Dragon Rising First Impressions

Just fired up Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising and took a quick spin to check on what’s new and what’s gone. I know it’s not a real sequel, as that would be ArmA, but I’ve heard of ArmA’s bugs and performance. Besides, Dragon Rising is shiny. I like shiny.

One thing I notice as soon as I start is that the menu is slick and tactile. Dragon Rising uses the same engine as GRID (which also had an excellent menu), so the first thing you learn by this game is that if you want a great main menu for your game, you need to use the Ego Engine.

Despite the consolized menus, I’m pleased to see that there’s attention to detail even before you start a mission. Briefing comes in two varieties: an advanced briefing and a to-the-point objectives list. You get to see (but not customise) the equipment loadouts for your squad and then you’re thrust right in.

Being used to mute protagonists, I was confused at first as I wondered where the traditionally-black-squad-leader is talking from. Then I realised that it’s supposed to me. Good. Moving around feels heavy and there’s quite a movement bob, which gets dizzy after a while. Your gun looks gun and even feels heavy, so that’s good. They also sound great, meaning that I’m back into my old habit of firing random rounds as I walk across the island of Skira.

At the same time, differences from the original game become apparent to me, one-by-one. The game retains the third-person view of the original, but only in vehicles. In first-person, you’re forced into first-person. Not that I’m a fan of third-person combat, but I kind of liked watching my character run. Really, knowing Operation Flashpoint, getting from Point A to Point B isn’t going to be a grand adventure full of intriguing characters and scenery – it’s going to be a long, arduous walk. Just like in real life.

The scale of the island is much larger than any of the three islands in the original game. The map is helpful here, and it’s also a whole lot more readable than the one from the original, where you had to struggle to make out which of those little rings is yours. But going back to the long walks, the number one, and I mean Number One thing I miss from the original game is time control. In the original, a well-ignored little control allowed you to change the very speed of time. Not very realistic, but it sure as hell made your long marches and drives a whole lot shorter. No such thing this time. You’re going to have to bob your way all those kilometres.

Another thing I don’t like: being the commander. I’d very much prefer being the lackey following the commander and the original game offered plenty of that. Here, you’re thrust right in as a squad leader on the first mission. Being the leader means that you also have some responsibility in the way of ordering around members of your squad. This isn’t nearly as tedious as it sounds – not because of the new radial command system, but because they rarely need any orders at all.

Your squad members are intelligent folk, and know well enough to take cover, take out the enemy and do what must be done, to be general. Still, the command system allows you to execute flanks, supressing fire and other such life-saving gimmickry, so I don’t think ignoring it is a very good idea. It’s a pain to use, that’s for sure.

Hitting the Q button takes you into the command mode. You then use your movement keys to navigate the weird radial menus and find the command you’re looking for. It’s not an especially bad idea… for an average shooter. When you’re facing fire from six Chinese soldiers and have a bleeding wound, navigating five menus to search a command is not a very appealing proposition.

Even if the original game’s communication (and I mean communication because you had to relay information using it back then) system was based on the number keys, at least you could remember numerical patterns to throw orders around. The radial command is highly distracting, breaks the game’s flow and is also annoying when you forget that your order is placed wherever you’re aiming. Overall, the biggest design blunder in this game.

Combat is good ol’ Flashpoint flavour. Your enemies, usually several tens of metres away are little more than dots on the horizon. They’re smart enough to hide behind bushes, take cover and look very professional. As before, you can’t go in hero-style, and have to be especially cautious about your moves. Of note, however, is that shooting feels especially easier this time. This may have something to do with the modern weapons. The scope is a whole lot more helpful than aiming down the sights in 1985.

My second biggest gripe is the colour. What is it with all the brown? It quickly gets weary to watch, brown hills, brown building, brown grass, brown water, brown friends, brown enemies, it’s tiresome. Judging by the game’s screenshots, there should be some more colour in the other missions, and there better be.

I also tried the mission editor, easy-to-use as always. I assembled all the game’s vehicles in a row to try them out (as a certain General Zheng), and they all handle quite well. The ground vehicles are fun to drive, and I especially like the Hummer. I also didn’t know the M1A1 was as flexible as it is. The air vehicles have changed a lot, and controlling them is going to take a bit of time. Also, you only get to play as either the gunner or the driver (or commander), never both (which the previous game did allow). This kind of takes away the fun of using air vehicles, because one of my favourite strategies in the previous game was hunting out and hijacking a jeep, driving it to an airbase, stealing the chopper and bringing it to the battle. Nothing like a bit of homebrew air support.

