Steve's Game Blog

Thursday, 7 March 2013

REVIEW: SimCity (PC)

I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

Verdict: Don't Buy

(A proper review will come when I can actually play the game)

Wednesday, 6 March 2013

GUIDE: Natural Selection 2 - Alien Commander Guide

To say that Natural Selection 2 has a steep learning curve is a gross understatement. In this world of hand-holding video games that will nudge you in the right direction if you even think about venturing off path, Natural Selection 2 throws you into the deep end of a diving pool with a cement block tied to your shoes.

Today I’d like to jump right in to one of the most overwhelming features of the game: commanding, and more specifically, a feature that is new even to Natural Selection veterans: Alien commanding. A role previously occupied by gorges, Unknown Worlds have decided to even the playing field this time around and allow Alien players to experience the RTS/FPS experience of a live commander that was previously exclusive to marines.

As a new player, the Aliens themselves, with the melee focused hit-and-run tactics, are daunting enough, let alone the concept of commanding the damn things. This guide is by no means an exhaustive list of legitimate strategies, but rather, a guide designed for players eager to try out the system. Simply put, it’ll probably stop your team from raging at you. Probably.

Playing as the Aliens can be pretty daunting for new players

Just like in my Marine commander guide, your first lesson is to buy a microphone. I'm not saying you can't be an effective commander without one, but having one is a huge advantage.

The Alien commander role is both very similar and distinctly different from the Marine commander role. Let's start by looking at the most major distinction The Alien commander can kind of do his own thing. While the Marine commander relies on his marines to build and repair structures and powernodes, the Alien commander can drop cysts and structures at his own leisure. The role is actually a lot less stressful than the Marine commander, because you don't have a team full of dudes yelling at you to "DROP THE RT IN COMPUTER LABS!" and so I actually recommended that novice commanders try out the Alien commander before the Marine commander.

EARLY GAME:

So now that you've jumped into the hive, you'll find yourself with around 50 starting resources. Your first order of business is to build cysts leading to the nearest two resource towers. A couple of notes on efficiency here: press 'A' in the main build menu to drop cysts without having to manually click them. Also, cysts take a small amount of time to 'spread', so once you've built up to the first tower, instead of sitting around waiting for the cyst to spread so you can drop an RT, built a couple more cysts in the other direction. If your team is asserting dominance of an area, it may be worthwhile to expand to a third resource node, but otherwise, two is fine for now.

Hotkey-building your cysts with the 'A' key saves you a lot of time

Next, you'll want to research an upgrade at your main hive. I have seen the benefits of shade first. I have seen the benefits of crag first. But, I'm going to recommend a shift hive for your first hive for the same reason I recommend fast phase gates for Marines: It's the most versatile. Celerity and adrenaline are incredibly useful for the Skulk, Gorge and Lerk, the main three early-game life forms. Shifts themselves are also extremely versatile - allowing you to quickly and easily supply an area with re-enforcements, as well as help your Gorges to build new hives by giving them almost endless energy. Once the research is complete, build a spur and get celerity. It should help your Skulks assert some early game dominance.

Shift is the most versatile hive, in my opinion.

Now that your first hive upgrade is complete, it's time to look for your second hive. By now, your teammates should have scouted where the main marine base is. What you will want to do is find the hive location that is closest to your main hive, but furthest away from the Marine base. Build cysts up to the hive, drop a shift, and then drop the hive. Urge a member of your team to go Gorge and heal the hive - it will make it build a lot quicker. A lot of people will tell you "don't bother cysting up to the hive, it's just wasted res as the hive generates infestation when completed." I don't like this argument for several reasons. 1.) You can't get the res node in the area until the hive is finished being completed. 2.) You can't but a shift down to help a Gorge build the hive and also re-enforce it if it's attacked.

