Runescape

Yep… Runescape… Although it might seem silly that I write about this because of the unpopularity of Runescape among people over twelve, I think Runescape is one of the best MMORPG’s ever made. Although that isn’t that hard to be taking into account the stale game ideas the other MMORPG’s try to push onto everyone. It’s a shame people didn’t try to improve upon Runescape instead of following their dream MMORPG plan consisting of cookie cutter classes and cliché storylines.

What Runescape brings to the table is the lack of barriers, to a degree of course, because they have to make their money somehow. People aren’t stuck into doing lame quests one at a time, and having to do it over and over again, just for slightly upgraded equipment that is completely worthless to everyone else. They can use different materials to create different things in their ever expanding universe, and although you do have to grind, it does pay off in your epic quest for gold and glory. Unlike other games of the genre, where you are restricted from doing any trading to other players, you can trade freely and without concern for paying any fees to the game company for doing so.

I really enjoy their skills system, which lets you freely train any skill that you want, regardless of your play style, and there are so many quests, even for FTP players. There are countless hours of fun you could have without paying a cent for extra services, unlike the cookie cutter games where you pay for your advantages.

Arma II

ArmA II is the premier realistic military shooter when it comes down to commercial video games. It has an extremely large world that people can roam around in. It also has an amazing amount of customizability, which allows for total reconstructions of the game, which is amazing since people have made maps based off of actual cities or regions in different countries. The game also includes an editor which allows you to make different scenarios and missions encompassing the entire map.  You can have TDM’s, seize the city, and eliminate HVT’s objectives, all at the same time.

The realism involved is extremely accurate, as tanks are extremely deadly, as well as AT weapons that counter them, and there are many variants of popular weapons used in the armed forces across the world. The ammunition clips also are kept on a person so when you run out of clips that are full, you move on to the clips that have unused ammunition before being completely out of ammo. This means if you reloaded while there was still ammo left in the clip, you can still use it if you run out of full clips.

The multiplayer war is also waged on a massive scale, as more than one hundred people can play on some servers at a time. I’m pretty sure that you can have as many players as you want, as long as the server can run it though. The variety of things people put onto those servers is amazing, for instance, one that I was on had a scenario that started players in an airport turned operations base, and makes them capture a city that is filled with numerous vehicles and enemy troopers ready to make quick work of anyone trying to invade. You also get a reward for completing the objectives in the form of vehicles. I can’t remember how many times I’ve been saved by an airstrike taking out a tank or other vehicle that’s about to pump me full of lead.

It’s unlike any other game due to the fact that one stray bullet or a tank shell exploding about twenty meters away can easily kill you and/or your entire squad. The AI used in the game wouldn’t be considered dumb in the least, especially if they know you’re there, as they are expert shots and won’t think twice about shooting you. This can sometimes be troublesome as you can find yourself dying many times before you even get to the fight. I remember when my helicopter got shot down and I was stranded on one side of the map while the entire battle was raging over in a small city. There really was nothing else to do but force a respawn because no one was willing to give one guy a ride to the battle and risk getting shot down themselves.

There is another great part about ArmA II that has recently been made available, it’s free, and this free version is available for people online through the ArmA II website. Although the graphics aren’t as good, and you can’t play the campaign, you can still play the extremely fun multiplayer.

The only bad things I can say about this game is that some of the people are not very good at determining friend or foe, so expect to be killed by your own team a lot. Also there really isn’t an ability to sneak in the game, because as soon as you shoot someone, you’re spotted and you will get fired upon by his AI buddies, who no doubt have the skills to shoot you as easily as you shot them.

All in all, it’s a great game and I think you should try it out. Besides, it’s free.

http://www.arma2.com/free

My Thoughts on 3D Games

I don’t think 3D games will become very popular, maybe it’s the frequent headaches people get after playing them, or maybe it’s the fact that most people don’t want to shell out an extra hundred dollars for a 3D console just to see something slightly different from the 2D version. All in all, I think 3D is just a letdown. Most media that uses 3D can’t even do it very effectively, and mostly relies on 2D aspects to make the movie or game entertaining. Even if they were to perfect 3D, we would have moved on to something better, such as holograms or virtual reality that it wouldn’t even matter.

