Happy Birthday, TGN!
In the years since, we have lost old friends down the back of the sofa, and we have gained new friends… mostly from Milton Keynes (well, I say ‘friends’… more like acquaintances… not even that really). It’s not all bad, mind. Okay, a lot of it has been bad; there have been a lot of arguments, a lot of bruised egos, even more bruised inner thighs, one instance of– two instances of anal rape and a shitload of Gorilla Masks.
Quite frankly, I don’t know why we’re all still here…
Review – Tom Clancy’s EndWar
- Game: Tom Clancy’s EndWar
- Format: Xbox 360
- Other Formats: PS3, PC
- Developer: Ubisoft Shanghai
- Publisher: Ubisoft
- Genre: Real-time Strategy
Another month and another Tom Clancy game appears galloping towards us from the dusty horizon with more American gusto and patriotism than a bald eagle donning aviators, loosely based around another book that he didn’t actually write. With all of the pessimistic post apocalyptic games currently out – detailing how our current lives are all useless as we’re all going to die anyway – it is refreshing to finally be given the chance to actually aid in the events leading to Judgment Day, instead of scrounging for pressure cookers and bottle caps to throw at irradiated zombies.
As the name (vaguely) suggests, Tom Clancy’s EndWar throws you knee-deep into the conflict of the third World War, taking you for a ride on the RTS wagon. From the word ‘go’ I was bombarded with several industrial tankers worth of information and as a result of my obviously inferior brain I took in absolutely none of it. Regardless of my complete lack of understanding, I managed to win my first mission apparently entirely by accident and as to this moment I still don’t know what my objective was or how I achieved it. After blundering through the first few introductory missions however, you soon get the hang of how the game wants to be played. For instance, my initial thoughts of the camera – perhaps jaded by the generous top-down views from many other RTSs – was that it resembled a horny dog tethered to a leash at Crufts, and no matter how hard you fought, it would still be hauled back in to who was holding it. After a while of play however, I found that the style of locking the libidinous hound of a camera to the selected unit’s perspective forces the player to utilise certain squads as scouts and even garner the high ground purely for the advantage of sight – something that adds a small amount more to the ‘realism’ tally against methods such as ‘Fog of War’ utilised on older style RTS games for the same purpose.
The main premise of the game is to rather predictably ‘win the war’ by siding with a superpower – America, Europe or Russia – and seizing control of the capitols in each of the three territories. Naturally, I chose to root for the home team and selected Europe in the hope to realise my childhood dream of annihilating America at the hands of Britain. Granted, at the time I envisioned doing so with ninjas riding dinosaurs. After a few plays through with the blue army though (apparently we’re blue), it came to my attention that there is a distinct lack of Britain being involved in WWIII. Now don’t get me wrong, I understand that France is a big mover and shaker in Europe, but playing as the cheese-eating surrender monkeys for pretty much every mission is a bit of a letdown. You would have thought that Britain as one of the world’s leading powers today would at least get a passing mention in the next world conflict. Even the Aussies don’t get a look-in, and according to Halo they’re more abundant than Americans in the future.
The big draw of the game that I have purposely not touched upon until this point is the headset support, where a player is able to issue orders like a walkie-talkie throughout the battle. For the most part, this method of commanding works remarkably better than I had anticipated – picking up a great range of regional dialects – but predictably there are mishaps where squads don’t understand the soothing sultry tones of my voice. The key to victory is securing uplinks dotted about the maps, and when the game mistakes the words, “Unit 2, Secure, Alpha”, for ”Unit 9, Eat, Nuclear Waste”, I take that as a personal insult – implying something in the area of my vocal chords being no better than that of an electrified, epileptic strobe victim. With this attack on my ‘mouth noises’ (and my apparent tendency of taking things a little too personally), I find it much more effective and indeed faster to issue certain orders via the controller.
As the loading screens of Call of Duty 2 once told me, ‘there are no winners in war’, and this becomes increasingly apparent as the campaign progresses, with regions trading hands like the village bicycle and no progress in one area without losing another on the opposite side of the globe. When you think you just might capture Washington you have to run back to defend Paris before they start bleaching their flags. And while the unpredictability of it all might be realistic in some respects, after a while I can’t help but think it is a method of artificially extending the game’s lifespan as I fight the same battle again for seemingly the tenth time. But if a commander is not savvy enough during battle, they can find the tides turning far too quickly. Taking the Napoleonic approach with my French troops against the Ruskies, one battle saw me ploughing through their first wave of units in a heartbeat – taking my mighty fist of a battalion from point to point and securing them like the bitch that they are. Just when that little voice at the back of my head patted me on the shoulder, congratulating me on my sure victory, a giant turd of a Russian WMD annihilates my entire army, save for a single unit of cannon fodder who were running late to the party because Jenkins had a poorly tummy. Retaliating with an orbital laser of my own, I felt sure that victory was rightly grasped after that little blunder – but alas, a lone unit of Dmitri’s tanks had survived – presumably also due to poor punctuality. Taking immediate action, I sent my lads packing with their tails between their legs straight back to control point Alpha to do some emergency renovations to mission supports – all the while with hot doom fired over their heads from a distance. In the nick of time, my boys manage deliver a swift EMP to disable the enemy shields and dive into the nearest building to contemplate life and death. I quickly send in the NPC supports and take out the Boris while he’s weak to scrape a victory like plaque from the jaws of defeat.
