PC Game

Call of Duty 4 (9/10)

Jack — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 23:07:00 GMT

I got a new video card, an 8800GT based XFX card overclocked to 670mhz. It's a pretty great card, especially for the money, and it runs COD4 like crazy. Even with pretty high detail, it seems to be able to sustain 60+ FPS easily, usually more like 90.

That's also really what makes COD4 impressive in my eyes. I've been playing Crysis as well, and my machine struggles with it. COD4 is not the graphical masterpiece Crysis is, nor is it nearly as open ended, but it's still very nice graphically, and it plays FAST. The COD4 engine might be a step or two behind Crysis in terms of features, but it seems a step or two ahead in terms of efficiency.

The single player game in COD4 is solid. The story is surprisingly depressing and casualty laden, but there are some pretty good moments. Flying as a gunner in a Specter gunship looked just like all the YouTube videos of gun camera footage, I was totally blown away how well the engine rendered it, and made it feel like the real thing looks. The missions in Chernobyl were impressively atmospheric, and show how S.T.A.L.K.E.R should have looked, but didn't.

In general the missions are challenging, but not too hard, a bit cartoonish on the volume of killing going on, but effective overall. There're enough different features worked in, from wounded enemies limping, or falling and pulling their pistol, that there will definitely be moments that seem very cinematic, which I think has been a goal of the COD series all along.

Given the briefness of the single player campaign, and the obvious efforts put into the multiplayer, I tend to think this was their ultimate focus for the game. And multiplayer is tough for me to rate.

On one hand, there's a very rich set of options there. As you play you gain rank and experience and unlock new weapons, weapon upgrades, and personal upgrades called “perks.” Tons of different weapon models and skins are on display, all nicely done. There are a bunch of different mission types, the usual team deathmatch, plant and defuse bombs, hold map positions, etc. etc. There are different realism levels from “hardcore” where you have only iron sights to aim with, and single shots usually kill you, to a more cartoonish version where leaping around spraying with SMGs works far, far too well.

On the other hand, I find it to be totally frustrating to play, and in the end, very unrewarding. At some point I may have to accept that I'm getting too old and slow, or something along those lines, but I tended to just get beat up in this game. I just don't find any of the modes particularly fun. They're either too hectic and pointless, or too drawn out and slow. I guess I've never really been a twitch player, I've always gotten by on maneuvering and situational awareness, not on being fast with the mouse. I was able to use that skillset to dominate the Battlefield games, but in COD4, I'm a perpetual victim.

In the hectic game modes, COD4 seems to have some sort of rolling spawn system so that you're generally spawning surrounded by friendlies. This is nice, in that you rarely get spawn camped, but ultimately I don't think it works, since it means that the enemy can be coming from anywhere, and you can never really flank them. I've never been shot in the back so many times as I was in this game, and it's really not a case of making mistakes, the enemy simply is appearing behind you. I applaud the developers for trying to find a way to get rid of spawn camping, but if the cost is a game with no tactical logic to it, no meaning to maneuvering, it's a cost not worth paying.

All in all, I found the multiplayer to just be totally wrong in some way I have to ultimately blame on myself. I'm not arrogant or liberal enough to pretend the whole world is wrong except for me, but this game sure did feel that way. I certainly missed my fair share of shots, and cursed my clumsy aim, but a LOT more often than that, I found myself wonder what in holy hell I could do better to get myself the kill.

Ultimately the multiplayer component of this game is like Counterstrike++. It's got even more potential for greatness, and yet it's even EVEN more infuriatingly inexplicable. It's an endless parade of getting the jump on a guy, laying into him, and having him somehow turn around and kill you. It's a constant festival of grenades being thrown blind and smoking you. The game includes a killcam to show you what the other guy saw as he took you out, and I was endlessly amazed by how little they were doing, how poor their aim was, how often they were just guessing with their grenades, and yet beating me out pretty consistently.

On a few servers I also got the strong impression that people were cheating. Their killcam footage showed ultra-precise aiming, even while hopping, and never making any use of the weapon's sights, which the game generally requires for accurate aim. COD4 uses Punkbuster for cheat prevention, which appears to be an industry standard, but given that I had to jump through hoops to get it installed, and I've had trouble with it in the past, I tend to think it's a piece of crap that doesn't work.

