In the late 80′s and early 90′s my favourite video game developer was the Sierra On-Line studio; makers of extraordinary adventure game series such as Leisure Suit Larry, Police Quest, and Space Quest.

Accompanying sales of its beautifully immersive and exceptionally written interactive epics were Hint Books – unattractive stapled booklets containing helpful hints for circumventing obstacles, as well as a few red herrings to discourage using the book for anything but reference.� The books were published in red and blue ink, with blue hint text obscured by red cross-hatching, made readable with an included red cellophane viewing card.

Yes, this is the biggest image I could find. :(

Sierra’s President Ken Williams was notorious for his hatred of software piracy, so in the pre-internet era these $15 books were a smart sell as they were equally desirable by owners and pirates alike, plus the rarity of colour photocopiers and scanners made the tactically-coloured text indiscernable in black and white.� The books themselves were well written and gave incrementally more direct hints for each scenario so they were a worthwhile purchase by their own merits.

Most of these games will never be published again, and the proliferation of free hint sites has made the concept of the hint book unmarketable, so this wonderful archive is probably good for little more than nostalgia.

This article was written by Brian at demodulated Original post:

Redshift headlong into yesterday

Steam had a tantalizing sale on its entire stock this past week, discounting everything from 5-80%.� I already own pretty much everything worth owning on Steam, and I wasn’t thrilled with the demo, but with Left 4 Dead discounted to $38 from its original $50 I decided to take a chance on it.� As you can see from my 2-week Steam gameplay summary, it was a sound investment.

Left 4 Dead is a well-polished, 21st century extrapolation of the old Doom co-op formula.� This is a void I’ve sorely wished to be filled ever since Doom perfected it – playing with friends and strangers co-operatively, fighting for survival while competing for excellence.� I’d given up on id Software to provide this experience since their infatuation turned from co-op to versus about midway through the Quake series, so it’s great to see the concept resurrected by Valve, an equally competent developer.

The set-up is scantly deeper than Doom or Quake; everyone in Everytown is a zombie except you and 3 buddies.� Leave town.� There are inklings of Valve’s trademark “recent history tableaux” by means of graffitied walls and hurriedly abandoned domiciles, but multiplayer games rarely afford anyone the time for thorough sightseeing.� Brilliantly, Valve anticipated this, no doubt thanks to their history of testing the bejezus out of their products, and addressed it in part by prompting the 4 protagonists to randomly make insightful and/or smarmy comments about their environment.

I played an incredibly frustrating round on the Expert difficulty level and my group and I, having made some careless and costly mistakes, were getting ornery due to our rate of failure.� I, playing as Zoey, entered a hallway with “God is dead” graffitied on the wall.� It was perhaps my tenth time through this map and this detail was nothing new to me, so it was to my great surprise when Zoey autonomously exclaimed to her group “Oh no!� The zombies killed god!”� My group (with voice chat) and I (without) laughed uproariously at this, all at the same time, and our emotional batteries were sufficiently refreshed that we could once again enjoy our thorough pummelling.

I’ll break here to bring attention to the fact that this is one of few games where I don’t only tolerate losing, I actually enjoy it.� This is a superbly balanced game where the solution is always apparent, and for the most part failing to produce this solution is a reflection of one’s ability, not familiarity.� I’m smug and smirky when I win this game, but I’m delighted when I lose whether or not it’s my fault.� Props to Valve for following Hunter S. Thompson’s advice on Vegas to “learn to enjoy losing.”

What’s responsible for this lightheartedness and continued interest is the replayability of this short, linear game.� Any one of the four scenarios has taken me anywhere from about 35 to 75 minutes to complete, and you never really know how long it will take each time even though the maps themselves are static and become more and more familiar.� This is due to the much touted and lauded “AI Director” feature which varies the density and ferocity of enemies, the placement or absence of weapons, and the overall intensity of every game.� I don’t know what the variables are to determine these factors – sometimes you can afford to take things slow and other times you can barely catch your breath – but it’s enough never to lull you into a state of comfort.� And that’s the real key to this game’s longevity right there.� Zombies are like a box of chocolates.

The zombies are great, too.� When you play the hospital-themed scenario the zombies wear stethoscopes or patients’ gowns, whereas in the airport scenario they wear orange safety vests and business suits.� They shamble aimlessly about, mutter and gargle to themselves, get confused and change direction, and top it off with a nice long barf.� Though they are mindless shells they retain their individuality in their clothing and facial features, and this makes things all the more uneasy when they spot you and twist their visages into furious glares as they sprint toward you (occasionally mid-barf), only to be puréed, wholely or in part, by you and your would-be chums (without whom you WOULD be chum).� In the field they’re not your most serious threat, but you can see it in their eyes – they HATE you and they want your THROAT.

Your opposition ain’t all peaches and cream, though (however similarly viscous).� “Boss” creatures lurk about and are playable either by AI or a second team of four.� Boss zombies include the tonguey Smoker, bilious Boomer, dextrous Hunter, and cantankerous Tank.� Each� has its own recognizable vocalizations, from the belchy blubberings of the Boomer to the maniacal chitterings of the Hunter, emphasized further by the good guys’ avatars who opt to announce “Boomer!” aloud to the group.

The last boss creature, the Witch, isn’t playable by a human and is dangerous but docile.� She is preceded by her sorrowful sobs and phenomenally eerie accompanying choral refrain which intensify as you approach.� In a lit room she seems unimposing and pitiable.� In the dark her eyes are alight with despise.� Don’t approach too quickly and keep your flashlight off.� Agitate her at your peril or avoid her entirely.

Weapons are predictable but reveal their own useful characteristics over time.� Me, I stayed true the shotgun, my old faithful, before branching out to the more precise machine guns and eventually the sniper rifle which has become my new favourite.� Reloads are announced verbally by the protagonists, encouraging teammates to pick up the slack, and it’s a good thing because occasionally an eternity-and-a-half will pass before you’re ready to shoot again (free tip – you reload faster if your clip isn’t empty).� Switching to your pistols with unlimited ammo clips is often your only alternative to reloading while swarmed, though a deft right-click with any weapon will knock back just about anything slobbering on you.� Knowing when to shoot, when to reload, when to melee, and when to skedaddle is what separates the residents from the tourists of zombietown, so expect to get an earful over voice chat if you choose the wrong one.

The graphics and level design are complimentary in terms of attractiveness and navigability.� If it looks like you can jump up on something, you probably can.� If you see a stumbling silhouette 300 yards away you can blast it, and what’s left of the corpse will be there when you arrive.� If you’re lost it won’t take long to find some sort of pointer or clue.� Locales feel lived-in (and died-in), reminding you constantly that the question of what the heck happened here is never answered.� It all comes together well and makes an excellent first impression.� The longevity of the Source engine is commendable since this game is as visually impressive as anything out there, yet the frame rate is so reliably fast that I found my aim to be more precise than in just about any other shooter made these past few years.

On the down side there’s superfluous achievements I don’t care to earn, being assigned a low ping server is a crap shoot with bad odds, and it’s likely you’ll see all the assets in a couple of afternoons.� Conversely, scores are shown after each round yet no one really wins or loses (just survives), players may leave or go AFK and a friendly AI will take over until they or someone else rejoins, and heck, I’ve made a couple of “friends” (in the social network sense of the word) just by impressing or being impressed by their skills in-game.� For such a linear, predictable shooter there are a lot of small touches that aren’t immediately apparent but reveal the underlying charm over time.

