I have been playing other things since my previous “This week”. A lot of things in fact, all full of numbers – Fallout 3, Left 4 Dead, Civilization 4, Dawn of War 2, and other sequels like Pokemon Mystery Dungeon 2, Empire: Total War and Max Payne 2…but enough of all those. I’ve got various posts in the works for most of them.

I’d like to otherwise briefly look at two indie games I’ve played the past week – Depths of Peril and Mount&Blade – both demos at the moment, my time before GDC is so limited I’d not have time for the full games yet!

Depths of Peril

My first character! Andre!

Depths of Peril is a hack-and-slash RPG game – you get a character, upgrade hitpoints and skills by leveling up (by defeating monsters or completing quests). The great part about it is the AI interactions – you can have a cohort, but the interesting part is you are actually manning a guild – and there are other AI run guilds, who do the same things you can do – attack each other, make peace, trade, and so forth. All to rule the town your guild is in! It’s pretty interesting to see it unfold – all in real time.

Your guild – protect the crystal at all costs.

I might well pick it up just for this section of the game. The actual combat and loot finding is pretty random, Diablo-like, and not really too great for me (dying against the tougher monsters is common – at least the death penalty isn’t too high, it just makes it easier to destroy your life crystal which, if that dies, does end the game).

Certainly well put together, and the modding side of it looks like it has some fun stuff in too. I’ll likely get this and enjoy it after GDC! Well worth trying the demo – which is on Steam if you have that installed anyway. Some more screenshots here.

Mount&Blade

Go farmers! Kill kill kill!

Mount&Blade is best put as a medieval-world-set adventure game. What drew me to it is, apart from Rock, Paper, Shotgun’s coverage of it (which also a bit inspired me with Depths of Peril, except I followed the designer’s site for ages without playing it once, bad blog reader!), is the various bits of coverage it got for being a 2 person project and still coming out with some good, fun gameplay – and the competent overland and battle AI, which allowed really really large melee fights. Woo!

Overland map…

The graphics are actually quite good considering the breadth of animations needed and world types catered for (forests, farmland, icy forests, icy farmland, castles, towns, villages…). Certainly doesn’t detract from it – charging around on a horse randomly hitting bandits is damn fun. The third person view helps with horseback combat too! There was also arena combat which I frankly love – although the combat is sometimes clunky, the AI is pretty competent, and kicked my ass sometimes – but I did become victorious in the tournament I did! (After some very long horse battles!). I didn’t enjoy any time I had with a bow – need some real practice at it and it takes forever to kill anything, although the AI is good at it except if I strafe.

For my playthrough I got really in a rut of not really knowing how to complete quests (or really fight) and thus losing much in the way of money, and really anything of value. I decided to then just do some looting (yes you can be a real bastard!), grab the attention of the local lords, and then attack his castle and main force.

The enemy!

I did however at least go down in a blaze of glory! You can’t die, which is a nice touch, but my reign as the scourge of some orange guys was at an end.

My head on the ground!

The demo allows you to go to level 7 (not sure what the max is, but I suspect much higher), well worth a try – it’s also a nice “tutorial” – the game’s tutorials allow you to see the mechanics of combat a bit, but playing it really brings out the nuances (having your own cohorts for instance, traversing the map, quests!). Worth a try! I think I’ll be getting this after GDC, and there are tons of mods for it too.

I’ve obviously played a lot since my last post, Red Alert and Deus Ex (which is still in progress) for instance, but also I have played Halo 3‘s campaign in Co-op, and the Half Life 2 engine mod Age of Chivalry and Half Life: Decay (read on for more).

Firstly, Halo 3 – I’ve not got an Xbox 360, I played this with another person who’s never played Halo 3 round a friends house. The campaign, for the most part, was exceedingly fun and we didn’t get stuck (I played it previously but we got stuck a few levels in, playing on “Hard”). The main bits I completely got board and tired with were all the flood-related levels, which is sadly about the last third of the game give or take. They seriously required little or no strategy, most just ran at you head on. I really, really hate the overuse of zombies, which this entirely was. Some levels also were too confusing to walk around – reminiscent of some poor Halo 1 levels, and a lot of levels you had to walk through twice (once in each direction) which seemed a bit lazy. Still, the story ended itself, to some extent (although obviously we should have paused to read all the backstory, several books, the online PR websites, the Halo 3 wiki and all the in-game terminal texts to really know what was going on, sigh). I had a lot of fun in co-op however (which is what matters, the story has more Deus Ex Machina moments and cutscene deaths then I care to mention), I’d have never completed the game on Hard difficulty by myself – respawns really, really help. Bungie got that part right at least! Mucho fun fighting in the first 2/3rds of the game, in co-op, so try that if you can!

