Posts
All Comments
I forgot to post about it here, but I’ve working on a Fallout New Vegas review and managed to publish it. Lots of nice pictures to look at if you can’t be bothered with the text. You can read it here.
On a related note I also published a piece recently that talks about what would make Fallout 4 the best in the series.
Recently I was looking at some games at a local store and happened upon Fallout New Vegas: Ultimate Edition. Now I’ve been looking for this for some time, and I was even under the distinct impression it wasn’t available in this country, so I gladly snatched that up for R199. I don’t mind paying that much for a game of that calibre, even if there is still a global economic crisis going on.
I have played Fallout New Vegas – in fact I’ve played it through twice. This Ultimate Edition does have all the available DLCs: Dead Money, Honest Hearts, Old World Blues, and Lonesome Road, plus two additional add on packs in Courier’s Stash and Gun Runners Arsenal.
I’ll likely play it and have a review up in the near future.
I haven’t updated this blog for some time. This is partly because I’ve been working on several reviews for the past while. You can check them out on HubPages. There’s a review of Borderlands, Diablo II: Gold, and Dark Messiah – all retro reviews.
I’m also working on some other ones currently so I’ll hopefully have those published soon. Just a quick update here.
It wasn’t long ago that I was down at the local computer store and I went over to the game section. There were a few good, memorable games there, including GTA: San Andreas, which I played to death years ago.
But it was a copy of Borderlands that jumped out at me. And it was the Game Of The Year Edition too. What this is, is the full collection of Borderlands and the 4 DLC packs that were released in 2009 and 2010: The Zombie Island of Doctor Ned, Mad Moxxi’s Underdome Riot, The Secret Armory of General Knoxx, and Claptrap’s New Robot Revolution. Actually you get download tokens to get the DLC packs. A bit of a cheat. And yes, you still need to activate the game online before it’ll play.
I remember having an experience playing Borderlands a while back at a friend’s place, and liking it quite a bit. So I picked it up – for R99.
It might be a bit too young yet to be a classic in the truest form of the word (in my estimate about 10 years old at least), but it’s like they say: “It’s like Diablo – but with guns.”
It’s not uncommon for two or even several games, and even games and movies to share sound effects.
One of the first times I came across this sort of thing was back in the 1990’s. It was Duke Nukem 3D, and one of the more infamous enemies in the game caught my attention – the pig cop. Literally mutated police officers of the LAPD (or LARD in-game), they looked quite comical in their stocky build, but you wouldn’t mess with them all the same. They packed shotguns that could rip you a new one with a single blast up close.
They also made grunting noises one would almost certainly expect from pigs. The most telling sound effect was when a pig cop actually sighted you and let out a roar that has since been proven to belong to a cougar or something similar. I know this from hearing the same sound when watching documentaries and the animal channels on DSTV.
How coincidental it was then to play Quake, released later the same year, and see (or more accurately, hear) that the same sound effect was used – this time when one of the ogres with a chainsaw and a grenade launcher saw you. He too grunted and made a noise that made it easy to tell when he was around.
So imagine the horror I experienced as a young boy when I lived at home with my eldest brother. He also grunted a lot and made noises that reminded me so much of these two videogame characters. Especially when he was in the shower – he would roar and clear his throat loudly. I even had dreams that I was living with one of those ogres from Quake. One of those dreams involved going into the kitchen and being confronted by this ogre who then chopped me up into pieces with his chainsaw and served my head up on a plate with peas and carrots. I’m sure I’ve written about that before in the Keen Dreams ® series though…
*goes off to check*
Nope, hasn’t been published as far as I can tell, but I could have sworn I wrote about it. Anyway.
In any case, I think I know the common problem that these characters all share. It’s a deviated septum. My brother has it and makes all these grunting and throat clearing noises to this day that are most annoying, to be honest. He refuses to have surgery to have it fixed. Luckily it’s rather easy to get rid of the irritating grunting and carrying on with the pig cop and the ogre – just blow them to bits with a rocket launcher.
