barely fatal

This is an internal news item.

We have a tag cloud! I love tag clouds. So now, we have one. I have installed an advance tagging system. When you write a post, please tag them using the input field below the main post window. Don’t use category names as tags, they are added automatically. You can get keyword suggestions by clicking the appropriate button, although they are not always relevant.

The old, automated system just didn’t work. The generated tags hardly ever hit the spot. Try using names, or main topics as keywords, and try to use the same spelling when you enter the same thing again in another post. Otherwise, the tag cloud will count them as two items, naturally.

Rejoice

…….I have discovered the joys of retro-gaming.

Due to the chronic lack of any decent MMO’s I recently dusted off my old copies of Baldur’s Gate 2 along with Fallout 1 and 2. Bloody hell, these were/are good games and suprisingly even the graphics have stood the test of time fairly well, but what stands out is the depth of the storyline, now where did I leave that copy of UFO: Enemy Unknown ?

Hmm, I have given this some thought since its release a few days ago and I have to say yes……and no

Graphically stunning especially when zoomed in close where the new animations truely standout, although not actually useful as to maintain control of a battle you need to take a more remote view. Diplomacy now seems to actually work and the introduction of the Pope (as with M:TW 1) adds a nice dimension and does make you think very carefully before nipping across the Channel to kick some Frencies. Also the introduction of 2 settlement types as oppossed to the generic single settlements of previous games helps to add a little more variety from its previous versions.. But ( and its a fairly big ‘but’ ) I have a problem, you see prior to M:TW2 I have been playing a modded version of Rome:TW called Rome:Total Realism which transformed the original very good game into a superb one, and that is the problem. M:TW2 is a very good game but its not superb, heres hoping for a Medievel: Total Realism.

I just had a game of Battlefield 2, Vanilla, with a few friends. I am still amazed how arcade-ish it plays, with the bunny-hoppers, ‘nade spammers and all. Bleh, infantry-only surely is the way to go, but it still sucks. Well, at least as long as there are alternatives.

Besides that, I am into Splinter Cell: Double Agent now. Told ya it was gonna be a busy month! I love the series, really, but unfortunately DA turns out to be the black sheep in the family. Graphics and sounds are nice – if they happen to work, most of the levels are decent – if they happen to load, and the story and the rest could really make it a cool game – if it worked.

The game is buggy, it clearly was ported from a console. Controls, on-screen texts, the way the menu works – it all screams “XBOX”. I could live with that if it worked right. Sound issues, graphics issues, crashes – and the worst of it, the story was cut. You can only enjoy the full story as it was meant to be presented on “last gen” consoles – 360 and PC get better graphics, but also have videos and level parts left out. That makes it hard to follow the storyline.

I can’t say anything about multiplayer yet, but if it’s as bugged as the single player part, I can see no joy there, too. I mean, all-in-all, patched-up the game might be good. But UBI obviously stopped when it was not yet finished. It’s never gonna be great, no matter what, because the new gameplay styles just don’t add up. A few nice ideas that don’t really work so well, like the trust system or the optional missions in the terrorist’s safe house. Plus, some really lame maps here and there – right beside really, really great ones – I just don’t get it.

It’s the third game in a row for me that was shipped buggy and unplayable without patches or tricks. No more EA or UBI titles for a while. Tried and failed. Take more time to finish it next time, maybe hire a few QA guys. Good ones, I mean. The type with eyes in their heads.