Freelancer

Yeah.. It IS an old game but from the trial which I have played it looks totally awesome. I'm installing it as I speak. Expect some hardcore amateur review soon .

-Hidden

My Football Manager Idea

Football Manager is great because it is a day-dream simulator. That is all it is, and it is great. I have sunk days into FM07, because it is a day-dream. The dots have names. They have personalities.

Anderson of Manchester United missed a game because of family problems at home in Brazil. This needs to be in football manager. Picture it, if you will: My star striker's mother is ill. The FA cup semi-final is 9 days away. Now, do I tell him to get on with training, or give him a week off, or tell him to stay with his mother until she is better. This decision would affect his relationship with me, his morale, and his performance. It would make him more alive. He would have a little extra story, just for him.

Or would this go wrong? Would FM lose the football aspect that makes it so great?

Maybe a balance? Sports Interactive, your game is great because I love my team. I love them like I love Alyx, or Arthas, or Leon Kennedy. They are my team. Smaller choices could affect their personality, and their performance.

Football Manager is a dream; it is limitless.

Driver Parallel Lines.

We all carry guilty secrets. Hidden, for example, lives on the Isle of Man. My number one guilty secret is probably that I quite enjoyed Driver 3. Yes, it is utterly broken in every way. But that made it all the more hilarious and it did have some wonderful car physics.

It was thus with hope that I preordered the PC version of Driver Parallel Lines some months ago. It was rated quite a bit higher than Driver 3 by critics which I took to be a good sign and I really like New York as a setting, if not as much as I do Nice or Istanbul, both of which were in Driver 3.

The basic premise of Driver Parallel Lines is that you're a small time crook in 70s NY. You get betrayed and are locked up until 2006, where the game resumes and you have to kill all your friends. The idea of two different time periods is a nice one but since the game is so short you'll never really stay in any one period long enough to get in any way attached to the city, making the changes (shops become derelict, buildings replaced etc)a lot less interesting than Reflections clearly wanted them to be.

Part of the problem with Parallel lines is that it manages to be really very bland, despite the potential of the setting. The lead character (named The Kid, which shows how much effort went into him) is just a walking stereotype, as are those around him. The maturity of the Driver series has certainly long gone here, with attempts at GTA style vulgar humour shoehorned into every cutscene to the point where you can almost the devs giggling childishly in the background at the 50^th mention of an expletive. It's not quite as overtly gratuitous as GTA: SA was but it's certainly coming close.

It is actually almost impossible not to compare Parallel Lines to GTA as it apes it in everything it does. It's got glowing markers. It's got side missions (some of which are quite entertaining) and through this endless copying the point of the driver series has somehow been lost. Cars are much arcadeier this time around, with none of the attention to detail they put into the physics and damage of Driver 3. Driver used to be all about racing through city streets with time running out and the police on your tail, but that's long gone. Now it's about lock on shooting and swearing.

To be fair to Reflections there are a couple of really nice features in the game. You now have two wanted bars, one for your car and one for your character. The upshot of this is that if you commit a crime in a car and are able to dump it then you can walk away scot free. If you're seen however then the police will recognize your character and things get a lot trickier until you realise can teleport to your garage at any time when you're not being actively chased which wipes your wanted level completely. A nice feature then, but like much of the game a missed opportunity. Another nice feature is the proliferation of litter on the streets. It's nice to sweep dramatically though it and it adds believability, something that GTA could do with a little more of.

In conclusion then Parallel lines isn't strictly speaking a Bad Game like Driver 3 was, it's just utterly charmless. The odd flashes of innovation are eclipsed by the dullness of the city (despite the awesomeness of New York), the shallowness of the characters and the clichéd plot. As much as it pains me, Drivers biggest fan, to say this the series really has lost the plot entirely.

59%

TF2 - Ubercharged.net

I was exploring the deep depths of the interweb and I found a totally awesome satirical blog.
Link

*Insert the "LOL" here* LOL!

Hidden.

Max Payne in 200 words

This was my first review. I hated it. It took me hours to write and I wasn't at all happy with the end result. Still, I kept going and now I can produce stuff I at least like :)

. . .

