Counter-Strike (shortened sometimes to CS) is a tactical first-person shooter video game developed by Valve Corporation which originated from a Half-Life modification by Minh "Gooseman" Le and Jess "Cliffe" Cliffe. The game has been expanded into a series since its original release, which currently includes Counter-Strike: Condition Zero, Counter-Strike: Source, Counter-Strike: Anthology and Counter-Strike on Xbox. Counter-Strike pits a team of counter-terrorists against a team of terrorists in a series of rounds. Each round is won by either completing the mission objective or eliminating the opposing force.
This is another of the group of discs I referred to, in my review of Team Fortress - a group that was packaged together with Half-Life. It stands as the most popular of all of the Half-Life mods and addons, at least according to GameSpy.
Lots of history, and a lot of fans - I've played it since there was a training mission that showed you how to correctly set and defuse explosives, and showed you how to use a rifle, and such. So, there is a lot of ground to cover. I haven't played all of the different variants, so this review will focus on the three that I own: Counter-Strike, Counter-Strike: Condition Zero and Counter-Strike Source.
Counter-Strike's original form has been imitated repeatedly over the years, as possibly the most iconic of the "tactical" modern-themed team first-person shooters. You play in one of four forms, on one of two teams - terrorists or counter-terrorists. The CT team were all from special forces teams that are themselves pretty well-known, SEALs, the SAS, the French GIGN and the German GSG9 - while the terrorists looked a bit more generic, one looking (at least to me) like someone from a South American group, one very obviously middle-eastern character, and the others wearing arctic gear or a generic hood.
Both teams got a very similar choice for weapons, from pistols to assault rifles or an LMG, depending on how much "money" was provided at the start of the game - teams receive funds for killing enemies and finishing objectives. There were a couple of notable issues - the Terrorists gain access to an assault rifle of formidable power and accuracy very early, kind of like an AK-47 knockoff. They also receive a double pistol as an (expensive) option. Both teams have access to what are commonly referred to as auto-snipers, sniper rifles that were so accurate and deadly that they require little skill to use.
The gameplay consisted of either locating the explosives before or after they were put into use, or liberating hostages. More often than not, it simply became a game of deadly hide and seek, with one group of players winning because the other team was dead, but not always. It should be noted that this version of the game actually precedes the infamous World Trade Center attack of 2001, though a major version released followed it, only a day later.
One of the major downsides to this early version of the game is that there were many exploits and cheats (called hacks) used by various players throughout the network - leading to the present system used to prevent and deal with anyone using such thin and obvious ways to gain advantage in a game that requires no small amount of skill - the system called VAC, the Valve-Anti-Cheat system.
The Condition Zero series introduced the only single-player action available at that time, letting a player build a team, gaining points as missions were completed, missions that required a specific goal, sometimes very simple - kill 3 enemies, or more complex, kill 5 enemies, 4 with a pistol, and complete the mission in 60 seconds or less.
Counter-Strike: Source brought these concepts all together - the team action, the ability to run a completely independent server, with AI players, and VAC doing its best to keep cheaters out of the game.
Here's the trouble - the Source engine introduced something insidious to the design of the guns used - the accuracy cone. Instead of a rifle, SMG or pistol firing things more or less in a line - they sprayed all their ammo in a random cone, making accuracy for those without AI control a big pain in the backside.
Realistic physics and personae and weapons, but the best rifles in the game handle like they're high-powered cheap shotguns?
Brilliant!
Friday, June 10, 2011
Thursday, June 2, 2011
On Team Fortress
Team Fortress is a team-based first-person shooter franchise that began with a mod for QuakeWorld by id Software, which was ported to Valve Software's famous first-person shooter, Half-Life.
It began life for me on a disc, one of a collection that formed what Valve sold as the Game of the Year edition of Half-Life. It was one hell of a grouping, with the original game and a handful of others, including what was then called Team Fortress 1.5. It was a new concept at the time, teams that could choose a specialization for combat in a first-person shooter, one of nine classes that are still in use today. Sniping, sneaking, scouting ahead, or just general explosions and mayhem were a handful of the options, and as such, still are.
