Fire Fall: Impressions and Gameplay Vid

If you read my previous entry, you know I've been watching a lot of DayZ gameplay video on YouTube - mainly by a user known as SideStrafe. But since the game is still in alpha (beta now?) and is a mod for another game you have to pay for (ARMA II), I just can't commit to it. SideStrife does post some other gameplay videos, however - one of which was for a new MMOFPS/RPG called Fire Fall (or Firefall, if you're lazy). Suffice to say, I really liked what I saw.

In fact, I liked it so much, I attempted to make my own gameplay videos for it:



One of the few things that I don't like about Team Fortress 2 is the lack of any sort of meaningful progression. You fight one round at a time or, if you're playing MvM, 9 waves at a time. Yes, you can "find" crates and weapons, but that's it as far as character development goes. Fire Fall solves this by taking the FPS gameplay, wrapping it in a MMORPG structure and giving it a sci-fi twist.

Killing baddies and completing missions gives you XP, which can then be spent upgrading your 'battleframe.' Your battleframe of choice serves as your class, with the added benefit of being able to change into new battleframes. There is a 'tech-tree' (similar to Diablo's skill tree progression) for each battleframe leading to two souped-up versions when you have unlocked the necessary prerequisites. Additionally, unlocking one skill does not lock you out of going back and unlocking any of the other options. You can then mix and match the upgrades to your battleframe (including the primary and secondary weapons) as you see fit.

The game is free-to-play, which, considering the quality of the environment and the attention to detail - down to the descriptions of your battleframe upgrades - is impressive. There is no advantage to be had in buying super powerful weapons or equipment. Instead, you can opt to purchase visual enhancements for your character. It's an interesting and potentially risky move on Red 5's part, but I hope it pays off, as nothing is more annoying than players dominating a game simply because of how much disposable income they have.

Fire Fall is currently in closed beta, but the resourceful user will be able to score an invite without too much trouble (if I can do it, anyone can). There are still some rough edges and lag issues, but the point is to help the developer find problem areas as much as it is to enjoy the game. My only major concern (major being an overstatement) is that I seem to have outpaced the story - I finished the handful of missions available in the two 'civilized' areas of the map and now find myself grinding while waiting for more playable areas and missions to appear.

There is a silver lining to the grinding, however, as I now find myself on the verge of getting my first advanced battleframe.

Outside-In: A DayZ Short Story

Pre-story disclaimer: I have not actually played DayZ; 90% of what I know came from watching gameplay videos on YouTube. The other 10% from a visit to dayzmod.com

Outside-in: A DayZ Short Story
by: Paul M. King (2144 words)

Chernarus.

The name popped up in the news a few weeks ago because of an epidemic or some kind of disaster - a lot people thought it had to be something nuclear, mainly because the name of the country sounded a lot like ‘Chernobyl.’ The level of international concern was about the same as one of those African countries that are constantly in grip of a severe famine or civil war - We feel bad that something terrible is happening, but there’s not a lot anybody is going to do to help a poor country with no oil and little potential as a tourist destination. It didn’t help that hardly anyone could find the place on a map; I knew it was somewhere along Russia’s eastern shore - on the Sea of something-or-other - but that’s about it; more than most people could tell you, I’d wager.

Eventually, the news moved on to other more interesting stories - another politician got caught cheating, a celebrity couple was splitting up, it was really hot today - and we forgot about Chernarus.

A couple of weeks passed; the only news I can recall from that distant corner of the world was about some military exercises the Russian navy was conducting that raised eyebrows in some of the Asian countries, but nothing came of it. I had other things on my mind; I was finally made full-time at the firm where I’d been doing my best to scrape by on 30-hour work weeks for nearly a year. Have you ever contemplated a memory, only to realize that you don’t really remember doing whatever you were doing when your brain absorbed the information - like it just sort of took root in your mind by itself? The human brain is funny that way.

Anyway, to help make ends meet as a part-timer, I took on a number of freelance projects. The last project I would need to take as a freelancer was for a non-profit organization with international ties. The request was for an online database with both an internal and external interface to track the need for humanitarian aid in third-world countries, places that this organization would then try to raise funds for aid and medical mission work.

At the risk of making a sweeping generalization, working for non-profits is usually a pain. They tend to have very limited resources, but require a high level of functionality combined with an equally high-level of abstraction in their online applications. But, a paycheck is a paycheck and the landlord doesn’t care where the money comes from, just that he gets his share of it by the end of the month.

