Super Monday Night Combat

I got involved in this one shortly before the end of the beta testing. I own the previous game, and the only reason I don't still play it is that the player population has been dwindling for a long time. Instead of going for another standard pay-model, Uberent have opted to tower-dive into the free-to-play realm of MOBA games (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena. Yes, the name is dumb, but it exists) with in-built micro transactions for cosmetic differentiation. Needless to say, the title has reduced the focus on the purely 3rd person shooter mechanics of the original, and has moved toward the MOBA style. The turrets hurt, the bots are everything, and players are harder to kill.

(These opening sequences never cease to delight me.)

As the number one deadly sport of the future, Super Monday Night Combat (SMNC) wouldn't be complete without the commentators:

'The Annihilator is ready in thirty seconds!'

'I'm holding my breath.'

'Uhh, that's not your breath...'

There are other examples I could give, but I'd have to tweak the age rating. They have a practical purpose as well as being the comic relief. They let the players know what's happening and where. The example I gave lets the players know that the Annihilator is ready. Not only does this deal heavy damage to all enemy players, it also destroys all of the opposing bots, allowing you to push into their base and get a massive advantage. When this countdown begins, the centre of the map starts getting the players' attention, and the team fights kick off.

The Pros (or 'champions' to League of Legends players) are each based on a stereotype. They don't quite fill the same roles as the characters in Team Fortress 2, so it doesn't feel like it's ripping it off; which could more than easily have happened, given the graphics style. They each have three skills and two weapons, each with alternate fire modes. It takes a fair few games to really get the hang of any pro, especially commandos, which are the fast, annoying wasps which dive in at the least convenient moment. I stuck to the tank or support when playing with friends; they can both sustain pushes and keep the bots at the enemy's turrets.

(I don't even want to know what that pink thing does.)

Unlike most MOBAs, there are no items; only skill upgrades that increase with level. Money gained from kills is instead spent on spawning bots, picking up buffs from vending machines or using the Annihilator. It's important to time spawning bots with your teammates. Assaulting two flanks simultaneously with Jackbots (the ultimate unit) is a good way to ensure you get to the moneyball (which is the SMNC equivalent of the nexus). You also need to protect these guys, and your investment, as they cost $4000 dollars each. Those are in-game dollars, not draconian 'micro'-transactions. The games last roughly twenty minutes, which means you're never spending too much time slowly losing a match like you would in League of Legends or DotA. The game is free, yet feels like the kind of thing one should pay for. Did I mention that it's free?

Go play it.

Torchlight 2: Beta

I'll be honest, I was so turned off by the design decisions of the Diablo 3 design team that I lost interest. This was a long time ago, and I've been looking for something to take its place as the rightful successor to the Diablo throne. There're a whole bunch of games clamouring to usurp that throne (such as Path of Exile and Grim Dawn), but the most promising looks to be Torchlight 2.

It doesn't completely revolutionise the genre of monster-smashing, loot-grabbing action RPG's, but that isn't what fans of the genre want. The simple formula is instead tweaked and streamlined at every possible opportunity to make sure you're focussing on taking down hordes of enemies, instead of playing inventory Tetris and continually rushing back to camp to sell your items (after all, your pet will do that for you). Gems drop all the time, so you're never saving them for later just in case you pick up a rare item along the way. Speaking of items, the stats requirement system gives you a two distinct options when trying to equip gear. You either have to meet the level requirement or you can meet the stat requirement. E.G. [Boots of Much Leaping]: Requires level 20 or 20 Dexterity  & 40 Strength. This means that if your character is focussing on two particular stats, he/she will be able to get items that exceed their own level. It also gives you reason to question pumping points into certain stats over others. Do you sacrifice 3 Vitality to pick up the extra Strength to wear those boots, or do you stick to your 'character plan' (if you have one) and continue regardless. It makes the progression feel less linear, which is always a good thing. The linearity of the skills tree is also reduced, though not completely. The only thing stopping you from purchasing skills with the points gained each level is the level requirement. This is probably for balance purposes. You can dip into any of the three skill trees, or panels, and cherry-pick the skills and passives that you want. I'm reluctant to call them 'trees' simply because there aren't any instances of needing one skill to get another. You take skills because you want them, not because you need them to fill in the gaps to get to the next branch.