MID GAME:

If you've played your cards right, by this point you should have four or five resource towers, two hives, and the celerity upgrade. This is when your build order deviates depending on your team's performance. Do you have a resource tower that is continually being taken down? Consider putting a whip or shift there to help defend it. Are your Gorges begging you for adrenaline? Build a spur and upgrade it to an adrenaline spur. Otherwise, upgrade your second hive to a crag hive. I feel that at mid game, when the shotguns start to come out, the crag is infinitely more useful than a shade. Even if you go shade first, I would probably recommended crag as your second hive.

Now that you have two hives, you can start researching ability upgrades for your team. You can research them by clicking on a hive (in this case, click on your first hive, as your second hive is already busy upgrading to a crag hive) and selecting lifeform evolutions Leap is a pretty safe bet for your first upgrade, although if you have some pretty gung-ho Gorges, you might consider bile bomb (either way, you should get bile bomb shortly after leap).

Leap is a pretty solid choice for your first ability upgrade

Once your crag hive is upgraded, drop a shell and upgrade it to carapace. Skulks with celerity and carapace are nothing to scoff at, and when you start getting lerks and fades it will be even better. Drop crags in strategic locations, such as behind your hives and resource towers to help defend them. At this stage, you can start making "forward positions" - drop a shift, a crag, and a whip in an area close to a Marine base to help your team siege it.

At this point, you'll want to look for a third hive. On the smaller maps which only have four possible locations, this can be quite difficult, as it means you'd have to have a pretty big map dominance. On larger maps, encourage your team to try and secure a third hive location. If you can't get it, it's not too big a deal, but it does help if you can. By the late mid-game stage, fades will start to come out. If they are good and they specifically request it, get blink. Also consider getting regeneration by building another shell and upgrading it to a regeneration shell. Similarly, if your lerks are kicking ass, get them spores.

Drifters are a cheap way to help support your troops - they can reveal units in an area and spawn an enzyme cloud.

LATE GAME:

Once you have secured your third hive location, or failing that, once the Onoses start coming out, you've hit the late game stage. If you got the third hive, upgrade it to a shade hive and get silence and cloak for your team. You should also research stomp for your Onoses if you can spare the res. Umbra, xenocide and vortex are very, very situational abilities, and you should only really research them if you are swimming in res. If you couldn't secure it, work on getting some of the remaining abilities that you didn't get before. Defend your bases by dropping crags, shifts, whips and shades. If the enemy is using grenade launchers, try to have a whip in pretty much every location you have a base - whips can fling grenades back at their owners.

Whips can be upgraded with the bombard ability, increasing their rather short default range.

When you have three hives, you can drop Onos eggs. Click on a egg and select "Onos egg." A teammate can then evolve to an Onos for free. At the late game stage, Gorges are incredibly vital to winning the game, as they heal your Onoses and bile bomb structures. However, many players don't like, or want to, play Gorge in the late game (everyone wants to be the hero Onos). Fortunately, you can force them into it! Build eggs at a shift, and upgrade the eggs to Gorge eggs. When the next players spawn, they will spawn as a Gorge instead of a Skulk!

FINISHING THE FIGHT:

Aliens have considerably less siege options than Marines. Just like how the Alien commander is a lot more "hands off" than the Marine commander, he also has to rely on his team a lot more to finish off the enemy team. The best you can do is build forward positions close to the enemy's base, and encourage your team to rush in all together. You can send in drifters and use their enzyme cloud to help, but that's about it. Whips can move but are pretty inefficient at taking down a base. You pretty much have to upgrade them with the bile bomb ability, make some cysts within range of the base (and hope the Marines don't kill them instantly), and then move the whips up and have them bombard the base.

Players and structures can only be affected by 3 healing sources, so any more than 3 crags in an area is just a waste.

Try to hold as many tech locations as possible. Marines need at least two command chairs to build jetpacks and exosuits, so if you can corner them in to a single chair, you can drastically cut their offensive power.

Keep this up and you should eventually be able to starve them out. Thanks for reading guys, and try to remember, Natural Selection 2 is a very fluid game. Every match you play is different, and strategies that worked in some matches may completely fail in others. This guide is meant only as a basis - feel free to try out new ideas and strategies as you become a more confident commander.

