It’s downloading right now, and I’m excited.
{ 0 comments }
valve
I haven’t made one of these in a while, but I’ve recently learned of the art of grenade jumping.
As a Demoknight, you make the major sacrifice of giving up your Stickybomb Launcher for a shield. While the shield does give you the ability to charge forward quickly, losing the ability to set up traps and destroy Sentry Nests with ease is a rather big trade off.
By far one of the biggest loses from the Stickybomb Launcher is the ability to “Sticky Jump”, which a Demoman can use to almost leap across the whole map, getting to locations faster than a Scout.
However, I’ve learned that you can actually do the same with grenades. While you have to get the timing just right as they automatically explode, when you pull it off they do about as well as a Stickybomb, which is just dandy.
In this video I’m simply using the charge from my Splendid Screen to get across the bridge on CTF_2Fort quickly, then using a grenade to get up onto their battlements and surprise the enemy. Simple stuff really, but something you don’t see happen a lot with Demoknights.
{ 0 comments }
I was never the biggest fan of Counter Strike. I’m not saying the game was bad, in fact the few times I’ve played it I enjoyed it. However, the actual look and feel of the game didn’t draw me in as much as games like Team Fortress 2. That said, the idea of a new game in the franchise, which hasn’t seen a new release for seven years, interests me. The new game is apparently a graphical update that expands on “CS’ award winning gameplay” through the addition of “new maps, characters and weapons”, as well as included older Counter Strike content (Updated versions, of course).
The most interesting idea for me is seeing where they go with it. Valve have being giving us free content updates in most of their games in the past few years, including TF2, Left 4 Dead and Portal 2. Within reason we can expect that in Counter Strike: Global Offensive, though the form it will come in is one of speculation.
Mock screenshots of CS:GO make the obvious TF2 jokes, but I expect certain things will carry over from the class based shooter. The Replay System will probably be implemented, as well as the coaching system for teaching new players. There may also be some form of micro-transaction store, though what would be sold in such a store in a Counter Strike game is beyond me.
The other great thing is that Valve has a habit of releasing the SDK for their games, giving the community the ability to extend the game in the way of new maps and sometimes new game modes. I hope Valve continue to do that, and maybe do what they do with TF2 and make the really good and popular maps official maps in the game.
Starting on a clean slate gives them the ability to do things they weren’t able to do with the original Counter Strikes, and I have to admit, I’m exciting to see what they do with the opportunity.
{ 0 comments }
The Croc-o-Style set is one of those sets that everyone has mixed opinions of. Some people consider it to be massively overpowered as you can’t headshot someone who is using the set, and others consider it severely underpowered because you can’t headshot anyone if you’re using the set.
I’m part of a third party that proceeds to rain Jarate down on the other two.
The other thing people feel is a negative with this set is it requires you to use a passive secondary, thus losing your Jarate as a throwable object. These people feel that this makes the Bushwacka, which deals critical hits (instead of “mini-crits”) on players coated in Jarate, useless. The arguement is that while the Sydney Sleeper has the Jarate effect, it is no good in close combat like the normal Jarate bomb since it requires scoping in and charging, and thus means a Sleeper/Bushwacka combo rarely if ever works.
I find this not to be the case, as in the above video, it’s for enemies rushing at your team/base. Taking out the Heavy with a Sydney Sleeper and Bushwacka combo felt really good. The set isn’t meant for Snipers hiding away at the back of the map, it’s to get the Sniper out and being a bit more bold. He doesn’t have to worry about being killed with a headshot, and attacking an enemy with melee seems a bit more plausible.
I find Croc-o-Style Sniper gameplay to be amazingly fun, especially when enemy Snipers complain that the Sydney Sleeper is cheap because it can’t headshot. All I need is a name tag so I can call my rifle “The Headhunter”.
{ 0 comments }
I’ve really been getting into editing and uploading videos using the Replay function, and enjoyed writing about my run through of Dustbowl as the Heavy. As such, I’ve decided to do it again.
I’ve long been a fan of Arena; the concept is amazing and it requires a bit more strategy if you want to survive, as opposed to other game modes in which it’s RUN GUN DIE REPEAT.
However, it’s apparently one of the least popular modes next to Territorial Control and this surprises me given it’s very similar to how CounterStrike is played, and that game happens to be one of the most played and most purchased on Steam all the time.
Anyway, the basic gist if you’ve never played Arena is that there are no respawns; if you die you’re dead for the whole round. The objective becomes needing to outplay your opponents and being the last team standing. It’s simple enough, and as mentioned means you have to use a bit of strategy, otherwise you become one of the first dead and are stuck spectating until the next round.
