Release date: Windows, OS X, Linux: 21 October 2014 Genre: First-Person Shooter (FPS) Publisher:Suprise Attack Developer: Samurai Punk Platforms: PC/Mac/Linux/PS4/Xbone Players: 1 to 8
Hey all just wanted to mention as I'm sure you've noticed I've changed the colour scheme of the blog just to change things around a bit, I've also widened the edges as most screens are pretty big these days so no need to make the main body so small. So anyway I'll see how the black scheme goes but I may chnage it back for the next post, enjoy!
Do you remember all of those times playing games like battle
mode on Mario Kart on
the SNES
or Goldeneye
on the N64 or basically
any game on a console where you could sneak a look at your opponents screen to
work out exactly where they were and what they were doing? It was hard to
resist wasn’t it? Well developer Samurai Punk
have taken this idea and turned it into an actual game, a game where to win,
you must actively, consistently and masterfully Screencheat. Yes screen peak,
sneak or even gaze if you were that shameless, screen cheating has been around
for a long, long time, basically ever since there was split screen games, but
with Screencheat this is allowed and encouraged and also vital.
Bot practice with the blunderbuss in Museum
The game is
basically a fast-paced first-person shooter similar to Goldeneye that I
mentioned before except set in a very colourful world, in fact each map is
divided into different coloured areas, blue, red, green, yellow, purple etc the
reason for this being is that in screencheat everyone is invisible. How are you
supposed to hit anyone you ask? well it’s quite simple, you MUST sneak looks at
someone else’s screen to see where they are in order to know where to aim and
yes even when playing on PC you can still do this as you can see everyone’s (up
to 8 players) screens. This is made easier by the colours of each level, for
example if you are on the top of the blue stairs and you can see someone about
to walk up from the bottom of the blue stairs you would shoot in that direction
to hopefully hit them, there is no health in screencheat so it’s basically one
hit kill, but the weapons are designed around this and I admit it works very
well.
8 players on the Helix map
Controlling is easy as you move around and shoot and jump
with the usual keys but then it gets wacky, for instance the weapons
that you use go from unusual to ridiculous, the basic weapon is the single shot
blunderbuss which is a classic, reliable and faithful weapon then you get into
things like the HobbyHorse which allows you to charge into enemies to kill
them, the Trappeur which leaves behind a laser for the enemy to trip into, the ridiculous
Bear Bomb and my personal favourite, the Sorgean which shoots out a giant
spiked mace which then turns around and flies back the way it came. The design
of Screencheat is quite simple with minimal details and texturing making it
easier to work out where you or more importantly your opponents are, the player
characters are basically just single colour 3D models though they are only seen
when killed.
Duel with the Sorgean is hella fun
The levels are a variety of colourful locations such as museums,
gardens, temples and floating platforms that offer a wide range of stairs,
lifts, jump pads and obstacles, this interesting level design combined with old
school style of the graphics plus the absurdity of the weapons and the
clumsiness of watching other screens makes for a unique experience. What also
makes this game hilariously fun is just the general wackiness, wacky music,
wacky sounds and wacky text, for example when you kill another player or get killed
yourself the game comes up with a variety of death messages like “You submitted
Rustymango to the app store for approval” or “You got baked by Ultimate_Sacrifice”
and also simply “DERP” It also has funny sounds and speech with all the weapon
popping, smooshing, bZzZZZZzzzZZZ’ing and booping when you score a kill, the
announcer also sounds like he’s from the circus “how embarrassing!”.
8 player comp on the Temple level at Respawn Lan
The main gamemode is called “My First Deathmatch” but there
are many others including “Capture the Fun” which is sort of like “Bag Tag” in Timesplitters
except “the fun” is a Pinata which leave a trail of confetti so the person with
the fun is easy to locate. Another is called “Gold Rush” where players must collect
coins and shoot other players to gain their coins. And finally one of the more
interesting ones is “Murder Mystery” similar to the game Cluedo you are assigned to murder a particular person in a
particular room. Depending on when you are playing it may be hard to find populated
servers though there is also the training mode which acts as sort of a single
player mode and a tutorial mode as well to get you used to the game, though it
is relatively easy to pick up and only after a few games the first time I was
happily fragging people.
I try out the "Murder Mystery" mode and suck at it hah, there a requirement for the place or room I had to kill them in, I probably should have done it in a map like Manor but I wanted to see what Steeple was like.
Screencheat is another game that I only really played at LAN
parties on PC similar to Natural
Selection 2 so the review may be a bit shorter than most, when released
originally it had only 4 maps and a handful of weapons and game modes but the
latest update add much more content. Screencheat
can be played online or on LAN though the only qualm I had is that the main
menu is a bit confusing when you are trying to join or start a game as sometimes
I wasn’t sure if I had started it in the right area or not. I haven’t played
much online or seen absolutely every one of the levels but I’ve seen enough to
know that Screencheat is a hugely fun LAN game that is enjoyed by everyone and
everyone should play it at a LAN at least once.