This has been yet another instalment in the weird and wacky series known as Random Madness ®. It didn’t make sense to you, and it wasn’t supposed to either. If you read it and shook your head – that’s good. That was the ultimate goal.
Apocalypso’s Atomic Arcade is my first ever blog.
After writing on HubPages for a few months, I went about learning the ins and outs of Blogger/Blogspot. AAA was a guinea pig of sorts where I tested things out. Every conceivable widget out there was added in to this blog, and I had nothing but copy and paste stories mainly from other gaming blogs and websites, before finally settling on writing more original content, which actually worked a bit more in my favour as it turns out.
AAA is a place where I can publish all my weird and wacky observations about games, gaming, and other such things. I’ll likely never shut it down as long as I live. Over the past while I’ve slowly been taking a look at my blog and getting rid of superfluous crap that isn’t needed and sort of starting from scratch; tidying things up a bit. I actually prefer going for a more minimalist approach nowadays to having a lot of space taken up by rubbish.
So maybe in the near future we’ll see an unpolluted AAA, near as can be to being new and fresh again.
Hopefully this year is going to be a good one. I need to give it my all. I’ve got various projects on the go – some have been dormant for a while and need to be resurrected, and others actually have yet to be brought to life finally. More and more websites out there beckon my attention as a self-proclaimed “online adventurer”; publisher; supposed freelancer.
I mean, after all, 2012 might be my last year to get all of this done, if the end-is-nigh predictions are anything to go by. It also just so happens as it is that January 24 is D-Day for this SOPA and PIPA business – whether it is put in to motion or not.
When Duke Nukem II came out in 1993 when 2D sidescrollers were being quickly replaced by pseudo-3D shooters like Doom, we saw Duke Nukem in a firing range taking shots at a target. This was a scene that was in homage to RoboCop so they say – a film and character not often associated with Duke Nukem along with all his other pop culture references and inspirations.
Joe Siegler did the voice for the character who uttered the phrase: “I’m back!” which is obviously a reference to Terminator 2: Judgment Day.
Duke Nukem’s name is often said to have been used in the first game and later changed to Duke Nukum later on after it was discovered that there was an action figure with the same name. But it was found out later that this character’s name was not trademarked and so Apogee went back to using the name Nukem instead.
But where did they get the name Nukem in the first place? RoboCop. If you’ve seen the film and watched through you’ve have noticed a scene where a TV commercial is seen, which depicts a family playing a modernised boardgame of sorts. This game turned out to be called “Nukem”. And the font used was similar to how it would appear in the early Duke Nukem games. Probably later, Duke was used because it’s not only a cool sounding name, but it rhymes with the surname too.
So this is just an interesting thing I thought I would bring to your attention. Hell, it could even be argued that Duke even looked a bit like Alex J. Murphy in the film. Maybe that’s why he started wearing the sunglasses.
I’ve been looking at all the brochures that come with the newspapers just lately, seeing as it’s Christmas soon. I also went online to view several retail websites, too. Why? to see all the games on offer, of course.
One thing caught my eye though: Diablo II Gold. In preparation for the release of Diablo III, Blizzard seems to have re-released a lot of their classics, but in some killer bundles. In addition to Diablo II, there’s StarCraft Gold and WarCraft III Gold – and these all come with the available expansions for said games.
Then it was off to the actual stores to take a look. At most places, such as Musica, CNA, and Look & Listen, I mainly spotted the expansion pack, Lords of Destruction, and the price was usually around R99.
Eventually I had to ask a salesperson if they had the Gold edition I was looking for in stock. It wasn’t even on the shelves. They’d been hiding copies in the back room. But I managed to get one for R99. And to think that on the shelves, they had either Diablo II or the expansion pack both going for the same price, separately. One wonders if they intentionally try to screw you over, sometimes. So instead of getting both for R198 and upwards, Diablo II Gold is at least half price.