Why would a castle have this engraved? really?!

Age of Chivalry is a Half Life 2 total conversion mod (one of five put on Steam officially), basically a new multiplayer game, set around beating people up with swords and arrows and stuff. There isn’t, to be honest, much chivalry involved in the game. The combat is either melee – blocking and attacking right next to a target, which usually is quite random at times, or projectile based – with arrows and crossbows, or even catapults depending on the level. Health doesn’t regenerate, so when you’re nearly dead, it’s almost silly how you have to try and get killed to simply have a chance at a fair fight next time. The maps include a standard-ish Capture the Flag (although you can blow parts of your enemies castle apart with a catapult for easier access), a few “kill all the enemies a lot” team deathmatch levels, and several attack/defence maps usually based around a castle but not always. The objectives are pretty easy to complete, and if the defenders don’t know what to do they’ll easily get defeated by one lone player (in my case, after learning the levels, this half fell to me – most of the players don’t have a clue it seems, and the game is very unintuitive if you don’t read the manual). I like trying it from time to time mainly for the melee combat – entirely random and flawed (the longsword armed knight entirely rules), but no other game matches it in that respect. It’s worth a try, but read the manual first.

I wonder how he gets up all the stairs and ladders in Black Mesa?

Half-Life Decay was released at the end of last month. It’s a remake of the original, missing out some of the user interface things from the menu but otherwise being authentic enough to replicate the original. I’ve played through some of the levels with a friend, and yep, it’s not that great. The “Puzzles” are hardly so, and the game really makes it hard – limited ammunition and health, especially between two people, against a lot of enemies. The game itself is “mission based”, so you fail a mission (no saving!) and restart it from the start. I also watched a “Let’s Play” of it done on the original PlayStation 2 release, and really saw a lot more agony – they have to rely more on auto-aim. Didn’t I mention there was no difficulty selector either? – still, I’m playing it just as a fan of Half-Life. This isn’t as good as Blue Shift, even, which was pretty mediocre. Oh well! It’s free, so who cares

As for bits and pieces, as I said I’ve played though Red Alert and am playing through Deus Ex. I’ve got STALKER: Clear Sky which I need to invest time in (one crash to desktop already, and needs I think a good evening of play to get into). I still have a Civilization 4 Play By Email (PBEM) game going on, which is getting more fun. I also finally got some of the last easier to get Pyro achievements in Team Fortress 2, yay for 1000 kills by burnernating!

A mix of things – a massive game of Sins of a Solar Empire (still incomplete), replaying Warhammer: Mark of Chaos’ Good campaign, Calamity Annie, Jill Off, the first episode of American McGee’s Grimm, Guitar Hero III and many hours of Team Fortress 2. Some of these games are worth explaining more about…(now with pictures!).

My glorious fleet!

A MoK skirmish battle. Massive charge slugfest basically.

Calamity Annie I had a go at – it wiped me out on the end levels, sadly, and I didn’t feel like playing it again. Takes twitch gameplay to another level, and it’s got some neat artwork. Might be worth a few minutes of time, it at least didn’t take me long to get near the end. Also from auntie pixelante was Mighty Jill Off, a platformer I could cope with (simple controls which take a little skill to master), with really well thought out levels and some neat artwork and start/end cutscene stuff. Must be the only game I’ve played a character who was a dyke gimp to a queen who loves doing what she’s told. It builds up well, took me less then an hour but I can’t remember exactly how long, but deaths sometimes were frequent – there are some devilish bits in there. Real sense of accomplishment playing it! What more could I ask for?