To my surprise, the client was very easy to work with, they even loved the first design revision I submitted - that hardly ever happens. I continued to develop the site, all the while providing daily updates to the client, just to make sure that yes, they really are happy with the way things are progressing and, no, they don’t feel the need to make a “little change” to the underlying data structure. In fact, there was only one change I was asked to make before the site could go live; a single entry had to be purged from the database: Chernarus.

Normally, I wouldn’t give such a request a second thought, but it occurred to me that I hadn’t heard, read or seen anything about Chernarus since it was mentioned in the news a couple of months prior. I googled Chernarus for any recent mentions and came up empty; not a single mention of the country in news articles, blog posts, wikis, or social media that was less than year old.

On a whim, I did a quick search for recent mentions of Russia in the news. Since Chernarus used to be a part of the Soviet Union, I figured there might be some mention of the missing country. The only remotely interesting article I could find involved an American who had gone missing while traveling in the Ural mountains. Just another sad story.

Another couple of days and the project was finally completed; I got paid and treated myself to a night out with my friends to celebrate. On this particular night, we decided to catch a late movie, so it was nearly two in the morning when I arrived home. I hate to admit it, but I’m not as young as I used to be, I can’t pull all-nighters like I did in college just ten years ago (man, has it really been that long?). So I probably looked like some kind of brain-dead zombie staggering through the front door to the unexpected guest sitting in my living room.

It was clear he had been expecting me. He didn’t jump up in surprise or act in any way like I had caught him doing something suspicious. That’s not to say that he was completely at ease; he wore a fearful, hunted look about him - but I wasn’t the one making him nervous.

“Hey man, long time no see.”

There was an awkward moment of silence as my weary, startled mind struggled to put a name to the face.

“Pete? Is that you?” Pete and I had grown up on the same street, we graduated together, then went our separate ways in life. Last I heard - my mother was friends with his mother on Facebook - he was in the CIA.

He nodded, “You look good, life treating you well?”

“Yeah, I guess. You look …” How do you tell someone you haven’t seen in over a decade they look terrible?

Pete picked up on my hesitation. “I’ve been better.”

“What’s going on? Why are you in my apartment?”

“I need a place to lie low for the night,” he said, “Don’t worry, I’ll be gone by the time you wake up.”

“Are you in trouble? Is someone after you?” I asked.

“That’s the problem, I’m not sure,” he sighed, “And if I was sure, it would be too late.” I can only imagine my expression as he said this.

“What do you know about Chernarus?” he asked.

“It was in the news a while back, people were sick or something. And now it’s like it no longer exists.”

Pete nodded, “There’s a reason for that. The country has been quarantined - completely cut off from the rest of the world.”

“The epidemic?”

“Maybe? I didn’t have enough clearance to dig that up, but I do know something heavy is going on in that country and no one is allowed in or out.”

Pieces of memory began to fit together, “the Russian navy - those weren’t military exercises?”

He shook his head, “A blockade. And the US is providing drones to patrol the mountains that separate the two.”

I had a sinking feeling about the answer to my next question. “That wouldn’t include the Urals, would it?”

“You heard about the missing American?”

“Just that he was last seen in the Ural mountains.”

“He was an independent filmmaker, looking to make a documentary about Chernarus.”

“And he was killed?”

Pete shrugged, “All I know is that my team was assigned to go look for him. Before we even leave the states, word comes down from the top that the case is closed and ‘Here’s your next assignment.’ That’s when I started digging.”

“I get the feeling you dug too deep.”

Pete leaned in, his voice low, “People are being sent to Chernarus. Just … bundled up, dropped off and left there.”

“Why?”

“If I knew that, I could blow the whole thing wide open.” he slumped back in the chair, “Right now I’ve got little more credibility than your run-of-the-mill conspiracy nutjob. Assuming I could get to the media, I’d just be spun as an unfit agent with PTSD or some other nonsense.”

“Truth is often stranger than fiction,” I offered, “But to totally cut off an entire country? How can they expect to keep it up?”

“Look at Area 51,” he countered, “No one denies it exists, they just don’t talk about it. And if any of the crazy ideas about what goes on there are accurate, who’s going to know? How do you tell the truth apart from the rest of it?”

