Renegade Ops
Renegade Ops, by Avalanche Studios and published by Sega, arrived in my Steam game collection over Christmas thanks to a friend. Although Tim had already picked this up on the 360, the game has four player co-op, so having it on the PC as well was no bad thing!
While the Great Gift Pile objective list was up over Christmas, we had a quick go at it, with the aim of killing Santa and collecting one of his presents.. and although we discovered that the present only drops for one player, we had a lot of fun destroying things!
If your vehicle gets turned over, the game resets your position without taking up one of your lives. This was just as well, because we crashed into each other a lot while slipping on the ice or even just trying to overtake each other.
We decided we should play the game properly.. though, that said.. we ended up playing the Coldstrike DLC before the original storyline.
The game has a choice of characters to play as: I played as Steam-exclusive Gordon Freeman, with the ability to summon a pack of Antlions. During the chase for the objective, I had unlocked some upgrades which meant their deaths would spawn a health pack, or repair kit, depending on how you look at it 😉
As well as Antlion-related upgrades, I had the two other skill trees common to all characters: a defensive tree with upgrades to add extra lives, auto-repair and so on, and an offensive tree, with upgrades focused on improving weaponry. I took a balance between the two trees as with friends, the game isn’t too hard and we were there to have fun!
For my secondary weapon, I found the Rocket Launcher and Flamer the easiest to use, with the Rail Gun less easy as you had to keep aiming at the target while charging, and I didn’t want to sit still. I also continued the theme of crashing into everything as we went along, with plenty of smaller enemies and buildings being destroyed this way!
I really loved the sections of the game where we were given helicopters to control..
There was a little niggle in that we weren’t able to fly up and over certain obstacles, and had to go round.. but otherwise these were easy to fly, which meant I was able to focus on the destruction 🙂
The game is easy to play, though that coupled with playing in co-op meant more silliness and therefore more deaths. Definitely a fun game, though!
Christmas in Cairo.. Seriously!
Croteam‘s Serious Sam: BFE was half-price in the Steam Sales, so I got copies for Tim and myself, along with a copy of Serious Sam: The Second Encounter which was on for less than £2.
One of Steam’s Great Gift Pile objectives was to decorate the Christmas tree in the first level of the game: the achievement Christmas in Cairo, so the game got bumped on the playlist while I’m trying to get some of the objectives completed.
I expected Serious Sam: BFE to be much the same as the previous games in the series.. over the top shooting with lots of guns, more than enough ammo and silly numbers of enemies. I didn’t expect it to look quite so good, though!
Doing my usual climbing around on stuff, I found some Parkour secrets. Nothing huge.. a bit of extra ammo or armour.. a few extra enemy encounters, such as the two Kleers I met in a small alleyway. I’ve played through the first level twice now, specifically looking for secret areas on the second run and even then, I didn’t find them all.
There’s a nod back to a previous Sam, with a single Kamikaze running at you, then Sam screaming back after he’s dealt with, then even more Kamikazes appearing..
I reloaded my save to get an extra couple of turns at this section.. one shot stalls the Kamikaze, with the second finishing him off, and you can get a nice Chain Explosion if you make him blow up his friends 😉
Decorating the tree turned out to be one of the last things to do on the level.. and when I got there, I realised I had to go back a little bit to collect some of the decorations. I’d killed all the Rocketeers out in the open, clearing the area before running through to the museum. However.. Christmas! 🙂
Coal Collector!
The Great Gift Pile objectives are turning out to be a mix of quick and easy tasks and longer, more difficult challenges..
Atom Zombie Smasher: KringleJammer was fairly easy to get, as was the Rock of Ages: Snowball War. Audiosurf: Candy Stripe required only the collection of red and white blocks in a line, but it took me a while to find something on my PC that played at the right pace to generate the blocks I wanted. “Still Alive” was giving me blue blocks, so wouldn’t do for this!
Beat Hazard: Survive Christmas 10 required me to survive for 10 minutes.. and it took far longer than that! After several attempts of under five minutes each, I realised I had unlocked some perks which might help: the Ultra DLC added Micro Missiles and a Reflect Shield which just about let me last long enough to complete the objective.
A harder achievement was the deliberate loss of a game in Fate of the World, where instead of trying to save the world, I led it towards global thermonuclear war and the Let it Glow achievement! After a few attempts I ended up consulting the internet for tips on how to get the ‘right’ ending.. it turned out to be a rather tight list of instructions while hoping for the right random numbers to be generated each turn. I think actually winning this game, as opposed to playing for an achievement, will be next to impossible as all territories seem to get annoyed with you very quickly! 😀
For another deliberate loss, I also tried to nuke Santa in DEFCON.. but found his movements too unpredictable, the AI too eager to react, and my supply of nukes too low for me to get him. I quickly got bored of this, so I checked out the tips on the net again, and reduced the number of cities to 5 per territory, but then found the game crashing almost as soon as I launched a nuke! Something to do with the latest update and Windows 7 🙁
Another not-quite-game objective was Winter Assault.. survive a 30 minute match on Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II – Retribution, on one of the winter maps. Four of us joined the game, with one going AFK immediately.. only interested in the achievement itself.. but three of us met in the middle to trade blows until we’d met our time requirement! I wished for more Great Unclean Ones, but settled for a squad of Chaos Dreadnoughts instead 😀
With the completion of all these objectives, I’m collecting lots of coal along with vouchers which probably won’t get used.. two are for Valve.. I already own all their games, as do all my gaming friends. Although, if anyone does want them.. 🙂
I did win one game via the giveaway.. Silent Dreams’ Grotesque Tactics: Evil Heroes, a fantasy role-playing game with strategic combat and a sense of humour. The games in this giveaway are provided as a token, which can be added to your own inventory or traded.. so if you already own the game you win, you can give it away or trade it for something else.