Score. Now I’m going to play this old classic along with all the mods and unofficial expansions that have been made over the years. Like I always say, sometimes it pays to wait – in this case more than a decade.
In the latest issue of NAG magazine, I had a rare read of Miktar’s column. In addition to being a columnist and overseas correspondent (East coast of the USA), he is also a former moderator on the NAG Online forum – although was shunted out of the job, probably because he was a massive troll, according to some. It was bad for business.
But he brought up an interesting conversation piece. 2011 is chock full of anniversaries relating to video games. Landmark, revolutionary titles that paved the way for all the games you play today.
Let’s have a look at those he listed:
30th Anniversary: Ultima, Castle Wolfenstein, Frogger, Ms. Pacman
25th Anniversary: The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Castelvania
20th Anniversary: Street Fighter II, Sonic the Hedgehog, Civilization
15th Anniversary: Resident Evil, Pokémon, Diablo, Tomb Raider, Crash Bandicoot
10th Anniversary: Grand Theft Auto III, Halo, Devil May Cry
The ones I care about most here are probably Castle Wolfenstein (without it we wouldn’t have had Wolf 3D, RTCW, and every other game that followed in that series); Frogger (played it a hell of a lot as a child); Street Fighter II (hailed as one of the best fighting games of all time – the measuring stick to which all other fighters to this day are compared); Sonic the Hedgehog (come on…); Resident Evil (made survival horror the popular genre that it is – or was, anyway); Tomb Raider (without it, you probably wouldn’t have Uncharted, maybe even Assassin’s Creed either); Crash Bandicoot (played this a lot as a kid, too); Grand Theft Auto III (one of the best games ever).
But suspiciously there were a few left off the list at some point. I think most of the games he mentioned were released in November or December (I know because I looked them up). So there was some sort of trend he was adhering to.
I’d add in Duke Nukem 3D. It’s the last truly great game in that series, which even DNF failed to topple this year. Released at a time when people still used the term “Doom Clone”, it proved that it wasn’t just another rip-off title – it was THE rip-off title; the undisputed king of rip-offs, taking “inspiration” from several films and other games, as well as pop culture. But it had enough going for it to make it pound for pound the best FPS I’ve played to date, honestly.
Quake wasn’t brought up either. Major oversight there. Also released in 1996 like DN3D, it was the first fully 3D FPS, and debuted the Quake engine. Without this engine, we might not have had every other id Tech engine released to date, and probably every other id game released to date, either. Every Doom, Quake, and even Wolfenstein title to follow used a version of the id Tech engine. Many, many games from other developers to date have used id Tech engines as well. You wouldn’t even have Call of Duty, seeing as all CoD games to date have used snippets of id Tech code in the engines that power them.
Final Doom. All right, so it was a glorified double expansion pack for Doom II: Hell on Earth – but what expansion packs at that!
The Plutonia Experiment was particularly challenging. Created by the Casali brothers, it made Doom and Doom II seem like child’s play for the most part. TNT: Evilution wasn’t that spectacular, but it did see one of the most beloved guys at id get hired – and that man is Tim Willits, who still serves as creative director at id today. He started off as just a mapper, and fan of the original games.
If anything, Final Doom showed that fans could make a decent game, filled with challenging maps and maybe tad innovation that impressed developers so much that they hired them and put them on the payroll. This trend has continued to this day, with modders and mappers being picked from the modding community and given jobs. You often see this with companies such as Valve – Valve is predominantly made of former modders.
So anyway, 2011: what a year – for new games and old!
To summarise, it’s a freeware 2D platforming title developed by London-based developer, Curve Studios. It’s similar to Metal Gear Solid and Splinter Cell in theme, but more like Abuse (that old game for MS-DOS) or even Oddworld: Abe’s Odyssey in the way that it plays. There’s stealth, death, and that sort of thing, but much more fast-paced than any stealthy FPS title.
