Tuesday, 9 August 2011

Mental note: never try a Beta again

Duality1

I'm sort of "meh" on hacker games really, as they all pretty much do the same thing: reduce it to "click a box, watch a meter count down and then you've hacked it". Uplink is entertaining for a while, but hack one machine and you've hacked them all. Thought I'd try Duality - after ten seconds, I have a crazy mouse pattern onscreen and I've completed a level.

I didn't do anything.

Maybe I beat the hidden "Draw a picture with my mouse" level or whatever.

Sunday, 7 August 2011

Tips for Atom Zombie Smasher

I had a few whines about this game, and it seems a lot of other people have had the same problems.

Step forward, useful forum post.

Friday, 5 August 2011

Atom Zombie Smasher Review

 

15 hours in two weeks (less, actually) pretty much tells you all you need to know about Atom Zombie Smasher (£5.99 on Steam).

1) I like it.

2) It has zombies in it.

3) I get to kill millions of zombies.

Atom Zombie Smasher is a cheap and entertaining top down “make the little dots move around and kill other dots” strategy / resource management effort. The pink dots are the zombies. The yellow dots are the people. Save x amount of people before the time runs out with your helicopter or they all get eaten, or finish the level by wiping out the zombies before nightfall.

Atomiczomb1
Click to Enlarge

The campaign gives you a map filled with terrorities (they all look the same though, which is a bit of a wasted opportunity).

Atomiczomb2

Click to Enlarge

Each one has a number attached to it, the higher the number the more zombies you’ll find. As the game progresses, the game will change things up a bit with landscape hazards, tougher zombies, equipment malfunctions, shorter days and so on. You'll also gain XP for your units, unlock better skills and so on. You'll also see certain cities filled with valuable scientists, who will allow you - quite literally - drop some science on the zombie hordes.

Atomzomb3

Click to Enlarge

At the end of each level, you’re given a score and then all the territories owned by humans Vs zombies give points added to the Campaign total. First one past the post wins.

Unfortunately, I have no idea how to win this game or even come close. No matter what you do, the zombie outbreak keeps spilling into new zones. The 1s become 2s, the 2s become 3s, and then you get a 4 and it’s basically game over at that point. A 4 is an outbreak that turns into 1s in adjacent zones at the start of the turn. After a couple of turns, an otherwise level pegging map with no claimed territories will quickly resemble six billion zombies hunting you down with chainsaws. There is NO WAY BACK from this, and the campaign score descends into farce as a quarter length Zombie bar screams towards the finish line leaving you wondering what the Hell just happened.

Another annoyance which doesn’t help: the squads / weapons you get is randomly allocated before you enter a map. You can guarantee that when you need your best assets the most, you’ll be left with 2 smoke bombs, a road barricade and some C4 to wipe out hundreds of zombies in a very tight time limit.

Atomzomb44

Click to Enlarge

Good luck with that.

In fact, many of the 15 hours of gamplay may well be me just sitting there wondering what to do once the Level 4 outbreaks start appearing. Besides swearing loudly, I mean. I think I may well just do that when a real zombie outbreak begins, because the tools you’re given here to do the job certainly don’t cut the mustard. Now the game does let you mod it, and I guess you can probably skew the odds in your favour but I tend to think something is going wrong when you have to resort to that.

I did also consider the possibility that I just might not be very good at this game, but everything was going fine until the Level 4 outbreaks hit. Then it became a random guessing game, the guessing part being how long it'd take to flash up the "Game Over" screen. If you think you can bluff your way through those odds from about halfway through your campaign, or you just want to mash some zombie skulls - and really, who doesn't - then you could do much worse than give it a go.

The music is great, too. But you're not here for that, you're here to mash some zombie skulls. Right?

The Humble Indie Bundle: Some Interesting Stats

http://www.humblebundle.com/

Now that you've clicked the above link, bought some games and donated your money to whoever you like (game devs, EFF, Child's Play and so on) I think this is worth looking at:

Windowsmaclinux
We need to have a little talk, Windows users.

Monday, 11 July 2011

My Fallout New Vegas bug gets a few eyeballs

News to me, but then I gave up caring about referral logs years ago.

That's right kids, I JUST KEEP ON BREAKING THE RULES.

Anyway, Kotaku.com.br covered my experience with a surreal glitch in Fallout New Vegas here.

I also found this in my referral logs:

"Why gamers opinion on FF13 is worthless". Is that you, Yoshinori Kitase? 

The Suicidal Videogame

A few years ago someone made a game called Lose / Lose that deleted system files if you played badly. Here's a title which slowly kills itself every time you lose a life, eventually breaking the game forever.

Wednesday, 24 November 2010

Fallout New Vegas: Ain't this glitch a kick in the head

Fallout New Vegas has a hostage situation in a demolished city called Boulder. As with most Fallout quests, you can side with either of the warring factions, do nothing or save the day.

Naturally, I negotiated a truce, rescued the hostages then proceeded to murder everybody in sight once I got my reward. Silenced sniper rifles and handguns took care of the NCR troops, a hundred or so landmines scattered the Great Khans across the desert and both of the hostages were separated from their heads with the aid of my trusty hunting shotgun.

Then I stole a few hats and got stuck in a wall, but whatever. I returned to the scene of the crime a few days later, only to find this guy making repeated "Whoa" expressions.

IMG_7094

Wondering what he was on about, I set off in a few random directions to get to the bottom of his odd antics.

Hey look, some people in the distance.

IMG_7091

I'd better go see what OH GOD JESUS WHAT THE HELL IS THAT

Welcome to New Vegas

IMG_7093

Just like real life, it seems that killing hostages will bring them back from the dead (still missing the clothes you stole from their mangled corpses). Shooting near the headless zombies of doom makes them run away, complete with decapitated head trailing along the floor behind them.

IMG_7098

Check it out, casually going for a stroll sans head.

IMG_7101

Just when you're getting used to the headless wonders, things get freaky again.

You can go into VATS and aim at their head, as if it's still bolted on to the top of their neck.

IMG_7088

If you fail to shoot, exit VATS and pan back up to where their head once was? Yep, they've grown a new head complete with seethrough eye sockets and menacing zombie walk.

IMG_7090IMG_7089IMG_7087

And the screaming starts again...