Flae

A Fae Illusionist with a dark heart, but a good soul.

Gears of War

Well I completed GoW co-op with my brother, on Hardcore. And blow me, I loved every single minute of it. After laying down the main man at the end, I wanted more. I've heard people saying its nothing special, but playing it through even on the single player campaign (which I did initially on Casual mode) I thought it was exciting stuff. Well put together. The action is sweet. Heightened on co-op mode. And the multiplayer mode takes frantic close combat to another level. One which promotes active teamplay, covering each others back, helping downed team players back up again. Games like Battlefield 2 and COD2/3 to some extent allow players to glory in the solo play, medics get little time to perform support duties. Your team mates are usually respawned and off to get a bigger gun(tm) before any of the subtleties of team play can kick in. GoW is down to wire and dirty. But with the help of another you can make it work. The cover mechanism can be a bit fiddly at first, but after a few levels, you get confident with it, and it does become second nature. The concept of the perfect reload, adds to the game immensley. Now even emptying a few rounds to reload and hit the sweet spot in the heat of a firefight becomes all the more important. The finishing moves, whether chainblade or kerb kick are well executed and crucial in some of the multiplayer modes. Put em down and keep em down. The Kryll light and dark concept is fantastic, fancy that, an insta-death mechanic that works to enhance the game and tension and doesn't really soak it in frustration! The beserkers, oh the beserkers...

I have to say I bought into the Halo franchise big style, and it was what tipped me over the edge into the Xbox world. I can safely say, GoW is my next Halo, and I've already bought into their world now. Bring on GoW2 and 3! This game makes you bat shit crazy! Onto Insane co-op now.

Fastcrawl

http://www.pawleyscape.com/fastcrawl/

I was impressed with this beauty, I had to buy a copy. It's great for a quick play, and although it doesn't actually allow you to specify the characters in the party, it rolls up a random bunch and a random dungeon romp, usually with a quest of killing some boss, somewhere deep in the dungeon. You can customise the length of adventure, so a short one has about 3 levels in the dungeon and takes about 20-30 minutes. You can also customise the difficulty which may affect the time your romp takes. Although its a simplification of party based fantasy combat, it really works with just the right amount of complexity to keep it interesting. It's very good for explaining party mechanics to enthusiastic children. Position affects Melee/Ranged combat, there are cold and heat resistances, additional damage, duel wielding, and even a barebones skill tree to climb, each level you go down in the dungeon. Obviously this doesn't make much of a difference in a 3 level dungeon, but it can start to examplify character skill specialisation in deeper dungeons, where your two clerics are differentiating into a spell based damager and a party healer. The loot that drops is sufficiently tweaked with pros and cons to make judgement calls on its use become a key part to winning battles. Plus theres a resource management game in that you use supplies to take each move as well as a quota of supplies to rest fully and heal and mana up. There are out of combat potions that can be used (no in-combat ones, sadly), as well as scrolls of various kinds, including resurrection which becomes important if you havent got a cleric, or haven't specced him with the resurrection skill yet. Although there is no in-combat resurrection.

I guess the fun of the game comes from having to deal with whatever party makeup you are given at the start of the game, and then customising them, and playing them out in the combat well enough to win the game. It probably won't be a viscious challenge for your average RPG'er, but I've heard the road ahead is tough if you stick it on insane mode. Future enhancements planned are having storied dungeon quests, perhaps a dungeon editor for submitted content, and the ability to generate your own characters. All of which will make this pleasant quickie crawler much more sophisticate, but won't take away its 'quickie' charm. Although there is no save game as such, if you do have to quit out of a game, the state is saved until you continue next time. Theres no library of saves to go back to, but there is an ability to continue with your current foray.

I like these abstract concoctions where quite complicated gameplay can be made accessible and addictive. More like this please..

Sabian Mortis

An evil Teir'Dal Necromancer.

Call of Duty 3

I finished COD3 single player campaign last night. And I must say I've thoroughly enjoyed it. There have been one or two bugs that give me a dry slap (sticking in scenery mainly), not to mention its hung the 360 about 5 times in the whole run through. So I was very careful to save the last checkpoint. Overall though, I'd rate it better than COD2 in terms of throwing you into a combat situation. The set pieces were sometimes a little cheesey - the unarmed combat didn't really play heavy in the game at all, apart from the scripted encounters. I liked the mortar, artillery and flak cannon stuff. The tank pieces were well done, not as exhiliarating as the COD2 desert romp, but taking a Sherman through normandy town streets and having to battle in close quarters was groovey. The guns seemed much better overall, more realistic, better feel to their handling. The rifles especially had me excited, accurate, but slow bolt loading. Smoke was essential in this campaign, or at least I thought it was. My brother claims he never uses it. But its saved my bacon a few times, whiting out MG's and tanks line of sight. The characters were much more believable than before- still a little stereotyped - but you found yourself getting quite attached to some of them. Looks great. I'd love to see it play on a HD setup. Multiplayer does the Battlefield style thing really well, although I'm not totally familiar with all the modes yet. Thumbs up from Bowesy. Now we can look forward to MOH:Airborne and Brothers in Arms 3.

Gore Bloodfeud

Warforged Blademaster.

Jellied flesh and broken bone slip and slide off the Adamantine plated thick set body. A constant flow of blood seemed to trickle across the surface making the contstruct glisten and shimmer in the twilight. Assembled and given life in the great Forge of House Cannith, this Fleshcleaver was birthed through magics thought impossible, its sole purpose to dismember fleshed opponents. Many Warforged were created as generic battle machines, kitted out with all manner of combat accessories to enable them to face other similarly equipped 'forged. However, behind all battle hardened 'forged troops were soft fleshed Masters conjuring their orders of war. Gore was assembled to strike hard at these fleshed leaders. His Adamantine plates could pierce and shred flesh even without the bladed weapons of Valenar blood steel they were adorned with. His body coloured with scarlet to ensure maximum fear in his enemy. Blood would run constantly over his thick skin. The warband Gore was assigned to, became known as the Strikeforge, a collection of fleshcleavers designed to act as strike troops in battle, dropped in behind enemy lines and afforded the purpose of stripping flesh from bone, spilling blood and cleaving the minds of the fleshed ones who control the 'forged armies. Taking out the Masters slowed the advancement of the conjured troops. Each warband would be assigned a single master, one who would remotely control their position and combat goals. Always fine tuning the strike, adjusting the kills. After the demise of Cyre towards the end of the Last War, Strikeforge found itself decommissioned.

Fleshcleavers were deemed far too dangerous to be allowed into normal circulation. Many were dismantled. Some without the tight control of a Master were found to have turned renegade, following other less controlled Masters, even following other rogue 'forged units as if they were fleshed leaders. Gore was lucky, he was traded to a small outpost requiring his strength primarily as a work unit. The Master he was assigned to, didn't care of his blood soaked past, he was only concerned about how much lumber he could chop or stone he could split in a days work. Culling trees or stone did little for the Fleshcleavers state of mind. Battle tremours would take over him, and he would decimate houses and vehicles sub conciously. The tremours grew more feirce and darker, uncontrollable, his basic instinct, to cleave flesh, had come back to haunt him. A dark day indeed came about as Gore surfaced from a tremour having slain six fleshed workers. Blood trickled past his eyes as he realised what he'd done.

Immediate deactivation was demanded. As they assembled around him to dismember his body and unhook his mind with dispelling magics. Something inside him engaged. His inner core split slighty. The tremours that took six lives had only been a taste of what power could be unleashed with a Fleshcleaver unhinged. Gore collapsed in a pool of blood. He rested. The bodies would noticed with the coming daylight. The blood would run into the water supplies and give away his position. He would require a new Master. Someone who could command the Fleshcleaver mind. Someone who could contain a killing machine that walked a fine line between dutiful service and tremour induced chaos. Gore would search out such a Master. Eternally.

