks and rewards
• - Can’t help but feel Spec Ops could’ve been a bit more
• - Riot shields are kinda annoying at times

Other

• + Graphics are fantastic
• + Great voice-acting that doesn’t detract from the mood
• - Leaning feature feels missed
• - Lack of dedicated servers and forced matchmaking on PC really sucks
• - Matchmaking options are limited

Does this game live up to its hype? Yes it does. With such a high standard set by the previous game, the addition of a Spec Ops mode more than reaches the standard. In some ways it surpasses it but in others, it falls flat. Even with its faults, It is still a solid title in the franchise and shouldn’t be missed although some decisions on the direction of this game would make you ask “WHY!??”. The faults are easily ignorable leaving this quality to be a remarkable title in its own right though the PC version could’ve been much more. Personally I would recommend the console version over the PC because they’re essentially the same experience bar keyboard + mouse but with the console, you have split-screen at least, and you don’t have to go through that period of despair knowing that those conveniences you took for granted in the PC version aren’t available anymore. Either way this is easily ONE OF the best games to come out this year so far. So why am I disappointed with it? It’s good but it could’ve been so much more.

If you think this looks awesome then Yes, you will like this game.

@Dante.- TL;DR version

Great Game. A solid A+. While not perfect it does most things right takes it one-step further albeit with a few steps back.

9/10 (7.5-8 for PC because of the FLAWED online [Your Mileage May Vary])

Notes.

CoD4 = Modern Warfare 1

Leaning = Looking around corners without moving (Self-explanatory tbh)

Yes I am sorry if this didnt make much sense to you, Nothing I write ever does.

~EDIT~

OK. So with more MW2 playtime under my belt I think I should add some more comments about MW2.

Firstly about the single player. The pacing feels kind of strange and the way they dump you into missions is a bit iffy. In MW1 most of the missions were linked and it was fairly obvious, but in this, you seem to just be thrown in any location that would be awesome to have a firefight in. The pacing of the battles and the setting feels a bit, lets put enemies everywhere because people like shooting things, very un-needed.

The MP itself is actually pretty good. The reduced player count means theres less NADE SPAAAAAAAAM. But the one thing that jarates me off would have to be the Riot Shields. They are glitchy as hell as you can sometimes get knifed from the front while holding one out which makes no sense at all and they can repel almost all gunfire which is kinda cheap. Other than that, I really enjoyed it.

Alright, so for about 1-2 months I’ve been out of action on the forums and blogs due to some crazy time warping…

But dont panic! I’m finally back…and I hope to stay around this time.

So yea, here’s a quick summary of everything you’ve missed (detail comes after):

• I jizzm’d at the thought of Left4Dead 2
• Modern Warfare 2 promises a better Single Player campaign than COD4: MW
• MW2 aired its trailer on Sunday night handegg (see football) in the US
• I got Red Faction Guerilla
• I got rid of Red Faction Guerilla
• I found Eve…I got sick of it
• I played DDO to death with Budda and Aezra
• Me and Fireryda now play Resident Evil 5
• Abel from SFIV was once going to be a poof

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So yea, lets do this in order. L4D2, you have all the usual special infected from L4D but now there are even more special ones like the Charger, Jockey and Spitter as well as various regional common infected like Swamp zombehs.

Here is some gameplay footage of the new Special Infected and here is a list of achievements…but if you’re anything like me, who cares I just wanna eat brainz!

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This is all I have to say about MW2:

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Me and Budda both bought Red Faction Guerilla for PC expecting a kick ass sequel to the original which I rather enjoyed.

Instead we were treated to a raging pile of turds. It was a blatant console port, OTS aim with impossibly hard to use mouse sensitivity settings. Everything was sped up by like a million times…Now to some this may not sound bad but get this: I played on Casual, the easiest mode, with an automatic rifle and in the first firefight I got into, I died within seconds…Me…died…on easy…WHAT THE FFFFFFFFFFFFF-!! Basically it comes down to the enemy bots being able to dive roll at near enough to the speed of light…you cant aim at them fast enough.

And then dont even get me started on that THERES NO GODDAMN SURROUND SOUND SUPPORT! Which is cool for people with speakers…I however have a choice between 5.1 speakers or 7.1 headphones…without stereo speakers all you can hear is the blasting engine noise from any vehicle within line of sight…its so loud you cant hear NPC’s talking or anything…and get this, even if you turn off the “environment noise” it does NOTHING.

Shit game, dont buy…unless its for console…also it has a terrible story line.

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Played eve, got to the point where I can now fly interceptors…cbf paying for another month.

End of that story

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Me Budda and Aezra (the latter 2 from xeta clan) played DDO to death, basically its been the only game I’ve really sat down and played in the last few months…its entertaining and I love my Monk

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Fireryda made me get RE5, it took me about 2 weeks to get it…but its finally there. Again its just a straight console port to PC which frustrates the living hell out of me…however I have a PS controller and I have previously played this game a lot on my mates PS3 so it makes sense to play it like a console.

That an zombehs are fun, even if they are all black.

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And goddamn I laughed…this is a story from Kotaku of what Abel was going to be…and honestly I would have been happier if he was a small androgynous boy because that way I would go “awww” every time I lost to him instead of “GODDAMNIT YOU FRENCH PIECE OF SHIT!” every time he does his “I saw that!” roll into grab that removes half your HP.

I cant tell the difference, can you?

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And now you’re up to date, I haven’t done too much gaming recently as tech work was piling on and even then I shouldn’t have played so much anyway…Time for me to go update the anime blog.

Churr, leave comments and questions and stuff.

All valve games through steam are on sale this weekend for wondrous prices!

Check out steam store on the right hand side for all the deals…if you dont have any of the Halflife series or TF2, nows a good time to buy up

Exerpt from Steam: “This weekend only! Save 66% on everything Half-Life. Or get the Valve Complete Pack for 10% off.”

Complete pack ($90):

• CS (Counter-Strike)
• CS:CZ (Counter-Strike: Condition Zero)
• CSS (Counter-Strike: Source)
• DOD (Day of Defeat)
• DODS (Day of Defeat: Source)
• DM Classic (Deathmatch Classic)
• HL (Half-Life)
• HL2 (Half-Life 2)
• HL2:DM (Half-Life 2: Deathmatch)
• HL2:EP1 (Half-Life 2: Episode 1)
• HL2:EP2 (Half-Life 2: Episode 2)
• HL2:LC (Half-Life 2: Lost Coast)
• HLDMS (Half-Life Deathmatch: Source
• HL:BS (Half-Life Bullshit…err I mean Half-Life: Blue Shift)
• HL:OF (Half-Life: Opposing Force)
• HLS (Half-Life: Source)
• L4D (Left4Dead)
• Portal (Portal…wait wut?)
• Ricochet (Jokes already been done)
• TF2 (Team Fortress 2)
• TFC (Team Fortress Classic)

Thats a hell of a lot of Halflife