My Usual Spiel: Sniper Elite 3, slow motion bullet surgery

Release Date: June 27th 2014
Genre: Tactical Shooter, Stealth
Publisher: Rebellion, 505 Games
Developer: Rebellion, 505 Games
Platform: Windows, Playstation 3 & 4, Xbox 360 & One
Players: 1 and Multiplayer
Classification: PEGI 18

I had only heard of the name Sniper Elite before seeing my housemate playing Sniper Elite 3 with his friend. I had always liked shooter games that had a “class” system i.e. the Battlefield style soldier/sniper/engineer/medic etc and shunned any shooter that had any type of specialization which were most often based on the stealth/sniping side of combat but from watching them playing Sniper Elite 3, it actually looked pretty fun. I had only barely known about the Sniper Elite series and wasn’t familiar with it, but after some quick research I found that he original Sniper Elite came out in 2005 starring the same protagonist as the one in this current game. The original Sniper Elite saw the plight of Karl Fairburne, an American OSS secret agent disguised as a German Sniper inserted into the Battle of Berlin in 1945 at the end of World War II with the objective of obtaining German Nuclear Technology before the Soviet Union can get their hands on it. The second in the series Sniper Elite V2 is more of a 1.5 the a  true sequel though having a slightly different story it was mainly the graphical upgrade and improved sniper mechanics which now included the “kill-cam” which follows the bullet as we see in Sniper Elite 3.

The loud sounding icon (top middle) means that it's safe to shoot your rifle while the sound is being masked, very useful.

When I saw my housemate and his friend playing Co-op story mode it looked awesome, so the next time it was on Steam sale for about $20 I wasted no time in purchasing it. As you have probably heard this time around instead of the bombed out and broken city Berlin it was the harsh western desert in between the Mediterranean and the Sahara, you again play as OSS Agent and Sniper Karl Fairburne sent to Tobruk, Libya to assist the allied forces, it then leads him on a quest through several different locations in the desert including rocky desert passes, oasis, old castle ruins and airfields which give a sort of India Jones feel. I won’t reveal the full extent of the story but basically after losing Tobruk you remove yourself from the frontline and go covert to investigate the location of General Franz Vahlen (a protege of Hitler sent to oversee the campaign in North Africa) and the whereabouts of a British informant that has infiltrated Vahlen's staff who has gone dark. It’s a great story that is tense from the start and gets you wondering what will happen next or more important what your objectives are going to be) as they are not all listed at the start so you never know how long things are going to go on until something else happens most probably a tank bursting out of the wall which result in much sighing and “here we go again” late in the game, I swear sometimes I just wanted to finish the damn level but it was all in good fun just wondering what other shit was going to go down.

Cinematic's between levels were done with storyboard art.

Interestingly enough this time when I started up the story mode I didn’t play on easy, just the recommended level, I’m going to try this from now on, playing the game in normal to see how I go and I’ve got to say I went pretty well, I chose the default ‘Marksman’ setting which had simplified bullet ballistics and fairly unforgiving enemies. Right away the game was pretty damn fun, the first level gets you to grips with the sniping straight away as you get your first taste of the slow motion bullet time, with the bullet assist on you basically aim then click E to hold your breath and you zoom in more and a little red diamond appears to tell you where your bullet will actually land due to bullet drops, this is extremely useful and you watch as your bullet tears in slow motion right through the skull of the German artillery spotter then another goes through the gasoline tank of an artillery truck blowing them sky high the former being done in x-ray to see just where you hit. Most of the time you are being very stealthy throughout the missions, so the choice of equipment was paramount, you are able to upgrade your weapons and other accessories such as grenades, tripmines and your binoculars. My usual loadout included the “Welrod” silenced pistol, this thing was invaluable being the only silenced weapon in the game, the amount of times I headshot enemies from close range with this thing to keep quiet was huge, Basically if I couldn’t use my rifle I either snuck up and melee stealth killed them or used the welrod if they were too far away. I had a choice of semi-automatic machine guns which didn’t really matter except in rare circumstances where I was out of Welrod ammo or just needed to gun someone down at close range so most of the time I just took the best available, the same with the rifles though my favourite was the “Gewehr 43” a German rifle which was the weakest but had the least recoil and was better than the standard M1 Garand. I didn’t really care what else I took along but made sure I had plenty of grenades and medpacks.

My basic playstyle was being very stealthy and cautious and as I soon found going in “loud” with guns blazing did not work well at all, my friend and I once tried doing a single player mission together and quickly found that unless you meticulously worked together timing your movements and shots it was just too hard to keep things running smoothly. When starting missions you receive your initial objectives and are able to change your loadout in which you have multiple slots, which helps when you have multiple weapon setups for different situations. When I started I usually scanned the area with my binoculars looking for enemies, vehicles, objects etc anything that I could spot before moving out. Spotting enemies with your binoculars has distinct advantages like being able to see the spotted enemy through obstacles and hover over them to see their rank and alertness as officers are more cautious and can spot you quicker and from further away. One of the best things you could find was something that made noise but didn’t alert nearby enemies, for example on one of the first levels “Gaberoun” you start behind a guard you is trying to fix a faulty generator, you come across these at certain times and by sabotaging them they make periodical banging and popping sounds which can mask your shots. So finding one of these is great as all you need to do is time your shots for when the machine is making noise and you are able to fire your rifle without alerting anyone unless of course they find a body though you can move the bodies if needed. There are various types of noise-making things that you find on the mission and they are a great help because firing your rifle too much in the one spot will lead to enemies coming to investigate.

Spotting and tagging with binoculars is very helpful in both game modes, in singleplayer you can see their stats and alert state.