JD
7/10
Things I liked:
Innovative and original weapons
Easy to pick up and play
Great Fun at LANs
Things I didn’t like:
Main menu creating online/offline games a bit confusing.
Not much longevity outside of LAN parties and competitions.
p.s thanks to Scratch
for his great guide
to Screencheat
Release date:November 10, 2015 Genre: Real-Time Strategy(RTS) Publisher: Blizzard Entertainment Developer: Blizzard Entertainment Platforms: PC/Mac Players: 1 to 8 Online Classification: M (ESRB)
When I started this review I immediately decided to bring up
the posts from the previous two games in the Starcraft II trilogy and then
realised that I had done a review for Heart
of the Swarm but not for Wings of
Liberty, which I now regret as it’s a bit too late to write a review for it
before I do this one but anyway I guess there’s not much I can do. As I’ve said
previously the purchase of this trilogy was largely based on the fact that the
previous games had excellent storytelling and I wanted to see more of it. Of
course yes there was the fact that I was playing Starcraft again and the
graphics looked awesome but in reality I’m not too fond of RTS anymore but
playing Starcraft on the easiest setting is absolutely fine, like a
power-fantasy if you will. Yes there’s still the micro-managing and the dread
before every level working out what it’s going to be like and wondering whether
you have enough army or need those few extra soldiers or whether you have
enough soldiers at the main base or whether you left the iron on and all those
things that make RTS stressful.
Oh man that's a lot of shit to micromanage
In any case, this was the big one, the last one, the one
that wraps things up (at least I hoped) yes Legacy
of the Void, the final part of Starcraft II where the enigmatic Protoss are
the main race. I was looking forward to this as the Protoss are my favourite
race and I would usually play as them in Multiplayer though to be honest now I
would most likely choose the Zerg since I now have a Zerg symbol necklace,
especially if I was wearing it at the time. I often just go with whatever race
is under-represented in a match though with only three races this is rarely an
issue. Starcraft II kept the same process as the first game starting with the Terrans
then Zerg
with Protoss
last. Before I started the actually Legacy of the Void expansion though there
was first the Whispers of Oblivionprologue featuring
Zeratul
as he attempts to make sense of the scattered prophecy that spoke of the return of Amon. This is where
you first encounter the Moebius Corps and the Tal'darim
in this expansion and was only three missions long but was a steep learning
curve as instead of easing back into the game with the normal campaigns this
prologue threw you into it allowing you to build and use the whole library of
units from the multiplayer whereas you would usually be very limited, but I got
through it anyway.
Zeratul attacks Amon's Temple
In Legacy of the Void you play as Artanis who
you may remember from the Protoss campaign in StarCraft: Brood War, he has now become the
Protoss Hierarch (aka leader) The story begins with a pretty
impressive trailer showing the Protoss fighting the Zerg on Aiur and the first
mission features you taking control of a very large force of Protoss from
Artanis’ Golden Armada which was quite fun. You meet with
quite a few others during the course of the campaign many of which have their
own faction, most notably Karax the Phase-Smith of the Khalai, Rohana the Grand
Preserver from the Spear
of Adun, Vorazun daughter of Raszagal and
new Matriach of the Nerazim (aka Dark Templar), Alarak of the Tal'darim,
Fenix aka Talandar of
the Purifiers and
of course Jim Raynor. The bulk of the story is about Artanis
uniting the various Protoss factions under the one banner which I now know is
called the Daelaam
and heed Zeratul’s advice to defeat Amon and force him
back into the Void.
The story is quite good with tenuous alliances and pacts being made and of
course I love how the Protoss talk and their politics, especially with the
Terrans as Artanis and Jim’s way of speaking are different but they can still
communicate fine, there was scene where Artanis was talking to Rory Swann and the
exchange was pretty funny. Once you had obtained the ship Spear
of Adun the story became very much like the other two as the ship becomes
your mobile forward operational center where you could explore the various rooms/levels much like Kerrigan’s Leviathan and
Jim Raynor’s Hyperion
battlecruiser.