American McGee’s Grimm – A Boy Learns What Fear Is, I played since it was available for free (seeing a trend here?). It’s quite a simple platformer, or groundformer – you do a lot of buttstomping and wandering around, but there are not many difficulties. Definitely would be good for children, the happy fun story is turned by the titular Grimm into his own horrible version – although really isn’t too bad content-wise, it is somewhat surprising some of the changes, and the story works in the “Dark Theatre” ending you get. The artwork is cool – made it really fun turning things nasty. I don’t think it’s a series for me though, because while the others might be interesting to play for the story, the gameplay is too shallow and game really too short, so I might grab it when it is cheaper, and more to the point when all of them are released, so I can do them in one big playthrough, rather then one a week. Worth trying out the free episode though, gives you at the very least a pretty neat story with good visuals and some funny too

Guitar Hero III is old news, but I got brought it last weekend for my Wii. Finished the standard list on Easy…now working my way through Medium. Need to get another guitar for the co-op mode, which I enjoyed playing at the last LSUCS LAN. I’ve always enjoyed rhythm games (Go Elite Beat Agents!), this is no exception, although I don’t have much skill in it I find but I am happy to stick to lower difficulties

Om nom nom nom

The maps and modes added are variable. Arena mode…not for me. It involves sitting out if you lose (as a spectator), randomised teams, heaven knows what goes on with scoring, and it’s the horrors of sudden death again. I wasn’t bad at it – but with no major objective and short bouts of battle (and waiting around if you die…) has turned me off it. The new Alpine setting is really pleasant and fresh however, and I hope to see more maps using it.

The community maps, however, are a treat. CP_Steel is amazing – I played the 4th beta of the map for as long as a sever had it up a month or so ago. It’s a great CP map, and totally flummoxes some people which is good (I think it takes less time to learn then Hydro’s horrible presentation however, there are some good usability additions to the map, such as dynamic blackboards – and an instruction video too!). A lot more strategy is required for the defenders to cover two active points, more then two entrances, and lots of things going on at once. PL_Badwater_Basin is nice too – a single, wider-area payload map. Possibly a tad easy to defend the end point, as always, but otherwise quite nice and affords a lot of different strategy and routes over Goldrush. Kudos to Valve for including Steel! I hope to see many servers host it in their rotation.

Well, that’s that. I’m away this weekend, hope to fix my gallery then. Sigh. – Gallery fixed. New pictures added

Many Half Life 2 mods! …among other things that is. I might as well do a quick rundown, since they were fun singleplayer affairs and not too long, although difficulty varies they were all worth playing.

First up is an oldie, Antlion Troopers Deuce. I admit, I didn’t get as far as I’d like and it crashed on me too (might be a incompatibility with more recent patches, who knows?) but is simply a defense mod, where you and several combine squads defend a base, then move inside the base to defend it, then escape the base as it is overrun. Very difficult, rest assured, not least because controlling your squads and keeping enough of them alive (as well as turret placement) is a pain!

Second is Riot Act, a pretty fine mod where you play a rebel captive and have to escape Nova Prospekt, the combine prison (well, you escape through bits without seeing Freeman ). Some nice bits in this mod, and you fight a lot of different enemies (including most of the “bosses” from the original game) – taking control of antlions at a few instances. Shame I had to leave all my rebel friends behind as I went too far for them to follow Ahh well, I escaped at least!

Third is Union, a set of maps where a prisoner (although this wasn’t obvious to me playing it seems!) teams up with a Vortigaunt, which was incredibly well done. Many puzzle sections, good enemies and some really tough parts (on hard at least) – it uses Episode 2 Hunter enemies, and the Vortigaunts cool attacks against zombies and antlions. The story is probably the most polished of the four mods, although it is a lot shorter, and uses appropriate voice chat for puzzles and battles.

Lastly, I played through a mod I refound, having played it ages ago, that being Combine Destiny, which you play a combine soldier basically battling through lots of zombies, some human rebels, and a few ant lions. This mod is a little ungracious on health, but otherwise a fine play even if it leaves you to walk away from your surviving soldiers a few too many times with no explanation (and sometimes there is little explanation as to where to go), but these are minor issues. There are some fun bits where you get to see the combine’s technology used against your enemies. There is also a Combine Destiny 2 mod in the works, woo!

