Dark Day LA Out November 7th
Dark Day LA, a new game from an independent Dutch games developer Gamious, will be released for iPad on November 7.
Bulletstorm Completed!
As well as completing my cube skin, I also completed Bulletstorm!
The rest of the game turned out to be just as much fun as the first part. The sniper was the next awesome toy to be placed in my hands.. with added bullet-steering abilities! I loved how the enemies tried to dive out of the way as the bullet got near to them.. but there was no escape!
Heading through the dam section, and ultimately destroying it was awesome too!
After this I encountered the Maneaters.. huge carnivorous plants which caught human-sized snacks! I was caught by surprise a few times.. they move quickly and you don’t have a lot of time to press the button to try and escape once caught. After being eaten by a plant I endured some mocking from a friend.. I’m looking forward to seeing how he manages!
The boss fight at the end of this level took a while, killing me with spores on the first attempt. The sliding move turned out to be very useful for getting away from attacks and quickly getting around the boss to catch all the vulnerable points.. eventually killing him off to earn the Weedkiller achievement 🙂
After this, and knowing we were about to catch up with Sarrano, I thought I was heading towards the end of the game, and ended up staying up far too late.. in the end I had to give up and sleep. So for length of game, I was rather impressed.. I was also impressed with the variety in the levels and enemies, as well as the story allowing us to meet up with Sarrano but in a twist, not letting us actually fight him until later.
There were a few tougher sections.. or at least, parts of the game where I stuck for a little while.. one started with a miniboss in the centre, and other enemies around the room, then more and more enemies and minibosses arrived while I was fighting which led to a few restarts 😉
These were especially satisfying to get through, especially after rampaging through previous sections.
I’ve now started playing through on Hard.. so far it doesn’t seem all that much harder, but I am used to the weapons now, and know what to expect. Next up has to be the multiplayer, though 🙂
When Bulletstorm was originally released there was a lot of complaining in the media, with some idiots trying to claim that people would become rapists after playing, because of bad language, the fact you are rewarded for shooting bad guys in the nuts, and so on. I took pleasure in shooting my enemies in the nuts (I struggled to get the ‘Mercy’ skillshot as I was killing them off too quickly), whipping them into environmental hazards with the leash, and gagging them with my flail-gun, as well as being rather amused at the language.. do I now want to go outside and rape people? No. That’s because I can tell the difference between a game and reality.. those who go out and commit crimes like that are going to do it regardless.
The media also rolled out the usual irrelevant whinge about children being affected, by seeing the violence and wanting to copy it.. well, young children shouldn’t be given access to games rated for adults, and if they are, then you have to ask what else their parents let them get up to..
Homefront Multiplayer
I’ve played a few hours on Homefront’s multiplayer tonight, using the Ground Control playlist. Ground Control is about taking control of three areas on the map and holding onto them.. after a short while the fight moves along the map with another three spots to fight over.
As none of my friends own the game, this meant playing with randoms.. and well.. there really wasn’t much team-work to be found. Many players seemed to either find themselves a nice camping spot or just run straight into trouble, ignoring enemy drones which really need to be taken out if they’re not going to be used to mark up the whole team.
After some unsuccessful runs with the basic Assault loadout, I switched to the Sniper.
When playing Battlefield: Bad Company 2 with friends a while ago, I found sniping to be fairly successful on larger maps.. and Homefront’s maps are all a decent size. The risk of sniping, of course, is that you get accused of camping if you sit around for longer than a few kills.. add that to my general impatience for sitting still, and I found myself best off taking a few kills and creeping forward.. hoping the enemy weren’t able to just run around the back of me.
My favourite map is possibly Suburbs, as there are plenty of buildings to hide in, although it does mean plenty of routes for the enemy to sneak along too. I just wish I had friends in the game, so we could do more damage! After this weekend I suspect I won’t be returning to Homefront, instead going to Battlefield because my friends are there.
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..