Battlefield Bad Company 2

I picked up EA’s Battlefield Bad Company 2 through Steam, after another too-good-to-miss offer.  Tim already had it, and though I could have just borrowed his PC to play the singleplayer, I tend to prefer having my own copy anyway.

After installing.. and a painful sign-in to EA.. I attempted to join multiplayer with Tim and some friends.  However, having been dumped on the opposite team to the guys I found myself without any direction as to where to go, and then quickly became frustrated when snipers kept picking off the few targets I managed to see on the radar.

The next attempts at multiplayer were much better as we were able to form a squad of our own, meaning we were always on the same team.  I liked the ability to respawn onto a squad-mate too, as that meant getting straight back into the action, rather than getting killed after paying more attention to finding a friend than what you’re walking past..

Playing while not in a frustrated mood allowed me to recognise how nice the game looks too 🙂

After starting on the regular soldier type class, I tried out the recon class, and surprised myself when I managed to get on quite well with the sniper rifle..  Normally I’m too impatient to sit still and wait, but there wasn’t too much waiting around at all.  Marking up a target or assisting in a kill also gains points, so if I wasn’t able to actually kill somebody, I still got credit for marking them.. bonus! 🙂

The tanks felt rather slow and too easy for enemies to surround.. although you can repair them, it seemed easier to jump out and try to run for cover.. or be blown up in the explosion!

I didn’t like my first few helicopter encounters, as they seemed impossible to take down and the crew were able to hit quite hard.  However, they’re great when they’re on your side, especially when you have friends you can communicate with!  Our group had one person fly while the other two looked after the mounted guns.. and they were a lot of fun to use 🙂

Flying isn’t easy though – I guess this is to balance out how strong they are on the field.  My turn at flying ended in disaster: I started to tip forward as soon as I got the helicopter off the ground, then my attempt to bring the nose up then resulted in flying backwards and crashing!  Maybe one to try out on an empty server sometime..

Wind Rider Cub

Tim bought me a Wind Rider Cub plushie for Christmas.. only just arrived after New Year, but better late than never!

So something cute and fluffy for going on my desk, and something for in-game too..  I like how he flies along close to me on the bigger version 😉

Fallout: New Vegas

I’ve also been playing around in the Wasteland over the last few days.. and I’m loving it more than I expected to. 🙂

Victor was fairly giving me the creeps after I’d made my way out of GoodSprings.. turning up here and there.. sneaky sneaky!  I’ve also noticed plenty of mention of places and people from Fallout 2, and I’m wondering quite how much of the old locations I might get to see..

For all the comments I’d heard about bugs, so far, I’ve one had one real problem:  After equipping a disguise, my reputation with all but three locations disappeared, and did not return to normal when I put normal clothes back on.  This resulted in a great deal of NCR hate, with them attacking me on sight despite a couple of good deeds in their favour.  To deal with their hatred, I had to equip a NCR disguise, but this wouldn’t work on named NPCs and they would still attack me.. and in any case, I didn’t want to walk around disguised for the rest of the game.

I braved the forums for a solution, fearing spoilers or a lack of any fix, and found that some disguises seem to screw up your rep.  The fix was an easy one though.. re-equip other disguises, take them off again, and see if your reputation resets.  So I killed a group of Legionaries and used one of their disguises; back to normal.  Phew! 🙂

A friend is slightly ahead of me in the game, and is having fun with Deathclaws.  I remember dealing with a lair full of them in Fallout 1, using up every stim and health item I had.. sniping and going for blinding or crippling the arms was particularly useful.  If they’re as tough now as they were back then, well, let’s say I’m looking forward to the challenge! 🙂

Sparta-Holes

Minecraft is now in beta, with working health and mobs in multiplayer!  Finally, we can kill creepers!

This meant a new map on our server, and new bases to build.  We quickly had a nice new starting area, but then came across a massive hole in the map which we dubbed the sparta-hole, after one we created ourselves back on our old map.  This one, however, was an unwanted hole where several chunks of the map had failed to render.  At first we blamed the newly created map, and started again.. but then others appeared on the new map too.

These holes don’t appear for everyone, so sometimes you get to see a friend walking around in the air, with no mind to the infinite hole beneath their feet..

Although weird, logging back in fixes it, so it’s not too much of a problem.  You can also use it to spot diamonds, but these forays into the depths have sometimes led to death by lava, maybe through taking too little care as you feel like you can see what you’re doing.

Aside from the Sparta-Holes, we have some rather nice bases going up.. our house has a rather nice fishing ledge and a dock, as well as underground mines.  I rather like our lounge, with the roaring fire 🙂

Pictures still don’t work in multiplayer.. despite the one on the wall here, which was only visible directly after placing it, and sadly only to me.  Portals to the Nether and associated fast-travel are also still not working in multiplayer..  I’m looking forward to them when they do arrive! 🙂

Dead Rising 2

Dead Rising 2.  Zombie Slaughter?  With friends?  Hell yes!  The problem with this was actually setting up the game to begin with.. Games for Windows Live isn’t all that well-behaved, and then the game kept refusing to let us join each other too..

