Busy September

Between working on "my own" TTRPG (in quotes because there's lots of external source inspiration) and actual work which is kicking my butt I've been a bit slack in posting. Hopefully that changes soon.

In the meantime you can try play around and make your own 6 second AI generated video for free! The site is Chinese but it can work with an English prompts. Tech advances are wild man. I'm also keen to see the remote machine guns Ukraine is developing (also, they've counter invaded Russia). Now gamers can really get into the fight? Curious to see if it will be stationary sentries or mobile with tracks or legs.

Then of course there's good old low tech sabotage and subterfuge, to do things like getting your enemies communication devices to just explode. That's pretty impressive too.

Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries

Great when it works.

This has slowly been edging out GTFO as our main cooperative game night game (at least until the next Rundown Extension), since it is very fun to customize your giant fighting robot and then pilot it against other giant fighting robots, tanks, helicopter planes and infantry. Graphics are good as are the controls. It doesn't matter that there are only around five or six types of missions, there will be enough variance to keep you entertained.

The campaign also follows a timeline so while you can be doing jobs anywhere in the galaxy, things happen without waiting for you. Borders change as the great houses fight for more territory. New mechs or new versions of old mechs are released in later years. It's all very cool, yet I can't actively just recommend it because it does have a few drawbacks.

The biggest being it is a pain in the ass to get working cooperatively. For one, we are using a lot of mods (which I am normally against) to get things to work (listed below) and even then there are some missions where DL and I might just drop out of the game or strong hang. The last two missions of the Kestrel Lancers DLC story line on Sarna are notorious for this and we had to join mid battle more than once. Only Jim, the host, can buy equipment from the shops, use the storage tab and accept missions, basically running the management side of things. He doesn't mind, but it does mean DL and I have a lot of down time while he does that.

There's also no in game chat - good thing steam chat works just fine. This is an ok game if you play it single player, but a great game to play cooperatively... when it works. DL has put up some videos featuring the inside of our drop ship and us in the field, in which we just discover mechs have headlights and night vision after literal years have passed by our game. :P

List of mods we use:
Yet Another Mechlab
CompassHeadings
CustomGenericPilotPortraits
Enable Infantry
Yet Another Weapon
Yet Another Weapon Clan
Higher Visibility MiniMap Arrow
Higher Visibility Torso Twist
ThrottleGauge
HeatGauge
Unlock Coop Tabs
Custom Dropship Skin

Strange Brigade

Making dead things more dead. Again.

When an Egyptian ancient evil arises who better to send than those chaps who saved the world against Zombie Hitler? Oh wait, they're still busy in Germany - instead we get "The Strange Brigade"! A group of unlikely individuals flying about in a dirigible who parachute right into danger, complete with a hilarious narrator as they advance through each level.

Expect to encounter some strange stuff!

Made by Rebellion, the same crew that made Sniper Elite/Zombie Army, each level is beautifully crafted and has interesting puzzles (most of which are optional for bonus loot) and quite engaging in that almost each "big fight" introduces a new type of enemy - something this game has no shortage of! Very fun especially for co-op (which can be up to four people). Highly recommended. I give it four mummies out of five. DL even uploaded an action demo if you wanted to watch us fumble through mission one.

Insight: The lure grenade is worth the money. Also, roll AT charging minotaurs (the non-weapon kind).

Zombie Army Trilogy

Because magical Hitler must be stopped!

This spin-off from Sniper Elite has slowly fixed a number of things for our co-op sessions, given I've written about it twice before. This trilogy has all the missions from the last two Nazi zombie games and adds five more, bringing the total to 15. Well 14 since Chapter 1 of Book 2 still had connection problems for three of us (DL, Jim and myself) right at the end so we had to skip it which thankfully is a valid option.

Indeed, you can pick whatever mission you want to try - no unlocking required - but must rely on the mission checkpoints to save your progress through it. The last book sees the sniper heroes return to a much better looking apocalypse graphics wise, and for a change there are other friendlies in a few missions. Also introduced are new enemies, such as the terrifying chainsaw elite and heavily armored zombies and giant zombies.

That's one big Fuhrer!