Most of the time I made it through ok, I used a combination of my rife and silenced pistol and often just sneaked past enemies to get through though in the later missions I saved a LOT, often before doing anything particularly risky and this helped immensely with trial and error. Some of the mission objectives are pretty spectacular, you have to blow up a lot of things and there a few tricks that make it very satisfying. Most of the main mission objectives require you to gather intel or assassinate a particular enemy, sometimes you get to find and release prisoners which is pretty cool, though in most of the later missions you can bet your bottom dollar  that a tank or armored vehicle of some kind is going to come crashing through a wall and start patrolling around. There are several ways to deal with tanks, you can shoot through a part of their armour to get to the fuel tank though this takes a few shots which armour piercing bullets help with, I either used this tactic or laid some mines and dynamite in its path then blew them up with a sniper shot both of which are immensely satisfying as trying to tank down a tank that can blow you up in a second is pretty damn scary but thrilling. When finishing a mission your points are tallied and you actually level up as your profile is tied to the multiplayer mode as well though you obviously gain a lot more points for killing players and winning matches then playing singleplayer, there is also many collectibles inc war diaries and collectible cards other things to find like sniper nests and long shots oh and lots and lots of achievements as usual. I only played through the singleplayer on marksman but that will be all as that’s enough I think for now after that it was on to the multiplayer mode.

Playing hide with the tank

Multiplayer is pretty much level with the singleplayer by my view, you may not have the slow motion bullet time (well the lengthier ones anyway) but you have the terrific thrill of hunting each other alone or in teams. You can even customise which model you want to use in the game, after a while I opted for a German elite as I liked using the Gewehr rifle, so I gave myself all other German weapons too including the MP40 and Luger pistol, I’ve also got some mines and grenades but don’t use them as much as I should. When I started playing Sniper Elite multiplayer I wasn’t sure what to expect although I had seen it being played before, I wondered whether it was going to be lots of hiding and waiting around to spot someone, or was it going to be people running around all over the place taking pot shots at each other. Thankfully there’s an even mix, 

Having multiple gear loadouts helps a lot

I’ll admit that it’s at its best when there are lots of players in a server as you have lots more target to keep you from getting bored. My favourite mode is probably team deathmatch as there is a lot of comradery when playing with teammates, to win you need to either reach the target score of “what is usually” 1500 or have the highest score when the time runs out. Other game modes included deathmatch which wasn’t so good because you lost the “team player” aspect of it when you were only out for yourself and I often found myself just running through building to building playing cat and mouse with machine guns especially on one particular city level where everyone seemed to be hiding and no-one came out. Another interesting mode that I thought was pretty cool was the ‘no-cross’ mode which as you probably guessed keeps the teams on either side of the map and you are not able to cross, in this mode some existing maps are edited by adding in either natural chasms or rivers or made barricades to keep you from accessing the other side. It also introduces new maps one of which being this giant chasm based on the last singleplayer level with you shooting across cliffs on the opposite side through concrete bunkers which was really cool.

Me and my friend AllergictoExplosions on Blue, against a team of level 50's and one 47, hmmmm

There aren't many night maps, maybe because it's a lot easier to hide.

My housemate and I found it best to spot first rather than shoot first as if you spotted an enemy and then a teammate shot them your team would get much more points than if you just shot them yourself without spotting. My usual playstyle was to find a good non-obvious spot to stay for a bit, yes stay for a bit, I’d call it camping but technically it’s not unless you happen to stay in the one place the entire round. Technically though camping in a Sniper game is different from camping in a game such as Battlefield 4 where sitting in the same spot for longer than even 10 minutes is considered camping but tbh if you’re a Sniper and you’re using a long range sniper rifle and scope it’s impossible NOT to camp, that’s what snipers do, they find a good vantage point and sit there, until someone spots you of course then you have to move. This was one of the few games where people didn’t really complain about cheating (though still lag) and everyone was mostly friendly and cooperative, sure makes a difference then playing a games like CS, playing in teams is great fun with the spotting and the teamwork it all works really well. There is little to no assists in multiplayer as you’d expect, there are many parameter when making a server, things like headshots only, one shot rifle kills, bullet drop, aim assist and even scope glint.

Short video of a multiplayer round I played, shows how spotting and scoring works basically.

I haven’t much to say about the graphics just that they were damn awesome, especially the lighting, during the night it’s very tense and espionage-esqe and during the afternoon goddamn that sun glare and shadows look amazing. There’s a huge amount of detail that goes into some of the things you see like for example the helmets have this realistic weathered beaten look and even the plants and palm trees look as detailed as they should be. I wasn’t running at full as I was getting pretty good fps (50-60) most of the time but things still looked awesome, the x-ray slow motion shots looked amazing and never got old, no matter where you hit them, the skull, the lungs the testicles it was all a pleasure to watch, the hard hitting and brutal sound effects accentuated this with the cracking of the skull or whatever else you had shot in their body. The sound effects were pretty awesome from the echoey explosion of your gun firing to the sound of a tank rolling around were all very well done, this was complimented by an excellent soundtrack of orchestral music coupled with tense battle and spy tracks and classic WW2 movie music which really added to the theme. I was glad there was at least some music when you were sneaking around but there seemed to also be triggered music that gets more intense if you happen to alert the guards or get into a battle in multiplayer.

The music in these opening scenes was terrific

Overall I enjoyed (and am enjoying) Sniper Elite 3, I never thought I’d get into a game based mostly on Sniping but it’s been pretty good and the multiplayer has too, I swear I could watch those slow motion x-ray testicles get shot through like ten times before it got old. It’s really the type of game I’d only play through once though. I must mention that there is an expansion called “Hunt the Grey Wolf” which is free to purchase as DLC and is basically an extra mission allowing you to kill Hitler in lots of different ways as I’ve seen in a video but I’ll leave that up to you if you’d like to purchase as the main game is enough for me. I can't really think of much I didn't like, apart from a few issues with multiplayer inc how it can be dull at times making you impatient and the small amount of australian servers but these can overlooked.

JD.

Score: 9/10

Things I liked:

• Slow motion x-ray sniper kills of course!

• Aim assistance

• Main focus being on stealth

• Tank battles! 

• Multiplayer Sniper comradery

•  Situational music, good mood setting

•  Ability of have multiple loadouts

Things I didn’t like 

• Multiplayer can get dull making you impatient, especially in deathmatch

• Few Australian servers, max amount of player usually 12

This is my rifle this is my gun.

