A bit of an old title now, Bladestorm is a pretty damn awesome game that I'd recommend to anyone with a PS3 or 360. It's a difficult title to describe, but I'll give it a shot. You play as a mercenary who can take on contracts for England or France. Your goal is to gain fame by defeating enemy commanders and capturing strongholds.
When in battle, you can take command of virtually any unit on your side, aside from those led by commanders and those protecting a base. Each unit has a certain effectiveness rating against those of other types, i.e. swordsmen are good against spearmen and weak against cavalry. There's a HUGE variety of units in this game, with about 20 "types" of unit and 3-6 variations within each unit. For instance, the sword type contains one-handed sword, sword and shield, two-handed sword, two-handed curved sword, dual swords and rapier.
The best part of this game is that at any time you can abandon a unit for another one close by. Up against something that your swordsmen can't hurt? Ditch 'em and commandeer that cavalry. Your spearmen unit only has 3 troops left? Exchange them for a full battalion of axemen. Enemy commander too strong for your daggermen? Let the AI melee him while you take command of archers and pelt him with arrows.
As you use units of various types, you gain levels with them, making you more effective with that unit type in general and giving you bonus points to spend on traits. You can also buy equipment for your units.
The game is only marginally based on history, if all the ninjas and Chinese mercenaries didn't make that clear. But it's hecka fun and I'd highly recommend it.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Roman legions
Let's talk about ancient battle tactics :D
Rome was one of the largest civilizations on Earth, made so primarily on their military might. Romans were tough, disciplined soldiers with exceptional battle tactics at their disposal. They weren't the only unit, mind: Romans had what they called auxiliaries, consisting of cavalry, archers, scouts, skirmishers, etc.. Nor were they a static unit: as the years passed, the armies developed with better equipment, different organization, etc. So when I say legionaries, mainly I'm talking about the heavy infantry of the Roman Republic, the backbone of the military machine.
The heavy infantry wore an iron helmet and armor: first bronze cuirasses, then later chainmail. They had hobnailed sandals which in themselves could be used as effective weapons, but their real weapons were:
1) The pilum. This was a javelin specially designed to break after being thrown. This way it couldn't be thrown back by the enemy.
2) The shield, which to the Romans was as much a weapon as a piece of defensive gear.
3) The gladius. There's a lot of misconception about this weapon, so let me clear some stuff up. The gladius is most deffinately a sowrd, not a dagger. It's a very short-bladed sword, but long enough so as not to be confused. Looking at mine at a glance, I'd guess it's blade is about 2 - 2.5 ft., but don't quote me.
Some people say the gladius is a thrusting sword, but this is false. It is a double-sided wide-bladed sword that tapers to a point, and so can most definitely be used to slash as well as thrust.
It is not the only sword that the Romans had; they had longer blades for dueling. But the gladius was the principle weapon of the legionaries because it's light weight and could be used easily in tight formation. It's short so that Romans could wear it on the right and still be able to draw it while carrying their shields in their left hand.
And while were at it, the Romans did not believe left-handers were evil, but they harshly disciplined them because in the army, everyone had to fight with their right hand or they'd mess up the formation.
*
Roman battle tactics were flexible, enabling them to handle all types of opponents from pitched battles to guerrillas, but in general the heavy infantry fought like this:
1) Wait for the enemy to attack. They might approach slowly if the enemy showed no sign, but otherwise the Romans let them come first.
2) At about 30 ft., throw pilum. This was far enough so that afterward the legionaries could draw their swords, but close enough so that the javelines would decimate the enemy's front lines.
3) Wait.
4) When the enemy was one step away, the front lines took a step forward and shield bashed them in the face. The momentum alone was usually enough to knock the enemies flat on their backs, but if not a thrust from the gladius would finish them off.
5) Battle in close formation, much like a phalanx, using the gladius to make quick attacks between shields. Romans especially targeted the legs, which are hard to protect even with a shield and contain veins that will bleed an enemy out.