The gathered Protoss Leaders from left to right: Talandar, Artanis, Rohana, Vorazun, Alarak and Karax
The humourous exchange between Artanis and Rory Swann
The Spear of Adun
has the usual staging areas of the previous games such as a bridge and a places where you can modify and
upgrade your army. Modifying your army this time around involves going to the War Council part of the
ship where your units are divided into classes i.e. melee warrior, ranged
warrior, robotic assault etc and as you progress you get access to more unit
classes and more units in that class. For example once you are allied with the Purifiers you can
start creating Sentinels,
Energizers and Colossi which are damn
awesome, they were so powerful and could shoot so far that I often just sent a
group of them forward and then attacked with the bulk of my forces as they
usually set themselves too far away from the group and the faster ground troops
run in and get themselves killed. The Solar Core is where you
upgrade the ship with support options and man I tell you what the ‘Deploy
Pylon’ and ‘Mass Recall’ abilities were awesome allowing you to both pull your
forces back to base to set a Pylon down to warp more forces out to the field,
this coupled with the “Warp Harmonization” ability allowing Robotics facilities and Stargates to
have warp in abilities was almost too powerful, but then again all the upgrades
over the course of the singleplayer story were anyway.
Distributing the Solarite for upgrades on the Spear of Adun
The Colossi go nuts and my forces also go nuts at the end of the the Templars Return mission.
The missions were as varied as the last game in the series
with the usual attacking/capturing points on the map, defending points on the
map and hero-only quests. You also had missions where you had to do this while
avoiding rampaging Zerg which weren’t aggressive but still weren’t on your
side, rush to stabilize a huge space platform and get to your targets before
they are destroyed by a slow moving laser. One of the more interesting missions
was the Rak’shir
where you had to help Al’arak in a ritual battle so that he can be the leader
of the Tal’darim, I enjoyed this one as it was very different as it was a kind
of reverse tug-of-war you had to crowd your units around him to support him and
eventually throw his opponent off the cliff into the pit. This actually
reminded me a lot of The
Search for Illidan except that one was very much like a traditional tug of
war.
The Rak'shir
With general gameplay I had the issue again of having just too many units
and not knowing what the fack each one did, I tried to have similar units for
certain missions for example using mostly Dark Templar unit equivalents on
Shakuras or when Nerazimwere prominent
and the Tal’darim units whenever it was that storyline but still there was 4
different Protoss factions and not all of them had their own version on a unit
so it was a bit hard to manage, but it really didn’t matter too much. There’s
not much I can talk about without spoiling the story but I did enjoy all the
levels where you were just playing as the heroes, I loved this as you only
needed to worry about them and not build a base and organise a whole army at
the same time. I didn’t have too much trouble getting through the story as it
wasn’t too hard I had done it all before. Starcraft has a pretty gentle
learning curve and if you’re playing it on the easiest mode it’s not bad at
all, the Protoss were fun to play as I always liked their race and story and
their speech oh man some of the exchanges were great though a bit formal but
then again I like formal dramatic speaking.
Alarak in Vorazun in the ruins of Antioch on Aiur, this particular series of missions had you controlling only two "hero" units.
The Epilogue
missions were quite challenging even on the easiest game modes though they
could be beaten with careful planning. You had to play each of the three
missions as a different race and going back to the Terran and Zerg races was challenging as I was not used to them at all, especially the final one where you played as the Zerg. The three final missions
finished off the trilogy of Starcraft 2 into an ending that was a bit too happy
for the likes of myself and my brother but it finished it off nonetheless. The
graphics were awesome as usual they looked great with my new 980ti graphics
card and the sound and music was as good as before, there’s not much else to
say about it apart from the cutscenes being as brilliant as ever, I swear
between Blizzard Starcraft 2 and Bioware’s The Old Republic I’m not sure who
makes the better 3d animation hah.
The faction prepare to enter the Void in the epilogue
I had had a few brief forays into the
Multiplayer, only for LAN parties of course I don’t think I have ever once
played online, I also haven’t played the Co-op missions and
I’m not sure if I have done the Tutorial as
well. I could probably skip that as I don’t need it but I could play the Co-op
with my brother. Playing others is always fun, I actually had a victory against
someone else which won me an SSD at Lanslide, and I’ve always enjoyed playing
RTS when it doesn’t matter if you lose, same goes with all multiplayer really,
in fact I really must try it more but then again it’ll be back to the building
then getting killed again and again and I’d actually have to try to get better.
My 1v1 victory at the Lanslide Lan
So that finishes off the Starcraft 2 Saga, I’d like to say
we’ve come a long way but it’s just been sporadic bursts of play, the question
is, what now? Will there even be a Starcraft 3? Will there be another Warcraft
RTS at all or will we just be inundated with MOBAS?
Only time will tell.
JD
The only think that really changed here was the story so I’m
not gonna bother with a detailed description what I liked and didn’t. It was fun I liked
it, it was pretty much the same as before but the story was better so I’ll give
it 8/10
It might seem a bit strange that I’m reviewing old-school
Doom in wake of the new Doom
(formerly Doom 4) released this year which I have yet to play, though I thought
it could be a little celebration of sorts as I never bothered playing Doom 3,
so it would be my first ever delve into another Doom game since the beloved
Doom II. But enough about the new Doom, this is the old Doom but it’s not Doom
or Doom II, confused yet? Let me explain….