Over a decade ago Valve published magazine ads for the original Half Life that made fun of other shooters for their lack of story – “Run, run, run, turn, shoot, run, shoot,” it taunted – so it’s as if they’ve come full circle to bring us this rather mindless affair.� However, it’s the shared experiences and the stories you write while playing that are deserving.� It’s saying a lot that the basic gameplay elements help you, rather than hinder, to tell these stories, but it’s the interactions with strangers and friends that will compel you to transfuse every last quart out of each map.� For instance…

Last night I greedily played through an entire scenario with the sniper rifle.� It’s a perfect weapon for long-to-medium range but its precision does little during the inevitable frenetic close-range scraps.� My remedy for this is to hang back a bit (but not so much that I’m a lone target for bosses), let my scrumptious teammates wiggle their sweet meats, and pick off anything that gets too grabby.� This is more effective than it seems, which is probably why one of my teammates became annoyed with me for “not helping”.

With resentment in the air as well as an odour resembling rotting plums we still made it to the finale by the skin of our teeth (or whoever’s skin and teeth those were on my jacket).� The aforementioned surly gentleman greedily withheld his precious health-giving pills as I limped along with a scant single hit point remaining.� I deftly hopped up to a precarious but isolated tower and held fast through thick and thin, popping heads and heroically inducing sighs of relief from my healthier comrades.

Wave after wave pummelled us, with boss zombies waiting until the most inopportune moments to nip at our heels, when tragedy struck – Hoarding Harry took one gnaw too many and was down for the count.� I dove off my precipice and hobbled to him, stray zombies collapsing all around me as my team covered my advance.� I made it.� I crouched and administered first aid, just barely healing him before I myself succumbed to my wounds.� Astonishingly, my fairweather companion turned to help me just as our far-off teammates announced and headed for our just-arrived rescue vessel.

Predictably, this announcement was followed by the vengeful hollers of perhaps three-dozen zombies and one of each boss zombie.� Three quarters of the way through healing me, my would-be saviour turned tail and ran for the boat, leaving me 4 dead.� A sorry end for me, but a delightful denouement to a great story.

Any and all resentment evaporated and we all shared chuckles and congratulations.� The credits rolled and began with a dedication:

“In memory of Brian Damage”

This article was written by Brian at demodulated Original post:

Left 4 the Dead

I’m not much of an MMO guy.� I’ve tried a few others this year with friends (City of Heroes, Tabula Rasa, Dungeon Runners) but quit them all before the first month was up.� Grind grind grind.� Well, AoC isn’t much different except for a few key things.� First off, my wife likes it and was willing to keep playing even after I cancelled.� I missed playing with her so I resubscribed.� Also, this is one of few games where the M rating actually means Mature – the gritty writing justifying otherwse inane quests is quite deep and motivating, plus the 18+ barrier makes for a much more genteel user base.� At 30 years old I was the second youngest member of my guild, after my wife.

It’s still got its problems and Funcom’s stock is tanking so I have low hopes for this game, but it’s fun while it lasts.

Most memorable moment

My guild made me feel welcome and grown up as we slayed fiendish heathens while chatting about work, cooking, children, and grandchildren.

Audiosurf

I’m calling this my game of the year.� I bought it, sceptical, for $10, only because it came with the full Orange Box soundtrack in MP3 format.� In the end the soundtrack underwhelmed me (Half Life 2′s soundtrack is outstanding in-game but sour out of context, but Portal’s ambient droning is very soothing) but Audiosurf shone like a diamond.� This unconventional match-3 puzzler interprets your music collection as a series of racetracks, upon which you speed linearly while collecting glowing blocks, twisting and dipping to the minute changes in each song.� This game is as close as I’ve seen to my computer dancing to my music, with me playing accompaniment with the rhythmic, staccato whooshes, like hi-hats, as I collect blocks in time with the beat.� The game works exceptionally well with every genre of music I could throw at it.

I must have played this thing 150 hours.� Whenever I buy a new album the first thing I do is surf it.� I could never have fathomed $10 having so much value.

Most memorable moment

Narcissist that I am, I just can’t stop surfing my own music.� I, plus a couple of other DJs, arranged some mixes especially for Audiosurf.� I’ve also immensely enjoyed playing my old MOD music.

Also, buying this game for 3 friends.� $10 is just the right price for me to spread the love around.

Bully

I stay in tune with PC games news in a big way, so I was practically agog when this game was announced on Steam with no advance fanfare.� I’d previously bought Bully for PS2 but could only endure about 1/4 until the low fidelity of my TV took its toll on me.� The game is a bit buggy, finicky, and crashy, but it gets the job done.� The story amounts to little more than a smattering of urbanized Harry Potter mischief in random dialogue pairings – vignettes of teenage testosterone strewn like confetti – but they were well-written and acted.� The level design was no less than what I’ve come to expect from Rockstar.� The picture was sharp and the controls were tight, even for the minigames designed for dual analog.� I’ll not repeat how awesome the soundtrack is.� Good show overall, Rockstar.

I particularly enjoyed having my wife watch me play this game.� No matter what she was up to she’d divert her attention whenever she noticed a cut scene beginning.

Most memorable moment

“Who’s the best?� Me!!� That’s right, ladies!”

Portal

This is a triumph.� No, really.� I was somewhat jazzed to try this game after watching the trailer a few months prior but I had no intention to even touch it until I’d played through Half Life 2: Episode Two at least once all the way through.� Some technical issues dissuaded me from one-shotting Episode Two so I gave Portal a shot, and man did it put a smile on my face.� This is the very definition of a polished game in terms of presentation, writing, pacing, control, and creativity.� I loved every frustrating, disorienting, confusing minute of this game and I was heartbroken when it ended, but what a payoff!� I’m not sure I can think of a game with a better ending.� An auspicious first game of a budding design team which Valve had the good sense to hire.

My only problem with this game is the replay value – it’s like trying to act delighted after learning of your own surprise party.� Most of the fan-created levels are substandard but Hen Mazolski’s Portal Flash Maps are truly every bit as professional, clever, and even more difficult than the originals – a MUST for any Portal fan.

Most memorable moment

The ending.� I avoided all mention of this game and thankfully didn’t learn about the ending until seeing it first-hand.

The Sims 2

I think we’ve got all the expansions now, or perhaps we’re missing one.� This culminates in a Pisa-reminiscent tower of boxes whenever I’m foolish enough to uninstall and, soon after, reinstall this game.� I type perhaps 200 keystrokes worth of product keys while I install this behemoth.� I think I did this 3 times this year.� That’s how much I miss this game when I uninstall it.� The laughs just keep me coming back for more and more.� I’ve played it enough that I’ve stopped caring about my little denizens, freeing me to experiment with more antisocial and counterproductive endeavours during my virtual 9 lives.� My little dudes have been unfaithful philanderers, grouchy bookworms, hostile troublemakers, shameless fatsos, sneaky adulterers, suicidal thrillseekers, corpulent gamers, heartless businessmen, and renowned grilled cheese consumers.� When things get dull I just hit the fast forward button until it’s time for something fun to happen.

I’m pretty astounded by this game.� I heartily anticipated the first Sims but was underwhelmed, but am finding new things to like about its sequel every single time I play.� I have no problem putting it down for 3 months, only to pick it up later without having missed a beat.� Dare I say, this game is actually worth the $300 or so we’ve spent on the whole kit and kaboodle.

Most memorable moment

“The realm of torment” – one of my wife’s university residences with an inexplicably high mortality rate that began to snowball as deceased students’ ghosts started scaring living residents to death.

This article was written by Brian at demodulated Original post:

5 games that pleasantly surprised me in 2008

My parents were kind enough to buy the toy for me and for as nerdy a kid as I it was the zenith of awesome.