The multiplayer maps are a mixed bag. Some are pretty good, some are utterly terrible. All are a bit too small, and artificially boxed in. By and large, I'd consider the map design in multiplayer to be a definite weak spot.

All in all, COD4 is a very nice engine with a lot of nice content. The multiplayer experience so totally soured me to the game that I find it hard to be as positive as I should for this review, because the game is very good at its core.

Gears of War (8/10)

Jack — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 21:49:00 GMT

I struggled with this game initially, because I couldn't accept that I had to play it on the lowest difficulty setting. After getting over that mental block, I had a lot of fun with it.

Gears of War is a third person shooter that ends up playing a lot like a first person shooter, but with the benefits of getting to see your character run around the world in all his beefy glory. With so many shooters on the market, so many attempts at new gameplay ideas, it's hard to come up with much new that's worth having. Gears of War manages to streamline and make good on a mechanic that other games have tried to varying degrees, and add a few wrinkles of its own.

At the core of GoW is the cover mechanic. Your character will lean against doorframes, crouch behind low walls, and lean in and out of these cover elements in a relatively seamless and intuitive fashion. There are certainly moments where this can go wrong, and you find yourself sticking to something you didn't intend to, or failing to take cover when you'd want to, but for the most part it works well. It creates a sense of tactical movement, and indeed forces the player to use cover, to move tactically, to suppress the enemy, and not to just run around blasting at things. When this mechanic works, it really works, and all the fun, memorable sections of this game revolve around it.

Another nice touch is the rapid reload mechanic. A little timing bar appears under your weapon on your HUD as you reload, and if you hit your reload button at the right time, you can reload faster, or even gain a damage bonus. Hit it at the wrong time, and your character will fumble the reload, taking even longer, and cursing his failure. It's not hard to get used to, but it adds another element to gunfights, creates another point of rythym, so that when a player is on top of things and in control, they feel the reloads, and when they're out of sorts and hurried, they lose it.

Graphics are also very good, both technically and artistically. The big beefy character models are great, and the cartoony facial animations are effective and interesting. The world is very detailed and immersive. My system felt a bit overtaxed at times, but I made no effort to tune the settings to get better performance. It was a bit choppy, but not unplayable. The game really looks great, and feels solid and gritty. I was particularly impressed by the bouncing, chaotic feel produced as your character races forward with his head down, avoiding fire. It's a cleverly realistic simulation of the tunnel vision one experiences in such a situation.

The weapons are good, although perhaps a bit feeble, as it often requires extended assault rifle bursts to down even basic enemies, although blind firing around cover, or letting loose from the hip can be bloody and fun. The Torque Bow is also particularly fun to use.

All the good news aside, GoW does have a few issues which keep it from being perfect.

One is that it leans too heavily on the “babysit the AI” mechanic that squad based games suffer from. Your squadmates are fairly useless, and fairly brainless, often running into situations that get them killed quickly. This is less of an issue on lower difficulty settings, where they're also less vital to your success, but it's still an annoyance. They never actually die, but they will lay there and moan at you until you come over to help them. In a game that's generally top notch, they're awfully brainless.

Another issue is the occasional gimmick fights that are frustrating to deal with, and generally add nothing to the gameplay. The fights with the blind Berserker enemies are a particularly good example. Periodically the run and gun gameplay will be interrupted by a scene in which a Berseker shows up, a monster you can't kill with your normal weapons, and you have to somehow fool it into a special tricky way of getting killed. The trick is obvious immediately, but getting it pulled off is incredibly tiresome, especially with your squadmate randomly letting the Berseker kill him (this is one way your squadmate can actually die).

The biggest issue is the difficulty settings. There are only three levels, Casual, Hardcore and Insane. Initially Hardcore is very doable, but rapidly becomes pointlessly difficult. Casual is generally too easy, but at times challenging, particularly later in the game. A big part of this game is to play in co-op mode with another player. This explains why the Hardcore and Insane levels are there. With another human, instead of the extremely lackluster AI, Hardcore would be very doable, and (I presume) Insane as well. But, considering that the difficulty settings seem to mainly effect damage taken and damage dealt, there's really no reason for not having a finer level of tuning, certainly something between Casual and Hardcore.

All in all GoW is a great game, one that sets new trends and creates new ideas in the genre. Its issues are comparatively minor, but so unnecessary and easily avoided that they really stuck out for me.

