Alan Wake

Well what can I say... I'm disappointed that the game is not available on PC as Remedy have originally intended. Those who know me also know that I've always played games on consoles but at the core I'm a die hard PC fan. The ending is quite sudden and lots of the storyline remains quite open-ended (no surprises here, it seems to have become defacto mechanism for setting up sequels). This no doubt will have something to do with the upcoming downloadable add-on episodes from Xbox Live and probable release of Alan Wake 2.

Both in-game episodes style of storytelling and cut-scenes have boosted overall cinematic experience which Remedy have started off with the Max Payne series. The level of detail within the game ranges from realistic star skyline to the actual light switches used within game's location (north west US). One can only appreciate the various level of detail once storyline and time-line are well understood by the player. This is not something obvious on the 1st attempt at playing the game. On the other hand the graphics lack detailed character modeling and animations which Heavy Rain far surpasses. This is probably due to the fact no facial motion capturing has been done for Alan Wake as well as the fact game is predominantly focused on outdoor environments. In either case this shows off relatively badly in the cut-scenes. Foliage textures within the game are not of high resolution and not varied. I suspect this is predominantly due to the relatively limited storage capacity of Xbox's DVDs (as compared to the potential of PS3's Blue Ray disks). Enemies fast become more annoying than scary and fairly repetitive.

On the brighter side graphics lighting effects, dynamic weather environment and well made ambient sound mix have worked quite well towards game's overall atmosphere. Terragen fans will appreciate the vast landscape visuals which were once upon a time only feasible for non-real time wallpaper renders. It was also refreshing to see various forms of references to Remedy's past games (Max Payne, Death Rally) as well as famous moments in movies such as The Shining. Limited edition also includes a very interesting documentary about Remedy and development side of their games (working there would be great).

Now comes the waiting for next episode, I wonder how the whole "episodes result in faster and more frequent releases" concept will work with Remedy given that Valve seem to have totally forgotten about it for the Half-Life 2 series...

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

Not that much different from the original CoD:MW. The graphics are about the same, multi player's about the same - the major difference was obviously the single player gameplay. Single player's easily clocked in a matter of few hours, cinematics and variety of environments have been somewhat increased. I wonder what the inevitable sequel's going to be like, given we've seen a divergence outside of the CoD series with MW2 (eg. CoD branding being completely dropped at one point in time). So far I'm loving the Stinger lock-in for bringing down anything that flies within multiplayer... All in all a game worth the wait.

Max Payne 3

Max is now bald, has a beard and has moved to sunny Brazil. He's also ditched his outfit for a more temperature tolerant white shirt. No wonder, since the original Finnish team's sold off the game series brand to RockStar, in a venture to make Alan Wake. Also the Max Payne movie wasn't that great either.

Conclusion: Not looking good. This is not the original Max Payne the character, rather it is Max Payne the trade mark

Let's hope Alan Wake's drifting in the right direction... Not many games to look forward to except CoD:MW2 & Mafia 2.

CS:S Stats

Time flies..

It's been ages since I've hopped onto HL:DM Source which I used to play for long enough to climb up to 13th place (Alias /MegA/). One thing I didn't realise is how long ago this has now been, almost 2 years! Initially it seemed like just a few months ago I'd been on it.  But wrong assumptions often lead to wrong conclusions... Nevertheless QuickSilver's spookface is a rather memorable map. Quite glad to see some local folk still playing the game. It helps to have opponents with similar ping (~200ms).  ;)

For now playing CSS, DoD. I've not even touched RTCW:ET for a while now, which probably had it's impact on our clan's GameArena results (currently on 17th spot).

Steam Stats

This is what excessive and intermittent work hours & consequential stress end up causing:

The Orange Box

Time: Thu Oct 11 19:48:13 AUSEST 2007

Status: Completed

Just finished Episode 2 with a positive feel. This episode has improved upon the original Half-Life2 game-play considerably. Semi-linear action packed story's the biggest plus in this episode installment, and more Gman was always desirable. There's plenty of original Half-Life references within the cut scenes, while Gman manages to keep the player puzzled about the "behind the scenes" happenings (actually he managed to make me look into WordWeb on more than one occasion to figure out what he was saying). ;)

Variety of gameplay terrains ranges from caves, forests, mountains, bridges, to underground bases. Ambientish music & sound within the game were worth putting up loud on HD555. And finally this episode seemed to be quite longer than HL2:EP1. Personally I'll be glad to see Episode 3 be the last 'episode' installment. Valve's initial reasoning behind the episodes concept has been largely due to faster ability to pump out new releases. Turns out at the end of the day each episode release took much longer than expected with Valve's almost usual promise-and-delay saga.

