More of The Ship
I love this game.
Last night I tried out a new "World Leader" server and had a blast. It got a little surreal after a while, though. The creepy 1930's decorations and music (a la The Shining) and the fact that you are Ronald Reagan and your mission is to hunt down and kill Tony Blair ... that might have something to do with it.
Today I made Kim Jung Il poop his pants - it was priceless. And I have the pics to prove it.
This illustrates the "Needs" system in the game. Essentially,
The Ship = Counter Strike + Sims + Agatha Christie
It's an interesting combination that has totally hooked me. Below are more screenshots of the game if you are curious. They are all from a World Leader server.
The Ship – most under-appreciated game EVER
Depending on how much of a Steam fan you are, you may or may not have noticed that The Ship is on sale for $5 this weekend. I have had my eye on this game for a long time and when I saw the temporary 75% off I had to pick it up.
So what did I discover about the game, you may be wondering?
That it is the single most underplayed and under-appreciated game on Steam. If you read the Steam forums for any length of time, you will see a number of players bemoaning that not enough people play the multiplayer version of this game. Now I see why they care so much - last night when I finally pulled myself away from the game I looked at the clock and it was 5:00 AM. I literally lost track of several hours playing this game. And I am now power-chugging coffee to make up for the lost sleep.
The premise of the game is simple - it's a murder thriller (not a murder mystery). You are stuck on a cruise ship with several other players and you must all play a cat-and-mouse game of murder and mayhem at the behest of the mysterious Mr. X.
The ship is divided into decks, accessible via stairs and elevators. Some zones are patrolled by NPC guards and video cameras - if you have a weapon drawn (let alone use it to kill someone) in these areas you will immediately be arrested and jailed for 30 seconds or so. Your weapons will be stripped away and you will restart outside the brig.
The zones which aren't patrolled, however, are anything-goes. Which creates an interesting set of challenges and opportunities. I was able to avoid death more than once by running to a red zone. And that brings me to another interesting aspect of The Ship's play style: pacing.
All the players in the game move slowly, carefully walking down corridors or slinking around corners. You are able to run using the shift key (like Half-Life), but you are tied to a visual fatigue counter, so you must sprint wisely. Slowing the game down like this, I've found, makes it a lot more challenging - you can't just chase someone down - you have to know the deck layout so you can take shortcuts - which often results with you waiting for them around a corner. I actually jumped once or twice from having the surprise of having this tactic pulled on me.
Add to this the pacing required by the Needs system. It works just like the Sims: make sure to eat, read and poo regularly or suffer the consequences.
If you are considering getting this game, I must caution you that not all the multiplayer servers may be for you. The deathmatch servers are exactly what their name implies, but as you spawn in a killing zone and have to open a container to get your initial weapon, spawn camping is rife. I however, enjoyed the deathmatch - but I got used to dieing really quick. Servers in the "Hunt" gameplay mode are more like the single-player game.
And even if you find you don't like any of the multiplayer, your $5 won't be wasted because so far I found the single-player portion of the game superbly made. In fact, the single-player portion of the game alone easily justifies a $15 or $20 price tag.
All in all, I am kicking myself now for not buying this game earlier. This has the same Team Fortress 2 addictiveness and ingenuity (and cartoonishness) that made me fall in love with that game. And it is a perfect counterpoint to TF2 owing to it's (relatively) slow pacing and need for methodical stalking of your opponents.
/neglect
Alas, it is true. I have neglected this site - my blog. As you can see my last post was made in July and featured my own half-baked (or totally-baked, depending on how you look at it) review of a review. The horror! And when I say horror I mean the really nasty moody French existentialist malaise sort of horror, not your average Freddy vs Jason blood-spatter horror.
So what have I been up to in the intervening four months? Oh, the usual ... living under the diffused haze known as Lord of the Rings Online. Would you believe, not that my highest level character is 37, but that my highest character is level 37 and I created him on opening day. That is a testament to me of how much this game has to offer in role-playing and meta-gaming - that I am still playing and having fun with a character who is 13 levels away from cap.
I took part in the Warhammer Online open beta and played it for part of my subscription's free month. There are a lot of things to like in that game - case in point: the Book of Knowledge. I love having access to statistics, statistics and more statistics. I want to know percentages, have comparisons ... I want to know how many times I've one-shotted a newb on the toilet reading the Utne Reader vs. how many times I've been one-shotted while navigating a pvp zone with my big toe because I am using both hands to hit the four-footer. That is what I need and the Book of Knowledge approaches that.