My Usual Spiel: Chivalry Medieval Warfare, a truly sensational LAN experience

Release Date: October 16th 2012
Genre: Action
Publisher: Torn Banner Studios
Developer: Torn Banner Studios
Platform: Windows, Mac OS X, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
Players: 1 and Multiplayer
Classification: PEGI 18

Chivalry was a game that I only found out about at the Bluewire LAN, usually I don’t bother purchasing games that are played randomly at the LAN as most of the time they are usually only played once then that’s it though this one was played quite a few times so I decided it was a fair buy. I can’t quite remember how I played it at first but I do know that it’s been relatively staple at the LAN for a few years now and it’s a ton of fun. So let’s get down it what it is: Chivalry Medieval Warfare was technically derived from the Half-Life 2  total-conversion mod Age of Chivalry (which it retains a large amount of content from) and focused on close-combat medieval fighting in mainly in first-person view, it is almost completely a multiplayer game as there is no singleplayer campaign or even any singleplayer content apart from a short training mode. There is a story however which follows the fictional war between the Agatha Knights and the rebellious Mason Order, the various battleground reflect this being set in medieval villages and bloody battlegrounds especially the ‘Team Objective’gametype which plays out various scenarios over several different maps including the Masons laying siege to a castle and the Agathans defending the Royal Family.

Storming a castle in team objective mode Kill Heathens!

 I’ve actually been playing Chivalry on and off for quite a while now and it’s had some updates since the initial version I played. At the time of my review Patch 28 had been implemented bringing with it a much better interface and a number of other changes, which I won’t go into detail as they were mostly visual. The training mode for Chivalry is fairly straightforward, you learn how to move, how to swing a weapon, and most importantly how to fight. I didn’t do the training into much more recently and I had never known about things like how to feint and other less-obvious tactics which I quickly learned.

The training mode is a great help for beginners and should be done no matter how much you've played it already.

The gameplay in Chivalry is largely based around one-on-one player versus player combat, there is a large amount of teamplay and classes which can attack multiple enemies at once but most of the fighting goes on between you and your opponent. The basics of attacking and defending are pretty straightforward, you simply click the left mouse button and you will swing your weapon in the direction you are moving, scrolling the mousewheel forward performs a thrust while scrolling back does an overhead chop, learned quickly that in team games it is advisable to only chop and stab in large groups as swinging your weapon (especially long ones) could be dangerous to your teammates as well as your enemies, I should know.

The right mouse button as you’re probably wondering does a block and how successful your block is depends on a number of things, which way you’re aiming, whether you have a shield, how much stamina you have etc for example bigger shields cost much less stamina to block with but blocking with a shortsword uses a lot of stamina and knocks you back. You can also crouch (to also duck swings), jump and do a quick or heavy kick or shield bash if you have a shield. You can also issue orders and taunts to your teammates using the Z,X, and C buttons, a fun thing to do is to war cry and yell random things when charging into battle. The training mode is very useful as it goes through all the things you need to start you off including basic and advanced combat, class combat and siege weaponry but obviously you learn the most from playing multiplayer and reading internet guides.

Me playing as Man-at-Arms in the Team Objective Ruins level 

Chivalry has various game modes, the ones we played most often were Team Deathmatch and Free for all where we just slugged it out though my favourite was the Team Objective mode where you had to complete certain objectives like pushing a wagon up a hill while defending it or readying battering rams and catapults for a siege, it really gave a lot of realism to the battle instead of random violence. There are a few other modes including Last Team Standing and Capture the flag, we also tried the King of the Hill mode which was pretty fun, you have to fight to take control of a central area which becomes a real bloodbath, I haven’t tried the duel mode yet but will have a go at some point. The maps in Chivalry are mostly medieval grassy hills, towns, castles and muddy battlefields based though some differ greatly as they are based in Tenosia which is a hot desert climate, with lots of sand and palm trees and has a level based in the fighting pits which is quite fun. There is also a small level in the Kings Throne room which also serves as the last part of  a Team objective series and even a level based in a bar where you can only use your fists!


Bar Brawl!

The game is still good online but several people found that playing online and playing on LAN takes a bit of getting used to because of the lag time as you could probably guess it’s a very timing-orientated game, I have tried playing online but can’t really see much difference probably because the online players are just so much better than me. Playing multiplayer gets you used to the nuts and bolts of the game learning the classes learning when to dodge, duck and parry etc and analysing your enemy and knowing what he’ll do and when he’ll strike and also his strengths/weaknesses. Knowing the level helps too especially if you’re an archer or playing a Team Objective map. Speaking of classes there are 4 classes available to play, each class has a variety of weapons that come in the primary, secondary and tertiary slots, the latter being class-specific weapons, you start off with a few choices but the other weapons you need to unlock by gettings kills and points using that particular weapons I usually just go which classes there are least on the Battlefield which means most of the time it’s Man-at-Arms


 (playing archer on the dark forest level)

Archer –  Archers are obviously the most lightly armoured class but strangely not the fastest, they use bows, crossbows and  even javelins and slings and can carry a small secondary weapon (I used the shortsword mostly as you could parry with it) they can also use different types of ammo which are good in certain situations, for example the Broadhead Arrow does more damage to lightly armoured targets and the Bodkin Arrow is better for armoured targets such as knights and vanguards . I’ve read that this class is generally frowned upon, like Snipers in FPS games, and though I like to go Archers sometimes and done ok, it’s one of those classes which you’re only appreciated if you’re good and are kicked for too much team damage/kills.

Man-at-Arms – The Man-at-arms is the fastest class and is better armoured then the Archer, their main strength is their speed, as their playing style is to attack in quick succession while dodging attacks themselves. I’ve gone up against many good men at arms, they can use pretty much any one-handed melee weapon inc some small shields and most players use the Oil Pot effectively (I should really do that too) often as playing as the Knight I’ve been killed by a Man-at-Arms without even been able to land a single hit on one of them. I’ve done ok myself using these guys, I often use the morning star and it does good damage hitting in quick succession as you often just don’t give the enemy time to react.