Again, this wasn't always how they fought. Time, terrain and the opponent all had an effect. But in general, it was a highly effective tactic.
***
Incidentally, the gladius was not a Roman invention. In fact, it's Spanish. Well, not actually Spanish, but it was the sword used by the people who lived in Spain when the Romans invaded. The Romans liked the design of the sword so much that they took it for their own.
Rome was one of the largest civilizations on Earth, made so primarily on their military might. Romans were tough, disciplined soldiers with exceptional battle tactics at their disposal. They weren't the only unit, mind: Romans had what they called auxiliaries, consisting of cavalry, archers, scouts, skirmishers, etc.. Nor were they a static unit: as the years passed, the armies developed with better equipment, different organization, etc. So when I say legionaries, mainly I'm talking about the heavy infantry of the Roman Republic, the backbone of the military machine.
The heavy infantry wore an iron helmet and armor: first bronze cuirasses, then later chainmail. They had hobnailed sandals which in themselves could be used as effective weapons, but their real weapons were:
1) The pilum. This was a javelin specially designed to break after being thrown. This way it couldn't be thrown back by the enemy.
2) The shield, which to the Romans was as much a weapon as a piece of defensive gear.
3) The gladius. There's a lot of misconception about this weapon, so let me clear some stuff up. The gladius is most deffinately a sowrd, not a dagger. It's a very short-bladed sword, but long enough so as not to be confused. Looking at mine at a glance, I'd guess it's blade is about 2 - 2.5 ft., but don't quote me.
Some people say the gladius is a thrusting sword, but this is false. It is a double-sided wide-bladed sword that tapers to a point, and so can most definitely be used to slash as well as thrust.
It is not the only sword that the Romans had; they had longer blades for dueling. But the gladius was the principle weapon of the legionaries because it's light weight and could be used easily in tight formation. It's short so that Romans could wear it on the right and still be able to draw it while carrying their shields in their left hand.
And while were at it, the Romans did not believe left-handers were evil, but they harshly disciplined them because in the army, everyone had to fight with their right hand or they'd mess up the formation.
*
Roman battle tactics were flexible, enabling them to handle all types of opponents from pitched battles to guerrillas, but in general the heavy infantry fought like this:
1) Wait for the enemy to attack. They might approach slowly if the enemy showed no sign, but otherwise the Romans let them come first.
2) At about 30 ft., throw pilum. This was far enough so that afterward the legionaries could draw their swords, but close enough so that the javelines would decimate the enemy's front lines.
3) Wait.
4) When the enemy was one step away, the front lines took a step forward and shield bashed them in the face. The momentum alone was usually enough to knock the enemies flat on their backs, but if not a thrust from the gladius would finish them off.
5) Battle in close formation, much like a phalanx, using the gladius to make quick attacks between shields. Romans especially targeted the legs, which are hard to protect even with a shield and contain veins that will bleed an enemy out.
Again, this wasn't always how they fought. Time, terrain and the opponent all had an effect. But in general, it was a highly effective tactic.
***
Incidentally, the gladius was not a Roman invention. In fact, it's Spanish. Well, not actually Spanish, but it was the sword used by the people who lived in Spain when the Romans invaded. The Romans liked the design of the sword so much that they took it for their own.
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Bloody Good Time.
Yes, it's 3:30 a.m. :X Insomnia blows.
So, let's talk about Bloody Good Time!
This one just came out a few days ago. And it's gotten very little coverage. It's hard to find any information about it. Because of this, I was wavering about getting it, but it was cheap so I figured, what the hell. Turns out it's pretty damn good.
The game runs on Valve's Source engine, but you wouldn't know it. It feels nothing like Half-life 2 or Team Fortress 2. It's a pretty zany game where the premise is that you're an actor auditioning for a role in a crazy director's slasher movie in which he actually has the actors kill each other.