A lovely doom landscape, you don't see that too often.
Originally back in 1993 ID software created Doom, Doom 1, the
original Doom, whatever you want to call it, and the world rejoiced etc etc.
The game itself was split into three chapters Knee-Deep in the Dead, The
Shores of Hell and Inferno where the Union Aerospace Corporation (UAC) who
remind me a lot of the Aliens
series’ Weyland-Yutani
corporation, are conducting experiments on interdimensional travel accidentally
open a portal to Hell and the protagonist (I will call him Doomguy) Fights
across the zombie and demon infested UAC bases on the moons of Phobos and Deimos orbiting the
planet Mars, then
eventually travelling to Hell
itself. Then in 1994 Doom II: Hell on Earth was released, this was the first
Doom that I played though this was the Doom 95 version released a year
later and as the game says, The Legions of Hell have invaded earth, so this
time you are fighting on your home planet.
After that came The
Ultimate Doom in 1995 which contained the original 3 chapters and a new one
Thy Flesh Consumed which acted as both a sequel
to Doom and a prequel to Doom II. And then we go onto the last or final
official instalments of the original Doom series, Final Doom
was released in 1996 and included the standalone Doom II IWADs (Doom Game files): TNT:
Evilution and The Plutonia Experiment which were created
semi-independently and were each regarded as a separate sequels to Doom II so
had no chronological order from one over the other.
TNT Evilution and The Plutonia Experiment were part of Final Doom
I have now played through every single one with TNT
Evilution being the last. You may be wondering why I chose this one as the
first one to review on my blog, well it’s for several reasons: The first being
that this was the latest one I have played so it will be fresh in my mind, the
second reason is that it’s almost a standalone story so it doesn’t really matter
if you haven’t experienced the original two, thirdly, It’s the only one I had
recorded screenshots and videos of :D and fourthly, I’m going to use this to
introduce the Skulltag Mod which is what
I used to play them all through, though I may not use again when I re-play all
of the games through once more. This won’t be the longest review as we all know
about Doom and how it works, I just wanted to explain the mod I have been using
and show off the changes to the game when using it, and the only screenshots
and videos I have are from TNT Evilution so I will use it as the game that is
in review.
Wow this looks different
So before I begin I will first introduce the Skulltag Mod. The Skulltag mod
was created by Matthew 'Agent Spork'
McGee and is one of many “conversion” or perhaps “light conversion” source
ports for the original Doom series games and was based on the ZDoom source port which included
the new graphics and control/gameplay abilities. As the site says it “Brings
Doom into the 21st century” and it does this by adding many new
options and game features including graphics overhaul, with the ability to pick
any modern resolution with much more refined textures and dynamic lighting.
Detailed display options and openGL in DOOM? what trickery is this?
It
introduced new weapons such as the Minigun which is a faster version of the Chaingun and the Railgun which
we all know from Quake 2,
I really enjoyed these new weapons and used them often, they reminded me of
that forgotten “Q2 Xtreme” mod I used to use to play Quake 2, I really need to
work out where that went. But anyway probably the most important changes are to
the gameplay, the mod allows for free mouselook and includes several custom
crosshairs and also include the ability to jump and duck. These kinds of things
change the original game around completely as you know in the original Doom
games you could not jump, crouch or look up or down relying on auto-aiming to
hit enemies above or below you. Now with modern FPS controls it’s pretty nuts
and playing the game this way borders on cheating, using the sprint ability
then jumping allows you to leap great distances and because all of the original
WAD’s were not built for these features you have no idea whether you are
supposed to be able to get to certain places or not.
Well I could, make it up to that ledge to get to the yellow door but I know I'm not supposed to be able to.
Nevertheless I could not imagine going back to play the
original way, the first time I experienced Doom using the mod I couldn’t
believe how good it was, it looked amazing, the mod actually has many features
for online play including Team DM, Duel, CTF and the namesake game mode
’Skulltag’ where players aim to capture each others skulls and take them to an
altar. The first I played I tried out a Deathmatch mode with bots and wow it
was fun, I haven’t tried since I’ve just been having fun with the usual
singleplayer but man playing that with 5 bots and watching rockets fly past
with new lighting effects was crazy. Currently my Doom folder contains all
kinds of mods and it’s hard to discern what each of them do, so to explain I
have included a description.
A short video of the Skulltag game mode with bots on the Ring of Fire map
With the exception of Doomseeker, all of these are Source Ports of the original
Doom most often made by fans, they often contain slight-to-heavy tweaking of
the game engine including new features inc graphics, gameplay, game modes,
weapons and levels.
