With rumors swirling around this week at the possibility of a Far Cry 3 being announced at E3 it made me think about Far Cry 2.
Far Cry 2 was a major departure from the the first game, no longer being developed by Crytek as that studio had moved on to Crysis it was instead made by Ubisoft Montreal. Ditching the man vs monster elements and the tropical island of the first game we're taken to a war torn Africa, on a mission to kill an arms dealer known as the Jackal. After a brief introductory/tutorial section you're presented with an open world to explore and find your way to your target.
Now this isn't really a review as I'm just writing down my thoughts on the game which I freaking loved. At a time when I was just tired of open world sandbox games Far Cry 2 was able to pull me in and every second of the entire month I devoted to playing this game was an amazing experience.
Now some people didn't really care for FC2 and yes I admit, it did have it's issues. It had some bugs and some glitches and some of the game mechanics could of been better but they're just some little things that I feel need to be looked past to enjoy what this game does right.
The one thing for me that FC2 had going for it was the immersion. Every step of the way I felt like I was in the deserts of Africa hunting diamonds and shooting fools. The little details like the barely there hub and the map you had to hold in your hands to use were so well done it helped bring you into the game. All this was presented with amazing graphics, I played the game on the PC and it is one of the best looking games out there, rivaling Crysis is parts. The Dunia engine really shines in this game as I think the only other game that uses it in full is the Avatar Movie Game.
I love the way the weapons work in this, they degrade as you use them and eventually jam and break down. It adds tension to a firefight when your gun is on it's last legs and you need to scramble to grab a fallen enemies' gun to finish off his friends. You can ambush supply lines to get access to new perfect condition weapons which will eventually break on you but for the real fun of it just use the guns the enemies drop. They only drop weapons in the worst condition and it ups the challenge and again the tension of the combat.
There is one thing I do not like about how they handled the weapons, they're broken up into three possible types. Primary, Secondary and Special. Primary are the basic assault rifles, shotguns and sniper rifles. Secondary are pistols and sub machine guns (Uzis and such) and finally the special weapons are rocket launchers flamethrowers and the like. I absolutely hate not being able to carry an assault weapon with a sniper rifle. You can get by with the dart gun in the special slot but really who wants to just put guys to sleep, I want to split skulls with a Dragunov and still be able to clean up with an AK-47.
Fire is very important in this game, you can use it to help in combat and that is really cool. Let's say you have a group of enemies in the field you can light said field on fire and kill them with that or use the same fire to corral them into an area for you to pick off easier.
I do want to mention that stealth in this game is just straight up broken. Enemies can see you from a mile away if you shoot one of their friends, you can barely sneak around and if someone lets out the slightest gasp when you shoot them in the face the whole area knows exactly where you're at. For a game that stressed how you could sneak and all that stuff for it not to work is really lame.
When you're wounded to your final section of life you get a severe wound. When you fix this wound you're treated to a gruesome animation of your character fixing the wound. You'll push bullet through your arm, reset broken fingers and pull sticks out of your leg. It's all really cool, I like how it's handled and I really wish more games would use this mechanic.
As I said in the article I did about more games needing co-op Far Cry 2 is the prime example of this. Most of the vehicles have multiple places to sit, namely the boats with a driver seat and then the gunner stations. It would of been great to cruise down a river with a friend, drop them off near the target then coordinate a strike on the target with them. This game sorely needed co-op and I think this is one of the biggest things it suffers from.
I also need to bring up the guard posts. When you pass through a guard post it's usually stocked with enemies, you kill them and move on. If you come back to the guard post they have respawned which is okay but you can just go barely out of sight of the post and turn around to be greeted with a full group of guards, all ready to kill you dead. It would of been cool if sometimes the posts are guarded by friendly units depending on you doing missions. The respawn rate on the guards should of been drawn out, you couldn't repair and restaff a guard post in a few minutes, it should take at least 24 in game hours for a post to respawn or even more depending on how far it is from the faction's main base.
The last thing I can say about Far Cry 2 that I didn't care for was the lack of mod support. Ubisoft didn't release the SDK for this one so the modders didn't get to have their way with the game. I imagine some amazing things would of been done to this one and I would of loved to see what people would of come up with.
I do list a lot of negatives here but don't get me wrong Far Cry 2 is amazing and it didn't deserve the hate it was getting by some reviewers and my fellow gamers. The game is one of my all time favorites any praise it gets it deserves but I see room for improvement in Far Cry 3. I hope Ubisoft takes some of the legitimate negative aspects of part 2 removes them and molds what's left into an even more amazing game.