You can go on a variety of missions, from capturing the flag to escorting an unarmed civilian or an outright siege, all depending on what map the server you were on decided to fling at you. Usually you had two teams, evenly balanced, though the game allowed as many as four, even though this was comparatively rare - having played it for many years, I have never seen an evenly balanced game with all four teams active. Thanks to some innovation from the players, new ways to use the weapons arose, and so, new maps to help polish these crazy skills followed - like using a rocket launcher like an exploding pogo stick, or a concussion grenade to the same end. Maps that were mazes that needed to be navigated hopefully without being turned into splattered goop or just being sent back to the beginning were made as well.
And always the promise of a new chapter loomed like a cloud on the horizon - as early as 1998 - claims were made that Team Fortress 2 was in the works. Maps came and went, servers were set up and taken down, nine years later and near the end of 2007, the new version came out - featuring the physics of the much-hyped Source engine, and nine characters that were no longer pieces of animated cardboard with faces - nine personalities arose.
Team Fortress 2 hit the shelves like a rabid elephant - gamers old and young wanted a piece of this new team-shooter with the animated and cartoony character that were larger than life - as if they came from the same part of the human soul as Brock Samson (Copyright from the Cartoon Network) and the deeper and darker places that animation had crawled and charged and full speed with teeth like knives.
And so it came like a storm, hyped, lauded, but ultimately, it hits a major problem head-on - the achievement complex. In order for you to get upgrades or drops as such, you have to play the game a lot, or so it was at the beginning. There have been special rare items associated with this event or that promotion, dominantly in the form of headgear for the various characters - sometimes weapons would appear, with the balance of combat changed slightly or drastically. Unfortunately, this system led to some very underhanded exploits... Servers where a player could visit and simply contrive a way to earn achievements or game time or both...
And now, to add insult to injury - Valve has decided to sell clothing items and equipment for your characters using real-world money.
Why spend money getting yourself a new hat, when you can get a new strange and funky virtual hat that will be visible only to people on a computer network?!
Brilliant!
It began life for me on a disc, one of a collection that formed what Valve sold as the Game of the Year edition of Half-Life. It was one hell of a grouping, with the original game and a handful of others, including what was then called Team Fortress 1.5. It was a new concept at the time, teams that could choose a specialization for combat in a first-person shooter, one of nine classes that are still in use today. Sniping, sneaking, scouting ahead, or just general explosions and mayhem were a handful of the options, and as such, still are.
You can go on a variety of missions, from capturing the flag to escorting an unarmed civilian or an outright siege, all depending on what map the server you were on decided to fling at you. Usually you had two teams, evenly balanced, though the game allowed as many as four, even though this was comparatively rare - having played it for many years, I have never seen an evenly balanced game with all four teams active. Thanks to some innovation from the players, new ways to use the weapons arose, and so, new maps to help polish these crazy skills followed - like using a rocket launcher like an exploding pogo stick, or a concussion grenade to the same end. Maps that were mazes that needed to be navigated hopefully without being turned into splattered goop or just being sent back to the beginning were made as well.
And always the promise of a new chapter loomed like a cloud on the horizon - as early as 1998 - claims were made that Team Fortress 2 was in the works. Maps came and went, servers were set up and taken down, nine years later and near the end of 2007, the new version came out - featuring the physics of the much-hyped Source engine, and nine characters that were no longer pieces of animated cardboard with faces - nine personalities arose.
Team Fortress 2 hit the shelves like a rabid elephant - gamers old and young wanted a piece of this new team-shooter with the animated and cartoony character that were larger than life - as if they came from the same part of the human soul as Brock Samson (Copyright from the Cartoon Network) and the deeper and darker places that animation had crawled and charged and full speed with teeth like knives.
And so it came like a storm, hyped, lauded, but ultimately, it hits a major problem head-on - the achievement complex. In order for you to get upgrades or drops as such, you have to play the game a lot, or so it was at the beginning. There have been special rare items associated with this event or that promotion, dominantly in the form of headgear for the various characters - sometimes weapons would appear, with the balance of combat changed slightly or drastically. Unfortunately, this system led to some very underhanded exploits... Servers where a player could visit and simply contrive a way to earn achievements or game time or both...
