Seeking Potatoes – Defense Grid and Killing Floor

Defense Grid: The Awakening has a “Portal” Level.. the Aperture Science Center for Human Annihilation Studies!  With two different core locations, this was a rather hard level.. the aliens very quickly took all the cores from my first base, then swarmed the second with a flood of tiny aliens which I was unable to stop.

My second attempt failed as I was beaten by the Crasher alien on the last wave..  in the end I took a friend’s advice and sold the towers which only overlooked the first, dead, run, so I could afford upgrades for the towers on the flat area.

After beating this level, I joined the guys for some Killing Floor.

We were killed off quickly in our first attempts, and I felt like I wasn’t helping at all, having not checked it out on single-player first.  Areas out in the open seemed the worst, with zombies coming from anywhere, though in the enclosed areas they had the cover of darkness.

I started out with the Commando class, as it was recommended as the easiest all-rounder, but noticed that I was filling the xp bar for the Sharpshooter class mostly, so switched class.  We turned the difficulty down, in the belief that the difficulty scales with the number of people playing, and after that things were a lot better.

As this is part of the Potato Sack Pack it has a slight modification adding GLaDOS to the game as the trader, with a few choice comments here and there 🙂

My first visits to the shop were a hurried glance at the screen before the timer ran out, so it took a few visits before I’d seen enough of the interface to know what I was doing and to start trying out new weapons.  I should possibly be banned from the grenade launchers in this game as I managed to blow myself up twice..  I also tried out the crossbow.. I loved it when the enemies were at range, but once the zombies were in the room with me it was just too slow.

It was fast enough to take out the Patriarch in the second of our full games though.. very lucky as I was the last alive and had only 3 health! 🙂

EscapeCraft 2

A friend of mine has been messing around with various fan-made adventure mods within Minecraft lately, one of which was EscapeCraft 2.

I have to admit that I wasn’t hugely interested in the mods, expecting them to be a series of jumping exercises which would frustrate me more than anything else, but after enough prodding I thought I should at least give it a go..

The game starts with a few instructions.. not to punch any blocks other than dirt, and to use Peaceful and Easy modes to prevent or allow mob spawning as puzzles require them.  Of course you could ignore these and punch straight through the walls, but that would defeat the purpose of playing a puzzle game 😉

After receiving your instructions, you drop into the starting room – the scenario is that you’ve just awoken and are in some kind of testing facility.

In the next room, I was reminded of Portal’s Companion Cube, as I was asked to pull a lever on the wall and kill ‘Subject 1089’..

Killing the hapless test subject opened the door to the next area.. once through, I found out that there was another way to solve the puzzle.. a hidden forge in this room contains a lever which you can use to open the door without harming any animals!

The next room involved two waterfalls and a lot of lava.. after a few burnings I made it through.  I should note that death results in the loss of items in your inventory.. this might not matter if it were random items of treasure, but if you lose an item needed to solve a puzzle, you’ll need to re-copy the world into your Minecraft folder and start over.

Following the waterfall and lava room came the obsidian and wool room.. and with the gift of gravel and iron I created fire!

The fire spread along the walls and to the roof; blocks then fell to create the stairs to the next area.  Very nicely done 🙂

After fire came water.. which had to be poured into the right place to not set off the TNT which lined the room.

Again, no mishaps.. though I was tempted to set the TNT off for the chained explosions that would have resulted 😉

Following these successful levels, some GlaDOS style notices warned me of what was to come.. other.. subjects?

Zombies joined me in the puzzle that was to follow, and I managed to get myself killed when one dropped down beside me and made me jump.. I blindly lashed out with the sword and smashed the glass floor of the maze.  Durrp.

After completing this level, I stopped the game on account of pub lunch 🙂

One conclusion though.. Minecraft mods are nowhere near the jumping-puzzle hell I expected, and the puzzles are actually quite clever..

Completing Dead Rising 2

Last time I played this game, we found ourselves slightly frustrated by the Psycho encounters which we always seemed to run into when we had Survivors in tow.  Eventually we left it with ‘Case 4-1 : The Source’ unfinished, as Amber and Crystal cut us down again and again with their katanas, forcing us to repeat a large chunk of the game.

This time, we got ourselves a better save-point and returned to give TK’s sleazy girls the beating they deserved, though not before trying out a few more crazy weapons and levelling our characters up a bit more..

There was also a repeat of “Dressing Up with The Undoer” as he found even worse clothes to wear..