Chromehounds Online

The online game is pressing a lot of the right buttons for me. Its a deliberately measured team battle that requires good team communication above all else. Admittedly if your team members have a flair for building decent mechs then that helps, but even your average Joe who throws together something reasonable can shine in battle, if the Commander plays the strategy right, and the team forsake personal glory for the win. I'm fond of mechs, especially big stomping ones. Ones that just exude a massive heavy presence. You can really feel the weight of them. The slow pace of their movement only adds to the charm of the game, plus it gives you a strategic breathing space in the online game. You can think about how to react. You have that time. That's not to say the action isn't intense, it certainly is, once you're in the thick of battle, but theres the build up, the pursuit, the capturing of the vital COMBAS towers (COMmunication BASes - I think) that allow you to communicate with your teammates and your commander to spot enemy movement on the map.

I like being part of a team. I like supporting play. I like sacrifice for others or a higher goal. I like stomping mechs with big fuck off guns. All of these are catered for in Chromehounds online. There are several 'classes' that you can play, but the mech engineering system allows for you to build hybrids, in fact it positively encourages it. So you can play as a Soldier with frontline guns such as machine guns and short to medium range cannons, you're the main combatants up close and personal, or you can play a Heavy Gunner, a slow moving set of long range artillery on legs. It's all about trajectory fire and bombardment with a Heavy Gunner. You can play a Scout, a speedy tracked, wheeled or hover car style vehicle, ideal for capturing COMBAS towers, or sneaking to the enemy base, outside the radar range and attacking it. You can play a Defender, a heavily armoured and much slower version of the Soldier, taking the hits and holding out, rather than damage dealing. Defending the base top priority. You can also play as a Commander, a vehicle that is usually fast, and that can survey the whole of the map using the radar system from its spinning satellite dish to the other captured COMBAS towers. Out of all the classes you can play, the Commander is probably one of the most important ones. A Squad battling without a Commander, has lost its long range senses. You are then reliant on the visual range of your team, and any AI controlled support such as gun turrets and arms bearing walkers that come as part of the bonus of capturing an associated COMBAS tower. Commander-less squads are at the mercy of fast paced scouts and their ability to weave undetected through the terrain to land devastating blows on your Base. A Commander orchestrates the battle. The team are his tools, so having a good mix of long and short range hitters is vital. Capturing COMBAS's gives the Commander much wider vision, the ability to detect enemy well before they're in visual range, allows him to command his Heavy Gunners to bombard specific sectors on the map, to try and soften them up as they converge for the main battle. The Commander can also spot the "run and gun" scouts making a beeline for his base. With a squad full of mech tweaking players, and the ability to create hybrid mechs, you can see there is much room for improvement to cover your squads needs.

Chromehounds online isn't a game you can really solo well in. You can form a clan of one mech. And you can arrange battles between other stubbornly minded folks. But mech on mech death matches on maps that were designed around a squad of 5 or 6 with a much wider cover of abilities, is just missing the point. You need to join a clan, that will organise into squads signing up to the battles available. The persistent War involves squad vs squad battles in key areas of the map, securing these areas and opening other areas in the web of connections to the enemies cities and captured areas. It is quite like Planetsides global map depicting the war, however Chromehounds battles are not massive zones, they're map based instances where squads will clatter it out and shift the momentum of power. Each of the three superpowers, Tarakia (story wise funded by the Americans, and subsequently adopted by American players), Morskoj (similar to the Russians, and unofficially adopted by European players), and Sal Kar (story wise funded by the Chinese, and unofficially adopted by Asian players) will promote certain key offensive or defensive battles with more merit so that players who take part in these skirmishes will see better returns on their wins and subsequently they will level up in rank, allowing them to take on more hardened players from the enemy states. The higher the rank of the skirmish, the higher the rewards for the victor. High ranking players cannot take part in low rank skirmishes, to prevent 'ganking' as such. The War is quite fluid, and it ultimately results in a win for a single nation who eliminates the other two. So far, since the servers have been online, Morskoj has won a single round. I'm not certain what advantages that gives the Morskoj on a global level, perhaps more special equipment is available via the lottery, I don't know, but once the war is won, the map resets and it begins again. Taking last night for example, Morskoj were down to about 22% occupation of the map early evening, and there were worries about being wiped, but this morning after lots of key battles, they had turned the tide and secured about 70% occupation once again. So there are dramatic swings in power to follow. If a superpower is eradicated altogether I believe they can still take part in skirmishes in the hope of liberating their capital city once again. Since I've not been on the receiving end of an eradication, I'm not entirely sure whats open to you.

The battles themselves are quite involved. You assemble your squad in your clan lobby, a place where you can watch the war progress and chat with teammates, or do some shopping and then tinker with your mech, and your Commander will either join or host a skirmish and the squad mates will then select a squad rendezvous in the Neroimus War, and everyone will join the mission lobby, where you can look over the map, put the final touches to your mech, chat about tactics and select a base (you normally have 2 or 3 locations where you can set up your headquarters, so the enemy never quite know where your base is, even on these maps with known terrain). Once your squad is ready for battle, everyone flags themselves up as 'ready' and then the enemy squad is notified of this. There is a 15 minute time limit on mission lobby duties, which allows for enough time to assemble and brief your squad, but if both squads are ready, the battle begins immediately. If one of the squads pulls out, you then have the option of playing the mission against AI opponents, but the rewards for victory are considerably less. Once in the battle, you're free to roam, capture towers, defend bases, snipe from hillsides, whatever your Commander wants. Certain tactics seem to have become popular for quick wins. One of which is annoying as hell, if you are not prepared for it. It involves fast scouts mounted with only melee weapons. Big pneumatic spikes that can do considerable damage to a mech, or more importantly a base. So you've got your well balanced squad, you're all capturing towers and providing cover, whilst keeping your eyes peeled for the enemy. Four fast enemy scouts zip round the periphery of the map, land at your base, and before your Heavy Gunner can turn his turret, they've all stuck their arrays of six pneumatic spikes into your base and 'bingo', its Game Over. The number of battles where this has happened is on the increase. It seems players will always gravitate towards cheap wins like this. Still, after a couple of spike beastings you start to evolve your defensive line, with mines, and defenders. Last night I was on as my Heavy Gunner with a pair of kick arse Morskoj Howitzers mounted for bombardment, and my double front loaded Cannon, and we had a team playing 'spikers', Commander shouts out fast moving enemy inbound, luckily across my path, so I turn and ready my cannon, in he comes, fast as you like, so fast have trouble keeping my turret turn on him, he was speeding to the base... however, he clocked me, a slow Heavy Gunner, usually easy meat for speedy spikers, they outspin you and stab you hard in the back. So, he altered course, thought he could rack up a kill on the way. What he didn't anticipate was my turret turning system board installed in my cockpit, nor did he suspect that I'd get my howizters pointed low at him as he made a close charge. Boom! Spiker covered in flames, I'd also taken some splash damage from all the incendiary flying about, he was stunned, he attempted another run, keeping close in on my very slow frame, I was back peddling, and laying down Howitzer damage like it was going out of fashion. He was surprisingly well armoured for a scout. Still, time to jam my twin cannons up his arse and Wallop! As I backed away I noticed my Cannon cam was out, in fact my Cannons were but a twisted wreck, but the spiker had stalled, and his cockpit was flaming, and it was only a matter of time before 'bingo!' he went up in a cloud of satisfyingly black smoke and flames. My legs were damaged quite badly so speed was even more hindered, my main twin cannons were out, but I was still around, and he wasn't taking the base anytime soon. After that glowing incident, I managed to struggle my way up to the top of a snow capped mountain, following my Commander very carefully through a bed of mines. He was chain gunning the floor to try and clear the majority of them. To support him in a full frontal attack on a very heavily armoured defender. Broken but not down yet, I unloaded the remaining Howitzer rounds into this defender at point blank range almost, 6 or 7 blasts later and he was almost down. Unfortunately he'd peppered me with rockets too many times and I was down and out. Kicked out of your mech and doomed to run around the map as a very small, very slow, very fragile infantryman. Still, you can keep an eye out for the action and even still participate in some recon as such, its just you're very vulnerable to being stomped on, or taking splash damage. It's good stuff though. We won that battle, and I'd manage to quash a scout spiker. A proud moment for me.