In this video, I’m a Vanilla1 Scout (I have the Lugermorph pistol equipped, but since it’s purely a cosmetic change you can consider it technically vanilla). As you’ll see, I manage to get the drop on a Sniper despite a Heavy and Scout taking a shot at me, and then managed to out melee a Scout in their spawn. We won the match shortly after, simple fun stuff.
I tried a few new camera angles and messed with stuff to try and make the video come together a bit better than just putting forward a minute of first person action. I’m hoping it came out alright.
{ 0 comments }
One of the big things to attract players to use the replay function is the rewards; upon the successful completion of certain achievements, the player is rewarded with an item. If one of your replayed videos hits 1000 views on YouTube you are given an achievement AND rewarded with a hat.
If you spend long enough editing your replays, the Star Of My Own Show achievement gets unlocked, and the Director’s Vision unlocks. This is a funny taunt you can equip to a class, and press the Action Key (Defaults to ‘O’) to activate the taunt, which you can see in action below.
My point, because I do have one.
Now this is neat, but it brings me to the big thought on my mind. One of the only things that separate the Mann Co. Store from the Robot Enrichment store in Portal 2 is that you can buy taunts for the co-op robots called “Gestures”. Team Fortress 2, up until now, has not had equipable taunts. With the introduction of the Director’s Vision, I can’t help but wonder if there will be more in the future. The most logical step is that Valve will start selling them in the store and maybe have them in the occasional crates.
I can see them being sold for maybe five or ten dollars. I think it’s a great idea, as it adds further optional customization, and if there’s a particularly good taunt in the store for say, the Pyro, I wouldn’t mind shelling out five dollars for it.
While it may be a good idea, the problem will be the community. Half of the Steam Powered User Forums will bitch and complain about how it should be free, forgetting that they don’t even matter. b00bies from KritzKast will adamantly cry “macro transactions”, and people like myself will stubbornly defend Valve’s decision.
However it may all pan out, this is the beginning of something new for Team Fortress 2, and while this is all speculation, it’s fair to say it is pretty likely we’ll see more “unlockable” taunts in the future.
{ 2 comments }
Watching television with the other half, we were greeted with the following:
I was extremely happy to see this; gaming doesn’t seem to get much mainstream media attention, and see adverts for these things on TV, even if it’s Foxtel, gives me a sort of hope that gaming will be taken more seriously in this country.
{ 0 comments }
One of the more interesting and apparently controversial ideas implemented in Portal 2 is that of TF2-style customization for the co-op robots P-Body and Atlas. Players can equip hats, custom skins and “gestures” (cinematic gestures they do with each other, such as high fiving, though that one is free in the game.). You are automatically given certain hats from TF2 if you already own them in said game, and receive special items for unlocking certain achievements.
The real uproar seems to be around the various things you can buy in the store, and the fact we’ll be able to eventually trade items with fellow test subjects. These minor inclusions have resulted in so-called fans calling Valve “evil” and likening the company to Hitler and Activision.
My mistake was I didn’t realize that such a large portion of Valve’s fan base were greedy retards. You see:
-
The store is not only optional, but out of the way. To access it, you click on the button that says Robot Enrichment. That button is separate to the main menu, which is what attracts your attention. SO unless you seek it out, you can ignore it. Additionally, the button only takes you to your loadouts, where you can apply items you already own to the player models. In order to actually go to the store, you need to click on another button afterwards that is clearly labelled ‘Store’. It is not in your face, directing your attention. If you ignore the store, your game will still function completely as normal. You won’t lose anything.
-
Multiple items are given for free through achievement related drops, and possible through random drops. As I said above, if you own certain hats in TF2, you’ll get them in Portal 2 to equip to P-Body and Atlas. Additionally, there are a few items rewarded for unlocking certain achievements. So if you want to customize, you have more options than just the store.
It is early days so we do not know if they have, or will have, a drop system similar to TF2 in which you will get new items randomly as you play. Only time will tell, but it would make sense. -
All the items in the store are cosmetic. You are not paying for a portal gun, or being able to move faster, or the ability to fly. You are offered the chance to pay to look different through skins, hats, and other items. Nothing will change the game, and as such, refer to point one.
-
Trading will not be the pain that it is in TF2. In Team Fortress 2, people spam trades everywhere. There are servers dedicated to it, an the whole thing is treated like a massive economy, where everything has an inherit worth and that is all that matters to a lot of players. Trade-spam can spoil a perfectly good game for some people.
However, in Portal 2 there are two key factors that differ; first up, the people you play with are most likely your friends. As such, you won’t be likely at all to be spammed with requests to trade. Secondly, there is no rareness in items in Portal 2. There are no vintage items, genuine, unusual, or any other such tags. There are just items.
These two things combined with how the game works should mean that the concept of trading might actually work in this game. -
This gives Valve more of an incentive to continue producing content. We all want more Portal, correct? We want Valve to update the game in the future with more maps, maybe advanced challenges and the like, correct? Well if there is money coming in from “return players”, then they have more of a reason to make maps to make people return.