By this point, my brain felt like mush. “I’ve got to get some sleep. The couch pulls out and there are blankets in the linen closet.” I got up from where I was sitting and started towards the bedroom, “Assuming this isn’t some crazy dream I’m having, we’ll figure things out tomorrow.”

Pete chuckled, some combination of bitter mirth and weariness, then said, “Good night.”

The next morning, I awoke to an empty house.

The next day, I returned home from work to find someone waiting for me in the driveway. The man flashed a badge - CIA - and asked to speak with me. Despite my uncertainty at the prior night’s encounter, I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t given any thought to this scenario during the day. With all the calm nonchalance as I could muster, I invited the man inside and offered him a drink.

I sat where Peter had been waiting for me the night before while the agent sat on the couch and asked me questions about the boy who had grown up down the street from me; if I had managed to stay in contact with him, and if he might have tried to contact me recently.

Finally, the questions stopped and he stood to leave. I noticed that the throw pillow he had been leaning against was upside down, so that the zipper was showing.

“Sorry,” I said, as I flipped it over, “it’s an OCD thing - it really bugs me when people leave couch cushions upside down.”

A strange expression clouded his features for the briefest moment before he shook my hand, thanked me for my time and left.

After seeing him off, I collapsed on the couch with a huge sigh of relief. I had done a pretty good job of keeping it together; I drew comfort in the fact that, even if they suspected that Pete had contacted me - I had done nothing wrong, he was the one they were after.

It was getting late and, since I normally grab dinner right after work, I was starving. I didn’t feel like cooking, so I drove through the nearest fast food joint and made my way back home. Shortly after eating, I performed one last email check for the day and decided to turn in for the night. It’s probably telling of my caffeine consumption that I can knock back a regular-sized soda and go right to sleep - of course, being up most of the night before probably contributed. In just a couple of minutes, I was dead to the world.

My dreams that night were really weird; I experienced sounds and sensations, but couldn’t actually ‘see’ anything - like dreaming with a blindfold over my mind’s eye. It reminded me of the time I had my wisdom teeth taken out, and they put me under.

At different points, I felt like I was being carried or riding in a vehicle. The voices I heard were often hushed or muffled; there were a variety of accents and I think - at least once or twice - I heard someone speaking Russian. Not knowing a single bit of the language, it was hard to be sure.

Have you ever woken up in stages - like, your mind wakes up before your body? You’re lying there, thinking thoughts and being aware of the fact that you are awake, but you can’t move at all? Sleep paralysis, it’s called.

As I lay there, waiting for my body to get with the program, I realized that something was very wrong - I was not laying in my bed at home. I felt a fine, gritty texture against my face and hands and a cool breeze stirring above me; I heard the sound of waves and seagulls a short distance away. I was wearing clothes, but not the shorts and sleeveless t-shirt I usually wear to bed; the outfit I wore was unfamiliar to me. Finally, after a minute or two - which each of which felt like an hour - I realized I could move again.

I jerked myself upright to confirm my fears: I was sitting on a rural beach. Despite the lack of a single recognizable natural feature or landmark by which to orient myself, I knew with cold certainty where I was. Getting to my feet and stretching my aching muscles, I attempted to stop the nagging thought that kept repeating itself in the back of my head by finally giving voice to it,

“Welcome to Chernarus.”

Art: Skyward Sword

I decided to burn some nervous energy doing art (and some sort of poetry, I guess?). For some reason, despite not owning it, I felt compelled to do something related to Skyward Sword.

The clouds turned out nice.

Video Games: Get Lost, Galactrix

The bad guy is less scary
and more boring/pretentious than he realizes.

Found another time-waster.

I loved playing Puzzle Quest on my Nintendo DS. It was intuitive, inventive and, whenever I ran into a challenge I could not beat the first time, I was excited to try it again. Eventually, I ran across a copy of the follow-up, Puzzle Quest Galaxtrix, at Big Lots for somewhere around $3.00 - a great deal, I thought. I mean, it was a "Best of E3!" pick, so it had to be good, right?

Wrong.

This game is frustrating, dull, and un-engaging. I found myself skipping through dialogue and flipping off the screen more times than I'd care to admit. So what the heck went wrong with Puzzle Quest Galatrix? How could it be so different from the addictive fun of Puzzle Quest?

In a word: leapgates.