Then you have to think about the health problems associated with the new 3D media. Here’s a small excerpt from the Samsung 3D Health Information statement:

 “Viewing 3D television may also cause motion sickness, perceptual after effects, disorientation, eye strain and decreased postural stability. It is recommended that users take frequent breaks to lessen the potential of these effects. If your eyes show signs of fatigue or dryness or if you have any of the above symptoms, immediately discontinue use of this device and do not resume using it for at least thirty minutes after the symptoms have subsided.”

“Watching TV while wearing 3D glasses for an extended period of time may cause a headache or fatigue. If you experience a headache, fatigue or dizziness, stop viewing TV and rest.”

Although normal TV usage can have similar effects, it seems that symptoms occur when using the 3D TV much more than normal TV. Maybe it’s because we have adapted over the years so we can see normal 2D television without feeling any adverse effects, maybe it’s because 3D really does pose more of a health risk than the normal television set. All I know is that it’s a waste of money and time.

Minecraft

Minecraft is a game like none other, for the moment of course, because developers are probably going to imitate it and make games similar to it. It’s quite obvious even if you only have a basic understanding of the video game industry. Minecraft is so great because it’s a breakthrough, who knew a game could be successful just by allowing people to edit their world? I mean, that’s all the game really is, just a world full of blocks. Sure, they are trying to make it have more action, but that’s after three and a half million copies were sold. What I think makes it so attractive is that fact that there’s an endless supply of randomly generated terrain for you to have fun with.

You start out running around scrambling for resources before night approaches so you don’t get completely obliterated by creepers or filled with holes by skeleton archers. When you get a small house or cave set up you can start getting ambitious and start making even bigger holes in the ground, or making a giant house that dominates the surrounding environment. Usually you either start getting bored because you have become master of your territory, or you keep expanding and expanding until you’ve gotten a giant empire of empty castles and houses. That is when you go into multiplayer.

Multiplayer is a lot different from Singleplayer, and still very similar, it’s just a matter of perspective. Most of the time you will go into a server with friends and at best make a giant cave. The reason why is you can never really have too much fun building larges empires in multiplayer, because there is always that one guy that finds you and utterly destroys you. It’s just a fact of life online; someone is going to ruin it no matter how difficult it is or how long it takes to ruin.

I guess it’s just Minecraft’s simplicity and openness that draws people to it. There aren’t that many barriers to what you can or cannot do. It’s just you and the world… and the creepers.

Garrysmod, The Definition of Sandbox

It was at first just a ragdoll posing game, but then they decided to expand the amount of things you could do. Now they are rich. So basically, Garry, the guy who made the mod, (if you haven’t caught on yet,) just took the Source Engine and made it into a game. Kind of... You can spawn props and stuff from any game that you own onto a map, and then play around with them, maybe make a fort of baby dolls, maybe make a train that seeks out people and runs them over. The possibilities are endless, the only problem is that it completely strains your CPU, so it runs slowly, but when it runs smoothly, it’s insanely fun and addicting.

I like to say you can do anything in GMod. What I mean by that is you don’t really have a specific goal since it’s a sandbox game; it’s up to you to decide what you want to do. You could go on a survival server and survive off the wilderness… Maybe end up making a stove or something… Or you could go on the Jailbreak server and get harassed by a bunch of little kids who really, REALLY, want you to play Simon Says. Maybe you could go on the RP server and drown out your life forever with the numerous chants of NLR or DMer!!! All the while making tons of simulated money from your numerous, well hidden money printers. Maybe you could hop onto a Sandbox server and learn to code a script that is made using a coding language within an actual coding language, thus making you smart and extremely stupid at the same time. Not all gamemodes are bad though; there are some with good game designs that promote doing fun things. Those usually tend to be conventional Team Deathmatch servers though, so you might as well buy an actual video game dedicated to TDM.

Counter-Strike: Source

Counter-Strike: Source is a great game that will be played for many years to come, as their sequel looks stupid... Who knows, maybe it will be a hit, but for now I’m keeping my interest, and money, on newer releases. Counter-Strike, Counter-Strike: Condition Zero and Counter-Strike: Source are some of the best FPS’s of all time. The original Counter-Strike, which was made many years ago, is still being played by many today even though blockbuster games such as Call of Duty and Battlefield have an ever increasing player base.