There are a lot of bits and bobs you can put on your mech to enhance it, but its always a balancing act with power, load (weight), and physical mounting slots. There are night vision for night missions, although take part in one without night vision and you see some spectacular lighting shows when the combat starts. There are heat sensors, mine detectors, mine layers, bomb scatterers, more Armour plating, cooling radiators, even fan based propulsion systems to allow your mech to 'jump' slightly. Plenty of variety, plenty of scope for tweaking. Most players in my squad have several mech designs set up for the different classes. I'm still at the early stages of perfecting my Soldier and my Heavy Gunner. But you can tweak and then take it out on a trial sortie, and just see how it performs in basic combat. Inside a squad, you have the support of the other mechs, so you can afford to fiddle a bit and try stuff out, as long as you perform reasonably well.

Overall I am in love with the game. The single player game gives you enough to get a grip on the basics. Its often gritty and too dependant on scripted AI allies, but it does give you a place to train your mech piloting skills. The Scout and Commander missions are particularly stand out for me, I enjoyed them immensely. They reveal how different the classes play. Especially the Commander, you spend most of your time on the map screen, ordering other units about the map to capture COMBAS's and attack or defend areas. The Commanders role in this game reminds me very much of the Commander role in the online game Savage: Battle for Newerth, big responsibility, but ultimately satisfying if you can gel with your team and evolve to combat situations that arise. The Online game is where its at, and while the interface can be very quirky in places, sometimes downright not nice, you struggle with it to open the door into these tough fought war zones, where true teamplay has an area to shine through. As I said in the starting paragraph, it presses all the right buttons, most team based games just don't cut it, people don't gel into a team well, they run off and solo the tank or the helicopter, theres no overall Commander holding the thing together. In Chromehounds, to win, there usually has to be a Commander, and because its squad based, it almost requires you to join up with people and work together. Not really for soloists.

A stand out moment, that will typify my love for the game, is when we marched our mechs up to the river separating the two warring forces, the enemy trying to lower the bridges and make a crossing. We shot out the bridges. We piled our mechs into the water. And we water walked them across the river bed to the other side, emerging like an army of mechanised sea devils, no sooner had the water dripped off chrome pistons, than we rained hellfire onto the enemy. It was a night mission. We all had our cockpit lights on to ensure we wouldn't commit friendly fire. Amazing sight. Not bad for an online game.

Chromehounds

Chromehounds, a game I've had my beady eye on for a while. A game that seemed to get a large amount of stick at least around the gaming websites, before I'd managed to secure a copy. So the vibe was negative, Mech fans were slating it, review websites we're marking it low, everyone who was anyone had an opinion on the game, and I'd only secured a copy on the morning of its release 7th July 2006. I booted it up with some trepidation. And played through the first few missions. Perhaps I'm not critical enough, but with a bucketload of prepping to be totally disappointed with the game, I wasn't. It looked good. The Mech style was gritty, realistic, the way I like it, remiscient of Mech's in Ring of Red on the PS2. Only more real. Shiny chrome pistons. No glam and glitz of the MechAssault series. I should stop calling these things Mech's, in this game they are Hounds. These hounds had weight behind them. Slow, measured weight. Deliberately lumbering and large. A big criticism of the game from the early previews/demo play, was that they moved too slow. And that the slow pace was rampant amongst the whole spectrum of Hounds available. Even the scouts with their unusual inclusion of tracked and wheeled mobility were considered morbidly slow. There is some degree of truth to this. But, I feel the game is being judged harshly if its not looked at as a whole. The single player missions are well crafted, enough to give you a taste of what it is like to employ tactics and strategy as part of a scripted team. You follow scenarios and play your part, almost being tutored in what will work and what won't. But its in the online game, where a slow determined pace is valuable for a squad of players to inform and control each other. To win battles in Chromehounds online, theres no room for lone MechWolves. Your hound is part of a pack. And the pack requires time to direct. The slowing down of the hounds gives a sense of weightiness. A sense of scale. You will brush large trees aside. And stomp upon soldiers tickling you with their gunfire. Tanks are mere toys to be crushed. A lot of the combat and searching for the enemy online is fairly slow paced. But it can be riddled with tension. Blind other than the voiced commands from your leader, you endlessly search the horizon for an intruder. If you work as a team, with supporting abilities, you can devastate an un-coordinated opposition. Parts funded from combat, or captured and won in a lottery can be much more effective than the initial parts you gain via the single player missions. And to see scouts out in the field, you'll swear they're fast, and you try and land rocket, shell and grenade on them.

Ultimately, its a game for people who enjoy large Mech combat. The extra cohesion necessary to capture the appropriate communication towers so that you can freely talk with your commander, and spot enemy and give tactical directions, only enhances the large scale explosive combat. The single player campaign, gives you the basics. And contrary to what the majority of reviewers on the web say, I thought it was an enjoyable lead in to the online game. Somewhere you can hone your Hound and try out some things you wouldn't want to take online. Once you've found yourself a decent squad and you've started taking part in the persistant world war, making a difference, capturing enemy parts and capital cities, it all becomes very addictive. Tweaking hounds with different combinations to fit in with your squad members. Then testing your mettle in the heat of the piston pumped battle. Not everyone will take to it. Especially if they only scratch the surface that is the single player campaign. This is War! It's begun!

The Oily Tears of a Cyberman

Mulling over the final episode of the new Doctor Who series 'Doomsday'..

The cheesiest moment, being that bitch, after becoming a Cyberman, rebelling and proving that she 'served her Queen and her country' by shedding an oily tear! FFS! Give us a fucking break, you big gay bastard! Cybermen, filled with oil, shedding an emotional tear.
Jeysus!

I enjoyed the Cybermen vs the Daleks, I wish it could have been a bit more CGI and spectacular than it was.

I think the trouble with this new run of Dr Who, is that they seem to rate the Assistant above the Dr. They base all the stories around the emotional content of the assistant. Even the Dr gets emotionally involved, they had Eccleston cry over her, and now they've got the googley eyed whacky smiled new Dr to cry over her. It makes me feel like they cheat the Dr out of his power. His power to remain detached and control even the worst case scenarios. The new series has put him in the periphery and has made the assistants plight the main focus. Just feels wrong. They should keep the sentimental cheese to the
minimum too.

My nipped loved this episode. But mainly because there was a battle between Cybermen and the Daleks, and also because Rose was meant to die. But she didn't. Because we have to keep it all optimistic and nice, yet milk the teary emotional stuff, rather than focus on the Timelord who is meant to be the star of the show!

Prey DEMO

Tried the Prey Demo at the weekend, and I thought it was sufficiently interesting enough to complete the demo and toy with the idea of buying it.

