Nov/090
Guitar Hero- Left 4 Dead 2 Style!
Here is a little video I made. Nothing fancy, just a ton of zombies, a bloody guitar, and a head banging tune.
Enjoy!
Nov/090
Brutal Legend Impressions
Today I beat Brutal Legend. Was it Brutal? For the most part yes but only at the start (which is featured in the demo) and the end of the game (which I won’t spoil). Everything else in the middle is good, but not ‘brutal’ by any means. Now what I mean by ‘brutal’ (I’ll stop saying that) is that from the E3 and xbox live demo I got the impression that the game was a comical hack and slash with a heavy metal theme. Well as I am sure most gamers know by now, the game has hidden RTS elements.
I enjoy RTS games (Starcraft 2 where are you!), however it’s not hardcore RTS as in build a base, expand the base etc. It’s more like Overlord, as long as you have enough resources (in the case of the game ‘fans’) you can build units. This concept is expanded into something known as “Stage Battles” your crew vs. one of the other factions. The end goal, destroy the other stage! I have to say, stage battles were a lot of fun, even though I was hoping that the game would offer up more hack and slash sections. I could write a lot more about stage battles but watch this clip. Hopefully it will make more sense.
Oh yeah and you can fly (slight spoiler…my fault)
On to visuals, basically they were pretty solid. As Tim Schafer said in some interview, the world resembles and is inspired by the art work of metal albums. Nothing says, “METAL” like a pile of skulls!
Finally the music. I have to say hands down this game has the best soundtrack ever. And yes I am being totally biased as I am a metal head! There were times where I did nothing in the game except sit back and listen to the sound track on my speaker system. Full soundtrack list here.
Now for what I did not like. The game is lacking some serious player communication elements. For one, a mini map would have been nice, half the time I could not find my quests. The only way to figure out where to go in the world was to look up in the sky and find the big ass beam of light. Or open up the map screen. Both felt very disconnected and unhelpful when I needed to get from A to B.
Now this next point is sort of a 50/50 split. I am all for HUDless gameplay. Less bars and meters showing me everything on screen the better. However, in Brutal Legend one thing that is hard to tell is your health. You can take a serious ass kicking before the feedback kicks in. The feedback given to the player is that screen turns red and you hear a loud heart beat. That means your boned. Does it work, yes. But a little more could have been done. Gears of War has the same thing no health bar, however the skull icon at least shows you how much more you can push your limits before you die. Brutal Legend lacks that one missing piece of feedback. But like Gears of War as long as you run and hide from the danger your health comes back. So not totally frustrating but hard to gauge. So I can’t say it’s bad but the health mechanics could have been better.
Overall, I’d recommend trying out Brutal Legend beyond the demo, it’s a good game. If you don’t want to buy it, rent it or borrow it from someone that has it. In the end I am sure like me you’ll have a good time with the game.
Oct/090
In Texas Now.
Well I just moved to Texas and tomorrow is my first day of work at Gearbox Software! Yeah, the same company that just released Borderlands, which I can’t fucking wait to play tomorrow night! It’s out on consoles but waiting for the PC copy to be unlocked on Steam.
Anyways I am going to be doing some level design work, for what project I have no idea and even if did know I can’t share it (yet), the power of NDA’s is to be feared and respected.
Only thing I am bummed about is tonight in Albany is the most brutal concert and I am not there. I had to sell my ticket for the Mastodon show featuring Dethklok, High on Fire and Converge. I am fan of Mastodon but was really looking forward to see Dethklok live. Oh well, I guess I’ll see them whenever the tour for the third album is on.
Oct/090
Borderlands…
Do I need to say anything else? I’ll give it the award for best game ever! Will it dethrone my long time admiration for Deus Ex as the best game ever? In two weeks I’ll find out…plus check back later in two weeks, I’ll have some big news.
Oct/090
Dethklok Rules…
Metalocalyspe is perhaps by far my favorite show on TV. It’s 15 min long, and totally METAL featuring the antics of the heavy metal band, Dethklok. Recently the second album featuring songs from season two was released. Overall it’s pretty intense and brutal, and sounds like a proper album. The first album was great, but seemed to be more gimmicky, then again the show was never really serious.
Anyways the new album features 12 tracks, in order along with the episode it was featured in (wikipedia) :
- “Bloodlines” (from “Dethcarraldo”) – 3:30
- “The Gears” (from “Dethsources”) – 4:21
- “Burn the Earth” (from “Dethvengeance”) – 3:59
- “Laser Cannon Deth Sentence” (from “Dethecution”) – 4:35
- “Black Fire Upon Us” (from “Dethrelease”, AKA “Black Fire Upon Us”) – 5:40
- “Deth Support” (from “The Revengencers”, AKA “Sicklok”) – 2:42
- “The Cyborg Slayers” (Original) – 4:16
- “I Tamper with the Evidence at the Murder Site of Odin” (from “Dethlessons”) – 4:30
- “Murmaider II: The Water God” (Original) – 5:43
- “Comet Song” (from “P.R. Klok”, AKA “P.R. Pickles”) – 3:48
- “Symmetry” (from “Dethfashion”) – 4:31
- “Volcano” (from “Dethdoubles”) – 4:18
So what’s my verdict? Well before I give it, I need to say I am not much a reviewer but to be fair let’s say the highest I can give this album in terms of a numerical ranking should be twelve thus 12/12 being a 100% perfect album and all the songs rock. With that in mind I would give it at 10/12 landing at decent 83%.
