Cognitive Observation #22

Music Hacker - Audacity and vocals

This is NOT Sunday, and I totally did NOT forget to post here about the next episode of music hacker. At all.

Infiltrator part 12

I said in the previous session that we needed a new player ship. I'm building a 3D model of it in Blender, even though it's going to be a pixel ship in-game. Don't ask why...

I said don't ask! ARG! Because it's fun, that's why. I know you're thinking this isn't going to help Infiltrator get released any sooner, which is probably true. But, if you recall from the start of this series, I said this project was probably headed for failure. I also said that I didn't care, because the whole point was to have fun on the way there.

The model isn't finished, but I'm happy with the base shape. It has many of the elements that made the Pyro GX cool, but doesn't directly copy. This is the difference between an inspired model and a copied model. *Digs out old Pyro GX clone model...*

And a 100% faithful remake of the original PyroGX by a Descent fan:

I debated for awhile as to whether or not I wanted to go 100% pre-rendered 3d for the sprites like the player, enemies, and such. I decided to keep the art style I have now because it's unique and appealing. Pixelships on top of 3D pre-rendered stuff is actually pretty cool.

In the meantime, I feel like I'm getting close with the level editor. Hopefully in a week or so there will be something more cool to show you from there.

     --LazerBlade

Cognitive Observation #21

True statistics can still be misapplied.

Infiltrator Part 11

After having a somewhat longer session, I kinda wish I had more visual differences to show. Lots of stuff is going on under the hood though, so lets talk about that.

The biggest change is the addition of a level editor mode. Just pass in the argument
"-editor" on the command line, and it will start in level editor mode. If you passed that in, you can also pass in the path to the level file you want to edit. Or, if you want to play a different level, you can just use a command line of the format "Infiltrator -level levelfile.lvl" where levelfile.lvl is the path and filename of the level file to play.

As you can see, the gui currently provides you with two major elements. The first indicates which level is being read from the top left of the screen. The second is the object selector, almost dominating the left side of the screen. Objects are organized in four categories, which can be switched between a lot like tabs in a web-browser.

I have code to select different objects when they're clicked on, but it doesn't give the user any indication of which object is currently selected.

I have one last thing to note in this short session review(hey, that's an awesome name for these!) Many of you may or may not recognize the pixelship I drew for the player. It's basically ripped 100% from the Descent 2 Pyro GX, as well as the alien fighter model. This will cause major IP problems if I ever release this game, especially if I get crazy and decide to sell it. So I need to create a new player ship. It will also appear on the desktop backgrounds I make, posters, trailers, menus, etc, so I need a 3d model of it as well.

Right now I'm discussing designs for the new ship with my co-designer while we draw up concept art. No idea when we'll have a new ship ready. But until then, have fun biting your nails and hoping it's awesome.


        --LazerBlade

Crysis 2 - Part 2

After a break, I have returned to complete my review of Crysis 2. Let's start out with the visuals.

Crysis 2 has pretty visuals. There. I mean, that's kind of what we've come to expect from CryTek isn't it? At one point, I thought I was watching a pre-rendered cutscene. I thought my character must be pretty stupid to just stand there. Then I noticed that it was in real time, and I had full control. So yes, the visuals are quite good.

Gameplay-wise, this game feels a little different from the original Crysis. The original Crysis seemed to interact in a way to show how awesome the nanosuit was. In Crysis 2, everybody spends at least five minutes talking about how awesome it is, but it doesn't feel the same. Since the feeling that the suit you're in is awesome has already been conveyed in the first game, the second game makes it feel more like you're actually in the suit.

I like the addition of a visor to replace the binoculars and use for tactical analysis. It's one of those things that makes the suit seem more like a battlefield companion. It's kind of like the new ability to kick cars into the air. They're both things I should have been able to do in the first game. I was always thinking to myself "If I can pick this dude up and throw him through a house hard enough to knock it over, why can't I throw some of these cars around?" That, and throwing cars adds to the awesome macho dude feeling.

Another change to the suit is in power and energy management. You can now use two superpowers at a time, since your suit automatically uses strength to strike and for super-jumps. Of course, using multiple powers will drain energy faster, but it's still a very useful tactical option. Armor mode now drains energy when in use whether or not you're taking damage. If you upgrade that feature of the suit though, it will drain very slowly unless you're taking damage or using a different superpower.

I have to admit that the enemies seem a bit repetitive. I'm not violent to humans IRL, so I was avoiding killing people at all costs(and to see just how open-ended the game really was.) Throughout the game, only 1 person has to be killed by your character. I was enjoying blasting my way through swarms of aliens, but I got sick of it fast enough that I just started cloaking myself to sneak past them all. There are too few enemy types spread out over too much world-space is what I think.

Let's talk about QTE's, or for those of you new to this, quick time events. It's that thing where games play a cutscene and tell you which buttons to push and when to make your character do certain things(usually avoiding death.) Crysis 2 had QTE's, and they're just as bad as ever. Worse is the fact that they seem tacked on like the designers were going through a check-list of features. They seemed out of place in an otherwise glittering work.

While there's only a few interesting weapons, which still fail to be extremely unique, the game does the best cover based shooting I've seen anywhere. That's right, coming from someone who has played whole games dedicated to cover shooting like Mass Effect 2. The problem with ME2 is that cover shooting was all it had going for it. Crysis 2 has a cover system that seamlessly integrates with the FPS-circle-strafing-stealth-ambushing elements of the game.

Rather than gluing yourself to random objects the level designers chose as "cover," Crysis 2 takes a different approach. Simply get real close to almost anything, and you can hold down the right mouse button and move it around to lean. You can lean up, down, left, right, etc. It doesn't matter if you're crouched, or on your feet. It mixes so very well with the other elements, requiring a mix of cover based defence skills, raw speedy action skills, strategic skills, and stealth skills to do your best at the game.

One last thing to mention about Crysis 2 is something that I also found to also exist in the original Crysis. I'm not sure if it's good, bad, accidental, intentional, black, white or anything. I just know it exists. Basically, all enemies take from about 1-5 seconds to recover after receiving an attack. This can lead to scenarios like the end, where I beat the boss enemies to death one at a time with the blunt end of my machine gun. See, you're speedy enough to do a melee in about 0.75 seconds. This gives you the speed advantage you need. Just run up to them and start smacking. This also made several parts of Crysis 1 a lot easier than I thought they were supposed to be. There's a super-climatic part of the game where you have to blast some semi-boss dudes, but it seemed easier than it was supposed to be for this same reason. Just line the four of them up and go down the line shooting them one at a time and they'll all drop without getting in a shot.

So, that's Crysis 2. It's a game with good writing, pretty pictures, and fun gameplay. The hard part here is deciding whether or not it gets my award for being one of the rare sequels which is better than the original. System Shock 2 is the ONLY work on this list to date, game or other medium. Comparing these two is hard. See, Crysis 2 has a better story. However, Crysis 1 feels more free and open, not just from a sandbox point of view. You could even holster all your weapons and break things up Chuck Norris style if you felt like it. Crysis 1 also had some pretty sweet moments that Crysis 2 didn't really match. Then on the other hand, Crysis 2 feels more complete and polished.

All in all, I think Crysis 2 failed to capture the feeling of the original and do something new with it. I'm not saying Crysis 2 is worse than the original, or bad by any stretch of the imagination. You should play both. I'm just saying that Crysis 2 doesn't really seem better than the first to me.

Final Score: 7.5
Why this score?


        --LazerBlade

SOPA & PIPA

Blacking out(all posts reverted to drafts) today.

Crysis 2 review part 2 will be up tomorrow(with the rest of the posts) if things go smoothly.