A friend bought me Space Pirates and Zombies by Minmax Games, which I tried briefly last night. After stumbling through the first couple of missions, I decided I need to be somewhat alert to play! 🙂
The Steam sales are ongoing, and I also picked up ACE Team‘s rather Monty Python-esque Rock of Ages, mentioned earlier, and Croteam‘s Serious Sam HD: The Second Encounter, and Serious Sam 3: BFE, with the first two games below £2 each, and Serious Sam 3 at a reasonable price, considering I wanted a copy for me and a copy for Tim.
Other women spend their money on shoes: I spend my money on games! 🙂
Merry Christmas 2011!
Finally finished with work.. and the Christmas shopping.. time for games!
Well, time for finishing off a Christmas and pony related drawing for a friend, and attempting some of the Great Gift Pile objectives on Steam! A fairly straightforward objective was to find an Xmas present in any multiplayer level of PAYDAY: The Heist. In the First World Bank, the presents were waiting in the vault with the money 🙂
We also noticed new “beef” masks had been added to the game.. so here’s a friendly Tyrannosaurus with a gun! 😀
More games..
A friend bought us Renegade Ops, an action game by Avalanche Studios, featuring top-down driving destruction.. there’s 4-player co-op, so I can crash into my friends while I destroy things 😉
I took up an offer a while back for a different Christmas bundle; the Intermediaware Christmas bundle which also came with copies for friends too. This pack contained eight games from Intermediaware.. shooters: Absolute Blue, Impact and Defense of Yano, puzzle games.. Captain Backwater, Temple of Tangram, Psychoballs and Atom Antics, and turn-based board game Kabama, for one or two players. This bundle arrived by email as promised, on Christmas Eve!
I also won another game.. 11 Bit Studios‘ action-strategy Anomaly: Warzone Earth, from Day 5 of Splitkick.com’s Holiday Giveaway!
Need More Time.. Oh Wait!
Over the last week I’ve added yet more to my list of unplayed games. I would normally say “I need more time”.. but I’ve now finished work, and it’s Christmas! Though I’ll soon have to start on some projects, it means I do have a lot more free time 🙂
Today was partly spent trying to achieve a Gold Badge in the adrenaline challenge mode of Defense Grid: The Awakening.. trying, but not succeeding. I completed the map, but didn’t score highly enough to get gold.
Earning a Gold Badge, and thereby getting the Flurry achievement was one of the objectives of Valve’s latest sale and competition: The Great Gift Pile.. collecting coal and winning prizes, with the chance to win everything on Steam via the Epic Holiday Giveaway on the 2nd Jan. Everything on Steam.. wow.. I really wouldn’t have enough time!
Last week, I acquired Empire Earth: Gold Edition via GOG.com.. Empire Earth and expansion The Art of Conquest were being given away to anyone who came to the Good Old Games site! Empire Earth is a real-time strategy by Stainless Steel Studios, said to be somewhat like my beloved Age of Empires, but going from the Stone Age all the way to the Space Age. Looking forward to this one..
I previously noted that I’d won a copy of EA’s Alice: Madness Returns for the 360, through DR Gaming‘s 12 Days of Christmas giveaway on Facebook.. the game arrived this week, and better still, it came with a bonus Xbox LIVE code for the original American McGee’s Alice! I remember playing the PC version of this game during my first Christmas together with Tim, on his recommendation 😉
Via a GameSpot UK competition, I won a Cyborg RAT 9 gaming mouse and “gaming surface” aka mousemat 😉
I’ve handed my address over and now await the postman! Great timing too.. my mouse has been failing intermittently for a while now! I also won a copy of Orcs Must Die! for Tim, through Day 2 of Splitkick.com’s Holiday Giveaway 2011. Note: I’m not keeping track of the number of competitions I haven’t won 😉
Yet other new games have arrived thanks to the Humble Indie Bundle.. the contents of Bundle #3 have been added as bonus gifts for those who paid over the average! This bundle contained Crayon Physics Deluxe, which I got from the Humble Introversion Bundle, and Lazy 8 Studios’ Cogs, which a friend gave me earlier in the year, as well as VVVVVV, Hammerfight and And Yet It Moves.
VVVVVV is a 2d platformer by Terry Cavanagh, with an interesting gravity-switching mechanic which you use to travel and avoid hazards. I’m hopeful that this doesn’t require too much flailing at the keyboard to manage, otherwise I’ll find it more frustrating than fun. Hammerfight, by Kranx Productions, is an aerial combat game where you control airships outfitted with hammers and swords!
The final game of the list is Broken Rules’ And Yet It Moves. It isn’t a horror game, as I first thought when I heard the title, but a 2d puzzle where you control the orientation of the game environment as well as the player character. This is the game I’m looking forward to most out of the three as I expect the puzzles to be quite fun!