Anyway, I downloaded it recently and gave it a go, and managed to actually write a 1500 word review on it. Don’t quite know how, though. You can go through to the piece on HP, if you care.
The actual development on Episode 2 is coming along too. There was a trailer of it released not too long ago, and it’s looking pretty good. This time, the player ascends to the surface and sees first hand the aftermath of the apocalyptic war that took place, and drove people down in to bunkers in the first place.
----
Source: Dead Cyborg on Twitter
This post marks the return of Random Madness here on AAA. I had some inspiration recently.
Windows XP has been around for a long time. I was just reading on Joystiq the other day in an article where it was said that it is in fact ten years old as of last month. After so many years of using Windows XP myself, I recently made the jump to using another version of Windows. On the laptop I acquired recently, I have installed on it Windows Vista. True, it’s not the latest Windows, or the best. Some call it the black sheep in the family.
Anyway, I had read about a feature that was first introduced in Vista that obviously wasn’t in any previous Windows that we know of: User Account Control, or UAC. Basically it ensures that programs run only when you want them to and that any sort of malware that attacks your system doesn’t have full control over what goes on, even if you’re running an administrator account.
Now the gamer in me instantly thought of something else when I read that acronym. The UAC is instrumental in the storyline of the Doom series. It stands for Union Aerospace Corporation. Now while the UAC’s background was only really expanded upon in Doom 3, it existed all ready in the original games in the early-mid 90’s.
Now knowing my inquisitive mind like I do, my thoughts started to wander if there was some sort of link or is it just coincidence? This wouldn’t be the only time there was a possible link between id Software’s Doom and Microsoft. More than a decade and a half ago, Bill Gates promoted Windows 95 by superimposing himself in to Doom and blasting some zombies. Doom was originally programmed to work in MS-DOS when released in 1993, but was still massively popular even years later.
Maybe this UAC feature was an homage of sorts to Doom. Windows UAC tries to limit malware attacks, much like Doom’s UAC tried in all Doom games to date to prevent the demonic invasion from hell – ultimately (get it? The Ultimate Doom?) it failed every time.
But seriously, don’t quote me on this. It’s all rubbish. Interesting to think of, though.
But as of just this month, there’s a new version of DC’s episode 1 available. Version 002 for Windows now has support for the mouse as well as the AZERTY keys, instead of using the directional keys next to the enter key – which have been gathering more dust than just about any other part of the keyboard, apart from the numpad, anyway.
If you haven’t given Dead Cyborg a try yet – do so. It’s not too bad – especially considering that it’s a one-man project. By the way, this game is what one might call beggarware. To ever have any hope of seeing episode 2 (about 50% complete right now), you have to donate – and Endre, the guy who makes this game, wants $4000 dollars total for it. That amount sounds more like he’s holding the game hostage!
----
Sources:
http://www.deadcyborg.com/download_page.html
http://www.twitter.com/deadcyborg
But September brings some bad news, as just over the weekend it was revealed by the team in charge of the project -Interceptor Entertainment, headed by Fresch AKA Frederick Schreiber- that DN3D: Reloaded is being put on hold until further notice. Reasons why this is happening weren’t made entirely clear from looking at the blog post on the official website, or the Facebook wall, but from visiting the thread on the forums it seems as though this ambitious project -which was originally conceived by just one man- has run in to licence issues – big surprise. We all knew it was too good to be true.
The last status update seems to indicate that the team was “around 90% finished with the multiplayer version” and was “in the final phase of the game, slowly starting the Beta phase”. In August they even took the game to Gearbox Software, and have had a “big media package, in-game trailer, and a Behind the Scenes documentary ready for some time but it’s not available for public viewing yet. But if what they say is anything to go by, it’s gonna be good if we ever get to see it, anyway.