Once in, though, awesome zombie killing!  Crafting weapons is a good touch, with some interesting combinations.. some are more useful than others, while some are just funny, such as the dino head with firework!  So far I prefer the nail bat as it clears a nice path through the zombies, and saves me getting grabbed so often.

We’re not managing so well on collecting survivors so far.. I suspect this is something for a second playthrough, when your character is levelled up and able to take on all the zombies without feeling it.  Trying to rescue a granny, a mad old guy with a gun and then his wife, only to be jumped by the rival competitor from the Terror Is Reality show.. ooh, frustration.  Unless we missed something, there was only one bike to chase him on, which doesn’t work for two people in co-op. In the end we ran for it to make sure we at least rescued somebody, and then returned to kill him later.

I have to say that my friend is liking the dressing-up a bit too much.. mincing around in tiny pants and shirt and trying to get into the cutscenes.. oh god!  Apparently there’s an achievement for changing into all the clothes in the game.. “Chuck Greene: Cross Dresser?” 😉

Screen from here.  This is one of the outfits he’s been in lately. 😉

While I love most of the game, I do have a rather large dislike.  I’m getting the “target audience: male” idea quite forcefully rubbed in my face, and I don’t like it one bit.  I really don’t want to look at ass, up-skirts, views down tops..  I’m getting the impression I’m not even welcome as it’s all so blatantly tailored to the guys.
I despise Rebecca, who alternately puts down and flirts with my character..  I don’t want that!  I rather enjoyed shooting her in the face when I first had to travel with her and I only wish I could feed her to the zombies, along with TK and his ‘girls’ too.  When the girls showed up, and captured Rebecca.. that cutscene?  Just.. urgh.

Hey, Capcom?  More zombies, less pixel porn, thanks..

Battle Brothers

Add another game to the ‘Completed’ pile, as Tim and I have now finished our co-op campaign on Dawn of War II! 🙂

The last few missions were a lot tougher, and running on towards the objective sometimes led to being swamped so we had to change tactic and be a bit more cautious.  Fighting off waves of Tyranids was fun, as it constantly felt as if we were going to be overrun, but just managed to scrape through.  I’ve no idea what this would be like on a harder difficulty.. 😀

I’ve still got Chaos Rising to complete before Retribution comes out, though I think this is one that needs to be completed in single-player first because of the corruption mechanic and wanting to play it my own way!

The Eagle and The Apple – 1191

I’ve spent most of the last two weeks laying on the couch being ill, but even so, there’s only so much daytime TV that anyone can tolerate.. Console time!

Assassin’s Creed was glaring at me from the pile of unfinished games, so I swapped TV remote for 360 controller..  Looking at the achievements, I started playing this game before they were storing the date when you earned them.  The earliest dated achieve is from the 5th December 2007.. quite some time back.. and about time to finish it then 😉

When I originally started on the game, I absolutely loved the free-running, climbing around on buildings, then up to the highest point and leaping off again.  Picking off enemy guards one by one very quickly replaced this as my favourite thing to do, especially when I was able to pounce with the hidden blade and feel oh so powerful! 🙂

One of the biggest complaints I’ve heard against the game is about the repetitiveness of the missions.  This was something I hadn’t really minded until this week, when I returned to the cities for new targets, and found myself faced with pretty much all the same missions types to do again..

I never got bored of the quick assassinations with the hidden blade.. and the joy of running and jumping across rooftops only lessened a little with time.. but I did get fed up of the rescue civilian, sword fight, blend and walk away routine.. or more specifically, the annoying sword fights where I really didn’t do well.  Block?  Counter?  Maybe if you’re facing the right attacker, and time it just so..  No.  I preferred picking people off with the throwing knives, or y’know.. assassinating them all sneaky-like with the hidden blade.

The beggars and drunks in the various cities, which I found a different challenge earlier, quickly began to annoy me.. the beggars for their whiny voices coupled with the fact they kept on getting in my way, and the drunks for randomly punching me, one time sending me flying into a guard and getting me killed.  Following this, I barged the drunks over where I could, and either threw beggars into walls or punched them to make them leave me alone.  I stopped short of killing them, annoying as they were, because killing ‘innocents’ leads to a loss of synchronisation and therefore a bar of health.  Strange values this game teaches.. 😉

Now.. I mentioned that I didn’t do so well in the sword fights.. this meant that I avoided them where I could.  So what do we have for our final bosses?  Sword fights, with nowhere to run and get some height or even just a breather, nobody to pickpocket for extra throwing knives..

I found myself raging at the game while I got killed over and over and over by Robert de Sable’s grunts, especially when multiple attackers would be able to make me stumble between strikes, taking half my health in one flurry, and when counters just threw the guy uselessly to the ground without causing any damage.  I realised later that I could have gotten rid of the floored guys right then by switching to the hidden blade, but being tired, ill and then angry on top of that, does not make for thinking..  I’d got to this point of the game by 3am, and guessing that I was nearly done I decided to finish off.  Of course, once angry, I wasn’t going to leave it as I wouldn’t want to come back.. and I’m stubborn!  Instead I found myself hoping to be grabbed and thrown, as this would let me regenerate a bar of health, and then deliberately avoiding the last two grunts while my health regenerated enough to face the boss afterwards.

