Monday, November 28, 2011

RAGE

That's right, I feel meself some RAGE.

Rage is the newest game from legendary ID. It is a futuristic FPS that takes place after a giant meteor hits Earth. So far the story seems OK, Haven't played it long enough to really reveal all that much. Unlike their past titles, this one plays out open worldish with missions assigned to you by NPCs. That portion seems well laid out considering it is their first at a style of game like this. The enemies with their speech and animations when shot and killed seem very life like until they actually fall onto the ground dead. Some stiffness there but over all very believable. Controls are also very responsive.

I will state that I am an ID fanboy (per se) and I buy and usually love all their games. Now as far as this game goes, the engine itself which will power DooM 4 when released is very solid and gorgeous. As far as Rage is concerned, it really is not the first of any kind of genre, so you may feel been there, done that, but as a game goes, I personally am having fun with it and I would recommend this game if you like semi open world FPSs.

I will have more to say about this game after a bit more gameplay but for now, 2 thumbs up.

Neuntoter

Saturday, November 19, 2011

Saturday Update

Hello all, today I am putting finishing touches on Nonulok's and I's game to be released on Monday. Alot of hard work and dedication went into it and we hope that all will enjoy it as much as we enjoyed making it. The Demo will actually be out Monday, the Episode 1 release in about 2 weeks of people playing with the demo. Started the BR Extended Lord of The Rings with my wife last night. Same movie, great audio and great visuals, and as always, the same amazing story with a well put together choice of actors and actresses and special effects crew and all others that helped make it what it became.

Not to many updates from last time. Hunted : Demon Forge is actually a very fun game, so far I have been playing it solo since Nonulok has been playing some other new releases, Battlefield 3 and the new Assassins Creed.

thats it for now..... have a great week end.

Neuntoter

Friday, November 11, 2011

Nothing Special.

Well still playing War in the North a little. Nonulok and I are going through in Co-Op mode little at a time since his PC is running into weird issues with it. We both picked up a copy of Hunted : Demon Forge which is Co-Op for 2 people. Have not yet played it but it looks like a sweet concept.

Have Windows 8 on my Dev machine (which seems like a winner) and on my gaming rig (switching back over tonight). Windows 8 in all is really sweet, it has better performance, a really good flow and feel of things. But gaming wise especially fast paced games that the mouse looks around and you do not have a curser, a very bad combo. The mouse will get stuck on the edge and kinda just leave you either sitting there or take you back to the desktop in the middle of a fight. A couple times and it would not be so bad, but it caused me to die too many times to waive it off. Oh well, so it goes.

Picked up BlueRay Lord of the Rings Extended, that will be fun to watch. I am actually writing down ideas on how I will present my experiences creating a game through all free software. More details on that soon. I am actually going to have alot of fun with that and I hope that you guys (and ladies) will enjoy it also. My plan is too actually walk you all through the creation of the new Ground Zero Engine that I will be working on for one of Nonulok's and I's new projects. It is still a 2D engine but will contain tons of great features. I will not be handing out all the source code but examples of certain parts for all you up and coming game makers.

Well thats it for now....

Neuntoter

Sunday, November 6, 2011

Lord of the Rings: War in the North - Review

Before I sat down to write my review (still have not yet finished game but I did put about 30 hours of game play into it) I read other reviews and wanted to see what their pros and cons were. So in doing this I will point out the bad stuff first. At heart it is a Hack N’ Slash action game. This will equal out to be TONS of fighting. Please expect this and not solving puzzles and adventuring throughout a peaceful land of daisies. This type of game play could be considered repetitive to some, but then again all games repeat something over and over again. (Racing, first person shooters etc.)

I even read a review saying that the story was a basic hack n’ slash story. They must have missed something because the game I played showed that the story writer and entire dev team did some impressive research of Middle Earth. Although they do tell of a lot of back story, they definitely do not lack from the story they are telling of these three heroes taking on this conquest. I will say, I love Tolkien’s work and I consider this to be a very nice attachment to the stories I already know and love. They do have some faults in how they used Tolkien’s lore but over all I am very impressed.

The controls are simple and straight forward but the combat is more than just button mashing. Trust me, I button mashed at first and died a bunch, I then learned how to play and it was way better and played out sweet in my opinion. I my self like the more simple control scheme because it allows me to sit down and play and me as a player as to watch for patterns and dodge at correct times instead of having counter buttons for every other attack. The camera over all plays nice with you, I think I have died a few times from crap camera but after all the hours I put in to playing, a few times to me just enforces the concept that nothing is perfect.

The Gfx are beyond gorgeous, and I say that in more than just stating that they are well rendered. The environments are very detailed, in between fights you do get to explore a little and enjoy the world. I say one thing. Very impressed. They did take a lot of time and effort into making it feel like what they believe Middle Earth is . Some items (stage décor) does get repetitive but over all I will say it is more than a mass copy and paste world. The characters are also very detailed. One complaint for me was that the NPCs (quest givers and merchants) did feel kinda stiff. The over all animations looked well done.

The sounds were pretty well done, not all the voice acting was award winning material, but I would say that it was not enough to make me say, this game is crap. Battle sounds were very fulfilling. Crunches, squishy, clanking and clanging. It did sound like a battle each time. (and so did the over all visuals for combat, very fulfilling).

Now lets get to the multiplayer. Stated earlier I love LOTR Online. This game almost plays out like a 3 man instance except lasts a lot longer. This is possibly why I love this game so much. It is very easy to get multiple friends involved in a game. The game itself keeps all players very well in-sync. Each character has a special ability to find secrets so that is an added bonus that you can take advantage of during muliplayer. For instance, the ranger can see footsteps, the loremaster can collect mushrooms for crafting potions and finding false walls, and the champion can find weak walls to bash through. At heart, this is the way the game is meant to be played. And if you run solo the AI kicks in and takes control of the other two characters for you or or however many are not being controlled my humans. It does have some faults however such as when you get to the “head back to town” check points when you go back to the mission I had some bad cases where my team mate loaded at the beginning of the level. Just a few times. But nothing I would call game breaking. A simple future patch may fix this but for now it is the only big thing that can be considered a multiplayer glitch that I noticed.

I love all that is Tolkien (my most favorite game is Lord of the Rings Online) and feel that this does do the LOTR Franchise justice, and even as a game is fun. Although it over all plays like any other action hack n’ slash so this is nothing new for the market nor may it be the best. But a fun game I will say this game is. I like it that much more because of my love for Tolkien’s work.

So my quick wrap up.

Game Play: A typical well done Hack N’ Slash

Controls: Easy to learn, Very responsive

Story: Evil Mounting a war against good. (this is the part that is typical of this
type of game) The amazing part is how well they kept it to Tolkien’s Work.

Action: Very intense, in your face battles, very brutal

Replay: If you like how different all three characters play, (each finds their own types of secrets) then you may want to play though once with all three. I would put this at the eye of the beholder. I would play this many time over since I love Tolkien. If you are playing cause of the style of game it could be rather low.

Co-Op: Now this is what it is about and is the real bread and butter for this title. (Although Tolkien story and world do make this just that much more amazing lol)

Well I hope this review proved somewhat informative, it is the actual first full review I have ever written.

Neuntoter


::::EDIT::::
I did finish the game and the story wraps up really well and I am going to play through it again cause I enjoyed the game so freakin much.....