Portal (10/10)

Jack — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 01:36:00 GMT

Portal is a puzzle game built on the Source engine, and sharing a lot of the look and feel of the Half-Life 2 games. It's a bit short of play time and content to be a true standalone game, but what it has is so perfect it outshines many full featured games.

Basically what Portal boils down to is a puzzle game with a backstory and sense of humor. It's probably best not to give too much away, as the humor and fun of the game depend on experiencing it with a mostly open mind.

All of that translates to a pretty brief, pretty useless review, but if you weren't planning on play Portal, then this will be the most useful review you've read in a while: Play it. Seriously. It's a quick game to get through, but not nearly as quick as it initially seems. It's funny, it's fun, it's got great puzzles that make you think and then make you feel good about the answer when you solve them.

Quake Wars: Enemy Territory (6/10)

Jack — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 22:33:00 GMT

Quake Wars is a Battlefield style FPS based on the Quake series of games. It pits the human GDF faction against the alient Strogg, and features the same objective based gameplay, assault, medic, engineer and sniper classes most games of this genre include.

Where it begins to differ is in the nature of the missions and in the scoring system. Battlefield games have a very straightforward mission system (capture objectives), and very straightforward scoring system (killing people is the quickest way to get points). QW:ET places less emphasis on killing enemies, and more on completing objectives. At any given time, each class will have a mission it can accomplish, one of which is central to advancing the progression of the current map. There's an attacker and defender, and generally three steps to completing the mission.

The mission system seems interesting at first, but it's difficult to figure out in the heat of battle, which leads to a slower learning curve than the Battlefield games. It's also probably not worth all the complication, as the missions tend to blur together, and ultimately boil down to the same basic concept: control a piece of ground for long enough and you win.

Personal weapons are good but nothing exceptional. They seem well balanced, have a decently solid feel, and fulfil a range of roles. There are also various bigger weapons that are part of the map, such as constructable anti-infatry and anti-tank turrets, and huge artillery rocket attacks with corresponding defenses that can be built to stop them. It's interesting, but again, tough to figure out for a first time player.

The graphics engine is excellent, rendering extremely long view distances with smooth frame rates, and is by far the most impressive part of the game.

Playing this game gave me a newfound respect for the Battlefield series. As solid and technically competent as QW:ET is, there's just something fake and tinny about the gameplay. The weapons almost seem too accurate, while players are able to run and leap around too quickly. It's too frantic and twitchy up close, and too easy to hit from afar. I realize now how well tuned the Battlefield games are, where movement rates don't feel too slow, yet enemies don't seem to be flying around at exaggerated speeds.

Ultimately I was impressed with aspects of this game. It seems more tactically deep than the Battlefield games, and the graphics engine is definitely superior. However, the complexity of the game seems unncessary and is more of an impediment to involving new players. Above all, there's something about the game that just feels wrong, too much like the arcade style of Quake III, and less like the tactical FPS games it's following.

Game review two pack...

Jack — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 00:33:00 GMT

My hatred for Madden 08 reminded me that I need to review BioShock and Half Life 2: Episode 2.

BioShock (9/10): I loved System Shock, I loved System Shock 2, and I loved BioShock. They're basically all the same game, but they're all still fun. You show up in some strange environment where shit's gone totally wrong and there's monsters and gun turrets and all manner of evil going on, and you have to shoot your way through it, horde ammo and weapons, upgrade yourself, and use special abilities to get through the game.

BioShock takes place in the undersea city of Rapture, which has an art deco theme, and is very heavily based on Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. So, when Ayn Rand's ideals are taken to their logical conclusion, you end up with a burned out city full of gene-modified psychopaths. I could point out, again, how every single facet of popular media is permeated with liberal messages, but I'll save that for my review of Shooter.

So, anyway, what the game ultimately amounts to is a series of inerestingly designed levels that end up being combat puzzles for you to explore with your various weapons. Throughout the level there are “Little Sisters” escorted by “Big Daddies” which you need to kill to power yourself up. Attacking these guys can be tough, and demands you set up traps, or use your arsenal in creative ways to take them out.

The graphics are good, although game ran a bit spotty in frame rate on my machine, so it's pretty demanding. I've got a pair of 7900GTX cards, not the top of the line, but respectable.

