..FAIL!

Whatever that means. Anyways, I was reading the low score (3.5/10) given to this game by IGN and then moved to the boards to read the (unavoidable) flaming against the reviewer by fanboys and ‘uber graphics; lovers. Found the following gem from the sea of flamtards:

“What on earth is wrong with IGN review scores? These guys are way up on games with obvious, clear flaws, and at the same time they destroy a game like this without a solid reason for doing so. The game is pretty, which locks up an 8 rating a majority of the time. Slight control problems have not kept games from achieving scores in the 8 and even 9 range, and bad voice acting is common enough to not seriously detract from a gaming experience, never mind plummet the score to the sub-5 scoring tier. Why is the reviewer being so picky? There does not appear to be anything seriously flawed in this game, and it does not reflect the quality of other titles that achieve a score this low.

As always, there seems to be an ulterior motive to the scoring of a hyped game. I do not use IGN to determine what games I am going to purchase.

– nelohalo”


If his post (read the bold parts) doesn’t make you want to track him down and punch him right in the scrotum sac point of pain, then you should pay attention to his username.

“nelohalo”

Not only a Halo fan but an obvious console gamer. Enough said. PC gamers should make sure that they read reviews that speak the truth and then ignore retards like nelohalo. Because console gamers, at least from what I have seen, just LOVE to give their golden views on games (obvious shitty console ports) in the PC only boards. It is really hard to understand that age old dying boxes that costed them their soul don’t work the same way as PC.

On the other hand, developers like Codemasters who release games like GRID without a gamepad support (my Logitech Rumble Pro is made for such ports… err, games) need to pick up a “How to make games for newbies.” and read chapter one, “Controllers”.

/rant

Dr. Horrible

If you don’t know who Joss Whedon is then... you suck!

Spending time rigging models for (animation and >) a game I am working on. The game is an entry for a competition (which will end in about a month so I will post the game here) but the idea for it has been on my mind for a long time. The competion gave me a perfect excuse to actually start working on the game instead of researching and writing stuff about it.

So this “top-secret” (not really) project is actually aimed to be a bigger title but it doesn’t hurt getting the idea into play (tested) in a competion. Even if I don’t enter the competition in the end, at least I have the basic gameplay up and running in about a month.

I can’t reveal a lot about the project but it is set in the medieval times during the mughal period in India where Islamic rulers during their quest for power destroyed a lot of Hindu temples and killed millions who didn’t convert to Islam. The game story takes this fact and adds some fictional twist with you fighting to protect an ancient Hindu temple with later levels taking you even in the forests with the right ‘upgrades’ applied to your.. war machine.

I spent some time exploring Akshardham temple (biggest Hindu temple in the world) which is basically a km away from where I live (pretty awesome sight) and copied the architecture using reference material into the game. Oh and the game is a side-scroller using pre-rendered graphics so the system requirement will be very low. The game is planned for Windows first, later OSX as well and is available for online play (in-game COOP is also present).

Well, will come back with more info and screenshots sometime later this month (30th) or at least next month for sure if I am entering the competition. Else I will just work on a gameplay video like I did for Skeletal Rage.

Going through 4 different projects can give you a lot of ideas which can end up being used in a completely different project (among those 4), which is pretty awesome since you are adding stuff you wouldn’t usually concentrating on that game’s genre only.

Right now I have 2 primary projects (out of 4) which involve a TD (Tower Defense) remake for casual gamers with some features I haven’t seen in a single TD out there which are present in TD mods for Wc3 since day one. Second project is a nature simulation mixing 3 games but primarily focussing on features from a mainstream title from which other 2 casual/indie games have ripped off ideas from anyway (who doesn’t?).

The progress on the graphics has been fine but what is giving me a pause is the part where I decide to go all 2D or 3D (which restricts the game to Windows/DX9 only). Anyways, TD atleast is 2D friendly concept so I guess I will have to start there..

I haven't worked on my mods for Wc3 for sometime now. So before I pack-up my modding tools and thow away the key, I have decided to finish some of the mods that I really enjoyed working on all this time..

Skeletal Rage 2: Sequel to SR: Extremities, SR2 pretty much achieves what I wanted to achieve with SR in the first place. A dark gory battlefield with skeletons and their captured slaves duking it out mindlessly. Win by numbers, through speed, using epic heroes and vehicles, or good old strategy.  

Gameplay Video from SR2 + Screenshots.

