Games I've Been Playing

It's the end of the month again so I it's yet again time for me to do another one of these. I'll start off with a little Fallout: New Vegas. I've had this game for ages I bought it months ago in a Steam sale of some sort, but never got round to playing it, as with far too many games I own. Over the past couple of weeks or so, I've been working my way through it, and have just made it up to the Strip. I still have a way to go to finish off the game but it's definitely on it's way to the finish line and finally get off the backlog list. Next couple of games I picked up recently due to Steam realising I actually had money left in my account. They only got me for £15 this time but I got 3 decent games out of it though. Mirrors Edge, Serious Sam 2 and Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

I got Serious Sam 2 to finish off my collection of Serious Sam games on Steam. Which is a little ironic as it was the first Serious Sam game I played. The story I don't really care for, but I prefer the weapons and gameplay in this game than other Serious Sam games. Next we have Mirrors Edge, it's a cool little game and I'm glad I got it. I've put a couple hours into it already and got up to Ropeburn, the first boss, though I am stuck at this part so have left the game alone for a while, this also is more than likely due to me playing a lot of Deus Ex which I picked up for a tenner. It was an absolute steal at that price. I am loving this game I think I'm about half way through now, maybe a bit further. The more augments I get as I progress the better the game gets. The augment that allows me to safely float to the ground no matter how high I drop from is by far the coolest one I've got so far. It's just the little animation and sound it makes, it is awesome.

On the multi-player side of things I haven't been playing that much this month until this past week. I've been getting back in to Nuclear Dawn which has had a couple major patches recently which included a new map and     some new items for certain classes such as the ammo kits for Engineer and hypospray for the medic, both of which are a great addition to the game, the ammo kit is especially helpful in the early portion of the map as it gives you the chance to keep your team mates supplied while the commander plays catch up. I've also been playing some Super Monday Night Combat got into the beta a few weeks ago. It has had a GUI update recently which does look a lot better than it's previous version. It's a great game. I'm really good with Assault, Karl, Support and Combat Girl, however I do need to practice with other classes, I'm currently working on getting Cheston up to scratch at the moment, he's a Gorilla with a tommy gun how can you not love it.

Nuclear Dawn Update On The Way

The guys at Interwave have another update for Nuclear Dawn heading our way. This update adds a bunch of cool new features such as giving the commander to set a default spawn area, giving the Support engineers ammo packs which will allow them to keep there team mates supplied on the front line. I can see this being especially helpful in the early goings of a match. There are a number of updates to the latest map Oilfield as well. For full details on the update you can check out the changelog.

Nuclear Dawn Mapping Contest

The guys at Interwave have announced a Nuclear Dawn Mapping Contest. The contest as you may have guessed is a map building one, letting modders and map makers show off their skills and hopefully get their level included as an official map in a future update of the game. Should you happen to win this competition, not only will your level become an official Nuclear Dawn map, you will also gain 1000 US dollars, you will also receive full credit in game and on the website, as part of the Nuclear Dawn team. For any aspiring video game designer, that would be a nice addition to your CV (resume). The winner will be selected with a public vote by the Nuclear Dawn community.

The competition starts on February 18th and runs though until June 25th, with the voting taking place in the two weeks after the final submission date. To take part you have to create a post in the contest forum for your map, introducing yourself and your team, along with some details of you map. Everything you need to know is in the link above. It's good to see the Interwave guys taking an interest in their games community and getting them to help them along their way. Other developers should take a page out of these guys book and let the people who play your game help you. Prime example of this is Valve, the amount of custom maps and levels the Valve community have made is frankly ridiculous and it has helped there games stay popular after all these days, that and the fact they actually still update their games years after release. Interwave seem to be doing the same kind of thing, they have had a number of updates since it's release and are planning more.

Anyway all you modders and mappers out there, you have about 4 months to get a map finished for this. I look forward seeing what comes out of this. I can see us getting a whole bunch of new custom maps as well as a new official one as well.

New Map for Nuclear Dawn

Nuclear Dawn is a cool little game and has recently got another update which includes the addition of a FOV slider in the options and a bunch bug fixes which can be found in the changelog. We will also be seeing a new map with patch 5.2 under the name of Oilfield (there are a few screenshots of the new map under the changelog for those interested). The map is in a now open beta form for everyone to play and test. Hopefully there will only be minor bugs to get rid of which won't interfere with gameplay all that much. Just a short and sweet update of what's happening with this game. Now I'm off to play it.

Games I have been playing.

I think I didn't do this last month due to being busy with Christmas and New Year and such. I will start off with Nuclear Dawn. I picked it up through the Indie Royale. I did first thoughts post on the game earlier this month. The game has merged FPS and RTS together. When I first heard about I wasn't sure how it would work. You have a commander who plays in RTS view and uses resources gathered by the FPS players to expand their base and build turrets, spawn points and supply depots to help the rest of the team. I've put a good 30 hours in to the game so far and as I was writing this I noticed it has been updated and this patch includes a new map so I will be jumping on the game once I have finished here.  

Next on my list we have Super Monday Night Combat. I recently got into the beta for this game. It is very similar to its predecessor Monday Night Combat which came out a couple years ago. It was a great game but definitely under rated. The game is in beta at the moment and only has one playable game mode at the moment which is damn near the same as the gameplay described below in the video. With a couple of changes that I have noticed. Instead of having to build turrets they are already in place, along with the fact you can not repair them as the support class like you could in MNC. I am hoping they will change that back in later patches. 