Liked this guide? Check out my other Natural Selection 2 guides:

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Sunday, 3 March 2013

NEWS: Sunday Roundup

Now that I'm writing daily news stories for The Escapist, I've decided to collate all of the articles I post during the week right here on Steve's Game Blog! Sorry I'm a day late this week, I er, just forgot to do it yesterday... Here's this week's stories:

Story of the week:

CliffyB: Microtransaction is Not a Dirty Word, EA is Not The Bad Guy

Okay guys, that's it from me for this week! Be sure to subscribe to my twitter for up-to-date news and blog updates, my youtube channel for gaming videos, and check back here every Saturday for a roundup of my Escapist news pieces!

Wednesday, 27 February 2013

REVIEW: Aliens: Colonial Marines (PC)

Aliens: Colonial Marines is a bad game. Don't buy it. I feel the need to preface my review with this statement, lest anyone accidentally interpret something in my review as 'praise' and rush off to buy the game. I wanted this game to be good. I really did. I'm a huge Aliens fan and I have enjoyed Gearbox games in the past. Even 20th Century Fox seemed to be behind this one, saying that the movie is an official part of the Aliens canon, and signing on the voices of Bishop and Hicks from the original movie. Previous Aliens related games, such as 2000's Aliens vs. Predator and 2002's Aliens vs. Predator 2 had proved that the Aliens franchise was the perfect canvas for a first person shooter. I think the fact that this game had so much going for it made the fall hurt even more.

I should have seen the warning signs. They were all right there in front of me. First, the game has been in development for an ungodly amount of time, originally being slated for the PS2 in 2001, then being scrapped and completely remade several times over before being put on indefinite hold. Just when it looked like it would never see the light of day, Gearbox picked it up, dusted it off and released it. Does this story sound familiar? It's pretty much exactly what happened with Duke Nukem Forever, and we all know how that turned out.

I've seen PS2 games that look better than this...

Second, Aliens vs. Predator 2010. You'll notice that I specifically mentioned the 2000 and 2002 versions of Aliens vs. Predator. That's because 2010 saw a new version of the game, from the same publishers behind Aliens: Colonial Marines. It was pretty awful. That's the polite way to put it.

Third, that so-bad-it's-almost-funny-but-not-quite trailer. You know the one. The writing was so cheesy and over the top that the lead writer for the game actually disowned it.

These should have been huge red flags. But, I was naive and optimistic, and went into this game with high expectations. I could almost applaud the ferocious speed at which Aliens: Colonial Marines shattered those expectations.

One of the first lines of spoken dialogue is 'We're not in Kansas anymore,' and it actually goes downhill from there, with cheesy, nonsensical, drivel being uttered by every character at every opportunity. While the lead writer can disown one crappy trailer, he can't disown the entire game. The Aliens movie had so many countless phrases that will forever stick in the minds of fans: 'Game over man!' 'They're coming out of the walls!' 'Get away from her you BITCH!' In Aliens: Colonial Marines? 'Marines don't leave marines behind!' 'Raider 6-5 will wait for you but goddammit son don't make us wait for you!'

MARINES DON'T LEAVE MARINES BEHIND!

On two separate occasions, you are joined by a character who has been 'facehugged,' yet everyone seems oblivious to the consequences of this, and the game shockingly expects the player to be as well. It's kind of excusable when the first guy's chest bursts, but when it happens again and the marines are just as surprised, it's pretty lame. 'How could this happen!' O'Neal, my muscle-bound meatstick of a sidekick laments a comrade's death-by-bursting-chest. 'Well O'Neal,' I want to tell him, 'A facehugger implanted an embryo which burst out of our comrade's chest. Just like what happened earlier in the game.'

The worst part is all the work they put into the character that everyone playing at home knows is going to shoot baby alien worms out of their chest at some point in the near future. Here's a free tip about writing characters: If we know the character is going to die, we won't give a shit about them. The writing is both laughable and terrible, so let's move past that and look at what else is terrible in this game.

