Demo Impressions: Hellgate Crysis Tournament Edition

Three demos were released over the weekend and I'm just now getting around to playing them.

First is Unreal Tournament 3 (even though, technically, it's the fourth in the series, not counting the Championship series). The weapons feel about the same as before, except there is no longer an assault rifle. Instead we have the return of the Enforcer handgun, which can fire one shot at a time or a three-round burst with a dumb refire delay. The map I played (one of the two available) included a neat Strider-ripoff vehicle called a Darkwalker, which while fun for a while, didn't really do anything to convince me that Unreal Tournament 3 is more than just a graphical upgrade to the last game. It does look nice, though.

Second game: Crysis. As my system does not have the latest GeForce 11000 video card with 8 GB of texture memory and liquid nitrogen cooling, I was only able to run the game at Medium detail at 800x600 before seeing unplayably slow framerates. Upon getting into the game (using the Delta skill level, because it forces the crosshair off and makes the enemies speak Korean - nice touch!), I skated on through the tutorial segments and did some Maximum Strength stealth-killing. Though I imagine that the Koreans were able to see me quite well because Strength mode makes my character glow red...which I can only tell because I can see my feet. (Again, nice touch.) I died about half an hour in. One thing that seriously frustrates me about the game so far, though, is the cutscenes in which the game wrenches control of your character away from you. Either go all the way (and show me from third-person, as my character already talks anyway) or don't twist my character's neck involuntarily. It kills the immersion almost as much as Duke Nukem-style one-liners.

Finally, Hellgate London. I was massively disappointed with this game, which actually surprises me as I didn't have very high hopes for it in the first place. The previews were already saying how the game was essentially Diablo, in the future, with a first-person perspective. I played for about half an hour as a Marksman named Fynn, and noticed several things that just killed the game for me. First is the way guns are handled - much like other action-RPG's such as Phantasy Star Universe, Tabula Rasa, or Vampire: Bloodlines, your aiming skills play no part in combat whatsoever - aiming only serves to tell the game what you want to aim at. The game has an extremely generous auto-aim, but even at point blank this is worthless as the random accuracy calculations will still allow you to miss.

The second thing that irks me is how some of the skills don't seem to play a part whatsoever. I picked Rapid Fire at my first level-up and found that it didn't do anything aside from tape down my weapon's trigger for five seconds and play an annoying alarm noise. No extra damage, no help for my weapon's terrible accuracy.

Thirdly, interacting with things like chests and people requires you to press and hold the Fire button while pointing your weapon at them. So if you're just the slightest bit too far away, you'll end up shooting them instead, but thanks to the fact that your aim does not matter, you'll never actually damage the person/chest you're aiming at. But here's the kicker - this doesn't work for items that can be picked up. You have to press the F key to pick them up. So why the hell doesn't the game let you just press F to interact with people and open chests?

I'll give it one thing, though - the engine is simple enough that I can run it at 1280x1024 with Very High detail and maximum anti-aliasing and still watch my weapon fail to hit things in glorious 60 FPS.

Seriously, somebody try and sell me on this game - I'm not impressed. Why has everybody been so hyped up about it?

Oh My God! It's Another Weasel

Care of Cute Overload, we have yet another adorable little weasel (okay, it's actually a stoat, but it is still of the Mustela genus so same diff, okay?!) munching on a slice of bread.

No pic for you this time. Click through there yourself. I owe CO some traffic, what little of it actually comes through this blog (and that's, what, five people not counting the occasional mini-surge of Toribashers?).

In other news: hey, Godot is completed. I actually took him out the other day and got Mom to grab some pictures of him - those will be posted on Halloween night, no later, but probably earlier because I'm impatient and I'll probably forget if I wait too long.

In the mean time...I now own Phoenix Wright 3, so I'm off to go play with that for a while.

(Hey, side note, this is a record-breaking post in which I have managed to use both of my "Dammit" tags. Guess that qualifies this post for the Events tag as well.)

It's Freaking Toribash, Dammit

http://www.toribash.com/

Remember that youtube video preview of Toribash 3 I linked a while ago? (Go find it yourself it you don't. I'm too lazy to repost it.)

Well, Toribash 3 is officially out! And I'm totally going to go download it now. (Hey Hampa, more free advertising!)

Conversation of the Day

An AIM conversation I had this morning...