But alas, Warhammer has not been enough to hold my fickle, fickle attention and I have allowed my subscription to lapse. It isn't actually the game design's fault, however. I think it's a great game with a great future - they just need to fix the memory leaks.
I've also been playing a solid amount of Colonization. I still have yet to win on the Pioneer setting. I am getting better, though. Just need to keep reading.
In the last couple weeks, I've also bought Dark Messiah of Might and Magic (price dropped to $10), Red Orchestra (on sale for $5) and Hinterland. So far:
I can't get into Red Orchestra. I find myself spending significant chunks of time downloading server mods only to have the connection fail or be kicked. The single-player practice was pretty cool, though. But I don't see myself playing it. Oh well, $5 wasted.
Dark Messiah of Might and Magic is an extremely good game so far. I'm really enjoying the RPG-lite aspect of it. I've been itching to make another run through Half-Life 2 lately, and this is the perfect scratch. This game reminds me of a cross between Vampire: Bloodlines and Half-Life 2 in a fantasy setting. Pretty solid over-all if you are into that.
I'm officially regarding Hinterlands as a hidden gem of PC gaming at the moment. It's a Diablo/Caesar hybrid which seems like an odd combination but works fantastically. Diablo-style questing to build a Caesar-style town. Though it is an extremely simple game, I think this is one I'll be coming back to on and off, like Tetris or Bejeweled.
And as October is beginning to come to a close I find myself happily re-subscribed to Dungeons and Dragons Online. Like LOTRO (but for different reasons) I just love this game. The combat controls and quest-based advancement are two big reasons. Sometimes it gets a bit lonely (I haven't found a guild yet), but it has a lot of the magic that made me fall in love with Dungeons and Dragons in the first place.
Dungeons and Desktops
I just found this review at Slashdot by Aeonite of the book Dungeons and Desktops by Matt Barton, editor and writer for Armchairarcade.com.
Looks like I missed this book as it has been out for about a month now, but this review gives an excellent overview of its strengths and weaknesses.
The main thing that caught my eye in the review is apparently Barton considers Baldur's Gate I and II the greatest CRPGs of all time. That is enough to get me to buy the book as I enthusiastically share this opinion. Yes, I weidu.
I would also think the era from 1996 to 2001 to have produced the best CRPGs to date. From Infinity Engine games (Baldur's Gate, Planescape: Torment and Icewind Dale) to the Fallout titles and Arcanum among others (does Jagged Alliance count?), it can't be denied that time period bore sweet fruit for CRPG fans.
Having not read the book, I do not want to go on about Barton's opinions, but I would address one thing that Aeonite seems to take issue with: Barton's apparent loathing of the Diablo series.
While both games receive more or less equal time, it is a bit hard to swallow Barton's dislike for Diablo in the context of a historical overview; nowhere else does he editorialize quite so much, or so vividly. While at first he simply declares that Diablo's consideration as a CRPG "remains a divisive subject," he quickly moves on to less thinly-veiled potshots. At one point, he refers to "hordes of badly behaved teenagers (and middle-aged men, no doubt) scampering to Battle.net, 'pwning' each other and seeking out the latest cheats and hacks to gain an unfair advantage." Later, Barton expresses a "pang of regret over the overwhelming triumph of (the Diablo) series, since it seems to have come at the expense of the older, more sophisticated CRPGs of past eras."
Certainly Barton has considered the sub-designations of Diablo and Baldur's Gate as Action RPG and Strategic (or Tactical) RPG, respectively. I suppose this statement is contentious in itself, since some might not consider any ARPG a real CRPG and others may not consider a title like Baldur's Gate or Arcanum a SRPG. I also find it a bit disconcerting that Barton doesn't seem to separate the actions and memes of a game's community from the game itself. I suppose I will see when the book arrives.
Diablo was (and I would wager still is) rife with the shenanigans he writes of, but that really has little bearing on the game itself. I doubt the more serious of us would judge the merits and quality of World of Warcraft based on Barrens chat, the official forums or the Glider community. Diablo, as an ARPG, has still to be topped in quality of gameplay despite numerous clones. Though I have to admit Titan Quest was pretty fun before the old carpel tunnel set me packing.
To me also, comparing Diablo to Baldur's Gate is like comparing apples to oranges - sure they are both fruit, but that is where their similarities end. And personally I do not think that the ARPG genre has hurt the SRPG genre nearly as much as it has been hurt by MMORPGs, which in their turn have also hurt traditional ARPGs like Diablo, or say, TitanQuest. And SRPGs have been also been hurt by games like Neverwinter Nights 1, Elder Scrolls and Vampire: Bloodlines, which are arguably more strict CRPGs as they take out the strategic element of managing an entire party of adventurers. (I was personally thrilled when I found out NWN2 allowed for party management taking the title more into SRPG territory.)
