So here we have a little review of Left 4 Dead custom campaign Two Evil Eyes. It is quite a long campaign and has a total of 6 levels.
The first one is ridiculously short and a simple cross a bridge, through a house full of zombies, round a corner and your done. It does seem like a little taster for the rest of the campaign.
The second level is a bit longer than the first but still not the longest level. Just like the first level there you do have to alert the horde quite early on which is easy enough if you get on top of the crashed train before they get to you. It does also seem to have quite a lot of special infected and you encounter your first tank of the campaign, which you can actually go hide up a tree from (if you go round the back of the tree house). After that it's just through a house and the safe house is the next building over.
Level three is where you finally get your hands on some decent weapons instead of the stock uzi and or shotgun which are just outside the safe room. That's the good new, bad news is you are now entering a swamp. Swamps are never good news, let alone a zombie infested one, so after wandering about killing zombies on your way, you come to a building. However this building happens to be closed off with no way in, luckily there is an open manhole nearby. I would say a tunnel is better than a swamp, so you head on down the man hole and find very little zombies down there, at least I did. This doesn't seem to be any old sewer tunnel though, it seems to be a secret tunnel to a garden area which is full of supplies and weaponry and an alarmed door. Obviously not wanting to head back in to the lovely swamp, you of course open the door, which in turn alerts the zombies. I chose to cheese it through the horde instead of sitting there fighting until the alarm goes off. While fighting through zombies I noticed a gate which you can't get past at the moment, so I follow the path round which leads to a car park with a few supplies towards the back of it, near a button you have to push, which opens up the path previously blocked by the gate. The walkway you unlocked leads you to a boat on a little river which you have use to get to the docking station which is right next to the next safe room.
Now we have a bridge level as the fourth part of this campaign. I found this quite difficult on normal (I was playing with random people that seemed to like wandering off by themselves and bots though), it took me 2 or 3 tries to actually finish this. While you can go with the I am going to just run and gun, never stopping to get this over with, there is a train crossing about halfway across so you have to wait for it to pass, and trains being noisy and all, it alerts the horde. I found so long as no one gets incapacitated you will generally be okay with this level, the moment someone is down it becomes hard work (though that might be the genius I was playing with that kept running ahead). The map itself is quite short yet quite challenging.
Next we have a quite dark and gloomy level. As you leave the you hear a helicopter over head which happens to be your rescue in the finale. After listening to what he says you carry on with your journey which is through a cemetery at this point of time. After fighting towards the back of this creepy place you end up falling through the floor into a cave. Which is where you have to alert the horde by blowing up a barricade, doing so you are stuck in a hole with a wall of fire on one side and a horde of zombies on the other, it's not a great combination. Anyway you fight through this tunnel and escape you have literally a couple streets left to the safe house. However the house is fenced off, and the only way to get there is through the garden which is blocked by an alarmed car which you set off as you jump past it and on come the horde for another battle before you get into the safety of the house. The level isn't all that hard on normal but I could see it getting rather tricky on advanced.
We are nearly to safety as we leave the final safe room and head away to find the helicopter that you heard in the last part. So you head out and a short walk away you come to an almost dried up river bed which leads to an abandoned house on a cliff side, where you can stock up ammo and whatever other supplies it has inside. Just round the corner from here is where the escape finale will happen which consists of a few buildings and a helipad (which is blocked off until it's time to go). I found your best bet is to hold out on the roof tops and if you have actual people playing with you, I suggest using the fire and explosive rounds which are laying about for the tanks only, but of course you can't get the bots to work like that, which made it a lot harder than it had to be come tank time
On normal it took me about 40 minutes give or take to finish, so it is a decent length campaign. That was first attempt time for it as well, so no doubt you could finish it a lot quicker than I did. The hordes could maybe do with getting tweaked a little as some were pretty small while others seemed far to large. The special infected seemed quite nicely spread out with a decent amount of them to make it a challenge. To be honest the first two levels probably could have been combined into one, due to the shortness of the first level. Other than that I enjoyed this campaign and will be playing it a lot more. I would say it is definitely worth a download. Below is my shoddy attempt at the finale, I do make it but only by using everyone else as bait. I need to get this finale done with some people, hopefully leading to everyone escaping. I do have the rest of the campaign recorded on my youtube channel as well if you want to go check out what it's like, just fyi.