I don't like the hackneyed plot, and the Tommy Hawk thing, just too cheesey. But, I think the whole "alien abduction" sequence was done with a lot of credibility. Theres enough confusion once let loose to impart a sense of danger and panic, and once you start to experience to portals and the gravity stuff it does get very interesting, although if you suffer from motion sickness this one will have you reeling. There is a lot of disorientation towards the end of the demo. I was starting to feel a bit spewy, and normally I'm quite immune to motion sickness.

I love the idea of Cherokee spirit powers, but not necessarily in an alien spaceship. They're mixing two unknowns. You're exploring what stuff the alien race dishes out, and then suddenly, you're having to meld this with new spiritual based powers that just don't sit right. They're clever an all. And I did appreciate the spirit bow. But you're having to think now can this weird new spirit power I've just been bestowed with, take me through an alien forcefield, or not? Can it? Try it. Yes it can. But theres no logic to the two things, the alien technology is alien. The spirit powers are also alien to you. Obviously after a few hours playing you'll logically match the mechanisms to navigate around and use the two, but on first hit, it was very confusing. Like two unknowns clashing severely and as much as I wanted to be cool with my spirit powers, I also liked the alien gun technology.

Still, with enough good looking alien stuff, and some crazy indian spirit stuff I can imagine delving into my pockets for this one. It's got a whole lot more novelty and mechanism to play with than say Far Cry has. Haven't tried the multiplayer out yet. Although I suspect you'll get something approaching Quake4-ish.

Titan Quest

It's a worthy attempt at a beautified Diablo II clone with a Greek mythology at its heart rather than the darker material of D2. Seems to perform well, apart from some chuntering when going from outdoor environments to indoor dungeons. Still a clickfest, with pretty much the same UI as D2. A primary and secondary set of skills to customise your character with. Although you seem to use your levelling skill points to not only buy the skills, but also buy the tier of skills. So you have 3 or 4 skill points every level, and the tiers of skills require 4 skill points, then 6 more (so level 10) skill points to open them. You also gain points to increase your basic stats. Theres the usual enhancements that can be made to your equipment, which drop in the form of relics, that can then be applied. Theres portals, and map jumping mechanisms, and a quest log, and a nice map, the usual stuff you expect from a D2 clone.

The graphics are well done, crisp and nice zoomed in. It has to be said they've done a much better job of scrolling and running around than Sacred did (with its jerk-o-vision). Bosses seem to pop up much more frequently, and theres enough variety (boars, crows, Harpies, Satyr's, skeletons, spiders, gollums, centaurs etc) to slay in the first few levels, to keep you exploring and killing. The voice overs for the quests and information seem very well done. The Greek mythology doesn't seem to grab me though, as much as the darker traditional fantasy based stuff. It seems a bit too timid, not menacing enough.

The good thing though is that the game comes with an editor, so I think the TQ community will embrace it and start to knock out plenty of custom quests beyond the single player game. Plus you can multiplayer with up to 5 others I think in your party. Looks promising for the action hack and slash click crew.

Tegana Soul

Born deep in the Hoarfrost Mountains, secure inside the dwarven settlement of Soranathold facing out onto Mirror Lake, the young girl was raised under the religious guidance of her mother. The girl was baptised in snow as Teghannarak Soularath, the Soularath family were well respected for their jewel and armourcraft amongst the skilled trades folk of the Soranath Clan. Indeed the elaborate breastplates made by Teghannarak's father were almost legendary amongst the other dwarven clans in the Mror Holds.

Teghannarak enjoyed a relatively peaceful childhood raised in a time when the dwarven clans had put axe and blade down and settled their differences with diplomacy and negotiation via the Iron Council. Almost coddled by the Church of the Sovereign Host, Teghannarak dutifully took up the ecclesiastical duties that were asked of her. Gentle of spirit, she would spread her divine inspiration amongst the clan with much enthusiasm, however, she considered the robes of the Church most drab, so she took to wearing off cuts and experimental pieces of Armour that her father had forged. She would often find herself in the forge, excitedly trying on new shining plate. She became interested in her apparent strength to carry such weight on her shoulders. And led to quite a trivial contest between other dwarves to test their strength with a baton. Flailing the baton and beating a sheet of steel plate, to measure ones power in the diameter of impression made. Teghannarak always felt blessed with power in her heart and in her hefty arms. The Hosts will surged through her.

Although her direction was intended to take up the cloth and preach, Teghannaraks divinity usurped her destiny and edged her more towards channeling her good into a combatant guardian of all dwarven kind. Against her mothers wishes, she enrolled for cleric duties, that combined over enthusiastic preaching with defensive combat practice. It seems her fathers blood flowed more readily in her than her mother had anticipated. Adventure seemed to beckon to her, at the end of her training as a battle cleric. More than she realised. It broke her mothers heart, and steadied her fathers hammering arm, as he beat Teghannarak's coming-of-age set of Armour over a melancholic anvil of loss.

Leaving the clans and the Hold, equipped with youthful exuberance and her fathers Armour she made her way to the fabled City of Towers, Sharn. A place where magic and industrial machines come together. A place where all walks of life converge and mix in equal parts. It was time for Teghannarak the dwarven girl to adopt an identity befitting an adventurer in such a cosmopolitan and multi-cultured city. She mixed with the city life for a while before gravitating towards the not so respected academic institute known as Morgrave University. Street talk and rumour guided her towards this temple of skewed knowledge and intrigue. She shortened her name to allow the non-dwarven tongue to speak it easily. Her appearance to most was one of a hefty swollen lady in shiny Armour, so her name had to diffuse the prejudice. She took the name Tegana Soul. Hopefully retaining enough similarity to her true name as to do honour by the Host to her family name and her clan.

Bewitched by the city and the University, Tegana swiftly took up the challenge of preaching the way of the Sovereign Host and yet learning more about the history of the city and the different races and their cultures. Never had her eager mind had so much diversity to feed upon, using her divine teachings as fuel she began settling in to academia paying her way with research opportunities that seemed to come her way without her trying. Several of these 'opportunities' involved some exploration of lands further afield, as well as a lot of book work. More and more, her direction was almost being guided unknowingly into harsher and more dangerous expeditions. And Tegana thrived off the excitement it presented. Her jewelcrafters eye had caught a liking for the artifacts that were being revealed in these so-called research outings. The most recent expedition had her praying in battle Armour on her way to the lands of the Giants, Xen'drik, to a city called Stormreach....

Red Orchestra

http://www.redorchestragame.com/

Red Orchestra, a total conversion mod for Unreal, is now available on the Unreal 2.0 engine and is packaged as a standalone game. More importantly it a bargain at about £13 bought and downloaded over Steam. This is close to the game I've always wanted. A World War II FPS game that holds more weight as a 'war simulation' than a 'war game'.

When I fired it up, I was immediately thrust into a world where I had no cross hairs, I had to reload my rifle manually, where just to relocate involved a lot of use of cover and terrain. In order to fire back, you have to be very observant and spot slight movement, or muzzle flashes from weapons being fired. I died a lot, in the early acclimatisation period. You learn pretty quickly not to pop your head too high, or to run without cover for too long. Death is instant. Wounding is a rare occurrence.

The graphics are adequate, they're not state of the art, but they do the job, and look very authentic. Theres no gleam and glint of Battlefield or Call of Duty here. The sound is tremendous and really adds to the whole ensemble. You will hear enemy movement, reloading rifles, gun shot cracks from somewhere to your left. The ambient war noise in the background, isn't just a fluff track running on a loop, its actual combat, and machines, and men breathing too hard.