Showing posts with label awesome. Show all posts
Showing posts with label awesome. Show all posts
Saturday, May 7, 2011
Monday, January 3, 2011
Realm of the Mad God
Earlier this month I was browsing the past entries in the IndieGames blog and I came across a game called "Realm of the Mad God." Reading about the game I saw it was a top down roguelike RPG. Being a big fan of any Roguelike I decided to try it out but it was not yet to be. I forgot all about it until a few days ago. A friend showed me a list of the top downloadable indie games of 2010 and there was the Realm of the Mad God and according to this list it had online play! I was not aware of that when I first saw the article from back in January of 2010. Yeah it says it's online in the post on the IndieGames blog but I totally missed.
I decided to finally try this game out and I am really glad I did. It's a fantastic little browser game and I cannot recommend it enough.
Realm of the Mad God tasks you with defeating the mad god Oryx having been summoned to his realm to be killed by his army of monsters. You start the game with selecting from classes which make up the standard RPG stuff, Rogues, Wizards, Warriors and a few others. Some of the classes are locked and to unlock them you need to get the starter classes up to the level cap which is 20. Once in the game you show up in a hub world which leads to various different realms. Each realm has the same content but they're at different levels of completion depending on the amount of killing done by the players.
As mentioned above this game falls into the roguelike category of games. When you die you're done, you lose everything, forced to restart and begin the level grind all over again. One thing that takes away some of the pain of losing your progress are none of the gear has level requirements. Meaning if you fall in battle and a friend can grab your stuff your new level one guy can use all your old gear. This makes starting over easier as you have more power at a lower level. I've had several characters die some at the level cap and I've only wanted to jump right back in and do it all again but I like the whole roguelike thing so your mileage may vary with this as to the amount of starting over you can take. Though at 20 you can take a good amount of punishment and if you're in a group you should be good to go.
The game is very simple to play, it's a lot like the various twin stick shooters we've seen in the past like Robotron, Geometry Wars or Smash TV but this uses the keyboard and mouse. WASD move you around and the mouse aims the direction of your shots. It works really well but I would love to eventually see support for a controller to be able to play this like a twin stick shooter but only time will tell about this.
Each class has a four equipment slots, main weapon, special ability, armor and a ring. Each class has only one type of weapon they can use and they all have unique special items they can find. Such as the Priest finding a better healing Tome and the Rogue acquiring a new clock to make his stealth move better. It's all very simple and this makes the game very enjoyable.
Like many RPG's this game has you gaining experience to level and as you go along you fight stronger and stronger enemies until you get to the end but the monster killing this is handled in a different way. When the realm starts fresh there are 25,000 monsters that need to be killed. These are a mix of trash mobs and bosses or as they're known in this game Gods. Arrows will point you in the direction of level appropriate gods for you to kill so you never intentionally go to the place you can't survive in. Mindless wandering can get you jammed up but that's another story. So in the end it's the entire realm of people working together to kill all 25,000 monsters to summon Oryx The Mad God. When the enemy count is reached everyone in the server is summoned to fight Oryx regardless of level or what you're doing. I like this but it seems a little unfair if you're just starting out and all of a sudden you're in this fight with something you have no chance of beating, if you survive you stand to get some good loot but it can confuse you at first if you don't know exactly what's happening.
That's the game in a nutshell and I have to say it's a lot of fun. It plays in the browser and is free to play. I believe it has some microtransactions for gold and some other stuff but I haven't seen anything about it so I'm not 100 percent sure on that.
I'm going to share some thoughts I have to improve this game and that will be in the below video that will accompany this article so you can check that out as well.
Link to play this game, also has the link to the forums and the wiki -
http://www.realmofthemadgod.com
I decided to finally try this game out and I am really glad I did. It's a fantastic little browser game and I cannot recommend it enough.
Realm of the Mad God tasks you with defeating the mad god Oryx having been summoned to his realm to be killed by his army of monsters. You start the game with selecting from classes which make up the standard RPG stuff, Rogues, Wizards, Warriors and a few others. Some of the classes are locked and to unlock them you need to get the starter classes up to the level cap which is 20. Once in the game you show up in a hub world which leads to various different realms. Each realm has the same content but they're at different levels of completion depending on the amount of killing done by the players.
As mentioned above this game falls into the roguelike category of games. When you die you're done, you lose everything, forced to restart and begin the level grind all over again. One thing that takes away some of the pain of losing your progress are none of the gear has level requirements. Meaning if you fall in battle and a friend can grab your stuff your new level one guy can use all your old gear. This makes starting over easier as you have more power at a lower level. I've had several characters die some at the level cap and I've only wanted to jump right back in and do it all again but I like the whole roguelike thing so your mileage may vary with this as to the amount of starting over you can take. Though at 20 you can take a good amount of punishment and if you're in a group you should be good to go.