When it came to Al Mualim, the game-breaker was this time running round and round the yard while my health regenerated, though during an angry flail at the buttons I switched to the hidden blade and got shut of one guy.  Realising this trick made the whole thing easier.. now, if only I’d had to actually learn that earlier in the game I would have had it down for the grunt fight.. but I thought a game about assassination should be about sneaking and picking targets off rather than running at guards yelling “I’m here!” and taking on as many as possible.  Ah well..

Game completed, anyhow.. it’s only taken three years! 😉

Merry Christmas!

I’ ve been too ill to get anything written and posted up over this last two weeks, but in terms of games it’s gone something like this: squeee-cata, underwater, goblins, flying, beating on massive mobs, new dungeons, brilliant new quests, 85!

Great-father Winter wouldn’t let me sit on his knee, but there were presents around the tree this morning.. including the Tiny Snowman pet 😉

So, Happy Winter Veil, or Merry Christmas.. whichever you prefer.. and I’ll try to get back to proper posting soon.

Amnesia: The Dark Descent

Amnesia: The Dark Descent is a first person horror survival game from Frictional Games.  You take the part of Daniel, a man who has lost his memory, or as an early note tells you, has drunk something to make him forget..

Daniel must find the Inner Sanctum and there kill a man called Alexander, but is warned of the “living nightmare” which is chasing him..

After starting the game, you get a few flashbacks.. Daniel trying to remember what he’s doing, who he is.. struggling to walk down a corridor and eventually collapsing at a dead end.  Daniel is afraid, which makes me afraid too.  The fear is added to by the panicked breathing, visual distortions and noises of unseen enemies.. as well as the knowledge that you have no weapons!  You can interact with objects.. light candles, open doors, pick up objects and throw them.. but all you can do to save yourself from enemies is run and hide.

The castle is rather dark; there are candles here and there, and early on you find out you need to stay in the light.  This goes a little against my will to explore, as I don’t want to run out of oil for my lantern, and tinderboxes for the candles are in short supply.. so I take small peeks into unlit side rooms, tensed up and expecting something to jump out on me!

The more scared Daniel becomes, the more he loses his sanity.  Low sanity results in hallucinations, making it harder to see and move.. when I let it drop too far, there was a piercing noise and Daniel fell to the ground.  Looking directly at enemies also scares him.. the on-screen hint suggested that later enemies might also see you!

The demo gives what I assume are the first couple of levels in sequence; enough to try out a few simple puzzles, such as removing an obstruction to a pulley so you can open a trapdoor.  While letting Daniel scare himself silly reduces his sanity, solving puzzles restores it.

The cellar level.. boxes scattered around, and knee-deep water, with some horrible unseen enemy splashing his way towards me!

I failed at jumping across the boxes the first time I tried this level, and didn’t make it out of the water before he slashed at me.. two hits and I was dead.  I fared better the second time as I was barely in the water, and was able to distract the enemy by throwing books into the water.  The gate to the next part of the cellars was opened by a lever way back at the start, which meant a careful trip back and then a mad dash to get back before the gate shut again, all the while expecting the monster to slash me again.

This room didn’t seem to make Daniel any more frightened, maybe because he couldn’t see the enemy.

In the next room, there were body parts instead of books..
If you waited around after throwing one of these, you could hear him eating it, and see the blood mixed in with the water.  Nice..

As soon as I made for the next gate, though, he was right back after me.. and this time the gate didn’t shut in time to trap him on the wrong side and I had to run for the next door hoping to beat him to it.  Here’s where the door interaction frustrated me the most; trying to open the door towards me meant I had to stop, else I would push the door shut again with my body.  The monster ended up getting rid of the door for me, in the end.

The game reminds me very much of Korsakovia, an experimental mod for Half Life 2 which I played last year.  The fear in this game.. mod.. is created from the sounds and anticipation of what might happen, especially with enemies you can only run and hide from, though in Amnesia’s case the player character’s own fear comes through as well.  As with Korsakova, I think I’d get very frustrated once there were harder enemies to deal with.  Despite the game being as atmospheric and scary as it is, and being on offer on Steam, I’m still not sure whether to get it.

Surviving Survival

I thought WoW was meant to be addictive, but I’m finding Sol Survivor’s survival mode more so..

In singleplayer, I’m obsessively chasing the badges, with the current goal of getting the gold badge for each.. it took ages to get the Cwm map with a load of attempts coming in around 20 to 30 seconds short of the required 20 minutes.

A friend offered to help me get the badges, so there was more co-op multiplayer.

The Undoer’s “Wall of Death” was made of lasers in this game, and aside from being rather nice to look at, are quite effective.

We also tried out the versus mode; the map was split up with coloured sections to show where you could place turrets, and we each had a drop point and base.  The “Wall of Death” was more effective than my tactic of spreading out different types of tower along the path, and I lost. 🙁

We managed another three-player game during the week too.. now how’s this for a light-show? 😀