There's definitely a difficulty increase towards the final mission (to kill Hitler) with some ludicrous amounts of zombies needing to be killed (looking at you book 3 chapter 3 finale) but its all good fun and definitely one a co-op team would enjoy. I give it four relics out of five, but won't play it again. Killing the millions of zombies once was enough, thanks. :P

Insight: In the final chapter(s) most goals switch from kill the zombies to get "x" done, because the zombies won't stop spawning anymore which is especially true fighting Hitler (unless he's having a migraine, then you can relax and prepare first before the next phase). Jumping from the balcony there can be a real life (and time) saver!

Battlefield 4 Hong Kong

Looks like my list yesterday that included Blizzard was far too short. Here's a more complete record (just scroll down a bit) that also has the "other side" which includes the likes of South Park and Ubisoft (at the moment anyway).

What I really wanted to post was this cool Battlefield 4 Hong Kong compilation video though which is a nice summary of what's going on there. Such realistic graphics and huge player capacity! Downsides are it looks like there's a lot of running due to the huge maps, an overload of spectators and the respawn times take forever.

Switching back to regular content tomorrow, unless something else explodes overnight.

Deathtrap

Tower Defense meets Diablo.

Deathtrap is an odd nugget. You start out by picking a hero class (fighter, hunter, wizard) and then get a quick spiel of these magical islands which serve as the titular "Deathtrap(s)" that stopped monstrous hordes from invading the world. Those isles have long been abandoned though and now its up to you to stop the new invasion cycle by constructing your own death traps: like poison gas, fireball towers and gun turrets. It's also way more "mature" than say Dungeon Defenders.

While trap locations are set in that you cannot put whatever, where ever you feel like - there is a pretty good variety available to you which are strong against some monster types and weak against others. Also, before each wave is a "planning phase". There's no timer (that I've come across yet) so you have all the time to prepare the map how you see fit. You are also shown the paths each wave will take, and given a list of all the enemies + their strength and weaknesses + where they are coming from. With all that info it should be easy right? Not quite. :P

So many things to kill!

Each map has a variety of difficulties to choose from, and some have extra quests like kill this monster who isn't part of any wave. He's just standing over there - far from anything else. Oh, he's also invulnerable during the planning phase so you'll have to decide if you are going to hunt him or defend the portal. Monsters that get to the portal reduce it's HP, same as a player dying (insta respawn though, not like *cough*Insurgency*cough*). If the portal reaches 0 life then you lose. If you kill all the enemies, a chest appears and you get your Diablo style "shower of loot" and hefty XP and research points.

There's a ton of upgrades you can do between missions, to your skills, to each trap, to your equipment - you can even forge new gear though it's through a BS RNG method of having the materials then crossing your fingers you get the stats you want. Despite all of this, I found it really boring when playing solo. It's just tedious. It is way more fun played cooperatively, though you'll probably want to use Mumble or some 3rd party voice chat since it doesn't come built in with one. Though it does come with an editor if you run out of maps. :P

If you have a buddy or group that enjoy(s) tower defense to play with, then I give this two and a half monster waves out of five. If you plan on playing solo then give it a skip.

Helldivers

Spreading our way of life throughout the universe!

While this plays like a futuristic Gauntlet, it is hilarious and very fun. Up to four players cooperatively perform missions on planets against three very different types of aliens. Which planet and what mission you can decide yourself by flying your spaceship there, which also doubles as the lobby where you can spend research points to upgrade skills and gear.

The missions themselves are very fast and usually straightforward. You can complete runs in 5 - 6 minutes (depending on the difficulty) so those who are time-constrained can still get a jump or two in. For those with more time to spare, hanging around the planet surface for research materials is standard procedure. Dying is a common occurrence too, and usually comes not from the enemy (on lower levels) but from player stupidity or accidents which again is funny. There is no switching the "friendly fire" mode here! :P

For the EMPEROR! Oh wait... that's Warhammer 40k... :P

Missions only fail if all players are dead, otherwise surviving players can easily call for reinforcements to respawn their dead allies. If running solo, this happens automatically a set number of times. While the ground game play is pretty fun, its the universal map that really gives that sense of purpose to this game. As more quadrants are taken (by everyone playing Helldivers globally), the forces of Earth advance and eventually reach enemy home planets where the really crazy missions await. And yes, the enemy also pushes back!

