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APB Impressions – Is it really all that bad?
Jul 5th
Insert superhero quote about the city here.
Come this Monday past I finally got my hands on APB.. A game that I’ve been incredibly hyped for the last few years. Two of my favourite types of games, open world shooters and MMOs combined into one neat little package.. What could go wrong, right?
Now, I’m not saying APB is a bad game, not by any means, but when the developers admit that they expected bad reviews for it then you know something has gone seriously wrong in Realtime Worlds’ developer land. Maybe that’s not exactly what they said… Speaking to CVG, Realtime Worlds’ Creative Director Dave Jones said “If someone approaches it treating it like a singleplayer online GTA, they will be disappointed. Bring a few friends, make a group, and come for some fun online action… Any game that can keep you and your friends entertained for hours and hours is in my book doing something right. You don’t need an epic story singleplayer experience to achieve that though.”
But wasn’t that exactly how this game was marketed and targeted? A MMO version of GTA? That’s exactly what the game’s potential audience were expecting and, judging by the quality of the community, that’s the audience they currently have. Maybe it wasn’t RTW who started hyping it as an MMO version of GTA but that’s certainly what people have been expecting these years and RTW didn’t exactly go out of their way to douse the claims very early on.
At it’s core, the game DOES feel a little bit like your average GTA knock-off with MMO elements thrown in, but is that necessarily a bad thing? Sounds like an idea with lots of potential to me. So let’s break it down in this lovely wall of text.
Demyr Requiem
Mar 15th
Yup, I’ve started work on the sequel to the critically acclaimed (I consider 5 people telling me they liked it critical acclaim) Demyr Begins.
Following up after Demyr was defeated by Arthas, it follows the Scorge’s third invasion of Azeroth (yeah, three invasions. They suck.) I won’t reveal too much but here, have some screenshots.
Demyr Begins
Feb 12th
Demyr Begins has been my personal “learn the basics of Machinima” project for a few weeks now. It follows the vague story of my main character Demyr and his descent into undeath.
I’ve left it unfinished however, a lot of the scenes that I wanted to make are not in there due to either technical limitations or just running out of inspiration and ideas.
I never had a script or anything for this which is where a lot of it’s pitfalls (such as.. Not having hardly any dialouge) shine through.
I will probably re-visit this some time in the near future with a proper script and hopefully voice actors.
That said, if anyone is interested in helping me dub this please get in contact.
Edit: Due to a recent failure in personal security (aka my Youtube got hacked) this movie is now only seeable on Warcraft Movies, what a pity. http://warcraftmovies.com/movieview.php?id=139427&stream=0
Truth Rage: My first 2 hours in MAG
Jan 28th
Wow.. Just wow. Talk about a huge letdown. Mag is the worst game I’ve played in the last few years and that INCLUDES Haze. I was so hyped for this game but now I can’t even look at the case without feeling queezey.
Let’s take a look at just why I hate this game so much just two hours into playing it. Now, you could always brush this off and say “oh, you just suck at it.” Yes, that’s true. I’m terrible at first person shooters but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t still be entertained by them.
From the very announcement MAG was hyped up as some revolutionary game, 256 players got us all thinking “Holy shit, this game is going to kick ass!” Well, the 256 player gamemodes do exist but you have to unlock them first. I’m not sure what level you have to be but I know it’s not level 2. While I have absolutely no problem with unlocking things, infact I love it, but when you force me to play frustrating 64 player modes before I can unlock the main reason I brought the game that’s not a good sign.
But I’m not just whining about that, oh no, the game is just horribly broken. I lost track of the ammount of times I was subjected to horrible lag spikes, as was everyone else in the game. Most of my deaths were due to me bouncing all around the fucking place. At one point I was RIGHT next to a guy about to knife him and I bounce back half a mile and am shot by a sniper. That’s another thing actually, EVERYONE snipes and it’s just too easy for them! My first ever game a good 3/4 the opposing force were snipers. There were only about 10 of us out on the battlefield. Sure, the idea is nice. Covering your team while they advance and what-not but when EVERYONE does it and you can’t even leave your spawn zone without getting a head shot. I can’t imagine how horrible this will be on 256 player mode. There is just absolutely no balance.
Normally I’m not a graphics whore but come on, look at this game:
It’s just flat, bland, boring and just.. Boring! It looks like a 2004 game, not a 2010 one. Hell, Half-Life 2 looks better than this even by today’s standards.
This is the sort of game that should be a PSN Downloadable, not a fully priced retail game. If it was say.. £15 maybe I’d have felt like I got my money’s worth but no, it’s £40 and that is a complete and total rip off.
What MAG isn’t:
- Fun
- Original
- Worth £40
What MAG is:
- A huge gimmick
- The aborted bastard child of Modern Warfare and Battlefield
My opinion is save your £40 and buy/pre-order Global Agenda, Bioshock 2, AvP or Star Trek Online instead.
And they would all go down together.
Jan 7th
Nope, nope. Don’t like it, I don’t like it one bit. Granted all of two people have said they like what they’ve seen so far on Crimson Sea I just don’t think it fits the theme of a sea-sideish town I was going for.
I’m scrapping what I’ve done so far and am going to go for a different look.
But wait, there’s more!
Jan 4th
Indoobitably, here’s a picture of the plan for the first level of Crimson Sea that is currently hanging on my wall.
Yellow = Landmark
Brown = Obstacle
Blue = Dynamic Obstacle
Red = Objective
And yes, I know it looks like a 5 year old drew this but whatevs’.
Crimson Sea progress
Jan 4th
Some more very early WIP shots for you, this may not seem like I’ve done much recently but with the ammount of designing/redesigning the level layout I’ve done.. Yeah, I can’t really show my work there but I think I’ve worked out a pretty good level flow. Still working on the exterior lighting as.. While I love the way the sun blazes as you exit the subway, it feels very bland for some reason. Maybe some color correction could fix it up?
Note to self: Learn how to use color correction.
Merry Christmas!
Dec 25th
Yes, a very Merry Christmas to the one person who actually reads my blog posts!
Crimson Sea: What I’ve been doing since the release of the L4D2 SDK.
Dec 24th
Since the release of the L4D2 SDK (about frikken’ time) I have been hard at work at my new obsession. Crimson Sea.
I have been planning this campaign since about a month after the release of Central Dark, my wall is covered in plans and diagrams for things I want in it (okay maybe not COVERED but there are some level layouts up there.)
I must say though, I retract my earlier statement about VALVe’s new “dynamic pathing” system being an absolute cop-out and totally possible in L4D1. VALVe have done a lot more work on it than is evident in the finished product. It seems the Director has a new “anger” system where it can change the level depending on how good or bad the players are doing. This has prompted me to re-design my level layouts with a fork every now and then rather than just random pathing changes. If the players are doing terribly the Director will give them the nice, easy route. If they’re doing well then they’re going to get the long and hard route, and of course there will be randomly placed alarmed cars, etc.
But, these are all just words and plans. Here’s some visual stuff, keep in mind that this is ALL heavy WiP and is nowhere near finished yet.
PSN Diplomacy or “How I learned to stop worrying and love the package”.
Dec 20th
PSN has a more mature community, right guys?