I know, it's not the best demonstration considering that most Wc3 players are used to the massively detailed maps like Dota and AOS, but still, I hope it's more than enough for some people to give this map a try and then give some feedback. I have already started work on the standalone version of this game based on another project I have been busy with sometime now (which will be posted here as well, Indie category). So feedback will help a lot with the standalone version as well as the mod.  

UNDERWORLD: The Legend of Nephthys: "HDD crash.", "Recovery.", "Not quite dead.", that's basically the story of this project and the reason behind any activity AT ALL for a long time. I ended up chucking a big part of the project (mostly, pre-rendered cinematics) out of the window because of the loss of work that included the story and elements supporting the cinematics in the first place. What I will now do is to release what I have recovered as an unifinished campaign and a gameplay video (coming soon). Here's the last shot from the cinematic :(

That's pretty much it. I am looking forward to any feedback on SR2 primarily, except for the types that go "you suck", "this sucks", "I will suck".. and on..

So I came across this video of a fan project ‘Chrono Resurrection’ posted on TIG. Obviously, like most of the remakes, this one was served with C&D notice as well.

Why exactly does the developers kill these fan remakes? Think about it. A remake, if well done, increases the expectations of the fans who expect to see the original developers top the the fan projects in terms of gameplay, graphics.. etc.

Now if you are the original developer and have planned the follow-up title to be a game built on the same engine with minor upgrades to the effects and few additions to the gameplay.. a fan remake which surpasses your plans puts pressure on you to spend time and resources upgrading to and above the level of a free remake.

Infact, the reason why most games don’t come out with mods and TC’s is that, that the developers/publishers are looking forward to milking the IP with sequels and IF the game would have mod support and a huge community building really cool mods, then the players would prefer staying away from a remake which may or may not live upto their expectations. MAJOR drop in sales.

Only few developers, who are willing to give an IP few years break (like Blizzard) can afford to give modding support. It makes the developers money (people buy games sometimes to play mods only) while they fund a completely different project, like an MMO (World of Warcraft). Now imagine EA providing modding support for NFS and Fifa games. Since every sequel has minor updates (or updates that are retarded, like prostreet and Carbon.. or whatever the hell they actually update in their sports games), people would rather spend time playing a game with steady stream of new and FREE content by the community itself. A HUGE LOSS.

That’s why, provide modding support only IF you can afford it. Oh and crush every fan remake if it looks something exceeding your own expectations (else, why bother).

 PS: I haven’t played any Chronos game, but the the video impressed me (seriously, excellent work there).

Having recently witnessed the horror called Vista, I was really close to switching back to XP (32–bit) or even Ubuntu (have an eye on it for some time now) until I decided to risk all the ‘programs not working under 64–bit’ curse and move on to a 64–bit OS.

Best decision ever.

Forget the small boot time and startup time no matter how many programs you have installed on PC or set to run at startup, the speed at which ‘every’, even 32–bit, apps start and execute commands is mind-blowing. WindowsXP x64 is finally taking advantage of my dual core (AMD-X2) processor and 3gb ram which was lost on a 32–bit OS, that’s obvious. But of course, with great power comes really annoying ‘issues’. Pros and cons of 64–bit OS:

Cons:
– Games like Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines, using MSI installers refuse to install under 64–bit OS. There is a way around which requires you to use a utility to edit the MSI file itself to allow it to run on any OS but that utility itself refuses to run on 64–bit XP.. did I mention that the utility was also created by Microsoft?

– The above mentioned problem is the ONLY problem I have encountered so far. I probably should mention that old DOS games can also run into these problems. Obviously you will be using DosBox for running old DOS games and since I haven’t bothered installing DB I can’t really tell whether the age old games work under it or not in 64–bit.

 
Pros:
– Speed. If you are an artist (includes game developers and Photoshop-only users) or a gamer, 64–bit is a must have.

– Open Source/Freeware heaven. I have almost every single replacement for commercial softwares I was using before because for some reason commercial softwares were behind updating their softwares for 64–bit OS’s compatibility and still are. On the other hand OpenSource/Freeware softwares all run without any issues under x64 system. So, you get legal and free softwares (damn right it’s win-win).

– Updated drivers are out there already. So unless you are using some ancient piece of junk, ignore the talk on how drivers aren’t available for 64–bit. That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t search for driver updates from manufacturers before upgrading though. If there are no driver/firmware updates for compatibility for 64–bit OS from the manufacturers even though the hardware is latest, you know who you shouldn’t buy from anymore (while we are at it, Lite-On drives sucks and so does ASUS mobo’s with their retarded layouts and crappy on-board fans).