According to Steam Stats at the time of writing, roughly 100,000 gamers played the game today. Now, we know that the total number of people who actually play the game will probably be much, much more. But for the sake of this we’ll work with that as the final number. Over time you’d expect that number to dwindle a little we can expect maybe 40,000 people to still be playing after a while, keeping in mind the SDK should come out, allowing people to create and share custom maps. If only one in a hundred users bought a single item for a dollar every so often, that is still $4000 coming in. This is of course with this small number of total players.
The final number is probably much greater, but even with such a small example like that, you can see that there is definitely reason for Valve to keep us playing.
Other games have worse and get away with it.
This point is the most important to me, so instead of a number, it gets it’s own subtitle. What bothers me most about people’s reaction to both stores that Valve have included is that other companies do these things and people seem okay with it. As an example, Blizzard offered a horse called the “Celestial Steed” that players could own and ride, as long as they coughed up a whopping $25. What did it do? Nothing. How much did Blizzard make? Millions of dollars in the first day. Why do they get a free pass for charging so much for so little, while Valve offer up items that cost 99 cents and people instantly hate everything about the company?
I’m sorry, but I’m seeing a double standard here.
I love the game, and the store takes nothing away from that love. If Valve decide to create new content, or allow us to easily make and share content, I will gladly give them money for some extra customization. As for all you haters, suck my dick1.
- I am implementing a store soon, that will allow you to buy custom skins (Including a racing stripe) for my penis, so you can suck it in style!
{ 24 comments }
Yesterday (Which was my birthday, by the way) at around lunch time, Portal 2 was officially released on Steam for all users who bought it. I booted it up, and next thing I knew it was 7pm and I was in need of nourishment.
The game was that involving that I just couldn’t stop playing until it was done. The level of humour, the plot and diversity in the levels all set the stage for a vivid world I wish I could of explored more. While I wouldn’t of complained if the single player game had been longer, I see it as being more of a epilogue to Portal to finish off the story with Chell before bring the two co-op bots into the spotlight. After all, robots make better test subjects since they don’t die, feel or void their bowels.
I’ve only touched co-operative play a tiny bit; just enough to play the first few test chambers (read: maps) and get trolled by my fellow players (Looking at you @ryantheleach and @doc_swarley!), but what I saw was very promising. Having not gotten into the more complicated levels yet I can’t say much on gameplay, but I really like being able to play along with someone.
My hopes and dreams involving portals.
Looking at the co-operative play, it seems like Valve are hoping the game becomes less of a throwaway title and more of something you want to return to again and again. I’m hoping this is the case, and the company go down their usual route of adding new maps and courses, and giving the community the means to do so as well. It seems realistic that they’d release the SDK1 and allow people to do so, and add them to their game. How they would do so in the game’s current state is a mystery, as the game isn’t played on servers like Valve’s other releases.
Regardless of what they do in that regard though, I love the game for what it is. If they don’t do anything beyond fixes (Or making it so my friends can actually play the game) I’ll still be happy with it. I may not get all the replay value I hoped for, but what I do get out of it is memorable.
{ 0 comments }
Valve made an announcement which as far as I can tell, is little more than a footnote at the bottom of a blog post on the Left 4 Dead website, that they are releasing a free game on Monday the 19th. Not only that, but it will come with everything needed to create your own mods for the game.
The game itself is called Alien Swarm, adapted from what was originally a mod of Unreal Tournament 2004. The creators were apparently hired by Valve a couple of years ago1, and have made an official version of the game on the Source engine.
Alien Swarm is a four player co-op game based in the future. You play as one of four classes (Medic, Officer, Tech or Special Weapons) and fight through different maps full of alien creatures. Unlike other Valve games, it’s played with a top down view so you can see your team and the area around you, and judging from the screenshots seems quite stunning graphically.
Valve boasts a levelling system that gives the player “persistent items” in the game, meaning anything you unlock will carry to any game you play, regardless of map or server. As is traditional, we can assume experience is given for killing various enemies, and probably for performing acts like healing teammates.
It looks really well made, and like it would be addictive as hell with friends. The game being released with the game code and complete mod tools indicates that the developers wanted to create a game with lots of user made content, to give the game more replay value. I have to say that if it catches on, which given Valve’s vast fan base it should to some degree, the results should be amazing. I myself will probably even give the mod tools a look.
As a final note…
The game makes me think of the history of Team Fortress; it started as a game mod that got the mod makers hired by Valve. Then the game got ported into the companies engine of the time, and was followed up years later with the game that I and many others obsess over; Team Fortress 2. That is pretty much what has happened with Alien Swarm. Except that instead of then spending years making a sequel, the game itself appears to be the end product they worked to2.
{ 4 comments }