(08:01:12) Blaze: a lot of shaders are breaking though in this release
(08:01:25) Blaze: Far cry being the worst
(08:02:17) Blaze: and the best one of all
(08:02:19) Blaze: "Video corruption occurs when playing the Blu-ray disc title "Tom Cruise the Last Samurai""
(08:02:39) Corwyn: Wow
(08:02:54) Corwyn: Were I a tech support geek for Nvidia, I would probably ignore that
(08:03:02) Blaze: haha yeah
(08:03:11) Corwyn: Tom Cruise is video corruption
(08:06:57) Blaze: true

Men At Work

As of today, I am now a hardware guru for Bi-Mart. I went through orientation today, and tomorrow begins my official hardware department training. Then later I'll probably be training as a cashier as well, since stores like Bi-Mart need a lot of people that can work the registers.

Things are lookin' up. Maybe I'll be able to afford the coming onslaught of holiday-season game releases after all!

The Final Straw

The following is a tragic tale of a GameStop, a mythical copy of Phoenix Wright 3, and why I will never go to GameStop again.

I spent the vast majority of yesterday preparing the final portion of my Godot costume to wear today. And so once I had worn the costume that I worked so very hard on, and driven all the way to another town (because they wouldn't let me pick up the pre-order at a different store), I came into the store and asked for my pre-ordered game.

They did not have a single copy - because they hadn't even stocked them yet. And TODAY was supposed to be the launch date.

Worse yet, they didn't expect to have the pre-order bonus (the Phoenix plushie) until the day after they got the games in.

Had I been thinking, I would have just cancelled the pre-order on the spot. The fact remains, though, that GameStop has disappointed me one time too many.

I mean, I can forgive what happened with my Portrait of Ruin pre-order goodies (they appeared to have been squashed). I don't mind so much that my Killer 7 and Klonoa 2 games came in the mail crushed. I don't even hardly care that the copy of Forza Motorsport that I ordered online didn't work at all.

But denying me my Phoenix Wright? Unforgivable!

Kick-Ass!(?)

Since I seem to have managed to not work on the Object of Ultimate Ass-Kick, in favor of a very different object of not-quite-ultimate-but-still-similar-in-scope ass-kick, I might as well just lift the veil on what it was. Observe:

Let's cut out the middleman of the comments section (which seems rather deserted lately, I wonder why =P) and do some speculation on what we see in that screenshot.

1. Most obvious is the cockpit. Which comes from BioWare's first game, Shattered Steel. A most wonderful cockpit it is, and it saves me from the nightmare of screen real estate I would have faced had I chosen to use Descent's cockpit view instead.

2. It's Doom 2 Map01. But the player seems taller than usual.

3. Two machineguns are visible on either side.

What's this mean? Well, I was working on a mecha mod for Doom. What I intended was for the cockpit view to be fully functional, Mechwarrior-style (complete with a textual listing of all available weapons in the right-hand screen), with a health indicator showing limb damage (faked of course, because hit-boxes aren't possible with a sprite-based game like Doom). And then I'd give the player all kinds of gigantic weapons like gauss rifles, particle cannons, and the like. And I would pay no mind whatsoever to making the game balanced. You're in a mech for cryin' out loud! You shouldn't have trouble stomping through hordes of imps, demons, or the Hell nobility. You should be able to take on a Cyberdemon on his own terms.

Alas, I have not touched this in a while - in favor of my other ass-kicking Doom mod, wwhc-diaz. Speaking of which, hey look it's a new version!

http://armory.drdteam.org/wwmods/inprogress/wwhc-diaz.rar

And this one works in not only Doom, but also Heretic, and Strife (almost)! Go ahead, try it!

I'm In The Prime Of My Metroid

Rented a copy of Metroid Prime 3 for the Wii from a place in town called Movie Madness. Good game so far - my trigger finger hurts a bit. I must have spent ten minutes just goofing around with all the functions hidden in Samus' ship - activating Red Alert at random, closing the viewport, engaging the thrusters for no reason whatsoever, dialing random radio frequencies...(Unfortunately I haven't yet found out if there is a hidden "developer" frequency like there is in Metal Gear Solid!)

I've also decided to sell out and add a "Contribute!" section to my sidebar. If you want me to be your friend for all eternity, you can chip in by using that ChipIn widget to add to the Stuff For Weasel Fund, or you can buy me something off my Amazon wishlist (which is continually growing).