ZDoom – A
source port which modernizes Doom with a range of features including new
graphics and control/gameplay abilities
GZDoom – A
port of ZDoom itself which uses the same features except adds OpenGL
support for higher resolution graphics and particles
Skulltag –
The mod I currently use, also uses features from ZDoom and GZDoom and adds
online/multiplayer features.
ZDaemon – A
mod purposely-built for playing multiplayer Doom over the Internet, based on ZDoom
The menu for the skulltag mod allows you to choose which game (or WAD file rather) that you would like to play.
There are many, many, other Source Ports available for
Doom as this is just a few that I use, you may have also heard of Brutal Doom, I hadn’t paid
much heed to it but after doing some research for my current review I came
across some videos
which featured Brutal Doom being played with OpenGL graphics and it looked
goddamn amazing, of course there does seem to be a bit too much bloom with fire
and explosions (Battlefield
1 seems to have this issue as well) and also man that bloom on the toxic
barrels is too much, I realised just recently that the Skulltag mod has the
option to run the game in the software graphics (Doom Engine) or hardware
graphics (OpenGL) I didn’t really pay too much attention to this as I didn’t
have much idea what it was for and playing Doom with 1920x1080 resolution was
good enough for me. Brutal Doom has many new features including a few new
weapons and revamped old weapons with new graphics and sound, new enemy
abilities and death animations inc ‘fatalities’, revamped HUD and as the name
adheres to, lots and lots of gore. The mod is supposed to be much harder than
the original Doom but I’m still thinking of using it to play through the Doom
series again as I could possibly lower the difficulty and gore to acceptable
levels.
Brutal Doom - A Mod I plan to use in the future.
Speaking of level of difficulty I remember in my younger
days I cheated a lot, in singleplayer of course, there will never be a time
where I cheat in multiplayer. Yes I found cheats for almost every game I played
and in my defense I said it made the game more enjoyable because it wasn’t as
hard or frustrating, well obviously. Though little did I know that all you had
to do was lower the difficulty (to say ‘easy’) then all will be fine, well
mostly, I’m playing Star Wars: Tie
Fighter at the moment and it’s getting damn hard even on easy, but that’s
what I have been doing recently with my gaming and I have found it’s been
ultimately more enjoyable than just being an unstoppable demigod. With older
games such as Doom and Quake I went from playing with invincibility and
unlimited ammo to just invincibility then finally only recently to no cheating
albeit on easy mode and I’m quite satisfied with that, I used the second lowest
skill level setting “Hey
not too rough” which is the least amount of enemies but you take the normal amount
of damage as opposed to “I’m too young to die” in which you take half damage. I
only switched to this possibly 1/3rd of the way through TNT
Eviliution so the majority of the series I played like a goddamn Saint Diviner
of Justice coming to wreak explosive death upon the denizens of Hell with blah
blah blah let’s get on with the review…..
I warp to one of my favorite levels, Mount Pain and start in god mode then realize I'm in god mode then switch it off hah.
So now you know the story behind the original Doom series
and the mods I used to play the game and the settings we can talk about the
actual game itself.
TNT
Evilution released on June 17, 1996, forms one half of Final Doom,
a commercial product which consists of two 32-level IWADs (the other being The Plutonia Experiment), similar to Doom II. The
"TNT" in the title stands for "The New Technology" and is
also the name of the mapping team who created TNT: Evilution. The game was
originally going to be free of charge but was packaged with The Plutonia
Experiment in Final Doom as a publishing deal brokered by the infamous John Romero
and thus being released by id Software. The story behind TNT Evilution is nothing
too special, just an excuse to shoot the crap out of the denizens of hell
(though who needs an excuse really) The ill fated UAC has again been
experimenting with portal technology to try and annihilate the forces of hell,
they seem to succeed but then a vast demonic spaceship from Hell appears and
destroys the base zombifying everyone. Now this is the part I love, the Doomguy apparently
escaped death or zombification by being “away on a walk at the time”, yes, a walk, and then vows to destroy all of
the legions of hell defeating another Demon-Spitter
yadda yadda yadda.
Yes it's another Demon-Spitter, not again!
TNT Evilution has a very techbase feel to it, similar to the
first episode of the original Doom, whereas
The Plutonia experiment has a more natural earth feel to it. TNT’s levels go
from experimental labs, to military bases, to interesting looking levels at
night and back to hell again. I must admit it did take me awhile to complete
with 32 levels (including secrets levels) this and the Plutonia experiment took
me quite a lot of breaks, mainly because I had not played the levels before and
it took me awhile to work out what to do and where to go. The levels in this
series I noticed differed in quite a few ways from the norm of Doom and Doom 2,
there were many tricks and unconventional ways of completing the levels, for
example the end room and switch wasn’t always through the same style of door
and what you thought was the end of the level wasn’t always the case.