The gameplay isn't bad. It's a FPS, but actually with not that much S. The characters move slow, making it easy to hit with melee weapons (and there's a lot of them). Ranged weapons have limited uses, melee don't. You can hold 4 weapons and 4 "murder tools" (non-leathal weapons or other devices like the glue gun or lullaby sheep.)
The goal is to get the most stars rather than the most kills. Each round (or in the case of deathmatch, every 5 kills), the point value of the weapons change between 2-5 stars. You also have to be careful about when you make the kill, because if you're caught by a security guard you lose all the points you got since they became alerted and they take your weapon. You can also steal stars and weapons from other players by approaching them from behind, but if you do they can attack you and (in non-deathmatch modes) you can't attack them back (or you can, but you get penalized for killing them), so you have to be careful about how you go about it.
You also have to "maintain" your character. As you move about, your movement speed, attack power and defense power in accordance with your fatigue, hunger and, erm, needing to take a dump. Refilling these is easy enough with various locations on each map to do so, but dangerous. It takes about ten seconds to take care of a need. You can't stop til you're done, and you can be insta-killed during that time. It also makes you an easy target for pickpocketting in the event that the other players don't have the "right" to kill you.
There's a bunch of different game modes besides deathmatch: the hunt (you're assigned 1 target among the players, and one of them is assigned to kill you), revenge (like the hunt only after you're killed your target becomes the person who killed you), elimination (like the hunt only you get a new target after killing yours), kill the person with the highest score, find a trophy and hold onto it for as long as possible, and infected (you either have a disease and try to pass it to the people who don't, or you don't have it and try to stay away from the ones that do). In these modes, if you kill anyone other than your target you lose points (you can defend yourself if attacked first though).
The game modes are what make the game great, and they're all pretty good (aside from Infected, which NOBODY likes).
The weapons... eh... they're good, but it makes you wonder why there's even a life bar when just about everything is a one-hit kill. The katana and axe can kill in one hit with a fully charged swing, the frying pan and bat stun after a hit making it nearly impossible to get away unless someone comes along and attacks your attacker, the knife insta-kills from behind, the assault rifle kills in a few shots, the shotgun insta-kills at close range, the sniper rifle kills in one shot explosives all insta-kill unless you're at the edge of the blast, there's 3 fire weapons that will usually kill you before you can get to water to put them out, the taser keeps you in stunlock until they run out of ammo (and they won't until you're dead unless their strength is VERY low) and the syringe poison usually kill before you can get to a heal point.
Of course, this partially depends on your attack and defense levels, but usually if your enemy's attack is full, you're dead. Only the revolver and rad gun seem to take multiple shots normally. And even then it's only a couple. But it's like that for everyone, so really it works out.
There's also traps that insta-kill and give 5 points to anyone caught in them.
My biggest complaint is the maps: there's only 3 of them. They're fairly big maps, but still it doesn't take long to memorize the layouts. Hopefully they'll release more in the future.
There's also... not that many people playing. There's usually a few full servers (max 8 or 16 people), but most servers beyond the first page will probably be empty.
Finally, there's 8 character skins (or "actors"), which is fine, but people can pick the same one (they sorta have to with larger populations). This means paying attention to people's names and being absolutely sure of who your target is before you open fire, or else you get a penalty. My advice is to use this to your advantage and pick whatever the most popular skin is on the server you play on. If nobody's using a skin, don't pick it or you make yourself an easier target.
Final Verdict: I've been playing it quite a lot recently when I have so many other games I could be playing. It's pretty addicting. With only 3 maps, I can see it getting stale after a while. But for $5.00, I think I've already gotten my money's worth. It's worth a look.
So, let's talk about Bloody Good Time!
This one just came out a few days ago. And it's gotten very little coverage. It's hard to find any information about it. Because of this, I was wavering about getting it, but it was cheap so I figured, what the hell. Turns out it's pretty damn good.
