Strangetimez

Well, I finished Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty the other day.  The game has been in planned / in production since 2003.  There has been lots of hype about it, so understandably, my expectations were very high.  It was good single player game as far as the campaign / story line part went… but I am now rather pissed off and dissapointed with the rest of it.

StarCraft 1 was great – 3 races (Terran, Zerg, and Protos), you can play them all, mix and match races in the skirmishes/one off battles against the computer or your friends, and was good all round game, well balanced etc.

StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty on the other hand is, overall, CRAP….  Sure – all 3 are there again, it has cool graphics, good videos / story. BUT, once you finish the Terran campaign… thats it.  They may as well have put a big banner “To Be Continued…” on the box, and at the end of the game.  Plus, Im estimating only about 30-40 hours of play?  Thats not heaps, but its not bad either.  I figured more value would come with being able to play one off skirmishes and enjoy many more hours of play.

To reiterate, there is NO ability to play Zerg or Protos in a storyline / campaign.  Apparently it’s coming later – and people will have to buy both of them to see whole story and to play the rest.  Talk about blatant money making.  All the game mechanics are there, so all they have to do is make some more cutscenes (not a small task, but they are a pretty damn big company) to progress the story, and make a few changes to the interface to match them.  Most of the work is all done from what I can tell.

So, StarCraft 1 ~$90 when it came out which comes down to approximately $30 per race.  StarCraft 2 ~$90 PER RACE.  In other words, $270 to get the full game.  And they wonder why people pirate games?? Stupid fuckers – how much money do they think we have to pay for their shit?  Im betting they spent ages trying to work out how they can sting gamers a monthly fee, like they do with World of Warcraft (WOW for the uninitiated).  At least WOW is better value for money per hour of play.

So, I finished the campaign the other day.  Tonight it was time to start honing my skills in skirmishes.  I decide to try the single map type skirmish game. Firstly you have to fucking log into battlenet (like WOW) to even play single player… which is a completely pointless pain in the arse.  Just to be clear about this to anyone else stupid enough to spend their money, I COULD NOT EVEN PLAY THE GAME SINGLE PLAYER WITHOUT AN INTERNET CONNECTION.  Once you log in, it seems the game reloads the map list off the server every fucking time you want to play a single skirmish game (I gave up after about 5 mins of it sitting there “loading” tonight.  That was the last straw.  This rant is the result) .

In StarCraft 1, you could load up  single maps and play them with your friends, or against the computer.  Seems that was too easy for StarCraft 2.  When I finally got into a skirmish type game in StarCraft 2, half of the vehicles / troops / aircraft etc that you spent a fair bit of time using and getting to know in the campaign, arent there. Because (according to comments on various sites) some of those troop types apparently make it too easy when playing the Terrans… in other words, the 3 races are completely unbalanced, and people playing Terrans would whoop ass on the others.  So, skirmish is bullshit.

I havent even bothered to play online.  I tried to play a few of their “training” missions but again, its crap, and all the fun troops and vehicles are taken out.  And these missions are ridiculously hard.  I suppose that when people eventually (after many hours of restarting maps, cursing, and swearing) master them they will fairly crush anyone who hasnt done all of them.

Oh, while Im ranting… the opening cinematic, titled The Deal, while excellently done, does not even show the main characters in the game, or do much to start off the the storyline.  After playing the game through, I showed this video to a friend, and realised that it tells you nothing, only shows a “supporting” character, and is basically a marketing tool to make the game look cool.

Summary:  DO NOT BUY StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty … fuckem.  Blizzard are obviously busy crawling up their own arses so they can better smell their own farts.  Download it or copy it off a friend, and find a crack.  I really feel they didn’t deserve my money….

Sniper Gh3y Warrior

Okay, so I gave this game a go…  there was definite potential.   Decent graphics, outside environments, promise of stealth and sneaking around, long distance shooting, and more.  I was ready to get my teeth into something like this for awhile.

Unfortunately potential rarely meets reality.   After overcoming some start up issues due to the game not liking dual monitors, I was in.

The obligatory training mission at the start to familiarise the user with the environment and controls was welcomed, and I was impressed to see that if you show compentence the game suggests skipping the training.  I persevered as I wanted to make sure I knew what the game could do, and what controls do it.  All good so far…

The first time I sniped someone long distance you get rewarded with a cool bullet cam / slow motion view as the baddie is drilled.  Great!  Rather satisfying too.  But the elation was soon shot down…

In some sections you can sneak around, shoot isolated baddies when their mates aren’t looking, or shoot them all if you are quick enough.  Makes sense.  In other sections though, I quickly ran into issues.  There are some stages where you are forced to sneak more than shoot, otherwise the soldiers will be alerted and your main target will get away.  These stages sucked.  No matter where you hide, or how well, one glimpse from a soldier will cause sirens to go off and every gun toting moron to start shooting at you, and usually resulting in a failed mission.  Initially I thought it was my tactics.  I soon realised its just the game.  Ridiculous and so far from anything even remotely realistic, the game gives you a big slap in the face.

I soldiered on regardless (pun intended ).  Repeatedly I would get stuck in these stages.  No matter how quiet, how well hidden, your character must be standing out like a fluro clad teen at a funeral when everyone in the area starts shooting at you. At other times you could have bodies lying all over the place, and when a patrol goes past, they act like nothig has happened.  The AI is all over the place – I could be killed from a sniping nest 200 meters away, but could stand 20 meters away from the same soldiers and they would continue to miss me.  Not to mention the team mates accompanying you on some stages also suffered from similar problems – they couldnt hid the broad side of a barn door most of the time.