The shipping/respawning level which has quite a few new textures and objects and I don't do much here except get lost, I eventually worked out the key was inside a box under a desk, very unusal for Doom I can tell you that.
It was
obvious that the designers were creating these levels as a challenge expansion
not holding your hand like in the previous games. I saw quite a few objects and
textures that were definitely not from the original Doom series especially
modern technology and furniture, fences, gatehouses and other things that
weren’t in the original, the levels also had more of a sporadic design and used
unconventional architecture which sometimes include wide open spaces like in Level 27: Mount Pain. Playing
the mod also made things very different being able to look all around obviously
had some interesting effects on gameplay, I’ve already mentioned the ability to
jump created “I can just jump there but I don’t think I’m supposed to” moments
and there was also the fact that Doom was never actually 3D.
So you can basically look straight up and down with the mouse and watch the
monsters turn into a single vertical line, this made me laugh a few times but
it’s expected and a reminder of what the Doom Engine
actually was.
The Storage Facility level where I do a heap of looking and jumping with the new controls.
The new weapons made things much more interesting, the
Minigun made wasting zombies and imps much quicker and even some demons didn’t
take too long to kill, the new Grenade Launcher put a more tactical spin on
rockets allowing them to bounce so you could hit targets around corners, the
Railgun was probably my favourite addition as it was very powerful with one
shot killing those pesky Lost Souls and with the crosshair you could shoot them
from miles away. There was also this pretty cool looking rapid-fire version of
the BFG but I preferred to use
the old one, I guess this one with its faster firing would be more useful for
clearing tons of monsters. Playing with these new weapons and gameplay changes
put a great spin on the game and it was very refreshing and felt good to go
through, like a breath of fresh air, hopefully more games can do this *cough* Mercenaries
*cough* TNT Evilution wasn’t the best Doom experience I’ve had it was the most
rewarding being the first time I have played Doom for an extended period
without invincibility, and I actually enjoyed it ;).
I let loose a bouncy grenade.
I will still go through all the previous games again though
it’s questionable whether I do it with Skulltag or Brutal Doom, though Brutal
Doom actually has its own Story mode which looks freakin insane in its
own right and since it was made to be played with the Brutal doom mod then I
think that would be the best way to experience Brutal doom first hand and if
after that I can’t go back to the normal way then I’ll brutally blast though
the originals too. Though there’s something to be said about the comfort of the
original style, so you may not have seen the last of Skulltag yet.
My friend Dave did a shoutout to my blog way back in 2011 and I gave a shoutout to his. But now his (new) blog Mondo Exploito is closing due to him moving to Japan, so check it out for what little time it has left. Mondo Exploito is all about "Celebrating Cinema's shame" as in what you call "Good" bad movies think classic, underground, horror, all, those kinds of things.
Release Date: October 31st 2012 Genre: First Person Shooter/Real Time Strategy Developer: Unknown Worlds Entertainment Publisher: Unknown Worlds Entertainment Platform: Microsoft Windows, Linux Players:Online Multiplayer Classification: T (Teen)
I’ve decided it’s time to actually try to review some of
thevarious games I play at LAN parties,
most of which are fairly simple and have no singleplayer mode and so only get
played at LANs themselves these games include the likes of Insurgency, Rocket League, Flatout 2, Screencheat, Armagetronad, Gang Beasts and many
others. I’ve realised that I haven’t considered reviewing these games as I play
them so sparingly and will also have to slot them in between my other reviews
of games that I have been playing in an orderly fashion at home. I was at the
Bluewire Lan in Diamond Creek a while ago and we went back to an old favourite Natural Selection 2 which we
played quite a few sessions of during the course of the LAN so I thought it was
sufficient enough to warrant writing a review, so here it is.
The introductory video that appears at the start of the game.
Natural
Selection 2 (NS2) is a multiplayer team-based shooter that combines the
shooter/fps style with a strategy (RTS) game. The first time I played was a
while ago (as the game did come out in 2012) At first I was a bit confused
about what was going on but then got the hang of it as the game is a bit
different from your usual FPS (first-person-shooter). Before we get into it
though I will go through a bit of backstory which I’ve only found out recently.
The first Natural Selection
(NS) was a mod for Half-Life along
with the likes of Team Fortress
and Counter-strike
and although it didn’t quite reach the levels of fame that those two have it
was still very popular in its own right and popular enough to spawn (heh) a
sequel. I’ve never played the original but it looked amazing especially for a
mod though the sequel is obviously much better as it was built from the ground
up as a full game.