Next campaign on the list is 'The Dark Parish'.
Thursday, 13 October 2011
Wednesday, 12 October 2011
The state of the gaming industry these days.
So I have read a few articles lately advertising downloadable content for games which aren't even out yet, this mentality seems to be spreading throughout a whole bunch of developers as of late. I for one hate the whole 'we have content prepared the which we could quite easily just throw in to the game for release day but we are not going to' frame of mind far to many developers are getting these days. So due to the likes of Batman AC and Battlefield (the latest games I have noticed doing this), I decided I am going to sit here and rant about why I do not like the state of the gaming industry today.
While I agree DLC has the potential to do great things and extend the replay value of a game. DLC should be something worth while. This should be the new aged equivalent of expansion packs of yester year. Take a look at Yuri's Revenge for Red Alert 2, to this day I would have to say that is one of the greatest expansion packs of all time, then you have Blue Shift and Opposing Force as expansions for Half-Life, which I still think they should of done the same with Half-Life 2 would of loved to play as Barney through that game but I digress. That is what DLC should be, not this whole 4 new maps for £15, or with the likes of Mortal Kombat where you pay them for new characters, that should be unlockable stuff in game, and the worst of all of this is Homefront when they released a shotgun, that's right a single shotgun as DLC for their game.
With the map packs while it is a good thing and it proves the developers still support the game and get new content out. The fact is that you get 3 or 4 new over priced levels I truley believe that every game should have the option of using mod tools provided by the developers so people can create their own maps, thus prolonging the games life span due to constant new features and levels. Many companies have done this and still have people playing them to this day, a prime example of this is Valve. People are still playing Counter Strike and that game is getting quite old now, it's 12? if we go back to the pre Valve version of the game. Anyway my point is they got the gaming community to do half there work for them and when something caught their eye, they snapped it up and continued to support it along side the community.
At the end of the day video games are a long term investment, you shouldn't be sat there making them to try and get a quick buck. There are loads of games I buy from years ago purely because they are good games and I never got round to it first time round. Which is why I laugh at the likes of THQ and the latest Red Faction game; Armageddon, when they wiped their hands clean of the franchise when it didn't turn instant profit. They are a big company and have a number of other games on the go such at Saints Row, Metro and yearly renditions of WWE games to help subsidise. I am still going to get Red Faction: Armageddon, but due to me being skint and me getting another couple of games, it's still on the list. But now it's nearer the top of the list and will probably be bought at christmas. They have to remember we are in a global recession and not everyone can afford to go out and buy every single game as a day one purchase.
Talking of day one purchases as of late it doesn't seem like you can really trust them. With the likes of Rage, Dead Island, Homefront and numerous other titles being buggy as sin upon release. The bugs in the fore mentioned games were quite substantial though, if they were small glitches which could of easily been missed that is fair enough. The reasoning behind this, I don't know. The fact of the matter is this should not be happening. I would rather see a game delayed than developers throwing out half finished buggy products. This is another reason I wait before buying games normally a couple months or so after release, just in case if it is released buggy, it would more than likely be sorted by then. Games like Dead Island and Homefront (can't say for Rage as I haven't play it yet) are good games, but the majority of people are put off by the initial problems, and word of mouth spreads and you end up not getting the sales you wanted because you didn't push back the game a couple weeks to finalise the game and rid it of problem that shouldn't be there.
While I agree DLC has the potential to do great things and extend the replay value of a game. DLC should be something worth while. This should be the new aged equivalent of expansion packs of yester year. Take a look at Yuri's Revenge for Red Alert 2, to this day I would have to say that is one of the greatest expansion packs of all time, then you have Blue Shift and Opposing Force as expansions for Half-Life, which I still think they should of done the same with Half-Life 2 would of loved to play as Barney through that game but I digress. That is what DLC should be, not this whole 4 new maps for £15, or with the likes of Mortal Kombat where you pay them for new characters, that should be unlockable stuff in game, and the worst of all of this is Homefront when they released a shotgun, that's right a single shotgun as DLC for their game.