“Hey” mumbles a goon, not sounding the least bit surprised that I’m lunging at him with Uzis. “What the hell?” burbles another, accidentally blasting his friend in the back with his shotgun. As a shooter, Max Payne isn’t really very good. The AI is pretty unconvincing, the levels fairly bland and the guns lacklusture.

Lacklusture that is, when used normally. The big feature of Max Payne is the ability to dive (literally) into slow mo at the push of a button. This is when the game gets good. The Ingrams, usually sounding like a box of paperclips being dropped suddenly sound like some kind of automatic artillery gun. (Note to self- find game with automatic artillery gun) The terribly unconvincing groans of enemies suddenly sound like the roaring of… roar-y things and your mouth will fall open in reverential awe.

Your mouth may be open in reverential awe, but your brow will be furrowed with hate for the (disappointingly short) duration of Max Payne thanks to its frankly brilliant story. The core content of it may be nothing new (wife dead, revenge) but it is told with glorious hand painted sections of graphic novel narrated with a razor sharp film noir script.

All in all then, Max Payne is one of the best games ever made. The bread and butter components are not all that amazing in themselves but the incredible story and dramatic slow-mo takedowns more than make up for this

90%

IL2 Sturmovik 1946: Review and LOLs.

"oh NO!"

We all burst out laughing, having been witness to one of the funniest sights in gaming. What game are we playing? TF2? Nope. GTA? Nope. We were playing IL2, a super realistic flight simulation first released in 2001 and now available in a bundle with all of its expansions for just £15.

The source of the comedy was my slightly useless flying. After stalling horribly I bailed out, only for the plane to fall on my pilot as he fell, causing it to split in two and explode. (The plane that is, not the pilot, who fell quickly to the ground, dead.) Another time Sithy and I attempted to take off on an aircraft carrier. Both our planes went straight into the sea and got promptly run over by the carrier. Again we were both doubled up laughing for many minutes afterwards.

In a vague attempt to make this a serious review I will refrain from providing any more examples of multiplayer hilarity, but suffice to say there are many, such as whe.. no, no. I mustn't. Back to serious reviewing. For your £15 you get IL2, the original Russian front flight sim released in 2001 and all its expansions/sequels: Forgotten Battles, Forgotten Battles Aces and Pacific Fighters, which add up to make what is quite possibly the largest flight sim in the known world. The reason for the name IL2: 1946 is that the pack also hypothetically extends WWII into 1946, allowing the inclusion of some incredible jets, and one crazy VTOL rocket/fan thing, making a total of well over 200 planes. Obviously most of them aren't flyable but those that are are all beautifully modelled, complete with fully 3D cockpits.

Ah, those cockpits. There is something to be said for a full 360^o field of view. As well as being spectacular it increases the immersion tenfold, allowing you to nervously peer around the slightly sparse but acceptable environments when the message "enemies spotted: 11 o'clock high" inevitably flashes onto your screen. It also allows your mean friends to flick your view down with a crafty mouse movement when you're in the middle of a dogfight. I'm looking at you, Dulls. If there is one quibble I have about the graphics it's the lack of an anti-aliasing option (fixed with hardware profiles) and the slightly short draw distance. It would have been nice to have an option to extend it beyond the still fairly close maximum currently available.

So far I've mainly talked about the multiplayer modes but do not take that to mean that the SP of the game is anything less than a credit to it. If you want to jump straight into some dog fighting action then you can, thanks to an instant action mode comparable to the "Quick Combat" on Microsoft's slightly crap Combat Flight Simulator. If you have a little more patience and are able to actually take off then you can try a single mission, typically taking half an hour and tasking you with flying somewhere, killing something and getting back again. There is also a campaign mode where you select your air force and are given missions as you go along. I must admit that I was slightly disappointed by the campaign mode. It lacked the feeling of immersion that is present in dynamic campaigns of other Sims. For example in Red Baron you were also given random missions to undertake but if your pilot died during one then you were out. Similarly if he was injured or crashed you'd spend a bit of time in hospital. If IL2's campaign had these features it would truly excel, as it is you can just retry missions if you die which means that the campaign is little more than a stream of single missions.

Still, the small issues I have with the game are totally eclipsed by the wonderful flight model, the hilarious multiplayer and the dogged dedication to realism that really makes this game shine like the brylcreamed hair of a WWII ace. Highly recommended.

