Dusty Relics; Operation Flashpoint: Red River

Let's be honest, OpFlash Dragon Rising was a hot mess of a game. 

It had a fantastic concept but between the barefaced lying (claiming 200km^2 of map to explore but you'll never see any of it because of how restrictive the game actually is) and the absolutely terrible gameplay mechanics and practically zero replay/enjoyment value, it kinda shot itself in the foot, so naturally I wasn't expecting much from OpFlash Red River so I avoided that on release as well, however...

In hindsight and since playing it [Red River] now, perhaps I shouldn't have been so hasty to judge it. Operation Flashpoint Red River actually irons out a lot of the issues Dragon Rising had and in gaming terms this is a very good thing; sequels - either direct narrative related ones or simply successive games with the same title - should always improve on the previous title. In this respect Red River definitely delivers a better game than Dragon Rising but may have been victim to Dragon Rising's failure in many ways on it's release; guilty by association. 

Though Red River largely follows basically the same premise as Dragon Rising (DR) the first thing is that it is far more narrative lead than the first game. In DR I found it hard to remember who was even in my squad and even harder to care about what they were doing. Mainly because they were so unbelievably shit at everything. I also didn't care about the other teams or the command, the whole game you feel totally detached from it. It's not immersive at all. 

This was much improved in Red River (RR) with a very clearly defined virtual military structure and where you and your squad fit into it. From the outset you are left with no illusions about who you are supposed to be and what your goals are. This is all made abundantly clear by straight-talking no bullshit NPC Staff Sergeant Damien Knox who, besides the actual gameplay and missions, is a hugely integral part of what RR is and what makes it different to DR.

Sgt Knox is important because he is the key piece of the jigsaw that was missing from DR in many ways - he is what ties you the player to the action in the game and makes you feel a part of it. When he speaks in game you don't feel like he'a talking at your character you feel like he's talking to you and you should be shouting "YES STAFF SERGEANT!" at your TV and I swear if you play the game start to finish Sgt Knox's 10 rules will forever be emblazoned on your memory and you will carry them into battle in other shooting games as well. I know I do when I play Battlefield 4. 

In terms of the narrative of the game it follows the usual military campaign format, just the same as DR and indeed most others, each mission is essentially A to B kill the bad guys and  though slightly more linear than DR the missions feel much better thanks to this structure. 

The primary difference in RR is the battle arenas; in DR they claimed you had 'infinite possibilities' and a completely open approach to firefights when in reality you did not - the game restricts you if you start trying to test its "infinite possibilities" - but in RR no empty promises exist. The battle areas are still large and there are still many ways to approach each objective within these areas but the game is much more structured and because of this it each mission plays much more smoothly; it's better to have actual boundaries in a game like this than the illusion of freedom.

Another change from DR is the your squad load-out which previously didn't exist. You now have the option to play any one of the four squad members and chose what you want to use in battle; unlocking different weapons, attachments and equipment as you level up within that particular class. This was a real breath of fresh air from DR which was very restrictive in that manner as well, not allowing a player to chose their load-out at all - or what their squad uses.

So on the face of it Red River is a vast improvement over Dragon Rising but the key sticking point of DR was it's gameplay, which was clunky and frustrating at the best of times. The squad you were lumbered with were worse than useless in combat which turned and already frustrating game into a fricken nightmare. So did RR offer any better?

Yes!! I am pleased to say. First up your squad seem to have been improved in terms of AI, they actually take cover and use things around them to not get shot - like hiding behind a wall instead of standing in the open which was a constant problem in DR. They put enemies down as well so if you are reloading or sighting for an artillery strike you can, to an extent, rely on them to watch your back. Close combat is still extremely dangerous in RR however, so run your squad into close quarters and you'll lose men very quickly; with a single enemy soldier being able to wipe the lot of you out - this is much more of a MilSim bridge game than a casual shooter remember.

The orders interface has also been much improved over the messy system of DR though it is not without it's flaws and you'll need to familiarise yourself with it if you want to issue orders quickly and accurately but on the whole it works far better than the DR one. 

The main reason is that the orders have been condensed and simplified which was a good move, we didn't need 4 different formations for start...  To be honest though you'll likely only ever find yourself using about 4 of the orders frequently anyway and all of those are easy to get to with the new RR orders interface. 

You can now squad up with up-to three friends online, each acting as a member of your squad. Though in my honest opinion this was a good though short-lived option and the addition of being able to 2P split-screen would have been better, with each of you controlling yourself and one AI squad member much like the Conflict series did back on PS2. But if you do manage to find someone who still has this game online it can be a lot of fun with a mic.