The weapons themselves are awkward, without a cross hair to use, firing from the hip feels very haphazard and actually is very inaccurate. Unless you are shoulder to shoulder with your enemy, buzzing an MP40 at them doesn't necessarily make the kill. To shoot with more accuracy you need to use the 'Iron Sights' where you draw the weapon up to your eye line. This slows you down, both movement and turning. It obscures your view, but it does make the weapon more accurate in its use. Taking a crouch or prone position also helps, as well setting up near a window ledge or sandbag. You gain an accuracy bonus for anchoring your weapon at these sort of points. You have to re-load your rifle, manually. This basically means clicking fire once to shoot the gun, and then click fire again to reload it. However reloading does take a chunk of time, time when you're very vulnerable, so timing your shots and making them count is the order of the day with any of the single shot rifles. Adopting the Iron Sights when crouched or prone also brings you slightly out of cover to shoot at the enemy, so flicking back and forth from the Iron Sight is a valuable technique to get used to. It gives you the ability to nod out and lay some fire down, then quickly take cover when return fire arrives. On most guns you can attach bayonets for the moments when close combat are required. Its a small price in accuracy to pay for a good stab in the enemies heart, rather than a pregnant pause trying to stick another round in the barrel.

The armoured vehicles are authentic, and you cannot drive one unless you have the appropriate qualifications. At the start of a round, there are a list of troop types you can pick from, and a number of these are tank orientated, tank commanders, gunners and drivers. Pick one of these and you can enter the tanks available. To successfully use a tank in combat you need at least a driver/commander and a gunner. Its tricky to solo a heavy tank driving and then switching into the gun position. There are vehicles such as half track transports and jeeps that your average rifleman or machine gunner can drive, usually with a gun position attached, so you can wait at the spawn point and take a few troops in with you. The views from inside the vehicles tend to be very restrictive and its difficult to land specific kills because you just can't see much from within, you end up laying down mostly suppressing fire. A brief not no suppressing fire, which is worth a mention here, is that whilst a troop is pinned by suppressing fire, his view becomes blurred, and shaken, and its quite tricky to make an accurate target. Another feature that emphasizes the games attention to detail and realism. Driving the vehicles isn't like the arcade pursuits of games like Battlefield, instant turning circles, fast reverse out of trouble, the vehicles in RO require gear management almost. They feel sluggish, and they take a while to master.

Basically, in RO, if you go off solo, you're likely to die, quickly. Sticking together and providing cover and support is the only way forward. The troop selection at the beginning of the scenario ensures that there is an equal mix of troop types. No legions of snipers or tank commanders, there is a place for everyone, and its in the squad as a team player. This game promotes good team play, there are no apparent scores for killing or head shots, no ranks or leader boards as such, the win is decided on base capture alone. And to do that you have to suppress and overpower the enemy to gain the ground.

Some of the maps are expansive, where a number of large tank battles can take place, with infantry supplying the base capture element. Some of them are close quarter battles in war torn Stalingrad, building to building combat with fierce consequences if you pop a "cooked" grenade too close to yourself or your troops. There was even a very small novelty scenario, where the Russians in a POW camp had managed to overcome the guards in the cells, and take their pistols, and the German troops in the guardroom had to suppress the uprising. Cue lots of Soviet troops providing crossfire support with stolen Lugers against Machine gunning Nazi guards.

The thing I like about RO, is its attention to detail, everything is geared towards making you feel like you are in the war, warts and all. There are no punches pulled. Bring your usual FPS skills here and you'll probably take a good few in the head before you realise that staying alive is an achievement in itself. You have to know what the other side looks like in its uniform to be able to tell friend from foe. And often you have to be able to distinguish this from a long distance away. Since you'll be kicked from the server for too much team killing, you have to be cautious in your gunning. Even the VOIP that it supports is only available locationally (I believe). On the public servers there can be a lot of death and a lot of confusion, but get a decent clan together where people know how to cover each other and it starts falling into place.

RO has a big thumbs up from me, this is what I first tasted in the original Operation Flashpoint, combat realism over arcade gaming. Fulfilling a man's dream to experience proper World War II combat without the risk to his own life. To taste a little of what it might have been like to follow in my Grandfathers hobnail boots... albeit this is on the Eastern Front.

Guitar Hero

Take one bucket of iced Buds, a suitably sauced mate or two, a copy of Guitar Hero complete with Gibson controller and you have a recipe for a night of dreams, aspirations and dextrous dabblings in the world of the Rock Star!

Guitar Hero for the PS2 has got to be considered a novelty game, one which delivers the usual novelty controller peripheral, its a party game, like Eyetoy, Singstar and that bongo drum playing game on the Cube. Most of these games are sold on the backs of beer and pizza gatherings, or something to keep the kids quiet at the weekend, whilst Mam and Dad, "lie down" and "have a rest".

The thing that makes Guitar Hero stand out from all the rest of the crowd, is the fact that it actually does feel like you are playing the music. Singstar lets you warble to your hearts content and you hear the tone deaf squawks over the backing track. You can never truly feel like a Star Vocalist. Banging your bongo's or karate chopping think air can never give you the sense of chasing a dream. But laying down a complex set of fretwork to land that all important power chord combo and make the TV rattle and rumble like a Jet plane leaving the runway of mediocrity and soaring into superstardom, truly gives you a buzz. I'm not kidding. My love for the song Iron man has truly been enhanced by spanking my plastic Gibson.

It's not overly easy. Kids will take a bit of aclimatising to the co-ordination required to fret and strum at the appropriate places. However even on easy mode, it tests your "metal" during those early songs. I like the fact that there is replayability built into the game, easy mode has you spanning only 3 of the coloured frets and you can plough through the songs gaining some confidence, learning the patterns associated with the chorus, verse and obligatory guitar solo. Step it up to medium mode, and you add another fret into play, along with almost a total redesign of the tracks patterns to play out, more frets, more power chords (where you have to span two or more frets). The speed of the approach of the song has changed, you now have more notes to hit per bar. Essentially you have to learn the same song over again, with a major change of most aspects of the track from the previous difficulty level. And there are 4 difficulty levels. So as you can see, the more you become adept at a particular level, the more the game will allow you to go one step further and take the same song, and tax you to a new level of skill. Nice replayability there.

So, if you like rock, and you like the idea of rhythm guitar being able to knock out lead guitar licks, then Guitar Hero is for you. It panders to those who love guitar music, and fancy waving an "axe" around in the air, whilst enjoying the euphoria of being a part of creating some of your favourite tracks. I like the fact that some of the tracks available are personal favourites of mine, something I didn't expect in a gimmick game marketed for the general public. The White Zombie track, Ziggy Stardust, No One Knows, Killer Queen and of course.. Iron Man. It mixes it up nicely, with classics and fringe tracks and new bands getting a look in. Looking forward to an expansion disk.

Be a Gibson Guru, Be a Rock Legend. Be a Guitar Hero.

Tanks

Spent an awestruck day at the Tank Museum in Bovington, UK. My appreciation of all military vehicles is heightened beyond normal enthusiasm when you're up close and personal with them. The scale of the exhibits against oneself, being such a attractive draw to me, I can fully let my imagination run riot, when I'm up close with these precious fragments of a history gone by - as always putting yourself in the position of the men who manned these rolling guns. How cramped the internals are, how large the guns are, and how thick the armour. With an audio commentary on most of the larger pieces on show, along with side displays that allow people to understand the most basic functions of these weapons, you get a full sense of appreciation of the technology and the sheer power behind these steel beasts.