92%

Technology

We, as a species, have made some great inventions and discoveries over our brief time on this planet. The written word, antibiotics and standing on our hind legs all come to mind. But we have also made some real big mistakes. One of the biggest comes from our arrogance and self-importance. It is the invention that I hate. It actually makes me physically sick. It is the Automatic Door.

Automatic doors seemed like such a good idea, as anyone who has ever watched Star Trek will testify. They open - for you! They sense your presence, and they should be just so cool!

But this is wrong. This is wrong because the automatic door never works properly. They are always broken, opening when they shouldn't because of a strong breeze, or remaining closed while you stand infront of them. They just don’t work.

This is even more annoying to me, because the door is the perfect invention. I don’t want to simplify this; doors have evolved over time, with the introduction of hinges, pivots and door-frames. During the renaissance, doors began to be used for effect, creating ambience in a room. Doors have, over the centuries, evolved. But the electronic door is a monstrosity.

Opening a door requires minimal effort. Attempting to force my way through a broken automatic door requires more effort. They don’t work. They are always broken.

Inventions do need to evolve. Take, for example, the simplest invention: The Wheel. The wheel has grown up. One wheel can give you a wheelbarrow, or a unicycle. Combining a wheel with another gives you stability, combining it with a combustion engine allows you to travel faster, combining it with brakes allows you to stop, combining it with suspension gives you a better ride. The wheel has evolved, so far as to the point of introducing tyres and tyre pressure, one of the most complicated sciences imaginable. It led the way to a whole new batch of inventors and inventions.

The door didn't. It could be adapted, used in new ways and perfected. But it didn't need this radical overhaul; it didn't need to become something new. It is what it is, and I prefer what it is.

Inventions change. Things evolve over time. But sometimes this is not a good thing. Sometimes it is. The automatic door is not yet perfect, and until it is, I will hate it. Does this make me a bad person?

TF2 Update - Preview

Zomg TF2 is getting some new maps and unlocks. Hoping to write a feature length preview later on. Have no free time at the moment... Anyway, in the meantime I advise you to watch "A day in the life of a turret" on youtube. Stay Tuned.

Hidden

Podasts and Me

I am a fan of podcasts. They make public transport bearable, and they are the reason why I have sunk so much time into Football Manager.

I have listened to the PCGamer podcast for a long time indeed. The British one is my favorite, but since they are not so involved in this story I will leave them out here..

PCG USA have been going for nearly 120 podcasts, and every week they have listener questions. These listeners all send in mp3s of their voices, and then the PCGers reply, on air, to them. About a week ago, I decided to send in a question of my own...

A thought had struck me concerning levels in videogames. Building on from Portal, I figured that the coolest setting for a shootout in an FPS would be a mirror-maze. A great idea? I thought so, so asked those PCGers if it was possable, and they answered my question. They discussed it. That is why I love this story, because it is a great example of how people connect. I was able to share an idea with people on the other side of the Atlantic, who then built on, and shared my idea to the rest of the world of podcasts. Use this inspiration.

Do great deeds, share great thoughts. This is what we made all this technology and civilisation for. This is my epiphany.

This can be heard in PCG USA podcast #115, after aprox 40min.

My arrival

Hello all!

I have arrived, with funny witticisms and tales of wisdom.
This is the start of something great...

Contributor

DDude has joined the warm folds of the brotherhood. His wonderous teachings should pop-up here and there preaching great tidings of joy and stuffs.

Hidden

Garrys Mod - Updated

The latest additions to one of the best mods for Half Life 2 includes NPC's and items from the following source games : Portal, HL2:Ep2 HL2:Ep1 and TF2

Garrys Mod now utilizes the somewhat more graphically and visually enchancing Episode 2 engine. There are now blur effects which look cool whilst trying to kill a hunter with a crowbar but in theory just increase the already prominent faults in the multiplayer.

Omg wtf lag? Multiplayer is now even more laggy than it was before and spawning an NPC reduces the framerate to about 5. It's not just because I have an older PC, everyone on the server gets it. Voice communication becomes near to impossible with such high pings and moving around is jerky and there is somewhat more room for griefing. As it was only released recently there are still many small updates needed to fix the recurring crashes.