It looks like the Duke Nukem curse was passed on from DNF, and is still alive and well.
But I happened to check the main page yesterday, and noticed that there’s a new competition on. It’s the Halloween Speed Build Contest of 2011! I’ll be lazy and quote the text from the website, which explains it all perfectly:
“A new Halloween speed-build contest is underway! There are at least half a dozen mappers participating, including heavyweights Melan and Bikerdude.
The mission must have at least one element that evokes Halloween. Scary missions will be preferred but things like: playing tricks, finding candy, fall decoration (Gourds, Pumpkins, etc), Pagan harvest festivals, etc ... are all acceptable ways to evoke the holiday. Missions must be completed by October 31th.”
At least this means that we’ll get some more good missions by the end of next month, and I have a reason to fire up TDM again! Like I said, I’ve finished most of them, even replaying them on different difficult levels, but I soon tire of doing the same mission again and again. My replays of Thief or Thief II were at least a year or two apart, until I discovered the FMs for T2, of which I’ve played a few.
Source:
TDM - TDM Halloween speed-build contest forum thread
I went to the local convenience store On Thursday last week to pick up the NAG, and lo and behold, it wasn’t there. Friday I returned and it still wasn’t bloody there. Saturday I went back and finally, I managed to get it. So instead of doing anything constructive on a Saturday afternoon, I sat there watching all the trailers on the DVD. Don’t judge me.
And to add to all this, it wasn’t until later on in the week that they even got a post up on the main website’s blog, or on the forum about the September issue. Tsk tsk.
Still, I’ll tell you if this issue has anything worthwhile in it, if you haven’t bought it by now. There’s a feature on 10 games that changed the industry, as well as Diablo III – the fellas at NAG go mad over anything Blizzard. Then again, a lot of people do.
There’s a preview on Bodycount – a game that I sometimes confuse with Epic’s Bulletstorm, or maybe Brink. I think it’s the titles of these games. There’s a few lacklustre reviews on games such as Call of Juarez: The Cartel, which I knew was going to suck as it made a complete departure from the series theme. Then there’s Harry Potter: The Deathly Hallows: Part II – like the reviewer states: at least it’s the last one. The Sims 3: Generations doesn’t look like it ads much to the original game, unlike its previous expansions.
The DVD has a few good things on it. There’s the Cheatbook database 2011; There’s a few demos, including a demo of Harry Potter: The Deathly Hallows: Part II so you can try it out for yourself and see if it’s that terrible; there’s several free games too, and a soundtrack to be had, in addition to the usual trailers. If you’re looking for graphics card drivers for Windows XP, you won’t find them here. So you’ve gotta download ‘em yourself, seeing as NAG only does Vista and Windows 7 now.
Can anyone say “boycott”?
Check out the links below to get to NAG’s website and the forum thread dedicated to this issue. Highlights from the September issue thread: an off-topic argument that spans 2 or 3 pages, and has nothing to do with “what did you think of this issue?”.
By the way, the DVD suggestion thread for October isn’t up yet, as of publishing this post.
----
It’s a review of Dead Cyborg, which was released late last month. I managed to play through it thoroughly over a couple of days recently.
Dead Cyborg is a donation based freeware title. How this works is the first episode of the game is released for free, as a teaser or demo of sorts. From there on, the next episode will only be made available once the donation meter fills up. And currently, Endre is looking to make $4000 dollars before releasing the second episode! That’s rather ambitious although he is all ready a third of the way there. I just wonder if I’ll ever get to review the second episode and beyond, though, with demands like that.
Dead Cyborg is a mix of old school text-based adventures, point ‘n click adventures and more modern sci-fi titles, such as the aforementioned System Shock games, BioShock, Fallout, etc. You can see several similarities in theme throughout the episode.
Anyway, head over to HubPages to check it out. I was going to publish this as one of my Thrifty Thursday pieces, but I much prefer HP for reviews because the layout is more customizable.