As a Man-at-Arms I get my shield ready to take on a Vanguard

 Vanguard – Vanguards are highly armoured and use huge long weapons and have a charge attack that can one-shot archers, they also have a smoke-pot ability to obscure view and can throw knives or axes before charging in. Vanguards have a wide variety of two handed weapons including swords polearms and spears.  I don’t go this class too much but they can be fun swinging a huge battleaxe and throwing axes at the enemy, playing against them you really make sure to block or dodge their charge ability.

Knight – Possibly my favourite class, as you’d expect they move and swing slowly due to their heavy armor, but can wield a greatsword with one hand and a shield in the other and as you’d expect are the most durable warriors on the battlefield. I only recently found out that Knights can carry a two-handed sword in one hand which I wish I knew earlier as I was using shortswords and falchions for the majority of the time I’ve been playing, you can also use the Double Axe and Warhammer which look pretty damn fierce. I’ve recently started using the tower shield , it’s huge and gives a lot of protection but fills up almost all of your screen when using first-person mode but frankly I couldn’t do third person as it’s hard to see where you’re blocking.

The class select screen

As well as the unlockable weapons there is also unlockable armor (helms, shields etc) that you can obtain (and also purchase) though these kinds of cosmetic changes often make it hard to work out who’s on which team? Especially since some can have different colours then the usual red and blue. Team killing can be a problem in the game, I learned quickly that in team battles it’s much preferred for you to thrust or do an overhead swing rather than swing horizontally and accidentally take out a teammate, it’s the main cause of grief in the game (that and crap archers) during my latest playing on the multiplayer servers I went quite well with the man at arms kicking and dodging, pretty much just playing him and the knight as most of the time the man at arms is the least played class.

You can also choose your weapons on this screen, notice how some need a certain level to be unlocked.

 Also with the release of the modding tools any person can create mods for the game, I’ve only seen two so far but they are pretty fun. The first is Giant mode: the more kills the player has the bigger he is, and the all popular Black Knight mode: which you can probably guess involves cutting off an opponents limbs until there’s nothing left. Someone even made a Star Wars mod!


The very gory Black Knight mode in Arena, yes you can still fight for a few seconds with no head.


Star Wars! Chivalry style

The graphics in the game look a bit plain but are workable, you really don’t need things looking fantastic and/or want them chugging your computer when you’re trying to win a duel while dodging arrows, the landscapes of both Agatha and Tenosia look great the medieval villages and dark forest in stark contrast to the bright sun, sands and stone of the latter, the interiors are detailed as well giving the full medieval feel. The character models look pretty damn good though you really don’t get time to study them in detail though I did notice that my characters hands looked kind of small in first person view. The more health you lose the more bloodier your character becomes and it’s sometimes hard to see at first glance whose side you are one thank full the nametags help. You’re in-game character can be customised with the basic options being enough for me, you can customise the patterns on your classes clothing and also the colours on your chosen model when playing free-for-all. The music in the game is great, I love hearing it when starting up the game and it’s perfect for the scene of battle the way it starts off slow then as the timer is running out it gets more fast paced. The voicing in the game is hilarious, great old English accents bordering on the satirical, there’s something to be said about beheading an enemy while saying something like "Your malformed skull is unfit for my piss pot."

You can customize your player model's patterns and colours for both Free for all and Team games

Chivalry Medieval Warfare is a great game for what it’s meant to be, a gritty medieval combat simulator with a bit of humour thrown in, it’s awesome game for LANS as there are few pleasures greater then bashing your mates with a hammer of chopping their limbs off with a sword. Chivalry it’s one of the few medieval based games I play which is non fantasy actually probably the only one, the other being Mount and Blade Warband which I played for a bit and must really get back to sometime. I must also mention that there was an expansion pack released for Chivalry called Deadliest Warrior featuring different warriors from different times and all new levels  and weapons inc Samurai and Ninjas!, we did play this for a bit at the LAN but I hope to play it more to be able to do a full review sometime.

The menu screen as of patch Patch 28

I would recommend Chivalry to anyone who wants a magic-free, horse-free, no-nonsense medieval up close hack’n’slash or basically anyone who needs a game to play at a LAN party.

 Score: 9/10

Things I liked:

• Awesome gritty medieval combat
• Great game to play with friends/others
• Very atmospheric, war cries, music, very real sense of threat and fear
• Great game modes and battlegrounds
• Easy to pickup and play, steady learning curve
• Good character customization and overall model detail

Things I didn't like:

• Cosmetic items requiring money to purchase instead of unlocking : /
• Some custom items make it hard to know who's on what side.

JD

Well I didn't last long

FOR THE ORDER!

My Usual Spiel: Duke Nukem Forever: Had fun, nuff said

Release Date: June 10th 2011
Genre: First person shooter
Publisher: 2K Games, Take-Two Interactive
Developer: 3D Realms, Triptych Games Gearbox Software
Platform: Microsoft Windows, Playstation 3, XBOX 360, OSX, OnLive
Players: 1 & Multiplayer
Classification: T (Teen)

Well well, Duke Nukem Forever the game that I heard people were waiting forever for then it came out. My earliest memory of the Duke Series was the very first Duke Nukem from 1991 which I played on my cousins computer, this was an early platformer very similar to the first three Commander Keen games where you walk around and jump and shoots robots and collect chocolate bars and cola and the like. I then played Duke Nukem 3D at times but never fully through, only playing it at friends houses.

The original Duke Nukem

I never owned Duke Nukem 3D game and played mainly for the T&A though it was a blast playing with friends. Thinking about it now gives me that odd nostalgic feeling that wants me to play it again but I’ll know I’ll just play it for a bit then be discouraged. In any case it was probably the most full-on game I played and we all played it just to do that one ‘Red Light District’ level with the strip club.

Though I can say I didn’t feel the same nostalgia and passion for the game that apparently everyone else did inc Scott Ramsoomair. I was too heavily involved with Doom II, Quake II and possibly Warcraft 2 (Lots of two’s!) to really pay much attention, plus I would have had a hard time getting my parents to buy me that game.
 

Now in 3D oh my was this shocking when i first played it.

