Well, there wasn't a post on the Friday night Scavenger match last week because I was in Rome. So apologies for that...
Rome is a fantastic place, it's like a city that was built around an archeological dig. You can wander around the frankly amazing coloseum, marvel at the Pantheon... Even see the chariot racing course that used to be the circus maximus - though there's no stonework left.
I found the short break quite inspiring and I decided to crack open a golden oldie upon my return - Rome : Total War.
Now most people who play RTS games have a familiar system, you build your resources up - make troops and attack. These games tend to be won very much on who can control the resources and deploy a bigger force. I'm talking about all the derivitives of the early Dune 2 : Battle for Arakis, throught the Warcraft games, Command and Conquer, and Lord of the Rings Battle for Middle Earth.
If for example you are playing Saruman on Lord of the Rings, the strategy is to upgrade all your troops at the earliest stage and build a strong enough army with a decent balance of troop types and send them in. These games are more about managing resources.
Rome is too - to a certain degree but in a very different way. It's a hard game to play - people familiar with RTS might feel lost in the see of men you see on the battlefield the first time you play fielding a large army. There is resource management, but it's seperate from the battles. The battles themselves are far mroe realistic than the traditional resource gathering RTS. You have various troops types of course - with their own strengths and weaknesses, but you also have morale to consider, fatigue, the general who is commanding an army. If you field a six star general your troops are far less likely to route and will fight better than if you field an army led by a 1 star general.
With Rome, using the terrain to your advantage it is very possible to defeat a much larger army with good tactics.
I could write pages and pages on Rome tactics, but you might as well read 'The Art of War' because it works more or less how ancient battles did work! There are some things which don't apply realistically - historically the Romans would have sent light troops like the Velites in to soften up enemy infantry - in Rome the computer will auto-deply your troops in a formation which facilitates this (You can change it thankfully before the battle starts.) but a more effective tactic is to field any missile troops behind the infantry - and get them to shoot over the heads of their comrades. If you are enganged in this sort of encounter and you can hit the block of enemy troops from both sides at the same time with a cavalry charge - it's an instant route. You have to be careful though - if you pen the enemy troops in, they will fight to the death. You do want to kill all the enemy troops - but they are easier to kill when they are fleeing for their lives than when they are surrounded and in full fight mode.
March your men too far they get fatigued, they don't fight as well, morale goes down - if they see your general fleeing, morale goes down, seeing enemies routing morale goes up. You can swing the tide of a battle immensely by killing the enemy general.
Off the battle field it's a matter of managing towns all over your empire. The further from your capital a settlement is = the harder it is to keep them from rebelling. Governs with good management skills will help but a large empire is incredibly hard to run anyway. If you take a settlement you can either occupy, enslave or pillage. Occupying keeps the settlement runnning smoothly - but they will revolt soon, unless you can do something to stop them. Enslaving boosts the population of other settlements with the slaves you export and pillaging give you a big gain in denari but the population goes right down as most of the settlement is killed. Keeping your empires economy running optimally is critical but challenging.
Tuesday night I finally managed to take Rome from the Senate. Wary of my faction leaders popularity the Senate had ordered he take his own life or our faction was an enemy of Rome - seeing as I already had all of western europe and Russia, it was a no-brainer, I now have 100 years to take 14 territories in order to claim victory.
Rome is a fantastic game, that's detailed, fun and educational - historical information about all the troops and buildings is given to you as you play the game. Overall I would say Rome:Total War is possibly the best strategy game I have ever played. The only criticism I could give it - is that it takes a long, long time to play. You could spend entire days playing it, I've been working on the single player campaign for literally years now... But I've enjoyed every minute.
I did manage to have a quick go of Expert Realism the other night on Left 4 Dead 2, and I managed to get through to the second part of 'Dead Centre' on my own - it's not that hard a campaign if you think about what you are doing. We got very close to beating the second part too, but time was not on my side.