Apart from all the lag and crash issues, the new props are great. I entertained myself for about 20 minutes just by spawning a companion cube and making a little safe enclosure for it to play and frolick in the shiny new textures. TF2 props are entertaining although they haven't integrated the weapons yet. *Drools over the thought of a pyro flamethrower*

It's a big update, allowing you to play more of the HL2 maps and the new Portal and TF2 maps . Sadly they haven't produced an official portal gun yet but there are innumerate 3rd party portal guns.

Altogether it's a huge update with loads of new content but there are still a few issues which need to be fixed.

Hidden

Fable: The Lost Chapters, A Belated Review.

It's easy to hate Fable. Before it was released on Xbox The lead game designer, Peter Molenyeux, hyped it like mad, describing a whole load of awesome features that didn't make it into the game. Rather than the genre redefining masterpiece people were expecting Fable was simply a decent RPG. Not an amazing RPG, but not a terrible one either. Sadly that got overlooked in the outpouring of hate from our console playing cousins which inevitably carried over to the PC version. Still, that was in 2005 and by now much of that dust has settled, allowing Fable to stand on its own as the decent game that the reviewers said it was.

You start life in Fable as a small boy tasked with buying your incredibly annoying sister a present. To do this you must perform good deeds while ignoring the incredibly annoying children that try and tempt you to be naughty. I punched one of them in the face, which was nice, but then lost the deed I was supposed to be performing which prompted all the locals to condemn me in their West Country accents whenever I passed.

The game improves tenfold when (spoiler alert!) your village is ransacked by evil bandits. They kill most of the annoying residents which pleased me greatly and spurred me on through the typically tedious training missions which saw me competing against a fellow trainee at the impossibly generic Heroes Guild. For a game that sells itself on being able to be good or evil it certainly makes every effort to get you to be good. It is fortunate that I am, at heart, a good Javaguy because that was all that kept me from slaying the damn villagers as soon as I got free of the guild.

I'm glad that I didn't, however, because Fable really improves once you're out adventuring. The quests available are consistently entertaining, if not up to Oblivion standards of depth, and the locations are very nicely done. The story has plenty of twists and turns as well, to hold your interest. Presumably due to its console heritage the game isn't strictly open world- the play world consists of lots of small areas divided by doors- but this fits in well with the action oriented stance that fable takes. Every time you enter a new area you're faced with lots of bandits to kill, which kind of forces you down the action route but does at least mean that journeys are never boring. It's worth pointing out also that you can fast travel with teleporters, which speeds things up nicely.

The combat in Fable is definitely its strongest point. Sword blows feel weighty and satisfying while the combo feature discourages you from simply button mashing your way out of situations, as do the unsightly scars your hero picks up if you forget to defend. Like I did. Another feature that endears Fable's combat towards me is infinite arrows. It astonishes me that Fable is the only RPG I've seen to include this feature- having to spend all your money on arrows is one of my pet hates.

In conclusion then, Fable is a good RPG. It suffers from a few of the issues prevalent in most every RPG- the tedious training, the slightly superfluous attempt at moral ambiguity- but it contains a whole range of neat features that allow it to be great fun in short bursts, with plenty of pick-up-and-play appeal. Sure, it's no Baldur's Gate but it doesn't set out to be. It's simply a good RPG with a sweet sense of humour and surprisingly visceral combat. Recommended.

80%

Flashlights in games?

Flashlights play a key role in games. They help create atmosphere and, depending on the situation, tension or all out terror. There is also a sense of security when you press F and see the friendly glowing circle around your crosshair.

I know I've mentioned Half Life 2 quite a bit but it, out of the many games I have played, captured the role of the flashlight pefectly. In Hl2 the flashlight is used in many a dark passage, bringing horror along with it.

The flashlight has a strong relationship with horror. They dine often together. Wherever one goes, the other must follow. With a flashlight its impossible to walk round a dark corner without fear of what that innocent beam of light might reveal. A health supply? Some ammo? Or a mutilated corpse, ripped to pieces by the zombie who is now creeping up behind you.

The flashlight feels like a part of my body. The sights we have seen. From beautiful, welcoming health vendors to the disgusting zombies, the mutilated corpses and ominous blood splats.