With the map packs while it is a good thing and it proves the developers still support the game and get new content out. The fact is that you get 3 or 4 new over priced levels I truley believe that every game should have the option of using mod tools provided by the developers so people can create their own maps, thus prolonging the games life span due to constant new features and levels. Many companies have done this and still have people playing them to this day, a prime example of this is Valve. People are still playing Counter Strike and that game is getting quite old now, it's 12? if we go back to the pre Valve version of the game. Anyway my point is they got the gaming community to do half there work for them and when something caught their eye, they snapped it up and continued to support it along side the community.
At the end of the day video games are a long term investment, you shouldn't be sat there making them to try and get a quick buck. There are loads of games I buy from years ago purely because they are good games and I never got round to it first time round. Which is why I laugh at the likes of THQ and the latest Red Faction game; Armageddon, when they wiped their hands clean of the franchise when it didn't turn instant profit. They are a big company and have a number of other games on the go such at Saints Row, Metro and yearly renditions of WWE games to help subsidise. I am still going to get Red Faction: Armageddon, but due to me being skint and me getting another couple of games, it's still on the list. But now it's nearer the top of the list and will probably be bought at christmas. They have to remember we are in a global recession and not everyone can afford to go out and buy every single game as a day one purchase.
Talking of day one purchases as of late it doesn't seem like you can really trust them. With the likes of Rage, Dead Island, Homefront and numerous other titles being buggy as sin upon release. The bugs in the fore mentioned games were quite substantial though, if they were small glitches which could of easily been missed that is fair enough. The reasoning behind this, I don't know. The fact of the matter is this should not be happening. I would rather see a game delayed than developers throwing out half finished buggy products. This is another reason I wait before buying games normally a couple months or so after release, just in case if it is released buggy, it would more than likely be sorted by then. Games like Dead Island and Homefront (can't say for Rage as I haven't play it yet) are good games, but the majority of people are put off by the initial problems, and word of mouth spreads and you end up not getting the sales you wanted because you didn't push back the game a couple weeks to finalise the game and rid it of problem that shouldn't be there.
Saturday, 8 October 2011
Left 4 Dead Custom Maps
Two Evil Eyes
The Dark Parish
Left Behind
Blood Tracks
City 17
Dark Blood
Dead Before Dawn
Dead On Time
Dead Series
Dead Aboard II
Death Sentence
Detour Ahead
Die Screaming II
Gas Fever
Golden Eye 4 Dead
Haunted Forest
Highway to Hell
I Hate Mountains
Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Zombies
Kokiri Forest
One 4 Nine
Let's Build A Rocket
Left Or Right
Left 4 Mario
Military Industrial Complex II
Dead Flag Blues 2
N. O. Meltdown
No Parking
Night Of The Living Dead
Resident Evil Outbreak
Overkill
Precinct 84
Questionable Ethics
We Don't Go To Ravenholme
Vague Reminders
Run To The Hills
Salt Hell Park
Source Of Infection
Suicide Blitz 2
The Return Of The Jockeys
Tour Of Terror
Tuesday, 4 October 2011
Gaming Etiquette: Playing your part
I have noticed a few things that have been annoying me recently mainly in Team Fortress but I'll talk about Left 4 Dead first. Basically it is just the amount of times I have been teamed with people that do not help you when you get incapacitated or in trouble with hordes when you are near a safe house. Instead of coming out to give you a hand they just let you fight your way out of it or die. I'm sorry but it's a co-op game, therefore aren't you meant to help out your team mates when they get in trouble. Yes, this will guarantee that you make it to the next part of the campaign, but it annoys the crap out of me. You are supposed to help out and get the entire team to the end not just one person. Along with this I have had a number of games where team mates have just been pure ass holes and shooting you, by this I don't mean accidentally shooting you while you are surrounded by a horde and they shoot you while thinning out the zombies attacking you, that, while it is slightly annoying especially if you have low health, is acceptable as they were just trying to help out and I will be the first to admit I have done this on a number of occasions as some times you aim is having an off day or whatever. My point is recently I have had people coming in the safe room while preparing and just shooting you quite blatantly, I'm sorry but wtf. If you are going to play games where you need to rely on team mates don't be a dick and team kill.