What makes Counter-Strike (in general) so fun to play is the level of simplicity, and difficulty in each game. Each round, two teams spawn at their respective sides, and depending on what type of map, protect a VIP, plant a bomb, or rescue hostages. Each team starts with a small amount of money at the start of the map and progressively gets more from killing the other team or winning rounds. Each player can buy any type of gun that their money allows for, or they could buy better equipment which could end up saving their lives, like Kevlar.

The basic principle of the game is team deathmatch, which is always fun. But mainly it is restricted to the game modes I mentioned before. On a de_ map the main objective is to bomb certain areas on the map if you’re on the Terrorist team or, defuse the bomb and kill all the terrorists if you’re a Counter-Terrorist, simple enough... Although it can be a pain to defend multiple bomb areas at once.

The next type of game mode is the hostage rescue maps, also known as cs_ maps; they start with two teams and usually the terrorists in a fortified position. The CT’s, also known as Counter-Terrorists try to break in and rescue the hostages while taking out as many of the Terrorists as possible. The big problem most CT’s have is that the T’s will be everywhere they are not, so they will be waiting for them at the hostage rescue zone while the hostages are being secured inside the building.

Lastly, there’s the VIP type map. This is the least popular version and has been phased out due to people not wanting to play it. Basically you just escort a VIP to the rescue zone and you win the game. Well… It ain't that easy of course because the main reason for this game mode becoming unpopular is that your teammates could sometimes be AFK or just be giant failures and it ends up becoming a big mess of people screaming at the VIP what to do and the VIP player just aimlessly walking about, usually getting themselves killed in the process.

What I find great about CSS, and the Source Engine in general, is the ease of use when modding. Many new game modes and maps have been created, such as Zombie Survival, which is where everyone but one person is human, and the zombie has to go around infecting everyone before they reach an escape point. There is also the Jailbreak game mode although it isn’t as interesting as it sounds, but it is very popular among the players of Counter-Strike. It’s basically prisoners versus the jail guards, who almost always make you play Simon Says… Don’t ask…

People have even found out how to exploit slanted walls and thus the surf maps were born, which is where players slide along slanted parts of walls until you reach the end, which is extremely strange if you think about it realistically, but very entertaining if you can beat it in a timely manner and not rage quit out of frustration..

The Evolution of Elder Scrolls: III, IV, V

All I’m going to say about the ones before III ist that they are extremely old and I don’t want to go back that far.

Anyway

TES:III is probably one of the most immersive, story driven, complex RPG game in existence. Just the fact that you can get a “super jump” spell from picking it up off a guy who fatally landed with it right in front of your eyes just says “Whoa.” As well as the merchants in the game having very realistic amounts of money, and they don’t reset the money for a very long time, if at all, if you deplete their supply of gold. Those two are just a couple of examples of how deep the game is.

Next up is TES:IV, also known as Oblivion. This time it came back with tons of upgraded graphics and a couple more features. Many say they “dumbed” it down so they could get a bigger audience, and I partially believe this. In Morrowind there were so many complex things you could do. You couldn’t just rest anywhere, and your magicka didn’t recharge like normal. But in Oblivion, your magicka recharges, you could basically sleep on the sidewalk, and you could fast-travel, which I believe was needed because of the vast amount of land in the world. So some of the new features are debatable while others are obviously a scheme to get a wider player base, which I think is ok. But overall this game includes a great questline, many, many sidequests and tons of things to do, even if you have beaten the game. It deserves every single award given to it.

Skyrim, which will be released on 11-11-11, (crazy date, right?) will supposedly have features from Oblivion and, trying to appease the Morrowind players, bring back some of the previously “dumbed” down features back. Of course it be influenced by the game mechanics from their other RPG, Fallout 3, which they created a bit after Oblivion. The game looks spectacular from a graphical point of view, and the inclusion of dragons is making everyone go nuts. But I’m not too happy with the new “shout” system. As one guy put it, “What if we needed to sneak around? What ‘shouts’ do we get?” So like all games, there will be some awkward moments, but overall I think this will be a big hit with anyone who likes immersive RPG's.