Seriously.. look at that hat.. 😉

After killing the twins, we found the regular zombies were rather easy for a while, so we racked up the points playing with more custom weapons.. my favourites this time being the Defiler, made by combining the Fire Axe and Sledgehammer, and the Lightsa.. er, Laser Sword, made with a torch and gems.

In the end we screwed up slightly by not giving TK his Zombrex.. so while Katey was loaded onto the helicopter and the day was saved, Chuck Greene was not.  I think this calls for a replay, and if we can start again with levelled characters, we might be able to save a few more survivors this time. 🙂

Dead Island Announced

I checked Twitter this morning to see a few comments about an amazing trailer for Dead Island, visually and emotionally stunning, with some suggesting it might be the best trailer of the year..

Dead Island is a game being made by Techland and published by Deep Silver, and is an open-ended survival horror first-person shooter with RPG elements.. and zombies.  Zombies?  Count me interested..

I watched the trailer expecting to see hordes of zombies, some sort of survivors, maybe some guns, definitely some gore.  My initial amazement at the trailer, and the close-up of the dead zombie child, turned towards horror as I realised it was all in reverse chronological order..

(Trailer from IGN).

After watching, I felt really, really bad for the family.. but no less interested in the game!

It seems there’s quite a range of views on the trailer, with some condemning it for portraying a child’s death.. and some going as far as to say this sort of content is ‘wrong’.  I think the trailer does a great job.  You’re meant to feel the despair and horror of all those lives lost.. that little family ripped apart..

I really hate the pro-censorship types who have been parading their views around the web recently.  There are far worse things shown on the news.. things that are happening to real people.. but this lot would rather try to stamp on the games industry.  Pfft.

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..

Minecraft

After watching friends playing at i40, I was tempted to give Minecraft another go.

I wasn’t too keen on buying a game which might only add to the pile of unplayed games here..  however, if I spent a full weekend playing, then it would have covered the fairly low cost.  While I was debating whether to get it or not, Minecraft had become rather popular.. too popular for their servers, which fell over!  In a fairly brilliant move, Notch, creator of the game, decided to give Minecraft a free weekend.

Can’t argue with free.. and if the game was still interesting after playing, then it’d get a sale.

So during the free weekend, I spent rather a lot of time on a multiplayer server with friends.. after lots of messing around with the teleport command, I was exiled from the mainland and so began building my own base out of sand.
Of course, I teleported my friends away when they came to look.. the whole point of exile is that you’re on your own 😉

My base was eventually dubbed “The Kitchen”, with somebody placing a little wooden sign on an outside wall.

Multiplayer, like the rest of the game, is still a work in progress.. for instance, health hasn’t been fully implemented.  This means you can’t die, but also means you can’t kill zombies.
Damn.. just as I figured out how to create weapons too!

The server also became prone to crashes.. I don’t think it’ll be too long before an update fixes this though, as updates are frequent.

As we’ve not been able to get on the multiplayer server, I started another world at work.
Here, health is implemented, and I’ve been blown up by Creepers a good few times but also killed a good few zombies with my wooden sword 🙂

I also made a dodgy sandcastle, right next to my spawn point.  I’m building a bigger, better base, and have linked the buildings up with ‘safe’ fenced off, well-lit areas.  Monsters only spawn where it’s dark 🙂

I’m standing on what will eventually be my main building.

Yes, there are a lot of torches.  I like my light! 🙂

i40, a little bit late

This post was supposed to make an appearance one week ago, after returning from i40.
However, we still have no internet at home (it’s coming up on four weeks now), and some personal stuff too which meant I wanted to spend the week curled in a small ball, not interacting with anything.

Enough of that, though – i40!

We arrived just before the rain.. a fantastic start to a weekend where the sleeping is mostly done outside 😉

That wasn’t the end of the ‘fantastic start’, however, as we were then excluded from taking our machines in till way after 6pm because the temporary structure wasn’t ready.. and then when we were finally able to get in, there was no internet.  With no internet, there was also no Steam..

The first game played, then, was Warcraft III, as it was one of the few games available which didn’t need an internet connection or updates.

In amongst those games was a go at the “Run, Kitty, Run” map: you have to run along a spiral path to the centre, avoiding the ‘dogs’ which kill you on touch.  It gets harder as you progress, as the paths are narrower, until there’s barely room to get past.. for the first time in many, many attempts, we actually managed to get to the end, where it seems the reward for success is.. to start again with even more dogs on the paths!