The original natural selection mod for Half-Life
I was able to piece together a brief storyline for the game
from the Frontiersman
and Kharaa race overview
pages on the Natural
Selection 2 Wiki. Basically the Frontiersman are a cross between Starcraft’sTerrans and the Alien series Marines
created by the current Government of Earth to destroy the Kharaa which are
quite similar to Starcraft’s Zerg
race as they have the similar traits including the use of the green creep-like infestation
that spreads as the Kharaa infest more areas and the practice of assimilating
other races. Though the storyline pretty much ends there as there is no
singleplayer aspect to the game it is basically wholly multiplayer which was it
all the mod was and all it needed to be really. At first glance the game is
basically Marines vs Aliens in fairly futuristic space installations including
abandoned mines, troop outposts, laboratories, biodomes and space stations,
featuring fairly condensed spaces of tunnels and corridors with limited large
open areas though there is much more to it than this.
Loading screen with map of the "Veil" zone, the bits in organge are shortcuts only the smaller Kharaa races can use.
It’s interesting how the game forces you to do the tutorial
before actually going online and playing, whether this is a good or bad option
I’ll let you decide. I had no qualm with it as whenever I went back to playing
I always needed a refresher course, and also it at least stops people coming on
to play who have absolutely no idea what they are doing though it is a bit
annoying when you’re at a LAN party and everyone has already played it before
but has to go through the damn thing again. Once I started playing I was
actually glad I did the tutorial as the game itself is much more complicated
than most FPS games, at the start you have the classic “ready room” where you
choose whether to go on the Marine or Kharaa sides or choose one at random
often by running through doors or jumping down holes.
The Marine tutorial, very annoying to some, fine by me
The Veil level ready room
Each team starts on
(relatively) opposite sides of the map with just the basic structures and
resources, the early game usually focuses on securing resources, while the late
game focuses on advancement of technology for the marines and higher lifeforms
for the aliens. This Marine and Alien Commanders
are probably the most pivotal point of a side and having a good or bad
commander can make or break the game contest The commanders are the lifeblood
of the side and team cannot function properly without one as they are
responsible for the building of structures, collecting of resources and
researching of upgrades. To explain the way it works I’ll use the marines as an
example as they are a bit easier to relate to, to start off with one player has
to jump into the Commander
station to become the commander, this often involves people either fighting
for the position or no-one wanting to do it so someone gets in and does it
poorly, I’ll admit I played on an “newbie” NS2 server so that may be why,
though I can’t talk really.
"Let's go team! hut hut hut...."
Once the commander is inside it becomes similar to the
Battlefield series Commander feature,
they can see the whole map in a top-down perspective and are able to place
‘blueprints’ onto the map for stuctures like extractors for gaining
resources, Sentry guns
for defence and power
nodes for powering structures which marines can use their Build
Tool to create, thus expanding their territory and gaining more resources
to use for upgrades. The upgrades are provided by structures like the Armory and Prototype
Lab, all marines start with a basic Assault
Rifle, Pistol
and Switch-Axe
but can upgrade to things like Shotguns and Flamethrowers and the
prototype lab gives access to fun and powerful tech like the Jetpack and Exosuit.
Marines can request healing and ammo from the commander who can place it on the
map, they can also repair structures and exosuits with the Welder. As a
marine you generally follow your commanders order of what to do and where to
go, you help secure resource nodes throughout the map (for extractors) build
and expand and defend against the attacking Kharaa eventually working your way
to destroying the hive, if the command station is destroyed then the Marines
lose.
A shortish match I played on the Frontiersman side on the newbie server, we didn't do very well unfortunately.
With the alien
Kharaa race things are slightly different, the Kharaa main structure is the Hive and they differ in the
fact that while the marines are basically the same apart from the gear that
they have the Kharaa units are drastically different from each other. For
example the Skulk
is a basic lifeform and can run along walls and ceilings and through certain
parts of the map where only the smaller Kharaa can crawl through such as air
vents and large pipes which gives the weaker Kharaa units a chance to ambush.
The Gorge on
the other hand is a support unit and can heal other Kharaa and create
barricades and summon smaller Babbler
aliens to assist it in battle, the most powerful Kharaa unit the tank-like Onos which can
demolish structures and take on marines in Exosuits with ease.Instead
of upgrading their hardware like the marines the Kharaa units can Evolve with things
like improved armor (carapace) and regeneration, they also have stealth
abilities for ambush and surprise attacks and can use parasites and the Auraability
to detect nearby marines and exosuits on the map. The Kharaa main base and
expanded areas are covered in Infestationwhich is a green/brown ooze in which the Kharaa commander spreads to different
areas using Cysts
in order to reach resource nodes and create Harvesters. The Skulk
and Gorge units also have a unique trait, as they both attack by biting or
spitting with their jaws so the first person camera is actually inside their
mouth making biting and spitting much easier and also being so close to the
ground gave you a more stealthy feel.
Playing as the Kharaa, didn't do to well that time either XD
Playing as the two
races requires different thinking, the Marines have the firepower advantage
especially early in the game and are best at frontal assault while the Kharaa
excel at stealth and ambushes as they have abilities that make them less
visible and silent and can use shortcuts in the level where the marines cannot.
The Kharaa have more units and structures but ultimately each side does not
have an advantage over the other, after playing the game for a while you
realise both sides have their own version of an ability or feature for example some
are the same thing for each side such as the Phase
Gate and the Gorge Tunnel though some are slightly different as the
Observatory
detects enemies for the Marines and the Sentry gun is for defence. But
with the Kharaa the Hydra is a detector and also acts as a turrent shooting spines
at enemies and additionally they have the Whip for more
close-range defence.
A gang of Skulks near a resource harvester
This mirrors most modern RTS games with each army being
the same but slightly different somehow balancing out so no side has an unfair
advantage. I’ll say it now teamwork and communication with a bit of leadership
is the key to victory, though this is true with almost any type of team
competition it is especially true with Natural Selection as one player cannot
carry the team (such as in DOTA 2) and the team cannot rely on points and kills
for the win (Battlefield series). Venturing out alone is a sure fire way to be
quickly killed, I found myself following at least one other person in order to
have strength in numbers and enjoyed following the orders of the commander and
responding to teammate alerts as when the match was over, win or lose I could
tell myself that I had done the right thing.
Always travel with a friend
The controls in the
game are basically the same as your standard FPS, usual controls to move,
interact shoot and use abilities and a button for the map. The only difference
for the Marines is when you are in an exosuit but for the Kharaa, choosing a
different lifeform makes drastic changes in movement, for example Skulks are
very agile and run and jump much faster than the Marines, the Lerk is a flying
unit that can zoom at great speeds and excels at hit-and run and damage over
time and the Fade
is a stealthy ground unit that can kill very quickly then stealthily escape,
though both of these lifeforms are low on health and must avoid attacking
directly. It’s difficult at first to work out which button is for upgrading and
evolving etc but gets easier over time.
A great piece of artwork with a marine in an exosuit taking on an Onos
Having come out in 2012, Natural
selection 2 does not have the best graphics to offer but looks good enough for
what it is, the locations looks pretty damn good and I like the fact that they
are non-mirrored and all of the spawn points are not so obvious. The detail on
the locations is pretty good, I love the way the infestation (I had to resist
saying ‘creep’ there) spreads through the level, the design has a very Aliens
mixed with Dead
Space feel although not quite as tense obviously as the action is quite
fast paced, on looking at the map list for the first
time I had no idea there were so many of them but I like the theme to each
level. The detail on the aliens and marines is pretty good the marines are all
starship troopers style and the aliens are both ugly and fearsome looking and
are multitude of colours. The sound and music in the game is on par with the
scene with tense music playing over gun blasts, explosions, screeches, munches
and roars, one of the most memorable sounds was the screeching of the Hive when
it is being attacked, made my damn skin crawl.
The alien hive with the signature Skulk mouth-cam
Although it works perfectly well online, my favourite place
to play Natural Selection 2 is at a LAN party if you have enough people to can
be heaps of fun, yes everyone hears your communication but that’s the way it
goes, I’m proud to say it’s one of my favourite games to play at LANs, the
first-person shooter mixed with real-time strategy works really well, the only
drawback is the learning curve with the Commander mode which I admit the forced
tutorial gave you a general idea of what to do I was still a bit overwhelmed
when in the seat myself, it just cements the fact that to be effective you need
a commander who at least has an idea of what he/she is doing.
Me as the Kharaa Commander, this was shortly before we were overrun XD
Whether it’s good or bad I enjoy playing Natural Selection 2
and hope I play it far into the future as it is a unique game and I salute Unknown Worlds Entertainment for their
effort and willingness to create something different, I enjoy the fact that I
can finally be a pawn in a bigger army and still make a difference as if I was
in an RTS though the army in NS2 not quite the scope of Starcraft II for
example but the principle is the same. I just hope that FPS in the future
follow this sort of innovation and this isn’t the last we have seen FPS and RTS
hybrid.
JD
8/10
Things I liked:
Great mix of FPS and RTS elements.
Heaps of fun to play at LAN parties.
Greatly rewards teamwork.
Good balance of similarities and differences between
races/sides.
Things I didn’t like:
Steep Learning curve for Commander mode.
Need at least 8 a side to make things interesting.
Requires good teamwork.
If you don’t have a good commander you’re gonna have a bad
time.
Natural Selection 2 Launch Trailer
Hey kid we heard you like RTS, so we put some
RTS in your FPS
Release date: Windows, OS X, Linux: 21 October 2014
