This weekend I’ve been playing a lot of Unreal Tournament 3. Last night doubleplusungood invited me to a game of Left 4 Dead. I was in the middle of a UT3 match so I went straight from that into the Left 4 Dead lobby.
When I got into the game I was upset to find out my double-jump was coming up short and my hoverboard was missing.
I guess I can’t really say that I beat this one because it’s a multiplayer game and meant to be played over and over but I did play through all four campaigns in multiplayer, so in essence I’ve done everything there is to do.
I got this for half off on Steam. It was the sale I’ve been waiting for. I knew when it was being hyped that Left 4 Dead would be an awesome game but it’s focus on multiplayer coop doesn’t exactly thrill me because I’m more of a single player gamer. Amazingly, I found three friends (doubleplusungood, GarrickMol, and praise_seitan) on Steam and through two sessions we played through all four scenarios.
In short, Left 4 Dead is a superb coop game. Getting a game going is dead simple, the levels are varied and randomized by the AI, and the way it plays encourages teamwork.
I guess the only complaint I could have about it isn’t much of a complaint. This game basically requires a headset. There’s so many instances where not being able to quickly communicate with your teammates will end badly for everyone. I found out that my headset auto-mutes on level changes and until we figured it out, I was totally less than helpful.
This all begs the question; is Left 4 Dead worth the $50 pricetag? I have to say yes, even if you’re a hermit type who never plays online, but really you should play with friends. The friendly AI is more than good enough to provide a fun but short experience for those without friends but the excitement and tension is dramatically increased when you’re playing with other humans.
I’m on 24-hour duty. You know what makes 24-hour duty tolerable? Wireless internet stolen from the barracks.
After two aborted efforts to recompile a new kernel for my Dell Mini 9, I finally get one compiled to completion. And the wireless stops working. So now I’m recompiling without any modifications made to the configuration in hopes that it’ll bring my wireless back from the grave. If not, at least I’ve only been getting readjusted to Ubuntu 8.10 for a week before having to reinstall. Maybe I’ll be more careful next time, eh? Probably not.
This is the reason why I like using linux on a computer that’s not essential to my day to day life. I can break the OS doing goofy stuff and it’s no big deal. It’s a learning experience even. If I have to reinstall the OS, who cares. All it costs is time.
http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/2/25/
I love Penny Arcade but todays’ strip really nails it. I can’t stop laughing at the second panel.
I just cancelled my preorder for a Matte Black Nintendo DSi with one-day shipping. Katie complained instantly when she knew I pre-ordered it so I started to think about why I wanted one. I want one because it’s got bigger screens, better speakers, a downloadable game service, and my DS lite got pretty trashed on the last deployment. But I usually play with headphones on and the downloadable games are going to be lame like mahjong and puzzle games and I can live without bigger screens and the scratches. So I guess I have better things to spend the cash on.
I’m in Tacoma, WA. IVAW is having a shindig this weekend here and they paid for my plane ticket.
The first place we all get together is Coffee Strong, which is a veteran owned coffee shop. I felt I had walked into another dimension. This place looks just like The Asylum and someone I remember from The Asylum is there. What.
It turns out she’s working with a war resisters organization. She’s as shocked as I am to see someone else from Springfield here. We chit chat and then she leaves. Later in the evening there’s a show. It’s exactly the same kind of show The Asylum would’ve put on.
I thoroughly believe I’ve hit some time pocket and actually landed in Springfield eight years ago at my current age. More to follow.
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=207880
This game sounds godfuckingawful. As a fan of Inferno, I think this game is the equivalent of spitting Dante’s corpse and roasting it over an open fire to be served to the masses. Seriously, aren’t there enough third person action games and properties more well suited to this genre than Inferno?
Not that the game will be accurate to the book in any manner but I can’t wait to see how many mouths Satan has grown now. I bet there’s a sweet boss fight waiting at the bottom too.
This is another one I started before, and just now finished. Except that Colony Wars was one of the first games I ever owned on Playstation, so really it’s taken me about 10 years to finish it.
I got Colony Wars way back when it was new to complement my new Dual Analog controller. This was before the days when it was the Dual Shock, and the analog sticks had indents on top rather than rubber domes. I still have this controller because it’s probably my favorite one. The grips on it are larger than the grips on a Dual Shock, much more like the revised Xbox controller’s grips. The controller fits better in a larger, adult pair of hands. Enough about the controller though.
Colony Wars has branching missions, which is rare. With a couple exceptions, you get three tries to finish an act. If you fail all three, you take the bad branch. It’s not game over, it’s an easier set of missions with a more subdued tone, since you’re not good enough to complete the prior set. The League doesn’t make as much progress but you get to keep playing. If you pass two of the three, you get the good branch. The missions are harder and the League does better on their goal towards freedom.
Way back when I got this game the first time, I couldn’t bear to lose a mission and get sent to the bad branch. So after the first couple acts, I quit playing because the game only lets you save between acts and I didn’t have the patience to play the missions over and over until I beat all three. I ended up trading the game in.
A couple years ago I found it and both of its’ sequels at Game Exchange. Overwhelmed with nostalgia, I bought all three. It turns out I’m a much better pilot or grasped the gameplay mechanics better this time around, as I basically breezed through the game until the last set of missions. Once again, my inability to let failure win took over and I put the game down.
This weekend I decided that enough was enough and it’s time to finish it. I didn’t get the best ending but I got the second best ending, which is the ending considered canon in the sequel. There aren’t many Playstation space dogfighting games but even in the face of other games of the genre, Colony Wars holds up. The graphics are good (for the platform) and the missions are fun. Sounds are good, and voice overs are well done. Of particular note, James Earl Jones does the voice of the narrator between acts and gives the somewhat trite storyline justice.
I’ve already started on Colony Wars: Vengeance though god knows how long I’ll take with this one, let alone the third game.
ETA: Reading up on the endings, it looks like mine was considered a bad one. Oh well. It’s an appropriate ending.