I did get a quick go of Scavenger - we played No Mercy:The Hospital Roof, which I'm finding a very popular Scavenger Map. I think I know why too - the multiple layers, the risk of being knocked off or falling off the building and the high number of canisters available make it an interesting map. Particularly as it takes teamwork to a new level - there are times when a friend can throw canisters up to you and you can catch them -speeding up the collecting process, but also tying up two people from the fight.
It was a fantastic match actually - the first round, the other team played first and scored 13 canisters and we fought tooth and nail to get 14 winning the first round. The second round, our opponents got 21, we simply couldn't lock them out - but when we took survivors we managed to nail 21 in less than 4 and a half minutes, winning the round and the match.
All in all, it's worth downloading 'The Sacrifice' just so you can play the No Mercy Scavenger map.
Friday 30 September 2011
Monday 19 September 2011
Left 4 Dead 2 : Defeating Expert Realism Mode.
I didn't play scavenger last night, I committed to doing that on a Friday, and I won't be able to next Friday because I will be out for the evening.
Instead last night I have another concerted attempt at tackling Expert Realism. It was an interesting night actually - I didn't get particularly far, but that's not the point - I did pick up enough information to make what can seem impossible difficulty do-able.
I think counter-intuitively all of the Left 4 Dead 2 campaigns start with a very challenging section. Large open areas, lots of infected and little useful cover. In the normal play-mode it works well, becuse they hit the survivors hard, and it makes the little skirmishes that occur later on more effective because the survivors are in a weakened state. If it started easy and built up - it'd probably be too easy.
Last night I focused on 'Dark Carnival' now I've seen numerous teams not even make it off the road - falling to the hoard of zombies before they've even climbed over the cars. I've seen better teams limping along, wounded and missing a member by the time they get to the under-pass just before the hotel.
The point here is that although before I said you need good 4 way comms and 4 good players, there's something else you need too! That is solid tactics. The infected on Expert Realism will take an immense amount of firepower to drop them unless you hit the head - when a hoard is charging you from every angle, it's impossible to snipe with an analog stick and head-shot them. On Expert Realism, this initial high-challenge works a bit differently, rather than weakening the survivors - it wipes them out.
On Normal and Easy - especially non-realism, it's pretty easy to get complacent - a few shoves, a few well placed shots and you can get through these sections with very little effort - only the specials offering any serious threat. When you up the difficulty and go realism - you need to start looking for better tactics.
Here's some ideas on how through the Dark Carnival Motel with your health kits intact and your health in the green/amber.
1. At the start, after the talk about Jimmy Gibbs Junior's car - grab your weapons and health kits, and I strongly suggest choosing the sub-machine gun. You'll need to be able to shoot accurately and you'll be in close quarters to your team mates so the shotgun is dangerous and not as effective - you'll mainly be trying to keeop the infected at range.
2. Once you're tooled up, the entire team should run and jump past the infected until the road is blocked, at that point there is an open Luton Van or Lorry to the left of the road - pile in quick, then turn to face the entrance, front two crouch the back two stand - keep killing until the infected stop coming. The risk here is that a Spitter will gob into the van - if that happens, and you're at the middle, try moving back - the spit might not have made it to the back wall. If not you're going to have to get out. If someone feels like playing 'fall guy' he can stay out of the van, let the team in the van cover him and specifically try to take out the special infected, particularly Spitters. You need someone good to do this job - they might get hunters, smokers, chargers and jockeys coming at them and quick reflexes will help them not lose so much damage. If a boomer barfs on the team - everyone get in the van, maintain formation and keep shooting.
3. Once you're through the first encounter where you hole up in the first van, make your way around the blocked road, instead of heading down the slip-road to the hummer stay on the road, there should be a thrown weapon and another weapon at the campsite. Still, don't go down to the slip-road, to the left is an over-turned lorry and some bushes, it's possible to jump on the bushes and then onto the over-turned lorry cab, avoiding going under the under-pass. If it's very busy when you go around the corner from the first van there is another van you can use the same tactic in - usually you can move straight through though and climb over.
4. Once over the lorry, you are on top of the under-pass that you normally go under. There's another van that tends to have pills or similar in it -if it gets busy you can hole up in that van as before.