Now we get down to the good bit... the fighting. It's simplistic and familiar, but crafted to near perfection. I played as a Berserker on Veteran difficulty. I would use [Shadow Rush] to dive through enemies, inflicting minor damage and healing my character. This allowed me to instantly break shields, and pick off the stragglers that got left behind by the minion ball of death. The combat was sufficiently challenging, and I found myself having to use potions. A major complaint about Torchlight was that you hardly ever had to use health potions to stay alive, so it's good to see this fixed. The enemies are varied, and can hit you like a silverback gorilla wielding a truck, if you're not careful. I had to time my dash carefully to make sure to dodge attacks, without sacrificing too much of my damage.

(The lightning enchanted claw... So very 40K.)

The boss fights feel extremely rewarding. It shows just how far the genre has come since the early days of 'Spank Diablo with your sword and board while drinking potions until he drops dead'. Taking the beta's final boss as an example: Standing still and damaging the boss while he's near the centre will get you tentacle-stomped. Attempting to clear the summoned minions in melee will leave you wishing you hadn't. Not dodging the ghostly rhino thing will kill you. Standing in melee range of the boss when he does a certain animation will kill you instantly. Needless to say, I died a few times figuring the boss out, but it was worth it when I finally made that killing blow after I'd spent half an hour trying. The piles of gold kept spilling forth, the items wouldn't fit in my bag alone, and that rhino thing I'd been dodging turned out to be something to do with the main plot. I took the next quest and Town Portalled, feeling like I had accomplished something.

The design team behind Torchlight 2 has a fair number of Blizzard North guys. These are the people who brought you Diablo 2, and it shows. The game is fast paced, relentless, and is in my opinion the successor to the throne of action RPGs.

Guild Wars 2: Monday 14th Stress-Test

It was only seven hours long, and I missed three hours of it (damn real people and their birthday celebrations!). Still, I got my fair share of structured PvP with my friends. I re-specced my Warrior to switch between a two-handed hammer and a sword & shield combo. Picking up a perk which allowed me to reflect projectiles of any sort while blocking, it was hilarious watching a ranger knock himself off the clock tower when trying to remove me from the capture point. This happened several times.

(When the facepalm isn't quite enough... facestump.)

My elementalist friend decided to play thief, and when I asked him what weapon sets he was rolling with, he answered,

"Dagger dagger, dagger dagger."    Thieves on their favourite bladed weapons.

Apparently, switching weapons as a thief gives you extra damage, so he was switching weapons only to have a crack at one-shotting people. He was doing 14k damage bursts on lower toughness targets and 9k on me when we weren't on the same team. Genius.

But that brings me to an issue I still have with the structured PvP system. There's still no way for you to make sure you're playing with your friends, rather than hoping you get lucky and end up on the same team. More than anything, it infuriates me that I couldn't coordinate with my pals on Mumble. Maybe this is something that's specific to the beta build, and will be resolved further down the line.

Still, despite its snags, it was awesome fun to jump back in to the game and continue to test builds for release. I've spent this morning making builds on this website, eager to test them next month.

http://www.gw2builds.org/create

Check out our guild at: http://vi-et-armis.enjin.com/

Bastion (Supergiant Games)

A great story isn't defined by what happens, who dies when, or why. A great story is made by how you tell it. I had played it before, but never all the way through. Now I wish I'd done that much, much sooner. I think this is the only game since Mass Effect (the first one) that produces real lump-in-the-throat, heart wrenching moments at every point in the story. The narration is superb, hitting the nail on the head for your immersive experience. It's like being eight years old again, being told stories around a camp-fire (without the fire department getting involved after you botched the whole thing).

Bastion can be a little bit disorientating at times, having the environment spring up just ahead of you takes some time to get used to, but once you're used to it, the game environments seem to flow in a pleasing, arty fashion. You play as the standard gaming protagonist: a mute character called 'The Kid' by Rucks, the narrator. It takes place in a post-apocalyptic world. The apocalypse has instead been given the name, 'The Calamity'. This event is not the driving force behind the story though, and is instead a vehicle to find out more about the characters and their motivations. It's surprising how much depth the characters can have with so few lines, being described only by Rucks, who has a fair few complications himself (no spoilers here). There's a great moment towards the end of the story where you can go against the narrator's expectations. When you reach this moment, it's so very difficult not to pick the compassionate option, but you have the choice all the same, like any good RPG.