The toy consists of a sort of light gun in the shape of a space ship, and a VHS cassette with a live action introduction to anime-stylized flight combat with which the toy could interact.� Aiming and shooting at objects flashing red and black would score you a point, while simply aiming at obstacles flashing yellow and black would subtract a “power point”, of which you had only five until your ship was destroyed and your Captain Power action figure literally ejected from the toy’s canopy.

These low-fi YouTube rips don’t do the original justice, but to stand in front of a big television and guide and careen the ship in response to the onscreen action was really something special.

In response to excellent sales the concept spun off into a surprisingly mature and engaging live action television series.� The premise surrounded Captain Power and his rag tag company of “Soldiers of the Future” whom together battled Lord Dread who strove to “digitize” the entire human population (by zapping them, effectively converting them into computer chips which were added to the big evil central SQL database or something).� The show stood on its own merits but was also compatible with the toys!� Enemies would have red flashing zones on their torsos which would score you points, and they’d shoot yellow lasers which would damage you.� It wasn’t anywhere near as seamless as the proper mission cassettes for this purpose but it was quite a clever work-in, without which I probably wouldn’t have been turned on to the show.

This article was written by Brian at demodulated Original post:

Captain Power and the Merchandising of Brand

I bought this game used for PS2 and adored it, but couldn’t stand the low fidelity of the console and my TV.� I just bought this for $30 on Steam (and I’m getting reimbursed – belated birthday present!).� The game even comes with a digital copy of the soundtrack.

In the mean time you can check out the Bully soundtrack on eMusic.� It’s free if you download the songs individually.� I’m not exaggerating when I say it’s one of my favourite game soundtracks of all time.

Go buy this game.� Rockstar is an incredible developer with better level designers, gameplay programmers, and storywriters than just about any other studio in the industry.� I lose myself in Rockstar games, and so will you.

This will keep me more than busy until GTA4 is out in about 3 weeks.

Any game worth playing comes out on PC, and it always looks and plays better than any console.

This article was written by Brian at demodulated Original post:

I can hardly friggin wait

I’ll list some of my recent favourite indie games below, but first my rant:

Sometimes with free indie games you get what you pay for.  Occasionally you’ll find one that doesn’t quite work right.  A few games I’ve tried recently try to invoke a screen mode that either my video card or monitor are incompatible with, causing my monitor to go blank and making its power light blink persistently.  This leaves me with no recourse and no control.  If I’m lucky I can tap the power button on my PC case to shut down Windows gracefully, else I must press the reset button and hope my computer turns back on at all!

I found a pretty easy fix for this in Windows XP – without being able to see what I was doing I’d press alt-tab which would hopefully get me to the desktop, press Win-R to open a run box, type "cmd" and press enter to open a command prompt, and press ctrl-enter to make it fullscreen.  This would usually force the screen to change modes.  I’d then press ctrl-enter again to restore the command prompt to a window, at which point I’d usually be returned to my desktop where I could close the offending game.

I’ve tried this on Vista, but no dice.  I don’t know whether it’s impossible or just takes a lot of coaxing to get Vista to run a command prompt in full screen.  I don’t know where to go from here.  I just tap my power button and cross my fingers, waiting for the hard disk access LED to stop flickering and my optical mouse to stop glowing red, before I can turn my PC back on.

Anyone have a better solution for me?

And now, my list of favourite free indie games du jour! (these all work fine for me BTW!)

Gamma Bros is a 2D low-fi space shooter akin to Robotron or Smash TV.  It has a lot of personality and is very well realized.

Cave Story is a 2D NES-style platform with RPG elements.  The story and characters are endearing, the action and controls are solid, and the music is great.  I’m maybe 4 hours in with no end in sight yet!

Quest for Glory II by AGD Interactive is a remake of the game by same name, originally by Sierra OnLine.  This version is nearly a decade in the making with lovely updated graphics and the famous Sierra point-and-click interface.

Façade is an utterly unique experience.  You play yourself and are invited to the apartment of a couple whose marriage is failing.  This "game" is a marvellous merger of AI and psychology that will keep you playing and replaying for hours.

This article was written by Brian at demodulated Original post:

Winkin, blinkin, and warm reboot

The weight of this poor launch was too much for Flagship to bear.� This little startup, fronted by Blizzard North veteran Bill Roper, was forced to lay off its entire staff and liquidate its assets.� There’s a great, genuinely heartwrenching interview with Roper on 1UP.com which is well worth a read.

So why am I bringing this up now, after writing the game off fourscore and seven hellgates ago?� Because I feel really bad for Flagship and its staff, and especially for Roper, who had to jeopardize his family’s financial security in order to get his people paid for their last shifts.

The real reason why I care so much, though, is that I actually like this game now.� I reinstalled it in May and got a good couple of months of online gameplay out of it.� The kinks haven’t all been worked out – online play can be laggy and it’s not long before you’ve seen all the assets repeat themselves – but to be perfectly honest this is the game I’d hoped for all along.

It took 7 months for it to reach this state, and 10 months for the company to go under.� Just imagine if Flagship had just half a year of extra funding and could have delayed the launch.� I bet it would have been a real summer blockbuster, even for a modest underdog of a game.

I don’t feel I can retract my criticisms or comments from my previous post about this game, since I’m a paying customer and deserved better than what I was handed in that huge foam-filled box.� Still, I am saddened that it had to end this way, so soon.

Let this be a lesson to any and all who are tempted by a lifetime founders’ subscription – $150 bought those poor saps only a few expensive months of sparse subscription content that was promised but only fractionally delivered.

Most of all, let this be a lesson to startup companies on the importance of image.� When your userbase is screaming from the rafters that something foul is afoot with your product, the WRONG way to handle this feedback is to ignore it and pretend that everything is fine.� Flagship insisted on playing their cards very close to their chest, which unfortunately meant that they let the pessimists and naysayers do all the talking for them.� I imagine this was a conscious choice by Flagship’s senior staff to hide their tenuous financial situation from prospective investors, but unfortunately this made damage control impossible, forcing frustrated customers and would-be subscribers to get their news from more vocal sources like Flagshipped (a site with the subheading “MMO Fail as Daily News”).

It takes a good captain to send his staff out with all the life preservers and go down with his ship.� My condolences to you, Bill.� You put up a hell of a fight.� I’d have empathized with you from day one if only you’d given us a glimpse of your tribulations much earlier on.

This article was written by Brian at demodulated Original post:

Flagship lists

“I think people would rather make a game that sells 4.5 million copies than a million and Gears is at 4.5 million right now on the 360.”

Such commendable objectivity. Let’s look at the facts behind this blanket statement.

• Gears of War was released on PC, at full price, one year after the Xbox360 premiere.
• Thousands complained about the game’s inexplicably high system requirements.
• Needless integration with Windows Live requires you to create an account and be logged in to save your single player game.
• You’re stuck with console-style continue points and can’t save anywhere.

Not only does Cliffy assume that no PC gamer owns an Xbox 360, the game is crippled with needless online integration and obviously overlooks many of the PC platform’s strengths. As is the case with all console ports the game looks dated on PC and does not warrant the full price of admission.

Epic is recoiling from unimpressive holiday sales, but this comes as little surprise on the PC side. Their two major offerings last quarter were the ageing Gears of War as well as the universally snubbed Unreal Tournament 3. The reasons for the failure of the latter title are quite obvious to me:

• Epic’s insistence to synchronize its launch with Valve’s Orange Box and EA’s Crysis.
• The game is marginally different from Unreal Tournament 2004.
• The mod scene for UT2k4 is huge, so starting over with a blank slate is mundane.

And Gears of War?

