Shevalan

Left4Dead2 practicing hunter punts.. etc...

2010-09-15T12:51:00.002-04:00

A few friends wanted to know about how to go into single player and just practice spawning hunters, chargers, etc.

on the main menu bring down the console (~) and type the following
sv_cheats 1
map c#m#_XXX *1=dead center, 2=dark carn, etc etc, it will auto fill so pick one and roll with it.

once the map is loaded

director_stop *this will keep all spawns from happening, no zombies, nothing will show up

now look at the bots with you, make sure you are aware which one you are and kick all but yourself, you do this with the kick command in console
kick ellis
kick rochelle
kick coach

etc... they die on the spot and they won't bother you.

god 1 *you will want to be unable to take damage for a good practice session

z_spawn XXX * hunter,tank,witch,jockey,boomer,spitter,charger replace XXX with the one you wish to spawn, they will spawn at whatever you crosshair is pointing to.

rinse, repeat.. if you fail in a punt and they grab you.. you won't take damage but will be unable to get them off you, this is where you use the kick command to remove them

kick hunter
kick charger etc etc etc

now let's say you spawn a hunter, kill him and immediately spawn another, sometimes the old one is not out of memory yet and they will add a (1) in front of the name, if
kick hunter
fails ty
kick (1)hunter

and, that's that...

EfragTV Fragfest July 2010

2010-03-10T10:42:00.002-05:00

It's been a while, new LAN event in the valley is coming out way on July 23-25th at EXPO in Fishersville, VA

These guys really run a tight LAN, the last event came in December during a snow storm and we still had a turnout of over 100 people.

Bookmark the link and check back, this LAN is worth your time.
http://efragtv.com/lanparty/index.html

Mr. Lilly BMX Jump

2009-10-23T14:19:00.001-04:00

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Posted via email from mattmcchesney's posterous

Windows Live Writer Test

2009-10-12T11:51:00.001-04:00

This is a test of the Windows Live Writer in Windows 7.

Hmm Guess its kind of nifty , not sure what I would use it for?

well its got good spell check anyway.

Coffee Refill T-Shirt

2009-10-09T14:35:00.001-04:00

Posted via email from mattmcchesney's posterous

Sexy Powers.

2009-10-06T18:15:00.001-04:00

Posted via email from mattmcchesney's posterous

IMG00009.jpg

2009-10-06T11:32:00.001-04:00

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Posted via email from mattmcchesney's posterous

Phone test

2009-10-06T11:25:00.001-04:00

Test
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Posted via email from mattmcchesney's posterous

Valves new experimental business model

2009-07-20T10:40:00.002-04:00

Kotaku

Gabe Newell

One of the areas that I am super interested in right now is how we can do financing from the community. So right now, what typically happens is you have this budget - it needs to be huge, it has to be $10m - $30m, and it has to be all available at the beginning of the project. There's a huge amount of risk associated with those dollars and decisions have to be incredibly conservative.

What I think would be much better would be if the community could finance the games. In other words, ‘Hey, I really like this idea you have. I'll be an early investor in that and, as a result, at a later point I may make a return on that product, but I'll also get a copy of that game.'

So move financing from something that occurs between a publisher and a developer… Instead have it be something where funding is coming out of community for games and game concepts they really like.

Pretty interesting idea if you ask me, 100,000 people willing to invest $50 into a game they have interest in could pretty much fund the entire games development and insure it sees the light of day. This would give more incentive for the developers to listen closely to fan feedback, maybe even hold private testing for investors allowing them to critique and shape the game, and of course there is that part about investors making back money from the investment.. this could be absolutely insane, or absolutely brilliant, I'm not sure which, but I'm leaning towards brilliant.

Lan Party at Augusta Expoland June 27th-28th

2009-02-21T13:29:00.003-05:00

More Info here
Where? Augusta Expoland - Fishersville, Virginia

When? 9am June 27th - 5pm June 28th 2009

How Much? Prepay cost-$15, Pay at the door-$20, General admission-$5(included in participation cost)

What to bring: Computer, Monitor, Keyboard and Mouse, Headset, 25-50ft Network Cable, money for food and drinks

this event is not hosted by Shevalan, and it sounds like they really have a stronger plan than we ever did, I expect a much bigger turn out.