I heard a lot of the apparent “development hell” of Duke Nukem Forever over the years, it seemed that the game was never going to be released. Not that I was waiting but of course I was interested in seeing the final result, I like reading stories regarding business mishaps and mistakes and following the drama and speculation that comes with it, and Duke Nukem Forever was no exception. When It finally did come out I thought to myself well I’ll have to at least try it and I must say it wasn’t bad, it was pretty damn fun. Sure it had the mixture of modern-day and classic shooter elements but I found it fine to play, most of the jokes were funny, the nostalgia and references to the old game (that I could recognise) were good and the parodies that it did were pretty entertaining too, oh and T&A lots of T&A (well rendered this time :D).

Epic Main Screen!

Right from the starting company logo’s you see Duke lighting up a cigar then the flaming Duke Nukem letters and a US flag in the background then the action packed intro of Duke destroying aliens and kicking ass then finally the menu screen with Duke standing next to a pigcop corpse and a flaming barrel smoking a cigar, you can really tell, the game has the attitude turned up to 11. It gets better when you start the game too as soon as the screen lights up you’re staring through the eyes of Duke taking a piss into a urinal, ahhh they’ve really nailed it haven’t they, with Duke 3D you had to at least wait until you got further into the level.

Duke doing what he does best.

What I enjoyed the most was the high level of interactivity you were given with unusual tasks such as drawing  an attack plan on a board, signing a book for a fan and punching an annoying idiot in the face. The whole process was linear as I suspected (wouldn’t want any other way really it’d get too complicated) and I had great fun walking though Duke penthouse palace and looking at all the grandeur and photos and screaming fans outside the door, makes you feel like a well, King!

Adoring fans

Of course when he actual alien invasion starts again (yes again) I like it how you have an actual communication from the president saying not to get involved but of course Duke doesn’t even consider obeying that, not that you have a choice anyway. Basically the first part of the story is a tour of Duke’s domain which is apparently a penthouse suite at the top of a casino (called the Ladykiller) and apparently a TV studio below which has a show on (Damn! it’s Late) and a secret technological base inside somewhere called the “Duke Cave” oh man these names lol.

Yes they are goddamn Sharks in the Casino Aquariaum

So Duke basically fights to defend his city from the Aliens once again through various areas including Duke’s Casino the Ladykiller, Duke Burger, The Duke Dome stadium, the desert and the Hoover Dam all located in Las Vegas. The game basically plays like a first person shooter but there’s loads of interactivity that differs from the normal experience for example at one point you have to operate a remote control car to push a battery through a small space and the aliens have these odd looking plants that shrink you and you have to run around as a mini-duke with a hilarious voice doing jumping puzzles and you even drive a remote control car. One of the most innovative things I did was move the robotics arms and rotate a stature of myself so I could use it to climb up to the next level, that and maybe driving a small cherry picker around and using it to run over enemies and get to higher places.

Man I used to love remote control cars

The locations are pretty damn cool, almost everything revolves around Duke in this world, well obviously, and the various signs, posters and names for things are of GTA quality humour I mean the strip club is called Duke Nukem’s “Titty City” :P but there’s some better examples. Duke pad, Museum and casino all look great and what you’d expect, I especially liked driving around in Duke’s Monster Truck “The Mighty Foot” and tearing arse across the Nevada desert on the way to the Hoover dam and running over aliens and pigs while you do it. There’s also heaps of things to see and read like Dukes’ photos up in his pad or the various strange and funny signs and billboards.

The Mighty Foot!

I’ll say it now that the tits, arse and semi-nekkid women are back and better than ever, from the very start you meet the “Holsom” twins and various female admirers but it really ramps up in the stadium parts which is what I was really wanting to see. The reason for this was in the first game there was the strip club of course at the start and there is one in this game too as part of an ‘interlude’ section but I’ll get into that later, then there was the story of the aliens capturing hot females and using them to birth alien spawnlings etc (whatever their called) and you encountered them throughout the game. This one is no exception except the graphics look a hell of a lot better, as you force your way into the dome via wrecking ball you go deeper into the hive and find various naked girls bound by tentacle vines standing upright or dangling from the roof struggling and whimpering and with some their bodies exploding into small insects so you’re better off shooting them or smashing them in the face with your gun to kill them.


The Alien Hive Level with the Holsom Twins and other captured women.

 Duke does take this in light saying “sorry babe it’s better this way” or “why do they take the hot ones” but man, I love that this kind of stuff is still in games as it was one of the main things I wanted to see in the new games and seeing it as a kid was pretty effed up. The strip club portion is pretty much what you’d expect, lots of wandering around with topless girls and then a lap dance at the end wa-chow! I’m worried we’re becoming a totally PC state where nothing controversial is allowed or quickly removed but if this stuff is still happening then I’ve got nothing to worry about hopefully.

Yehh Baby!

The gameplay in Duke Nukem is pretty straightforward for a first person shooter you can run, jump (not far, Duke is too heavy lol)  and melee attack which is often used with a gun in your hands, instead of health Duke now has an “Ego” meter which depletes as he takes damage and fills back up when he isn’t, you can increase the ego cap by doing things like looking in a mirror, weightlifting, shooting hoops in basketball and basically anything that would make Duke feel good. Which is an interesting way of doing things but worked ok I guess. At the start you are mainly punching and throwing things at the aliens but further on you get all kinds of weapons such as the pistol and shotgun to old favourites such as the Ripper, Shrink Ray and Devastator, you also get to mess around with Alien weapons such as the AT Laser and Enforcer, my favourite weapon was probably the rail gun as it did a lot of damage and was accurate so it could kill most enemies in one shot.

Using the "Duke Vision" and about to crack some aliens in the face

Speaking of weapons you could only carry 2 at a time and ammo was scarce so you have to swap weapons quite a lot to deal with the situation which was a bit of an annoying modern-day limitation, fack Duke should be able to carry all those guns anyway. I didn’t have much trouble running around smacking and shooting things, was pretty easy to manage some of the guns were pretty fun to use like the shrink ray.