5. You should now have a clear run to the sign above the Motel, which you often climb over to get on top of the Motel roof. Once there try to pick up the sniper rifle. Then jump onto the Motel roof from the sign.
6. Once on the Motel roof make your way on top of the roof to the top floor of motel rooms. At some point you'll trigger a hoard attack and a tank can come. Don't be tempted to hole up in a room - that should be the last resort. A better bet is to stay on the balcony near the centre of the line of rooms that leads from the Motel to the swimming pool and the way out. Two face forwards, two face back, at this point - a Tank often appears. Try to keep your distance, use the sniper rifles on it as much as possible, molatov it if possible - if you're not going to take it down and it's charging you - try to get around it and make a run for the exit, or try to back up to where you've got more room to manouver - staying on the balcony is a bad idea at this point.
7. Once you're through the Motel and sludging through the river at the bottom of the hill, look out for a little wooden shack. I don't think it's big enough for four, but if two go in, one can crouch and one stand, and they can cover the backs of the two exposed survivors - at that point, you can just try adn run the gauntlet and get to the safe room - but that's an alternative tactic that can work well.
Conclusion, if you're playing any campaign and having trouble, try going back to easy mode, kill everything - and spend a long time looking for choke points and places you can hole up.
I hope this helps!
Instead last night I have another concerted attempt at tackling Expert Realism. It was an interesting night actually - I didn't get particularly far, but that's not the point - I did pick up enough information to make what can seem impossible difficulty do-able.
I think counter-intuitively all of the Left 4 Dead 2 campaigns start with a very challenging section. Large open areas, lots of infected and little useful cover. In the normal play-mode it works well, becuse they hit the survivors hard, and it makes the little skirmishes that occur later on more effective because the survivors are in a weakened state. If it started easy and built up - it'd probably be too easy.
Last night I focused on 'Dark Carnival' now I've seen numerous teams not even make it off the road - falling to the hoard of zombies before they've even climbed over the cars. I've seen better teams limping along, wounded and missing a member by the time they get to the under-pass just before the hotel.
The point here is that although before I said you need good 4 way comms and 4 good players, there's something else you need too! That is solid tactics. The infected on Expert Realism will take an immense amount of firepower to drop them unless you hit the head - when a hoard is charging you from every angle, it's impossible to snipe with an analog stick and head-shot them. On Expert Realism, this initial high-challenge works a bit differently, rather than weakening the survivors - it wipes them out.
On Normal and Easy - especially non-realism, it's pretty easy to get complacent - a few shoves, a few well placed shots and you can get through these sections with very little effort - only the specials offering any serious threat. When you up the difficulty and go realism - you need to start looking for better tactics.
Here's some ideas on how through the Dark Carnival Motel with your health kits intact and your health in the green/amber.
1. At the start, after the talk about Jimmy Gibbs Junior's car - grab your weapons and health kits, and I strongly suggest choosing the sub-machine gun. You'll need to be able to shoot accurately and you'll be in close quarters to your team mates so the shotgun is dangerous and not as effective - you'll mainly be trying to keeop the infected at range.
2. Once you're tooled up, the entire team should run and jump past the infected until the road is blocked, at that point there is an open Luton Van or Lorry to the left of the road - pile in quick, then turn to face the entrance, front two crouch the back two stand - keep killing until the infected stop coming. The risk here is that a Spitter will gob into the van - if that happens, and you're at the middle, try moving back - the spit might not have made it to the back wall. If not you're going to have to get out. If someone feels like playing 'fall guy' he can stay out of the van, let the team in the van cover him and specifically try to take out the special infected, particularly Spitters. You need someone good to do this job - they might get hunters, smokers, chargers and jockeys coming at them and quick reflexes will help them not lose so much damage. If a boomer barfs on the team - everyone get in the van, maintain formation and keep shooting.
3. Once you're through the first encounter where you hole up in the first van, make your way around the blocked road, instead of heading down the slip-road to the hummer stay on the road, there should be a thrown weapon and another weapon at the campsite. Still, don't go down to the slip-road, to the left is an over-turned lorry and some bushes, it's possible to jump on the bushes and then onto the over-turned lorry cab, avoiding going under the under-pass. If it's very busy when you go around the corner from the first van there is another van you can use the same tactic in - usually you can move straight through though and climb over.