Team-Fortress 2's looking quite promising. Gameplay's quite different compared to Counter Strike Source in terms of nearly everything looking "bulky" and cartoonish giving it a feel of non-precision oriented gaming. I'm yet to properly play it though. Glad to see Internode's got plenty of TF2 servers around. I wonder how long before half of them are shut down...

And lastly Portal's quite an interesting game concept, contrary to my initial expectations. For those who like in-game physics, don't miss out!

CS:S Setup

Back to ET

Just like the good old times, never too late to overdo it:

WH40K DoW: Dark Crusade

Been playing Dark Crusade lately. Continental battles, multiple teams and no allies = yet another fine release of the Warhammer 40000 computer game series.

Battles and teams are fairly similar to Winter Assault. Unlike previously, there is no preset linearity about the overall game play. Continental province battles can be decided upon manually which results in a more strategic game play. Similarly to previous releases of the game series, Inon Zur still manages to compose a great soundtrack that complements game's mood very nicely (currently playing in Winamp thanks to this). I must note that this is one of the easiest to navigate RTS games. All you really need is a mouse and the occasional Ctrl key for multi unit selections. Still waiting for truly large scale continental battles of Supreme Commander.

/ MegA /'s back

Haven't played ET in ages now...

Got hooked up on classical HL:DM and the qUiCkSiLvEr server. Server's map is a port of dm_spookface, filled with many game play enhancing secrets:

Excuse the ping, the server's not exactly local ...

Half-Life 2: Episode One

Time: Fri Jul 14 21:44:56 AUSEST 2006

Status: Done.

Pros: The gameplay felt like the original Half-Life once again. Steam looking good at great gfx speeds even on my good old(ish) GeForce 6600 GT. (Thanks to HDRR)

Cons: Way too short & Not enough Gman.

-----

Let's hope we don't see too many of these short episodes. Valve needs to make a proper length release. Finally they have turned their focus away from improving Source gfx engine back to making good gaming levels. Initial Half-Life 2's gameplay was not up to their previous gaming standard, it lacked replay quality.

HL2:E1 comes with the original Half-Life Deathmatch ported to Source. I must say it's quite fun to hop on for a quick bash.

Extra, extra!: "Steam still sucks!"

Oblivion

Good news everyone! I have just completed the main quest in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. As many know I am definately not an RPG fan, however I could not stop playing this one. A great mix of music, graphics, storyline, dynamically varied environment and the action make this a worthwhile adventure.

The overall game is very well integrated, with smooth gameplay and very logical environment interactions. Quite surprisingly after completion of the main quest, majority of the map still remains non-revealed. This can mean only one thing: a lot more remains to be explored, with a great potential of prolonged gameplay. It could also indicate my excessive usage of the new Fast Travel features (Morrowind was missing this excellent time saver). ;) Graphics tweaking was a necessary step for my GeForce 6600GT - grass was turned off, and compromises on environmental shadows were made. Other settings were at the maximum.

All-in-all Oblivion manages to be a great game without compromising on either the game play duration or the graphics.

Bye, Bye Optus Game Servers . . .

. . . it's been a long time and finally on December 1st 2005 Optus has officially closed down all of their gaming servers. :( Local RtCW: ET Alternatives:

• Internode (aka Intern00b)
• GameArena

Update: rtcw-4.games.internode.on.net:27960 seems to be gaining popularity, about time. :)

WH 40K: Winter Assault

Finally got my hands on the new expansion pack for DoW. After few hours of game play and few levels past me I can certainly say it's a definitive improvement to the original game. Levels aren't as linear as previously, allowing the player to collaborate with multiple teams within the same match. Game difficulty has also been improved, directly affecting a large time portion of my weekend. Still more levels remain to be conquered ... Update: Short, way too short...

Max Power

That's it, I finally did it. All awards and all skills to the maximum!

The real Sander

A portrait by / MegA /

Alan Wake

As you might know Remedy will not make Max Payne 3. Instead they have dedicated their efforts to a brand new game. Nothing to worry about though, Max is likely to return again. Only this time Remedy will not be the developer (We'll see how that turns out). The new game is titled Alan Wake and seems to be a rather interesting cinematic style action thriller. Graphics wise the game looks promising with dynamic outdoor environment and next generation lighting ... Set to be released some time in 2006 I will be one of many people eagerly awaiting its release. HDTV Trailers and more info can be found over at alanwake.com.

RtCW: ET Fun

Internode is not only about free traffic and low pings ...

... it's all about making things work.