And now, to add insult to injury - Valve has decided to sell clothing items and equipment for your characters using real-world money.
Why spend money getting yourself a new hat, when you can get a new strange and funky virtual hat that will be visible only to people on a computer network?!
Brilliant!
Friday, May 13, 2011
On LOTRO
Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO) is a fantasy MMORPG from Turbine, Inc. and Midway Games Codemasters.
I've taken my sweet time getting to my latest review. And it's not for nothing.
This is the first real entry of what is arguably one of the most popular fantasy series of the past century. Based first on a series of stories from J.R.R. Tolkien and then more recently on a series of movies directed by Peter Jackson, which kicked off an entirely new level of interest both in the fantasy genre itself, and in the world of Middle-Earth, from video games and re-printings of the books to new versions of the table-top RPG.
As a fan of both the old tabletop RPG as well as the movies themselves, I found myself looking at the company that produced this and trying not to simply bang my head into a wall. God no, I didn't want this to be another clog in the toilet! It took everything short of a hand grenade to get DDO out of there! The download for this game is massive. I mean MASSIVE. The SMALL download was 9GB. I'm old enough to remember when that was the size of your whole bloody hard drive! The large version ranges from 11GB-13GB depending on which you want. I went out of my way to find a copy that was NOT downloaded from Turbine's servers (Yes, that's a good idea, put a file in one piece and force your fans to download it at near-dialup speeds. Brilliant!) be it a torrent or simply a hosted file on a gaming site somewhere else.
Once I had it downloaded – the install process began. And for this one, I suggest getting a copy of the movies and sitting down to watch. It's a ridiculously slow installation, even on a computer with 4 CPUs and a pile of RAM.
A meal and a few thousand unblinking stares from Elijah Wood, and we're installed. A few laughs and some Orcs running across a field, and the patching is done too. I went out of my way to get the largest download, the size justified by very high resolution files, which were of a formidable size.
So it began - the character building software was very good, easy to use - with a neat little video for each race and each of the various classes. There are four available races for free players - Human, Elf, Dwarf and Hobbit - with the classes available varying between them. Hobbits make good sneak-attackers and poor tanks, Dwarves make good tanks and front line fighters, Elves make excellent support characters and spellcasters, while also making formidable ranged attackers and front-row fighters. Humans are soft of a balance between the others, not really having advantage or disadvantage.
On to the game - Elves and Dwarves begin in the mountains, Humans and Hobbits in Bree-land and the Shire. I can't emphasize enough, just how gorgeous the world actually is! Not the same scrub and trees everywhere, but a whole world, hills to mountains and everything in between - all in full color, using a great palette of colors. Holy crap! You can even find Tom Bombadil! You know, that laughing lunatic from the books that didn't make it into either the radio show, or the animated movie, OR Peter Jackson's movies?
Gorgeous textures, very good gameplay, AND all the characters from the books?
Brilliant!
I've taken my sweet time getting to my latest review. And it's not for nothing.
This is the first real entry of what is arguably one of the most popular fantasy series of the past century. Based first on a series of stories from J.R.R. Tolkien and then more recently on a series of movies directed by Peter Jackson, which kicked off an entirely new level of interest both in the fantasy genre itself, and in the world of Middle-Earth, from video games and re-printings of the books to new versions of the table-top RPG.
As a fan of both the old tabletop RPG as well as the movies themselves, I found myself looking at the company that produced this and trying not to simply bang my head into a wall. God no, I didn't want this to be another clog in the toilet! It took everything short of a hand grenade to get DDO out of there! The download for this game is massive. I mean MASSIVE. The SMALL download was 9GB. I'm old enough to remember when that was the size of your whole bloody hard drive! The large version ranges from 11GB-13GB depending on which you want. I went out of my way to find a copy that was NOT downloaded from Turbine's servers (Yes, that's a good idea, put a file in one piece and force your fans to download it at near-dialup speeds. Brilliant!) be it a torrent or simply a hosted file on a gaming site somewhere else.