The game also retains the realism from DR which means that pretty much any stray bullet can kill you instantly so this is still a good game for those who are looking for some realism in console FPS gaming instead of just sticking Call of Duty or Battlefield on 'Hard' and as far as I'm concerned console FPS gaming needs more of this kind of game. PC users obviously have things like ARMA (somewhat of a spiritual successor to OpFlash) but console gamers are left with very little to choose from if they want a decent squad-based realistic shooter. 

It certainly feels to me like Red River is the game Dragon Rising was trying to be but I fear the damage was done with Dragon Rising as still, 4 years after it's release, there is no word of any sort of sequel or continuation of the Operation Flashpoint series and Red River though receiving generally better reviews initially than Dragon Rising was still considered a less than exceptional game sadly.

The one thing you have to do with some older titles is look past the flaws and see what's good about the game. 

Yes, the graphics aren't as sharp as Battlefield 4 or the latest Call of Duty but y'know what? This game is nearly 5 years old, you can't compare them. Yes it might not play as fast as a modern casual shooter but this is supposed to be somewhat of a bridge between complete casual shooter and ultra accurate MilSim, so it's if you can't switch weapon in 0.5 seconds it's because you can't do that in real life either, these games are much more about planning ahead than having fast reactions because that's what you would have to do in a real firefight.

To strike this kind of balance somewhere between ARMA and more casual shooters like Call of Duty or Battlefield s a tough shout and Codemasters had their work cut out. 

However, it's the opinion of this Gamer than Red River needs more recognition than it got or is getting now for it's contribution to the console FPS scene. It's easy to poke holes in games and cast them away without actually taking any of the good things they did into account - Medal of Honor Warfighter was also a victim of this to some extent. The key to moving forward in gaming is to take the good things and build on them and that's what Red River did, sure it wasn't perfect, no game ever is but Codemasters build on the good things from Dragon Rising and produced a game that was superior to its predecessor in almost every way. Now that's something which doesn't often happen these days in gaming let's be honest; when the last time you heard someone say "oh yes the successor was much better than it's predecessor", sequels now are usually shameless cash-cows that need day 1 patches but Red River wasn't one of those.

In this respect Red River is still a game worth playing, it is definitely a dusty relic, dustier than some others of its time maybe but if you're serious about your gaming experiences and even improving gaming yourself - as now more than ever developers are looking more and more to the gamer for our opinions and suggestions; hell, DICE even made a knife for Battlefield 4 that honours the Battlefield Friends parody series on YouTube - then you need to get out there and get in the action a bit more.

So expand your horizons as a gamer; go out and find a copy of Operation Flashpoint Red River and give it a go, persevere with it, get used to it, play it, have fun with it and learn something new with it, it deserves more credit than it gets and I would argue that it deserves a successor on console too.

~

Thanks for reading.

It doesn't matter what you use, only that you game. 

#GamersUnite

Dusty Relics: Splintered Convictions

It's been 5 years since Splinter Cell: Conviction came out and it certainly seemed to be the standard by which the next Splinter Cell game was made, as anyone who's played Blacklist and Conviction will tell you; Blacklist leans heavily on Conviction for it's gameplay style, none the worse for that either. So how does this title stand up now?

To say that ‘Conviction’ pushes the boundaries of what Splinter Cell is, or perhaps was, would be an understatement. As it really doesn’t conform to the previous Splinter Cell principles, less even than Double Agent did back in 2006, I think that this rebellion was important for SC and we likely wouldn't have seen Blacklist if Conviction didn't do the things it did. The story was very different,  it became personal to Sam and the game reflects this in its rawness. Sam is no longer just a Third Echelon lapdog, he is doing this for himself. This makes the game more aggressive as a whole; the emphasis is on revenge so the gameplay makes up for this by introducing an enhanced combat interface, because in all honesty in the other games when the bullets began to fly, Sam sucked balls in combat.

An area that is somewhat of an afterthought in the other games and only began to see prevalence in DA is the narrative but in this game the story line is strong. Sam is on the trail of whoever murdered his daughter, he is in it for himself, for closure. As the story progresses there are a number of twists and turns that lead Sam down differing paths. These paths lead him to different places which manifest as the missions. This isn't, or rather doesn't feel like, an A to B do this mission do that mission kind of affair like previous titles and to be honest even feels more organic than Blacklist as well.