4. Once over the lorry, you are on top of the under-pass that you normally go under. There's another van that tends to have pills or similar in it -if it gets busy you can hole up in that van as before.
5. You should now have a clear run to the sign above the Motel, which you often climb over to get on top of the Motel roof. Once there try to pick up the sniper rifle. Then jump onto the Motel roof from the sign.
6. Once on the Motel roof make your way on top of the roof to the top floor of motel rooms. At some point you'll trigger a hoard attack and a tank can come. Don't be tempted to hole up in a room - that should be the last resort. A better bet is to stay on the balcony near the centre of the line of rooms that leads from the Motel to the swimming pool and the way out. Two face forwards, two face back, at this point - a Tank often appears. Try to keep your distance, use the sniper rifles on it as much as possible, molatov it if possible - if you're not going to take it down and it's charging you - try to get around it and make a run for the exit, or try to back up to where you've got more room to manouver - staying on the balcony is a bad idea at this point.
7. Once you're through the Motel and sludging through the river at the bottom of the hill, look out for a little wooden shack. I don't think it's big enough for four, but if two go in, one can crouch and one stand, and they can cover the backs of the two exposed survivors - at that point, you can just try adn run the gauntlet and get to the safe room - but that's an alternative tactic that can work well.
Conclusion, if you're playing any campaign and having trouble, try going back to easy mode, kill everything - and spend a long time looking for choke points and places you can hole up.
I hope this helps!
Sunday 18 September 2011
Day 3 of the Experiment.
I managed to resist the urge to get drunk while playing last night, I did I admit down a couple of 'Corona's' over the two hour slot. The thing is, when you are staring at a screen of character with a rifle in your hand facing down zombies - there's an urge to drink... I guess it stems from a mis-spent young-adulthood where I'd spend nights sitting up late watching horror films...
Funny really, but in some respects, if I ever DID have to survive a zombie infestation on the one hand I'd probably fare well because of my hours of 'Training' on the Left 4 Dead games... The urge to have a beer before going zombie killing could be a bad thing. Given my fairly lack-lustre performance with a shotgun while sober - failing to hit more or less all of the clay pidgeons - I suspect trying to wield a shotgun while drunk would be plain dangerous...
Anyway - DID have a more satisfying night of gaming all in all. I started the night by warming up with an epic fail attempt at getting through realism expert mode... The more I play realism expert, the more convinced I am that actually to succeed at this mode you need a team of four good players and 4 way mic communication, or 4 amazing players... I've gotten through most of Dark Carnival before without mic but really it's so much easier if you are able to communicate what you are doing and what you want the others to do... Unfortunately I've misplaced my mic at the moment.
Playing Expert realism does hone your basic skills though, after a couple of false starts we were storming ahead and go to the stage where we were preventing the opposing team even getting one canister. It struck me as well, that as the infected a key strategy is to not spawn until you are close - you move so much faster before spawning and obviously can't be hurt... The number of times when you can't find a spot to spawn are very infrequent. Using this tactic you can home in on a straggler - or a survivor rushing to help a straggler who has been trapped by one of your team.
In some ways, it's very satisfying to focus on one game. Perhaps one of the reasons I've been a bit disillusioned with games lately is the lack of getting deep, deep into a game. Duke Nukem Forever was just annoying to play... The final battle wasn't bad and the first bit in the Casino was sort of okay - but overall it seemed clunky shallow, ill thought out and generally seemed to rely too much on low rent humor - so low rent at times it was cringeworthy...
My favourite, most memorable gaming experiences have when I've gotten deep, deep into a game - examples being Final Fantasy 7, Badurs Gate Grand Theft Auto 3, games where I've ended up with a long term emotional stake in the plot and story.
Left 4 Dead really doesn't quite fit into these categories, but there's another deep, deep gaming experience that equates better. The deep mechanics of a game, whereby playing it wouldn't be a blind experience, playing it with a clear idea of the strategies and the way game actually works, and being able to play it well because of that. Street Fighter 2 is a good example, I was in this state playing Unreal Tournement online actually...