Being without a gravity gun for each of these games really, really makes me miss it in hindsight. Some situations, a good barrel to the face of those damn fast zombies would have saved me a lot of ammo and effort.

I also brought Enemy Territory: Quake Wars last week, when I saw it on offer, and have been playing it on and off. It’s relatively fun but some levels are rather confusing and I’ve got too used to non-Quake style gameplay (I swear the original Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, people couldn’t run quite so fast!). Once I learn the level layouts and classes better, I’ll probably play more of it. The large maps are a refreshing change from Team Fortress 2 and Call of Duty 4.

I’ve put some more time into TF2, and saw some good Advanced Spy Training videos today – even if you are not a spy, spend 30 minutes watching these…as he so quotes Sun Tzu so much, I must point out “So it is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will fight without danger in battles.”

On my Wii, I’ve only really been playing my only game Smash Bros. Brawl – the campaign – where I’m at this maze thing now. With continues it’s fun enough, as long as I can get on the TV to play it

Finally, I’ve been trying my hand as King in Medieval II: Total War, although I am having some trouble grasping how to make actual money, I’m steadily taking out those pesky french after defeating the Scottish. Go England! The battles are fun, especially defending your castle against a superior force and doing spying and assassin missions. There are a few cases of “dumb AI” which is surprising – such as when two armies attack my castle, one of them usually doesn’t have time, or just doesn’t get any siege equipment, leaving them standing outside the back of my castle…doing nothing but shouting “Order received”. The AI must be commanding, but they certainly don’t seem to pathfind well enough! I’ll see if I can conquer all of Europe, or possibly finish it “quickly” and aim to restart with a better knowledge on how to sort my money problems.

Also, I’ve joined to play future vintage games at the Vintage Game Club which started this month. I haven’t got the money right now for Grim Fandango, but rest assured I’ll play it eventually!

Lots of games! Well, some. I’ve been trying my new Wii, which I brought last week, in a bundle with Smash Bros. Brawl, which is fun (playing the singleplayer campaign with my brother mainly and learning the controls). Also the packaged Wii Sports made the rounds – I must play more of this, it is fun!

The reason for a Wii? Price mainly. There is no way I can currently afford a full Xbox 360 or certainly not a Playstation 3 console – I wanted a second controller for certain, which this bundle had saving me a bit of money. I need to get a few odds and ends for it (memory card, component cables) which are under a tenner to finish it off. Suggestions for awesome Wii or Gamecube games to pickup are welcome (Zelda, however, is not my thing, so scratch that ).

Another reason for a Wii over the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 is I am terrible at FPS games on a console, and play them on my PC. I don’t need to have duplicate systems to play the same things (especially at the extra price that comes with console games, and subscriptions, etc), and the Wii has several unique games. Maybe I’ll get one of the consoles at some point – after a price drop, or for the Playstation 3, the inclusion of their actual real rumble controller – yes, Europe still doesn’t sell them yet! what’s up with that?!

On the PC, apart from Team Fortress 2 (now the Pyro craze is dying down it’s more fun), I’ve played through a long, long playthrough of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. I found on sale, which was pretty good (I made sure to download a bug and improvement mod – it still crashed on me too often however – BSODs all round!). The game really kept my interest – despite it’s flaws, and I might write up some deeper analysis on why it kept me entertained, and what was good and bad about it. The word “potential” might come up a lot – hopefully the games “prequel” Clear Sky will improve upon the games design.

I’ve also played a few games of Dawn of War – Survival Mod. I enjoy just setting up an awesome defence (Imperial Guard rocks my world), and it is well made, even though it is beta. I’m a sucker for this kind of thing.

My DS has been host to Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan, and it’s sequel, which are both enjoyable after playing so much Elite Beat Agents. My bus or car ride to work is long enough to finish a fair few songs, although hard mode on both is, well, hard (The first also is dead slow to restart some songs, making it an agony to lose near the end!). There is not much need for a translation either, it’s pretty obvious what is going on, and the Japanese pop references and in-jokes wouldn’t translate very well I presume – the general humour however is pretty universal!