All the songs are great, my favorites being “The Gears”, “Laser Cannon Deth Sentence”. and “Comet Song”. Laser Cannon Deth Sentence has some incredible drumming and double bass work from legendary metal drummer Gene Hoglan. I would like to post a youtube clip for the audio of that song, but I can predict that sooner than later that will be taken down from youtube. So if you want to listen to it, go search for it or just get the album.
Anyways back to my review. So the reason I would give it an 83% is that new original song, “The Cyborg Soldiers” was okay but did not feel like a Dethklok song. And Murmaider 2 was not as entertaining as the first track from the first album. It has some of the same guitar riffs but overall at least to me it lost the aggressiveness that “Murmaider” had from the first album.
So if you are a metal head, and fan of Metalocalypse go get this album. And if you are not a fan of Metalocalypse but love metal, you are seriously missing out on some great music. If by chance you don’t like metal… well sadly you are really missing out on some truly amazing musicianship.
Oct/090
Can’t stop the Metal!
The Brutal Legend demo came out recently. Even though I played Brutal Legend at E3 this year, I had to get the demo just experience the awesome and extremely metal world of Brutal Legend again. Plus on my new sound system at home the audio and music was brutal… and yes the pun was intended! Can’t wait for this game to come out later this month, also dubbed “Rocktober” by the folks down at Double Fine. Amidst all the legal bullshit between Double Fine and Activision, the metal won. Metal always wins! The ’system’ should know that.
Just in case you have no idea of what the hell I am talking about check out this trailer:
The world is pretty bad ass and to compliment it there is a soundtrack filled to brim with headbanging tunes from the likes of:
3 Inches of Blood, Iced Earth, Mastodon, and Slayer to name a few. For the full list click here.
Just on a side note, I got into 3 Inches of Blood when I was working on Tony Hawk Proving Grounds a few years ago. Since then I have been a fan, and it’s great to see them appear in video games more often, nice way to get exposure for one’s band. These guys have had their songs in past Tony Hawk games, Saints Row 2, and some other games that I can’t recall right now but I am sure simple web search can answer.
Now enjoy some serious metal from 3 Inches of Blood:
METAL!!!!
Aug/090
Skydiving
A bunch of us from work went skydiving yesterday. It was a great day to do a 14000 ft jump! All of us did a tandem jump with a pro skydiver. Check out my jump below:
My only “oh shit” moment was when I actually left the plane. Before that I was relaxed and as I was falling I had a blast, major adrenaline rush!
I got to do this again sometime.
Aug/090
Shadow Complex
Go get it! As many reviews have said online, Shadow Complex, is hands down one of the best XBLA games out there. For $15 bucks, it delivers quite a punch, with classic Metroid style gameplay with Unreal Engine 3 graphics!
Just in case you have no idea what I am talking about, then check out this video.
So far I have clocked in about five hours of gameplay and still have a lot to explore within the world. In terms of pacing the game is well thought out and has a neat method of teaching new mechanics. For example at the start of the game the player needs to make a high jump, but you can’t. Near by is a backpack, once you get that you can make the jump. Similarly like Metroid, some doors and vents require different weapons to be used in order for them to open. Just like the backpack example, if you can’t open a door of a certain type and there are a lot of them in the area, look around and the weapon you need will be nearby to continue on your quest.
I can go on and on talking about this game but it would be full of spoilers! Thus I will end on the fact that you should go get this game if you haven’t already done so. You won’t be disappointed! Once I am done with the game I may do a proper review if I have time.
Cheers,
Jul/090
Team Fortress 2 Map in the Works.
Ever since I got into level design way back in my high school days I have always used Unreal Tech, from the original Unreal Engine all the way up to Unreal Engine 3. Now it’s time for a change. I enjoy playing Team Fortress 2 and figured that I should start making maps for this game. I think that personally, I have a solid understanding of common level design principles, but believe that there is always room to learn new principles. The only hurdle I see with TF2 mapping are the tools, but that is just figuring out how to do common things with different buttons. Every editor has means to build geometry, apply textures, add in details and setup a lighting scheme. It’s just a matter of reading up on some documentation on how do all that with the prior knowledge of level design I already have from modding and work experience. So long story short, I manged to get the hang of using the Hammer Editor within Source SDK to build my first Team Fortress 2 map!
My first level is going to be an Arena map as the game rules are simple and little additional scripting is required. Once I get the hang of the tools a bit more I will delve in to CTF and perhaps into more complicated modes like Control Points or Payload. Without further delay here are the work in progress screens for my map ARENA_Warhead.
Not much but definitely gives a sense of how the map will look and feel as work towards a an Alpha build that I will share with the Team Fortress 2 community. For more information and updates feel free to check out the following thread at the site TF2 Maps.
Cheers!
Jul/090
Gastronauts
At work a few co-workers and I do something known as “adventure lunch”. An adventure lunch is basically a trip during our lunch break to random restaurants in the Albany area. Some of these trips are good, others ok, and some cause one or two members of the crew become sick. Which is rare but makes the lunches that more adventurous! For a while our crew was thinking about documenting these adventures and now it has finally happened. Thanks to Dave we finally have our own site, http://gastronaut.us/. The most recent adventure has been posted but stop on by more often as we continue to document our weekly adventures. For convenience the link to the site has been added on the right panel. Now go to the site and read up on the tales of Gus’s Hot Dogs.