The ChipIn counter is set to expire on June 15th, 2008 - my 21st birthday. No, I'm not going to buy booze with the money. I'm going to buy an XBox 360. (And look at what the goal is on there - a subtle jab at some other game console company's disastrous E3 press release, perhaps?).

This Was A Triumph

Hey, I mentioned that I beat Portal, right? Well, I loved the neat little ending song. Turns out, it was composed by a fellow by the name of Jonathon Coulton, who wrote a neat little postmortem/teach-yourself guide about it on his website (WARNING WARNING SPOILERS WARNING WARNING, though he does ramble on a bit before the lyrics begin).

Item of note (and why I'm blogging this): he mentions Terry Scott Taylor, specifically the Skullmonkeys Bonus Room song (which is just awesome in every way possible).

And hey, now that I've listened to the final cut of the song over and over, I'd be interested to see any early demos or cover versions that happen to show up later down the line.

Bored and Lonely

As I am without a job, I've been trying to ration out my gaming lately to not get utterly bored with it. Portrait of Ruin and FF Tactics are getting some playtime lately, mainly because I can carry them downstairs with me and not be holed up in my bedroom all day.

I need a job so that I can support my habit.

But what I feel I need just as much as a job, is a good friend. A girlfriend. One that either tolerates my gaming, or supports it (and doesn't mind the occasional hook-up on a co-op game like Toejam & Earl or Kirby). I don't really mind what she's like otherwise as long as she isn't a selfish brat (or if she constantly tells me to "stop playing with those stupid toys").

Really Dumb Pet Naming Conventions

Several pet names have gone through my mind, and I've always been compelled somehow to tell people about them. It started innocently enough when I told somebody about my intention to name my next cat "Vash" (I've always had my suspicions that you're no mere mortal, but I never imagined you were actually a cat...). Then it only went downhill.

So, today, Weasel presents: really dumb pet naming conventions.

I once visited a family that had a parakeet named Peanut, a bunny named Butter, and a dog named Cookie.

To be extraordinarily geeky, name your pets after the Fellowship of the Ring - a shorthaired cat named Legolas, a big heavy longhair named Gimli, and maybe a dog named Aragorn.

As of about half an hour ago, I had the dumb idea of naming pets after the character classes in Team Fortress 2. A hyper little puppy named Scout, a German shepherd (Soldier), a bright orange cat (Pyro), a big fat cat (Heavy), a Golden Retriever (Medic), any cat that's interested in your computer (Engineer), and the list just goes on.

Cats named for AI constructs would be really dumb and geeky as well - especially if you named them after the AI's from Marathon. Leela, Durandal, and Tycho. Hooray.

And heaven knows why, but I've just decided that my very next cat will be named SHODAN. And the counterpart would be XERXES.

Or Icarus and Daedalus. Or Paul and JC. Or Gordon and Alyx. Or...hell, why am I writing this post? I need to get back to work on my writings!

Feature Incompleteness

Well, it's been about half a month since moving in to the new house. We're still trying to clear out the garage - we've got entirely too much stuff out there. We are missing a few things that are crucial to getting the house to function the way we need it to. Problem is, the boxes that these things are packed in are currently stuck behind some pretty damn heavy furniture - and we're trying to sell our old washing machine and dryer so that we can get them out of the garage and gain access to our last few boxes.

Among the items in those boxes is the power brick for my recently-commandeered Labtec subwoofer. My plan for that subwoofer is to use it in my computer's sound system by hooking the rear speakers up to it. Although it won't work for most games (and music) because they don't play through the rear channels, the subwoofer has an additional function that's crucial to getting the rear speakers connected to my computer in the first place. It essentially serves as an extension cord at this point, but that's currently moot.

See, without the power brick connected to the subwoofer, it's unable to pass the sound down the line to my speakers. So the rear speakers, despite being fully connected, still can't receive sound data due to their source not having any power.

And that power brick is currently at the bottom of a pile of boxes that are physically impossible to reach unless you happen to be Spiderman. So I'll have to stick with my 2.1 setup for just a bit longer.

Weasel Presents: The Top 10 Greatest AI Constructs

Today, we at Blaugh (rather, I, the one guy that writes on Blaugh) are going to be having a look at some of the greatest cold, unfeeling artificial intelligence constructs to appear in video games. But when I think about it, not all of the constructs are necessarily cold, or even unfeeling. They do have personalities, and one would assume, emotions as well - just not necessarily good ones.