The Moneyversary Update / The Manniversary Update

I have to give it to them; they really know how to keep a game going. It’s blatantly obvious to everyone what they are doing, but still, the TF2-train keeps on chugging along. They managed to take one of the best FPS shooters and turn it into a giant money sign while still retaining its entertainment value, and for that, I applaud them. Now let’s talk about what’s in this update of first annual anniversary-size proportions.

So, they finally opened their hat making doors to the community. Now people can get their hats approved by the community, and then put in the Mann Co. Store to be sold. They do this by making a model and textures, and basically doing all the work for Valve, publish it on Steam Workshop and have it rated high enough, then get accepted by Valve and put into the game. So basically you are doing all the work, while Valve gets money. But hey, it’s good for up and coming modeler’s.

You can also put decals on badges that your character can wear using a one-time use store-bought tool. Yep. One-time use and you can only buy it through Valves store. Talk about the money to be made. It’s a good idea, but right now, it’s only usable on a select number of objects in the game. So don’t get your hopes up that you can have a Maul that says 'Ban hammer' yet.

Now let’s move on to the next big thing, two miscellaneous slots for misc. wearable objects! Yay! Woohoo! To people who don’t play TF2 this is almost as exciting as watching grass grow. But, if you are one of the many that play TF2, this is great news. You can now put two misc. items on at the same time! Time for the Mustache Phantom!

Some updates of honorable mention are a bunch of new community made hats. Although they look sub-par, they are hats none the less. There are also a few new weapons for people to play around with. Now all store items will be tradable after a couple of days, which means your store bought items aren’t useless anymore! Yay! What else… Ah, a new map called Gullywash, it looks interesting, but I think 2fort will still be king. It looks like that’s about it for the update. Enjoy.

What Multiplayer Does for a Game

What do people like playing more than Single player? Multiplayer, and that’s the truth.  Single player is mostly the same scripted events over and over again. So scripted and predicable, you could stand where an enemy spawns and kill it before it even begins to notice it's alive. Many single player games have this problem because the developers aren’t going to try and randomize everything that happens for every single small scripted event of their game. This is why multiplayer outlives single player in almost every single aspect. The more randomized events happening, the more challenging, and entertaining the game can get. Personally I have clocked tons and tons of hours into multiplayer games like TF2 and Counter Strike, but I’ve only played the single player mode of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare only three or four times since I got it years ago. It really doesn’t take a great thinker to see why though. You usually don’t watch the same movie over and over again unless you absolutely loved it. Still, even if you loved it you still don’t watch it over and over for the next three months either.


The thing about mainly single player games is that it can be quite hard to expand to multiplayer. Take the Elder Scrolls games for example. How would you make a game that is advertised as an insanely immersive single player experience, and give it multiplayer? How would you even start? What would make it entertaining? The multiplayer would obviously be lacking since the development studio is more focused on the single player aspect of the game. Then there is the fact that if single player is so focused on, why should Bethesda even include a multiplayer? It would just be an afterthought and it could lower the overall game rating just because of their experiment.


Let’s talk about a game that has benefited from becoming multiplayer, Minecraft. When it was in its early stages of development it was really fun and interesting. But what really got everyone’s attention was when it moved from being just survival single player, to survival multiplayer beta (although I personally believe it’s not really a beta, just a constantly evolving game). The reason why it's so popular and fits so well is because both the multiplayer and the single player are updated at the same time, and are basically the same thing; just one has multiple guys running around in it punching trees.


In summary, multiplayer makes some games amazing while others probably could go without. I think it’s because people expect multiplayer to be so good because most games today are centered on multiplayer action. So when people hear multiplayer, they expect it to be a purely multiplayer based game with little in terms of single player. So I guess the working combinations could be single player with no multiplayer, or multiplayer with a small single player, or single player that has an almost identical multiplayer portion of the game. Right now people just expect too much from multiplayer to actually put the singleplayer into the equation of a game's worth.