Hope to see you all there.

the PCGN has a website here, forums and such for more information on games played and who is attending.

Newbies Guide to Left4Dead Versus - Part 1

2009-02-16T09:59:00.010-05:00

I'm still to this day very addicted to Left4Dead, there is no other game as unique or challenging that L4D's versus mode, but I notice it's very tough to get a good team and people still really don't use or even seem to know basic tactical advantages, so I thought it would be a good time to write up another guide to some of the basics.

Survivors

There are a few simple rules that if your team follows them, there is very little you can not handle.

1. Stay close, very close.. If you are always within 3-4 feet of a team mate it becomes very unlikely you will take much damage from a hunter or such. Noone should run off ahead, or lag behind.

2. Keep your eyes on your team mates constantly, always be aware exactly where they are at all times, worry more about their lives than your own.

3. Melee often, if you are close to a team member who was pounced or smoked, melee them free(keep meleeing hunter until he is dead).
*edit April 2009* as of a recent patch they have added a melee fatigue, you get about 5-6 swipes before you wear down, so now you want to use your gun more, but still try to melee mixed with shooting*

4. When boomed seek each other out, get to a wall/corner and just everyone melee.. save ammo for when you need it, meleeing will keep you from taking damage and it will kill all zombies who come at you.

5. When someone is pulled by a smoker do not let one person go alone to save him, stay as a team, it's a common trick to smoke someone and let a hunter take down his savior.

6. Tanks- it's important to remember that separated you stand little chance against a tank, but together you can kick it's ass easily. With Second level weapons(auto shotty, M16) concentrated fire as a team will bring him down in seconds, don't scatter, make a stand. If you have tier 1 weapons (Shotgun/Uzi) you will need to move, but still shoot together. Obviously you want to catch him on fire but do not separate, run together while shooting, else hunters/smokers will tear you up. If boomered, make a stand together, concentrated fire can still bring him down before anyone is killed if you do it together.
*edit April 2009* the patch also changed the tank up making him a bit scarier, you still want to stay very close but far enough apart he can not get you all in one hit(he can not hit multiple people in one swing), if you can into an open area you can outrun him, try to get him on fire and run around while shooting, stay clear of objects he can hit (cars, forklifts, dumpsters, hailbails, large logs), if you get an early tank and have crappy weapons, go to safe room or a large room get one person per corner and just all shoot him as much as you can, 2 people will go down but you will take down the tank if you do this right.*

7. Get to know the maps, there are so many commonly used tactics, if you know these tactics you will almost always know what to expect, there are just some places boomers ALWAYS spawn, you know that in the finale of No Mercy the entire infected team will be waiting atop the ladder to jump you all. Again if you work together, its no big deal.

8. Don't shoot the witch unless you know what you are doing, to crown a witch you need a shotgun, autopreffered, run up to her, get up against her close and when she stands up wail on her head. If someone shoots her from a distance everyone needs to join in shooting her or else that person will be down.

Infected

1. Don't keep randomly jumping in, to be effective you need to work as a team, use the tips below for each class but try to do these attacks together, it will allow at least one of you to do more damage than usual.

The Hunter

1. Use Distance and Height to your advantage, if you land on someone by jumping from a very high rooftop chances are you will do 15-25 initial damage, the further you jump the more velocity you build up, the more velocity you build up the more damage you do on impact. don't just jump someone from 20 feet away, aim upwards to make longer jumps. If you miss a big pounce don't just repounce, jump away and either reposition for a big pounce, or if you don't have time for that find a nearby tall wall and do a wall jump from it to pounce them, this will make the difference between an 8-15 HP pounce and a 0hp pounce.

2.(Edit this is no longer true since recent patch, only molitav fire is still effective) Fire is your friend- I get extremely frustrated when I'm playing and my team mates spawn near fire yet do not jump in and catch themselves on fire before pouncing, when on fire you do +10 to every strike, if you land on someone while on fire they will go from green to red in under 4 seconds. Use fire as hunter every chance you have, you will wear them down so fast this way and it's the most effective thing you can do PERIOD. Get to know where every fire pit/barrel is, look for them to use molotavs, always take the time to catch yourself on fire before striking.