The game runs on Valve's Source engine, but you wouldn't know it. It feels nothing like Half-life 2 or Team Fortress 2. It's a pretty zany game where the premise is that you're an actor auditioning for a role in a crazy director's slasher movie in which he actually has the actors kill each other.
The gameplay isn't bad. It's a FPS, but actually with not that much S. The characters move slow, making it easy to hit with melee weapons (and there's a lot of them). Ranged weapons have limited uses, melee don't. You can hold 4 weapons and 4 "murder tools" (non-leathal weapons or other devices like the glue gun or lullaby sheep.)
The goal is to get the most stars rather than the most kills. Each round (or in the case of deathmatch, every 5 kills), the point value of the weapons change between 2-5 stars. You also have to be careful about when you make the kill, because if you're caught by a security guard you lose all the points you got since they became alerted and they take your weapon. You can also steal stars and weapons from other players by approaching them from behind, but if you do they can attack you and (in non-deathmatch modes) you can't attack them back (or you can, but you get penalized for killing them), so you have to be careful about how you go about it.
You also have to "maintain" your character. As you move about, your movement speed, attack power and defense power in accordance with your fatigue, hunger and, erm, needing to take a dump. Refilling these is easy enough with various locations on each map to do so, but dangerous. It takes about ten seconds to take care of a need. You can't stop til you're done, and you can be insta-killed during that time. It also makes you an easy target for pickpocketting in the event that the other players don't have the "right" to kill you.
There's a bunch of different game modes besides deathmatch: the hunt (you're assigned 1 target among the players, and one of them is assigned to kill you), revenge (like the hunt only after you're killed your target becomes the person who killed you), elimination (like the hunt only you get a new target after killing yours), kill the person with the highest score, find a trophy and hold onto it for as long as possible, and infected (you either have a disease and try to pass it to the people who don't, or you don't have it and try to stay away from the ones that do). In these modes, if you kill anyone other than your target you lose points (you can defend yourself if attacked first though).
The game modes are what make the game great, and they're all pretty good (aside from Infected, which NOBODY likes).
The weapons... eh... they're good, but it makes you wonder why there's even a life bar when just about everything is a one-hit kill. The katana and axe can kill in one hit with a fully charged swing, the frying pan and bat stun after a hit making it nearly impossible to get away unless someone comes along and attacks your attacker, the knife insta-kills from behind, the assault rifle kills in a few shots, the shotgun insta-kills at close range, the sniper rifle kills in one shot explosives all insta-kill unless you're at the edge of the blast, there's 3 fire weapons that will usually kill you before you can get to water to put them out, the taser keeps you in stunlock until they run out of ammo (and they won't until you're dead unless their strength is VERY low) and the syringe poison usually kill before you can get to a heal point.
Of course, this partially depends on your attack and defense levels, but usually if your enemy's attack is full, you're dead. Only the revolver and rad gun seem to take multiple shots normally. And even then it's only a couple. But it's like that for everyone, so really it works out.
There's also traps that insta-kill and give 5 points to anyone caught in them.
My biggest complaint is the maps: there's only 3 of them. They're fairly big maps, but still it doesn't take long to memorize the layouts. Hopefully they'll release more in the future.
There's also... not that many people playing. There's usually a few full servers (max 8 or 16 people), but most servers beyond the first page will probably be empty.
Finally, there's 8 character skins (or "actors"), which is fine, but people can pick the same one (they sorta have to with larger populations). This means paying attention to people's names and being absolutely sure of who your target is before you open fire, or else you get a penalty. My advice is to use this to your advantage and pick whatever the most popular skin is on the server you play on. If nobody's using a skin, don't pick it or you make yourself an easier target.