The map of the galaxy is made up of sectors that you have to jump to using leapgates. Unfortunately, they have all been disabled by some kind of virus, so you have to 'hack' them. Hacking involves matching colored sets in a specific order before time runs out. It's similar (in concept, if not in practice) to training monsters in Puzzle Quest. The game's core play mechanic is where this becomes almost unplayable.

Whenever you make a match, there is a short animation that plays where the crystals turn to energy and zap over to the player info. New tiles then fall in and, if any other matches happen, the animation plays for them and you wait until any subsequent matches from incoming tiles are over.

During this process, the timer never stops counting down - even during the animations and new tiles appearing. You don't get any bonus time for matching regular tiles. Instead there are special 'timer' tiles scattered across the board that will give you 10 seconds if you match them; by which time you will have burned up most of your timer. Unwittingly setting off a cascade of matches - which is easy to do, since you have no idea what will be falling in - will eat up most, if not all, of your time.

Does this screen excite you? Because you will be looking at it. A LOT.

The easier gates have more time and/or less required matches, while the harder gates have less time and/or more required matches to open them. And what do you get when you open a gate? Another sector whose gates must be opened before you can proceed. And not all sectors have anything worth getting to, either - but you won't know that until you open the gate and fly your ship there. Imagine my joy at taking 20-something attempts to get a hard leapgate hacked, only to end up in a sector that nothing worth buying/mining, and no missions to take.

As I was collecting missions, I noticed a bunch of them had zero connection to the plot and required me to cross the galaxy. For example, one planet had a set - more than one! - of missions concerned with delivering food. I played every single side mission in Puzzle Quest; at least they involved people in need of a champion to right wrongs and fight evil. In Galactrix, people are literally looking for an intergalactic delivery boy. It's bad enough having to do that across one sector map, but a across ten (or more)? Screw that, man.

I don't know who was responsible for giving this game a "Best of E3!" award, but I cannot believe they played it for more than half an hour at most. I made it about three and a half.

VG: You Never Forget Your First(time playing TF2)

Last night I played a video game on the internet with other real live people. Not a big deal, in the grand scheme of things, since people have been doing it for years now. Just not this person. I've been so terrified of getting annihilated and verbally abused by obnoxious douchebags to the point that I avoided any serious online gaming.

Oddly enough, this fear never stopped me from accepting challengers way back when arcades existed (Ryu 4 life!). For some reason, though, playing online just seemed much more ... exposed? visible? I'm not sure what the word should be, but the idea behind it being that if/when I crash and burn, the whole world be able to see it.

So Team Fortress 2 goes free and it's simply too big, too famous, and the 'Meet the' movies too entertaining to pass up. The first two times, I relegated myself to playing Dustbowl with some Easy bots. Did okay, but was far from getting on the leaderboard during those practice sessions. Despite some of the anti-F2P sentiment I was noticing online, I finally decided to heed some advice I read on the Penny-Arcade forums and simply jump in with real players.

So I decided to go with the Medic, since I figured he's useful to have regardless of the situation. And then the most amazing thing happened ....

I didn't totally suck.

In fact, after an hour's play, I had my self a nice collection of Medic achievements - 6 or so AND I managed to kill a Spy with the bonesaw (Very nearly had a Sniper, too, but he got away)- which felt REALLY good, given the number times I was stabbed in the back.

Now, I'm under no illusions that I'm some kind of prodigy. But overall, I felt positively reinforced by the experience. Which is the point, I guess. As for the abuse, the worst I got was "Hey Medic, with the ubercharge at the end, that would've been a good time to use it."

So, if you run into me (kingworks) playing TF2 sometime, do me a favor and slow down so I can heal you already - or, if you're on the other team, hack you to death with my saw! ;-)

Video Games: Sayonara Supreme Commander

The latest victim of my campaign against time-wasting video games is Supreme Commander.

I picked this up at Ollies' for $5 - not a bad deal at all. It looked nice, despite being a few years old, and I was in the mood for sci-fi RTS - additionally, I'm too poor to get SCII and do not yet have a high-end machine to the game justice.

So what went wrong? The problem came to a head in the third mission of the UEF campaign when the Aeon were constantly attacking my bases and denying my attempts to expand the southernmost island. It took me FIVE HOURS to beat it. Needless to say, the wife was not happy when I came to bed at 2:30 am.

The game has this annoying approach of adding to the map and mission objectives incrementally. So you think you're building towards one corner of the map and when you finally get there - Oh, by the way, you have to clear out this base way over here that you had no idea existed, because we wouldn't let you explore that part of the map.