There are too many stand out exhibits to list, but seeing the DD sherman (the skirted amphibious ones that sunk just outside of Omaha beach during the normandy landings), or the Tiger, or the captured Iraqi tank, just knits armoured vehicle history together and takes you from the trenches of WWI and the crude gun boats through to the massive Tortoise of WWII, and on to modern day tanks, the likes of the Leopard or the Challenger.

Amongst the excitement, I was able to 'have a go' with the sidelined gun games, shooting an RPG at tanks and bunkers, or taking in some target practice with a Bren machine gun or a Lee Enfield rifle. Ashamed at my poor accuracy on the Bren (a gun my Grandfather once wielded in WWII), I redeemed my self esteem on the Lee Enfield rifle, pulling out a marksman score. A highlight of the whole tour. The guns were suitably rigged up with compressed air mechanisms to simulate recoil in the stock, and being modified originals gave you an accurate impression of the weight. At 1 pound sterling a go, it was a small price to pay for a few moments of immersion.

With spirits high, it will take a lot of will power to keep me away from the Tank Museum, on the forthcoming Tankfest Event, to witness some of these Steel Beasts rolling around..

The Intruders

He'd heard there was trouble coming. There was a anticipation of it buzzing through the ranks. Several in the higher tiers of his tunnelling community had been barking about these intruders, skilled killers tripping early warning systems, smashing their way along lengths of the warren. He'd been trained for this. Since he was a skinling. His claws had been sharpened beyond everyday use. They were like Troglodyte razor teeth. Over the years he'd learned to be careful of them. You get used to it. His immediate clutch leader, was a Scale Shaman named Zanc'Tul, and he had been busy readying his skull magics all morning. The defending snapper troop had been posted at a choke point in the warren, designed to throttle any intrusion. There were many trappings pre-set to slow the overworld killers down. Acid jets, firey tormentors, warren gates with multiple combination keys, ambush points with treasure bait. All set to hamper, slow, and wither away at the intruders physical and mental health. Shan'Zal was ready for them. He and his fellow snappers, were on high alert.', '

Zanc'Tul was very agitated, and was yelping orders almost faster than his muzzle could deliver. The normally damp air had become drier somehow, it made Shan's scales tighten uncomfortably so. Shan tasted the atmosphere with a whip of his elastic tongue. He could taste a hint of burning flame oil, scorched overworlder and panic scent. His tiny earpockets suddenly registered a clattering of exploding wood splinters and metallic ringing. The trouble was almost here.

Zanc'Tul climbed onto the top of several supply boxes, and ordered Shan and his snapper fellows to brace the heavy door. If the intruders breach the locking mechanism, they would snapper charge them, with the Shaman clutch providing mindfear and skinboil support from the rear. Shan set himself up behind three of his clutch. The locking mechanism was being tampered with from the other side. The clutch was restless, they knew trouble was here. They started chanting the clutches warsong, rasping and rythmic, the snappers swayed at the doorway, claws and teeth exposed and baying for overworlder blood.

The door opened with a swift jolt, Shan and his snappers looked up in surprise, these overworlders were very tall. He could see there determined eyes peering from metallic slits just above a wall of steel. Perhaps three overworlders filled the doorway. They were shouting. The snappers charged at the wall, clawing at it with a screech. Zanc'Tul was already focussing mindfear and directing it at these giant intruders. Arrows were whistling past Shan's head, and he saw one embed itself into the Shaman's chest, ceasing his magics, and causing him to stumble down from his box temple.

Shan launched himself forward with two other snappers trying to replace the fallen ones at the door line. His claws set, his mind focussed on the kill, he would rip their legs away from them, for his clutch's fallen. His Koboldian instincts were in full flow, time to tear overworlder flesh. An arrow found his skull and split it apart with ease. His leathery body, folded into a limp mass, landing on top of two snapper kobolds already slain. His blood oozed into a single pool of reptilian death, that stained the boots of these overworlders, as they ungracefully advanced forward. Smearing Shan and his snapper squad across the warren floor.

Three abreast, the shield wall had been a success for most door breaches. With steel locked against steel, man aside man. Jarrik, Karitas and Balak stood their ground against the kobold horde. They inched themselves forward, every other moment, lowering the protective shield to swipe downwards and slay lizard after lizard in front of them. Karitas hollered "hold the line!". Balak grunted, as a Shamanic spell of fear attempted to seize his mind, he shook it off, gritting his teeth and bearing his shield stronger. Fayde, a bowmaiden, was letting loose arrows bewteen the walled mens heads. Accuracy was key. She spotted the Shaman's, registering each one, before delivering arrow after arrow to break their spells and take them down. Jarrik shouted "Advance!" as he co-ordinated a shielded shuffle forward, trampling lizards underfoot. Locking their shields tighter, to prevent the hordes slashing claws from getting through. Fire, stone and spell was having a hard time seeping through this sheet steel fortress. Jarrik turned his head and smiled at Karitas, Balak grimaced and winked at them both. Karitas nodded, and took great pleasure in shouting "Break and Charge!!!". The mighty wall peeled away, three shields seperating, and launching into the remaining kobolds. Shield bashing their way forward the three men ran full pelt at the pockets of kobolds whelping at such a sight. The bowmaiden stepping through the door, screamed "FOR THE VALENAR!", fizzing arrows left, right and center, picking off the shamans and their wounded. Jarrik sweeping kobolds off their feet with his uppercuts. Karitas freezing them where they stood, with his sword "Ice". Balak, slamming his shield against them with such force that their stunned skulls fractured and caved in.

The intruders have indeed arrived, and theres no stopping them.

Generation Kill

My current obsession being combat in the gulf, inspired by the release of Battlefield 2: Modern Combat on the 360, and further inflated by the DVD season set of the series 'Over There', has landed me deep in the pages of the book 'Generation Kill' by Evan Wright. Where a reporter is embedded in a First Recon company, and he gives a vivid and honest account of the Marines and the situations they are faced with.

I must say, I expected something like the Jarhead book. However, its more personal and factual, this is "Band of Brothers" stuff for the current generation. I can't put it down, once I start reading. Highly Recommended if you are fascinated by the dilemmas faced by modern combat troops and their human interactions whilst under such duress.

DDO Rant

I think DDO was originally designed to the roleplayer, not the MMO player. However Turbine seem happy enough to take MMO players money, and pretend they're the same sort of game. It just becomes glaringly obvious after the current content is burned up that perhaps DDO isn't the same as WoW. This Dragon Vault expansion has been slotted in to keep hold of the MMO player.. shiny new loot (some bind on equip ffs!), big raid style quest.

I think they're playing a dangerous game, because there isn't enough proper roleplay functionality in the game, and there isn't enough content for your MMO player, and they're trying to appeal to both camps. They certainly can't cut the mustard compared with the amount of content on offer in WoW. I think they should drop the pretence and forge ahead as a true real time PnP experience.

Theres hardly any solo game in DDO. Its all about the group. A good roleplay group can enjoy the storied content and develop and enjoy their own characterisations in DDO. A well organised pick up group of MMO players can blitz through the same content in a fraction of the time. They can do the XP gain thing, be hurtling through the objectives and performing a loot trawl over and over again. If you blitz the content, it is quite easy to get to the end game. That doesn't mean the content isn't well designed if played through properly, it just means theres no mechanisms in place to prevent your average progression hungry MMO player from bolting it all down.

The only mechanism in place is a reduction in the quest completion XP gained for repetition of the quest. However, each quest has three difficulty settings, normal, hard and elite, which means each quest can be repeated at least 4 or 5 times at each difficulty level before the XP reduction makes it not worthwhile. XP gathering field day for your MMO player.

