A while ago I expressed surprise that someone used one of my flickr pictures in their blog post. Well, it seems to be catching - a rare google search for my stuff online has shown that my pictures are popping up all over the place. The most interesting one for me: I'm on Wired!
I suppose I shouldn't be surprised - this is, after all, what Flickr is for. The social and searchable aspects make my (and, indeed, anyone's) photographs available for anyone who is interested and the work done by the Creative Commons license people mean others can use my material. On top of the theory, there are the stories about people whose lives have been changed or saved by various social networking sites. The difference in this case is that, in its own small way, it has happened to me. And that is nice.
For anyone interested, my flickr stream is here.
Friday, 27 February 2009
Wednesday, 25 February 2009
The First D&D Realtime Strategy Experience!
The wonderful Play.com gave me the opportunity to have a look at a game that mildly intrigued me when it was released a few years ago (back in 2005). That game was (and is) Dragonshard, which proudly boasts that it is the first D&D RTS. It is so proud of this fact that it is part of the box art, and also splashed across the screen as it loads up. Clearly it is going to be something special then.
As we first delve into the magic that is going to be The First D&D RTS(tm) the first thing we find is the menu screen. You remember back when DVDs were new and studios felt compelled to make their menus different and interesting? You remember the beauty of the interface to something like Crouching Tiger, where it played exciting clips of the film each time you clicked a button? You remember that that particular feature got old about 18 seconds after you first thought "wow"? Welcome back to that happy time.
The menus are a pain. They have cogs turning in the background in some bizarre homage to steampunk (which is absolutely nothing to do with Eberron, the world where this is all set) and instead of pleasing music or just silence we are treated to the sounds of heavy machinery. Very clever and different, but also deeply annoying - and this is the noise playing throughout the seemingly eternal installation sequence. Even ignoring these audio trials, clicking around is a pest resulting in much scrolling and things moving about and not much actual navigating around the options.
There is one exception, which is the voice over bloke. He is from the "IN A LAND, FAR AWAY..." school of voice acting and when you click on a race on the campaign screen he growls the name of that species in a deeply sinister voice. That alone is worth his fee as far as I'm concerned.
The Game?
Anyway. After clicking around for what seems to be a week and rattling through the lengthy and tedious tutorial missions you're thrown into the game proper and - there is no getting away from it - it is like playing a poor man's Warcraft 3. The point, click, drag interface is exactly the same, as are the rpg elements where you "interact" with npcs around the map. I use that term loosely as without exception they all say "go kill that" or "fetch me this thing after you've killed the guardian" so it's hardly a work of genius. Even the animation is in the same style - the distinctively comical way Warcraft characters run around by punching forwards with their firsts rather than powering onwards with their legs is copied flawlessly, which is particularly amusing when the main chaps are standing around having a deep plot moment and some npc goon struts up to say his piece.
There isn't really much else to say about the gameplay. Although I say it's like the three years older Warcraft 3, it actually hasn't evolved a great deal from Command & Conquer back in 1995. There are two resource types, which is mildly interesting (and annoying when you realise you can't swap one for the other and you find yourself unable to find any gold) and the troops all have special abilities but otherwise gameplay is the same: control the resources, control the choke points on the map, wear down the enemy, force your way into its base. Repeat.
Good Stuff
Actually, I'm being a bit unfair. There is a 14 mission campaign (seven for each of two of the three races - oddly, nothing for the third) and there are some interesting maps along the way with some attempts to do something a bit different. The inclusion of Kyber (the underworld - a cave system that runs under the maps you're playing on) is something I haven't seen before, adding a bit of pseudo-dungeoncrawling to the proceedings where you can earn experience points (XP) and gold to boost and build your army.
Army management has gone through an overhaul too. You get the usual Champions (hardbloke special characters) and rank and file troops, but also special units called Juggernauts of which you can build one and send it off to devastate the enemy. Sadly these Juggernauts are not worth the resources they cost to build so I typically ignored them, but still - the option is there.
As you kill enemies you generate XP which you use to upgrade your troop captains, allowing them access to more powerful abilities and also having them drag around soldiers (less powerful versions of themselves) to help and take the hits for them. This initially seemed like an odd decision - you're upgrading disposable rank and file troops rather than the champions who drive the story - and after playing through the game I'm still not sure how well it works. Mechanically, it's great. It means there is some strategy in deciding how to spend the XP and choosing your troops, deciding which extra abilities you want but it is all oddly soulless. Supposedly the magic items are for upgrading your champions, but it still feels weird that the main characters don't substantially change from the beginning of the game to the end.
Crumbling with Age
One thing that struck me repeatedly whilst playing Dragonshard was how dated it all looks. I accept the game is nearly four years old (as an aside, I am going to start writing about more modern games - honest) but that is two years younger than Freelancer and I still go back and play that regularly. Perhaps it is because it takes all the things I hate about RTS games and builds upon them like the tower built on the sandy beach. And the tower is made of sand.
The camera doesn't zoom out far enough, so battlefield control is limited to watching individual skirmishes. Except you can't control the skirmishes very well because switching between units is a pain and the control system isn't precise enough to move troops exactly where you want them (not that they stay there anyway) so skirmishes consist of pouring troops into an area and hoping for the best. This means the micro-strategy involved in any given skirmish is precisely nil, but also the close in camera coupled with the limited resource and population caps stops you coordinating macro-level strategy where you attack an enemy base from two different directions to draw off the defenders or capture high ground to control an area whilst your infiltrators scout out the terrain ahead. I think this is a particular complaint of mine, since pretty much every RTS game irritates me in much the same way but it seems to me that in a real battle the commander is either managing the troops locally in the skirmish or he's delegated that to his subordinates and is coordinating strategy. He's not trying to do both at the same time.
If you want to find some strategy in Dragonshard, you need to look at army composition. You need to find a good selection of troops to put with your hero in your strike force before you either hit your population cap or are buried in an unmanageable mess and just have to click and hope. This means getting a couple of healing units (tip - put your XP into these guys first), a couple of melee units to hold up the enemy and a handful of archers to shoot them to pieces whilst the soldiers are getting chopped up. Of course, once you've cracked that you can win the game without thought, but there are enough unit types to try other combinations. Each unit comes with its own unique special abilities - another one of my personal hates because they all need triggering manually. This means that rather than accepting you cannot affect the coming battle and sitting back to enjoy the visuals, you have to sit there tabbing between the various units trying to remember what all the various abilities do and firing them off properly so you spend your entire life watching your mana metres and looking for targets and ignoring the graphics.