The weapons are fun to use, with lots of creative options, but some, particularly the submachine gun, feel a bit fake and powerless.

All in all, it's a great game with a lot of interesting concepts, a really immersive atmosphere, an engaging storyline, and some fun combat mechanics.

Half-Life 2: Episode 2 (7/10): The Source engine is really fantastic, so any game built on it is going to have a head start. It looks amazing, yet plays fast and smooth, which is very big for me. After the jaggy frame rates I was seeing in BioShock, it felt great to be able to run and gun and really see what was going on, pull off amazing shots, etc. etc. Unfortunately, there's not as much shooting as I'd really like to see in Episode 2. The franchise seems to be getting increasingly cinematic, with more and more set pieces, in game conversations between NPCs, etc. etc. A lot of this is what Half Life is based on, and the facial animations in game are so realistic and lifelike, I can see why the developers want to exercise it, but I just wish they had more solo shooting action.

I like to go against a whole warehouse full of Combine soldiers, to set up my attack, to use my weapons effectively, and to play a straightforward solo shooter. I don't need the whole game to be this way, but I'd like I'd like to see more of it than Episode 2 offered.

Instead of getting that, a lot of times you're running around with Alyx, or a Vortigaunt, and you're bantering back and forth and shooting badguys together. These NPCs do ok for themselves, they don't seem to be killable, but they do have a habit of blocking you during gunfights, or messing up your attempts at stealth. I don't mind Alyx around for some fights, but I'd rather the great majority of the fighting was done solo.

There's more of the “drive through the countryside and come upon settlements” gameplay that was so fun in Half Life 2, but it seems like a lot of work by the developers for not much payoff. I'd like to see the little sub-areas have a bit more going on, more Combine soldiers, etc.

All in all it's a fun game with some good shootouts (though not enough), some neat and inventive battles (the final one in particular is pretty unique), all built on an engine that delivers stunning visuals and wonderfully smooth gameplay.

Madden 08...

Jack — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 00:08:00 GMT

The link: http://www.vicegrip.net/blog/archive/2005/09/11/1045.aspx

I used to just uninstall games that pissed me off, but I've found that eventually I'll forget how much they pissed me off, and all that will be left is my competitive streak, and the need to beat them. So I reinstall them, and because they're fundamentally shitty games, they piss me off again. My new policy is to actually destroy the media that the game came on, so I can't possibly play it again. Madden 08 is now in two pieces in my garbage can.

I thought Madden 08 was better than Madden used to be. As it turns out, the only thing that got better was me. I got so good at playing the game, I could overcome all the miserable bullshit it pretends is a football simulation, and I mistook that for it having actually improved. It hasn't. It hasn't at all.

I had gotten to the point where I could just destroy the computer at All-Pro level, so I decided to try it at All-Madden level. This was a mistake.

Now, I can't be certain, maybe I'm wrong, but Madden seems to have some sort of fucked up “catch up mechanism” built in. As soon as you take the lead, the whole game starts conspiring to fuck you out in ways that defy logic. I can't be certain. I don't have the code in front of me. But I've seen it happen so many times, with such totally obvious fuckery, I can't believe it's not a deliberatly programmed system.

The events that precipitated the destruction of my Madden 08 DVD are as follows:

I tried to play a season as the Patriots. It took me three tries to beat the Jets. The first two games were full of bizzare completions into triple coverage on 3rd and long, kickoffs broken for touchdowns, and other such bullshit, until I suddenly win the third game 34-17. Did I suddenly get great at the game, or is there some sort of dipshit “momentum“ system behind the scenes?

Then came the Chargers. After about five tries again full of insane coincidences that favored the Chargers, in my sixth attempt, I was playing a flawless game. I was finally feeling glad about how frustrating the game was, because I was playing great, and was about to overcome it. I was going to be paid off for my perserverence.

I score a touchdown at the start of the 4th quarter to go up by 10, and I kick off. Apparently 10 points is where Madden turns on the bullshit. The Chargers runback guy proceeds to shed, LITERALLY, about 5 tackles to run the kick back. This already is madness. My players never shed more than one tackle. Even the way the game grossly favors the computer on All-Madden, it never does this. But the game had decided I needed to lose, and it was going to see to it.