I looked up a walkthrough online and, from what I can tell, nearly all of the 15 missions are structured that way. Assuming each mission takes four hours (benefit of the doubt), that's 60 hours of enemy forces throwing themselves against my massed banks of turrets while I slowly pick away at their defenses. Also, I was so annoyed with the talking heads continually bugging me with comments about needing to check my objectives and that there are still alien scum that need killing. I get it - I'm slow!

60 hours of game play might be fine for your average gamer - heck, it would have been fine for me in college - but it's more than I have to give these days. Especially for a setting and story I really don't have any interest in.

Misc: Taking a Stand Against Time-Wasting Video Games

Do you remember the xkcd strip titled Cutting Edge? If not, go ahead and click on the link - I'll wait.

Ready to continue? Okay, good.

That strip defines me as a video gamer perfectly. A few years ago I realized that I could get older games - especially PC games - much cheaper from places like Big Lots and the bargain racks at Wal-Mart and Target for $10.00 or less and they would usually perform at or near the highest quality settings on whatever system I was currently running.

One game that has been sitting on my shelf for a while now is Homeworld 2. I really enjoyed the first Homeworld and had high hopes for the follow-up.  Those hopes were dashed to pieces this weekend. Despite being released in 2003, it still looked good and had a lot of the driving story and atmosphere that made the first one so compelling. So why am I so disappointed?

The game is TOO FRICKIN' HARD!

And you know what? I don't have the time to waste playing each mission over and over, ad nauseum, to beat it. In my younger days - heck, even earlier this year - I would've stuck with a game out of a sense of obligation. I spent a whole $5.00 on it, right? I need to beat it to justify the purchase and somehow validate myself as a gamer, a man, and/or possibly even a human being.

Let's say I stick with it. Let's say I forgo all my other time-sucking hobbies and interests to focus on this particular one. Let's say I obsess over it every waking second and get irritated when I spend time being a husband and father while that horrible, obsessive, irrational little nagging voice in my head keeps whispering that I really need to be saving the universe (I have issues, if you didn't know). What do I get for spending all that time beating such an incredibly frustrating game? A pre-rendered scene of variable quality, a list of credits, and - possibly - some message telling me that if I were to go back and play it again, I'd do better. That's it.

The reward is not worth the effort.

My free time is at a premium, and I want to spend it doing something I enjoy. Something that provides a sense of accomplishment, not frustration, and - ideally - will still be around in some persistent form when I move on to the next project. Video games are quite possibly the least meaningful, least rewarding hobby I have, and I will no longer sink hours and hours of my life into a game that is not fun.

If you are one of the few masochistic individuals who managed to unite the cores and defeat the Vaygr, good for you. I hope you feel like it was time well spent. As for me, I noticed yesterday that Wal-Mart had Assassin's Creed on the bargain rack for $10.00 . . .

Video Games: One Man(-child)'s Obsession

Much to the delight of my long-suffering wife, I have decided to revisit and conquer all those classic NES games that defeated and confounded my impressionable elementary school self back in the 8-bit glory days.

I have already beaten Final Fantasy and Metal Gear and now playing Zelda II (currently in the Swamp Palace) and Rockman - that's Megaman 1 for the uninitiated out there (stuck on Elecman's stage).

I'm not above Googling walkthroughs when I get stuck, but I have taken a solemn vow unto myself to not use cheat codes for any reason. I'm also gravitating towards games that allow you to save your progress, rather than having to run through the whole thing in a single sitting.

Here is the list of games I plan on eventually getting around to, and where/how they confounded me as a kid:

• Mike Tyson's Punchout - never got past Super Macho Man
• Bionic Commando - hopefully my grown-up fine motor skillz will help me master swinging
  
• Ninja Gaiden - I may have beaten this one before, but I can't remember
• Metroid - a weekend rental was never enough time to beat this
• Kid Icarus - another rental
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - so. freaking. hard.
• Double Dragon II - I seem to remember ninjas and helicopters, and not much else

There are other games I tried to play, but I'm having trouble getting the roms to work with nintendulator (maybe I need a better emulator?):

• Castlevania
• Blaster Master

Other games I didn't beat and probably won't mess with:

• Karnov
• Ys
• Batman
• Bomberman
• Bubble Bobble
• Tetris - does this even have an ending?