Oh, and the AI cheats - attacking you with horrendously powerful forces before you've had a chance to build anything. Except for the times when it doesn't bother and you can wander all over the map without problems building a DoomArmy to blast through its base - and these differences can occur between different loads of the same levels. Weird.
It goes on, but you've probably had enough by now. Before moving on though, I have to mention the spectacularly poor writing which strings the game together in campaign mode. Each army has a series of cutscenes starring the champions (each side has the same architypes - the leader, the sage, the violent thugish one and the instantly forgettable one) and every scene consists of the leader and the sage taking things seriously, the thugs wanting to smash everything in sight and the useless one quipping in an entirely unfunny way. I have to wonder about D&D games and films - considering the heart of tabletop D&D is roleplaying and storytelling, you'd think these big money productions would have a storyline superior to the sort of thing your halfway decent DM writes in his sleep.
Also, do watch out for the bugs. Even four years on, and after a pile of patches, there are moments when quest items mysteriously vanish. Or it eats your save games. Thanks.
Summing up
Despite all this I did find Dragonshard quite entertaining (I have finished it, which at the time of writing makes it better than Storm of Zehir - do NOT buy that game). Whilst it is in no way ground breaking, it is inoffensive and not too irritating. You can cruise through it without having to engage too many braincells which makes it quite fun evening play and if you can find someone daft enough to want to play it with you, I'd imagine the multiplayer can be a laugh. Why you'd want to when there are so many other games out there is another matter - I picked it up for £3 because I was interested and was expecting something a bit different. It isn't different.
There hasn't been a second D&D RTS.
As we first delve into the magic that is going to be The First D&D RTS(tm) the first thing we find is the menu screen. You remember back when DVDs were new and studios felt compelled to make their menus different and interesting? You remember the beauty of the interface to something like Crouching Tiger, where it played exciting clips of the film each time you clicked a button? You remember that that particular feature got old about 18 seconds after you first thought "wow"? Welcome back to that happy time.The menus are a pain. They have cogs turning in the background in some bizarre homage to steampunk (which is absolutely nothing to do with Eberron, the world where this is all set) and instead of pleasing music or just silence we are treated to the sounds of heavy machinery. Very clever and different, but also deeply annoying - and this is the noise playing throughout the seemingly eternal installation sequence. Even ignoring these audio trials, clicking around is a pest resulting in much scrolling and things moving about and not much actual navigating around the options.
There is one exception, which is the voice over bloke. He is from the "IN A LAND, FAR AWAY..." school of voice acting and when you click on a race on the campaign screen he growls the name of that species in a deeply sinister voice. That alone is worth his fee as far as I'm concerned.The Game?
Anyway. After clicking around for what seems to be a week and rattling through the lengthy and tedious tutorial missions you're thrown into the game proper and - there is no getting away from it - it is like playing a poor man's Warcraft 3. The point, click, drag interface is exactly the same, as are the rpg elements where you "interact" with npcs around the map. I use that term loosely as without exception they all say "go kill that" or "fetch me this thing after you've killed the guardian" so it's hardly a work of genius. Even the animation is in the same style - the distinctively comical way Warcraft characters run around by punching forwards with their firsts rather than powering onwards with their legs is copied flawlessly, which is particularly amusing when the main chaps are standing around having a deep plot moment and some npc goon struts up to say his piece.
There isn't really much else to say about the gameplay. Although I say it's like the three years older Warcraft 3, it actually hasn't evolved a great deal from Command & Conquer back in 1995. There are two resource types, which is mildly interesting (and annoying when you realise you can't swap one for the other and you find yourself unable to find any gold) and the troops all have special abilities but otherwise gameplay is the same: control the resources, control the choke points on the map, wear down the enemy, force your way into its base. Repeat.
Good Stuff
Actually, I'm being a bit unfair. There is a 14 mission campaign (seven for each of two of the three races - oddly, nothing for the third) and there are some interesting maps along the way with some attempts to do something a bit different. The inclusion of Kyber (the underworld - a cave system that runs under the maps you're playing on) is something I haven't seen before, adding a bit of pseudo-dungeoncrawling to the proceedings where you can earn experience points (XP) and gold to boost and build your army. Army management has gone through an overhaul too. You get the usual Champions (hardbloke special characters) and rank and file troops, but also special units called Juggernauts of which you can build one and send it off to devastate the enemy. Sadly these Juggernauts are not worth the resources they cost to build so I typically ignored them, but still - the option is there.
As you kill enemies you generate XP which you use to upgrade your troop captains, allowing them access to more powerful abilities and also having them drag around soldiers (less powerful versions of themselves) to help and take the hits for them. This initially seemed like an odd decision - you're upgrading disposable rank and file troops rather than the champions who drive the story - and after playing through the game I'm still not sure how well it works. Mechanically, it's great. It means there is some strategy in deciding how to spend the XP and choosing your troops, deciding which extra abilities you want but it is all oddly soulless. Supposedly the magic items are for upgrading your champions, but it still feels weird that the main characters don't substantially change from the beginning of the game to the end.
Crumbling with Age
One thing that struck me repeatedly whilst playing Dragonshard was how dated it all looks. I accept the game is nearly four years old (as an aside, I am going to start writing about more modern games - honest) but that is two years younger than Freelancer and I still go back and play that regularly. Perhaps it is because it takes all the things I hate about RTS games and builds upon them like the tower built on the sandy beach. And the tower is made of sand.
The camera doesn't zoom out far enough, so battlefield control is limited to watching individual skirmishes. Except you can't control the skirmishes very well because switching between units is a pain and the control system isn't precise enough to move troops exactly where you want them (not that they stay there anyway) so skirmishes consist of pouring troops into an area and hoping for the best. This means the micro-strategy involved in any given skirmish is precisely nil, but also the close in camera coupled with the limited resource and population caps stops you coordinating macro-level strategy where you attack an enemy base from two different directions to draw off the defenders or capture high ground to control an area whilst your infiltrators scout out the terrain ahead. I think this is a particular complaint of mine, since pretty much every RTS game irritates me in much the same way but it seems to me that in a real battle the commander is either managing the troops locally in the skirmish or he's delegated that to his subordinates and is coordinating strategy. He's not trying to do both at the same time.