So, whatever, still up 3. Get the ball back, and start marching down the field. It's a picture perfect drive, I'm doing everything right. With about 40 yards to go, Wes Welker comes wide open on a slant route, and I throw at him. He's got about three steps on the defender. As soon as I throw the pass, he slows up. The safety speeds up, runs under the pass and picks it. I've never seen this before. Receivers don't just pull up on routes in this game, but when I'm winning in All-Madden mode, apparently there are new rules.

So I'm on defense, where I play as Adelius Thomas. We go through about 40 yards of Ladanian Tomlinson being completely impossible to tackle before I have an amazing set of downs, tackling Tomlinson for a loss, swatting down a pass, then hitting Rivers as he throws to force an interception. The intercepting player immediately fumbles. I challenge it and overturn it. That's one fumble overturned.

The very next play I give the ball to Maroney, and run him up the middle. He fumbles. It's after the 2:00 minute warning, the booth reviews, and it's overturned. Another fumble overturned.

I'm trying to run clock, so I keep running, but now I'm not allowed to get anywhere. So it's 3rd and 8, and Randy Moss comes open on a cross. I hit him, he takes two steps gets hit, fumbles. That's the third fumble in about six plays. This time the booth doesn't review, and I have to defend my 3 point lead. It's not raining or anything. The game is just making my players fumble until it gets the ball back. I don't care if the defense is trying to strip the ball. Three fumbles in six plays? When has that EVER happened?

After a few short passes that my defense refuses to cover, Rivers throws deep into triple coverage and completes it. Of course. And the receiver sheds a couple tackles before being dragged down at the 5. So now I have to come up with some ridiculous shit to stop a TD. And of course, I do. I sack Rivers, I stop Tomlinson on the 3, and then I swat down a pass into the end zone. Adelius Thomas is the only person playing defense, the game has literally turned my team off to make the Chargers win. But I hold them to a field goal single handed, and the game is tied. Even now, after the sheer insanity, the obviousness of the cheating the game has to do to keep the score close, I'm still thinking I will win because I'm playing so well.

Thomas has to have a dozen tackles at this point, a bunch for a loss, at least two sacks, four passes batted down, I'm just controlling the field on defense with him.

I go on offense with about a minute to play, and I start passing. Nobody on my team can catch, but I manage to get to about midfield. There's three seconds on the clock, so I send Moss deep and chuck it at him. He's in single coverage. And, of course, it's picked. When Rivers throws into triple coverage at one of the mediocre fucks that the Chargers have at wideout, it's complete. When I throw at Randy Moss in single coverage, it's pick. Neat. So, Moss attempts to tackle the DB. Fails. The DB takes the ball from the 10 yard line, all the way down the field. My offensive linemen just sorta stand there and let him run by. I'm staring in disbelief that my players don't even try to make a tackle. I'm still controlling Brady, so I run to tackle him and catch him around the 10. I execute a perfect tackle, he runs right through it.

Touchdown, game over, I lose.

Out come the scissors.

What the fuck is this? Who thinks that's fun?

In the real world, New England won that game 38-14.

Why can't the assholes get difficulty right? All-Pro is so easy to beat, it's ridiculous. All-Madden won't allow you to win. And it does it with bizzare made up shit that doesn't even look like a football team winning a game.

I play BioShock, I enjoy myself thoroughly. I play Half-Life 2: Episode 2 and I enjoy myself thoroughly. I'm not impossible to please. Write a game that's not a total piece of shit, and I'll enjoy it.

Tomb Raider: Anniversary (4/10)

Jack — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 20:50:00 GMT

The link: http://www.gamespot.com/pc/adventure/tombraider10thanniversaryedition/review.html?sid=6172223

I put a lot of faith in GameSpot's reviews. If they give a game an 8+, it's worth playing. For some reason, we're out of sync with Tomb Raider: Anniversary. One of their pros for the game really sticks out for me: “Acrobatic action adventure gameplay is challenging without being frustrating.”

Really?

Early on, I'd have to agree with them. For a while the game is very playable, and nothing too insanely hard comes along. Later in the game, though, the above quote is as inapplicable as it can possibly be. Perhaps I stayed up too late and tried to make things happen on sluggish reflexes, but there is a sequence of checkpoints late in the game that set new standards for frustration and reloading. In “The Great Pyramid” there is a section in which you have to ascend up a vertical shaft. You're attacked by flying monsters and have to complete various timed acrobatic sequences, and I found it totally unplayable. I must have died and reloaded a hundred times getting through four checkpoints. Literally, no joke, a hundred times. If that's not “frustrating” I don't know what is.