• Very awkward WASD controls.
• The level design is sub par – every map is a square with debris.
• You fight baddies called “wrenches” (Get it? Gears? Wrenches? Neither do I.) and the rest of the writing resorts to sub-Stallone gravelly machismo.
• A more apt name would have been “Run and Hide” since that’s all you ever do.

Reality aside, Cliffy’s assertions of the PC market being in “disarray” are unfounded. These fraudulent allegations combined with his sloppy port of Gears proves he wouldn’t know a personal computer if it slapped him on the rump.

“I think the PC is just in disarray,” he stated. “What’s driving the PC right now is Sims-type games and World of WarCraft and a lot of stuff that’s in a Web-based interface. You just click on it and play it. That’s the direction PC is evolving into so for me, the PC is kind of the secondary part of what we’re doing.”

His examples are way out of left field and he ignores not only the enormous variety of the PC market that can’t be found anywhere else, but also the phenomenal titles on the horizon (Spore, Conan and Warhammer Online, the Sam and Max series, Postal 3, Fallout 3, Starcraft 2, to name a piddling few).

What irks me most of all is Cliffy’s dismissal of the platform that made Epic the company it is. Longtime fans of the company will remember Epic Megagames as a marginally above average purveyor of shareware PC titles sporting charismatic protagonists like Jazz Jackrabbit and Jill of the Jungle. These were games whose first few levels were free and continued play warranted incremental payments for subsequent stages. Even their later, more polished titles kept the grassroots image by employing, for example, MOD music legend CC Catch (Kenny Chou) to score the awesome robot fighting game One Must Fall 2097. This company was the very definition of humility and the goodwill and support of the PC gaming community bolstered it into the powerhouse it is today.

So bye bye, Cliffy. Go seek out your fortune in the wild, untamed mainstream. Leave the most powerful gaming platform in your wake as you squeeze the last ounce out of yesterday’s technology. Obviously you know your company better than those of us who spent our childhood playing the likes of Kiloblaster and Dare to Dream on Windows 3.1. Your army of Xbots sweats with prepubescent anticipation, calling your name in their collective prepubescent tenor, itching to wrap their monkey mitts around the most imprecise controllers on Earth to nudge and fidget their way through your next square room full of boxy debris. Count me out.

What is love? Cliffy, don’t hurt me!

This article was written by Brian at demodulated Original post:

Cliffy, take a long walk off of one

The game engine is damn fine, and this little Google Video clip can’t do it justice. Click here to see the half-resolution 170MB AVI. Pretty nice frame rate for all High detail settings with AA and AF while recording with Fraps, eh?

This article was written by Brian at demodulated Original post:

I’ve been unfaithful to Crysis

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First person shooters have the reputation of being the cause for seemingly violent behaviour amongst teens and young people, or at least that’s what come anti-game politicians and inept lawyers (and I use that word loosely) like Jack Thompson would like you to think. After all, all the ammo is there. The gratuitous blood, mounds of mowed down, bullet ridden corpses and the protagonist’s supposed raison d’etre, often stemming from either something traumatising or years of pent up anger, that can only be released with the pull of a rapid fire gun.

Games that might fit in this framework include and not limited to, Postal and its bloody-ridden sequels, Man Hunt and its less-than-impressive follow up, Grand Theft Auto (though more of a third person shooter) and its many incarnations, including San Andreas, Max Payne, the Call of Duty series (thought just as violent, the violence is based on something other than being purely the quest to inflict pain unto others) and many others, which don’t need naming because it would take all day. But, point aside, there are plenty of them and they contain the same basic elements needed to make for a mindless first person shooter, a good place in which a person can vent their anger at some sexy, enhanced pixels that may even seem life-like at times.

These games are scapegoats when someone decides to pick up a gun and take out their anger on soft, supple human targets. Many of the people to pick up arms in the end were shown to have no connection to these types of games, nor were active players.

What’s my point? I guess its that you don’t need a first person shooter to go on a rampage and kill everything in plain sight. Guns are merely one of many instruments that can be used when mowing down swaths of innocent bystanders who stand in your path, only able to scream, “Help, someone’s been murdered!” before you come along and slice them in half with your sword, axe or hammer. Or maybe that’s not your style, maybe you prefer something more fantastical like a fireball spell or the magical properties of a staff.

If you’re into the mystical or you’re just a person who would prefer to go on a murderous rampage using something other than a rapid fire, lethal arm, the weapon assortment in Oblivion: The Elder Scrolls may be more up your ally.

Please note that at this point, this is not a game review, it’s merely an opinion piece regarding an element of the game that allows the player to move away from the more linear aspects of the game and go take out their anger on humanity with graphically rendered models that happen to look like something we call “humans”. Of course, not all your potential targets are human. In addition to the human races, there are orcs, elves, khajit (cat-like creatures) and argonians (lizard-like creatures), who exist be side the human population of Cyrodiil.

While there are repercussions in the form of fine or jail time from the different groups of guards, you can ignore the consequences if you want to cause chaos and mayhem. It’s easy enough to kill people out of view of the rest of the society, making it easy to literally get away with murder. But, it’s not satisfying unless you’re doing it for a quest or something with a reward on the end. There is something missing…

I guess, one might call it carnage. There is no point in killing unless you can’t take everyone down with you. Carnage is the whole point of rampaging. To take out them before they can take out you. For this, you don’t need a first person shooter. You just need the game to be open-ended, like Oblivion, and the ability to freely be a jackass.

Perhaps a practical demonstration is required at this point.

For this article, I have decided that I should go on a nice little rampage before I write this so that the experience is fresh in my finger tips. Let’s just call it, field reporting.

For this, I decided to bring my sword-wielding Redguard to Chorrol.

So, as you can see from the above, I’m near one of the gates in Chorrol. I have my sword out. It’s a nice little weapon. It’s got a glass skin but it’s enchanted and does frost damage on my target. I also have a shield, but it’s not used for blocking. So, with my sword and very study heavy armour, I’m a real tank, able to just go in and take a beating from the guards and not break into a sweat.

So, I killed the nearby beggar first. No one’s going to notice one less mooch on the fragile welfare system. However, this guard took exception to it. He wasted no time in approaching me and interrupting my rampage. This was quite rude of him, despite giving me a change to get off the hook.

My bounty by the time the guard caught me was already 1,000 gold, but he was going to be nice and either let me pay the fine, or go to jail. Though, as you can guess from what’s highlighted here, I was going to resist arrest. What’s the point in rampaging if you can’t bring down a few guards in a violent blood bath as you resist arrest?

As you can see, however, the guards were no match for me. They tried to charge at me, but they come at intervals, giving me a chance to prepare for the attack. The AI is stupid in this respect. It had the guards attack me without back up. Though I don’t think the AI was programmed to handle this kind of stupidity.

There are a few guards but not as many as I would have liked. They are badly organised, which heavily takes away from rampaging time as I go in search of more in this town. I didn’t get many guards charging toward me at once. Then again, I’m just one lone psychopath going on a murderous rampage through this quiet town.

I had to patrol to find more to kill, but it eventually paid off and I found a few more innocent civilians to hack and slice into itty-bitty pieces of worm chow. I slew them I did. With a swing of my mighty sword I cut their life line short and sent them on the Midnight Express to see the Nine Divines.

No one escaped from my grasp. Neither the rich nor the poor. They were all pawns in my way. They would all suffer equally before the hand that belonged to the Listener; The Messenger of Death. I spared none. When death comes calling, death does not discriminate.