If you want to find some strategy in Dragonshard, you need to look at army composition. You need to find a good selection of troops to put with your hero in your strike force before you either hit your population cap or are buried in an unmanageable mess and just have to click and hope. This means getting a couple of healing units (tip - put your XP into these guys first), a couple of melee units to hold up the enemy and a handful of archers to shoot them to pieces whilst the soldiers are getting chopped up. Of course, once you've cracked that you can win the game without thought, but there are enough unit types to try other combinations. Each unit comes with its own unique special abilities - another one of my personal hates because they all need triggering manually. This means that rather than accepting you cannot affect the coming battle and sitting back to enjoy the visuals, you have to sit there tabbing between the various units trying to remember what all the various abilities do and firing them off properly so you spend your entire life watching your mana metres and looking for targets and ignoring the graphics.
Oh, and the AI cheats - attacking you with horrendously powerful forces before you've had a chance to build anything. Except for the times when it doesn't bother and you can wander all over the map without problems building a DoomArmy to blast through its base - and these differences can occur between different loads of the same levels. Weird.
It goes on, but you've probably had enough by now. Before moving on though, I have to mention the spectacularly poor writing which strings the game together in campaign mode. Each army has a series of cutscenes starring the champions (each side has the same architypes - the leader, the sage, the violent thugish one and the instantly forgettable one) and every scene consists of the leader and the sage taking things seriously, the thugs wanting to smash everything in sight and the useless one quipping in an entirely unfunny way. I have to wonder about D&D games and films - considering the heart of tabletop D&D is roleplaying and storytelling, you'd think these big money productions would have a storyline superior to the sort of thing your halfway decent DM writes in his sleep.
Also, do watch out for the bugs. Even four years on, and after a pile of patches, there are moments when quest items mysteriously vanish. Or it eats your save games. Thanks.
Summing up
Despite all this I did find Dragonshard quite entertaining (I have finished it, which at the time of writing makes it better than Storm of Zehir - do NOT buy that game). Whilst it is in no way ground breaking, it is inoffensive and not too irritating. You can cruise through it without having to engage too many braincells which makes it quite fun evening play and if you can find someone daft enough to want to play it with you, I'd imagine the multiplayer can be a laugh. Why you'd want to when there are so many other games out there is another matter - I picked it up for £3 because I was interested and was expecting something a bit different. It isn't different.
There hasn't been a second D&D RTS.
Wednesday, 21 January 2009
Running The Rooftops
Crikey - nearly two months since my last update. As is usually the case when there is a long gap between posts, I was wrestling with a game I am not enjoying very much. This time it was the fundamentally awful Neverwinter Nights 2 expansion pack Storm of Zehir - something I will no doubt write about when I have completed it. In the meantime I have been amusing myself murdering the residents of the Holy Lands in Assassin's Creed.
Where to start with this one? Well, you play a bloke in a lab set somewhere in the future but you're put in a machine which lets you relive your genetic memories of an assassin who lived back in the times of the third Crusade which is the main body of the game. Back in the past you are disgraced assassin Altair, working to regain his standing by killing targets of note in the area. What this translates to is hours of fun running over the rooftops of three different ancient cities, leaping like a fool from giant towers and getting into fights with irate guards who don't approve of your antics.
Initial impressions are good. Assassin's Creed looks beautiful - there is no other way to put it. From the detail on your bloke's clothing and weapons to the gorgeous panoramic views of the cities as you first approach it never fails to impress. It isn't just the individual pieces either - the way the character models fit together when they are interacting is very precise which gets rid of that strange weightless feeling you sometimes get with graphical games when someone seems to be sliding over a landscape rather than walking, or someone picks something up and you get the impression the object is following their hand around rather than actually being grasped by it. None of that in Assassin's Creed - everything feels satisfyingly weighty. When Altair plummets from a rooftop and hits the ground, you feel the impact. When he is stabbed by a guard (and he will be - a lot) you feel the impact. It is great for the atmosphere and really draws you in from the first.
After a short while of enjoying the visuals and playing through the initial tutorial phases of the game you'll be thrown into the plot proper and told to go kill someone in nearby Damascus. There is a quick hike through some more lovely terrain and your first breathtaking view of a city before you find yourself standing in a full ancient city wondering what to do next. Fortunately your assassin is an accomplished free runner so it's time to indulge in the next distraction from the main game. Point your chap at a wall, press the appropriate buttons and - look! - up he goes! You can spend hours running through the streets and over the rooftops before you even remember there is a game involved and you should really get on with your mission.
As an aside, if you don't know what free running is go and look for some videos on YouTube. It is quite possibly the coolest thing you'll ever see. Go now. We'll wait.
Anyway, in your time running around like a loon you've probably stumbled across one of the submissions. There are six for each assassination, each revealing a bit more information about your target and allowing you to plan your approach but if you fancy winging it you only have to do two to be allowed to get on with the stabbing. Then you are off on the heels of your chosen ne'er-do-well, wandering up to him and filling his face with your blade. Then you get to do it again - eight more times.
So - does any of this actually hold together? Well, yes. The movement controls are excellent, allowing you to stride purposefully through a crowded street one moment before hitting the free run button and climbing straight up a wall and jumping from rooftop to rooftop. They are possibly a little simple - almost everything can be accomplished by pointing in the direction you want to go and holding down the free run button - but it all looks so stunning that you can get lost in the cinematics and just marvel that you are making your man do all these cool things. Then there is the combat, which is a bit harder to get to grips with. It is also a very simple one-button affair, but relies on precise timing to pull off some of the flashy moves. Whilst that is fine as a concept, either I couldn't do it right or something about the sequence recognition wasn't quite right as I couldn't consistently pull off some of the block / counter combinations and when surrounded by a horde of enemies (something that happens a lot later on) my bloke didn't appear to react in quite the same way as when facing fewer opponents. So the combat isn't great, but with a bit of practice you can become quite a proficient swordsman and again it is helped enormously by the sound and visuals. Both have significant and satisfying weight behind them, meaning you really feel it every time you ram your sword through a hapless guard.
Obviously there are problems with Assassin's Creed. The assassinations - something you'd expect to be a main part of the game - are actually a very small part of the playing time and planning your route to the target, whilst fun, is hampered by both the interface and the cinematics. You are constantly told that clearing the rooftops of guards is a good idea before you go in and eliminate your target. Sadly, to get into the assassination sequence you have to go and stand on a predetermined point and allow the cutscene to play. You can move in these cutscenes but not actually act so I ruined my first kill by moving into position and being unable to stab the target whilst he spewed his piece. Sadly when the cutscene ended he turned round and bumped into me, recognising me instantly and setting every guard in the city on me. The game expects you to stand back and watch the cutscene from its chosen position (one in which on some occasions you really don't want to stand) and then think about your plan and how to execute it. It takes a little getting used to and can be really quite irritating.