The first ten minutes of this game are actually not so terrible. It slowly builds up the tension before revealing the first Alien you have to kill, and follows it up with a section of fast-paced run-and-gun segments that are reminiscent of the Marines desperate attempt to flee the bugs in the Aliens movies. Unfortunately, there are some bugs you can't flee from. Bugs in the game. I'm talking about glitches. There are a lot of them. Aliens clip through walls, allies get stuck on terrain and bosses fail to spawn correctly, just to name a few.

I'd also like to briefly expand on is how terrible the AI for your allies are in this game. They frequently stand right in front of you, fire blindly at walls and deliberately misinform you. 'Area secure,' O'Neal will say, lowering his weapon as three Aliens claw at my face.

O'Neal! Behind you! Ahh, forget it.

After ten minutes, the illusion fades, and you realise how incredibly wonky the weapons and the attacking aliens are. At one point, I shot two Aliens at the same range with the same shotgun. One of them dropped dead instantly. The other took three more shots to kill. The Aliens' wounded and dying animations are so similar that it's hard to tell how much damage you are actually doing. Rather than sneaking up to you, leaping at your face, or running like a wolf on steroids as they did in the movies, the Aliens of Colonial Marines seem to do this kind of slow, non-threatening slither-walk towards you, performing an occasional hilariously animated, hugely telegraphed leap, only to escape, never to attack. They feel like big lumbering apes, rather than the swarming insects that they are associated with.

You have a motion tracker, but it quickly becomes useless as you realise that it only scans aliens that have actually 'spawned', and by the time they have spawned you can physically see them. With your eyes. It gets worse when you realise that a majority of the time, you can just run away. Get to the next checkpoint and all the Aliens chasing you instantly vanish.

I'm not normally a graphics snob but my God. This looks straight out of Doom 3.

But hey, at least at this point we are marines fighting Aliens. About an hour in to the game, it makes the absolutely absurd decision to introduce human enemies. I should have seen it coming from all the chest high-walls scattered around the complex. 'Why would I need all of this cover' I scoffed, 'Aliens can only attack in melee range!' In all of a single cut scene the game degenerates from a story about the most hardened space marines in the galaxy fighting tooth and nail against a race of aliens specifically evolved to be the perfect warriors, to 'call of duty but with pulse rifles'.

You'll fight waves of human opponents in the same way every god damn cover-based FPS works. Enter a room. Enemies enter from the opposite side. Take cover behind chest-high walls. Wait for enemies to pop their heads out of their own cover before shooting them in the face. Go to the next room. Repeat. It's boring, it's lame, and it makes zero sense. 'Hey, there are about a thousand giant acid-spitting face-raping aliens running around on our ship killing all of our buddies. Let's shoot at the marines that came to help us because GOVERNMENT COVER-UP ' How much is Weyland-Yutani paying these mercenaries to make them continue their mission despite the fact that their spaceship is literally falling to pieces around them?

Weren't there supposed to be Aliens in this game?

The game design is so bad it's actually a little entertaining. Let me give you an example. In one level, you are presented with the trademark Aliens flamethrower. It's a 'limited use' weapon, meaning that it only has one clip of ammo, and if you switch to another weapon, you drop it. The next several dozen rooms are filled with ranged human opponents. The game gives you a limited-use short-range weapon to fight long-ranged opponents. I'm assuming that at one point, the rooms had Aliens in them, so the flamethrower made sense. When they cut the Aliens and replaced them with dudes, no-one stopped to ask "should we get rid of this now useless flamethrower?"

The game runs fairly smoothly on my computer, but that's probably due to the fact that it looks like an Xbox 360 launch title, at best. Character and weapon animations suck, you can count the polygons on the character models, and everything has that trademark Unreal engine 'shine' that I thought we had left behind with Bioshock 2.

Oh, here's one. Looks like he's having a bad day. No, that's just the terrible lighting effects.