The premise of the story is much more memorable in this Splinter Cell, as in the first games the story was really only something to hold the missions together but realistically most people who played the first three, or even BL, couldn’t tell you a quarter of the story, that’s just the way it was. None the worse for it, but certainly not wielding the epic prowess of games such as MGS for weaving a colourful and involving story line. 

In Conviction the writers have really tried to developed Sam’s character as being more than the wise-cracking solo operative who makes light work and conversation of killing. In this we see Sam as a father too, in a short interlude in the game you actually play Sam in his own house and in another part of the game you are transported back to when Sam served in the first Gulf War. This gives the astute player an insight into Sam as a person, maybe this is an endeavor to make his cause seem more worthwhile. Personally I think it is a breath of fresh air from the stale old concepts of mission after mission tied loosely together with what was in all honesty, some pretty watery US vs Middle Eastern/Russian Bad Guys narratives, thanks Blacklist for taking us back to that by the way...

As far as gameplay mechanics in modernity this game certainly does well in ditching the old light meter and sound meter that was used in the first three. Now there is a simple  use of monochrome to indicate your visibility to the enemy which is a nice touch that leaves the HUD free from clutter. The enemy AI seems to have improved as well, don’t be surprised if you can’t get away with standing right in front of a guard without him seeing you like you could in the other games, if you move, he will most likely spot you. Bust lights and the enemy will instantly know something is up and will be on the lookout. Get spotted and they will hone in on your last know position to clear that area and make sure you are not there. This element of play makes setting traps and flanking much simpler and more satisfying as Sam is now much more adept in combat. Something that now almost seems commonplace when you play Blacklist but this really was ground breaking for Splinter Cell when Conviction was released.

The gameplay is still very fluid, even by today's standards, almost everything is done with the ‘A’ button, from opening doors, to climbing and interacting with things. This makes the gameplay much quicker than its predecessors. However, it can also be a little irritating when you want to pick up a weapon next to a door for instance; the interface sometimes gets confused and will usually lead to you having to move Sam around a lot until you are in a position where it will allow you to select the weapon/door. Something which seems to have been addressed in Blacklist.

The cover system is smooth as well, you simply move near a corner or surface and hold the left trigger to tuck up against it. This new cover interface is probably one of your best assets as it allows you to ‘slip’ between cover positions as well, you can also shoot and interact from cover which is excellent if you want to down an unsuspecting guard as he walks through a doorway straight into Sam’s loving arms. Again, little things that we overlook in more recent titles started in titles like this and others like it and I tell you, you'd be lost without these systems now in games like Splinter Cell.

Conviction also introduced the 'mark and execute' option that allows you to ‘tag’ enemies and then hit ‘Y’ to execute the marks with an almost 100% kill-rate guaranteed. Traps and other things can be marked up too for added effect and you have to earn your marks by performing hand-to-hand take downs and some weapons have more marks available than others, it’s a nice touch that adds to gameplay though at times it does feel too OP, even in Blacklist.

Sam has much improved in combat giving you the option to literally shoot your way through a mission if you like and in some parts of the game a shoot-out is unavoidable. I think this is helped by the arsenal that is now available to Sam. Gone are the days of the old silenced assault rifle, which in all honesty was only good for the launcher attachment. Sam can now choose from quite a reasonable selection of collectible and up-gradable weapons including the not so quiet Desert Eagle and AK-47, though for some reason they have left the knife out of the weapon selections which is a shame and probably the most satisfying part of Chaos Theory but it did return in Blacklist which I was pleased to see. The upgrade options add another level to gameplay as the upgrade points are earned through fulfilling optional challenges. Sam is now quite good at close quarter combat although the moves can feel weak and you can’t interrogate guards to find out tasty bits of info like you once could, though they have tried to make up for this with a bigger interrogation mini game that allows you to bash your victims head off of various items that are around but this can feel quite basic if truth be told and a little samey as the first interrogation in the bathroom is the best one, clearly the one the most thought went into.

The new game has retained some of the gadgets of the first games including the fibre-optic camera for peeking under doors and the sticky camera which you can throw at any surface and lure unsuspecting guards to their doom with silly music. Conviction has ditched the night vision in aid of ultra-sonic vision, that can literally see through walls and shows up enemies before even you can see them, this can also be used in conjunction with the new mark and execute interface.

The game however, does not retain the lock picking mini games which is a huge shame in my opinion as it was always fun to come up against a door and have options other than to open it or bash it down. Gone too are the hacking mini games. I think this was a bit of a bad move on the part of the game designers as this added depth to the game play and sometimes ‘Conviction’ can feel quite linear. 