That's the cinematics - but the interface is worse. You have a map (accessed by TAB) which is great for getting around, but doesn't zoom in enough to show your target area. It also doesn't remember your zoom level so if you check your map frequently get ready for a lot of scrolling. There is also another screen, accessed through the escape key, which shows the results of your investigations - including any maps you've picked up and the routes suggested by it. But no overlay between the pieces of information or any way to collate them into one place so if you've found a couple of maps you're going to have to flick between them (slowly) to absorb it all. It's a real pain, and hidden in a bizarrely obscure place - I had performed 4 assassinations before I even found these screens, which is nearly half the game.
There are other niggles. One of the last pair of assassinations takes place in Acres's port and for some reason your super-fit free running champion assassin cannot swim so every step is dicing with instant death - and many of the denizens of the docks are drunken sailors who love to try and shove you in. Killing them is frowned upon so you have to be careful. There are also moments when the climbing breaks down a little - for some unexplained reason you have to manoeuvre yourself to precisely the correct position before it will let you proceed which is remarkable mostly because it is so unusual.
These faults do not spoil the game though. I have seen Assassin's Creed get a rough ride in a number of reviews and I'm really not sure why. It is like being in a highly interactive film - the two-levelled plot I mentioned at the beginning may seem pointless but it does evolve in an interesting way, and the story is worth following - and the fact is that you can spend hours just running around enjoying the scenery before even worrying about anything else. Overall though, I think it's the pacing I love the most about Assassin's Creed. When you want it to be slow, it is. You can stride around the city like you own it or entirely disappear into the crowd. But if you want to up the pace you can step on the throttle and zoom to the rooftops and if you want it even more interesting just stab a guard and wait for his mates to descend on you like a pack of wolves.
I loved playing Assassin's Creed. If it wasn't for Mass Effect and Portal I think it would be my favourite game of the last twelve months. Even so, that puts it in the top three and that's hardly a shameful place to be.
Where to start with this one? Well, you play a bloke in a lab set somewhere in the future but you're put in a machine which lets you relive your genetic memories of an assassin who lived back in the times of the third Crusade which is the main body of the game. Back in the past you are disgraced assassin Altair, working to regain his standing by killing targets of note in the area. What this translates to is hours of fun running over the rooftops of three different ancient cities, leaping like a fool from giant towers and getting into fights with irate guards who don't approve of your antics.
Initial impressions are good. Assassin's Creed looks beautiful - there is no other way to put it. From the detail on your bloke's clothing and weapons to the gorgeous panoramic views of the cities as you first approach it never fails to impress. It isn't just the individual pieces either - the way the character models fit together when they are interacting is very precise which gets rid of that strange weightless feeling you sometimes get with graphical games when someone seems to be sliding over a landscape rather than walking, or someone picks something up and you get the impression the object is following their hand around rather than actually being grasped by it. None of that in Assassin's Creed - everything feels satisfyingly weighty. When Altair plummets from a rooftop and hits the ground, you feel the impact. When he is stabbed by a guard (and he will be - a lot) you feel the impact. It is great for the atmosphere and really draws you in from the first.
After a short while of enjoying the visuals and playing through the initial tutorial phases of the game you'll be thrown into the plot proper and told to go kill someone in nearby Damascus. There is a quick hike through some more lovely terrain and your first breathtaking view of a city before you find yourself standing in a full ancient city wondering what to do next. Fortunately your assassin is an accomplished free runner so it's time to indulge in the next distraction from the main game. Point your chap at a wall, press the appropriate buttons and - look! - up he goes! You can spend hours running through the streets and over the rooftops before you even remember there is a game involved and you should really get on with your mission.
As an aside, if you don't know what free running is go and look for some videos on YouTube. It is quite possibly the coolest thing you'll ever see. Go now. We'll wait.
Anyway, in your time running around like a loon you've probably stumbled across one of the submissions. There are six for each assassination, each revealing a bit more information about your target and allowing you to plan your approach but if you fancy winging it you only have to do two to be allowed to get on with the stabbing. Then you are off on the heels of your chosen ne'er-do-well, wandering up to him and filling his face with your blade. Then you get to do it again - eight more times.
So - does any of this actually hold together? Well, yes. The movement controls are excellent, allowing you to stride purposefully through a crowded street one moment before hitting the free run button and climbing straight up a wall and jumping from rooftop to rooftop. They are possibly a little simple - almost everything can be accomplished by pointing in the direction you want to go and holding down the free run button - but it all looks so stunning that you can get lost in the cinematics and just marvel that you are making your man do all these cool things. Then there is the combat, which is a bit harder to get to grips with. It is also a very simple one-button affair, but relies on precise timing to pull off some of the flashy moves. Whilst that is fine as a concept, either I couldn't do it right or something about the sequence recognition wasn't quite right as I couldn't consistently pull off some of the block / counter combinations and when surrounded by a horde of enemies (something that happens a lot later on) my bloke didn't appear to react in quite the same way as when facing fewer opponents. So the combat isn't great, but with a bit of practice you can become quite a proficient swordsman and again it is helped enormously by the sound and visuals. Both have significant and satisfying weight behind them, meaning you really feel it every time you ram your sword through a hapless guard.
Obviously there are problems with Assassin's Creed. The assassinations - something you'd expect to be a main part of the game - are actually a very small part of the playing time and planning your route to the target, whilst fun, is hampered by both the interface and the cinematics. You are constantly told that clearing the rooftops of guards is a good idea before you go in and eliminate your target. Sadly, to get into the assassination sequence you have to go and stand on a predetermined point and allow the cutscene to play. You can move in these cutscenes but not actually act so I ruined my first kill by moving into position and being unable to stab the target whilst he spewed his piece. Sadly when the cutscene ended he turned round and bumped into me, recognising me instantly and setting every guard in the city on me. The game expects you to stand back and watch the cutscene from its chosen position (one in which on some occasions you really don't want to stand) and then think about your plan and how to execute it. It takes a little getting used to and can be really quite irritating.