"Now that I've shrunk him I think I'll just stomp on him and save some goddamn precious ammo"

The graphics are pretty much what you’d expect from a game of the era, pretty good, some areas like the Casino, Duke Burger and the Alien Hive looked amazing, not to mention the T&A heh Everything is basically on par as far as I can see, some rough models but otherwise good. The Music is great, I dunno why, it’s just so appropriate that it works with all the somewhat cheesy rock and metal. The sound is fine too, gunshots, splatters explosion, aliens and crying, screaming, moaning women, check. Not really too much else to say about the sound and graphics are all good.

Down but not out!

Duke Nukem was pretty much everything I expected it to be, funny and ridiculous, because I never had the rampant nostalgia of Duke Nukem 3D though I did find it pretty damn groundbreaking the first time I played it, though this was kind of groundbreaking as well,  the Boss fights are pretty epic, you’re fighting giant Alien queens and massive hulking monsters then punching them in the balls and ripping their heads off to finish them off, one of my favourite fights was with the giant eel under the damn which tried to crush you with its body. I also love the way the game attempts to do so many things some poorly but it’s all part of the fun, you’ve got things like fixed turret shooting then you’re on to driving a Monster truck through a canyon then you’re doing a western style shootout through an old abandoned town. it takes off so many things and Duke’s humour though lowbrow and sometimes annoying really adds to the flavour of the game.

Much epicness of fighting the Alien Mothership

I'm unfortunate to say I didn't really try the multiplayer mode, as I didn't really find any local servers and didn't really want to bother as it was technically an afterthought, the singleplayer was fun but I really couldn't be bothered after that.

Would I recommend this to friends? Oh hell yes, all I’ll say is, just play it once, you’ll have some stupid fun and get a boner, unless you’re a girl that is, which makes me think actually what would girl gamers think of this? Meh too philosophical for Duke I think, Hail to the King!

Score: 7/10

Things I liked:

• Packed with ego and testosterone.
• Funny dialogue and bravado from Duke
• Lots of different activities
• Fully rendered T&A and still has the kidnapped women subplot :D
• Not half as bad as people said it was.

Things I didn't like:

• Can only carry two guns at a time and limited ammo available.
• Ego-based health is kinda silly and needs other ways of recharging
• Feels slightly unfinished but I spose you can't complain at least it was finished at all
• Little replay value though I have played it twice, multiplayer mode almost overlooked

JD

I wonder what cereal Duke eats for breakfast?

An Android and his Nexus: Battlefield 4 Commander and Battlelog App

One of the mains reasons I wanted a tablet was so I could play some tablet-only apps such as the Battlefield 4 Commander App, and once I got my Nexus 7 it was one of the first things I got. I did a review of Battlefield 4 back in April and spent a part of it complaining about the Commander mode requiring you to sacrifice your player slot to be a commander whereas in Battlefield 2 the Commander was an actual player in the game. The Commander app is a bit finicky to start with as you have to download the Battlelog app as well, so basically you can go into either one first for example if you start up the Commander app and click server browser it takes you into the Battlelog app then when you join a server it goes back to the Commander App. The Battlelog app is pretty much identical to what you see on the browser version and it also syncs your profile and settings data so you have the same favourite servers and history etc which is a great help, it’s relatively simple to navigate but can be slow and laggy at times.

Looks familiar... that's good

So basically once you find a server you can join as the Commander and be amazed at how fast the damn map loads lol in stark contrast to when you’re playing the game and have to wait there for almost a minute. The battle screen is a simple and mostly colourless view of the battlefield you have your commander tools on the left and your squad info the right, with your usual other information such as chat log, menu and scoreboard buttons, time and score. There are three types of assets that you can use as a commander, these are Default Assets, Main Assets and Squad Assets.

Main screen on the Golmud Railway map, you can see the default assets up the top left, then main assets then squad assets in green.

Default Assets

Defaults assets are things like UAV scans and marking high value targets, these are always available to you but all have their own cooldown.

Scan UAV                  
Deploy an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), which spots enemies in the area.

EMP UAV                 
Deploy an Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) UAV, which hides activity in the area from enemy Commander. This causes damage to the enemy cruise missiles and gunship.

High Value Target
If an enemy soldier reaches a killstreak of 6, Commanders can highlight them as a High Value
Target (HVT) for their team. The player that kills this target within a short time frame will receive a
bonus along with the commander, and each kill this HVT makes while targeted will earn him a bonus.

Evac Order                         
Warn allied soldiers in the area of incoming danger.
Order                                   

Give an order to a Squad Leader to either attack or defend an objective.

You can see here by the dark patch that the enemy has used an EMP UAV and I have placed a High value target which in this case is a bomber jet.

Main Assets

Access to the main assets usually depends on which flags your team currently has captured as each one is tied to a particular flag, sometimes when playing the game as a soldier it’s good to know which points give the commander what resources as you’d want the one with the Gunship at all costs as it’s one majorly powerful asset when it’s in the air allowing up to 3 people to man 3 different types of guns.

Infantry Scan                    
 Spot all enemy soldiers on the mini-map.

Vehicle Scan                     
Spot all enemy vehicles on the mini-map.

Proxy Attack                     
Disable the Enemy Commander for 10 seconds

Cruise Missile                   
 Launch a cruise missile at an area, destroying all enemies in the area.

Gunship                              
Deploy the AC-130 GUNSHIP. When the gunship is deployed it will circle the base that it is tied to. Your team can deploy in the gunship and parachute from it.

In this particulat instance my side has capture points B and C which allows me to use the Infantry Scan and Gunship assets

Squad Assets

As the commander you can select a squad by touching them and assign them to either attack a neutral or enemy flag or defend a captured one, after a while I worked out that when you issue an order it appears as a dotted line and if the squad leader complies and tells his squad to attacked that flag it becomes a full line. I vaguely remember this in the actually game now being loosely represented by a sort of triangle around a flag that your Commander wants you to capture. Anyway when your squad orders and obeyed and the squad works well together it adds to the Squad Asset bar which is on the bottom left in green and depending on how high your squad asset bar is you can do one or more of the below. Each of these assets cost a different amount of “chunks” of the bar going from promote squad to vehicle drop.

Asset

Promote Squad                
Promote your squad.