3. Aim High- there will be moments that survivors know you are after them, they get in a corner and melee and there is little you can do to jump them, if you aim over them you will then hit the wall and drop straight down to them, this is the only way to easily pounce someone who is meleeing.

Boomer

1. Use any height advantage you can, if you stick to rooftops and cliffsides you can puke on survivors without them ever seeing you.

2. Use cover, spawn behind trains and puke between them, do anything you can to not be in plain site of the survivors else they will kill you and you will have little chance.

3. Do NOT spawn behind survivors unless you are very close and they are not moving, always get ahead of them.

4. Preemptive attack- there is a delay to your puke, the best thing you can practice is aiming for where the survivors are going and begin the puke milliseconds before they are in plain sight. This way the walk into your puke instead of walking around the corner and shooting you before you can get it out.

5. Once you have wasted your puke and you miss, don't be afraid to run in and start slashing/blocking, if you do this right one of them will shoot you and get covered in puke doing so.

6. *added april 2009* also, if you have moments where you find a narrow ledge, try to come out of a closet or area where the survivor is between you and that ledge (No Mercy 4 is a prime example), if they kill you anyone between you and that ledge will fly off.

Smoker-

I'll be honest, I hate being the smoker.. it serves a great purpose but I find the tongue to be so finicky. But what I do know about him.

1. Use High Ground/cover and wait for the right moments, don't every jump a team in tunnels, always look for bushs/trees to hide in, a rooftop, something that keeps you from being exposed to direct gunfire when you smoke someone.

2. be patient, there are so many places where a team will need to drop down in which once there they can not get back up, the sewers is a prime example, watch those areas, wait for the moment to grab that last person as they are trying to drop.. if you nab them, they are all yours.

3. Look for ledges with no guardrails, there are many places like NM3 where survivors take the lift and walk across the rooftop, be down below ready to smoke one, they will take massive fall damage and be separated from their team. On Blood Harvest 2 or 3(can't recall which one it is) there is an area right at the start where they walk out of a window and have to follow catwalks to a plank they can walk down.. if you smoker them from the middle (the side with no rails) you can again do fall damage and anyone rushing to save them will also take such damage).

4. *added April 2009* We have recently seen an easy way to play Death Toll and Dead Air, if not too much changes in dead air it's going to remain a smokers paradise, there are a lot of planks the survivors need to cross, hitting them from an angle as smoker instantly leaves them hanging on for their life.

5. *added April 2009* always study the maps, look for any place you can pull them down a long distance, fall damage is a bonus, there are many places you can pull survivors where they have to completely redo an area alone.. it's vital to learn these (example, blood harvest 4, there is a house survivors come to where they exit a window before heading right to the saferoom, if you get by the house at it's entrance between house and train, you can pull them all the way back over making them have to go through the entire house again, buys you some time.

Tank

People really make the mistake of thinking the tank is all powerful and unstoppable and they use next to no strategy with him. Everyone wants to play as tank, it's rare and it's fun but do NOT sacrifice a win just because you don't wish to sacrifice your turn.

1. Use as much stealth as possible, stay in trees and as out of site as possible when moving towards the survivors, keep your eyes on their outlines to see what they are doing, are they all under the stairs waiting for you? maybe in a vent? do you see one with their arm cocked back? that one has a molotav and is ready to light you up.