I suppose in some respects Left 4 Dead has elements of both of these themes, the story is great for a survival horror lover like me. Anyone who has enjoyed the George Romero Living Dead series will understand... But then you have these really interesting and well developed game mechanics that govern the multi-player versus modes...
I ought to try to play some more LA Noire really at some point, it's a different experience, it's a cup of coffee and a biscuit game, less hectic, less skill driven, it's more of a puzzly thinker... I think part of the problem is I'm a bit rubbish at it - I can never spot the lies consistently and I always pick the wrong evidence to support the fact that they are lying...
I like the concept - but I think it's flawed, I hate how if you have any doubt - your man starts having a heroic go at people - and putting them off.
I think games are an interesting blend of two media - on the one hand they can be a bit like films, there's a plot, characters, special effects... But there's also that interraction, the challenge, the magic circle and so on... Games can NEVER be like sports - because they will always be superseded by new technology and the film-like element of games means there'll always be interest in playing new games.
Like films as well, we have big budget flops and little independent gems like minecraft and Limbo... Of course Left 4 Dead is game by the giant Valve, but the difference I think is that Valve started with a solid concept and built a game around it within the context of a story. With Duke Nukem, they started with a character, and built a game around that character - and that is probably partly why it failed. The concept was based around 'fun' the game was at the heart of it - the story and characters were chosen to fit.
My conclusions, fun should be at the heart of every game concept. Certainly not a character, would Duke have turned out differently if the core concept had been, 'It's fun to play a comedically invicible, hot headed cheese loaded hero' In some respects the old Duke 3D probably was built around this concept - that's probably why it worked.
Funny really, but in some respects, if I ever DID have to survive a zombie infestation on the one hand I'd probably fare well because of my hours of 'Training' on the Left 4 Dead games... The urge to have a beer before going zombie killing could be a bad thing. Given my fairly lack-lustre performance with a shotgun while sober - failing to hit more or less all of the clay pidgeons - I suspect trying to wield a shotgun while drunk would be plain dangerous...
Anyway - DID have a more satisfying night of gaming all in all. I started the night by warming up with an epic fail attempt at getting through realism expert mode... The more I play realism expert, the more convinced I am that actually to succeed at this mode you need a team of four good players and 4 way mic communication, or 4 amazing players... I've gotten through most of Dark Carnival before without mic but really it's so much easier if you are able to communicate what you are doing and what you want the others to do... Unfortunately I've misplaced my mic at the moment.
Playing Expert realism does hone your basic skills though, after a couple of false starts we were storming ahead and go to the stage where we were preventing the opposing team even getting one canister. It struck me as well, that as the infected a key strategy is to not spawn until you are close - you move so much faster before spawning and obviously can't be hurt... The number of times when you can't find a spot to spawn are very infrequent. Using this tactic you can home in on a straggler - or a survivor rushing to help a straggler who has been trapped by one of your team.
In some ways, it's very satisfying to focus on one game. Perhaps one of the reasons I've been a bit disillusioned with games lately is the lack of getting deep, deep into a game. Duke Nukem Forever was just annoying to play... The final battle wasn't bad and the first bit in the Casino was sort of okay - but overall it seemed clunky shallow, ill thought out and generally seemed to rely too much on low rent humor - so low rent at times it was cringeworthy...
My favourite, most memorable gaming experiences have when I've gotten deep, deep into a game - examples being Final Fantasy 7, Badurs Gate Grand Theft Auto 3, games where I've ended up with a long term emotional stake in the plot and story.
Left 4 Dead really doesn't quite fit into these categories, but there's another deep, deep gaming experience that equates better. The deep mechanics of a game, whereby playing it wouldn't be a blind experience, playing it with a clear idea of the strategies and the way game actually works, and being able to play it well because of that. Street Fighter 2 is a good example, I was in this state playing Unreal Tournement online actually...