Graphically the game leaves much to be desired, as I assume the general thinking from Ubisoft was that you’d be so far away from the action that you wouldn’t notice that the infantry look like little plastic toy soldiers, in both detail and animation. I found myself thinking that they should have their trousers round their ankles purely to complete the effect. I probably shouldn’t look further into those thoughts and neither should you. Aside from this though, the game runs very smoothly and can handle a great deal going on at once, so I can’t complain too much.
Signing into the ‘Theatre of War’ mode will hurl you into the ranked multiplayer of EndWar, and upon doing so for the very first time I was greeted with a right royal slagging-off from my commanding officer as he spouted insults about my absence from the multiplayer campaign and even accused me of desertion from my duties. If that wasn’t welcoming enough, he then proceeded to convey how disastrous the last week was for Europe. Now armed with morale-boosting thoughts, I selected a battle to fight that pointed out to me how matchmaking rivals Gears of War 2 for mind-numbing, soul-crushing lack of speed in finding opponents; unless that is, you pick a battle where your side has a distinct and unavoidable disadvantage, and suddenly finding someone to play against is almost instant. My point here is that people are bastards. I hate people.
Overall, Tom Clancy’s EndWar is actually a competent RTS and fills a nice little niche in the home console market. It’s not perfect, but it does the job – much like a gummy hooker. There, I managed to bring this review back down to my usual standard and all is well again in the world.
Review – The House of the Dead: Overkill
A Guest Review by Mr Party Hat
- Game: The House of the Dead: Overkill
- Format: Wii
- Other Formats: None
- Developer: Headstrong Games
- Publisher: SEGA
- Genre: Motherfuckin’ Light-Gun Game
The premise is simple and almost offensively transparent, riding on the coat-tails of Grindhouse, Tarantino’s B-Movie love letter. Much of the over-indulgence of Grindhouse is (thankfully) held back by the limitations of the Wii. Tarantino had a multi-million dollar budget with which to make something appear as though it had been made for ten grand, the developers of Overkill were working with – to borrow a line from the game’s protagonist – a ‘fucking cripple’ of a console. Inevitably this has worked, and as such it stands not as a pastiche of B-Movie ‘art’ but as an example of it.
It’s an ugly, ugly weird-ass game. It’s not trying to be anything different.
Overkill is an ugly game, both intentionally and technically. The edges aren’t so much rough as non-existent, worn away to reveal the poles that were holding the edges up. It not only has the audacity to deal with issues that other videogames simply wouldn’t touch, it actively hunts them down and shits in their bed. Early on you’re confronted by a paralyzed, wheelchair bound scientist, who is being beaten by his carer. Moments later, on the advice of Agent G, “this motherfucking cripple has got to die”. The game begs you to be offended, to throw your hands up and protest, then it shoots your hand and sticks its dick in the hole shouting STIGMATAFUCK!
There are flaws. Rather, there are flaws which hinder the game alongside those that make it wonderful. The unfortunate placement of the SEGA name, whilst perhaps necessary to drive sales, throws up images of executives in suits talking ‘gangsta’, trying to be down with the kids. In later levels the dialogue begins to sound forced, proving that motherfucker is only funny the first few times it comes from your Nintendobox. The aiming, too, suffers from a lag that I don’t remember being present on the arcade HotD games.
But they are small flaws. Overkill is a game that wants you inside it, a game that would wipe its dick on your curtains and never call back. It’s filthy heaven to play, and if you can get past the feeling of violation once you turn off your Wii, it’s a game that you need to play.
Motherfucker/10
Review – Animal Crossing: Let’s Go to the City
Game: Animal Crossing: Let’s Go to the City- Format: Wii
- Other Formats: None
- Developer: Nintendo
- Publisher: Nintendo
- Genre: Life Sim
I suppose you could say Animal Crossing is a life sim, but one that’s completely different from any others. It’s extremely charming, and very colourful. The object of the game is to build your house up and improve your town. There are loads of things to do in-game to keep you occupied if you feel a bit bored. For example, you can dig up fossils and donate them to the town’s museum, where every fossil you find is displayed in its restored form. You can also catch fish and bugs, which can also be donated to the museum or be used to redeem trophies on bug catching days and fishing tourneys. There is also a paintings section where real life paintings are displayed. These paintings are purchased from Redd in his newly established shop where you now only need one password.