Quality vs. Quantity

Many games throughout the years have been pushed out as quickly as possible to appease the consumer and to make money, although maybe the first couple of games are good, once the companies start overdoing it with too much of the same thing, then people start to lose interest in the brand and the series as a whole. Take Halo for example, I’ve had many friends say they loved Halo 1, 2 and 3, but they didn’t really enjoy Halo ODST and Halo Reach. Once the ideas that made your game great start becoming boring then you are in real trouble. I think the reason why my friends didn’t like the new Halo’s was that they were the same thing, with a few small adjustments. Not much was added, and they were again charged sixty dollars for ODST, and then again for Reach. It’s great for the company, but not for the series. This is going to happen, or eventually happen for Call of Duty. Sure, they got some nice graphics, but just because you are in a graphically intensive environment doesn’t mean you are having fun. Guess what one of the biggest innovations Call of Duty is planning on bringing to the new game? Wait for it… wait for it… The ability to have two weapon sights at one time! Wow! See what I mean? This is revolutionary stuff we’re dealing with here. I applaud Blizzard though, because the game sequels they do make are well planned, and they try and give the player a whole new experience. For example, in Starcraft, they had to delay it multiple times because they wanted to make it the best game possible before releasing it. I loved the new game, it actually got me to play the normal games in Starcraft, which I’m really bad at and I hate playing because of that. It took them years to make Starcraft, but in the end, it delivered a whole new experience to the player. The way I see this Quality vs. Quantity battle is that quality and well planned games are good for us, quantity and cookie cutter games are good for the company.

Starcraft I & II: The Real Game

This is a classic RTS game. One of the first major titles in the RTS genre. There is a huge variety of game modes to play in Starcraft. Although I’m not going to talk about UMS maps in this post though, because that’s almost another game entirely.

Although Starcraft is known for its in-depth storyline, the main focus is always on the multiplayer gameplay. Starcraft basically consists of three races, and critters, you can’t forget the critters (They violently explode if you click on them too many times in a row). So, the main goal in a game of Starcraft is to completely destroy all your enemies’ buildings. You start out small with only a Command Center, and five (six in Starcraft 2) SCVs, which are your basic worker unit. You have to quickly build an army while balancing military power and economic power while your enemy keeps trying to harass you with their military might.

There are multiple “builds” on how to play the game, if you don’t know what builds are here is the answer; they are pretty much the structure order and unit oder you make depending on the time in the game and economic power. The most well known build is the zergling rush, what players do is they instantly get to work building a spawning pool which allows them to build zerglings. Then, before the other player has time to build up a normal base and army, they attack with about six or seven zerglings, which can devastate the opposing player. But, there are always risks involved, if you run into an enemy blockade, then they can repel your puny force and this will in turn, devastate you in the early game. So really, when it comes down to it, it’s a lot like chess, you have to anticipate what your enemy is doing before your enemy even knows for sure he’s doing it and there are risks and rewards to all your tactics and you have to pick the right one to achieve victory.

Also, there’s a community wide joke that South Koreans are naturally better than anyone at Starcraft, so never challenge one to this game. Ever.

Battlefield 2

Battlefield 2 was and still is one of my favorite games to play. I started playing it many years ago when it came out, and it was insanely fun. Sometimes I even play it today. What I loved about it was it was you had a giant battlefield, and you could run around and set up ambushes and stealthily capture strategic points. The variety of ways you could do this is amazing as well, you could hop in a tank and blow everyone to pieces, or you could hitch a ride on a helicopter, or you could even walk the entire way, but that is something I wouldn’t advise if you want to keep your sanity intact. What was revolutionary at the time was that the game engine supported sixty four people playing in one server, at the same time. Battlefield 2 was made about six years ago, and some of the major games today don’t even allow anything close to sixty four players. Battlefield 2 held many innovations in game design, like their ranking system. Once every so often when you rank up, you got the choice to unlock a new weapon. Also, when you ranked up, and you wanted the Commander position, which allowed you to drop supplies, call artillery strikes, and monitor the battlefield, you got automatically picked over people who were lesser in rank. The fun doesn’t stop there though, because many mods were created for this innovative game.

Project Reality

PR Mod for short, this mod made everything a lot more realistic, or at least as realistic as the PR developers could program into the extremely dated engine that Battlefield 2 relied upon. This game is extremely teamwork oriented and is not for the faint of heart. Each team has a couple squads and extremely limited specialized “kits,” or loadouts. These specialized kits are comprised of AT weapons, snipers, or demolitions. Most of these kits take almost a half an hour to be used again if they are lost! It doesn’t even stop there. Jets and tanks each can take almost the same amount of time to re-spawn once destroyed. Tanks even have two kinds of tank shells, which are used for armored targets, or infantry, and these shells take a couple seconds to reload, or to switch between the shell types. Actions in this mod take much more thought and planning, otherwise you could wind up having a two minute respawn time.