That's the cinematics - but the interface is worse. You have a map (accessed by TAB) which is great for getting around, but doesn't zoom in enough to show your target area. It also doesn't remember your zoom level so if you check your map frequently get ready for a lot of scrolling. There is also another screen, accessed through the escape key, which shows the results of your investigations - including any maps you've picked up and the routes suggested by it. But no overlay between the pieces of information or any way to collate them into one place so if you've found a couple of maps you're going to have to flick between them (slowly) to absorb it all. It's a real pain, and hidden in a bizarrely obscure place - I had performed 4 assassinations before I even found these screens, which is nearly half the game.
There are other niggles. One of the last pair of assassinations takes place in Acres's port and for some reason your super-fit free running champion assassin cannot swim so every step is dicing with instant death - and many of the denizens of the docks are drunken sailors who love to try and shove you in. Killing them is frowned upon so you have to be careful. There are also moments when the climbing breaks down a little - for some unexplained reason you have to manoeuvre yourself to precisely the correct position before it will let you proceed which is remarkable mostly because it is so unusual.
These faults do not spoil the game though. I have seen Assassin's Creed get a rough ride in a number of reviews and I'm really not sure why. It is like being in a highly interactive film - the two-levelled plot I mentioned at the beginning may seem pointless but it does evolve in an interesting way, and the story is worth following - and the fact is that you can spend hours just running around enjoying the scenery before even worrying about anything else. Overall though, I think it's the pacing I love the most about Assassin's Creed. When you want it to be slow, it is. You can stride around the city like you own it or entirely disappear into the crowd. But if you want to up the pace you can step on the throttle and zoom to the rooftops and if you want it even more interesting just stab a guard and wait for his mates to descend on you like a pack of wolves.
I loved playing Assassin's Creed. If it wasn't for Mass Effect and Portal I think it would be my favourite game of the last twelve months. Even so, that puts it in the top three and that's hardly a shameful place to be.
Saturday, 29 November 2008
Return to the Citadel
If I were to be honest, I would have to admit that sometimes I play games that I do not expect to entertain me a great deal. Sometimes that is because I have bought the thing and want to see it through, if only to see if I can salvage some value. Other times it is because I am intrigued enough by the story to do battle with the dodgy game to see where it leads. There are times when I have to fill an afternoon and playing a game on autopilot is better than the alternative (wandering round the 'net trying not to spend money) and then there are the times when all the critics say I should be enjoying something but, despite this encouragement, I really am not. Sometimes (very occasionally) the tedious experience I expect from the game doesn't materialize and I am pleasantly surprised.
This leads me nicely on to Half Life 2: Episode 1.
If you read my last post you will know I am not a fan of the original Half Life 2 for a whole variety of reasons, not least because it is lengthy and empty and the characters are almost entirely unlovable. Somehow, HL2E1 manages to address these problems without any gaping gaps in logic or dramatic alteration in personalities and I think the secret to all this is a greater sense of immersion in the world you are wandering around (and destroying).
HL2E1 opens up with a bit of a rewrite of the end of the previous game, then you being rescued from a huge pile of rocks by Alyx and Dog. Alyx is, predictably, pleased to see you and for the first time playing HL2 I genuinely felt she was pleased to see me. She moves around in a believable way, talks to you about your previous experiences in a way you can relate to and then the two of you call her father and decide to head back into the Citadel to stop a cataclysmic explosion. The set piece dialogue is still slightly odd in that you aren't saying anything, but the NPCs make up for it by successfully expressing a whole range of emotions, which lead up to one overriding fact: you are going into the Citadel and you aren't expected to come out again. Whilst this may seem like a trite bit of storytelling, it was conveyed in such a way that I could feel Alyx's sadness as she told her Dad not to worry and her sense of desperation at the task, but bizarre confidence that Gordan Freeman would get her through it alive. That's you, that is. I cannot get across the difference it made to actually be able to relate to the characters in my vicinity and it gave me a wonderful sense of purpose. I would not let Alyx die in this place, and I would get her back to her father. And thus, immersion was injected into Half Life 2.
Technically speaking, HL2E1 is a step forward from HL2. The graphics have been noticeably tarted up. The set pieces are tighter and closer together - far less wandering from one place to another for no apparent reason - and there are puzzles within the combat encounters which need solving before you are overwhelmed by the continual stream of badguys. Alyx follows you around for most of the episode and it is the first time I have played through such an experience without developing a strong desire to blow apart the second character. Alyx is intelligent enough to stay out of the way when she needs to, as well as tough enough to hold her own in combat and not die (with inevitable mission-failing results) the moment she is exposed to a stiff breeze. Coupled with that, she has enough lines to be an entertaining companion - firing off a selection of one-liners that are amusing and in character and chatting to you like you are a human being (as opposed to a crowbar-waving mute gorilla). Alyx is genuinely likeable and it's great to see a character as well scripted as her.
The second big problem with HL2 as far as I am concerned is the length. It takes hours to play though and that time is spent driving from one abandoned place to another shooting faceless nameless goons, monsters or zombies. Since Valve have moved to episodic gameplay for the next part of the HL saga, HL2E1 is much shorter and it is all the better for it. The lengthy, tedious driving sections have been removed. The sections of the world populated entirely by people with no name and no personality are gone and instead the good ideas are packed together. This has the added benefit that if you find yourself in a section you are not enjoying you can push onwards, safe in the knowledge it wont last much longer. Unlike, for example, Ravenholm in the original. I can only approve of the compressed nature of this game as it makes it far more entertaining.
Do I have any criticisms? Well, inevitably yes. The sections fighting the striders, whilst very exciting, do have a very contrived feel to them - you have to keep running and dodging and you find just enough medpacks to keep you alive whilst finding single rockets in what amounts to a breadcrumb trail. At the end you find a big box of rockets which you can use to finish the strider off. You can't use any other tactics because a combination of the ammo restriction and the sheer number of shots the striders take before they do the decent thing and die forces you to follow the planned path - and woe betide you if you stray off it by mistake because then you are stuck in a place with no ammo and an enraged walking thing out for your blood. This obvious linearity draws attention to the fact you are playing a game, not fighting a battle for humanity and acts a bit like the modern equivalent of collecting floppy disks for bonus points in a platform game as far as damaging atmosphere goes. Gordon not talking or showing any emotion grates a bit when you are part of an emotionally charged set piece and you want to interact with it, but that is part of what makes Half Life what it is, so I can see why that happens. The requirement to use the gun the game expects is another big flag being waved with the words "Hey! This is a computer game!" written across it, but it is tempered by occasional caches of ammo for other guns so if you're a good shot you can just about get by on these secondary weapons. Oh, and why didn't it save my key mappings from HL2? Finally, the plot still lacks direction. Whilst it is very clear someone knows where it is going, because the NPCs don't share their long term plans with you (well, their plans any more specific than "save the human race") you still don't feel like you're fighting for anything much. True you now like you're striving towards something but the lack of specifics is quite frustrating at times.