Supply Drop                      
Deploy crate via parachute, which automatically heals and gives ammo to nearby soldiers. Allied soldiers can also switch kits by interacting with the crate.

Rapid Deploy                     
Reduces affected squads’ deploy time.

Vehicle Drop                    
Context-sensitive parachute vehicle drop – Personal Water Craft (PWC) or a quad bike.

My squad asset bar is full here so I can use whichever one I like

There’s also a voice option so you can talk to the squad leaders, I haven’t really used this but I have heard someone speaking at some times, too hard to hear what they were saying though. I found that people aren’t that obedient most of the time, it’s only when I was in Japan that the quality of play, chat and obedience really went up, figures huh? There are 4 types of ribbons/medals you can get for playing commanders including:

Leadership - Receive 10 order followed

Surveillance – Obtain 10 scan bonuses

Resupply – Obtain 10 supply crate uses

Gunship  - Deploy 2 Gunships

The Commander app main screen with my commander medal and ribbon information and my beautiful portrait.

Though for the most part the points you get are nothing compared to the points you get when actually playing as a soldier, but I suppose there’s got to be a compromise there somewhere. One thing I found recently was that there was a fair few servers which didn’t allow for Commanders. I suppose that would be because a lot of people don’t like the extra level of difficulty with the Commander around especially when your side doesn’t have one and the enemy commander is pummelling you with cruise missiles and gunships and giving their team the extra advantage, there’s a setting in the server search which allows you to check that the server allows Commanders anyway.

Yay a server that allows Commanders!

Overall I found the app to work pretty well, there was some unexplained server disconnects but nothing that doesn’t happen in the main game, it’s fun to use if you have the opportunity to play and help out your friends, not to mention get some extra points for you soldier. It will never be as good as Battlefield 2 with its assets and commander physically on the battlefield but it’s still a bit of fun for when you’re not at home and need that Battlefield fix.

JD


A short video of the Commander app in action on a Nexus 7

My Usual Spiel: Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm, yet another revenge story

Release date: 12/3/13 
Genre: Real-Time Strategy (RTS)
Publisher: Blizzard Entertainment
Developer: Blizzard Entertainment
Platforms: PC/Mac
Players: 1 to 8 
Online Classification: M (ESRB)

Awhile ago having played Wings of Liberty I thought to myself “well there’s no denying it, I gotta see how this story goes” so I shelled out 40 dollarz for Heart of the Swarm. I do feel a bit silly buying a game just to do the storyline though it is only an expansion and who knows I might play multiplayer again at a LAN or something at some point which I have actually, once. It’s kind of going to be a bit lopsided review as I only really purchased the game to play the singleplayer though I ‘m no stranger to the multiplayer and will give a brief rundown of new content and units available. I don’t really know what happened to my liking of Real Time Strategy (RTS) games, I say to myself it’s just all the micromanagement which is what others don’t like, though I used to play RTS like Warcraft and Total Annihilation all the time though technically I did cheat a lot, hey sometimes it made the game more enjoyable!

Anyway so I’ll try not to spoil any of the story but basically the story revolves around the now less-infested Sarah Kerrigan and her revival of the swarm. I started playing and enjoyed the starting missions as I always do because their very easy and simple, I especially liked the way  Kerrigan was now with Jim Raynor and Prince Valerian and the Terrans who have the Zerg in testing labs and request Kerrigan to command them. I was really enjoying this and wanting Kerrigan to get back with Jim but then they get attacked by Arcturus Mengsk’s forces then they get split up and Kerrigan’s has nothing to do but go after Mengsk and make the swarm hers again. So what ensues is lots of going to planets and finding her old swarm and convincing brood mothers to join her again and being contacted by the mysterious Dark Templar Zeratul just as Jim did then finding out origins of the Zerg while eventually confronting Mengsk himself.

Raynor and Kerrigan, their rekindled romance is unfortunately short lived.

Throughout the journey it was fun to see Kerrigan reunite with her old Zerg friends such as Izsha, Abathur and the Brood mothers as you’ve never really seen much Zerg interaction apart from the Overmind and the Cerebrates in the first game, I was kind of sad with the way things went I would have really liked to see how the Terrans got along with the Zerg, which they sort of did or really how the actual intelligent zerg like Izsha and Zagara handled the fact that Kerrigan’s missions was not the destruction of anything not Zerg.

Izsha is a one-of-a-kind Zerg similar to Abathur and acts as an Advisor to Kerrigan

Playing through the campaign was fairly similar to Wings of Liberty apart from the narrative, there was your mix of missions with no base and missions with a base and also missions where you started with no base and then came upon a base, there was the usual bonus objectives which make missions mission more interesting and also gave you more essence to fuel Kerrigan’s abilities and the Evolution pit missions, I found the different levels a very good mix up and much different to the usual “build base and army, then go attack” formula. As this time you were switching to single small unit/army style while playing normally and also the way Blizzard implemented controlling/defending more than one army was very well done I think they were actually aiming to minimize micromanagement as much as they could which was great.

One of the biggest changes was being in control of Kerrigan and several other ‘units’ almost all of the time, and as how Kerrigan starts of pretty damn powerful already and you can level her abilities up after that making her almost unstoppable (at least on the normal difficulty) and a very big help on harder difficulties. It reminded me of the missions of Wings of Liberty where you play as Jim Raynor himself and saw his reactions and character development through those missions except you do this with Kerrigan on almost every mission/level making it truly her story.

Campaign Zergling rush!

I did like the evolution missions that you received from Abathur who plays a role similar to what Rory Swann did in Wings of Liberty, upgrading and evolving Zerg strains for better use in game though you now need to get essence from doing bonus objectives in the regular missions. These evolution mission are quite fun as their role is to show you what strains you have available to upgrade to for a particulate unit. This involves you landing on two different planets and assimilating a select species of local wildlife to obtain their genetic strain. So for example with the Zergling strain you have two options the Swarmling strain which allows the Zerglings to spawn faster and 3 to come out of a single egg, and the Raptor strain which gives the zerglings wings that allow them to jump up and down cliffs, leap over obstacles and onto targets from range, and gains +2 damage (40% increase). The missions themselves are fun little skirmishes of you acquiring the DNA and the game showing you how they work in a controlled environment, I have to say I enjoyed them kind of more than the normal storyline cause you know me I like to keep things simple.