Once I had it downloaded – the install process began. And for this one, I suggest getting a copy of the movies and sitting down to watch. It's a ridiculously slow installation, even on a computer with 4 CPUs and a pile of RAM.
A meal and a few thousand unblinking stares from Elijah Wood, and we're installed. A few laughs and some Orcs running across a field, and the patching is done too. I went out of my way to get the largest download, the size justified by very high resolution files, which were of a formidable size.
So it began - the character building software was very good, easy to use - with a neat little video for each race and each of the various classes. There are four available races for free players - Human, Elf, Dwarf and Hobbit - with the classes available varying between them. Hobbits make good sneak-attackers and poor tanks, Dwarves make good tanks and front line fighters, Elves make excellent support characters and spellcasters, while also making formidable ranged attackers and front-row fighters. Humans are soft of a balance between the others, not really having advantage or disadvantage.
On to the game - Elves and Dwarves begin in the mountains, Humans and Hobbits in Bree-land and the Shire. I can't emphasize enough, just how gorgeous the world actually is! Not the same scrub and trees everywhere, but a whole world, hills to mountains and everything in between - all in full color, using a great palette of colors. Holy crap! You can even find Tom Bombadil! You know, that laughing lunatic from the books that didn't make it into either the radio show, or the animated movie, OR Peter Jackson's movies?
Gorgeous textures, very good gameplay, AND all the characters from the books?
Brilliant!
Sunday, April 17, 2011
On Pogo - Mixing and Genius
Speaking as a sound mixer and DJ myself - Pogo is now the standard by which I measure mixing. Every time I listen to any of these, I just wind up feeling that much better for having seen and heard them - there is an incredible joy in every note and tone in all of it that I find irresistible and just pure magic.
A site with a little about him, and more importantly - his videos: DJ Pogo
A mixmaster that can turn a Robin Williams semi-comedy about Peter Pan into pure musical goodness?
BRILLIANT!
A site with a little about him, and more importantly - his videos: DJ Pogo
A mixmaster that can turn a Robin Williams semi-comedy about Peter Pan into pure musical goodness?
BRILLIANT!
Thursday, April 14, 2011
On Dungeons and Dragons Online
Dungeons and Dragons Online: Eberron Unlimited is a fantasy MMORPG from Turbine, Inc. Dungeons and Dragons itself is from Wizards of the Coast.
This is a review that I've anticipated, and admittedly dreaded for some time.
First, a little background.
Dungeons and Dragons is the oldest of the tabletop RPGs, dating back to the early 70s, leading to many many books and computer games over the years, and several franchises. Among the most recent were the Neverwinter Nights games from Bioware, which were extremely innovative and well-received across the board. Having played both my share of the old computer games which even preceded Windows 95, as well as the tabletop game itself, dating to the early 80s - I was looking forward to the first official MMORPG in the series. Dungeons and Dragons itself has had many different faces, in the form of sourcebook worlds that players could build and campaign in over the years, from Greyhawk to the iconic Ravenloft and Forgotten Realms. It must be said that arguably the best writing and certainly the best worldbuilding went into the Forgotten Realms, which itself had many supplemental works published, novels, mythology and so on. It is also the world of choice for many of the computer games that were made in and for Dungeons and Dragons over the years.
And yet, as you can plainly see, DDO is made using one of the more recent attempts at building a high-fantasy world, Eberron. Eberron is a semi-Steampunk world, starring new races such as the Warforged, a hulking genderless race of sentient constructs, and it offered a new direction when it was introduced, now 6 years ago.
I guess it, like many such things -seemed like a good idea at the time.
So, let's take the most iconic RPG there is, and make it into an MMO - and what do we get? The character creation all depends on how much money you are willing to pump into it - anything aside from the original basic races involves paying for an account. If you want to use anything but the basic classes, you have to pay for an account.