So; to conclude: HL2E1 is HL2 with the biggest problems ironed out and a nice sense of humour added in (towards the end of the episode Barney gives you a new crowbar - there is no point to it by this stage, but it's nice to see the NPCs as well as the players think a Freeman without a crowbar is just wrong). This makes it brilliant and by far the best reason to play through HL2.
This leads me nicely on to Half Life 2: Episode 1.
If you read my last post you will know I am not a fan of the original Half Life 2 for a whole variety of reasons, not least because it is lengthy and empty and the characters are almost entirely unlovable. Somehow, HL2E1 manages to address these problems without any gaping gaps in logic or dramatic alteration in personalities and I think the secret to all this is a greater sense of immersion in the world you are wandering around (and destroying).
HL2E1 opens up with a bit of a rewrite of the end of the previous game, then you being rescued from a huge pile of rocks by Alyx and Dog. Alyx is, predictably, pleased to see you and for the first time playing HL2 I genuinely felt she was pleased to see me. She moves around in a believable way, talks to you about your previous experiences in a way you can relate to and then the two of you call her father and decide to head back into the Citadel to stop a cataclysmic explosion. The set piece dialogue is still slightly odd in that you aren't saying anything, but the NPCs make up for it by successfully expressing a whole range of emotions, which lead up to one overriding fact: you are going into the Citadel and you aren't expected to come out again. Whilst this may seem like a trite bit of storytelling, it was conveyed in such a way that I could feel Alyx's sadness as she told her Dad not to worry and her sense of desperation at the task, but bizarre confidence that Gordan Freeman would get her through it alive. That's you, that is. I cannot get across the difference it made to actually be able to relate to the characters in my vicinity and it gave me a wonderful sense of purpose. I would not let Alyx die in this place, and I would get her back to her father. And thus, immersion was injected into Half Life 2.
Technically speaking, HL2E1 is a step forward from HL2. The graphics have been noticeably tarted up. The set pieces are tighter and closer together - far less wandering from one place to another for no apparent reason - and there are puzzles within the combat encounters which need solving before you are overwhelmed by the continual stream of badguys. Alyx follows you around for most of the episode and it is the first time I have played through such an experience without developing a strong desire to blow apart the second character. Alyx is intelligent enough to stay out of the way when she needs to, as well as tough enough to hold her own in combat and not die (with inevitable mission-failing results) the moment she is exposed to a stiff breeze. Coupled with that, she has enough lines to be an entertaining companion - firing off a selection of one-liners that are amusing and in character and chatting to you like you are a human being (as opposed to a crowbar-waving mute gorilla). Alyx is genuinely likeable and it's great to see a character as well scripted as her.
The second big problem with HL2 as far as I am concerned is the length. It takes hours to play though and that time is spent driving from one abandoned place to another shooting faceless nameless goons, monsters or zombies. Since Valve have moved to episodic gameplay for the next part of the HL saga, HL2E1 is much shorter and it is all the better for it. The lengthy, tedious driving sections have been removed. The sections of the world populated entirely by people with no name and no personality are gone and instead the good ideas are packed together. This has the added benefit that if you find yourself in a section you are not enjoying you can push onwards, safe in the knowledge it wont last much longer. Unlike, for example, Ravenholm in the original. I can only approve of the compressed nature of this game as it makes it far more entertaining.
Do I have any criticisms? Well, inevitably yes. The sections fighting the striders, whilst very exciting, do have a very contrived feel to them - you have to keep running and dodging and you find just enough medpacks to keep you alive whilst finding single rockets in what amounts to a breadcrumb trail. At the end you find a big box of rockets which you can use to finish the strider off. You can't use any other tactics because a combination of the ammo restriction and the sheer number of shots the striders take before they do the decent thing and die forces you to follow the planned path - and woe betide you if you stray off it by mistake because then you are stuck in a place with no ammo and an enraged walking thing out for your blood. This obvious linearity draws attention to the fact you are playing a game, not fighting a battle for humanity and acts a bit like the modern equivalent of collecting floppy disks for bonus points in a platform game as far as damaging atmosphere goes. Gordon not talking or showing any emotion grates a bit when you are part of an emotionally charged set piece and you want to interact with it, but that is part of what makes Half Life what it is, so I can see why that happens. The requirement to use the gun the game expects is another big flag being waved with the words "Hey! This is a computer game!" written across it, but it is tempered by occasional caches of ammo for other guns so if you're a good shot you can just about get by on these secondary weapons. Oh, and why didn't it save my key mappings from HL2? Finally, the plot still lacks direction. Whilst it is very clear someone knows where it is going, because the NPCs don't share their long term plans with you (well, their plans any more specific than "save the human race") you still don't feel like you're fighting for anything much. True you now like you're striving towards something but the lack of specifics is quite frustrating at times.
So; to conclude: HL2E1 is HL2 with the biggest problems ironed out and a nice sense of humour added in (towards the end of the episode Barney gives you a new crowbar - there is no point to it by this stage, but it's nice to see the NPCs as well as the players think a Freeman without a crowbar is just wrong). This makes it brilliant and by far the best reason to play through HL2.
Saturday, 15 November 2008
Half of a Life
Many years ago I played through an excellent first person shooter. It redefined what was possible at the time with its puzzles and excellent set pieces. It went on for quite a long time and at by the end I was shooting things on an alien world. That game was Half Life - the game staring everyone's favourite mute physicist Gordon Freeman (aka Jeff Goldblum) and his crowbar. Rocking along with him were a pile of expendable scientists and guards (to talk to) and a platoon of marines (to shoot). That game was good. Now it is time for the sequel. And by Now, I mean four years ago. Bring it on.
So, HL2 then. The game opens with you being brought out of some kind of suspended animation by the G-Man - a sinister bloke in a suit without a name. You're stuck on a train and sent into a dystopian city run by your old boss along with some aliens. You meet some old friends, shoot some people and head off to meet some more old friends. When you get there everything goes wrong, the place is attacked by the police and you run off elsewhere. Eventually you meet up with the people again and get attacked again and run off again - but this time with a gravity gun and Physics on your side. And so it goes on. And on. And on.