"He finds me."

The combat is simple, fast and engaging. It builds on the original Diablo formula. There're always a horde of enemies coming at you from multiple angles, and you only have two weapons (which you can choose), a Secret Skill (with limited uses) and a dodge-roll, which allows you to evade attacks and get out of nasty surrounds. For the first play through, it's not particularly taxing skill-wise. However, once you complete the game, you unlock a feature called New Game Plus, which turns the game up a notch. Enemies have more health, more damage, and all of the idol effects are activated, which means that some crazy things can happen if you let even a single squirt (a sort of living tear-drop thing) past your guard.

I've always got the game's soundtrack close to hand for whenever I want to listen to those funky, bluesy, interlinked tunes. The way Zulf's theme, Zia's theme both culminate into the final credits sequence makes for a great capstone to round up the story.

If you're looking for Pounds/Dollars per hour, it's probably not the best buy outside of a sale, but it's easily one of the most memorable single player gaming experiences to come out in a very... very long time.

Ghost Recon Online: Beta

Ghost Recon. The series has drifted so far from the original game, that it has as much to do with ghosts and reconnaissance that Gears of War has to do with sunshine and puppies. Like Gears of War, it's a cover-based third person shooter with slick, simple movement controls. However, it isn't set in Chest-High-Wallia, and there's no queueing to chainsaw players chainsawing someone who chainsawed you last time.

The first thing that struck me was the U.I.. It looked like I had a weird, magical line attaching me to a nearby squadmate. Was it a leash, to keep me close? Do we use it to close-line people? Turns out, it just points to nearby squadmates without forcing you to look at the minimap. I can understand why it's there for new players (keeping them conscious of angles of fire etc.), but it seems just a little bit intrusive and distracting. What's more, as of yet there's no tutorial, besides a guide to the micro-transaction system.
("Look! Look at where you can give us money!")

One of the more interesting side-affects of the micro-transaction system is how grenades work. You have to buy grenades outside of matches with points that you accumulate during them. This isn't the only thing that this can be spent on, but it makes grenades feel precious, as they should. Whereas in Call of Duty, you're constantly diving out of the way of the grenade indicator, Ghost Recon Online (GRO) feels more tactical, and about fields of fire more than anything else. It's a refreshing shooter in which your movements and decisions feel planned, and not simply a matter of strafing in awkward ways.

I've played as the Assault, so far. Automatic rifle, riot shield, leg-implants. Oh my, is it cool. When your energy meter reaches full, you can engage the 'Blitz' charge, knocking enemies to the ground at high speed with your shield. As far as I'm aware, you can't simply equip the riot shield, though. Even as the class with the most health, health is still precious, and regenerates sluggishly. You've just enough hit points to survive being scratched from a suppressive burst, or being clipped in the arm by a sniper.

At present, the matchmaking system is horrific. I was rarely put in games with players that were within ten levels of me, which is absurd, as the purchasable items get better with experience. However, when I was placed in games with players my level, I had an awesome gameplay experience. I'd say it's something to keep an eye on. A good free-to-play title is always welcome, especially when they're this satisfying

Brainfreeze in Frozen Synapse

No matter how many words I piece together to form some kind of primitive description of how Frozen Synapse plays, I can't do it justice. Often, you spend so much time trying to come up with the perfect movements; down to a tee, only to find that your opponent has picked just the right moves of his own to counter yours. It's tense. Any second, one of those red guys could pop round the corner and finish you. I played a ton of matches with my brother on all of the 'Dark' modes, which means all enemies are invisible until there is a clear line of sight. It captures the fear-factor of X-COM, in that you're desperately scanning your screen for any signs of an enemy.