And as if the violent rampage itself isn’t enough, with Oblivion, you can also loot the corpses of those you kill and remove the armour and clothing that they are wearing. Take a glance at the image above the image here. In it, the guard is wearing his armour and in the image directly above this paragraph, the guard has no armour on. In addition to the clothing and armour, I can loot any number of things from the corpses as I kill them, including and not limited to gold, jewellery, weapons, potions, scrolls, keys, gems, alchemy ingredients, et cetera.

So, while I rampage, I often check the corpses for good, useful items like keys. More often than not, I just find garbage, pure garbage.

I couldn’t get a good screen shot for this, but if I did, I would have inserted it here. During my rampages, I’ve seen the guards themselves stop to loot the bodies of the slain, including their fallen comrades, instead of coming right for me as I stand there waiting for them to finish inspecting the corpses for something of use.

After a while, the town wasn’t showing me any more golden slaying opportunities, so I set the Chorrol Castle in my sights and headed over to it to continue my rampage. My first stop was the castle barracks where I got into a good fight with three guards, two pictured here being all chummy in death.

Near the barracks was the dungeon. It was heavily guarded and well, providing me with a decent slaughter-fest as I cut mercilessly through the soft, supple bodies of the guards who charged me. These guards, like the others went down fast…

Considering they are supposed to be guards, I killed them a little too easily. I’d hate to think how easily a foreign invading force would trample over this town and others, if this is as strong as the local watch is. If they can’t stop me, a simple psychopathic lunatic, how will they ever defend their dear countess?

The countess who rules over Chorrol all by herself, with no one to defend her from the psychopath that now stands in front of her, ready to pounce, driven by the scent of blood.

Before moving in for the final kill, I take some time out of my busy, busy day to talk to this meddlesome guard who feels it’s important that he try and stop me. He can’t give me the opportunity to pay my fine, and I’m certainly not going to go to jail…

I’m also baffled that you expect me to pay 24,240 gold pieces to make this little offence go away.� If I didn’t pay the first thousand, why would I pay the subsequent thousands?� Explain that one to me, Mr Guard, I say, as resist being arrested and thrown into the dank, squalid Chorrol Dungeon.

“Then pay with your blood!” is the declaration heard upon resisting arrest. It’s the same line all the guards are known to cry as soon as you decide you don’t want to co-operate with them.

Though it looks like I’m not the one who paid with their blood…

While this was a short rampage, I feel that it’s a far superior environment to rampage in than a first person shooter because you have other weapons available to you. I am only good with the sword in my character, otherwise I would have used a spell, but my character doesn’t have enough magicka for me to cast a good looking spell, or a deadly one.

While not as gory as others, it still provides an excellent venue in which to vent one’s anger and irritation at the modern world that is slowly turning into a pseudo-nanny state, where the state thinks it knows best and that some how, if people play these games we’ll all turn into murderous lunatics who will enter a crowded market place and start killing on whim.

Too bad someone didn’t tell that that the art of rampaging like a psychopath comes from real life, and that video games are a harmless way of unleashing that anger…

This article was written by Brian at demodulated Original post:

The Art of Rampaging

Here’s a video of the sequel, Crayon Physics Deluxe, which looks totally stunning. Don’t let the sequel’s sophistication ruin your impression of the original game though – it’s brilliant and eerily calming.

This article was written by Brian at demodulated Original post:

Dumb games you’ll love

I maxed out all the graphical and audio settings and prepared to jump right into the action. I was surprised to see a preliminary recap play immediately without any loading screens. It’s a prerendered video. I hate video. The resolution is super sharp but I can still tell. It feels even more out of place because this is the first time I can recall in the Half Life universe that the camera has left the first person view. The story recap isn’t really necessary since Episode One was so short. Bad vibes from the get go.

Skipping over the awe I felt from the incredible graphics and spectacular scenery, a second frustration popped up before long. I was given a taste of Steam’s new achievement system, akin to Xbox Live’s, while playing the fantastic Team Fortress 2 (the only multiplayer shooter I’ve enjoyed since Quake 1). After completing an arbitrary “achievement” in Episode Two I’m shown a cutesypoo little icon on a small popup at the bottom right-hand corner of the screen telling me I’ve unlocked this achievement. This absolutely sucks. Playing this game is enough of an achievement. I don’t give a shit that I’ve earned a turkey baster award for squishing 30 insects. This totally sucks me out of the game and for a universe as rich as Half Life this is the ultimate crime. I can find no way to turn off these alerts. I’m tempted to play the game poorly to avoid them. Very, very disappointing.

The last straw yesterday was when the game crashed. The Source engine is known for a few idiosyncrasies such as the screen freezing and audio looping for a couple of seconds when entering an area with new texture assets, but it’s incredibly rare that the game will actually crash to the desktop. Rarer still, everything became completely unresponsive, even to ctrl-alt-del and atrl-alt-esc. Since I couldn’t see what I was doing I had to use the force, pressing Windows-R to open a run dialog, typing “cmd[enter]” to open a command window, press alt-enter to make it fullscreen, and type “exit[enter]” to return me to the desktop where a crash dialog had been obscured behind the frozen Half Life window with an OK button to dismiss it.

This is like a gaggle of teenagers talking on cell phones during a movie. I was completely turned off by this point. I started playing Portal and didn’t stop for 3.5 hours.

This article was written by Brian at demodulated Original post:

3 things that suck about Half Life 2: Episode Two

Hello,

Thank you for contacting Steam Support.

There has been no security breach of Steam.
Please refer to the following Forum post for more information.
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/announcement.php?f=14

We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

There might be helpful information in this announcement, but I won’t know for another 6 days. Here’s my reply to them:

As you’ll note from my prior description and convenient screenshot, I’ve been banned from the forums. Thus this link does not help me.

2 hours later they replied again:

Hello Brian,

I apologize but I will be unable to lift the ban for your forum account.

There has been no security breach of Steam. The alleged hacker gained access to a third party site that Valve uses to manage the commercial partners in its cyber cafe program. This cyber cafe billing system is not connected to Steam.

We are working with law enforcement agencies on this matter, and encourage anyone with more information to email us at Catch_A_Thief@valvesoftware.com.

I’d used the forums for the first time yesterday to simply acquire the information Valve finally provided me in this support ticket update, over 60 hours after my initial question. The words of my infuriatingly rational girlfriend, and of one of my readers, Mick, rang in my ears as I pondered what to write in reply:

Thank you for the clarification. That’s all I ever wanted.

I don’t know whether my support tickets were flagged “Resolved” by some automated means. If this was the case then I apologize for my impatience. This is the first time, to my knowledge, that the risk of identity theft has affected me.

Regardless, I hope Valve will consider making a public statement much sooner the next time something like this happens.

Thank you for your assistance. Perhaps I can trust Steam again in the future.

So in the end I’m torn. It’s too soon to make up my mind, I figure, on whether Steam is trustworthy. Their support certainly leaves much to be desired. Time will tell whether their credit card databases were breached. Until then I’ll continue keeping an eye on my account.

Was I justified in my anger? I think I was, but I’m my own worst influence so I can’t really trust my own opinion.

Is Steam trustworthy? Maybe. Probably. It’s a unique service with a very limited catalogue of games, but the games they feature are difficult to obtain by other means. I think I still trust Steam more than, say eBay, but that ain’t saying much. Am I a hypocrite if I continue buying from them? Do I need to concern myself with that?

Regardless, I’m a little relieved to hear Steam proclaim there was no security breach. I don’t entirely believe them at this point but my currently unmolested credit card account corroborates their story as of now.

More on this in the future, perhaps. Finally I agree, for the first of 5 times, that my support ticket is resolved.