There are ridable vehicles, pilotable mecha, air strikes, ahhhh so many shinies! If you like crazy, fast paced co-op that gives you quick satisfaction then this game is for you. I give it four stratagems out of five!

Sniper Elite: Nazi Zombie Army 2

Don't worry if you haven't played the first game, because the "escape" finale there is nullified as the heroes are sent back into the heart of darkness to try put an end to the undead horde - meaning there's a bit more story this time around. Much of what I liked from the first part is still here too: the jump scares, the head shot requirement to kill zombies, and the pretty scary atmosphere which is uberly amped up in some spots. Enemy wise, there are a few new types I've encountered that join the list of your old favorites from the previous outing.

Don't let them get close!

Many maps that I've played through are again re-purposed from the previous games (Zombie Army 1 and Sniper V2) but changed enough to be quite a new experience. What they do a lot this time though is to block off any escape routes you had just before a big fight. Game play wise this means a bit more running and gives higher importance to the shotgun and its excellence at close quarters, but programmatically it also frees up the memory from all the zones you've already cleared making it a much more stable experience, especially in coop mode which is fantastic. Sure, you cannot fall back to the very beginning of a map any more but it's a small price to pay in the scheme of things I think.

Currently around half way through and am enjoying it thoroughly, giving it 4 bullets out of 5.

Here's a clip of some zombie killing action for those interested. I'm the guy with the hat.

Today I Smiled: All Play and No Work

Making games is tough. Well, no it's pretty easy - but making a good game is tough as I'm discovering with my forays into board game design. Just to recap for you on my attempts:

Game 1: Messy, too many cards and off balance
Game 2: Bad Mechanics / Dumb
Game 3: Design getting complicated / non challenging
Game 4: Design way too complicated to get mystery function working
Game 5: Too much like Pandemic, didn't make sense theme wise
Game 6: Too much dice rolling
Game 7: Too boring.
Game 8: Too much like Mission: Red Planet
Game 9: Still needs testing, unconvinced of mechanics though
Game 10: Passable but pretty mundane

Not really putting a lot of time in there at the moment though, as currently it's just that extra hobby you do on the side. Gaming wise I've been playing a Tale in the Desert  (Tale 6, which is ending in a few months and is now F2P) recently, which is surprisingly interesting. I'll be doing a photo story of that too, later on. Blog wise "The Bleed" from the NBI has officially begun, and I am now down 19 links culled due to inactivity. I am quite curious to see how many will survive the year.

Anywho, I've also got a truck load of movie reviews in-bound, which I'm probably going to up the appearance of to every two days, but one that you should certainly watch now is Kung Fury. It is a hilarious action/comedy that only goes for 30 minutes which is less time than a single episode of most current series. Also if you happen to like hamsters, Hamsterzilla might be of interest to you. Lastly, if you want a video with me in it - here's a clip of one mission in Alien Swarm that my brother recorded. I'm the guy in yellow with the flamethrower. :P

Running with Rifles

This top down shooter focuses solely on one thing: GLOBAL DOMINATION!

It's cute, has a lot of weapons and vehicles, and has a tendency to kill players a lot. I do quite like that instead of damage each weapon simply has a percentage chance of killing upon impact. Yes, you can mitigate this somewhat with bullet proof vests but you will only unlock that once you have a fair bit of XP (level locked equipment) and RP (requisition points) to "trade" for said equipment. Gaining these two currencies can be a little slow, leaving most newbies no option but to play front line rifleman grunt who will need to learn the essentials of staying low and in cover early.

I can understand the idea behind that, but playing a front line rifleman grunt is boring - especially for the amount of time you have to. Yes you can use any vehicle but someone with a higher rank can always pull you out and take over. The dullness is felt even more in single player against the AI who only attack one location at a time in a linear fashion.

Indeed, it's better to skip that altogether and jump into either a full PvP server or, my preference, a Coop server where everyone tries to defeat the enemy bots. Definitely not as easy as you might think as the insta-kill bullets are the great balancer. You might have the intellect, but the AI probably has ten more guns firing at you. All up, I give it two out of five bullets. It's a fun little diversion but not something I would ever classify as a "main" game.

Here's a small clip (thanks to my brother again) to give you an idea of the game play. I'm the guy with the light blue circle who dies a lot. :P