Final Verdict: I've been playing it quite a lot recently when I have so many other games I could be playing. It's pretty addicting. With only 3 maps, I can see it getting stale after a while. But for $5.00, I think I've already gotten my money's worth. It's worth a look.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Dark Void Zero
Some time ago, Capcom released Dark Void on the PS3/Xbox/PC, a game which I haven't played, but from what I understand is a fairly mediocre third-person shooter which uses a jetpack as its primary gimick. Lesser known is the original game which inspired the third person shooter.
The original arcade Dark Void was never released. It went unfinished and spent time in Capcom's archives until someone went rooting around for ideas for a new IP and rediscovered it. What's also cool is they also decided make an 8-bit version of the game and release it for cheap under the moniker of Dark Void Zero. That's really pretty awesome of them.
Sadly... the game sucks. There are tons of great 8-bit games, but this is not one of them. The graphics are pretty bad even for 8-bit, the music is non-existent save for a few instances of fanfare, and the gameplay's pretty bad.
You play as Rusty, some guy who works with a professor and travels to the maze-like dark dimension fighting dark creatures (which are really just guys with guns and robots). Sometimes you get a jetpack, but it can be lost pretty easily. There's five different guns in the game, but they're all pretty similar. The biggest difference is in the range they go and the damage they do, but they're all pretty much direct-fire weapons, nothing like say, Contra's spread shot.
When you pick up a weapon, it remains where you found it, so you can just go back and get it again if you lose it. Cool, right? Well, it is until you start to realize that the developers deliberately put some weapons in spots you have to pass through. so if you don't want a certain kind of gun, tough. They especially like forcing you to take the default gun. You also need certain types of guns to blast through certain types of barriers.
The enemies are... lame. Why have a different dimension if you're just going to use humanoid gunmen and robots?
Oh, and get used to collecting keycards, because that's pretty much the point every stage: find 3 key cards then get to the boss.. Cool boss fights, though.
In the end... It really doesn't have much going for it. Sure the jetpack is cool, but if you want a similar but much, MUCH better game I'd recommend Taxan's G.I. Joe.
Incidentally, Capcom acquired the rights to Taxan's G.I. Joe game engine after the company went under and made a sequel with the subtitle: The Atlantis Factor. It's not bad but I think the original is better.
The original arcade Dark Void was never released. It went unfinished and spent time in Capcom's archives until someone went rooting around for ideas for a new IP and rediscovered it. What's also cool is they also decided make an 8-bit version of the game and release it for cheap under the moniker of Dark Void Zero. That's really pretty awesome of them.
Sadly... the game sucks. There are tons of great 8-bit games, but this is not one of them. The graphics are pretty bad even for 8-bit, the music is non-existent save for a few instances of fanfare, and the gameplay's pretty bad.
You play as Rusty, some guy who works with a professor and travels to the maze-like dark dimension fighting dark creatures (which are really just guys with guns and robots). Sometimes you get a jetpack, but it can be lost pretty easily. There's five different guns in the game, but they're all pretty similar. The biggest difference is in the range they go and the damage they do, but they're all pretty much direct-fire weapons, nothing like say, Contra's spread shot.
When you pick up a weapon, it remains where you found it, so you can just go back and get it again if you lose it. Cool, right? Well, it is until you start to realize that the developers deliberately put some weapons in spots you have to pass through. so if you don't want a certain kind of gun, tough. They especially like forcing you to take the default gun. You also need certain types of guns to blast through certain types of barriers.
The enemies are... lame. Why have a different dimension if you're just going to use humanoid gunmen and robots?
Oh, and get used to collecting keycards, because that's pretty much the point every stage: find 3 key cards then get to the boss.. Cool boss fights, though.
In the end... It really doesn't have much going for it. Sure the jetpack is cool, but if you want a similar but much, MUCH better game I'd recommend Taxan's G.I. Joe.
Incidentally, Capcom acquired the rights to Taxan's G.I. Joe game engine after the company went under and made a sequel with the subtitle: The Atlantis Factor. It's not bad but I think the original is better.
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