In the immortal words of The Slore: “Don’t ever doubt The Space”
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games
The Rules of The Space
Defend the Shield Generator
So of course I bought the Star Wars DVDs on Wednesday. When I got it home, I decided to watch the special features first, so I inserted that disc into my DVD player. My DVD player is my XBox, and it was like a special Christmas when a special menu popped up, asking if I wanted to watch the special features, or play a game. I did not know this, but the kind people at LucasArts included a single map demo of Star Wars: Battlefront in the package. This is a game I have been waiting for, and I cheerfully started to play.
Battlefront is a ‘capture and hold’ FPS á la BF1942; Joint Ops etc. This is a gametype that I enjoy, feeling like I am a part of some greater purpose. In the case of this demo, it is destroying or defending the Imperial shield generator on Endor’s moon. You can play as either Rebels or Imperials, with three classes in each, which are basically: infantry; engineer; and sniper. I prefer playing as a rebel trooper, as Stormtroopers are white and therefore easier to spot in Endor’s moon’s green environment. My next favourite class is Imperial pilot (=engineer class). These guys can make emplaced weapons which basically assure the safety of the shield generator.
Technically there is one stand-out feature: the AI sucks. It is possible that the developer’s intent was to accurately simulate newbies, the blind, and AFKers in which case the AI in fact succeeded. How can a bot be afk? They are. They just stand at the spawn doing nothing. I have had an enemy, who I was shooting at, run right past me at about 2 metres without reacting.
The graphics are effective, I really felt as though I was in the Star Wars universe. I only have two problems: at the low res of the TV it is often difficult to see enemies or allies, and sometimes, when moving fast, the graphics subsystem cannot keep up and is only able to draw a third of a frame before starting the next one.
I have a problem with any FPS on a console: the controls suck. I have been playing with WASD and a mouse for 7 years, 12 if you count Wolf3D and the first two Dooms. A console controller just does not have the accuracy or response of the PC combination. This goes equally for Halo and RTCW on the XBox as well.
All up I found the game amusing, and have played it about 5 times already today, but in short 20-30 minute bursts. It gets boring at about that time. I am sure the game experience will improve dramatically in the full version with Live support. Which causes a quandary: do I get the PC version with better graphics and controls, or the XBox version with Live? I will have to rent it from the video store to find out.
[update] While catching up on Penny Arcade I found that Tycho has some of the same problems, and his description is well written, unlike mine.
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Joint Operations
This is not a review.
I bought this game last week and I would have to say that I am addicted. As the quote on their homepage says: It is my Battlefield 1942 replacement, not that I have played Battlefield for a while. As usual, Spong got me onto the game through his blog. [Update 11/7] I am still addicted to JOPS.
The main problem I have with JOPS is this: my computer is too slow. I have not upgraded it for 18 months, save for replacing failed parts. I have resolved that I will not be upgrading it until I return from the Netherlands in 2006. This leaves me stuck in a quandary: knowing that I could be enjoying a silky smooth gaming experience, and knowing that the same money could pay for my plane ticket. I wonder if I will, in a weaker moment, succumb to the the pressure. My friends have already questioned my masculinity (my geek friends of course).
Until this, I really have not been playing any games at all for months. I forgot how fun it can be.
The only games I have really played in the last 6 months have been all XBox games, mostly on Live. Top Spin and Project Gotham Racing 2 would definitely be the standouts.
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XIII Mousing Problem, Darryn can help.
If you have a problem with your mouse in the game XIII, then this is what worked for me:
Change your mouse settings in windows so that it is at its minimum possible sensitivity. To do this, go to Control Panel | Mouse | Pointer Options (tab) | Select a pointer speed. Move the slider to the absolute left, so that it is as slow as it can get. Then crawl your mouse over to your XIII icon and play. The game should be fine now. This obviously doesn’t solve the problem, since you have to change the setting back in order to use windows, but it is certainly a work around. After changing this one setting I was able to play XIII.
I don’t know if this makes any difference, but some people suggest that you turn off ‘Enhance pointer precision’. This alone made no difference to me.
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Live!
Spong got me to play PGR2 on Xbox Live last night, as he was hosting. I haven’t played on Live for months as Kip was getting jealous that I would talk to strangers on Live when I could have been talking to her, and I cut down a bit. I guess I got used to it and forgot that I had the capacity to play Live, that and I felt guilty playing as I always have work to do. Kirsten is away at uni and I have finished my uni work, so last night was a good time to return to the Live world. As soon as I loaded Gotham it all came flooding back; the sights, the sounds, the smells. It truly is a great game, although I am not great at it. I failed to finish last on only two races, once because the guy I beat was concentrating entirely on crashing in to me, and once because the same guy stopped short of the finish line and then tried to reverse into me, with the intention of crashing. I really need* to practise more.
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The Blue Power Core is critical
I like the Unreal Tournament 2004 Demo. I have put a few hours into it, and I agree with what Spong has written. It is a great game, and i will be buying it with my birthday EB voucher when it comes out, I think it is more fun than Far Cry.
I really like UT (1.0) and I think that UT2k4 is a return to the same secret recipe, afer the straying from the path that was UT2k3. UT2004 runs super fast on my Athlon 2100, which is below entry-level by current standards. UT 2003 seemed to run slower on the same hardware. I remember that UT 1.0 was always a good LAN choice because it would run on almost anything, I guess that the same will be true for UT2k4. The netcode seems pretty good as well, although it is possibly just my fast connection. So it looks like Epic (*Atari) have delivered the goods again.
I am also pleased to report that I 0wn at this game, I am consistently in the top 10%. That is especially pleasing because I have not been playing many games of late, not even on the xbox. I suspect that once again this is due to my comprehension of team-based gaming. I am actually out capturing Power Cores instead of trying to push 3 other players away from the Raptor spawn in order to get the Redeemer. If you don’t know, my favourite game type is Onslaught.
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