There were also a few humerous moments, some intended and others definitely not.  At one point my aim was a little high and instead a satisfying headshot their hat was shot off and they remained fighting fit.  Nice.  Another altercation resulted in a dead soldier but the hat remaining floating in the air.  Other times soldiers would be facing 90 degrees to the left or right of me and firing, but obviously thinking they were shooting at me… which they were ’cause I died.

On two separate occasions I attacked a pair of soldiers who were engaged in a conversation in spanish.  After dispatching them I could still hear the same discussion continuing.  Walking towards the bodies I found they were still engaged in the same conversation.  Lol.

Then,  I got to some stages where you were simply carrying around a standard assult rifle and left to madly hose down any baddies in your path.  WTF?? This isnt sniping, as the title would have suggested?! Not to mention that the gun you were supplied with had an accuracy that was abismal.  Spray and pray was the best way to proceed, and its not like I ever ran out of ammo.  Except when the game didnt want me to have it.  At one point I was sent on a mission as a sniper, and came upon a group of soldiers.  Perfect spot to land a grenade and take out a bunch at once, only to find they neglected to provide me with any.  So, what, did my character forget to pick them up?

It was then that I realised I had missed something fundamental to the game – these were not normal soldiers!  They must be enhanced / psychic super soldiers!  And my character must be wearing fluro pink cammo.  Now the game makes sense… The ability for the opposition to see you no matter how well hidden you are, the ability to instantly notify everyone in the area of your presence, and how they can easily track you down wherever you were hiding.  Even how they could sound the alarm the instant they saw you, before you even have a chance to shoot them.

With this revalation in mind, the game was once more enjoyable… until it abruptly ended with a long distance sniping of the boss from hundreds of meters away.  Not exactly a climactic moment.  I was hoping for some sniper vs sniper action like something from Enemy at the Gates.  But it wasnt to be.

Honestly, I suspect that they got the graphics engine and environments going well, then they ran out of money before building the AI of the game and the testing phase, or their beta testers did a terrible job, or they just thought we wouldnt notice, or maybe they simply relied on the multiplayer aspect to carry them through?

All in all, I was rather dissapointed.  The game had potential but fell well short of the mark… Be warned.

Ive been playing Fallout 3… definitely a great game.  It seem that Im not the only one who thinks this… if Yahtzee in this review doesnt bag the absolute shit out of it, and can only pick on a few details, then it cant be too bad at all

I finished building my Mame / Arcade cabinet…  It was great fun to put together, and pretty good fun to play

I have been playing a simple online game called Ikariam for about a month or so, when out of the blue I am banned with this very informative and detailed message (click to enlarge and read):

I’m not going to link to it because I don’t want to encourage anyone to go and play it. It’s a simplistic ripoff of Civilisation (which is a great turn based game), but it had its moments of mild enjoyment. The reason I a so annoyed is that they never contacted me with any form of message to tell me what warranted the ban, there are no contact details or any form of communication I can access to talk to them, and I have no idea what “for the time being” means.

I checked over their rules and conditions and the only think I could put it down to was that a mate was over here and we created an account for him and he played for a bit while I played. I think in their legalese they say something about having to notify them to get permission to do this. Honestly, who does read all that cr@p? My slip in studying their rules in intimate detail aside, anyone with half a brain would provide a warning, or at least tell me why I am banned, and for how long.

Now – instead I am going to avoid anything made by GameForge and their dodgy affiliates (free or otherwise), and tell anyone who will listen not to waste their time with their smelly pile of digital dog cr@p.

In my recently aquired addiction for all things Guitar Hero (‘GH’ for the true fans) related, I have come across an excellent free GH clone called Frets on Fire. It does not have the flashiness of the GH series, or the battle modes etc, but if you are thirsting for some guitar action on the pc, then this is definitely it. The best thing of all, is that you can just use the humble PC keyboard to do it! You can download a lot of free songs, or convert your own with their editor so there is no end to the choices of music, which is a definite plus of the GH series, where you are restricted to their music selection, with the option of purchasing a few select song packs from their site. Ive shown it to a few people and they are hooked too!

 Well – it may as well be official.  I’m another statistic in the count of Guitar Hero Addicts out there.  I have had access to a guitar for just over a week (thanks to Teharney!) which has resulted in a fair chunk of my spare time being spent getting through the “Easy” stages and then wading my way through the “Medium” difficulty songs.  Now my own knockoff guitar controller has arrived from Hong Kong.

Given that there has been an Australian wide shortage of genuine guitars since before Christmas, I am guessing I’m not the only one who has discovered the joy (? Frustration maybe!) of clicking coloured buttons in time to music classics.

I feel justified by this, when all local retailers do not have stock of the PS2 controller, and even most popular online retailers like GameHead are out of stock. 

I have one friend, Aaron, who refuses to pick up a controller and try the game as he has seen first hand the addictive properties of this demonic time sucking pasttime.  He knows first hand, he works in retail and his store has the game on display.  They actually had to relocate it from the entrance as it caused congestion for customers entering the store.

Now I just have to get through “medium”…