The problem with that sequence is that it really accented two of the major weaknesses of the game. One is the way the camera is used as a club. The other is the rather lackluster combat system.

I've played a lot of Prince of Persia, and it's definitely not without its own frustrations. That said, I still really enjoyed the Prince of Persia series, much moreso than Tomb Raider. Both games have very interesting, imaginative settings and levels and excellent graphics. In many respects the graphics in Tomb Raider are superior to those of Prince of Persia, but at the end of the day games like these are about playability and control, and this is where Tomb Raider really suffers.

The camera system is incredibly frustrating. Like PoP, TR requires you to take a certain amount of control over your own third person camera. Unlike PoP, which always orients the controls to the Prince, TR seems to base the direction Lara moves on the position of the camera. The exact details are fuzzy, but I ran into countless problems with TR that never cropped up in PoP. Wall running in TR is the biggest example of this. When hanging by a grapple line, Lara can run along a wall, penduluming back and forth. When she releases the grapple she jump directly away from the wall, or can keep running along it. Which of these she does depends on the direction the controller is pointed as well as the location of the camera. Since Lara is swinging back and forth, the camera is swinging with her, changing it's position relative to her, and thus the effect of a given controller input. No matter how many times I suffered through this situation, I never was able to consistently assure that she'd jump out, or keep going as I'd want her to. When you just finally got through a tough set of obstacles, only to lose your progress to this ridiculous issue, it gets very, very tiresome.

I'm not certain that my understanding of the control dynamics of these two games is totally accurate, but I do feel that the system used in TR is flawed and clearly inferior to that of PoP. In PoP, when I jumped the wrong way it was because I was too slow, too fast, or too frazzled, and I knew I was off. In TR I routinely found myself giving exactly the input that seemed correct, exactly when seemed correct, and not getting a consistent or understandable result. Thats VERY frustrating.

The other big issue is combat. While the “adrenaline dodge” system is a nice touch and can be very fun to pull off, it's very derivative of PoP's quick kill system, not as refined, and it's the only wrinkle in the entire system. PoP fighting is full of combos, special moves, environmental tricks and other elements that add flair, fun and tactical elaboration to combat. By comparison, TR is just “lock on and mash the shoot button.” And, of course, the camera problems. Just as the camera frustrates the acrobatic section of the game, it also makes locking onto monsters a pain Get too close to a wall, and the camera will refuse to move to allow you to see a monster. Flying monsters overhead are virtually impossible to get a lock on at times, especially when they're dropping fireballs on you. The end result is looking at a monster that's trying to kill you, frantically mashing the lock on button, and wondering what the hell you have to do to get Lara to listen.

There's certainly a lot to admire about Tomb Raider: Anniversary, but unfortunately it's all the secondary stuff that doesn't really make the game. The level design is creative and pretty to look at, but at any given moment you're usually focused a very small area of it, struggling to get Lara to do what you want her to. The graphics are very nice with HDR lighting, motion blur, and some very nicely rendered cutscenes. The animators managed to squeeze some real emotion out of Lara's face, and made her pretty, likeable and alive. The interactive cutscenes are a nice touch. It's also very fun to look at the side by side shots of the original Tomb Raider next to the new game (which is based on the levels of the first game).

Tomb Raider invented the third person action genre ten years ago, but it's since lost the lead to other more competent games.

Rainbow Six: Vegas (6/10)

Jack — Thu, 28 Dec 2006 02:29:00 GMT

As I said in my review of Rainbow Six: Lockdown, I buy every one of these games, despite not being a fan. The most recent installment is a big improvement, though still rife with flaws and frustrations.

The major improvement this game brings to the series is the ability to use cover. By holding the right mouse button you can lean against a wall, crate, etc and stick to it, using it as cover, going into a third person view, and leaning out or going over the top to fire. It's a very intuitive system, and it gives a feel of tactical movement as you sweep through buildings. The enemies use the same system, and it adds to the realism of the game overall. A very nice system.