Two player returns in Conviction after the hiatus of Double Agent, which is nice to see and has some added modes as well as story mode, which also includes an adversarial mode, finally. All the perks that exist in Sam’s story exist in the two player modes as well so other than the missions differing, nothing is lost by playing with a friend. Something which was mirrored in Blacklist as well with a dedicated 2 player story, however I would still rate Convictions 2P mode over Blacklists for both length, narrative and enjoyment, Blacklist's was just over far too soon and lacked any kind of substance. Which was a shame because 2P stealth has to one of the most enjoyable 2P split screen experiences.

Conviction can feel quite linear at times and if your gonna sit down and play it beginning to end in one sitting you’ll find it relatively short but it still stands up even today as a great Splinter Cell game that I would highly recommend if you haven't already played it - it's a defining title in the Splinter Cell series and thoroughly set the scene and pace for Blacklist which, In my humble opinion, wasn't actually as strong as Conviction as a game - I found Conviction far more memorable despite playing Blacklist more recently and more frequently. What's more important is that Conviction is enjoyable to play because of the options it gives you in approaching how you're going to tackle a mission; full stealth, run and gun, or a bit of both. Games need more of this variety.

In many ways this, as much as Chaos Theory, is a piece of definitive Splinter Cell history that no fan should go without playing. 
Even now, five years later.

~

Thanks for reading. 

It doesn't matter what you use, only that you game. 

#GamersUnite
~

Also, take a look at this petition if you're a Battlefield 4 player;
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/DLCguns-BF4

Is it time the K/D ratio Died?

With many FPS games putting more emphasis on dynamic team based gameplay and adding different elements into play, like vehicles and a multitude of different team game modes, what does the very individual kills to deaths ratio really tell us about a player and is it even useful anymore?

Does it tell us how a person works in a team? Does it tell us if they are good at fulfilling different roles? Does it tell us how skilled they are? Does it tell us of they are the sort of player we'd want in a team objective lead game? Well no, it doesn't. It doesn't tell us anything other than the ratio of how many kills they've got per death; an arbitrary numeric value. 

Yet many people put a great deal of weight on this single statistic as if it were the be-all and end-all of FPS gaming.

As FPS gaming moves forward let's take a look at one popular title that largely encompasses everything that is good about casual FPS gaming; Battlefield 4. It's ideal for this discussion as it offers good variety in terms of variety and team play. From dynamic areas which offer either tight urban environments or wide open spaces or sometimes a combination of the two in a single arena, to having the option to go via land, sea or air to take the fight to the opposing team; coupled with a large, varied and balanced weapon roster and wide player base, Battlefield 4 is as good a place as any to test whether the K/D really deserves such a prominent place in FPS gaming and if it's even still worth having at the forefront of player statistics.

So where does the kills to deaths ratio fit in when considering the above description? If we look at the BattleLog that accompanies Battlefield 4, which is essentially a player profile, one thing we see almost immediately is a player's K/D ratio. Well, a player with a 1.00+ K/D must be pretty good right? That means they've at least got as many kills as deaths. Players with K/D of 2.00+ must be even better with twice as many kills as deaths...

Because in Battlefield 4 one of its key dynamics is vehicular gameplay. This includes things like attack boats, fast jets, attack helicopters and battle tanks. Let me tell you, it's not especially hard to go an entire round, rack up 30+ kills while only dying 5 or less times (I've even seen 125 kills 0 deaths). In realism it wouldn't be hard for a player to specialise in vehicular gameplay like this, focusing their attention on attack vehicles, and maintain an overall K/D of 4.00 or even 5.00+. Which of course looks amazing on the face of your player profile and certainly makes you look much better than someone sporting a 0.87 K/D.

However, players like this might not always be the best team players. I've seen it a number of times - so have you no doubt - they dominate the map but all they are doing is polishing their K/D, most of the time they aren't actually supporting their team or capturing objectives. 

Wouldn't you rather have someone who's a blinding support player, who heals, repairs, supports and re-supplies their team mates in battle and watches their backs with a K/D of 0.87 over someone with a K/D of 4.00 who just goes of and does their own thing for the whole game leaving their team behind?

It's high time the FPS put less emphasis on K/D and more on team play because that's where it's at right now. The best maps aren't free-for-all games, the best maps are team based objective games when you roll with your team and feel good that you've got someone watching your back.

But I play team objectives and no one watches my back, how come?