I've only got a couple more. The first of which is Sven Coop. It is an old Half-Life coop mod, in which you can play through the original Half-Life game, other single player mods such as They Hunger and Opposing Force along with literally hundreds of custom maps and original levels made purely for the mod itself. Lastly I have started a complete Half-Life series play through starting with Half-Life obviously then I will venture on to Blue Shift and Opposing Force before making my way to city 17 and work through Half-Life 2 and it's episodes.

Nuclear Dawn

I recently picked up Nuclear Dawn through the Indie Royale bundle. I had heard of this game through a free weekend that it had on Steam a while back. The idea of the game is actually quite brilliant. When I first heard the game had merged FPS and RTS I wasn't really sure how it would work. But what they have done works quite well. 

There are two teams Empire and Consortium, each team has a commander which plays in RTS view. As commander you have to use resources to build defences for your base while expanding forward to help your team mates by building forward spawn points and supply depots for them. The resources needed to do this are gained at resource points by the rest of the team who play in FPS view. 

As an FPS player you get to choose to play as one of four different classes. Assault, Exo, Stealth or Support. As Assault you get to choose 3 different load outs. Infantry Kit, Grenadier Kit and Marksman Kit. 

• Infantry you get you play as Infantry with an assault rifle, a pistol and grenades as your weapon of choice. 
• Grenadier you get a grenade launcher, a shotgun, a pistol and grenades, this setup is extremely good if you buddy up with a siege Exo to take down the enemy base. 
• Lastly as Marksman you get a sniper rifle, a pistol and anti personnel mines. Also as Assault you get thermal vision which you have regardless of load out. This is essential for taking out those pesky cloaked stealth players. I really hate them they are really annoying for anyone that doesn't play assault.

Next we have the Exo class. Easiest way to explain this class is. Think heavy in Team Fortress. You have lots of health, and a big ass chain gun to start you off. As Exo there are only 2 load outs you get to choose from which are: Suppression Kit and Siege Kit. 

• Suppression as you might think is you and your chain gun you also get a pistol for your secondary weapon. 
• Then we have the Siege kits which vary a little depending on your team. They both do the same job none the less which is destroy enemy buildings. If you are on the Empire team you get a big chunky rail gun, where as Consortium get a rocket launcher. You also get a pistol as secondary just like the suppression kits.

Stealth is the next choice of class, and how I hate them. Just as I hate spies in TF. The sneaky little bastards. Anyway as Stealth you have 2 load outs. First of which is the more annoying of the two. 

• The Assassin kit which includes a sub machine gun, a pistol and depending on team again either Knives (Consortium) or Arm Blades (Empire). Combining your melee weaponry with the sneaking bastardness of the tactical cloak can be quite the annoyance as if you back stab someone it's instant death for the unsuspecting victim. 
• Don't want to get up close and personal with the enemy but enjoy the stealth aspect? Not to worry this game has you covered with the Sniper kit. Yes, we already have snipers with the Assault class. However if you are going to go down the sniping road. I would suggest being a stealth sniper. Why? Think about it you have the ability to kill from a distance and if people cotton on to where you are just stealth up and cheese it out of there. Snipers can be difficult to spot on the best of days, so a sniper with cloaking abilities it's a smart move. You do have to watch out for Assault snipers though as they can spot you with their thermal vision.

Last but not least I would say is the most important class of the game. The support class. As support your role is none other than to support (who would have guessed) the rest of the team which you can do in a number of ways depending which of the three load outs you choose. 

• First choice is the Medic kit and this doesn't really need an explanation. You play as a medic and help heal team mates when you can. You are equipped with a machine pistol, a regular pistol, med pack and some poison grenades. The poison grenades are quite interesting choice of weaponry. They are handy to deter enemies from capturing resource points.
• Next you can choose the Engineer kit. As an engineer your primary role is to help maintain buildings from enemy siege. They can also help out on offence as well with the EMP grenades in their arsenal which can disable enemy turrets which let the likes for Exos get in and do some serious damage. Along with your EMP grenades and repair tool you are also equipped with a shotgun, a pistol and anti personnel mines.
• Lastly is probably the most annoying of the support class. It is the flamer kit, which as you may have guessed includes a flame thrower, you also get a pistol and both poison and frag grenades. If played right this can be one of the most devastating classes to play with the ability to wipe out an enemy team trying to capture a resource point. As you don't have any long range weapons you have to be a little sneaky and try flank unsuspecting victims flaming them then disappearing again letting them all burn to death. 

At the moment the game has a total of six maps: Clock Tower, Downtown, Hydro, Metro, Oasis and Silo. Interwave have released SDK with the game so no doubt we have a bunch of modders on the case to expand this along with more coming for the developers in the future. It's a fun little game, but does rely on good team work. I have joined many random servers with my team running about all over the place which has lead to the other team who were more organised to kick our ass. Communication between players and the commander is essential for success in this game. I am glad I got this game and for the price I got it for is laughable. I would be more than willing to pay above the going price for it which stands at £14.99 on Steam. I have played a good dozen or so hours so far and will get more than my moneys worth out of this game.