The squad AI is also better than in the past, though nothing special. The bugs of Lockdown are gone, no more AI accidentally fragging itself, wandering off, etc. Generally they will use cover pretty well, follow your orders, and effectively clear rooms. The door stacking commands are intuitive and easy, though at times there can be issues with overloading of keys. For example, the Q key exits the “snake cam” mode for looking under doors, and it also throws grenades. That leads to exiting snake cam, and promptly tossing a grenade into a closed door. The Spacebar issues a stack up command for a door, but it also opens it if you're closer, so at times you'll go to trigger a two pronged attack from two seperate doors, and as you attempt to open your door, you issue a stack up order and the team comes over to your door. All in all, though, they do what you tell them, and if they get killed, it's because you told them to do something bad.

You and your teammates also are much hardier than previous versions of the game. Now, if you're hit, your vision goes blurry for a few seconds, and if you get into cover, you will eventually “heal” up. Similarly, if your teammates are badly injured, they will lay there waiting for you, or the other teammate, to give them a magical injection which brings them back to life. It's nice that they're so easy to bring back, it makes you more willing to use them, but it also leads to some rather ridiculous goings on. Since they (and you) get shot so much in combat, gunfights end up sounding like strange violent porno films for all the grunting and moaning.

All that aside, there are still plenty of situations where the tactical engine really shines. You'll snake cam under a door, designate a terrorist for your mates to kill, launch a simultaneous entry from two different doors, and in a few seconds, the room will be clear without a return shot fired.

Speaking of engines, the graphics engine is a bit of a mystery. It's as if they deliberately ran some sort of “fuck the colors up” filter on it. While capable of looking very at points, the game spends most of its time being all muddy, washed out, dark, or otherwise hard to look at. Enemies can be very hard to see, and while this may be realistic, it seems exaggerated at times. I'd be tempted to think it was my monitor or video cards it's so bad, but since so many other games run and look fine, it has to be inentional.

While the colors are pretty poor, the animation and modelling are pretty top notch. There's a huge variety of moves that the main character and his teammates can do, leaning in and out of cover, breaching a door, rapelling, etc. etc. The reload animations for the guns are custumized to the weapon type, so you'll see your mate flip open the top of his M249 to load in a new belt... The main character can be seen speaking his commands when you issue them while in a third person view, and in that view you can see him looking around to mirror your mouse movements. Lots of nice touches that make jumping in and out of cover seem more realistic and dynamic.

Towards the end of the game, things get significantly more difficult, and much more dependant on poorly playtested set pieces. One, in particular, involves hacking a computer to prevent the villain's escape, and is keyed off killing all the terrorists in a given area. The problem is that you may kill a bunch, and one may just cower somewhere out of sight, and not show himself. Your teammate can sit there forever trying to hack the computer, but it's not about how fast he hacks, it's about killing all the terrorists to cue the next scripted event. You can't go looking for him, because you'll fail the mission. And the mission failure message isn't at all helpful. You have to keep redoing the mission until, somehow, it just works. Frustrating and highly disruptive to immersion.

A score of 6 means I was glad I played the game, but not by much. While this game is significantly better than Lockdown in terms of gameplay, it's really a step back graphically (or perhaps sideways thanks to the great animations), it suffers from some issues with the level design late in the game, the plot is pretty much worthless, and it's almost a year later, and thus a year harder to impress.

{UN} players.light

Jack — Mon, 25 Dec 2006 02:09:00 GMT

DICE, let me introduce you to a lad by the name of “{UN} players.light.” He's a plucky chap, and a tremendous fan of the Recon kit. He's also singlehandedly demonstrating how masterfully horrible the APM mine is.

Nothing in Battlefield 2142 pisses me off more than the APM mine. I have made this abundantly clear in previous posts. But, like all “broken” elements of a game system, it's only a matter of time before people realize how to abuse them. Enter {UN} players.light. He's a relatively competent player, capable of moving and shooting on a level that escapes most people in the game, but he's really nothing special.

Despite this, he manages to rack up solid kill totals via the use of the APM mine. I ran into this dude numerous times, and pretty much every time I saw him, he had a mine out and chucked it down. I would then gun him down, and then as I tried to head off to the battle, the mine would kill me. Or, once I got wise to him, it would kill the guy that came after me.

This guy's tactic basically amounted to running into the area of the densest fighting, chucking down a mine or two, then dying. Of about 8000 kills this guy has, over 1000 are with the mine. 45% of his dropped mines kill somebody.