In the end, I really haven’t experienced any ‘major’ incompatibility of softwares or hardware under 64–bit so far. My keyboard, display card, gamepad even worked without updating any driver (for display card). Everything works fine, and even better than 32 bit XP. No wonder MS is trying to stop XP production and shove Vista down their throat.. probably only the so called ‘hardcore’ gamers (read = people with too much money) will bother for now.

.. now you see me, later, you won’t..

Anyways, I have been way too busy for sometime now to be bothered with working on Wc3 mods. At the moment I am working on some game concepts which are surprisingly different than what I am used to working on (RPG RPG RPG… more RPG). For example, this SHMUP (shoot 'em up) that I last worked on in 2005 but was too engrossed in modding wc3 to bother finishing it. In-game shot with overlapping fighter renders:

This game was called Time-Shift (before the FPS came out.. not that the name was anything original back then as well) and was supposed to be a pretty straightforward shooter in 2D using pre-rendered graphics and released as a freeware. Time for a remake/restart.

I have been playing a lot of shmup’s and flight simulators for past few months (and actually played and finished TheWitcher & Timeshift FPS in between) learning what’s fun & what WAS fun in all (or most) of those hit games out there in this genre. After all this ‘action’ I am trying to fuse the elements from my rpg mods into a new kind of shmup. How can that be done? Well, vaguely put, the key is in the ‘detail’.. which is present in every genre out there but hardly put into play. Hopefully, I will be able to put it all together in a small, professional package with the plot largely revolving around an AI (artificial intelligence.. duh!) and a next generation fighter inspired by Tejas. I will post about the progress on this game later on so stay tuned.

On the side note: VISTA SUCKS. So if you are thinking of upgrading, DON’T, not even for DirectX 10. Wait for at least SP2 before upgrading and even then, upgrade to the x64 edition only. I just switched over to WindowsXP x64 (from Vista Ultimate x86) and I cannot believe the performance increase. From boot time to launch of ANY application, it’s just blazing fast. So wait for SP2 for Vista x64 or just wait for Windows7.. whatever. I DO miss the search feature and sound control from Vista however..

The new version of Skeletal Rage 2 (v0.8b) is out. Apparently I didn’t update the old (0.2b) version for a long time on the site. The new version has a lot of fixes and additions/improvements especially in the special effects department.

The major update in this version is the addition of an all new AI which was missing from SR2 up until now. You can setup the AI for all players except player RED (which is moderator). If anyone encounters any problem with the AI or anything else, just email me and I will include the fixes in the next update.

The downloads section will be updated soon so you can download the new version over here.

So now that I am back (I was away, you probably didn’t notice), I am on an updating spree.. in my usual slow-as-an-ass manner. For starters, you should visit the spanking new homepage I spent a day working on over here. Next update includes the final release of Skeletal Rage 2 which will allow all of you fine folks out there to play the game against the computer (AI) similar to the previous versions. I was checking the downloads page and was shocked to find that the current version uploaded for SR2 is actually 6 versions old. So yeah, everything needs updating.

Skeletal Rage 2 & the AI
Even though Skeletal Rage made it to the pages and disc of PC Gamer and Future Gamer, I have always struggled to find it hard to convince people to actually play this (or anything else) map on B.Net because:
a) They are playing Dota/AOS, and..
b) They can’t actually wait to download and play and ask a range of retarded questions such as, " Is this map any good? ".

So I have concluded that the average Warcraft player is a complete retard. The others, like you and me, who struggle to find anything ’fun’ and new to play on B.Net or offline are stuck with this Dota and AOS crap.

Long story short, the new SR2 will be playable both online AND offline. I am tweaking the AI to make sure it stays challenging and hopefully stop you from migrating to SC2.. which is basically Warcraft set in the future, but I don’t really care if you move on.. :)

Wait for it. It will come. Don’t like it? Move along.

Also, future updates will include the release of NOTD map as an open-source (that means you can download it and use it in your own mod) and the much needed Random Reasons demo map update. If any of you are wondering about the Games category on the homepage then yes, standalone game will come (freeware or not? depends) because I sure as hell am not wasting time on mods after I am done updating these maps & mods for Wc3. So enjoy the upcoming updates for Wc3 from me because they will be last.