Or perhaps, genre-wise, it's all relative. How would one class Guild Wars or Dungeon Runners? They have their roots planted firmly in the ARPG genre, yet you could also argue that they are MMORPGs. It is not at all uncommon to hear people refer to Guild Wars as an MMORPG.
Though you could say the SRPG genre is suffering (in North America and Europe, apparently not at all in Asia) for whatever reason, it can't be overlooked that some of the biggest recent CRPG titles - namely Bioware's KOTOR and Jade Empire - could also be considered SRPGs. What I am really waiting for is a more strict SRPG like the Infinity Engine games translated into the MMO experience - being able to control entire parties would certainly take PVP to a whole new level.
Regardless of anything, I am looking forward to reading this book. If you want to get started on this book while you're waiting for it to arrive, you can read a sample chapter at Gamasutra.
Wow Account Security Device Coming Soon
You would think Blizzard Entertainment operated a bank looking at all the ways scammers try to gain access to World of Warcraft accounts. Fake log-in pages, flash-embedded key-loggers, IM con jobs, faked IDs ... the methods people have used to steal World of Warcraft accounts and the in-game currency they hold is eclipsed only by the sheer number of attempts made.
The most popular scam method lately seems to be finding new and inventive ways to deploy trojans laden with password-stealing software. Well friends, that practice is about to come to end once and for all.
Blizzard has recently announced they will be adding an extra security feature into accounts in the form of an encrypted passcode generated by a physical dongle. I wouldn't be surprised if this was largely in response to the recent wave of account thefts made possible with an exploit in Flash (Which has since been fixed).
The Blizzard Authenticator is an optional tool that offers World of Warcraft players an additional layer of security to help prevent unauthorized account access. The Authenticator itself is a physical “token” device that fits easily on a keyring.
For only $6.50 at the Blizzard store, you can by an Authenticator which you link to your account. Once your account is linked you will need a security token generated by the device as well as your name and password to access your account. They are even letting people link one device to multiple accounts.
This may not completely stop more traditional con jobs from taking place, but having one of these will definitely shield you completely from the threat of key-loggers because the security number will change every time you log in.
Spotlight: Age of Chivalry
If there is one thing fans of online fps gaming have come to expect it is that you will be carrying a gun of some sort. Whether you are fighting Nazis, evil aliens or terrorists you can expect that you will be doing your fighting with a machine gun or grenade in your hand.
So when I first heard about Age of Chivalry, I was pretty interested. A total conversion mod for Half-Life 2, Age of Chivalry puts you in the thick of battle in a setting nearly identical to the Europe of the Medieval period. Swords, maces, crossbows and spears are your trusty tools here.
And unlike other "medieval" games there is no hint of magic or fantastical monsters to be found - just sweaty peasants in chainmail beating each others' brains in. Very refreshing considering your main alternatives are beating up aliens, terrorists or dragons. Check out the official game trailer below:
This is a free mod, meaning you only need to own Half-Life 2 to play it. The current version is 1.1 and, while still technically in beta, has very smooth gameplay with a handful of well-designed maps. In fact, the maps are connected to each other in what Team Chivalry calls "Story Driven Multiplayer."
Our unique way of allowing the players to continue writing the story depending on the outcome of the battles. You can siege the shore and push them back into the deep forests of their lands. If your strength is great enough you may write history and destroy their lands and lay siege to their town’s castle to completely destroy your enemy through a sequence of map cycles leading you through the epic storyline.
While the game features maps with connected objectives and you can choose from three classes with varying equipment setups, this is no RPG, however. Rather it is very similar in spirit to Team Fortress 2 - another big bonus for me (and a lot of other players, I would wager).
AoC was also chosen as an editor's pick for the ModDB 2007 Editor's Choice Awards. Below you can see why from the actual gameplay:
OK English-speakers, this video is a German game tutorial but you can get the picture of how the actual gameplay works. This has become one of my favorite Source Mods and if you are a fan of realistic medieval wargames it will definitely become one of yours also.
WotLK Alpha Leaks
What are five words that are on the lips of literally millions of MMORPG players around the world right now? That's right: Wrath of the Lich King.