I know you guys are too arrogant to nerf the mine. You got it right the first time out, by gum! But if you suddenly have an epiphany, and realize that the game is about movement, squad tactics, accurate shooting, and is a simulation of vaguely realistic combat, you'd no doubt feel incredibly stupid about how much the APM mine is abused, and in what a ridiculous fashion. The fix is very simple: The mine requires 3 seconds to plant, and you must remain stationary. As it stands, you can run and leap around like a crack-addled snowshoe hare, and still deploy mines all you want (and {UN} players.light is more than happy to demonstrate this). This is retarded. You deploy the mine, you become stationary for 3 seconds, then it plops down. Do that, and you can leave all the other ridiculous, game-breaking properties, like the massive range, the total lethality, etc.

Seriously, guys. Play your own game long enough to notice how it works.

More BF2142...

Jack — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 01:52:00 GMT

Fall of Berlin is an awful map: It used to be my favorite, but people have gotten it figured out to the point that the PAC side, if they're the worse team, will pretty much get trapped in their spawn area and shat on all game. It's one thing to have a bad team. I can tolerate that simply by avoiding them, and fighting on the fringe of their zergish idiocy. On Fall of Berlin, this is impossible. There's literally nowhere you can go that isn't getting spammed by grenades, by APC mortar fire, by a walker, by small arms. You can't escape your own spawn. It's ridiculous. Fix the PAC spawn area by opening it up and adding some other ways out.

APM mines continue to ruin the game: These things are so overpowered, and so easy to use, that people have gotten to the point that they'll just run up to enemies and chuck down a mine. Doesn't matter if they die, the mine will arm, the enemy will get blown up. People just toss them all around and get kills without any planning at all. Reduce their range. If their owner is dead and they're not armed yet, they should vanish. If their owner is dead for more than 10 seconds, they should vanish.

Anti-vehicle mines also ruin the game: Not as bad as anti-personnel mines, but bad. They will actually pursue a vehicle and blow it up, generally faster than the vehicle can move. Either reduce their detection range, or make them slower. We don't need to include mines in the game to make no talent hacks feel involved. Let them figure out they blow, and go play something else.

Artillery ruins the game: This was true in BF2, and it's true again in BF2142. It's not totally horrible, I understand that DICE wanted to have something for the commander to do, but it's just annoying. It's not hard to EMP strike a walker, then hit it with artillery. It's not hard to scan the field and spam artillery at the biggest cluster of red dots. It's not hard to see a flag go neutral and spam artillery at it. In the meantime, artillery throws up all sorts of dust and dirt, and makes shooting impossible, even if you're not near it. In this respect, even your own artillery is extremely annoying, as it often blocks your line of sight to the enemies it's trying to hit. This is a first person shooter. If it doesn't involve spotting an enemy and placing accurate fire on target, then it should have a minimal presence in the game. That goes for mines, for artillery, for sentry guns, etc. Sentry guns are fine. They get me from time to time, but they're easily taken out if you're careful. Reduce the duration on artillery strikes, and decrease the recycle rate.

Please, PLEASE don't get in my vehicle: I can't stress this strongly enough. Don't see me jumping into a jeep or tank and beg me to give you a ride. I can both drive a jeep and operate the gun far better than you can just operate the gun. I am infintely sick of driving my jeep up to a cluster of unaware enemy, and then sitting there mashing the F2 button, wishing I could switch to the gun and maul them, while my gunner checks to make sure there aren't an badguys where we just came from. In tanks, the anti-aircraft gun is what I use to kill the squadmates of the guy I just nailed with the main gun. They took away my coaxial machine gun, so now I need the top turret too. When you're up there, doing a little stargazing, I can't use the gun for actual killing relted tasks. I can literally do three things at once better than you can do one. That's why I'm 28-7 and you're 10-14. Go stagger around and give the enemy something to shoot at, so I can flank them. That's what you're there for. Just remove the E key from your keyboard. You won't need it.

The correct unlock sequence: Grenades, Sprintcor, Staminar, Defib, Advanced Med Hub. From there, either finish off and get the Voss (it's a better all around weapon than the Baur), or go for the Rockets. The Baur is worth having for wider open maps (like the ridiculous Fall of Berlin). Assault is the class. All others are situational.