The game is very simple to play, it's a lot like the various twin stick shooters we've seen in the past like Robotron, Geometry Wars or Smash TV but this uses the keyboard and mouse. WASD move you around and the mouse aims the direction of your shots. It works really well but I would love to eventually see support for a controller to be able to play this like a twin stick shooter but only time will tell about this.
Each class has a four equipment slots, main weapon, special ability, armor and a ring. Each class has only one type of weapon they can use and they all have unique special items they can find. Such as the Priest finding a better healing Tome and the Rogue acquiring a new clock to make his stealth move better. It's all very simple and this makes the game very enjoyable.
Like many RPG's this game has you gaining experience to level and as you go along you fight stronger and stronger enemies until you get to the end but the monster killing this is handled in a different way. When the realm starts fresh there are 25,000 monsters that need to be killed. These are a mix of trash mobs and bosses or as they're known in this game Gods. Arrows will point you in the direction of level appropriate gods for you to kill so you never intentionally go to the place you can't survive in. Mindless wandering can get you jammed up but that's another story. So in the end it's the entire realm of people working together to kill all 25,000 monsters to summon Oryx The Mad God. When the enemy count is reached everyone in the server is summoned to fight Oryx regardless of level or what you're doing. I like this but it seems a little unfair if you're just starting out and all of a sudden you're in this fight with something you have no chance of beating, if you survive you stand to get some good loot but it can confuse you at first if you don't know exactly what's happening.
That's the game in a nutshell and I have to say it's a lot of fun. It plays in the browser and is free to play. I believe it has some microtransactions for gold and some other stuff but I haven't seen anything about it so I'm not 100 percent sure on that.
I'm going to share some thoughts I have to improve this game and that will be in the below video that will accompany this article so you can check that out as well.
Link to play this game, also has the link to the forums and the wiki -
http://www.realmofthemadgod.com
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Super Meat Boy
Another game I've been spending a lot of time with recently is the PC release of Super Meat Boy. Let me tell you this right now, this game is AMAZING! I've played a lot of newer 2D platformers in the last few years and I don't think anyone has nailed the feeling of them like Team Meat in this game.
I had played the original Meat Boy over on Newgrounds and was eagerly awaiting the release of Super Meat Boy.
You can play the original Meat Boy here...
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/463241
Anyway what makes Super Meat Boy so good? It's pretty much everything it does, first off the controls. The game has some of the tightest controls I've felt in a game for a long time, especially a PC 2D platformer. I started out using my keyboard completely ignoring the game straight up telling me to use a controller. After getting my ass handed to me I dug out my wired 360 controller and was back to playing in no time. Even with the crap 360 D-pad this game controls flawlessly. Meat Boy does exactly what you want him to when you want him to do it. It feels great when you jump and weave your way through a particularly tough section only to survive and move on to the next level. There isn't ever a time when you're fighting with the controls, I can't stress this enough, they're great.
The game looks and sounds good as well. The graphics are nice 2D and the cutscenes are done in what I call the Flash Cartoon format. They also do a lot of shout outs to old games. The intros to each chapter are taken from old school games and it's really cool when you notice and remember the game they're imitating.
Super Meat Boy also has some of the best music I've heard in a long time. I'd consider it up there with Cave Story in how good the music is. I still think Cave Story has this game beat in great music but SMB is a close second. I really like that the music doesn't restart when you die it just keeps on going. With many hard games it can be annoying when the music restarts when you die, even to a point of grating on you.
The main thing Super Meat Boy has going both for and against it is the difficulty. This game is crazy hard! It hates you and everything you stand for. Super Meat Boy wants you to suffer, it will never be nice to you, it would kill your pets if it could and laugh about all of it. Now this will turn some people off but if you're like me and hate seeing games hold your hand then this is the game for you. I still haven't finished it but I keep plugging away at it making a little progress each time I play. Another thing about death in SMB is that when you die you are almost instantly back to try again, there is a slight moment before you respawn but it's so short it's never an issue. When you're in a warp zone on the other hand there is a wait as it shows a screen with your lives and you have to wait a bit before trying again. Think of it like the original Super Mario Brothers, but it only happens in the hidden Warp Zone levels and Glitch levels, not in the main game.
SMB offers around 300 levels to try and get through. The main path, darkside versions of those levels which offer more of a challenge, and hidden Warp Zones. The Warp Zones can be throwbacks to old school games, either looking like an Atari 2600 or a Game Boy among other graphical looks. Warp Zones can also offer other characters to play as. Team Meat reached out to their Indie dev friends to bring in all kinds of characters from other games. The 360 and PC version share some of the same characters but they each have a different set of Bandage characters, these are characters you unlock as you collect the often difficult to grab bandages in the levels. The only character from the 360 version I would of liked to see in the PC version is the guy from Spelunky as I'm a huge fan of that game but with Spelunky coming out on the XBLA it makes since he's in that version.