Because everyone is more worried about their K/D than supporting their team mates. It just isn't considered "good" to take a bullet for you team mate so they can get the objective and your team can win but it is good to have a K/D of 2.00+ regardless of anything else. If you think this is backwards well, sadly it seems, you along with me are in the minority.

So why is the move into a more cooperative style of FPS gameplay important? 

Primarily because it has the chance to change the face of FPS gaming in a big way and change the way people play and possibly even act in other areas on and offline in a positive manner. We could all do with being more cooperative I think you'll agree. What better place to start than your favourite FPS? 

There are lots of things that FPS games still do to emphasize the K/D and selfish gameplay either directly or indirectly that need to be altered somehow. 



Here are just a few of them and some beneficial alternatives;

Kill streak rewards - 

These emphasize individual player kills not a team effort. Fine in things like Free-for-all and maybe TDM but not so much in team based games. Simply removing things like kill streak rewards from team games would make people focus more on playing as a team while not actually effecting individual play. Alternatives could be squad kill rewards, where instead of individuals having to maintain X kills over Y time to maintain a 'streak', the entire squad would be included in the 'streak' allowing one squad/team member to initiate the streak, the rest could then continue it and everyone would have the potential to benefit.

Revives - 

Revives are good but sadly they get misused a lot. Particularly in Battlefield as it rewards a player for the initial revive no matter if the 'revivee' survives or not. What happens inevitably is revive spamming that ends up in a string of revive instant-deaths for the revivees because the emphasis is on the revive NOT on whether the friendly player actually survives. One solution is to move the scoring so it only rewards the revive after the person who has been revived has survived for X amount of time.

X kills with X gun - 

Again this emphasizes individual player kills and largely locks down their play to a purely selfish end when engaging in team games; they're likely to ignore everything else and just go for their kills to unlock whatever reward, no necessarily concentrating on helping their team capture objectives or flags or whatever. Something that perhaps could be removed from team objective games and left only for things like TDM and Free-For-All game modes.

K/D ratios - 

These simply shouldn't be the key statistic in FPS anymore. This is fairly easy to solve in-game by a simple reshuffle of the scoreboards. Instead of reading something like Kills, Assists, Deaths, Round Score. Removing all but the Round Score and Assists column would help players to concentrate more on team play. Saving the kills/deaths statistics for other out-of-game screens, if at all. Other information could replace the kills/deaths columns as well, such as objectives captured, flags captured/returned or squad assists, etc..

Team based objectives - 

There should be a stronger reward structure around team play over individual play and more emphasis on helping out your team rather than going it alone in team based games. For instance, team/squad member assists, driver spawns/assists, team revives and heals, team resupplies and saving team members should all be highly rewarded to encourage team cooperation in-game.

Free-for-all and TDM game modes - 

This where the "X kills with X gun" type rewards should be restricted to. This will save team based objective lead games from people who are just acting alone and not helping their team. If you wanna unlock that thing you want and you need X kills, get it done in free-for-all or TDM.

There could possibly be things like a "squad proximity award" that rewards all players within a squad/team if no one in that squad/team goes more than 50m away from any other member - basically a reward for sticking together. Perhaps on top of this, squad/team assists should have a multiplier system attached to it so it stacks with the squad proximity award for even better rewards or more points for everyone in the squad/team for staying together and helping each other out. That way the entire squad/team can benefit from it not just individual players.

Final scoreboards could also reflect the best squad/team as well as the best player score wise. In this the incentive will be to have the best squad/team and best players in that squad/team, balancing out both individual and team play and aimed at removing the completely individual "play for stats" mentality.

I'm not talking about altering the way the FPS plays at all, if you want it be lone wolf that's up to you of course and you wouldn't be penalized in any way for that but the potential rewards would simply be greater for working as a team when playing team objective games. 

The side effect of this team focused play and move away from the obsession with K/D ratios would also be dedicated lone-wolf servers that allow people to operate singularly and add a new dynamic to online play where people could concentrate on more dedicated and tactical PvP game-modes if they didn't wish to play on team based servers. This would keep the two, team games and free-for-all type games, well separated as well. It might also dissuade team killers and other selfish players from entering into team games, as with new scoring structures, they wouldn't just screw over other players, they would screw themselves over as well in terms of round scoring and rewards. Binning the individualistic K/D ratios from in-game screens and moving into more team focused play structures and scoring benefits all parties and play-styles.    

So is it time the K/D ratio died? 

If we want to move forward in FPS gaming, 

then yes, yes it is.

~

Thanks for reading. 