Solving the Low-Volume Voice in Mirror’s Edge (and maybe some other games)

Noticed this issue on my new computer where the voice in Mirror’s Edge sounded way too low-volume. I could barely make out what Merc was saying, but figured it was a game issue. The cinematics had the same problems too, though. I think the issue exists with all UE3 games, because I noticed the same thing in Unreal Tournament 3 (that is before I uninstalled it on account of its horrible campaign).

And turns out it’s not a game issue, it’s in the drivers. You need to update your HD Audio Codecs for your Realtek sound device, which you’ll find here.

Happy Parkour-ing, or whatever it is they say.

Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura

Arcanum’s a delectable little RPG gem. It was developed by Troika Games before they made the awesome Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines and then had to drop dead because they didn’t get any funds.

It’s probably the last major D&D-style 2D RPG in the vein of Fallout, Planescape or Baldur’s Gate, and I personally think it plays out better than any of these (it could be the age, and besides, I’m playing a patched version, I hear the original is very buggy). The interface is slick, gameplay is stylish and while I’m no fan of combat of this very genre, Arcanum handles it suitably.

What I like best about the game is its Steampunk art style, despite being set in a fantasy world populated by elves, dwarves etc., we see the marvels of the Victorian age – blimps, lanterns, flintlock guns and dapper suits. The UI has a very Victorian aesthetic, wood and polished metal, the dialogue is lovely with its 19th Century trappings.

I think this is largely the handiwork of Leonard Boyarsky, who also worked on creating the story, setting, aesthetic and dialogue of Fallout (the story, setting, aesthetic and dialogue happen to be Fallout’s shining points, the rest of the game was fairly passable).

The character-creation is reminiscent of D&D, but fairly different. Using character points and such, I’ve created a spiffy Half-Orc, skilled in Charm and Stun and Spike Traps as well as some prowess in prowling and pickpocketing.

Wikipedia

Deus Ex Universe Timeline

Found this on an obscure blog here, and thought it deserves some promotion. It’s a detailed timeline of the Deus Ex Universe, referencing even the minutest details, such as the birth of Jesus and so on. Pretty awesome stuff, whoever made it, I guess Leroy.

-02 Estimated time that Jesus of Nazareth is born. This estimate is likely more accurate than the traditional �0�. Jesus is believed by Christians to be the �Anointed one� Messiah in the Jewish tongue, Christ in the Greek. He shakes up the world a bit, this has profound effects on just about everyone.
30 Estimated time of the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus of Nazareth speaks of a “City on the Hill.”
33 Estimated time of the death of Jesus of Nazareth. He is nailed to a cross in a mode of execution known as crucifixion, created to cause pain. It involves being nailed through the palms* and heels, and then left there to die of (after many other things) suffocation. This is result of the actions of three men, the head priest, the Roman governor, and Jesus himself. By allowing, and even encouraging his own death he fulfills a few prophecies.
>33Christianity, a sect of Judaism, is founded shortly after the death of Jesus. There were many players in this, Peter, James, and, most importantly, Mary Magdalene, author of the Gospel of John. This would become the predominant religion on earth.
1090 Hassan Sabah founded the Order of Assassins or Hashishim.

1118 Baldwin II, the Patriarch of Jerusalem accepted the vow of Hugues de Payens, a knight from Champagne, and eight other knights to forever protect the “Kingdom of Christendom.” They were given charitable lodgings in the city temple where they became the “pauvres chevaliers du temple”, or the “poor knights of the temple”. This was the beginning of the Templar Knights, an order of warrior monks.

Sanitarium

I finished playing Sanitarium today, which is a 1998 horror adventure game that seems to have slipped under the radar. Like most other games from the Golden Age of PC Games, Sanitarium deserves to played primarily for its astounding art, design and storyline.

We see Max crash his car right in the intro, which results in him going amnesiac and seeing hallucinations, dreams and so on. Most of the game is set in such dreams. The game itself blends reality with fantasy, so you can never ascertain which parts were real, and which parts were concocted by Max.

I wouldn’t say it was scary as it is made out to be in the first few chapters, but it definitely leans on the bizarre/surreal angle. I think the creepiest setting of all comes in the second chapter, where you’re trapped in a town devoid of adults, and all the children are physically deformed. As the game progresses and story gets clearer though, you don’t get the chills as often.

One of the main factors to blame would be the games dialogue and voice acting. The voice acting especially is awful. The protagonist sounds like a dad from some 50s family TV show. While it was his voice that was the most painful, voice acting in general of this game feels terribly camp. If the game had included a voice volume slider, I’d have used it.