Ok. Praise. Here we go. I can do this. Despite my statement at the start of this review, I can actually offer praise to a couple things in this game. First: no regenerating health. It actually adds a lot to the tension. Remember that one of the core themes of the Aliens franchise is 'holding out for rescue' and you'll see how having regenerating health could nullify that.

The XP and weapon upgrade system is also pretty cool. You can collect a whole bunch of weapons from the movies, which include 'legendary weapons' such as Ripley's ultimate-badass rifle-duct-taped-to-a-flamethrower. You can then purchase upgrades for your favourite weapons by spending XP points that you earn from completing a level or performing a challenge. It's neat. But not worth buying the game for. Not even close.

The weapon upgrade system is the cherry atop the shit-sundae that is Aliens: Colonial Marines.

The game has a few multiplayer modes. The first is co-op, where up to four people can be disappointed at the same time. The rest are competitive modes, including team death match and survivor. I only have one word to say to the multiplayer. After being punched in the gut with the unbearable singleplayer campaign, I just flat out refused to play the competitive multiplayer. It might be the greatest thing ever. It might justify the price of the game. I don't care. I'm done with you, Aliens: Colonial Marines. Leave me alone. Go play your own multiplayer.

Verdict: Friends don't let friends buy Aliens: Colonial Marines

Saturday, 23 February 2013

NEWS: Saturday Roundup

Now that I'm writing daily news stories for The Escapist, I've decided to collate all of the articles I post during the week right here on Steve's Game Blog! Here's this week's stories:

Story of the week:

China Opens Unofficial League of Legends Restaurant

Wednesday, 20 February 2013

GUIDE: (Video) Diablo III Patch 1.0.7

Hey guys, Patch 1.0.7 recently went live for Diablo III. It brought us PvP in "brawling," as well as a whole bunch of new crafted items. Today, I've made a guide on how to access these new features, enjoy!

TRANSCRIPT:

Hey what up guys, Steve here with a quick video on the two major new features introduced in patch 1.07

First, it's brawling, duelling arena, whatever you wanna call it. Talk to this guy, Nek the Brawler. He's located here in act 1, here in act 2, and here in act 3. He'll teleport you to a new zone, the ruined chapel and you can fight up to your of your friends in free for all combat.

That's about all there is to it. There's no rewards or even point tracking, it's just a way for you to beat up your friends for e-peen. There's no penalty if you die, your gear doesn't get damaged, and you can leave whenever you want.

Moving on, 1.07 also introduced a new crafting material and some new crafted items. You can grab the recipe for the chest plate off squirt, in act 2 for one and a half million gold. Just like the hellfire ring there is a different flavour for each primary stat, dexterity, intelligence strength and vitality.

The recipes for the gloves, shoulders, wristgaurds and amulets have a chance to drop off any elite pack, BUT, they have an extra chance to drop off mini bosses if you have five stacks of nephalam valour. What do I mean by mini bosses? I mean any boss in an act that isn't the act's end boss, so the skeleton king, maghda and ghom for example.

You'll also need to collect a 'demonic essence' to craft each item. Demonic essences drop randomly from elite packs, but they have a pretty high drop rate, so you should find plenty of them just farming as you normally do.

Once you've taught the recipes to your blacksmith, he can craft the items using one demonic essence, two tomes of secrets and 150,000 gold. These items have a chance to roll a primary stat higher that on ones you can find 'in the wild', so if you've already got some pretty good gear and are looking for upgrades, it's a great alternative to staring at the auction house all day. This is the chest piece I crafted, as you can see it's pretty bitchin.

Both the crafted items and the demonic essences are bind on account, meaning you can't buy or sell them on the auction house.

Ok that's it for now, please be sure to tell me if I've made a mistake or if you have some more information to add in the comments section.

Saturday, 16 February 2013

NEWS: Saturday Roundup

Now that I'm writing daily news stories for The Escapist, I've decided to collate all of the articles I post during the week right here on Steve's Game Blog! Here's this week's stories: