Minecraft Creations: Zeppelin and Temple of Water Love, Creative rebuilds

I haven’t done a post on these remakes in a while as I only usually do if the newly remade creation is somewhat different to the original, whether they were bigger, more complex, or better designed  as playing  in creative mode has the obvious advantage of unlimited resources. So as with other remade creations such as my Grey Tower they often come out very different to what was made in the restrictions of multiplayer, not to mention the fear of the server being reset for an impending new game update which always seem to come up at the wrong time.

I’ve decided to feature my Zeppelin being the obvious choice as it’s had a major change since the multiplayer version, I’ll also be featuring my Temple of Water Love though it’s had fairly minor changes that come when a building is built into the landscape then is rebuilt in a different location. Both creations from this post back in October 2011 and some of my Tribalfield friends will notice the Temple and the Zeppelin from the 1.7 and 1.8 maps respectively, I had decided to re-create them in my main world as I wanted to get rid of the two rather large maps out of my Minecraft install. I still have them saved though.

Zeppelin

My Zeppelin in particular I wanted to remake as it had the one major change of the balloon not being mostly made out of cobblestone. Which sounds kind of ridiculous but as I originally I wanted to use wool the amount of sheep I would have had to shear was horrendous, so I settled for just a coloured wool trim. This time however the balloon is in full colour and splendour with my initials plastered on it as is the norm, just so people know it’s me you know? I made a slight error with the balloon design, I’d made it within even lines instead of odd, without a single row of blocks down the middle:

Like this - [][][][]

Instead of this - [][][][][]

So basically what that meant was in order for the Zeppelin boat to sit properly, I would have to make it wider, and in case you don’t know, making things like aeroplanes and boats with no middle row of blocks doesn’t make things easy but I had to pull it off as there was no way I was re-making the balloon. So it turned out kind of weird, but ok I think. I also remade my Zeppelin tower with the “Hoegaarden” which was pretty simple and worked fine except that this part of my very old singleplayer map was apparently a swamp biome and had that greenish tinge. As you have probably noticed I decided to use Misa’s 64x64 texture pack as Faerielight 256x256 didn’t look to good at all with the balloon wool.

Inside of the balloon

As you can see the drivers seat is slightly off-centre, ah anyway

More deck and cabin space this time with the two extra blocks

Will ya look at those crops

 Templo del amor, del agua (The Temple of Water Love)

My remake of the temple of water love didn't change too much apart from the different location changing the shape slightly as the floor of the ocean was deeper down and this the shaft was deeper apart from that it came out fine. I remember when I first made it, it was in a part of my now very old world that it didn't rain and boy that did not help as the whole feature of the temple is when it rains. Also the Faerielight 256x256 texture pack gives it a nice touch.

Rain comes through here....

And goes through here...

And ends up ere!

So just a quick Minecraft update, I'll be back for more Minecraft goodness with my adventures with Richy D in his world of Ralgon and the next episode of the Adventures of JD aka the almighty Brick Mansion.

JD


I'd to fly, high in the sky, in an eagle's domain in the sun

My Usual Spiel: Max Payne 3, another round of gun-slingin' mass-murderin' depressed-narraratin' action

Not time for hostage rescue, time however, for whiskey

Release Date: June 1, 2012
Genre: Third-Person Shooter
Publisher: Rockstar Games
Developer: Rockstar Studios
Platform: PS3, Xbox 360, PC
Players: 1 and Online Multiplayer
Classifcation: MA


Depression, it affects all of us at some point in our lives, but none other than our good friend Max Payne, I never really imagined how the story would continue after this but it looks like it has, and after watching my brother play through the game, I had to have a go myself.

As in all Max Payne games the story starts with a flash-forward of one of the last scenes in the game, the we go back to how Max got there. This is a very different setting for Max Payne as to critical fan review most of the game is mostly set in Sao Paulo Brazil which is a Far Cry from the gloominess of Noir York. It's been eight years since the events of the second game, Max has been fired from the NYPD for collaborating with Mona Sax, a wanted criminal and is now working as a bodyguard with his police academy buddy Raul Passos for a rich Brazilian family: the Branco’s. I won’t spoil the story but important people get kidnapped, other people die, shit generally hits the fan and Max and Passos have to murder a lot of bad guys.

"I don't like the looks of this place"

We do actually find out how Max got to be in Brazil through playable flashbacks where Max meets up with Passos in Hoboken, New York where they end up killing a mob bosses son then have to flee for their lives. Max, who is now more of an alcoholic and pill-popper then ever is his usual depressed melancholy self and narrarates the story accordingly. I do agree with Yahtzee’s ranting that Max Payne should just cheer up a little but it’s not exactly his fault that nothing good has happened to him ever since the tragedy with his family (well almost nothing) he could almost be the most depressed protagonist in gaming history.

His shirt may be having fun but the rest of him is just as downhearted-killer as usual

A couple of things I was disappointed to see gone were the comic strip scenes and Max’s nightmares from the first two games. Seeing as Max Payne 3 actually had a comic made for itself I found it strange why it didn’t feature in the game, though this time the game wasn’t exactly set in “Film Noir” style so I suppose it made sense. One of my brother and I’s favourite parts of the first two games were being able to play out Max’s nightmares about previous traumatic experiences (family murdered etc) but I suppose he may have gotten over them by now, but seriously couldn’t he have a nightmare about something else? Anyway I could rant on all day about it butit's been awhile so I suppose things can;t be the same all the time.

The graphic-novel style storytelling and being able to play Max's nightmares in the previous games were a favorite of mine, sadly they are no more in Max Payne 3

I loved the previous two Max Payne games as there was something crazy fun about being Max and going on a violent gun rampages while slow-mo flying through the air and massacring hundreds and hundreds of (supposed) criminals. Though I knew eventually that as the series wore on it was going to get more serious, gameplay wise that is. There was not much humour in the first Max Payne storyline and it has pretty much stayed that way all the way through but the way you ran and jumped around with bullets and bodies flying everywhere just seemed comical. This was made even worse by the introduction ragdoll physics for Max Payne 2 where you were deliberately shooting enemies in certain angles and using explosives at just the right time to make both their death and where their body ended up after all that more spectacular and hilarious in stark contrast to the dark and gritty story.

I wear one of these headsets for work though it isn't quite like whats pictured and also no I'm not a telemarketer.

As I suspected Max moves a lot more realistically this time around, gone are the days where you effortlessly pivoted all over the place while running then did a suicide dive in the middle of a group of enemies and took them all out someway with only a shotgun, you are now constrained by (semi) normal human anatomy which is evident the way Max grunts when he performs a shootdodge and grunts as he hits the floor though this could just be old age. Strangely enough while I was flying crazy in the last two games the new realism basically deterred me from shoot dodging and I didn’t do it much at all throughout the entire campaign. Max is now able to aim and use cover, so with the combination of these two and bullet-time I had much more fun ducking in and out of cover and popping off the bad guys through timing and strategy. I found myself not bothering to use bullet time as much either it made things a bit too easy in some areas as unlike the cover-based shooting in GTA4 there is no crosshair when you are behind cover, and rightfully so as it was kind of silly in GTA the way you could line up your target and then headshot an enemy with a single blind fire, but in Max Payne 3 (and most other cover based shooters) it only appears when you duck out of cover so you have to be ready, especially without bullet-time and your aim has to be hard.

Ahh good'ol third person games, where you can peer around corners without your character even moving, none of that mirror-on-a-stick stuff

The weapons (and weapons system) in Max Payne 3 have undergone some big changes, unlike the previous games in the franchise, Max Payne 3 will limit the number of weapons the player can carry. The limit is two handguns and one larger gun. Max is able to carry up to two single handed weapons that can be mixed for dual-wielding, and one two-handed weapon; a total of three weapons at a time. Similar to Rockstar's other title Red Dead Redemption, Max's arsenal is accessible quickly via a weapon-wheel. If the player switches to a single handed weapon, Max will hold the long arm weapon with the other hand. However, if the player opts to dual wield, the long arm weapon will be dropped. There is a wide array of dangerous weaponry inc Handguns, SMGs, Shotguns, Assault and Sniper Rifles as well as the grenade-launcher type guns. What’s more is that in the cutscenes Max is holding whatever guns he had while playing (finally!).

The new weapon wheel, very useful as it's a staple of many other shooters. Also I really like this screenshot

As you can probably guess since the last Max Payne was released in 2003 this is the most realistic and bloodiest one yet, when you pump bullets into enemies their bodies flail and jerk around in the right ways. With every last enemy shot in the room you are treated with a slow mo kill-cam which you can slow down even more with the click of a button, this really lets you see the minor details put in this time such as the blood splatters, bullet holes and exit wounds. Needless to say the game is quite violent as well there’s some pretty disturbing scenes of graphic murders and executions which sometimes involve women.

A pretty nice gore montage for the game, this guy has quite a different playing style to my 'cautious duck-and-cover ammo-conserving' style though I suppose it's a bit more epic.

There is also the introduction of “scripted” bullet time events where the game automatically slows down at a critical juncture where Max is sliding down rooftops or swinging from cranes so that you can pull off that critical shot on the kidnapper or floor a room of baddies which hopefully you successfully do as you can’t feel any stupider when you take that cool slow-mo dive then end up on the floor with no bullets left and just hope the enemies with their guns pointed at you will hold off until you can get up and reload. The graphics themselves are awesome looking, the character models are excellent, the environment looks great and reacts when you hit things, of course most of this is just expected nowadays, it isn’t really as groundbreaking as Max Payne 2 when most of us first encountered realistic objects physics and ragdoll and went crazy with it.

Scripted Bullet time: "Hang in there Max" "Hey guys just thought I'd swing by" oh there's a million of em

I unfortunately haven't played much of the multiplayer due to my brother owning the game not me though I must say it's pretty fun, especially the gang wars where you go through a story-like series of challenges such as a band of corrupt UFE cops trying to escape the town and being attacked by the local Comando Sombra street gang, and don't worry there's deathmatch, team deathmatch and 'capture the bag' modes too. I spose you might be screaming out the question "How does bullet-time work in multiplayer this article by Kotaku's Stephen Totillo should tell you all you need to know and he explains it much better then I could it's a great article that says why Max Payne 3's multiplayer is such a good move by Rockstar.

There's the bag, but is it safe to collect? also someone doesn't seem to like Yoss

Though with the singleplayer, I had a ball playing it, right up to the end the story keeps you so engaged, this probably wasn’t my favourite Max Payne though it was mainly the player-made modifications for them that were the source of much fun for me though I highly doubt that this game will allow that as modifications of new games go, maybe sometime in the future I guess. Bottom line, if you are a fan of the previous Max Payne games or a fan of third-person shooter in general, chances are you’ll like this it’s a great mix of story and action and although Max is a bit of a depressive bastard you can’t deny he’s an absolute bad-ass as well.

JD

The sad, sad hero

My Usual Spiel: Driver San Francisco, Story-driven, action driving at it’s finest

As I said in my previous post I do apologise for the lack of blogging, I just need to get on with it now it’s a bit quieter.

Release Date: September 1, 2011  
Genre: Driving/Racing
Publisher: Ubisoft  
Developer: Reflections
Platform: PC, PS3, XBOX360, Wii
Players: 1-2 Splitscreen and Online

It’s been awhile since I’ve played a Driver game, a long while. In fact the last time I did was Driver 2, I think back then it was before I got a Playstation 2 and was able to play Grand Theft Auto that I quit driver entirely. My experience with Driver 2 was fairly bland, it didn’t look too good even back then being on PS1, wasn’t too exciting and was quite hard in some parts. It wasn’t until my good friend Brok who is a huge fan of the driver series and I went to the Mana Bar on a Wednesday night for the Driver San Francisco launch party, well there wasn’t too much party but there was a lot of driver, we got there at 3pm and didn’t leave until 11pm though we mostly played the multiplayer which included split screen multiplayer for the first time in the series. I saw a bit of the singleplayer which looked quite fun and funny at the same time.

Driver SF is indeed intense

So then according to the chronology Driver San Francisco would be the 5th one in the series (disregarding the portable gaming device ones) I wasn’t really interested in most of them having played Driver 2 on the PS1 one of the main reasons for that was we didn’t have a PS2 and therefore couldn’t play GTA3 so after we did get a PS2 it was Grand Theft Auto all the way and I never really paid much heed to the Driver games after that. They were sort of a mix between the crazy driving of GTA and the (slightly) more civilised driving of Need for Speed and Test Drive Unlimited but when Driver San Francisco came out it looked good, it looked really good, it was possibly the most hyped of all the games since Driver 2 and was at least a once play. So when I finally got round to it I was excited to start the singleplayer and it sure as hell delivered, it did the usual driver thing which switched between game world and digitally animated cinema style and the whole thing went off with a bang. But almost immediately after doing the semi-playable opening sequences I ran into quite a big hurdle.

"Hey Jones, what's that huge yellow and black beacon in the sky?"

I found that after much fuffing around I couldn’t actually use my Logitech PS2 style controller for the PC the same way I did in a lot of other games namely Test Drive Unlimited, I couldn’t seem to use one stick to steer and the other to accelerate brake no matter what I tried, this was largely due to the game being a console port which being a mostly PC user, constantly filled me with rage. I knew what I had to do, I bought a Logitech PS3 style controller for PC which has the ‘bumper’ L2 and R2 buttons which are used to Accelerate and brake, wasn’t all that bad since I needed one anyway though with some dismay I realized after purchasing that only the wireless version of the controller had force feedback which I found incredibly stupid since if you were buying the wired version why wouldn’t you want the force feedback as it wouldn’t use up battery power. I could have used a wireless controller had I have known though the benefit of having no cord to mess around with might not have outweighed the annoyance of needing batteries all the time, well It’s a matter of how often you used it I guess.

The key/button controls are annoyingly hard to work with and also have no  secondary option.

But anyway once I had my controller sorted I launched into the game and I gotta admit it was entertaining the way the story panned out. Basically Jericho (the arch-nemesis of the game) has escaped from prison (possibly again) and it’s up to the hero cops John Tanner and Tobias Jones have to stop him, cue the one of many hectic car chases and Tanner and Jones car is smashed into by a truck. After this Tanner realizes that he has an ability to sort of move his consciousness into another person aka “shifting” and is able to take control of their vehicles, this leads to quite a few funny situations i.e. Tanner shifting into an Ambulance and a Learner driver on his test, I did laugh though when Jones made the comment about shifting into a woman’s body. The mechanic is very useful and fun to use though it’s obviously required throughout the whole game as you have to repeatedly shift around in order to damage/stop other vehicles, get back in the race/chase after crashing, perform stunts and just basically make things easier for yourself, it does make some interesting technical holes for example they don’t really explain what Jones does while Tanner is out of his body, apparently Tanner’s body just drives the car automatically, but I suppose there’s a lot of things overlooked for the sake of a fun game mechanic.

Flyin' like Superman

Oooh yes that looks very nice

The story mode consists your usual open-city driving game romp through quite a large area of San Francisco with you hovering above the city as Tanner’s disembodied “spirit” where you can pick from various missions dotted around the city. Which include the storyline missions and the “required to continue the storyline” side missions  which involve things like street racing to protecting a Security van by smashing into the bad guy attackers using any vehicle available with trucks and buses obviously doing more damage so your consistently hunting for them if you need to stop anyone. Even in some of the street races you need to come both first and second which requires you to constantly shift between two cars. All of the main story missions and “main” side missions involve you shifting into someone else’s body and the ensuing dialogue between you and the passenger is hilarious. There are also other missions where you can random stunts and dares for money and "willpower" which allow you to purchase more cars and abilities. In these missions you drive a car that isn’t the famous Dodge Challenger, this part was fairly interesting as you have the main story car, then you have some other car that you purchase from different garages around the city for doing stunts/dare’s and other non required side missions. Apparently for the first time ever a Driver game has licensed cars to buy/drive and thus they are all lined up in brand order on your car select screen. I found it fun using the older slower cars then upgrading to some newer, quicker ones and seeing the difference when doing the challenges.

Most of the side missions involve breaking the law in as many ways as possible for material and personal gain,  nothing new I spose.

The story is pretty much what you’d expect, the game is largely as all Driver game are a detective mystery storyline with those great “last time, on Driver San Francisco” parts, it  goes through pretty much every possible way Tanner can use his newfound ability, posing as gang members and other cops in order to stop Jericho. I won’t reveal anything more about the story you’ll just have to play it.

"No Jones that's just wrong, besides it'll be me inside her"

I’ve already explain my difficulty with the gaming controls but after you get over that hurdle it’s easy enough though the Driver games as you’d probably know by now have one of the most aggressive police forces out there and sometimes it is seriously hard to evade them, you’re just tearing down a straight or round corners as fast as possible and sometimes it’s really frustrating to be just about to lose them then crash into something. The controls are still quite arcadey more then so Test Drive Unlimited but slightly less so then say the Need for Speed series, but their ok once you get used to them and you have heaps of fun simulating movie car chase scenes, powersliding and crashing all over the place which is where the movie editor mode really shines. I can’t tell you how many good scenes my friend Brok has done in this game but I’ll give you a hint which everyone will know by now anyway. Get the Delorean to 80mph and you’re in for a surprise. One of the few things that irked me though was that the way all the pedestrians just happened to get out of the way right at the last second which I suppose this isn’t GTA but I kind of missed mowing them down but that’s more then made up for with you being able to crash through most things on the street including bus shelters.

Dem cops be hard to lose, this is also a 70's style mission, where you have no  boost, ram or other special powers.  All the other cars in the mission are 70's too which is pretty awesome.

The story mode some great animation, the characters look very real and it’s great the way it changes in and out of the game world to the cinematic. Driver San Francisco’s graphics have got mixed reviews or so I’ve heard,  I’m not the best at judging graphics I’d gladly lower them in order to play more smoothly but the game isn’t exactly a rival for Crysis 3 so I don’t really need to bother (well not anymore with my current PC) I think the graphics look fine, the cars look great, the city looks great, the cinematics look great too even if it does look at bit weird when it transitions from them to the game world but meh it looks good enough and the atmospheric effects especially the sun glare look good too.

Using the in-car mode you are able to look around and there's full interior detail for almost every vehicle and when you do a sharp turn you actually see your self spinning the wheel all the way doing the hands-over thing which is pretty impressive.

The multiplayer, which includes 19 different games modes such as competitive tag and trailblazer was especially fun when playing at the Mana Bar with friends I didn’t do any online multiplayer myself but I suppose it could be fun for a while. There’s a real sense of fun playing someone else split screen as you hurtle and jostle along trying to keep in the slipstream of the player controlled car. I don’t really have much else to say, I wasn’t particularly interested in the multiplayer after that marathon session just wanted to finish off the singleplayer.

Trailblazer: Don't let him get to 80mph!

I would recommend Driver San Francisco to anyone, it’s obviously a must play for fans of driving games. Having not played the series for a while it felt refreshing to see what Driver had come up with and it was good, I usually like car games where you create your own character and start as a nobody with a shitty car then work up to being greatest racer in the country/world/universe etc though this was almost like acting out a car-themed movie which is awesome fun. This ain’t no cutting edge physics and graphical driving simulator, and it shouldn’t be this is a story-driven Action/Adventure driving game at its best.

JD


The road less travelled is fun for a while