I want to also mention the support for this game. When SMB came out on the PC it has some bugs on release. I only saw the crash on exit bug but some people couldn't even play the game. Team Meat has done an amazing job of patching this game in the short amount of time it's been out. From what I understand it's just one dude doing all the code and they're churning out patches like mad. Most major developers take ages to patch a game and these guys are on it all the time. I commend Team Meat for this and even with the buggy (for some) release of SMB they have earned my money for anything they put out! Huzzah! To them!
At the time of this writing I have not finished SMB as I'm stuck on World 4 and it's really kicking my butt. But I can safely say this game is really high up there for being my game of the year and in a year of a lot of disappointing releases it's awesome to see this one come out and rise to the top.
Super Meat Boy - 10 out 10, Play it! Even if you just play the demo everyone needs to try it out. See how two guys can make a game that's better than most big studios.
I had played the original Meat Boy over on Newgrounds and was eagerly awaiting the release of Super Meat Boy.
You can play the original Meat Boy here...
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/463241
Anyway what makes Super Meat Boy so good? It's pretty much everything it does, first off the controls. The game has some of the tightest controls I've felt in a game for a long time, especially a PC 2D platformer. I started out using my keyboard completely ignoring the game straight up telling me to use a controller. After getting my ass handed to me I dug out my wired 360 controller and was back to playing in no time. Even with the crap 360 D-pad this game controls flawlessly. Meat Boy does exactly what you want him to when you want him to do it. It feels great when you jump and weave your way through a particularly tough section only to survive and move on to the next level. There isn't ever a time when you're fighting with the controls, I can't stress this enough, they're great.
The game looks and sounds good as well. The graphics are nice 2D and the cutscenes are done in what I call the Flash Cartoon format. They also do a lot of shout outs to old games. The intros to each chapter are taken from old school games and it's really cool when you notice and remember the game they're imitating.
Super Meat Boy also has some of the best music I've heard in a long time. I'd consider it up there with Cave Story in how good the music is. I still think Cave Story has this game beat in great music but SMB is a close second. I really like that the music doesn't restart when you die it just keeps on going. With many hard games it can be annoying when the music restarts when you die, even to a point of grating on you.
The main thing Super Meat Boy has going both for and against it is the difficulty. This game is crazy hard! It hates you and everything you stand for. Super Meat Boy wants you to suffer, it will never be nice to you, it would kill your pets if it could and laugh about all of it. Now this will turn some people off but if you're like me and hate seeing games hold your hand then this is the game for you. I still haven't finished it but I keep plugging away at it making a little progress each time I play. Another thing about death in SMB is that when you die you are almost instantly back to try again, there is a slight moment before you respawn but it's so short it's never an issue. When you're in a warp zone on the other hand there is a wait as it shows a screen with your lives and you have to wait a bit before trying again. Think of it like the original Super Mario Brothers, but it only happens in the hidden Warp Zone levels and Glitch levels, not in the main game.
SMB offers around 300 levels to try and get through. The main path, darkside versions of those levels which offer more of a challenge, and hidden Warp Zones. The Warp Zones can be throwbacks to old school games, either looking like an Atari 2600 or a Game Boy among other graphical looks. Warp Zones can also offer other characters to play as. Team Meat reached out to their Indie dev friends to bring in all kinds of characters from other games. The 360 and PC version share some of the same characters but they each have a different set of Bandage characters, these are characters you unlock as you collect the often difficult to grab bandages in the levels. The only character from the 360 version I would of liked to see in the PC version is the guy from Spelunky as I'm a huge fan of that game but with Spelunky coming out on the XBLA it makes since he's in that version.
I want to also mention the support for this game. When SMB came out on the PC it has some bugs on release. I only saw the crash on exit bug but some people couldn't even play the game. Team Meat has done an amazing job of patching this game in the short amount of time it's been out. From what I understand it's just one dude doing all the code and they're churning out patches like mad. Most major developers take ages to patch a game and these guys are on it all the time. I commend Team Meat for this and even with the buggy (for some) release of SMB they have earned my money for anything they put out! Huzzah! To them!
At the time of this writing I have not finished SMB as I'm stuck on World 4 and it's really kicking my butt. But I can safely say this game is really high up there for being my game of the year and in a year of a lot of disappointing releases it's awesome to see this one come out and rise to the top.
Super Meat Boy - 10 out 10, Play it! Even if you just play the demo everyone needs to try it out. See how two guys can make a game that's better than most big studios.
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