Now, the biggest letdown of all - the gameplay. Point and click. No dragging shortcuts to abilities, you just point and click with your equipped weapon, keep moving your avatar around until you happen to highlight another enemy you can damage. Oh look! You can even change the color of the "d20" your random number generator will bring up, as if that actually made a difference. The use of glow makes it look like you're playing inside someone's Absinthe-induced dream sequence, you will have to rely on people you already know if you have a hankering for a group larger than one, since walking around with the kooky "I AM LOOKING FOR A GROUP" symbol, which looks like a pair of holographic new pennies hovering over your head, and best of all, if you like spellcasters, prepare to be turned into elfmeat! Clerics, Wizards, it doesn't matter - unless you have an escort, you're going to be the Reverend Wizardly Redshirt.
The most iconic of all RPGs, reduced to a MMORPG experience that may as well be Ghosts and Goblins in 3D with glow?
Brilliant!
This is a review that I've anticipated, and admittedly dreaded for some time.
First, a little background.
Dungeons and Dragons is the oldest of the tabletop RPGs, dating back to the early 70s, leading to many many books and computer games over the years, and several franchises. Among the most recent were the Neverwinter Nights games from Bioware, which were extremely innovative and well-received across the board. Having played both my share of the old computer games which even preceded Windows 95, as well as the tabletop game itself, dating to the early 80s - I was looking forward to the first official MMORPG in the series. Dungeons and Dragons itself has had many different faces, in the form of sourcebook worlds that players could build and campaign in over the years, from Greyhawk to the iconic Ravenloft and Forgotten Realms. It must be said that arguably the best writing and certainly the best worldbuilding went into the Forgotten Realms, which itself had many supplemental works published, novels, mythology and so on. It is also the world of choice for many of the computer games that were made in and for Dungeons and Dragons over the years.
And yet, as you can plainly see, DDO is made using one of the more recent attempts at building a high-fantasy world, Eberron. Eberron is a semi-Steampunk world, starring new races such as the Warforged, a hulking genderless race of sentient constructs, and it offered a new direction when it was introduced, now 6 years ago.
I guess it, like many such things -seemed like a good idea at the time.
So, let's take the most iconic RPG there is, and make it into an MMO - and what do we get? The character creation all depends on how much money you are willing to pump into it - anything aside from the original basic races involves paying for an account. If you want to use anything but the basic classes, you have to pay for an account.
Now, the biggest letdown of all - the gameplay. Point and click. No dragging shortcuts to abilities, you just point and click with your equipped weapon, keep moving your avatar around until you happen to highlight another enemy you can damage. Oh look! You can even change the color of the "d20" your random number generator will bring up, as if that actually made a difference. The use of glow makes it look like you're playing inside someone's Absinthe-induced dream sequence, you will have to rely on people you already know if you have a hankering for a group larger than one, since walking around with the kooky "I AM LOOKING FOR A GROUP" symbol, which looks like a pair of holographic new pennies hovering over your head, and best of all, if you like spellcasters, prepare to be turned into elfmeat! Clerics, Wizards, it doesn't matter - unless you have an escort, you're going to be the Reverend Wizardly Redshirt.
The most iconic of all RPGs, reduced to a MMORPG experience that may as well be Ghosts and Goblins in 3D with glow?
Brilliant!
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
On Anarchy Online
Anarchy Online is a scifi game made by FunCom.
How long will it be before I find a scifi game that doesn't wind up just boring me to tears?
Anarchy has a long history, and it shows - the game looks like it was designed in the middle part of the 90s, and guess what! More Boring Humans! This time, they come in Bland, Nimble, Techie and Thump Grabhard flavors! It offers a wide variety of classes, which amount to very little, since you start the game on a horrendously-rendered beach, with directions that look like someone decided to resurrect the old Commodore system, and a skill tree that looks like it would need a four-part university course at MIT to properly navigate!
A game with spacey stuff, which means that you wander around this island, next to a nondescript metal building and are harassed by the wildlife, the local robots, or get frenched by the local facehugger population. And look, there's a refinery, which make no bloody difference at all, since you aren't likely to be refining anything.
An unrefined game with a refinery that doesn't actually do any refining?
Brilliant!