Lost Planet DEMO

A bunch of E3 trailers and a couple of demos turned up on Xbox Live Marketplace last night, including the Lost Planet demo. So I grabbed it as quick as I could... fell asleep on the couch.. finished the download in the morning.



Based on the 4 minutes play I managed to eek out this morning, I must say I like it. Its a 3rd person shooter, with some really nice graphics, crumbling snow underfoot as you yomp across a frozen wasteland, ectoplasmic slosh spilling out of bug hatching pods as you pump shotgun shells into them, big leggy bugs flailing their spiny legs at you as you weave around them and spray their bellies with bullets. Just looks brilliant.

I wandered into an underground car park swarming with bugs and hatching pods everywhere. Lots of explosive barrels and abandoned vehicles to use as splash damage shrapnel, lots of beautiful looking explosions to trigger, punctuated with bug offal flying and spurting around. This is a lone starship trooper out to slay the alien bug horde with a decent arsenal of killing tools. Machine guns, shotguns, grenades and even some Mechs.

In the car park, there was some turret shaped device that had to be activated, by pumping the B button, and I was in the middle of cutting down swathes of crawlers whilst pumping this device, when I had to power down this other world and and shoot off to work.

I'd say its a great action bug splatterer, with graphics to die for. Looking forward to getting home this evening and nailing me some more insectoid menace.

A Matter of Protection

Rasping her tongue against the bow string, to slightly whet the nocking point, Fayde's keen eye could sense approaching humans. The air shimmered liked a still rock pool that had just been defiled by rampant pond skaters. Human odour also betrayed their stealthy tricks and tactics. She could visualise the airplay of their bulky forms writhing back and forth, attempting to remain in the shadows. Before her next thought, an arrow whipped from the arched weapon, almost singing as it clipped the shimmer just above his elbow. This winged ruffian dropped his crude dagger to the floor in surprise, and as the pain registered on his face, realised his stealth play was over.

Scooping his iron blade from the floor with his other hand, he made a charge at Fayde. No time for another arrow. Fayde whipped her bow updwards and slapped the horned tip against the brigands face, it carved a small trough across his already maddened features. She slammed her elbow into the bridge of his nose, sounding a satisfying 'crack', upon which she performed a tumble into the corner of the room and leaped from a crouching position up onto a high stack of crates. In desperation the brigand threw his dagger at her, it lodged moments away from her in the wooden wall behind her. A quick lick of the hair string, and she nocked another arrow. Stumbling forward spraying the floor with facial blood, the hairy rogue managed to claw at her feet before she loosed the feathered stake. He yanked both of her feet suddenly and she fell backwards, hitting her head against the wall and dropping her bow to her side. She kicked one foot free, and tried to pry him off her. But with every movement she made in this prone position, brought him closer to her as he climbed her body like a lizard on an ivy encrusted tree. Fayde struggled for her Rapier, but it was splayed out to the side, and she had most of her weight on the scabbard. His hands curled around her neck as his heavy blood saturated body entombed her arms in a heavyweight hold. Gasping for air, as his grip tightened, she spat in his broken face. A last act of defiance. Before the encroaching darkness took her away to peaceful eternal sleep.

He smiled visciously, his teeth jagged with half broken crowns. Blood endlessly gurgling from his mouth and his fat purple nostrils. He was almost laughing at her demise. As his head came cleanly off. A shining gauntlet grasped the twitching neck stump and yanked the decapitated carcass off her. A rather regal gentleman stood before her clad in the most noble suits of armour she had ever seen. "Caldovan, at your service my lady". He winked. And smiled. And turned to swing his sword and cull another of these rogues in the process of silently creeping up on him.

Fayde grabbed at her bow to steady herself. She used it as a crutch to heave her gasping body back up onto the crate. A burst of flame spouted from the left, she only just caught it in her peripheral vision. She crouched instinctively to avoid being singed. "Saphina, at your service sister". A small halfling sorceress grinned at her momentarily, before focussing on controlling more flames exuding from her slight but nimble fingers. Fayde felt she was amongst friends, ones who could protect her, so she smiled inwardly, and licked her bow string before letting loose a hail of arrows.

Dungeons & Dragons Online BETA

http://www.ddo-europe.com

As a quick sound bite, I can sum up DDO in one sentance. "Neverwinter Nights with better graphics".

Each quest is a crafted storied instance, with varying lengths (short, medium and long) and difficulties (normal, hard and elite). Nothing in the game allows "free form" hunting, theres no experience gained from killing more or less monsters. Finishing the quest is where you reap your rewards. The emphasis is heavily placed onto the goal and sub-goals of the current dungeon, rather than falling back on the xp grind of slaying endless spawns. Even in the dungeon instance, the quantity of kills is irrelevant to your rewards. Loot is rarely dropped from kills made in the dungeon, the little that is dropped is usually a collectable 'turn in' item, that equates to very little worth really. The majority of your questing loot will be gained from treasure chests, usually found after a quest goal has been acheived, or rewarded to you by the quest giver.

Real time combat interaction (your positioning affects the damage done). The combat relies on you to keep the monster in front of you, for attacks to be successful. Shifting position during combat can modify the chance of you being hit. Turn your back on an enemy and you'll no doubt suffer a critical hit. You can force a direct swing of your weapon by right clicking the mouse, or you can initiate auto-attack and swing automatically. Positioning still plays a part even with auto-attack toggled on. You can also react to the monsters attacks and try to block, using the shift key. Combat can become quite an intense session of keyplay, and to truly do it justice requires your attention and concentration. I enjoy the dynamic it adds to the gameplay, it makes it more real to me, more important to control my avatar as an efficient combatant. Encircling an opponent, to swipe at their side or back becomes a viable tactic, as does trading blows with blocks and counterattacks. It takes some getting used to, especially in third person. But I think it does give a more organic, less predictive flavour to the combat and its outcome.

To complete a quest, quite a bit of thought and planning is often required. There are stages where you just can't throw everything in and to hell with it. You often find yourself having to conserve Health and Mana because once you're in the dungeon, you have limited resources available to you in terms of Healing abilities and Mana regeneration. All casters have a finite amount of mana when they enter, and the only place you can regenerate that mana is at a resting shrine. Even then its a one shot deal. Once you've used it, no more. Your only other option is to stock up on health and mana potions. However, these items are incredibly expensive and are difficult to find a vendor with them available. Perhaps you'll buy one or two and use them in extreme emergencies. Since all casters have to prepare their spells before entering the dungeon, spell selection and spell/feat conservation (eg. level 1 clerics can only Turn Undead 5 times before they need to rest to regenerate) are also issues that need to be decided on.

Overall, the party requires a lot of co-operation to get through the quest. Since the players are quite interdependant on each other, you have to 'care' more about the other players. If the party splits and charges off in different directions theres sure to be a death or two. Since your reward (xp and loot) are dependant on completing the quest and its sub-quests. If you have a death, the party has to take the responsibility to get all their players back into the dungeon so they can continue, and so that the downed player gets his reward. This opens up a method by which gung-ho players can leave their comrades in the lurch, if they're about to complete the quest, and you have two or three other people dead and waiting to get back in for the completion update to their quests. By and large, I have been fortunate enough to have been in groups where everyone looked after everyone else. If a death occurs, we would try to heal/repair them back to life, if not, you'd try and carry their soulstone to the last resurrection shrine, and if not, they'd recall to a tavern and everyone would wait for them to run it back. If you die and recall and then re-enter the active quest dungeon, the overall XP you will get is dimished by a percentage.

The game does seem to promote the need for a slow and methodical way to exploring and questing in the dungeon. Take your time, conserve your skills, use the right person for the job, look after each other, and get the job done. I like this. As I said above, it reminds me very much of my time playing on a Neverwinter Nights Persistant World Server. The 3rd edition D&D ruleset sits perfectly with my idea of how dungeon exploring should go. The more I play this game, the more I seem to fall in love with it.