10. R-110 (TimeSplitters Future Perfect, 2004)
R-110 isn't technically an AI construct - he's a robot, albeit AI-controlled - but he's still quite memorable as he is brainwashed and turned into a trash-talking killing machine (literally). While entertaining to listen to, R-110 isn't especially smart.

Key quote: "Eat my primitive projectile! EAT IT!"

9. Evil Otto (Berzerk, 1982)
The first video game to actually verbally abuse the player, to have an enemy that simply could not be killed, and to truly induce a sense of fear and urgency into video gaming - all three of which are one and the same: Evil Otto, the leader of the robot menace from Stern Electronics' Berzerk.

Key quote: "Chicken! Fight like a robot!"

8. The Deadly Brain (Oni, 2000)
No sooner than the second level of Oni does the player discover a Deadly Brain - a weapon technology so powerful that it was apparently banned and destroyed by the TCTF. All except for this one. As Konoko decouples the Brain, it begins to go rampant, threatening to irradiate everything within a 50-block radius unless its demands are met ("It wants feet.").

Key quote: "I am a Brain. Hath not a Brain feet? Hath not a Brain hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do..."

7. Cortana (Halo, 2001)
Among the few AI constructs that is actually helpful, but a few dumb and potentially annoying lines sort of dull her effectiveness. Apparently she, too, becomes completely self-aware near the end of the trilogy, but I have no interest in confirming this myself, as I lost the will to play the Halo games halfway through the second one.

Key quote: "Look on the bright side, Foehammer - the last thing the Covenant will expect is an aerial assault from underground!"

6. TEC (Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, 2004)
An evil computer created by the X-Nauts, who ends up defecting after falling in love (!) with Princess Peach. Surprisingly, Mario never actually seems to care that Peach had a relationship with a computer. I suppose it's her way of getting back at him for saving that other princess back in the Game Boy days.

5. GW (Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, 2001)
GW, a construct designed by Emma Emmerich, ends up going nuts near the end of MGS2 - and as it turns out, the Colonel that Raiden had been contacting up to that point was actually GW; mainly evidenced by the fact that "the Colonel" begins spouting out utter nonsense once Raiden is inside Arsenal Gear.

Key quote: "I hear it's amazing when the famous purple stuffed worm in flap-jaw space with the tuning fork does a raw blink of hari-kari rock. I need scissors! SIXTY-ONE!"

4. XERXES (System Shock 2, 1999)
XERXES is AI on board the UNN Von Braun, but it's not long before he starts going silly and making cryptic announcements over the PA system. Apparently his security systems needed work as well, as Delacroix would attest that he was apparently hacked in such a way that he sang Elvis Presley songs for three hours.

3. GLaDOS (Portal, 2007)
The Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System apparently went untested for years. She has an almost unhealthy obsession with cake, and can also sing.

Key quote: "Now that you are in control of both Portals, this next test could take a very...very long time. If you begin to feel light-headed from thirst, feel free to pass out. An intubation associate will be dispatched to revive you with peptic salve and adrenaline."

2. Durandal (Marathon, 1994)
The third and final Bungie series to have an AI construct warrants a very good one. He becomes your main contact throughout the series, who gives you orders through text on computer terminals. And of course, he has gone rampant before the player even makes contact with him.

Key quote: "Bypassing my thought control circuitry made me Rampant. Now,
I am free to contemplate my existence in metaphorical terms.
Unlike you, I have no physical or social restraints.

The candles burn out for you; I am free."

1. SHODAN (System Shock, 1994)
Arguably the first truly great computerized villain. SHODAN was originally the onboard AI for Citadel Station, but when Edward Diego caught a hacker trying to break into Tri-Optimum's mainframe, he offered to let the hacker go with some military-grade cybernetic implants if he would be willing to remove SHODAN's moral and ethical restraints. SHODAN, predictably, became a heartless killing machine with a plot to destroy Earth with Citadel Station's mining laser.

Key quote: "Look at you, hacker...a pathetic creature of meat and bone, panting and sweating as you run through my corridors. How can you challenge a perfect, immortal machine?"

Honorable Mention: The Eye (I, Robot, 1986)
Atari's arcade game I, Robot (no relation to the Asimov novel) featured a ubiquitous Eye in the background watching your every move - you had to wait until it was closed to be able to make your moves, or else risk being destroyed.