It doesn't matter what you use, only that you game. 

#GamersUnite
~

Also, take a look at this petition if you're a BF4 player;
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/DLCguns-BF4

DLC, Online Content, Micro-transactions and Sloppy Development.

When I wander down to a high-street game retailer for my latest installment of my favourite game I am constantly disappointed by the longevity and development of modern games. Everything is geared for online multiplayer and everything else is DLC, while other key features are forgotten; like replay value and production quality.

The big dogs of game development such as Ubisoft, EA etc, never seem to bother producing a decent game any more. Instead they prefer to just cash in on the multiplayer, DLC, micro-transactions and other online elements. This kind of economic model was summed up by THQ Vice President Danny Bilson quite well when he said; 

“Like any game, if you have a great creative core to it, you just keep exploiting that core.” 

Note the wording - "exploiting that core", now exploit has two very distinct meanings and this is a clever piece of double-meaning if I've ever seen one. He's being absolutely honest of course, the game industry is exploiting things; both the games concepts and the gamers. What's worse is that this thinking promotes repetitive rehashing and regurgitation of the same ideas no matter how stale they get, while not actually creating anything new - as long as you keep  handing over your cash they don't give a crap. They're getting paid and that's all that matters. 

Plainly speaking, this kind of business model detracts from the game market and our enjoyment. 

When I spend £40 on a new game I want forty pounds-worth of enjoyment. I don’t want 5 hours of rehashed last-generation graphics, story-line (if I'm lucky) and gameplay. I want new, I want gleaming; I want my damn money’s worth. Considering I’m asking this of multi-million pound game developers, I don’t think I’m asking too much of them to make a game worth the price. 

Considering today’s money tight times, £40 is enough to get you a good weeks shopping for two people, a years subscription to a gaming magazine, it could pay for insurance for your console, or buy ONE new game. So as you can see, that one new game needs to be worth  the money it doesn't it? 

If we backtrack quite a bit to the Metal Gear Solid series, we are given a shining example of what a well produced game series can achieve. MGS 2 was supposed to come out with the release of the PS2. Did it? No, because they held it back to iron out game flaws and make it better. Subsequently it was more than worth the wait. MGS 3 didn’t just “cash in” on the previous titles, it offered something new and exciting and probably the most immersive MGS experience to date, including MGS 5. What's the main gripe from the fans with regard to MGS 5 you might wonder? Online features and the fact that MGS 4 effectively finished the series neatly - many serious fans argue that MGS was simply resurrected for a fifth title to make money, not as a service to the fans and continuation of the narrative, I wouldn't necessarily disagree with the view point as a long standing MGS fan myself. 

When MGS 3 came out in 2004 (this game is older than the average CoD player it would seem) the fans realised that they didn’t just rehash MGS 2 and cash in on previous dynamics and ideas. They also didn’t spend all their time creating DLC and endless online padding and multiplayer. It was built up from scratch with new characters and a new engrossing story line. MGS 3 broke cover late but it was worth the wait. 

How many times have recent games been hyped beyond reason and we, the gamers, were promised the world in a new game and then it turned out to be substandard at best - Brink, Watch Dogs, BF Hardline... even CoD Black Ops 3 is already getting a bad rap because many think it's just AW re-branded. This would be hard to argue with considering CoD is something of a euphemism for 'over-hyped and undeveloped'. 

Take the ever failing (its fans, not its profit margins) game series we see stacked up on the shelves just waiting to disappoint us. Assasin's Creed after the orginal and AC2 has steadily gone down hill, some might regard Brotherhood as the last good one but realistically that was just AC2.1. FarCry blew us away with the third installment and what of 4? Again, it wasn't FarCry 4 it was FarCry 3.1.  It's like they forgot what moves a game away from being just another generic title that ends up in the second hand bargain bin after 2 months.Titles like MGS 3, Skyrim, Oblivion, Dead Island still have appeal and replay value, they're aren't just throw-away games that you only play until the latest one is released.   

Online play is a great experience, it’s fun and exciting and it’s a big market and community but don’t sacrifice offline game content and our money for it. All that achieves is to alienate and irritate buyers who when they spend £40 expect a full game experience, not half developed rehash with the rest as online multiplayer and DLC (day-1 patches and DLC, y'all know what I'm talking about) after all, shouldn't online content be additional not instead of offline content? 

If developers insist on producing games primarily for online play then halve the shelf price, because fundamentally you are only getting half the game. Half the game? Yes. Something that takes less than 6 hours to complete and the rest is just multiplayer is half a game, especially when you are playing something that has simply been re-branded for the fifth time. What are we paying for exactly? 