Forgotten Hope 2

Although I have a lot less experience with this game, FH2 as it’s called, is a lot like Battlefield 2… that is if you entered a time machine and went back to 1942. I don’t know what makes people reenact historical battles, but something about FH2 is just fun. Whether it’s using actual mortars to bring down the thunder, or having a dogfight in the skies of northern Africa, you can count on FH2 to have many fun opportunities to fulfill your lust for killing Nazi’s. Oh, yeah… did I mention you get flamethrowers?

Big vs. Little

Sure, you’ve heard of those big game developing companies: EA, Infinity Ward, Treyarch, Activision, and Blizzard. But what about the little guys, you know, the less known developers? Why should they make an independent game development company when the big companies pay to have people make the games? Indie developers, as they are called, make games even though they sometimes lack the budget and the manpower to create games effectively, but one could say if they are more motivated, and if they don’t have a deadline, they produce better quality games. Many new genres are thrown aside by big companies who want to make the sure bet. This can be seen in the massive amount of first person shooters that are on the market. For example new Call of Duty’s are being chugged out each year because their maker wants to keep rolling in the dough.

What they don’t realize though, is that fun and famous games can be produced by independent developers as well. Take Minecraft for example, it was made by a completely unknown developer, but it has reached over 3.5 million in sales. Sure, it might be an anomaly, but that’s why there are only a few huge game companies, because the ones that make the money do better than the ones that don’t. Indie Developers have more freedom to do what they want, and they don’t really have a deadline to meet. It isn’t uncommon for a developer to stop working at the big companies to go off and make their own. It’s the American dream at work.

Although being an Indie Developer has its advantages’, being in the big leagues with EA and Activision can get you more resources at your disposal, like more developers, which means you can make a bigger, more diverse game. It also has a bigger budget, which is a major factor that decides whether a game gets shipped out or not. Also many people trust big game companies to make solid games that are fun to play. The list goes on about whether big or small video game companies are better or not. The only real thing that matters though is if the game is good, the rest is the company’s problem.

League of Legends

The game League of Legends comes from a unique sub-genre of video games that have to do with two opposing sides trying to destroy each other’s main building, or in League of Legends case, a Nexus.

Pre-Pre-Game

Preparation is one of your best allies in games like these. Each player gets a “page” which they can fill with store-bought bonuses from points they get for winning battles. These bonuses are very small by themselves, but over time, they can add up. Trust me, the average attack speed bonus is around 1% increase in speed, but I got about thirty of them, so I start out with significantly higher attack speed than any player. You also can accrue more bonuses through masteries. Which are separate from store-bought bonuses, but all you really need to know is that they are both bonuses which give you better stats. Mmkay?

Pre-Game

Before the actual game starts people select which character they want to play as. They also select what pre-made bonuses and special abilities they want to use. Each character can be played differently so this stage can sometimes mean victory or defeat for a team. Teams should coordinate when they are in this phase so they don’t fail miserably when they are playing the real game.

The Game

Now you actually play the game! Woo! Each player starts at level one and has to rise up through the game, with level eighteen being the maximum level achievable. They battle the other team through three main routes called “lanes.” They also have to sequentially destroy the turrets in the lane to move forward, or else they will probably die, as the turrets beyond that are invulnerable and very powerful. Once a team gets past the turrets they will have to destroy the nexus, which is quite easy if no one is guarding it, but, the other team will do everything in their power to guard it. Each team has a store that they can fall back to, to heal and buy items that make them even more powerful.

Characters

Play-styles can differ so much from each other you’d never think it was the same character being used. For example, some characters can be used with items that give more health and defense over attack power. But if you go another route, and instead of giving them health, give them ability power, or attack damage, you can create a damage character instead of a tank, which can alter the game significantly. This is the reason why I think so many people like the game; it offers so many different ways to be played. It’s so easy to mix and match different things, it’s like a whole new game each time you play.