Now we will get on to the matter of Team Fortress. There are 3 classes I am going to complain about and I shall start with the Engineer, the amount of people that walk idly by damaged and or sapped buildings and don't even think about repairing it, I play engineer quite often and at the start of maps if there is another engineer on my team I will always build up their buildings before even thinking of setting up mine, I think it is better to have one fully upgraded sentry rather than 2 or 3 level one sentries, along with teleporters as well. While I am not saying you have to do this and by all means get your stuff up first, but when you have give others a hand with theirs. Hell even if it is just upgrading a tele entrance which hasn't yet got exit so when it does go up it will be level 3 and much more helpful. If you do choose to play engineer don't be that guy who does nothing but sits hidden behind his sentry constantly hitting it, I have seen people sat constantly wrench a sentry even when there are absolutely no enemy in site. This isn't any help at all, if anything do some defensive scouting, and patrol your base and see where the enemies are coming possibly weaken them before they even get to your sentry making them easier to kill.
Next we have the medics. If played right they are the most useful of all the classes. If not like in damn near every game the healer will get blamed. My main beef with medics is pocket medics for heavies and while this is fine even when you are playing pocket medic, you should still heal people near by that need healing. There has been a couple incidents lately which is why I am bringing this up where a medic has been healing a heavy while in cover and I am retreating to get out of the line of fire and get some health and ammo back, I call for the medic as I am practically dead and does he heal me? No he doesn't, he sits there continuing to heal this heavy that hasn't even ventured out into the war zone yet. If you are going to play medic, heal the people that need healing most. Sure heavy medics are a great combination and can kick some serious ass but for the love of god they have 300 health they can hold their own for a few seconds while you heal other people that need it.
And last but not least we have the Pyro they have annoyed me for years. The main dig I am having a go them for is the severe lack of spy checks they do, this is especially annoying when I am engineering it up. All it takes is a little puff of fire on your way to doing what ever it is you are going to do. While of course it is every ones job to spy check, it is a hell of a lot easier for pyros as they just set them on fire for everyone to see. Another thing that bugs me about them is the fact that very few of them realise that with a lot of the flame throwers you have secondary fire that is a burst of air which allows you to put out fires. The amount of times I ran towards pyros on my team whilst on fire hoping to be extinguished and died because they didn't is ridiculous.
I think that will do for todays rant, and I will return with another when something else pisses me off while I'm playing something. Thank you and good night.
Now we will get on to the matter of Team Fortress. There are 3 classes I am going to complain about and I shall start with the Engineer, the amount of people that walk idly by damaged and or sapped buildings and don't even think about repairing it, I play engineer quite often and at the start of maps if there is another engineer on my team I will always build up their buildings before even thinking of setting up mine, I think it is better to have one fully upgraded sentry rather than 2 or 3 level one sentries, along with teleporters as well. While I am not saying you have to do this and by all means get your stuff up first, but when you have give others a hand with theirs. Hell even if it is just upgrading a tele entrance which hasn't yet got exit so when it does go up it will be level 3 and much more helpful. If you do choose to play engineer don't be that guy who does nothing but sits hidden behind his sentry constantly hitting it, I have seen people sat constantly wrench a sentry even when there are absolutely no enemy in site. This isn't any help at all, if anything do some defensive scouting, and patrol your base and see where the enemies are coming possibly weaken them before they even get to your sentry making them easier to kill.
Next we have the medics. If played right they are the most useful of all the classes. If not like in damn near every game the healer will get blamed. My main beef with medics is pocket medics for heavies and while this is fine even when you are playing pocket medic, you should still heal people near by that need healing. There has been a couple incidents lately which is why I am bringing this up where a medic has been healing a heavy while in cover and I am retreating to get out of the line of fire and get some health and ammo back, I call for the medic as I am practically dead and does he heal me? No he doesn't, he sits there continuing to heal this heavy that hasn't even ventured out into the war zone yet. If you are going to play medic, heal the people that need healing most. Sure heavy medics are a great combination and can kick some serious ass but for the love of god they have 300 health they can hold their own for a few seconds while you heal other people that need it.