This article was written by Brian at demodulated Original post:

Steam gets me sheepish

Readers, please note that this story describes my experience and immediate feelings about one Steam issue which was resolved shortly thereafter with no harm to me nor any other customers.� Please note the date this was published and know that I’ve gone on to spend hundreds of dollars as a happy Steam customer.� Steam isn’t perfect but in my opinion it’s a better alternative to retail stores who are completely inflexible for matters such as returns.

–END UPDATE–

My readers know that it’s been my pleasure to talk about Valve’s electronic games distribution system, Steam, in a positive light this past year or so. They’ve offered me the convenience of purchasing games without leaving my chair, they’ve enabled me to preload games so that I may play them the moment they are released, and they refunded my money when a game refused to work for me. All in all Steam has provided me unmatched service and convenience and I’ve considered them kings among retailers.

Until today.

Word on the grapevine is that Steam, or possibly a third-party intermediary, has been breached and credit card information is currently in the possession of a malicious individual. I first read about this on Digg, which is more of a sewing circle than a reputable news source, so I took it with a grain of salt. Still, I opened a support ticket with Steam Customer Support to verify:

I read a distressing article today claiming that Steam’s databases were broken into and credit card information was stolen:
http://emp.damage-web.net/viewtopic.php?p=62590

Is this true? Do I need to cancel my credit card? Please advise ASAP!

A lot happens in 18 hours. Stories propegate, rumours amplify, and service tickets go unanswered. All of these were the case in this situation. Thus, I followed up on my Steam support ticket:

Do I really need to tell you that this urgent question is time-sensitive?

http://digg.com/gaming_news/Valve_Hacked_Your_Info_may_be_at_risk

As you can see this issue, rumour or otherwise, is public knowledge and widespread. Valve’s lack of a statement on this is very conspicuous. Please confirm or deny this story so that I can rest at ease.

I then scoured Valve’s user forums for some clue of what was happening. I found a single post on the subject and succintly expressed my displeasure with Steam’s lack of disclosure.

The next morning, having received many replies to my comment on the Slashdot story, I was reminded to check in on my ticket status. I was very, VERY disappointed with what I saw:

Steam had the audacity, the bat-shit insanity, to consider my support issue resolved without having contacted me at all!!

Furious, I sought to express my concerns on the Steam forum post I’d contributed to the preceding evening. I included a link to the above screenshot.

Less than a couple of minutes later my post was gone. Gone.

I posted again, making my incredulity of this Nazi-esque whitewashing (though I phrased it much more gently), and again my post was deleted, but not before someone replied, disqualifying his words from the flow of the conversation. I hit the back button and clicked Submit to repost my message. I then sought to retort the harsh criticism of the individual who challenged my arguments, and was cheerfully greeted with this message:

I’d been banned for a week.

I completed my undergraduate college program in network administration with a supplementary specialization in security. The hot topic during my Intro to Network Security class was the theft of the greater portion of the source code for Valve’s half-a-decade-in-the-making Half Life 2. A cracker somehow installed a remote desktop trojan on a Valve employee’s work PC which granted him unchecked access to the company’s file servers. The individual helped himself to several games and a big chunk of the Source Engine’s code tree. By the time Valve become aware it was too late. The damage was done and Valve spent the next year delaying the release to rewrite the code.

On another occasion someone posted several messages on the official Valve website as founder Gabe Newell, having guessed his password, “GabeN”.

Imagine the leap of faith I took when I finally bought Half Life 2, and went on to purchase many games over Steam. I’d trusted Valve to have learned from their mistakes. What an idiot I was. Those who ignore history…

As of now the only “official” word I’ve heard on this topic is an appended update to a third-party news story insisting that, despite the infiltrator’s own declarations, not Steam but a third-party partner had been breached. I am forced to weigh this announcement against all the neglect and whitewashing I’ve experienced first hand. My instincts tell me Steam has much to hide, and is desperate enough to do so at the cost of their already shoddy reputation. I’ve described all the variables in this equation in this blog article so I see no other logical explanation.

In summation, Steam is unethical, cowardly, and does not care one tiny iota about my safety, wellbeing, peace of mind, or patronage. Thus I will offer them none of these things again. I will reluctantly purchase any Half Life products they release, because I love that series, but I will do so in brick-and-mortar stores and probably assign them to a dummy Steam account.

The PC games industry looked to Valve as a beacon; a fearless icebreaker forging a path through frozen, inhospitable, foreign waters, and they were making real progress. At the first sign of danger Valve put its tail between its legs, rolled up in a little ass ball, and meekly batted away all questions with its little paws. Not much of a role model in my books.

Yet another strike against this troubled publisher and developer. What’s the count, ump?

Narcissist that I am, Steam’s public face is of no interest to me. All I know is that I’m done with them. If Valve is so inept as to drop the ball while dealing with supposedly false accusations, how on earth can I trust them should a real calamity ensue?

Sayonara Steam.

– UPDATE –

Steam has closed my support ticket yet again without contacting me, and again considered the matter “Resolved”.� I’ve just emailed Gabe Newell in a calm and factual fashion in the hopes of helping him empathise with his customers.� If you are a Steam customer and this matter is of concern to you I advise you to do the same.

Email Gabe Newell here.

This article was written by Brian at demodulated Original post:

Steam gets me steamed

For those not up to speed, allow me to elaborate; A friend issued me a free trial which I had a great deal of difficulty redeeming. After many gigabytes of transfers and several wasted hours after failed installs, I finally got everything working. I enjoyed playing with my friend despite the crippled functionality of the trial account so I purchased a 60-day time card. Unfortunately for me, trial accounts are not upgradable so I was forced to buy the retail disc even though I had a working copy installed on my machine. The box came with 1 month of playtime, but this meagre offering did not justify the $35 expenditure for assets I had already painstakingly acquired.

2 months into my 3-month account I got fed up with Blizzard’s greed and abandoned the game. I merrily threw my sink-hole investment of a retail box in a public garbage can and promptly cancelled my account prematurely. I’d been a Blizzard customer for over a decade but I see little reason to keep up my patronage with this funhouse mirror doppleganger of a formerly fantastic company.

A while back a friend of mine introduced me to a fascinating video games discussion forum, fucktheinter.net. A quick glance through one of the lesser-trafficked topics revealed a link to wow.fucktheinternet.net – a privately-run World of Warcraft server! This came as quite a surprise since the only other rogue WoW server I’d heard of was shut down by the US “justice” system. In court, Blizzard challenged BNETD, an open source battle.net daemon (server), on the grounds that it violated the DMCA. Despite the unspecific wording and subsequent danger to other interoperability software projects like CGIs and ODBCs, the courts ruled in Blizzard’s favour, penalizing the 3 teen programmers responsible and demanding the immediate removal of the software from the internet.

Unbeknownst to the American judge, the internet exists outside of the USA’s jurisdiction, and so bnetd can be found available for download in the DMCA diaspora.
This means that, as Google will attest, free WoW servers abound! By simply signing up with one of these servers (Rook’s Realm is my favourite) and changing the realm in realmlist.wtf in the WoW install directory anyone may play this renown game for the price of the boxed retail copy! What a concept!

But don’t be so quick to cry foul. Is this truly unfair to Blizzard? You cannot join a server without a legitimate copy of the client software, and Blizzard does not distribute this freely. The going rate of about $30 for a WoW game box is about par with 2-year-old PC games, but this investment really nets you nothing as it is useless without a subscription. Said subscription pays for Blizzard’s network connectivity, administrative and support staff, and other human resources that are not exploited by those using third-party servers. Really, these servers net Blizzard a profit since they are run by volunteers.

As it happens, if you’ve thrown your WoW box in the garbage as I have, or you just don’t feel like footing the bill, you can purchase a 14-day trial disc for $1.99 and install that. Really, you’ll be saving Blizzard money by not taking advantage of their generous trial account.