I suppose in some respects Left 4 Dead has elements of both of these themes, the story is great for a survival horror lover like me. Anyone who has enjoyed the George Romero Living Dead series will understand... But then you have these really interesting and well developed game mechanics that govern the multi-player versus modes...
I ought to try to play some more LA Noire really at some point, it's a different experience, it's a cup of coffee and a biscuit game, less hectic, less skill driven, it's more of a puzzly thinker... I think part of the problem is I'm a bit rubbish at it - I can never spot the lies consistently and I always pick the wrong evidence to support the fact that they are lying...
I like the concept - but I think it's flawed, I hate how if you have any doubt - your man starts having a heroic go at people - and putting them off.
I think games are an interesting blend of two media - on the one hand they can be a bit like films, there's a plot, characters, special effects... But there's also that interraction, the challenge, the magic circle and so on... Games can NEVER be like sports - because they will always be superseded by new technology and the film-like element of games means there'll always be interest in playing new games.
Like films as well, we have big budget flops and little independent gems like minecraft and Limbo... Of course Left 4 Dead is game by the giant Valve, but the difference I think is that Valve started with a solid concept and built a game around it within the context of a story. With Duke Nukem, they started with a character, and built a game around that character - and that is probably partly why it failed. The concept was based around 'fun' the game was at the heart of it - the story and characters were chosen to fit.
My conclusions, fun should be at the heart of every game concept. Certainly not a character, would Duke have turned out differently if the core concept had been, 'It's fun to play a comedically invicible, hot headed cheese loaded hero' In some respects the old Duke 3D probably was built around this concept - that's probably why it worked.
Saturday 17 September 2011
Gaming as a 'sport' week 2 Reportage.
Last post, I said I was going to treat Friday night as 'Scavenger night' and play Left 4 Dead 2 Scavenger mode with the mindset that it was my 'weekly sport'. Well I played last night with that mindset...
Does it work?
Um, well sort of... Firstly there's the issue of getting client disconnects at inappropriate times. Which is sort of annoying, and I don't really know what the 'sporting' equivalent of this would be - maybe a sudden downpour whilst playing 5 a side football? Maybe your squash racket snapping in two and not having a spare? I suppose it would have to be seen as something like that.
Secondly I didn't really have what I perceived as being as successful a night, the previous week I was storming - I felt unstoppable. You get those moments in sport of course - you're good days. I recall years and years ago competing in a boxing ring fight taekwondo match and on one occasion really trouncing someone who was actually much better than me - I just had a night when everything went right... I felt unstoppable then too!
The thing is - I also drank 3 cans of Abbot Ale last night - the previous week I only had two, the questions is did poor game performance encourage me to drink 3 cans of strong ale, or did drinking 3 cans of strong ale impede my game performance? Maybe a mixture of both?
The sporting equivalent for this scenario is hard to pin down, I've rarely got drunk then tried to compete at sport. I remember a night years ago when I was going training in Buxton, Taekwondo, and because of time-constraints instead of the usual 'after training pint' my friend Joe and I decided we would go for a 'pre-training pint' of Guiness.... It was actually squad training that night and involved a fitness test... Not fun...
Then I recall gatting heroically drunk and wandering off to the park to play football in the middle of summers evening... Again, sort of fun, but hmmm.... Alcohol and sport don't seem to mix.
The trouble is, Left 4 Dead 2 is a game which sort of feels right with pint in your hand - more so than say, Forza Motorsport or somethign serious...
I think my next experiment should be to try and treat it as a more serious competitive event and abstain from drinking alcohol pre and during playing and see how effects the experience...
Does it work?
Um, well sort of... Firstly there's the issue of getting client disconnects at inappropriate times. Which is sort of annoying, and I don't really know what the 'sporting' equivalent of this would be - maybe a sudden downpour whilst playing 5 a side football? Maybe your squash racket snapping in two and not having a spare? I suppose it would have to be seen as something like that.
Secondly I didn't really have what I perceived as being as successful a night, the previous week I was storming - I felt unstoppable. You get those moments in sport of course - you're good days. I recall years and years ago competing in a boxing ring fight taekwondo match and on one occasion really trouncing someone who was actually much better than me - I just had a night when everything went right... I felt unstoppable then too!