And last but not least we have the Pyro they have annoyed me for years. The main dig I am having a go them for is the severe lack of spy checks they do, this is especially annoying when I am engineering it up. All it takes is a little puff of fire on your way to doing what ever it is you are going to do. While of course it is every ones job to spy check, it is a hell of a lot easier for pyros as they just set them on fire for everyone to see. Another thing that bugs me about them is the fact that very few of them realise that with a lot of the flame throwers you have secondary fire that is a burst of air which allows you to put out fires. The amount of times I ran towards pyros on my team whilst on fire hoping to be extinguished and died because they didn't is ridiculous.
I think that will do for todays rant, and I will return with another when something else pisses me off while I'm playing something. Thank you and good night.
Building your skill
Here is a video with a little more detail about different game modes in the upcoming Ubisoft game Rocksmith. Definitely looking forward to this coming out, it is looking pretty cool.
Orcs Must Die!
A downloaded a demo of this game earlier today. It is a 3d tower defence game, the basis of the game (and all tower defence games for that matter) is you kill stuff until you have have enough money to buy more things to kill stuff with. Most of my tower defence experience has mainly been top down web games such as Bloons Tower Defence, I have spent many, many hours playing that game. Anyway getting to my point I never have really experienced a 3d version well maybe with the exception of Monday Night Combat which kind of is but with a multi player aspect thrown in for good measure which is pretty fun. Anyway I downloaded and gave the demo of it a shot after reading about it somewhere I honestly can't remember now.
The demo consists of three levels, each one unlocks a new trap to use in the next which I will go into in a minute. Each level you have to hold off hordes of Orcs would you believe it, and the character you play as starts off with a set amount of money and time to prepare your defences. You get to choose a selection of what you will use to defend with, in the demo you get a sword, a crossbow, spike trap, tar pits, arrow traps and exploding barrels, the last two mentioned are unlocked after completing level 1 and 2. It does give you a little taste of the game, and after finishing the demo which didn't take all to long being 3 levels long, it did leave me wanting more.
It is a great fun little game that needs both planning and strategy, I think I will be getting the full version of this when it is released which is the 12th October in Britain. It will cost £11.99 on Steam which considering the amount I can see me playing it is well worth the money I believe it is available on Xbox as well. I release this isn't the first third person tower defence game but it is however my first. Below is an interactive trailer to give you and idea of what the game is like.
The demo consists of three levels, each one unlocks a new trap to use in the next which I will go into in a minute. Each level you have to hold off hordes of Orcs would you believe it, and the character you play as starts off with a set amount of money and time to prepare your defences. You get to choose a selection of what you will use to defend with, in the demo you get a sword, a crossbow, spike trap, tar pits, arrow traps and exploding barrels, the last two mentioned are unlocked after completing level 1 and 2. It does give you a little taste of the game, and after finishing the demo which didn't take all to long being 3 levels long, it did leave me wanting more.
It is a great fun little game that needs both planning and strategy, I think I will be getting the full version of this when it is released which is the 12th October in Britain. It will cost £11.99 on Steam which considering the amount I can see me playing it is well worth the money I believe it is available on Xbox as well. I release this isn't the first third person tower defence game but it is however my first. Below is an interactive trailer to give you and idea of what the game is like.
Monday, 3 October 2011
Quake Wars is 4
Enemy Territory: Quake Wars is celebrating it's fourth birthday. It was released on 28th September 2007 in Europe and October 2nd in the US which makes a change from America getting titles first, but then again Splash Damage is based in England. Anyone that hasn't played it, I suggest giving it a go. I found it used on Amazon for a couple of quid. So you can get it for literally next to nothing, unless you buy from Steam where it goes for £15. Still at that price I would say it is definitely worth the investment.
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