All in all, a great game that has its problems.

Gordon Freeman Spotted at the Large Hadron Collider

Gordon Freeman at the LHC. Not pictured: Crowbar.

Morrowind Impressions

After some suggestions, I decided to give Morrowind a shot. I can say this, that the game can very well be the game that will bring me back to the hardcore gaming that I’ve missed for the last year or so. It is definitely immersive, bombarding you with fiction from an alternate world of fantasy that can arguably be said to be as good as Tolkien’s Middle-Earth.

The biggest problem I first faced with Morrowind was the scale of the game. Morrowind is no ordinary RPG, as anyone with any knowledge of Bethesda Softworks will point out. It is more of a setup, a base for your RPG adventure, which you construct from the actions you undertake. That is, perhaps, the beauty of the game. It has a story, from what I can make out, but the level of freedom is astounding.

A second problem, one that I still have would be that of speed. The PC appeas to move at a lethargic rate, often making going through hallways a very long process. Running causes the PC to get fatigued, which is regenerating. I would personally have preffered at least the running speed to be the minimum walking speed, with an extra ‘Sprint’ functionality, like in Half-Life. Now that it’s on my mind, I really do miss Half-Life’s speed and fluidity of movement.

I love the writing in the game. It is way above the standard RPG fare. The game world is populated by what appears to be at least a hundred different books, each of which either dispense information on the massive game world, or tell a short story, or both. The book aesthetics also make reading a pleasure, and the journal in the game is perhaps the most lovely I’ve seen.

Sound is top-notch, with crisp sound effects, atmospheric sound and a beautfully magnificent soundtrack. It’s really the sort found in movies. Graphics look great as well. Considering the volume of the game, the graphics make a great compromise between performance and appearance, but allow almost no customization – you have to stick with what you get. The water looks exceptionally gorgeous, albeit seems to lack smoothness.

Morrowind is, in every definition of the term, epic. It’s a game you can never completely play in-and-out. But it sure as hell is awesome all the same. I appreciate Bethesda’s efforts in this: they have a truly respectable style of video games.

Curse you, old RPGs.

I love old school RPG games. They can be on my VBA, or on my PC and they are good. They have this cozy, comfy feeling of being in these old graphics so that they give you an idea of where you are and what you are doing, but still leave plenty to the imagination. I especially love it when you get these literary lines during gameplay, like “(player name) walked through the pristine glade and found a druid who looked so old, he looked like he could drop any minute into the tar-black cauldron he was stirring.”

So I figured I’d download one of them old classics – I’ve already played the Fallout games (albeit I should replay them now) and I have yet to play Baldur’s Gate, Icewind Dale and Planescape: Torment. Innocent little old games. How big can they be, I think. I check.

Let us check Wikipedia now. How many CDs would these games come on? 1 should be more than enough for a pre-2000 game, I conclude. After all, these games didn’t have 16x AA or ulta-real textures to worry about. Ah, Planescape: Torment – 4 CDs, with 2 extra since later releases.

Baldur’s Gate? 5 CD-ROMs (a DVD is also available). Now, I normally wouldn’t have a problem with 1-DVD games. But seriously, this game came out in 1998. Didn’t they have some sort of audio compression tools back then?

I suppose that leaves Icewind Dale, which packs in 2 CDs (which is still more than I had expected). I guess I will give this one a try sometime soon, or blast it and go back to good old Fallout, which I am going to have to replay anyways, considering Bethesda’s ambitious third installment is in the line.

Indigo Prophecy

First off, Indigo Prophecy (also known as Fahrenheit out of the US) is really a good adventure game, that leaves a mark on you no less than classic point-and-click adventure games. It focuses on the game’s storyline and how the plot plays out based on your interactions, as opposed to anything else. If that doesn’t qualify it as an adventure game, I don’t know what will.

Indigo Prophecy takes place in chilly January in New York, where a handsome ordinary guy named Lucas Kane, in a trance, murders an unknown man in a diner restroom. Confused, shocked and scared, Lucas’ life starts going downhill from here on as he begins to see visions, monsters and stuff, all the while hoping the cops don’t get him. The big question is of course, what happened on that cold January night that caused Lucas to kill a man.

Hooked

“Sector Sweep” and “Vortal Combat” , from The Orange Box Soundtrack have me hooked, especially the former. Add to that Martina Topley-Bird’s “Sandpaper Kisses” from the Indigo Prophecy/Fahrenheit soundtrack.