2. *edit April 2009* this is no longer true, vents will no longer slow you down but still try to wait a bit so your team can set you up with slowing them down* Don't fall for pussy tactics, if they rush into a vent don't follow them into it, you will be stuck and they will kill you in seconds.. see Rule #3

3.*since a recent patch this is no longer true, tank will now attack once he becomes AI* There is no shame in parking the tank if they are using such a tactic as in #2, look if they are not willing to come out and fight then they are using pussy tactics, why should you owe them any less? if they are it's time to park the tank. Tank parking consists of taking the tank to a good spot that you will want them to have to face him. Put him in the vents above the elevator trigger in NM4, put him in a closet by the ledge on the upstairs of NM4.. anywhere he will catch them by surprise. The way the tank works is if the person controlling him goes a certain amount of time without doing damage to a survivor another player gets a turn (make sure the team is aware of the plan to park the tank), the second player will stay in the spot you put him in or finish getting him there if you did not have time, once control is lost the tank will be inactive until they get close to him again, this time the tank will be controlled by the computer, so you want your team to be ready to strike at this time, being he is computer controlled that means there is 4 human controlled infected+ tank t0 pull this off. Keep in mind the computer tank never misses his throws, but when he gets someone down he will focus on them until they are dead, so you will need to keep the rest of the survivors busy so he does not die too fast.

4. Tank parking is not acceptable on finales, they can not finish the level until the second tank is dead, to park the final tank would be cheap and lame, don't sink to that level.

5. Use any ledges to your advantage, any place a person can fall to their death, you want to punch them into that death, the ledges on No Mercy 4, or just off the building in No Mercy Finale (can be done easily from the higher points of the map)

The Witch

You don't get to play as the witch, you can still use her, have the team ready to jump at the witch, smoke someone into her, and jump the team once she is riled up so they can't kill her, do not let them crown her.. jump them and she will assist you.

That is all for now, I think this should be a good starting point, follow the practices and you should do fairly well, just remember that unlike most competitive games this one is NOT about you, it's about the team, look after them always and they will do the same for you. If someone is not doing a good job don't get angry and don't be a dick, you were new once too, give them advice and you will be surprise how much it can pull together by doing so.

Additional Comments from Readers

"I've found the best thing you can do with n00bs is a lot of positive reinforcement mixed in with advice here and there, "nice boom, great pounce" etc... And if they make a mistake, tell them (politely) what to do next time so they don't make the same mistake again" - RRC589

Newbie

2009-02-16T09:59:00.001-05:00

Left4Dead-how to practice as infected against bots

2009-01-07T10:34:00.005-05:00

A lot of people have been asking so I thought I would share how you go about playing against bots in Left4Dead as the infected (we like to do hunter practice).

You need to either have the rcon password of the server you will use, or host a local game. The easiest way is to make a .cfg which will save you a lot of typing in the long run so I suggest you do it.

Open notepad and past in the following

sv_cheats 1
director_no_human_zombies 0
sb_all_bot_team 1

save this as versusbot.cfg and save it into your left4dead/cfg folder (search out the drive you have steam on, it's usually in steam/steamapps/common/left4dead/ etc etc, do the legwork and find it.

once it's in there run the game, go to options and keyboard settings and be certain to enable developer console. Start up a versus game, bring down console and type
exec versusbot

mind you it will autofinish underneath and it should be the only config with a v so it will show up once you get to the v. you have to exec this at the start of each round (just hit up arrow enter in console each time following to redo the last command entered). Hit M to change team to infected once you have done so.

That's it, mind you the bots are not the smartest on earth and they tend to have a tough time triggering events needed to move forward, so you will have no shortage of time to practice.

Update on Shevalan Left4Dead Server

2008-12-09T11:07:00.002-05:00

The Server is open to be used by anyone who joins the group mentioned in the post below. The Difficulty setting has been removed so it defaults to Normal, the reason I did this is because if I set the difficulty if you change it in game it will keep reverting back to what I set it at between each round. Now if you want a different setting you vote it in and it stays there as long as someone is playing on the server, when everyone drops out, the server reverts to normal.

the easiest thing to do is wait for your group servers to show up before playing, then join steam server group, choose it and jump in, you can hit ESC and call a vote at any time to change difficulty or stage. I tend to play on this server nightly so if you are looking for a game check the server. We tend to play Advanced when it's not full and if everyone agrees when we get 4 players we like to do expert for the achievements.

New Group for Shevalan Left 4 Dead players

2008-11-19T14:44:00.002-05:00

IGN and Friend L4D Group

It's a public group so if you are inclined to play with us please join it.
why you may wonder? Well L4D has a group system so you can set up private servers
for said group, and everyone in that group can see these servers and join them easily. If you join this group, its servers will show up for all of you.