I'm going to lose all credibility by saying this, but I did not particularly enjoy Half Life 2. Although the graphics were beautiful, the controls slick and the physics engine very clever I found the game far too long with too much wandering from place to place with little or no reason for doing so. The set pieces were still very well put together, but that did make it feel like all I was doing was walking to the next one and the plot was purely to string it together.
I have moaned about plot in first person shooters before, and I still think I am quite alone in caring (certainly I am alone in criticising HL2 - it has a phenomenal 96% in metacritic) but for me the plot means immersion. Although I understood the world that HL2 presented me, I just didn't understand my place in it. Everywhere I went I was saluted as a hero - the one who could save mankind - but I never really understood why. They seemed to be doing well enough forming their little rebellion against the aliens and all I seemed to be doing was wandering from place to place with the authorities chasing me. It wasn't until right at the end I felt my actions had any kind of influence on the plot (at this point I was storming a stronghold with a load of insect things at my back) and then I was suddenly sent off with a girl who was invulnerable. Why on earth she needed any help from me I cannot imagine. And still it dragged on and on...
Maybe I'm being a little unfair - although the vast majority of characters you meet just say their piece and get blown to pieces, those that have a name are genuinely likable (or hatable in the case of the villain) and you do start to bond with some of them. The girl (who is clearly the long-term love interest) is actually very cool and behaves credibly which makes a nice change for a character you are supposed to like and the various scientists are all pleasantly eccentric. There just isn't enough character development or plot hooks for my liking - wandering round a base trying to free the girl's father doesn't feel like you're engaged in a rescue mission; it feels like a series of tunnels with people to mow down with your shotgun. This in turn makes it very difficult to get lost in the atmosphere - I found myself playing on autopilot a lot of the time, occasionally surfacing to wonder how much further I had to go. The only place I felt any kind of atmosphere was during the (as far as I can determine) utterly pointless Ravenholm section - and I got so sick of things jumping out at my face that I stuck on some happy disco music and charged round with the shotgun trying to get to the end as fast as possible.
It wasn't until the very end when things really picked up. At this point your allies have taken your signal to start the rebellion (although you set that off by accident I think - it's not like you've made any choices for yourself) and you're left running round the ruins of the city taking on giant walking things. At this point things are very cool - and they remain so whilst you break into the citadel for the end gunfights along with a supercharged gravity gun.
I'm not sure what else to say about Half Life 2. I honestly can't see why it has gotten so much praise. That isn't to say it's bad - bits are great fun and you'll love the set pieces. But the thing goes on for so long it is very easy to lose the will to live as you just wish that all your cool shooting would actually accomplish something. And that's it. Worth playing, but only if you have a lot of free time and some good music to stick on the stereo whilst you're doing it.
So, HL2 then. The game opens with you being brought out of some kind of suspended animation by the G-Man - a sinister bloke in a suit without a name. You're stuck on a train and sent into a dystopian city run by your old boss along with some aliens. You meet some old friends, shoot some people and head off to meet some more old friends. When you get there everything goes wrong, the place is attacked by the police and you run off elsewhere. Eventually you meet up with the people again and get attacked again and run off again - but this time with a gravity gun and Physics on your side. And so it goes on. And on. And on.
I'm going to lose all credibility by saying this, but I did not particularly enjoy Half Life 2. Although the graphics were beautiful, the controls slick and the physics engine very clever I found the game far too long with too much wandering from place to place with little or no reason for doing so. The set pieces were still very well put together, but that did make it feel like all I was doing was walking to the next one and the plot was purely to string it together.
I have moaned about plot in first person shooters before, and I still think I am quite alone in caring (certainly I am alone in criticising HL2 - it has a phenomenal 96% in metacritic) but for me the plot means immersion. Although I understood the world that HL2 presented me, I just didn't understand my place in it. Everywhere I went I was saluted as a hero - the one who could save mankind - but I never really understood why. They seemed to be doing well enough forming their little rebellion against the aliens and all I seemed to be doing was wandering from place to place with the authorities chasing me. It wasn't until right at the end I felt my actions had any kind of influence on the plot (at this point I was storming a stronghold with a load of insect things at my back) and then I was suddenly sent off with a girl who was invulnerable. Why on earth she needed any help from me I cannot imagine. And still it dragged on and on...
Maybe I'm being a little unfair - although the vast majority of characters you meet just say their piece and get blown to pieces, those that have a name are genuinely likable (or hatable in the case of the villain) and you do start to bond with some of them. The girl (who is clearly the long-term love interest) is actually very cool and behaves credibly which makes a nice change for a character you are supposed to like and the various scientists are all pleasantly eccentric. There just isn't enough character development or plot hooks for my liking - wandering round a base trying to free the girl's father doesn't feel like you're engaged in a rescue mission; it feels like a series of tunnels with people to mow down with your shotgun. This in turn makes it very difficult to get lost in the atmosphere - I found myself playing on autopilot a lot of the time, occasionally surfacing to wonder how much further I had to go. The only place I felt any kind of atmosphere was during the (as far as I can determine) utterly pointless Ravenholm section - and I got so sick of things jumping out at my face that I stuck on some happy disco music and charged round with the shotgun trying to get to the end as fast as possible.
It wasn't until the very end when things really picked up. At this point your allies have taken your signal to start the rebellion (although you set that off by accident I think - it's not like you've made any choices for yourself) and you're left running round the ruins of the city taking on giant walking things. At this point things are very cool - and they remain so whilst you break into the citadel for the end gunfights along with a supercharged gravity gun.
I'm not sure what else to say about Half Life 2. I honestly can't see why it has gotten so much praise. That isn't to say it's bad - bits are great fun and you'll love the set pieces. But the thing goes on for so long it is very easy to lose the will to live as you just wish that all your cool shooting would actually accomplish something. And that's it. Worth playing, but only if you have a lot of free time and some good music to stick on the stereo whilst you're doing it.
Sunday, 12 October 2008
I'm an artist
It turns out someone on the internet likes my art.
That's about all really, I'm just slightly surprised.
For more pictures by (and indeed of) me why not visit my flickr pages.
That's about all really, I'm just slightly surprised.
For more pictures by (and indeed of) me why not visit my flickr pages.