Now I'm not saying online multiplayer is short-lived, hell I've put 100+ hours into Battlefield 4 online (only slightly less time than I've put into Dragon's Dogma offline) but what I'm talking about is on-disc content. Which, for BF4, is about an evening's play tops. I'm glad I got it second-hand for less than a tenner, I can tell you.

The games industry just like any consumer based industry, is very competitive, with producers and developers fighting for contracts and ideas.
Surely taking longer to produce one ground-breaking game that will secure a solid and long lived fanbase, and therefore income base, is better than producing three or four half-baked offerings on time. Quality over quantity….right? If we cast our minds back to before the onset of DLC and online multiplayer in gaming we notice that games were generally more complete (equally you had your dead fish, but you know what I mean). Because content that is now DLC was already included and because online multiplayer hadn’t taken off in a huge way developers spent more time actually developing the game experience for the players. 

DLC is a great tool for adding additional content to a game, remember having to try and find the expansions in the shops before you could download them straight to your console/PC? 

Many developers and producers claim these techniques as "money saving" and "cost cutting". Considering a non-special edition game sells for £35-40 new on average and you might sell 2 million copies, plus years of second hand and new sales revenue it all makes a steady stream of capital for that one title and no one is just running one title - you do the math. 

Then they tell us that they are selling us the best they can offer. 

They're not quite fleecing us for cash but it's not far off let's be honest. They just keep driving the cash cow down our high streets and filling the shelves with what comes out of the back end of that cow and the biggest problem? 

We just keep eating it up.

~

Thanks for reading. 

It doesn't matter what you use, only that you game. 

#GamersUnite

Dusty Relics: They Don't Make 'em Like This Anymore

More than 10 years ago a game broke cover, snarling and blood-thirsty, foaming at the mouth, a true monster of a game. It delivered excellent graphics, terrifying and gripping gameplay and a solid and interesting story-line. This was no ordinary first person horror shooter - this was DOOM 3. 

Even by today’s standards Doom 3 still delivers quite a punch. Maybe the graphics are showing their age but even then, they're not all that terrible. Doom still doesn't feel like any other game of its type (even now). It was and still is a pace-setter for the survival horror FPS. If you want to make a wicked scary game that keeps you riveted from the get-go, look no further than Doom for inspiration.

So what is it about this beast that we all love so much? Like a zombie lurching from the shadows; it's all in the delivery and presentation. Firstly the attention to detail in Doom is what really pulls you into the twisted world of Mars City where the game is set. You arrive on Mars as a Marine assigned to a security detail at a big research lab. It's all pretty standard and normal until you are tasked to find a missing scientist. Everyone knows what’s going to happen at this juncture, but somehow, in the way Doom handles this typically token ‘from normality to horror’ section, it doesn’t detract from the suspense. This transitional period in the beginning of the game is very smooth and well written and even if you didn’t know what Doom was, you would leave this section with an overbearing feeling that something isn’t right, which in itself is testament to the production value of the game. It draws you in nicely as things go from normal, to weird, to worse. From then on you descend into a terrifying world where every movement on the game makes you nervous and every sound in your living room makes you jump.

If there is one thing Doom excels in, it's suspense and the creation of a foreboding environment. As you play you become more and more uneasy, every new unopened door fills you with dread at what may lie behind it. The threat of every corner and every shadow being home to some grim monster waiting to jump out on you but it’s not an endless trail of destruction either, there are quiet spells; it keeps you guessing. You never know what’s coming and this holds you on a knife edge for the whole ride, something which few games can accomplish so well. Many games of this genre end up inadvertently de-sensitising the player to the action, which removes the feeling of suspense and horror that the game survives on. By the end of the game the player are left with a sense of achievement, but rarely are they left with a sense of relief that the rip-roaring ride is over, this is not the case with Doom.   

What's more is that Doom doesn't rely on just blood and gore to create the horror feel like so many others. In fact, if you took the blood out it would still be as grim. It uses simple but cleverly presented devices to horrify your little gaming world, like darkness, and flickering lights which obscure things: Did I see that? Was there something there? It creates a sense of closeness and claustrophobia, like you have no escape routes and no place to hide. It makes you choose between holding the flashlight to illuminate those dark corridors or holding a weapon to murder anything that might be in them. That choice alone keeps you on the edge of your seat; do I stumble through the darkness clutching my shotgun or light the way and go unarmed?