I was also introduced to Beat Hazard, thanks to another friend.  This takes any music track you own and turns it into a simple space shooter, very like Geometry Wars.. and it makes very bright, pretty colours.. *gazes*

You start off with space-trash to shoot, but as the track progresses you face stronger enemies which shoot back.  Fortunately, you collect power-ups as you go, which makes your weapons a little more useful.. as well as more colourful.. and there are also power-ups which increase the volume of the track too.

It’s another ‘unblinking’ game which probably shouldn’t be played in a dark room at LAN 😉

After playing this, Audiosurf made another appearance, and with it, a little competition going on in terms of the scoreboard.

Minecraft became a slight obsession for one friend..  this is a 3D sandbox crafting game, with a variety of types of block: wood, coal, etc, and strange blocky life-forms, the most interesting being zombies!  I had a brief go at the game a while back, but after spending two day cycles building, and two night cycles hiding in my buildings from the zombies, I then found my trial of the game didn’t have zombies.. durrrp!
It was admittedly quite fun watching huge piles of TNT go up, though, especially when it resulted in framerates of 1 or 2, or crashed the PC :3

In the run-up to i40, we picked up Borderlands, thanks to another Steam offer.  Oh, Steam.. what would I do with all my money if not for you?

Borderlands has 4 player co-op, which is great as I do like playing with friends.. but I have to say that I found myself confused by the weapons, as per usual in this type of game.   Having to pick up ammo for the weapon I was using, while leaving other ammo for my team just added another layer of trouble.. if I don’t know the guns, I’m really not going to know what ammo they use.

Despite this, I love the game, though I want to complete the game in single-player so I know what I’m doing, and don’t feel like I’m holding my friends back next time.

We also got a couple of games of Dawn of War 2: Chaos Rising in.. trying out the Free-For-All mode which I really enjoyed, especially with high resources allowing me to just pump out units.  I think I’m improving on my tactics now, using the Techmarine to fit with my defensive playstyle.  FFA made a nice change, but I think co-op is still going to remain my favourite.

The last night of i40 turned into an all-nighter, with a foxy puppet, fits of giggles, a brief foray onto the rather disappointing Omegle, and later fits of shivers.. the temporary structure really wasn’t draught-proof and by 4am I was glad of fleecy blankets and two friends to hide between for warmth.  Next time I think I’ll be voting for a warmer and quieter hall, maybe in with the WoW players.. lalala 😉

LAN wouldn’t be LAN without a massive TF2 battle between CantFitMyN and Crazy/Inv, and so on the last morning we duly had our game, though there was no victory for CFMN this time.  Next time, maybe! 🙂

Ravenholm

We don’t go to Ravenholm.  Well, except for when the Combine attack, and it’s the only way out, that is..

Ravenholm is the part of the game I remembered long after my first playthrough of HL2; creepily atmospheric with plenty of scares, but also featuring some neat puzzles and traps.

There’s also the sawblade, which is lethal in the right hands 🙂

The rotor-blades are fun too..

What freaks me out, though, are the black headcrabs, or Poison Headcrab.

I know the neurotoxin they hit you with is only temporary, but there’s something about the skittering, screeching, spider-like creatures that really sets me on edge.

So what’s worse than one black headcrab?

Lots of black headcrabs, being thrown at me..

At least I’ve got guns, right? 😉

Zombies, Zombies, Everywhere!

Over this weekend I’ve killed my fair share of zombies, and completed quite a good reckoning of achievements too.

Some were the normal achievements for completing a campaign, but others were a bit more involved.

Clownd was the first I grabbed, and without really trying – I just thought the noise was funny when I melee’d the clowns 🙂
Gong show – load up on adrenaline and whack the gong (then prepare for the horde) and Stache Whacker – easiest done with a katana, were another pair from Dark Carnival.

My favourite though, had to be Guardin’ Gnome.

I don’t know how many times I went back for that damned gnome.. especially during the rollercoaster section!   The first time I did it, I made the mistake of putting him down in the helicopter, so I could help out my team mates with a bit of sniping.  They ended up incapped though, and the helicopter took off – but because I wasn’t holding the gnome it didn’t acknowledge that I’d saved him!

So yeah.. keep the gnome in your hands on the plane, and let your team mates look after themselves for that one.

After playing the demo, I had thought this game wouldn’t be as creepy or intense as the original, but actually, it is just as good a game.  The new infected add a little more risk to the old strategy of sticking closely together, and as for witches – well.. they’re not quite so easy to sneak past anymore!

Left 4 Dead 2

After Left 4 Dead, it was inevitable that I’d end up getting this one too, though I had thought about waiting for a deal somewhere.. but I ordered a couple of days back, and today it finally arrived in the office. 🙂

Now to get my hands dirty! 😀