I did this because I play with a lot of guys from IGN and I wanted us to all be able to see the same servers, giving us a big pile of people to play with. I made this server only accept players from the group, it's a public group and all you have to do is join it to play with us..

Hope to see you there..

Shevalan L4D server

2008-11-12T19:10:00.003-05:00

Guys, I made a private server for Shevalan and IGN members for L4D.
right now it's a 4 man server for the Demo but will go 8 man once the game is live.

*Edit* found a simpler way

to connect to custom servers enable your developer console in options/keyboard
hit the ~ key to bring console down (can be done at menu screen)
and type in openserverbrowser

now you will have the oldschool server browser that the game should have had all along.

add 8.12.16.85:27015 to your favorites
the password is "fulci"

Left 4 Dead Demo footage

2008-11-12T08:39:00.000-05:00

In my own world from Eric Whalen on Vimeo.

Ominous from the IGN boards took a pretty good video of a pretty intense gameplay section of the Left4Dead Demo. This is one one of the harder difficulties and gives you a good idea why teamwork is so important in this game.

Left4Dead Demo Impressions - Misfit410

2008-11-10T12:22:00.002-05:00

So I finally put enough time into the pre-release demo of Left4Dead to discuss in some pretty good detail what to expect from the game. The Demo consists of just two parts of the first chapter called "No Mercy". The basic flow of the game is the survivors spawning together and needing to work their way to a "Safe Room" At the spawn you have two weapon choices, ammo and a medkit. The starter weapons are a pistol and a choice of either a shotgun or uzi. The main weapon has ammo limits but the pistol never runs out of ammo. You can also use the medpack as a melee weapon if needed.

The Zombies in this game are pretty wild, I'd put them as a cross between the "28 Days Later" infected and the "Dawn of the Dead Remake" zombies. They look and act more like DOTD but I put in the 28 days reference as they are just "infected" and will go down by being shot and do not require that the bullet be to the brain like most movies. In L4D you take them down easier with head shots but it is not required. The zombies pretty much just roam around and don't typically come after you until you startle them into doing so, loud noises and flashing lights tend to attract them so you spend your time being careful not to set off any car alarms. To keep you on your toes you have the AI director, it kind of watches over the game and spawns "Hordes" so that the game is not too easy for you.. basically when this happens some opening will just start gushing out zombies in large numbers making it so you have to really play smart to get through.

Another thing that REALLY keeps it interest and also makes the versus gameplay fun are the boss zombies. I have encountered quite a bit of them and they really shake things up. You will regularly need to be on the lookout for Hunters, Smokers and Boomers. They make unique noises so you tend to know they are near. Smokers are really sneaky and will usually wait for a hectic time to grab one of your team members with it's long tongue and pull them into a crowd of zombies, the only way for you to get free once he grabs you is for a team member to kill him. Hunters are fast and have the ability to leap very far,they basically just jump on someone and try to rip them to pieces, team members can free you by either knocking him off you with melee and then killing him, or just shooting him(it is preferred to use melee so you cut how much damage he does if you are close enough to do so). The Boomer is just a really fat guy who vomits a thick,sticky mucus like substance at you, this substance will also get splatted on you if you are too close to him when you kill him. The substance is like crack to zombies and it will make them all flock to you if you get coated, it's tough because while coated your vision is very blurred by the slime.

The Other two Boss Zombie types are much, much more serious to encounter. The Tank is basically like getting into a rumble with the Incredible hulk.. he is huge, strong, tough to kill and will hurl large objects at you. The other "Try to Avoid" type of Boss is the "Witch", you will know her because you hear her crying. When you hear crying turn off your flashlights and just try to avoid her, if you startle her she will mess your entire team up. If she is unavoidable you want to use a Molotov cocktail or explosive to take her down as quickly and easily as possible. If she is not in your way, you just do a lights out and sneak by.

Left4Dead is truly gaming perfection IMO, the need to work together has never been seen this strong in any game I've ever experienced, you really do have to get over your lone wolf instincts and learn to watch each others back. It's really one of those games that someone being stupid can get the entire team killed in a hurry.