How long will it be before I find a scifi game that doesn't wind up just boring me to tears?
Anarchy has a long history, and it shows - the game looks like it was designed in the middle part of the 90s, and guess what! More Boring Humans! This time, they come in Bland, Nimble, Techie and Thump Grabhard flavors! It offers a wide variety of classes, which amount to very little, since you start the game on a horrendously-rendered beach, with directions that look like someone decided to resurrect the old Commodore system, and a skill tree that looks like it would need a four-part university course at MIT to properly navigate!
A game with spacey stuff, which means that you wander around this island, next to a nondescript metal building and are harassed by the wildlife, the local robots, or get frenched by the local facehugger population. And look, there's a refinery, which make no bloody difference at all, since you aren't likely to be refining anything.
An unrefined game with a refinery that doesn't actually do any refining?
Brilliant!
Sunday, March 27, 2011
On Finding MMOs
It's starting to become pretty clear - there really does seem to be a limit on the variety of MMOs that one can play.
Not on the number of them, but on the genres themselves!
First, we have the anime MMOs - from the cartoony look of GhostX to the more "realistic" look of Megaten or Aika Online - it's the same group of apocalyptic threats future, past or present, being solved by Our Teenage Heropersons.
Second, we have the disturbingly large group of MMOs that are "I Can't Believe It's Not World of Warcraft!" Allods Online is one of this group, so are Gates of Andaron and Knight Online. These are generally medieval village-and-forest games, With Magic For Great Justice And More Boring Humans.
Third, we have Holy Crap, I'm In Ancient China archetype, Loong, Dynasty Warriors, World of Kung Fu, and a host of others, all set in an incredibly well-animated Holy Crap I'm In Ancient China With Magic For Great Justice world, frequently with amazing riding animals and flashy spells, martial arts, weapons and armor and so on.
Fourth, you have games that are dominantly user-created content, such as Face of Mankind or Second Life, two very different experiences indeed, but both are dominated by people building and selling and working the universe - EvE Online is this, writ large, AND you have to pay to get in on the action. That seems a pretty good idea on paper, but the reality is, on the Internet, especially in games, or even in social simulators like the aforementioned Second Life - Beware the Trolls.
Sometimes, you will see a company take a chance, and go somewhere new, the way City of Heroes and later Champions Online did: into the world of superheroes; or the way Sword 2 did, by making a fantasy MMO that was completely gender-positive and set in a world far ahead of steel armor and warhorses. A fantasy that has magic AND guns AND both genders being completely playable!
Brilliant!
Not on the number of them, but on the genres themselves!
First, we have the anime MMOs - from the cartoony look of GhostX to the more "realistic" look of Megaten or Aika Online - it's the same group of apocalyptic threats future, past or present, being solved by Our Teenage Heropersons.
Second, we have the disturbingly large group of MMOs that are "I Can't Believe It's Not World of Warcraft!" Allods Online is one of this group, so are Gates of Andaron and Knight Online. These are generally medieval village-and-forest games, With Magic For Great Justice And More Boring Humans.
Third, we have Holy Crap, I'm In Ancient China archetype, Loong, Dynasty Warriors, World of Kung Fu, and a host of others, all set in an incredibly well-animated Holy Crap I'm In Ancient China With Magic For Great Justice world, frequently with amazing riding animals and flashy spells, martial arts, weapons and armor and so on.
Fourth, you have games that are dominantly user-created content, such as Face of Mankind or Second Life, two very different experiences indeed, but both are dominated by people building and selling and working the universe - EvE Online is this, writ large, AND you have to pay to get in on the action. That seems a pretty good idea on paper, but the reality is, on the Internet, especially in games, or even in social simulators like the aforementioned Second Life - Beware the Trolls.
Sometimes, you will see a company take a chance, and go somewhere new, the way City of Heroes and later Champions Online did: into the world of superheroes; or the way Sword 2 did, by making a fantasy MMO that was completely gender-positive and set in a world far ahead of steel armor and warhorses. A fantasy that has magic AND guns AND both genders being completely playable!
Brilliant!
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