Another Crysis Averted
I was supposed to be playing Half Life 2 these last few weeks, but due to a social schedule which actually included Things and a room with no obvious way out (in Half Life that is, I didn't get trapped in a cupboard somewhere in real life) I didn't get very far. Then EA irresponsibly released Crysis Warheard and I decided nanosuit powered gunfighting was more tempting than wrench waving in an underground labyrinth. Half Life 2 will no doubt bubble back to the top of my as Warhead has done the usual FPS thing of dying without a fight.
So anyway, Warhead. Set during the events of the first game, you play Jason Statham-alike Sergeant "Psycho" Sykes as he rocks around the other side of the island shooting Koreans and aliens in what is basically Crysis - again. This time out there are a couple of new vehicles (which, mercifully, you don't have to drive very often) and a couple of new guns, a new range in totally useless explosives and an all new plot. During this plot you discover you are not the only Delta Force nanosuit team on the island which does raise the question of quite why you're being sent to the other side of the island alone when they could have sent another team but lets not quibble as everything else is really well put together.
For me, the biggest problem in the original Crysis was the massive lurch in gameplay when the aliens appeared - most of your moves became redundant and you ran around in a normal FPS blazing away with whatever gun the game decided you should be using at a time. This time around Crytek have realised that Koreans are more fun to shoot than aliens so right through the game your primary adversary are the KPA with the occasional appearance by the aliens for some all-out shoot em up shenanigans. The pacing is a huge improvement over the original and because you are raiding bases and strong points throughout your various suit modes remain useful. I'd also say the nanosuit is better catered for this time out - I found many more situations where using Speed or Strength was worthwhile (last time I stuck almost exclusively to Shield and Cloak) although that could be extra experience on my part and an extra dose of creativity in solving the problems put before me. Even the graphics have been overhauled and now look even more impressive.
So is there anything wrong with Warhead? Well, there is a mine section which gets quite irritating as the level wanders all over the place and it's very easy to get turned around. There are a couple of times when things get quite difficult simply because your chap doesn't seem to like talking to HQ on his radio (in fact there were a couple of occasions where I felt quite rude because HQ would call up to give me some new info and Psycho wouldn't even bother to acknowledge - maybe that's just me) and the end boss fight is truly pathetic, although you do get to play with Das Uber Gun and this time around the thing is actually as badass as the NPCs are promising. These are all trivial gripes though - Warhead is generally an excellent game, really good fun from start to finish and even pretty well written as a story, fleshing out a character I genually liked from the first game and filling in holes in that games' plot.
There is one concern I have about Warhead though, and it is to do with the plot. Crytek have released it as a stand alone game, you don't need the original Crysis to run it. It plays better than Crysis, looks better than Crysis and stars a more interesting character than Crysis. The concern I have is that I'm not sure how well it would work without the original. The plot is heavily tied to Crysis' as you'd expect and I'm not convinced it stands up on its own - there are many references to what is going on behind the scenes and the characters sometimes discuss your chap from the first game which I would imagine would make no sense if you didn't know who he was. It also lacks a clear beginning and end - you suddenly start on the island under assault by Koreans and the end has you flying off to the carrier to take part in the final scenes of Crysis. This is fine when you fill in the blanks yourself, but may be unsatisfying if you are just playing Warhead without the backplot knowledge. That said I think I'm about the only person in the world who cares about the plot in a FPS so I doubt it will impact too many people.
Oh, and you don't have to pilot that bloody VTOL over the carrier as Psycho does in the final scenes of Crysis. For this I am very thankful.
So Warhead then. It's great. Buy it.
So anyway, Warhead. Set during the events of the first game, you play Jason Statham-alike Sergeant "Psycho" Sykes as he rocks around the other side of the island shooting Koreans and aliens in what is basically Crysis - again. This time out there are a couple of new vehicles (which, mercifully, you don't have to drive very often) and a couple of new guns, a new range in totally useless explosives and an all new plot. During this plot you discover you are not the only Delta Force nanosuit team on the island which does raise the question of quite why you're being sent to the other side of the island alone when they could have sent another team but lets not quibble as everything else is really well put together.
For me, the biggest problem in the original Crysis was the massive lurch in gameplay when the aliens appeared - most of your moves became redundant and you ran around in a normal FPS blazing away with whatever gun the game decided you should be using at a time. This time around Crytek have realised that Koreans are more fun to shoot than aliens so right through the game your primary adversary are the KPA with the occasional appearance by the aliens for some all-out shoot em up shenanigans. The pacing is a huge improvement over the original and because you are raiding bases and strong points throughout your various suit modes remain useful. I'd also say the nanosuit is better catered for this time out - I found many more situations where using Speed or Strength was worthwhile (last time I stuck almost exclusively to Shield and Cloak) although that could be extra experience on my part and an extra dose of creativity in solving the problems put before me. Even the graphics have been overhauled and now look even more impressive.
So is there anything wrong with Warhead? Well, there is a mine section which gets quite irritating as the level wanders all over the place and it's very easy to get turned around. There are a couple of times when things get quite difficult simply because your chap doesn't seem to like talking to HQ on his radio (in fact there were a couple of occasions where I felt quite rude because HQ would call up to give me some new info and Psycho wouldn't even bother to acknowledge - maybe that's just me) and the end boss fight is truly pathetic, although you do get to play with Das Uber Gun and this time around the thing is actually as badass as the NPCs are promising. These are all trivial gripes though - Warhead is generally an excellent game, really good fun from start to finish and even pretty well written as a story, fleshing out a character I genually liked from the first game and filling in holes in that games' plot.
There is one concern I have about Warhead though, and it is to do with the plot. Crytek have released it as a stand alone game, you don't need the original Crysis to run it. It plays better than Crysis, looks better than Crysis and stars a more interesting character than Crysis. The concern I have is that I'm not sure how well it would work without the original. The plot is heavily tied to Crysis' as you'd expect and I'm not convinced it stands up on its own - there are many references to what is going on behind the scenes and the characters sometimes discuss your chap from the first game which I would imagine would make no sense if you didn't know who he was. It also lacks a clear beginning and end - you suddenly start on the island under assault by Koreans and the end has you flying off to the carrier to take part in the final scenes of Crysis. This is fine when you fill in the blanks yourself, but may be unsatisfying if you are just playing Warhead without the backplot knowledge. That said I think I'm about the only person in the world who cares about the plot in a FPS so I doubt it will impact too many people.
Oh, and you don't have to pilot that bloody VTOL over the carrier as Psycho does in the final scenes of Crysis. For this I am very thankful.
So Warhead then. It's great. Buy it.
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