Nuclear Monster

  • Call of Duty: World at War is critically under appreciated. By that, I mean the slights it gets for being popular. Some too-cool-for-school game critics think that CoD:WaW can’t be good because regular people enjoy it.

    If only they could see past their indie-rock-pete-esque hearts to the shiny gooey filling that is an improved and different Call of Duty.

    Improvements on CoD4:

    • Nearly the entire single player campaign can be played cooperatively online.
    • In-game friends list, including invites.
    • You can squad up with your buddies fairly easily during team-based matches.
    • Prestige, previously only available to console players, is now available for win-folk.
    • Large, open multiplayer maps enable a different style of play. Bolt-action, single shot rifle kills are now reasonable. As are tanks and other changes to gameplay style. This might not appeal to everyone, but it is a definitely visible change to anyone who has sunk time into CoD4’s multiplayer campaign
    • The Flamethrower, flame tank, and molotov cocktail all bring a new kind of area denial  effect to play.
    • Nazi zombie mode.

    You broke it:

    • Co-op isn’t continous, you’re automatically sent back to the lobby and the map is reset to the first map (Semper Fi). Good luck remembering the name of the map you were on.
    • Multiplayer squads aren’t retained between map changes. Boo!
    • The game seems to crash more than is usual.
    • Should have been released on steam on the day of the retail PC release.
    • Still different binaries for multiplayer and singleplayer.
    • While you can invite friends to the multiplayer game you’re in, you can’t see what game your friends are in without having to accept an invite. That is to say, you must request an invite to get to that server.
    • The name tags in multiplayer are colored red or green for differentiating  friend or foe. I can’t see those colors.

  • Multiwinia is a stand-alone multiplayer skirmish game based on Introversion’s 2003 release of Darwinia. Fans of this sleeper title might not have expected a sequel from the developer, one that tends to shy away from rehashes and instead focus on entirely new games. While Darwinia has a lengthy single player campaign, it lacks any kind of multiplayer. So, Multiwinia combines the action elements from Darwinia with six multiplayer gametypes.

    King of the Hill involves holding marked locations to gain more points than your enemy. Blitzkrieg is similar to King of the Hill, except the sectors you capture contain flags that are raised and lowered like those in the Battlefield series of games.

    Rocket Riot requires the capturing of solar panels to harvest their output for rocket fuel. Assault mode has one side defending a base while another attacks. Domination is a free for all. Capture the Statue has your Darwinians lug statues back to your base for points while the enemy is attempting to do the same and prevent you from capturing any.

    The spin on these modes is that you have to capture Darwinian production facilities (the only way to improve your numbers), and locate crates dropped from space which contain bonus units like turrets and transports.

    The six gameplay modes and the new selection methods offered make this RTS feel more like Pikmin on the Nintendo Gamecube than a conventional RTS game like Command and Conquer. This is both good and bad: good in that the bite-sized games only last a few minutes, but not so great if you’re looking for any depth, which is only to be found in making formations out of your Darwinians and using the crates.

    However good those modes are, there are some problems with the game. First of all, the tutorials are vague and not polished very well. Most of the interface changes appropriately when you plug in a gamepad except for the tutorial messages, which still refer to keyboard keys instead of the gamepad buttons.

    After each game you’re dumped out to the menu with no way to continue with the same opponents. The game also does not force you to change your nickname in order to be uniquely identified in online matches, nor does it tell you how to do this. You’re left to guess until you figure out that you have to click on it at the pre-game lobby.

    In-game, every player must ready up for the game to start, leaving the power in the hands of any one person to hold the game hostage. Routinely I’ve seen players online hold out, refusing to ready up, until their conditions are met for the game to be played. Granted, this particular issue isn’t the fault of Introversion, however these and other issues must be addressed for the community to thrive.

    Multiwinia is on the right track, as Introversion have already released a patch implementing text chat in the pre-game lobby.

    Even though it is more of an enhancement to Darwinia than a new game, Multiwinia is a worthwhile purchase if you enjoyed Darwinia and were left wanting more with the same theme. However, it would be a poor starting point if you haven’t played the earlier game in the series. So, try out the demo if you’ve played Darwinia and see if you like Multiwinia. It is a quirky RTS that should convert those who try it.

  • Same plot as Robocop 3.

  • Do you miss being extremely frustrated with your video games?

    If so, then Mega Man 9 is the game for you.

    Unlike Capcom’s other recently released throwback title Bionic Commando, Megaman 9 retains the exact look and feel of its predecessors on the NES. While that graphical style is compelling, it also serves as a warning to keep those who were bad at the original games away. Fortunately, this demo is available to everyone who wants to take the game for a test drive on the 360 and PS3. WiiWare users have to suffer the indignity of purchasing a game only to find that they can’t defeat the elephants on the concrete man stage. I suspect that playing the game on the 360 will suffer due to the smushy d-pad on that platform.

    Though you should still buy the shirt, even if you don’t get the game. Boxart will never be this cool again.

  • Or in any source engine game, just bring down the console (press the ` key, next to the 1 key) and enter:

    cl_downloadfilter "nosounds"

    Enjoy the lack of idiotic beavis and butthead sound effects!