I don't rate the singleplayer campaign as highly (from what I have played of it),  much in the same way that I don't play 'Light' mode. I feel like being able to see your opponents through walls diminishes the feeling of dread, and it removes one of the key layers of tactical play. However, I do like the style of the campaign and the Cyberpunk setting. You play as an A.I (or shape form) called 'Tactics', and you occupy a virtual reality called The Shape, which gives you your ability to oversee a simplified, un-textured version of the terrain and come up with the perfect set of moves. It's like playing as a program in the Matrix. At the start, another A.I called 'Charon's Palm' declares himself your enemy, and the first few missions kick off; introducing you to the city of Markov Geist, your pals in the splinter group Petrov's Shard, and the bad guys, called the Enyo-Nomad corporation. The campaign isn't heavy on plot, from what I've played. It just about works as glue to piece together all of the missions, giving an excuse for some of the tactical scenarios.

The maps are semi-randomly generated each time, so there's no Trial&Error here.

On the main menu screen, there's a list of the day's top players, the most 'liked' replays, and global leader boards. It's reassuring to have a game so unique fully supporting its competitive scene, no matter how limited it may be. The added bonus is that your replays are permanently stored on-server (as far as I'm aware), so there's a way to back-up your bragging rights, like winning a game of hostage rescue, where the hostages freed themselves (Sorry, Ben!).


The four game modes are:

• Charge: First, you place bets on how far you can get your guys across the map. The one who bet highest has to get their guys across that line to score. The further the bet, the higher the score that player gets.
• Extermination: This is my favourite, despite being a plain and simple death match mode. The player with the last man/men standing wins.
• Hostage: One player must defend the hostages with superior numbers. The rescuer must deploy, and then move in with fewer men and move the two hostages out of the 'safe zone' and to a designated edge of the map.
• Secure: This is the one I've played the least of, but it's a territory-control game mode. Gain control of the map without spreading yourself too thin.
• Disputed: Boxes are dropped in random places on the map. The two players have to retrieve them and get the carrier to the edge without losing him. Failing that, you could just kill each other. That works too.

"These need re-calibrating, don't you think?"

I'd suggest buying it with a friend. Considering it's buy-one-get-one-free on Steam even off the sales, it makes it a really cheap, rewarding mind-duel, that you'll keep coming back to.

Starfarer: 0.52a

Finally, the game has music now! I know its technically realistic for the deep dark void of space to be silent as the grave, but it was getting dull just gliding around without any sound. The one track in the game so far, composed by Stian Stark, really nails the feel of the game's post- civil collapse setting. Hopefully, there's more to come.

There's a plethora of balance changes, tweaks and bug fixes that just came in.

(They can be seen here http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=1869.0)

To test out every feature of the new build, I deleted all of my saves and started afresh. Early on, I got an heavy burst laser (or HBL), and the new 'charges' system was interesting. The HBL has 3 shots which can be fired off in quick succession, and they recharge at a slow rate. After the three charges have been used, continuing to fire will only allow you to fire it at the same rate that it regenerates. It adds a cool 'hit and run' mechanic and makes it a much better point-defence weapon, without being too imbalanced.

One of the more interesting changes is the implementation of 'accidents' as a means to limit inventory. In most games that have an item storage of any description, an arbitrary weight or space limit has been tacked on the end; as if that final crate was the straw that broke the camel's back. In Starfarer, we're now given an alternative, one that makes you think. Once you go over a certain limit, instead of your loot hands being tied, you increase your accident risk. This means that each day that passes, there's a chance that one of your excess weapon containers might disconnect and collide with your crew's living quarters. Ouch. There are other examples than this one, of course. It's refreshing to be given an alternative that adds an extra gambling factor. This could make for some great gameplay on the freight side of things. Do you leave that extra crate of weapon components to make the trade safer, or do you gamble your stock in the hope to make a huge profit?

Anyway, to avoid getting punished for being over the limit, I got my hands on an Atlas-Class Super Freighter. It's slower than a crippled sloth dragging itself through a tar pit, but my cargo worries are over now. It also has a flight deck, so it's not entirely useless in the field.

My Flagship (Left) and my Transit Van (Right).

There's still that annoying problem where the lesser enemy groups just run from you, of course. However, Alpha is Alpha, and it's only fair to look at this game for what it is rather than what it isn't (yet).


I'm looking forward to playing through this, and to getting my hands on the next patch.