Now I have only one issue with the game thus far, the Game Lobby. What is in place right now is kind of an Xbox live type interface where you make a lobby or join one, you see your friends and join them, but for PC we have Dedicated servers, so from the lobby you are trucked to a Dedicated server, right now there is a lack of servers due to it being just a demo.. and it was a real headache for the first few days. As PC gamers we prefer being able to join the server of our choice, and I am told that will be as I want in the final product. It's a minor gripe but PC gamers come to expect much more especially from Valve.

So my final word is that this game is every bit as good as you have heard, it's creepy, it's intense and it's made to be played on Expert with the lights out. It is getting a bit old playing the same two maps over and over again.. but the game will have 20 when it ships next week, and user made content is already being put together (someone got DE_DUST from Counterstrike Source working on it with zombies already).

I will have to wait for the final product, if it's as solid across the board as the demo gameplay wise that is a solid 10/10 from me.. if the game matching does not change between now and then, I will lower that considerably.

and so I don't forget, L4D is also the premier for "Steam Cloud" where your settings and save games are stored on valves servers and wherever you log in your controls and save games are intact.

Gears of War 2 (XBOX 360) First impressions.

2008-11-08T12:46:00.006-05:00

I have not been able to take much time lately to play many games, girlfriends will do that to a guy, but I have found one way to combat this. It turns out the girlfriend has a thing for multiplayer CO-OP games. She does not like it when we play against each other because I usually win most of the time. Then again since we have been playing a lot of CO-OP games she has gotten a lot better. It all started with Halo 3, we then moved on to Gears of War which has been our favorite of the two. Just recently though we also played Army of Two which I have to say in some ways even out shines Gears of War 2, but more on that later.

Ok first off I just got this game yesterday and we played it for roughly 3 hours last night in split screen CO-OP mode. I have to say any game that can do split screen CO-OP is almost a must purchase for me these days. So we put the game in the machine and we are greeted by this.

After seeing that we looked at each other and went that looked kind of familiar
Then we figured it out.

Ok now on to the actual game play. The CO-OP is just as good as it ever was from the original Gears, which was good news to me at least. The controls have not been messed with and it really looks just like more of the same. Run gun get cover, Shoot repeat. But that is all I was looking for so that works for me. There are some interesting tactical improvements such as using grenades as proximity mines and luring the enemies into them. The mortars are also and interesting weapon for taking out many enemies at once. Though the times you get ot use it there are usually hords of enemies that are far off and the only way to get rid of them is use the mortars, or the one turret. Just saying a nice sniper rifle would have been great at that point. difficulty on this game is very scalable from super easy, to dang near impossible, we are working on the easy level at the moment and found it to be a little too easy. But we are getting the lay of the land the first time around I have a feeling we will be revisiting this game over and over. As for the CO-OP experience that has not changed much since the last Gears which was good. However like I mentioned before, new games have been out lately that have blown the top off of the CO-OP game play such as Army of Two which I found to be an excellent experience. The CO-OP in that game requires you to work together not just tag along. The agro system of cover rather than just hieing behind something works better too. A big improvement for Gears is the fact that the computer controlled characters will actually come heal you if you get taken out. Instead of having to just rely on your one human teammate. They will brave bullets and even their own safety to come after you . This was a great addition and made me hate the CPU players much less, felt they where and actual part of the team rather than a pain in my butt.

Pros
-CO-OP game play is good not great (on Par with last Gears of War)
-Graphics have improved a bit (I think they added a few more colors anyway)
-THE GIRLFRIEND LOVE IT ( Which is really the most important thing)

Cons
-Story seems a bit weak (but its not what I joined the party for anyway)
-Can be kind of hard to find your way ( I got lost a few times, needs something like the Army of Two GPS)
-Some of the new weapons could have been better. (let me shoot a crowd with the mortar close up!)

Conclusion.
So if you have somebody that will sit down and play this game with you then its a blast and I highly recommend it.

Left 4 Dead Demo today..