My greatest concern for the game is whether it will have enough storied quest content to justify the subscription fee? Guild Wars already provides similar storied instance questing (plus a very complete team PvP experience, PvE "free form" hunting with a rudimentary crafting mechanism) for only the box fee - no subscriptions. Repeating the quested content for diminishing returns on XP rewarded will only push the progressing characters forward into the new content, will there be enough of it? They haven't released information on subscription fees, or how that would relate to content provision. I hope they strike a balance that makes it affordable enough for people who like adventuring in the D&D ruleset online, and also provide enough regular new quested content.

RF Online

http://www.codemasters.com/rfonline


First thoughts, "Ah, just a prettier version of Lineage II then". I rolled a Cora "elf" ranger and shot a few arrows at some cute dinosaurs. Didn't inspire me at all. Graphics were really nice, detailed models, very sharp impressive landmarks, environment and terrain a bit bland. Since you are forced to be one of the three races and you can't mix and match them on the same account (for PvP purposes, like DAoC), I trashed the elf and rolled an Accretia "robot" ranger instead. Time to get some guns out.

The Accretian starting zone is very much more impressive, a large nexus that is not a million miles away from having been styled by the people who did the interiors for Phantasy Star Online. Only better. The Accretian robot style is very much japanese killing machine, think 'cool as fook'. The character models are very well done, so much effort going into the detail on them. However, they are all very similar, apart from a few slight modifications to the starting armour, every Accretian looks like every other Accretian out there. So you're more of a soldier pawn in a massive android army, than a deadly unique armour plated assassin.', 'Out you go from the nexus, the Accretian HQ, with your standard issue training gun and a couple of clips of ammo. Your first quest is to kill some cute dinosaurs (that could have starred in several episodes of Barney) with the laughably named the 'Flem' and in addition to frazzle some flying baubel guns known as the 'Wing'. The control mechanism is typically awkward. Holding down the Left mouse button, runs/walks you forward. The Right Mouse button and mouse movement turns you left and right. Forget using WSAD here, but fortunately you can couple directional movement with the cursor keys and rotational movement with the mouse. The interface is minimal and basic, like most other Korean MMO's. You have skills associated with your chosen profession, they seem to be set in stone, and have experience bars by the side of them. So you can choose which skills out of your skill set you want to use and level up. I dragged the fast shot ranged skill onto the quick bar, along with the aiming boost skill. You can start combat by double clicking on the target, or by selecting the target with a left click and then performing a skill on it. You can toggle auto combat on and off.

The whole zone seemed well paced out, by level 2 you'll be in amongst lots of similarly levelled monsters. The dense groups of monsters were easy to find, and the respawn rate was astonishingly fast. Good thing too, since most areas had many many people equally searching for the same things to kill. Monsters dropped weapons, armour, and hunting loot (for crafting with). Loot seemed to drop generously. Your experience seemed to raise with each shot, rather than with each kill. Every successful hit would yield some experience, both in your overall xp gain, and in your skillset (both active skills, such as the fast shot special and passive skills such as defense etc). There was a fair bit of diversity in the monsters you encountered. The quests seemed to be given to you at key times in your development, such as after you've levelled. You didn't visit a quest giver, once the quest was over, you'd be contacted and rewarded, and then given the next quest. The next quest usually being, kill 20 of th next set of monsters you're likely to stumbled upon.

You run around a fair bit, and this is controlled by your stamina bar. You toggle between the very slow walk, or the slowish run. Running uses more stamina, and subsequently you can't run for really long periods of time, unless you have stamina potions. However, most of my gameplay seemed to consist of a run, then plenty of battle, then a run to the next pocket of quest monsters, more battling. So I never really saw the stamina pool affect my play. The only time it became apparent, was when I died a long way away from the nexus and had to leg it back to the area I was in, that long a run, sapped my stamina about three quarters of the way there, so I had to pop a stamina potion to continue running.

In order to use your skills (specials) you need Force power, each special having a force cost, so you had to use them sparingly. Each fight would only allow approximately one or two specials at these low levels. The force pool grows when you level, and so you can then start to fit more specials in. Or there are force potions. Healing out of combat is slow, unless you sit down, which makes you vulnerable to attack. Health potions seemed to be essential if you wanted to keep up a constant rate of combat and not spend lots of downtime sat down regenerating. Healing potions could be used whenever you want, they didn't seem to have any associated cool down period, so when I had the money, I stacked up 99 heal potions and could more or less ensure my saftey, even when fighting quite tough mobs, as long as I could chug potions and the amount healed was bigger than the damage taken I would be ok.

I found as a gun toting ranger, my damage ability was impaired quite a bit, so I also dabbled in swords, axes etc, and started to make much faster progress. So I used my melee abilities quite heavily to finish quests and level up swiftly, and only when I started to find better guns, could I return to levelling my ranged skills. Even though I was a ranger, it seemed as if I could chose to live the life of a melee warrior almost. Dual wielding some rather nice looking swords, I was one cool robot assassin at one point. The specials have enough 'cool value' to make you want to do them again and again. Enchanced effects and really cool acrobatics were the order of the day. All japanese kill style.

There were some high level (named 'Ace') monsters kicking around even in the newbie yard, and you had to be careful not to draw their aggro. They would sometimes notice you attacking a newbie dino, and join in, pursuing you quite a way. This pursuit also meant it was easy enough for someone to train the nasty onto you. The chat channels were thick with people shouting about kill stealing. That went on all night. The game doesn't protect you from Kill stealing whatsoever. In fact with the servers and kill areas chock full of players, you had to ensure you'd do enough damage on a monster as you grabbed its attention, or someone would swoop in and hit it hard and then the kill credit would go to them. As I levelled towards 12, there was an area that was so full of players you'd end up getting one in five of the kills you'd started. That was a bit ridiculous. But I put it down to the gamut of beta players levelling at approximately the same pace as me, and hitting a monster bottleneck.

Parts of the game I didn't manage to sample where the ore collecting, and the PvP. Some determined players already had reached the level limit of 30, and had amassed a PvP force at the appropriate PvP area, and any new players who stumbled out there were being executed by them. Many heated comments about joining the wrong side etc were littered throughout the chat channels. As well as mention of the fact that sometimes PvP come down to who had more health potions. Which didn't sound encouraging.

Weapons and armour seemed to be graded according to level, with certain levels opening up new types of armour and weapons. Such as level 15 being the gateway to the launcher style guns, big heavy duty grenade and rocket launchers which seemed very popular with the robotic rangers. Some armour was tailored with certain skills in mind, such as the Accretia "launcher" armour, which had stats to boost your launcher skill. You also had yellow special weapons with boosted stats (known as the 'intense' weapons), or even purple weapons that were rare and more powerful. A bug existed with the purple ranged weapons at the time (where the stats didn't kick in, or something like that), so the general vibe was go intense weapons if you are a ranger for now.

The musical accompaniment to the whole process was rather splendid, from the wistful login page to the battle chants and emotive racial scores. In fact I liked the music so much, the mp3 score is sitting on a memstick awaiting my attention.

All in all, it was straightforward and stylish. Limited interface and very simplified quest mechanics. Cannot comment on how the PvP will pan out, but the PvE game seems only geared to making a level 30 PvP player out of you. very little in the way of story. However, since I started it at about 8pm, and didn't surface until I had a level 12 Accretian Ranger at 2am, I was embroiled in the experience, and the combat remained satisfyingly exciting.