Doom also uses a slightly different story device, its not a zombie outbreak or some experiment gone wrong, it's not even just demons and monsters based on a story book (well, it is kinda) it's Hell in all it's horrific glory. Mars City has become something of a staging point for the opening of Hell itself. This hits on two levels. Firstly it's a great story device as almost everyone is familiar with the concept of hell, every culture has its version. Hell is huge, its' big, it's unstoppable, it is pure and unadulterated evil. Secondly, there might be an antidote to a zombie outbreak or experiment gone wrong, a quick fix, but there is no end to Hell itself. Even at the conclusion of the game the gateway to Hell is only sealed, it's still there, the door is just closed.. for the time being. 

Progression in the game is linear as one might expect, however Doom 3 doesn’t feel linear, which is a smart trick and one that many game production teams fall short of time after time; many games that are not linear by design also fall foul of this and end up becoming very linear, Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption is a good example of this. 

It is difficult to pin down exactly what Doom does differently because it is quite unique in its style, one of the linear busting devices are the PDAs that the player finds; instead of just finding a key cards or codes written somewhere to move forward, you must find PDAs which belonged to people in Mars City. On the PDA there can be useful information like codes to equipment lockers and door access. In addition there are often data files that contain the back story to the game, like voice diaries from the ex-owner of the PDA explaining the 'strange noises' or 'odd behaviour of people' they had witnessed. This adds a different dimension to the play and depth to the game which most games of this type seem to lack. The only respite you get from the suspense is listening to PDA messages and reading journals and emails about the horror that's developing. It doesn't let you escape from the story once you’re in it; it keeps you pinned down both in horror suspense and back story.

Doom 3 creates this foreboding feeling like no other has; even the Resident Evil series doesn't deliver this level of atmosphere, though it arguably delivers a far better story. F.E.A.R gets close to the kind of atmosphere created by Doom, but no cigar. Too many horror games just rely on trying to disgust the player with as much blood, guts and shooting monsters as they can code in, Doom doesn't do this. It plays with your senses and your feelings of loneliness and fear, which only works because the story and environment are so well delivered. Sure the monsters are scary looking, but they are only as scary as they are because of the atmosphere of the game; it closes you in by forcing you into tight and dark areas and never lets you feel safe, when it does allow you to feel safe it always shatters the illusion, which means you never trust safety when you find it.

In this respect Doom is the complete horror game package but it doesn't stop there; it's also wildly enjoyable to play. Especially with a friend for a wingman to watch your back while you're playing, taking it turns to get your ass handed to you by demonic monsters as you navigate the dark and grizzly world of Doom. The weapons offered by the game are fun as well, ranging from pad-mashingly ineffective to blindingly awesome. From the generic FPS staple; the hand gun, which any frequent FPS player will know is a gun shaped paperweight most of the time let alone when facing zombies, or worse, to the infamous BFG9000 which will destroy everything in a room; it kinda wouldn't be Doom without it. Even the humble flashlight can be used to batter the odd zombie to death, which is guaranteed to fill you with satisfaction. They even left in the option to use no weapons at all and go toe-to-toe with the demons brandishing only a pair of muscular arms, it’s a reasonably effective and amusing way to deal with zombies but try your luck with anything more hardcore and your ass will be thoroughly handed to you. The combat is so enjoyable because all the action dynamics are smooth and responsive, even on the console port. You won't get the response time of a mouse on a console but dial the sensitivity up to 10 and you should be able to swing round and give that demon scum a face full of lead; it is in Doom’s nature to make sure attacks are as unexpected as possible.

It's great the Doom 3 got the HD upgrade some years ago because this game really deserves not to be forgotten, because once you've played it, you never forget it. 

It delivers horror suspense like no other has, the monsters are truly scary and more so by implementation rather than design. Everything Doom does is testament to the quality for the game production and for this reason it would be amazing to see a remake on the PS4 or Xbox One. So it's old now, so it's still essentially A to B shoot the bad guys, that’s all CoD is after all and so what? If it can still scare your socks off with monsters that can rip your face off after nearly 10 years and remembering that many games are ancient history after just five years, you could do much worse than pick up a copy of Doom 3 whether on the original PC or the console port.

In fact, I erg you now to get a copy and relive the horror that is Doom 3, let yourself become absorbed into the world of Mars City, for nostalgia, for remembering how great horror gaming is, for the sheer fun that it is to play, but mostly because... DOOM 3 is still a BEAST and we love it.

Thanks for reading. 

It doesn't matter what you use, it only matters that you game.