However, if you’re in the USA and would prefer to stay on the sunny side of the DMCA you might want to give that trial account a whirl instead. Use mine. I sure don’t need it.

TM7KCJ-JFHG-87FGFBY-EB9P-GWXPK9

P.s.,� check out wowstatus.net for a mindbogglingly huge and detailed list of free WoW servers!

This article was written by Brian at demodulated Original post:

Wow! Play World of Warcraft for free!

This article was written by Brian at demodulated Original post:

My greatest achievement in WoW

“British game publisher Codemasters have announced the now-portable return of their classic Cannon Fodder franchise, set to massively attack PSPs in the spring of 2007.”

PSP!?!?!?� This was a game whose biggest claim to fame was the freedom to aim quickly and freely with the mouse!� What’s it doing on a dual analog system?� No doubt the game will be retooled into a non-descript Army Men / Armed & Dangerous / Contra clone that works well on that wee little PSP analog nub.� The original game deserves to be released on the DS in all its free-aiming glory!

Check out Cannon Fodder and Cannon Fodder 2 from Home of the Underdogs!� Bloody war has never been so adorable!

This article was written by Brian at demodulated Original post:

Lil’ troops deployed on the wrong front

He sent me another trial and I bought a 60-day playcard ($30 at Walmart). I tried to upgrade the trial with the playcard but, despite my friend’s assertions, it did in fact require the purchase of the retail box. So I shelled out another $35 for a product key and 1 more month. I’ve got until November to give it a go.

Luckily setup was a lot easier this time around. Blizzard had generosly updated the 2.5GB installer on Filefront with the next-to-latest 1.11.1 patch. My friend sent me a link to directly download all the patches so I didn’t bother reconfiguring my router for the bittorrent updater, and I blocked the behind-the-scenes P2P uploader that tried to sneak past me. I downloaded and installed the 5MB 1.11.2 patch very quickly and was up and running in record time!

So far no foul-ups in about 6 hours of play. I honestly do like this game so I hope technical difficulties don’t stand in my way this time. I’m now a paying customer (ugh) so I won’t be keeping my vocalizations to myself anymore!

~~UPDATE~~

I see in my logs that a surprisingly large number of people find my blog by searching Google for “WoW trial”. Surprisingly I’m currently the top listing on page 2 (#11) for this query. Mine is pretty much the only evaluative page for this query so I’m glad to have the opportunity to give people a little reality in their search for information on this game.

This article was written by Brian at demodulated Original post:

Aggroed, kited, and critted

I’m already a fan of Valve’s Steam platform so I had few qualms about preordering the game in digital format. I made the purchase entirely inside the Steam client and the procedure was complete in under 2 minutes. Valve discounted preorders 10% to $18 USD which is comparable to boxed hardcopies I’ve seen in stores, but this is one of few games I was sufficiently excited about to warrant buying only the data to ensure I could play right at the zero-hour (not to mention Half Life 2′s documentation was nonexistent, and Steam allows you to install all its products with nothing but an internet connection or via self-burned DVD).

My preorder afforded me the “privilege” of preloading content onto my hard drive on a few occasions in instalments (no pun intended) of about 300MB. The downloads came in at an average of 180KB/s which was my maximum ISP downrate. I was a bit frustrated that I had to log on to Steam on several occasions to download more content every few weeks, but on release day I was happy to be able to play the game with minimal fuss. Perhaps I won’t let my anticipation get the better of me before Episode Two is released and just download everything a day or two before release.

Evolution or intelligent design?

I counted the seconds until midnight of that joyous day, but was forced to keep on counting since the game was not cleared for launch until about 3PM EST. When I got home from work I ran the Steam client, downloaded little more than a megabyte, waited 2 minutes for files to decompress, and was greeted with a main menu screen showing a crumbling Citadel cascading flaming debris and billowing smokey plumes over a rubble-strewn City 17. I was a little disappointed that my graphics and audio preferences hadn’t been carried over from Half Life 2, but I half expected this after experiencing the same issue with Valve’s free add-on tech demo level, The Lost Coast.

I’ve upgraded my PC a few times since playing Half Life 2, so I was disheartened to see how choppy the game ran at full detail at 1280×1024 (with 8xAF and no AA – the settings that afforded me great performance in HL2). Oddly, turning down the detail at this resolution did little to improve the frames per second, but playing at 1024×768 at full detail plus 2xAA yielded excellent consistent performance. The game and particularly the fonts looked fuzzier at this resolution, but in shooters frame rate is paramount so I didn’t mind. This was the resolution I was forced to settle with in The Lost Coast, but thankfully Episode One ran much more quickly and smoothly even with HDR enabled.

Before I delve too deeply into technical matters I’ll discuss the premise and gameplay.

Valve recently added this soft bloom shader to the original Half Life 2 as well. Shine on!

Calling Episode One “more of the same” is double-edged sword – a curse or a blessing depending on just how rosy your Half Life glasses are tinted. Barely able to contain my anticipation, I’d replayed a good chunk of HL2 in preparation for the launch of the first expansion so I was very pleased to see Episode One continue immediately after the “conclusion” of the original (“culmination” might be a better word). While those who were frustrated by the unexplained lapse in story between the original Half Life and its sequel will be relieved by this continuity, let me say right now that few, if any, questions are answered in the latest chapter. It’s likely more questions are asked than answered, but it’s this uncertainty and sense of discovery that kept me in awe at so many turns in HL2 so I was not at all disappointed by the expansion’s equally cryptic method of subtley hinting at an underlying concrete story. Still, there’s more plot progression in the first 5 minutes of this game than you’ll find in the rest of the episode and some people may be dissuaded by this.

The premise of this short add-on can be summarized fairly succinctly: You and Alyx crippled the Citadel and must escape City 17 before she goes supernova (the city, not Alyx). Of course it’s not quite so easy as it sounds – a few new enemies and some old favourites do their darndest to gib your tender gibbables. The introduction of new foes makes for some strategic considerations while battling varieties of enemies in large mobs, but I most enjoyed the reintroduction of old enemies and the new tactics required to defeat them.

You begin the episode with nothing but your still-superpowered gravity gun, but reacquire your original arsenal over time. I appreciated the way Valve kept me guessing as to how long it would be before I got my traditional weapons back. It would have been nice to see just one new armament, but since you trek through mostly familiar territory it was acceptable in context.

By the look on your face, Alyx, I believe you!

Alyx is your faithful companion for the vast majority of this game, and it’s really great having her along. She is implemented very successfully in that she is your guide but acts believably as if you are guiding her. Her banter is witty and cautiously up-beat when the coast appears clear, emotional and vulnerable when appropriate, and her sentiments uncannily mirrored my own verbal exclamations more than once. She didn’t give it all up on the first date though; Alyx made some surprisingly topical comments depending on what I was looking at, and sometimes had something relevant to say about our surroundings when I queried her with the use button. It was also amusing watching her fight, and you’ll get many opportunities to do so as you will steer her fire with your flashlight at times, rely on her to cover your reloads, and be humbled by her as she takes on enemy forces hand-to-hand with several new 2-model combat animations. All in all I was glad to have Alyx around and dismayed when we were separated.

Although the novelty of the gravity gun has worn off for me, new physics/logic puzzles reminded me why I enjoy using it so much. There were one or two rehashes of old concepts amongst several interesting conundrums, but many puzzles had alternative solutions. For example, I found myself in one area where I obviously needed to make a bridge out of a teetering wooden plank. There was lots of debris around to weigh down the short end of the fulcrum, but I found it easier to jam a chair under the long side which made for a perfectly stable walkway. The polished and believable physics really make the Half Life universe sing, while the variable, viable solutions to roadblocks do much to make you forget about the game’s rules because you are so busy playing! This feeling is the rarest and purest zen of gaming and should not be taken lightly! Savour the flavour!