The thing is - I also drank 3 cans of Abbot Ale last night - the previous week I only had two, the questions is did poor game performance encourage me to drink 3 cans of strong ale, or did drinking 3 cans of strong ale impede my game performance? Maybe a mixture of both?
The sporting equivalent for this scenario is hard to pin down, I've rarely got drunk then tried to compete at sport. I remember a night years ago when I was going training in Buxton, Taekwondo, and because of time-constraints instead of the usual 'after training pint' my friend Joe and I decided we would go for a 'pre-training pint' of Guiness.... It was actually squad training that night and involved a fitness test... Not fun...
Then I recall gatting heroically drunk and wandering off to the park to play football in the middle of summers evening... Again, sort of fun, but hmmm.... Alcohol and sport don't seem to mix.
The trouble is, Left 4 Dead 2 is a game which sort of feels right with pint in your hand - more so than say, Forza Motorsport or somethign serious...
I think my next experiment should be to try and treat it as a more serious competitive event and abstain from drinking alcohol pre and during playing and see how effects the experience...
Monday 12 September 2011
The Migration of a Video Games Blog - getting my gaming back.
First of all, why start this blog? Particularly as I've been writing a video games blgo on GiantBomb for what seems like an eternity? Well to lay it straight, on GiantBomb, soooooooo many times I make a blog post - puclish it to the forum - and get lots of folks whining about how it's more than two paragraphs and they can't be bothered to read it. So - I will write my thoughts on a topic here, then summarize on my GiantBomb Blog
That should keep the fickled 'GiantBomb Users' happy and allow me to ramble on in my usual way without people getting irrate at me.
Lately I've been complaining of losing my love of gaming a little. I've had a bit of a break from the hobby, been trying other things. I have discovered Lego Design by Me and constructed several large virtual Lego sets, one of which I even ordered and built... I'm writing about that experience on me Lego Design by Me Blog I've been getting more into the Star Wars Roleplaying Board a bit more and had some great fun doing collaborative writing.
There's always been something missing though. I like a game, I've always liked a game since I was six.
Sometimes it's surprising where you can find your enjoyment, but I had the most fun in recent memory gaming on Friday night. Wife had gone to bed tired, I cracked open a couple of beers and had a dig through my collection for something 'nostalgic' to play.
After some deliberation I blew the dust off my copy of Left 4 Dead 2 and threw it in the drive. I didn't really feel like a long game, so I decided to play a bit of scavenge. Scavenge is a versus mode whereby the two teams take it in turns to collect gas cans as the survivors - while the other team tries to stop them as the infected.
It's a manic game mode, but the game is so slick, despite being a bit long in the tooth it really embarresses Duke Nukem Forever, I think it embarresses many games for the sheer fun factor. I 100% had 100% of gaming joy back and genuinely could've stayed up all night if not for the fact that my wife would stop speaking to me.
On Saturday night I had another crack at Expert Realism, and got in a great team. We got through most of Dark Carnival, but I was running out of time. It was great fun again, but more time consuming, we had three restarts in the tunnel of love after each time the last man getting incapped at the point where you switch the roller coaster off.
It got me thinking anyway - why do we all plug away trying to buy the latest game and play it? Some of us don't I suppose, but part of being ' a gamer ' is about being up to date with current games and the direction the platform and technology is moving. You can watch 'The Blurb' on a Saturday night, Challenge TV if you like, a short programme made be Ginx, a Uk gaming based tv channel (To my friends at Ginx - I'm still with you in spirit, even if my participation is down at the moment - maybe this explains why?) but that only leaves you with the desire to 'try' more games? Buy the latest games?
It struck me, playing Left 4 Dead 2 multiplayer, that in some respects games are a bit like armchair sports. Most of us though, are essentially changing sport every six months or less! If you decided to play sports like people play games, you'd never really get anywhere with anything, 3 months you're playing football like a nutter, then rugby, six months later La Cross, then Tennis, Badminton, Squash, Cricket...
You'd get very good at playing general sports in general but you'd be a master of none - although very fit!