Baneling Hunter Evolution mission on Scoria

As well as the evolution missions, Kerrigan herself now has her own abilities which range from activated abilities such as Kinetic blast and spawning various creatures to passive abilities such as vespene harvesters not requiring drones to harvest and zerglings being brought back to life with no additional cost to resources, this was slightly different to Wings of Liberty as the upgrades now revolve around Kerrigan as the upgrades Egon Stetmann did were either from Protoss or Zerg research.

I must admit being only able to choose one of these abilities was a damn hard decision (I chose Improved Overlords)

Tier 3—Level 10

• Zergling Reconstitution: Killed zerglings respawn from your primary hatchery at no cost. Respawns up to 10 zerglings every 30 seconds until all zerglings have returned to life. Passive ability.

• Improved Overlords: Overlords morph instantly and provide 50% more supply. Passive ability.

• Automated Extractors: Extractors automatically extract vespene gas without drones. Passive ability.

Kerrigan upgrade screen, she gets damn powere up towards the end.

Graphics and sound are great as usual, As with most PC games, the better your computer, the better the details are going to be. True to Blizzard, the game has some of the most amazing cinematics I have ever seen and I love it when I get one to watch throughout the story, I also love how there the story and cutscenes in between the action in the game. The graphics are sharp and smooth, I did like the various locales inc the missions on the jungle world Zerus and the lava animation on Scoria with was used to great effect with the   the Baneling Hunter strain mission. I have found delight in the way almost everything seems to have some kind of animation to it such as crystals shining and even some trees in the map moving slightly in the wind. The Zerg buildings and units are especially disgusting all pulsating or wriggling or squirming or twitching. All in all, the sound is great and the music is fine too, with an RTS I find these things have little bearing but Blizzard have done them well and up to expectations.

Video of Zerus, it's amazing how you can see the trees and grass swaying.

Playing through the singleplayer this time wasn’t generally too hard, I usually play on normal mode the first time so I can get used to things. Gameplay wise on the singleplayer campaign things were basically the same though the obvious different being you were controlling the Zerg which needed a slightly different mindset to the Terrans with things like the spawning flag for worker drones and spawning flag for everything else. I began to find more features that I’d forgotten about from playing Supreme Commander like holding down shift to have a worker build multiple buildings though I don’t do it quite as much as I did in that game, I also found worth using the patrol command for certain warriors to protect the primary or secondary base when I away somewhere micromanaging oh and yes I finally saw the worth in leaving a group to protect the base while I went off to attack the main force.

Ah build queuing, gets me all nostalgic about Supreme  Commander

I haven’t really played multiplayer all that much though one of the main reasons I did purchase the game was to play it at Lan comps if I felt like it, there was this particular incident where we were having a comp an Lanslide (which is a great lan in south east Melbourne btw you should go to it) where some of us didn’t have the Heart of the Swarm expansion, so the event coordinator said we can all play Wings of Liberty but then some other (fairly high ranked mind you) players whinged that they “Wouldn’t have their builds” I mean come on, you’re going to whip our asses anyway why not give yourself a slight disadvantage you elitist ponks. So anyway after that I decided to get it but naturally haven’t played much multiplayer since though I did have a great game at another landslide where these two older guys wanted to play a match on the “normal” speed which is really quite slow compared to “fastest” where most multiplayer matches are played.

That match was quite unique in that I wasn’t able to come up with a partner so I decided to play with a computer ally (that’s really kind of sad now I think about it) but anyway I ended up losing as the computer player was set to easy but it didn’t matter cause the match wasn’t going to count anyway. The other thing was I loved the way that you could actually communicate with your AI partner i.e. there was a menu where you could tell them to attack and defend certain places and the character (in this case it was Kerrigan) actually spoke to you and said if she was able to comply with the request and also if she was being attacked etc.

Playing with my best buddy, the AI

There are some new units in the game with the Terran and Protoss new one’s I haven’t been able to play with extensively but hope to in the future, I especially like the look of the Tempest. Apart from that there isn’t too many things that have changed apart from new maps, I won’t go into details regarding the changes to battlenet etc though I do like the new sort of “multiplayer training mode” they have which is a welcome feature as their semi-truth of “The singleplayer is the training for the multiplayer” really is not the case, it may be for other games but not this one. The training mode is a sort of multiplayer tutorial showing you the basic of building a base in multiplayer then goes on to defending and attacking then advances tactics such as rushing and ‘turtling’. You can do these tutorials with whichever race you like and receive experience points for completing them, there is also unranked play for people who are too scared to play on a ladder.

The new very much needed training missions for multiplayer.

Overall although I thought the story was a bit meh it did play out very well and the changes made to the game like the changes made to the whole experience were for the better and almost made me forget about all the micromanagement though I must admit there wasn’t much of it, well any more than before anyway. Heart of the Swarm introduced some great features into the multiplayer in order to curb the gap between singleplayer and to train newcomers, as not knowing how to build is one of my biggest weaknesses. The trilogy’s going pretty well so far and I might say even though I’m still not interested in this kind of genre anymore it’s impossible to ignore with the gaming championships going on and competitions at lans. And of course I am indeed wanting to know what happens in the end just like everyone else.

8/10

What I like:

• Story mode plays out well missions give appropriately diverse gameplay
•  Kerrigan reuinited with Jim and then her old Zerg buddies
• Evolution missions are fun and evolution itself is good
• Addition of Multiplayer training mode is great
• Visuals are fantastic
• Playing with AI opponent is better then ever before.

What I don’t like:

• Story is epic but I'm kinda sick of the whole "large scale revenge" thing, can't everyone just be friends?
• Same old micromanagement RTS issues but that's just me.
• Units available in Singleplayer and Multiplayer are different.
• Like League of Legends, community is fairly unforgiving

JD

Heart of the Swarm Gameplay

What I wouldn't give for an all-zerg sex scene.