Come out of the closet, Zom. You’re not fooling anyone.

I can’t say this any other way – the game is short. I’d been told by many to expect 4-6 hours of gameplay my first time through, and this was about accurate as it took me just over 4.5 hours. However, this short span really packs a punch. Some sequences in Half Life 2, such as the airboat, were obviously designed with efficiency in mind; “We made the airboat so we may as well get our money’s worth,” Valve must have said. If Half Life 2 can be considered akin to a 10-course meal, with each course finishing and dishes being cleared before the next, then Episode One is a sumptuous buffet with dishes overlapping the next course. When a new game mechanic is introduced, it stays in play while new elements are thrown into the mix, melding into a sort of sci-fi shooter jambalaya. Overall I felt that the game could have been drawn out longer if Valve had so chosen, but the way Episode One introduced new elements in a simple and friendly fashion made for some really involved, high-pressure situations when required to put all your training to the test. I felt like I got the most out of the new game mechanics while still making progress.

The graphics have been slightly improved in this expansion. While many assets are rehashed from the original (notably textures, models, and scenery) they are rejuvinated by enhanced bloom and some new texture shaders. Although some supporting voice actors are reused from HL2, the number of generic NPCs has been greatly reduced so I never got that “attack of the clones” feeling. Once again, NPCs had a surprisingly long list of witticisms to spew, and the player is often granted the option to stick around in some areas as long as he wishes to listen in on long exchanges between random NPCs as well as those who “know each other”.

Geometry is convincingly implied by shading. Check out the, er, gentle lighting on those curves!

One aspect of design worth noting is the fantastic autosave function, carried over from Half Life 2. The player is notified onscreen of automatic game saves at critical times such as after loading new zones, but the game is saved transparently before all dangerous areas. Even a novice player could get through this game frustration-free without manually saving the game once. The prompt to save your game upon exit is pure genius, and the accompanying screenshot is indeed worth 1000 words. Overall the interface of this game is very clean and well organized. You can even alt-tab out of the game without crashing!

The most notable graphical update is the much-lauded high dynamic range (HDR) lighting effect. My new DirectX 9.0c compliant video card handles this effect a little more gracefully than my old 9800Pro which I’m thankful for since this effect is the belle of the ball when viewed at a high frame rate. Though indeed beautiful and striking, the effect is used for more than eye candy. One area, illustrated below, is exceptionally bright and you must allow your eyes to adjust to the scene before navigating treacherous walkways. The transition of such areas from overbright to bright to hazy to clear is quite convincing and affects your perception of objects and textures appropriately.

The HDR effect over a 5-second span. Thanks for the screenshot work, Shan2on!

Sound is as good as ever, and the voice acting is very believable and organic. Despite the lack of hardware-accelerated audio the positional sounds are precise enough that when I heard growling from behind and slightly to my right, that’s instinctively where I turned. The music, though similar to Half Life 2′s short snippets and “stingers”, is much improved and feels more like a soundtrack to exciting events than a binary event triggered by walking through an invisible gate. Also thankfully MIA is the annoying habit of music cutting off due to new area loading screens popping up unexpectedly. I was not a fan of the original’s soundtrack due to these reasons, but Episode One’s themes undeniably added to the excitement of many action and suspense sequences.

I knew this was a fun and well-balanced game, but had no idea how meticulously researched and expertly crafted it was until I replayed it with developer’s commentary turned on. This mode places many speech bubble icons around the landscape which can be activated with the use button to hear various members of Valve’s design, coding, and art teams comment on a particularly cool effect or behind-the-scenes nuance of scripting. Unfortunately the game plays out in real time while all but one commentary was narrated so at times it was difficult juggling my attention between the jargon and the Combine (Alyx would probably call this “Jombine”). Also, a few spoken sentences did not display closed captions which made words difficult to decipher in areas with a lot of ambient sound. Still, it’s a great extra to bundle – especially in a $20 game – and I’m very glad to hear that Valve intends to include this feature in future products.

Be sure to play in commentary mode once you’ve already finished Episode One. Spoilers abound.

In 2 playthroughs I found the game to be bug-free with the exception of some weird floaty behaviour when I jumped on an upturned table or piece of debris. Despite the freeform unpredictability of the often appropriately named Havoc physics engine, not once did I experience inexplicable corpse-dancing, unassisted box bouncing, or spastically flying debris as I did in Elder Scrolls: Oblivion. Aside from loading screens (which are slightly quicker than in Half Life 2) there was almost nothing to pull me out of the experience of playing.

There is no one thing that makes this game great, and the elements gel together into something much greater than the sum of its parts. It’s easy to pick the game apart into its building blocks, but examining the trees makes you oblivious of the vibrant forest all around you. Episode One lives and breathes. It positively teems with atmosphere due to the synergy of elements. A texture on its own may tell you that a brick wall is decrepit with age, but a shiny goopy halo with subtle bump mapping, scratched stucco floors, dusty sunbeams streaming through filthy high-up windows, a low moan of wailing winds, and a rotting half-chewed corpse in the corner combine into a wordless tale. Though it is a linear game, one can spend untold hours with the zoom button depressed, pondering the dichotomy of utopian resolve vs dystopian humanity that is expressed merely architecturally.

I love this game. I really do. I love it as much as the original, and that’s saying a mouthful. I finished it on release day in two sittings (my belly always rumbles at the worst times) and was so amazed by some sequences, vistas, and arenas that I immediately reloaded some save points just to replay them. The opening sequence is truly awesome and very well paced. The action, puzzles, conversations, and other various tableaux fit the experience just right and are variously interspersed in sensible and entertaining intervals. When Episode One concludes you’ll wish it hadn’t.

It’s one of those rare games that is so good I couldn’t wait to play it, and the original, all over again. In fact, I’ll likely purchase the two expansions for Half Life: Source while I bask in the afterglow of Episode One.

Bask in this afterglow too – it’s one of the brightest indoor areas you’ll visit in “scenic” City 17.

Valve has promised to reward players with two more episodes to be released approximately 6 months apart. This feels like an eternity to wait for story resolution, but it’s a lot better than waiting another 6 years for the next true sequel. The Source engine still has legs and it’s great to see it grow incrementally with my gaming PC over a couple of years.

If you own and enjoyed Half Life 2, there’s nothing better you can spend a $20 bill on than this first expansion episode.

5 out of 5 zombines

This article was written by Brian at demodulated Original post:

Review of Half Life 2: Episode One

I retract my allegation that Blizzard is a ripoff artist. I’m disappointed that my trial began when I created my account, not when I first played, but somehow I think most people don’t have as much trouble as I did installing the game. I’m unaware of their refund policy for days where users cannot log in (which, in my experience, was most days) so I can’t comment on whether subscribers truly get what they pay for.

Now that I’ve uninstalled it I’m not motivated to go through the ordeal of reinstalling and patching the game. The trial was sufficient to prove that this isn’t the game for me.

Well, onward and upward. Too bad Prey doesn’t come out for another 2 weeks, and that the demo for Titan Quest was so average and boring. Feel free to leave me a comment with a suggestion (on a game to play, not where I should stick it for badmouthing your favourite game, fanboys).

Full list of articles in my WoW saga:
World of Morepatch
Suffering for my art
Room for one more straw
Premature ejection
My WoW trial was indeed 10 days

This article was written by Brian at demodulated Original post:

Correction — My WoW trial was indeed 10 days