In short then the flashlight is something to care for and be proud to possess. It's the FPS's answer to The Companion Cube, providing solace in times of difficulty, comfort in times of sadness and light in times of darkness.

Hidden

TF2 review in 200 words.

I wrote this for the uncensored of PCG, but they didnt post it. :(

Review of Team Fortress 2

Woot! I killed Jaffacake_Killer! The words flitted joyously through my head as I watched my beautifully rendered pyro strumming his fire axe in triumph. No doubt at that moment the great Jaffa himself was gazing mournfully at a dramatic freeze-frame of my pyro, mid strum, standing over his remains- so cheekily pointed out to him with little boxes exclaiming “your head!” “your appendix!” and “another bit!”

The uplifting scene above illustrates, for me, precisely what makes TF2 so great. The whole game is infused with a wonderfully dark sense of humour, relishing in every death. You can almost hear Gabe cackling from afar as a spy gets healed by a medic and then stabs him ungratefully In the back.

It’s a far cry from cheerless CS:S (or for that matter, TFC) which is so… austere… yet is still anomalously populated with screaming 10 year olds. It is ironic that TF2 has a visual style so like the Pixar films they enjoy watching while having such a friendly and mature community. Perhaps it is the emphasis on teamwork throughout the game. CS:S is every ma… boy for themselves, whereas In TF2 you will find yourself devising manically cunning plans with all and sundry for the greater good.

And finally (this deserves repetition) I can kill senior forumites! Their respect, maturity and skill is no match for my impish impetuosity!

95%

Posting names!

Yes, thanks to my incredible skill we now have separate posting names!

yay!

Oh dear.

I really believe that hidden was using "teh" with complete seriousness.

Oh, my.

Half Life 2 - Striders

I was moving swiftly over obstacles without any idea where i was going. I heard some survivors and ran over to pause upon hearing a strange noise. I turned round slowly like something out of the films as a strider stopped over building smashing them to pieces. My reaction was to run but all I could do was stare amazed in wonder at the monstrous machine-alien-thing stomping towards me. I heard rockets being fired from behind me at the strider but was transfixed. It was at that point i realised that Half Life 2 contained more than the usual amount of zombies, hot girls following you around and shotguns. It was art. The sheer beauty of which the strider 0wn3d the survivors was just awe-inspiring. The striders screech made me run for cover. I was trapped under some fallen debris knowing there was a strider up there probably moving into position to mutilate my body when I emerged. I'm going to stop describing what happens now incase i pull a spoiler.

Why Half Life 2? I mean tons of other games have zombies, hot girls and tripods.

It's the way they present themselves. You walk into a building looking for ammo and hear a zombie's cry. You turn round suddenly very paranoid and wondering if you are the only one in the room. You see the door to your left start to move and hit the F key. God i love the F key. The role of flashlights is another post though. I move over towards the door with my shotgun equiped and a heacrab attacks me from the rear and all hell breaks lose. "Can't...see...stupid...headcrab..." Then you hear the zombie's cry again but it sounds closer... You turn round and see the zombie about to throw a barrel at you. It hits you square in the face and you are dazed as the headhumper humps your head.

Small sequences like these are perfectly portrayed and evoke precisely the right emotions required in such a situation.

I rest my case.

Hidden

Manx Cats

In reply to the Honourable Member manx cats are teh awesome.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Manx_breed_cat_named_Inkku.jpg

Look at them! Made of pure awesome! Their sleek fur ruffles in the wind as they approach their prey. gliding along the many beautiful harbours on the rock, the cat passed a bush. Did its tail make a noise brushing the bush? No. It remained undetected, and secured its prey. Manx cats > cats.

Hidden

The First Post.

I, Javaguy, claim this post in the name of beating Hidden.

Anyway.

This blog is basically set up for us to post our writings, with the vague idea of improving. Expect to see the odd article, review and many, many rants about PC Games and anything else that we have the patience to write about at length. Cookies, for example.

Don't expect punctual weekly updates or pages of dazzlingly good prose every day but do expect us to do our best.

Hidden comes from the Isle of Man though, so make allowances. I mean honestly! Cats with no tails! Crazy!