2008-11-06T10:54:00.002-05:00

If you have preordered Left 4 Dead on Steam this morning at 7am the multiplayer demo was unlocked. The public release of the demo is set for November 11th and the full game released on November the 18th.

If like me you KNOW this game is for you, I suggest preordering it now and getting that Demo.

Impressions will be posted here later.

Farcry 2 Review

2008-11-04T13:25:00.003-05:00

I had planned to do Farcry 2 as my first Video review but with it taking far longer than I had planned I'm going to opt for a text review (and I will edit in some screencaps when I have time).

I will start by saying I had extremely low expectations for Farcry 2.

Strike 1. It's Ubisoft- once known for making some pretty butt kicking games Ubi I feel has typically gone downhill over the years.. It's hard for me to not anticipate a crapfest from these people.

Strike 2. It's a cash-in, Crytech the makers of Farcry left a long time ago and made the phenominal Crysis (true successor of Farcry), in their leave Ubi has pooped out several horrible console Farcry games almost killing the franchise name.

Strike 3. This Game took the name of a run into the ground franchise, yet is not related to it in any way shape or form.

So with that out of the way, I'm going to publicly eat crow and say I was wrong, so wrong about this game. What we got was a unique progression on the First Person Shooter Genre. It takes many of the best elements from action shooters, free roaming sandbox games like Grand Theft Auto and mixed them into one damned superb game. Don't let me imply that it's perfect, in fact the biggest hold up is a broken mission I encountered that I wasted far too much time trying to complete that it put my review back a few days. In fact this game has quite a few bugs I have encountered, but let me assure you now, the experience of this game is so good that you will overlook all flaws.

The basic plot here is that you are a mercenary that was sent to Africa to kill "The Jackal", an arms dealer that is getting rich on the conflict in the area by arming both sides. Your plans are altered when you come down with a case of Malaria and are bed ridden for some time, in your sickened state the Jackal pays you a visit but does not kill you as he figures there is no way you can touch him, and once you fail your mission others will be after your head. This is where you begin, sick and with only basic weapons. You find missions on your map as exclamation points and you visit the right NPC to get them, they typically consist of either killing someone or destroying something. Your payment is in rough diamonds that you can use in the weapons shops to buy new weapons, upgrade them and also to allow you to hold more ammo and such. If you visit the shop when you have no active missions you can often find the arms dealer will be there to give you missions that will unlock new weapon choices. Once purchased weapons will be available with ammo in an unlimited fashion in the store houses next to all weapons shops.

One thing that really impresses me the most is that there are no loads once in game,you can travel to all corners of the map and never once have to load. The only time you will is when you use a bus station to fast travel from one part of the map to another. The graphics are sharp, crisp and the lighting is the most natural and realistic I've ever seen in a game outside of Crysis (and in many ways more so). You will spend your time driving various jeeps, crappy cars and dune buggies down dusty african roads, this is pretty fun as it's like offroad rally racing without the actual race. To keep things from getting too boring they have made every citizen of this great land completely bat shit insane so every one you pass on the road will attack you on sight. Even simply driving by the lumber mill will make all workers drop what they are doing to chase you down and kill you!!.

While doing missions you will undoubtedly get a few rescue cases where you help some other Mercs out of a tough spot, once you do this they are your buddies and they will be a huge help to you. You typically get two main buddies, one will stay on rescue(if you die, they come in drag you out of danger and help patch you up), the other will typically help you out on missions by offering alternative ways to get them done (which tend to bring in some extra rewards). This is basically Farcry 2 in a nutshell, fighting your way through insane Africans to complete missions for bad people on two conflicting sides and eventually you work up to finding the Jackal. It is a lot of fun finding unique ways of taking out the enemy, buying all types of new weapons and getting some spiffy new vehicle and watching how bad they look after a few hours of driving them in this place (it broke my heart when I got a new Jeep SUV with gold rims from a prince, only to have it look like a big ball of mud an hour later).