I just came across a little wiki tucked away in the vast tubes of the Internets where you can find numerous leaked screen shots and information about where the most anticipated game expansion this year is headed: WotLK Alpha Official Wiki (something tells me this should be called the "UN-official" wiki).
There is numerous leaked information already giving you a snapshot of Northrend, Death Knights and life after 70 in World of Warcraft.
Spotlight: SWG Emulation
Periodically I will be highlighting a community-made game or project I find interesting and that I think you will also. For the first Spotlight I have chosen a project that thousands of MMO players around the world have wished for yet few seem to know about: the Star Wars Galaxies Emulation project. Or projects, rather, as of right now there are three which show a great deal of promise.
Throughout its life Star Wars Galaxies has been no stranger to controversy: first, with the difficulties balancing the Jedi class and the path to obtain a Jedi character and later with Sony Online Entertainment's horrendously miscalculated NGE and, to a lesser extent, the Combat Upgrade of 2005.
The Combat Upgrade, which changed character progression in the game from skill-based to combat-based progression, followed by the NGE which (among other things) reduced the playable classes from 34 to nine, very nearly killed the game and resulted in a mass exodus of most of the player base. To this day SWG does not enjoy the same subscriber numbers it did from 2003-2005 (although subscriber numbers and demographics have been subject to debate from the beginning as well).
Though SWG has nowhere near the player base it once it enjoyed, the game is by no means dead. However, the extremely far-reaching bad word-of-mouth has made SWG (and by extension SOE) synonymous in the MMO world with failure. There is, however, a rather numerous group of players throughout the world who remember the glory days of Star Wars Galaxies and are working hard to create an environment where they can relive those pre-Combat Upgrade memories.
Three predominant groups have sprung up over the past two+ years who are attempting to reverse-engineer SOE's pre-CU servers. By reverse engineering the servers from scratch and using official (i.e. bought from SOE) SWG clients they hope to side-step the obvious legal hurdles encountered by those who maintain private servers for existing games.
SWGEmu - The only community of the three who maintains a public testing server that anyone can join. While the game is still not entirely playable, you can see that they have been making huge strides. In my opinion this is the community to watch for the future and offers the most for those of us who would like to contribute but aren't coders. Their focus on creating an open source emulator and the dedication to keeping the community informed sets this group at the forefront.
SWG:ANH - Another strong group working to create a server emulator, SWG:A New Hope does not currently operate a public test server. They keep the community informed largely through screenshots and videos. A much more tight-lipped group that is developing their emulator as closed-source, they still have a lot of promise for those who just want to play. And with the addition of the core members of the SWG Pre-CU development team, that promise just got a lot brighter.
SWG Pre-CU - The future of this project is currently unknown as their core development team recently left for SWG:ANH. In the coming weeks we should learn more about whether this project will die or be picked up by a new dev team.
Whatever is in store for these projects, one thing is certain: SWG vets and noobs who long to play the game as it was first designed will be getting the chance in the not-too-distant future.
Zombie Panic announces level design competition
Today the folks responsible for bringing the phenomenal (free) Half-Life 2 mod Zombie Panic: Source have announced the mod has been fully migrated to the Source 2007 SDK and to generate some interest they are staging a level design competition with some pretty sweet rewards.
Enter your Zombie Panic map into the competition by July 15, 2008 and if it is chosen you will receive:
1st place - $300 US cash, choice of one Noesis Interactive product, choice of either Assassin's Creed™: Director's Cut Edition or Frontlines™: Fuel of War™ via Steam, release of their entry with the next released version of Zombie Panic: Source, and a chance to join the Zombie Panic Development team!
2nd place - $150 US cash, choice of one Noesis Interactive product, release of their entry with the next released version of Zombie Panic: Source, and a chance to join the Zombie Panic Development team!
3rd place - $50 US cash, choice of one Noesis Interactive product, release of their entry with the next released version of Zombie Panic: Source, and a chance to join the Zombie Panic Development team!
While having some extra cash never hurts and getting a free game on Steam is positively delightful, it seems like the best reward is getting your foot in the door of one of the better mod teams out there right now.
If you want more information about this contest or see what maps have already been submitted a forum for the event was created.
Portal Video Walkthroughs
Basic Levels
I found Portal to be the right blend of challenge and streamlined gameplay. Once you master the portal gun and if you are already familiar with the typical Half-Life puzzle style this game could be considered downright easy. Still, I got stuck twice during the game to the point where I had to consult a guide before I was able to proceed - I'm lame like that. If you are stuck on a level you can find the solution among these videos below made by Mmac2797.
Blogs I Read
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