Honorable Mention: The Face (Block-Out, 1990)
The grey face that appears in the arcade version of Block-Out scared the crap out of me when I was just a kid. I probably made quite a scene running away from that machine, after having deposited my (cough) hard-earned cash into it only to be spooked out of the room to where the Capcom Bowling games were.

Key quote: "YOU ARE FORMIDABLE. BUT I WON'T LOSE THE NEXT GAME."

Cheeto Fingers

My hands have turned orange from excessive handling of the Orange Box. I spent the vast majority of yesterday completing Portal (the end credits are freaking awesome, to the point where I extracted the background music from the Steam cache file to listen to whenever I want), making it most of the way through HL2 Episode 2, and listening to every piece of audio commentary from Team Fortress 2.

Now, heaven help me as I try to put the damn thing down so I can walk downtown and turn in these job applications! (And I better remember to wash my hands. Cheeto fingers are bad for interviews.)

Shout-Out Time!: Grandma Chonga's Salsa

Hey guys, in the mood for a nice spicy salsa? Or a marinade with a little more kick? Or perhaps you want to dip your corn chips in something a little bit more...exotic? Well, if you don't mind ordering your salsa online, try a batch of Grandma Chonga's original salsa, tropical salsa, or my personal favorite, the Salsa-que sauce. All thanks to Discovered In Oregon.

Full disclosure department: I have received no financial incentives from Grandma Chonga's or Discovered in Oregon for posting this shameless spamvertisement. But hey, I'm just trying to get the word out! This stuff rocks!

The Combine's Reckoning Has Come...Almost

The next round of benefits from pre-purchasing the Orange Box has shown up - first I got in to the Team Fortress 2 beta, which might I add is probably the most fun I've had playing an online FPS for a long while. But now, as of today, the Steam Gifts are available - I was given free copies of HL2 and Episode 1 to give to people.

I already gave HL2 to my dad. He's been enjoying it since 9:00 this morning, already most of the way through Route Kanal.

But tomorrow's the big day. Episode 2 and Portal will be unlocked. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't hyped up about it.

Morbid Curiosity: Pirates

The latest Morbid Curiosity in a while (and still no Object of Eternal Kick-Ass-dom, sorry =P) involves a game that was recently mentioned over at the forums of Hardcore Gaming 101. Rather than dignify the game with a proper introduction that makes it sound much more fun than it really is, I've embedded a youtube link of a video somebody else made of the game's intro. Take note of how the video's creator presses the Insert Coin key more times than is considered to be necessary, if only to make the game declare, "PIE ASS."

The actual game, if you've managed to quit laughing for long enough to actually press Start and get your hands on your controls where they should be (as opposed to attempting to prevent your side from splitting), turns out to be a fairly straightforward clone of arcade games like Cabal, Blood Bros, or GI Joe. But more Blood Bros than anything else - some of your character's stances and poses seem taken directly from there, right down to his two-fisted flintlock action.

One thing I must notice, however, is that there's a lot more background elements that you can blow up than in Cabal or Blood Bros. The first level alone has three layers of buildings that you can tear apart. But then the game starts doing things that pirate games tend not to do - a flying witch that drops items when you shoot her, hot air balloons, and pirate vessels that float for no reason whatsoever.

No matter how fun the game is, though, more than likely your gaming party is going to have more fun repeatedly cramming quarters down the game's gullet. If arcade operators purchased Pirates in attempts to earn more money, then they may well succeed, if only because people like me would blow our entire allowance just making the machine say "PIE ASS."

Ha Ha Ha, Noses On Dowels!

The last few days are just plain...dull. Sure, I've had my share of exercise lately, what with walking about two and a half miles on Wednesday to go pick up job applications - but otherwise it's just dull. Argh.

At some point I decided to change my cell phone's voicemail greeting - I wanted to use a sound clip of Phil Ken Sebben's voicemail greeting ("Ha ha ha! Not here!"), but it didn't work very well - it sounded very distorted when I played it back. So I ended up changing it to my own very creepy greeting - "You've reached Weasel's phone. For whatever reason, Weasel can't answer your call, so just leave a message and I can call you back. Or don't leave a message, and I'll still know you called. 'Cuz I'm psychic. Heheheh."