Another Highly impressive thing is the fire, Alone in the Dark(2008) tried to really raise the bar with in game fire, and Farcry 2 takes it to roughly the same level but this time, it's in a game worth playing!! It's really impressive the things you do that will start fires and you just watch them spread, all of the leaves burn off trees leaving black burnt limbs, a few Molotov cocktails always make for some fun gunfights against entrenched enemies. Anytime you see a propane tank of any sort you know shooting them is only going to end in big fun.

The Pros

Great Graphics that run well on medium level hardware. Game play that always keeps you on your toes, interesting story, weapon and upgrade selection give a good incentive to work on side missions.

Cons

Not the most polished game on the planet, AI a bit flakey, sometimes you can walk right up to them and they don't see you, next time they see you through walls and nearly blast your head off without being in your range of sight. one or two missions that can break under certain circumstances, would love to be able to take more than one mission at a time.

All in all I loved Farcry 2, I could complain for hours about what is wrong with it, but I won't because I'll be too busy PLAYING it.

I give this game an 8/10, amazing game brought down by some minor flaws.

World of Goo Review

2008-10-18T13:54:00.003-04:00

Braingoo is not the only goo feeling the love around here lately. 2d Boy has recently released it's unusual indy physics based puzzle game "World of Goo". It honestly would never have been a game to cross my radar if not for all of the praise and really positive feedback being thrown around by gaming critics such as IGN and 1UP.

The game has a very simple concept, but as you progress the challenges become more and more difficult and the means in which you attack these problems become more varied and innovative. The basic concept is that you have a certain number of gooballs to work with, they can be pieced together to build a structure, but when gravity meets the rubbery goo it provides a real challenge meeting your goals. The end objective is always to get a certain number of these balls(which will roll along the architecture in which you piece together) into a pipe somewhere on the map.

At first you are building simple structures to the top with as few balls as you can, then you are trying to build a bridge across a large chasm. Before you know it you are putting large goo heads into grinders to break them into pieces. At one point I'm pretty sure the green gooballs I was using were mucus as I was sticking them to nostril hairs that lined the walls.

This game has an insanely addictive quality to it, mix that with a lot of variety, a lot of surprises and a ton of humor and you have one of the best budget games to come out in a very long time.

World of Goo is available for PC and Wii, for Wii it can be purchased for $15 and downloaded on the Wii-Ware service, for PC you can find it on Steam, D2D or what I actually think is the best way, direct from their site you get an installation with no DRM, no checks, no copy protection of any kind (they need to be applauded for this bold move). The PC version is $20.

I don't have a lot of negatives to say about this game, if I could nick pick I would fault the PC version for only supporting a resolution of 800X600, and in the game often the goo balls pile into what you are building in great numbers and it's tough to get the exact one you are trying to get (once you get different colors they have different abilities, so if you are pulling a time crucial move.. think ahead on that).

I'm going to give World of Goo a 10/10 , it has all of the polish and will last you longer in replay than most games that cost $60, there are not many games you are going to find that are this enjoyable in the $20 price range.

Speaking of Portal.

2008-10-18T13:51:00.004-04:00

If you are a fan of the game Portal, then run don't walk ... err.. don't do either just click this link and download Portal Prelude. This is a fan made mod but the level of polish and content would fool anyone into thinking it was a full blown sequel... err.. Prequel..

The only warning is that it's difficulty begins where Portals left off, it's kind of like the "Insane and Almost Impossible" difficulty maps that we meant to ship with the original or something.

Definitely give it a go..

Just Because this never gets old.

2008-10-17T15:01:00.002-04:00

Portal - Still Alive typography from Trickster on Vimeo.

Also checkout. Portal Prelude
http://www.moddb.com/mods/portal-prelude/downloads

Zero Punctuation : Es Tee Ahe EL Kay Ee Argh Clear Sky

2008-10-15T20:07:00.001-04:00

Not a bad review this week they have been less funny as of late but this one seems like it back to business as usual for Yahtzee. This week he takes a crack at Stalker Clear Sky I have yet to play this series its on my to do list sometime this century, but I will definatly have to give it a shot after this review. I too am tired of the same old FPS games that have been coming out lately.

Shevalan Blog site

2008-10-15T14:58:00.000-04:00

Welcome to the Shevalan Blog site