We don't do this as gamers though? Is it because Video Games don't have the depth? Is it because they are seen as a hobby which should involve constantly changing games?
As something of a psychological experiment I'm going to test this out. At the moment I expect to get around 3 gaming sessions per week in. I will always dedicate one of these sessions to Left 4 Dead versus Multiplayer. And report back on the experience. Friday night I think will be the night, and come what may - I will play Left 4 Dead 2 versus Multiplayer in some form or other EVERY Friday night, as if it was my regular chosen 'sport'. I used to Tae Kwon Do, even have a website about Taekwondo tul and I went once a week at least for years. I won't get fit playing Left 4 Dead 2, but will I be content to treat it like the regular sport and dedicate Friday nights session to it?
Time will tell, progress and thoughts will be posted here.
That should keep the fickled 'GiantBomb Users' happy and allow me to ramble on in my usual way without people getting irrate at me.
Lately I've been complaining of losing my love of gaming a little. I've had a bit of a break from the hobby, been trying other things. I have discovered Lego Design by Me and constructed several large virtual Lego sets, one of which I even ordered and built... I'm writing about that experience on me Lego Design by Me Blog I've been getting more into the Star Wars Roleplaying Board a bit more and had some great fun doing collaborative writing.
There's always been something missing though. I like a game, I've always liked a game since I was six.
Sometimes it's surprising where you can find your enjoyment, but I had the most fun in recent memory gaming on Friday night. Wife had gone to bed tired, I cracked open a couple of beers and had a dig through my collection for something 'nostalgic' to play.
After some deliberation I blew the dust off my copy of Left 4 Dead 2 and threw it in the drive. I didn't really feel like a long game, so I decided to play a bit of scavenge. Scavenge is a versus mode whereby the two teams take it in turns to collect gas cans as the survivors - while the other team tries to stop them as the infected.
It's a manic game mode, but the game is so slick, despite being a bit long in the tooth it really embarresses Duke Nukem Forever, I think it embarresses many games for the sheer fun factor. I 100% had 100% of gaming joy back and genuinely could've stayed up all night if not for the fact that my wife would stop speaking to me.
On Saturday night I had another crack at Expert Realism, and got in a great team. We got through most of Dark Carnival, but I was running out of time. It was great fun again, but more time consuming, we had three restarts in the tunnel of love after each time the last man getting incapped at the point where you switch the roller coaster off.
It got me thinking anyway - why do we all plug away trying to buy the latest game and play it? Some of us don't I suppose, but part of being ' a gamer ' is about being up to date with current games and the direction the platform and technology is moving. You can watch 'The Blurb' on a Saturday night, Challenge TV if you like, a short programme made be Ginx, a Uk gaming based tv channel (To my friends at Ginx - I'm still with you in spirit, even if my participation is down at the moment - maybe this explains why?) but that only leaves you with the desire to 'try' more games? Buy the latest games?
It struck me, playing Left 4 Dead 2 multiplayer, that in some respects games are a bit like armchair sports. Most of us though, are essentially changing sport every six months or less! If you decided to play sports like people play games, you'd never really get anywhere with anything, 3 months you're playing football like a nutter, then rugby, six months later La Cross, then Tennis, Badminton, Squash, Cricket...
You'd get very good at playing general sports in general but you'd be a master of none - although very fit!
We don't do this as gamers though? Is it because Video Games don't have the depth? Is it because they are seen as a hobby which should involve constantly changing games?
As something of a psychological experiment I'm going to test this out. At the moment I expect to get around 3 gaming sessions per week in. I will always dedicate one of these sessions to Left 4 Dead versus Multiplayer. And report back on the experience. Friday night I think will be the night, and come what may - I will play Left 4 Dead 2 versus Multiplayer in some form or other EVERY Friday night, as if it was my regular chosen 'sport'. I used to Tae Kwon Do, even have a website about Taekwondo tul and I went once a week at least for years. I won't get fit playing Left 4 Dead 2, but will I be content to treat it like the regular sport and dedicate Friday nights session to it?
Time will tell, progress and thoughts will be posted here.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)