Animal Crossing is a game that you can’t really complete as there is always something new to do in town. To be able to make a kind of game like that successful you need to make it engaging and fun and Nintendo have done just that with Animal Crossing. They’ve made it very appealing to the eyes and kept the dull colours out as much as possible. Every character is different with their own individual personality, for example one character might be quite grumpy and hating of the world, whereas another might seem like they’re high all the time. Another good feature about this Animal Crossing is the downloadable content. If you have Wii Connect:24 turned on in the game, from time to time Nintendo send you presents. These range from furniture to clothing, and they’ll have a special theme to them. For example to celebrate the release of the Pikmin remake for Wii they sent everyone a red Pikmin hat. The Animal Crossing games are great for lovers of the Harvest Moon series or maybe even The Sims. And if you want to have a extra amount of interactivity in your life sims then this would be a great buy.
It may seem all fun, laughter and all round light-heartedness, but Animal Crossing always has a message: your home is under threat if you do not keep up repayments. Try to consolidate your debts into one easy to manage monthly payment.
8/10
Just a reminder…
Pilotwings 64: Wish You Were Here
Not only do I remember the first time I played Pilotwings 64, I remember the exact circumstances that I bought it roughly eight years ago; on holiday in Cornwall having passed a small shop that was selling games. I remember seeing the original PAL release of Pokémon Stadium hogging quite a bit of the shelf space but my eye was caught by a game tucked away in the back of the bottom shelf with a price tag of £12.99. Next thing I knew I actually wanted the holiday to end so that I could go home and play it – yes, I wanted a holiday to end to play a game.
8/10 cats agree that Pilotwings is more relaxing than being massaged in beer.
How To… Not Completely Fail on Left 4 Dead’s Versus Mode – Part II
Part II – Infected: The Smoker and The Tank
The Smoker
Okay kids, the next playable Infected is our good, and often misused, friend the Smoker. Smokers are possibly the best class in the game for slowing the team down however they have a large amount of weaknesses to counteract their ability to strike from a long distance that they often end up being nothing more than a 20 second respawn.
1) Know your maps
Smokers are possibly the most terrain dependent class in the entire game. Unlike Hunters, there is a delay between you launching the attack and it doing any damage. Hell, there’s a delay before the victim loses control, so it’s all too easy to get shot in the face before you can constrict them. You’re also completely immobile during the entire thing. As a result positioning is critical to a good attack; if trying to delay survivors, you want as much distance as possible (to slow the team down by backtracking) and as much cover as possible to make shooting at you harder. A good position will mean that even if a survivor escapes often you will have a second chance to delay the team.
2) Spicy curry
Remember to take into account not only what is around you but also what is between you and your victim. Many maps in the game purposely have elevation changes that require survivors to climb up and over something to proceed and these are gonna be your favorite places to spring a trap. Yanking someone off a catwalk not only gives you the chance to dole out fall damage to the unfortunate but also slows the entire team down as they often have to backtrack a long way or risk also taking hits from falling to retrieve the victim. Throw in the advantages of overhangs and you have the recipe for both big damage and plenty of extra time delay for additional spawns and chances for a player to become the tank.
Fire is also a fantastic tool. Players like to toss Molotovs into doorways and the like to act as barriers to the hordes brought in by Boomers and as a Smoker you should love these traps too. Snare a unsuspecting survivor and drag them through the fire pit, and not only do you dish out fire damage but nobody will want to run through this to help them. Flames can also obscure their vision, making it harder to shoot you off them. Environmental traps such as car alarms and Witches can also be set off by the players you’re dragging and make great opportunities, as well as slowing players who simply try to charge past them after someone accidentally sets them off.
3) Smoke screen
That cloud of smoke you give off also counts as an assist of any zombies hit survivors caught up in it as well as masking other sounds (like cries for help) and blurs outlines. Obviously its no way near as long lasting or as useful as a Boomer’s bile it’s still a nice last ditch attempt to hinder survivors if they are too close to a safehouse for you to find an adequate spot to attack from.
4) Girlie slap
Smokers do still have a melee attack, however I’d advise against using it at all, it’s pathetically weak and, unlike Hunters, you make plenty of noise and look very different to regular infected so you’ll just die super fast. Only time your melee is of any decent effect is in the last few seconds before inevitable victory where the entire team is in chaos. Generally if the team is too busy dealing with more immediate threats to worry about you spamming your bitch slap attack then you should be taking advantage of this time to get range and break up the team further.
5) Social smoking
As a smoker you need to have allies with you to do your job; that tongue is weak and easily broken and you don’t have that much health yourself, so you need people to help keep the team occupied, else they’ll just seek out the bright pink thing to it’s source and fuck you. Always try to wait for your allies to spawn before launching attacks, and while they are busy taking the flak jump in and snare a victim. Boomers are great at this as hordes can also attack people you have snared without releasing them. Always aim to have some sort of obstruction between you and the rest of the survivors though in order to slow down the rescue and increase the damage you do.
The Tank!
A one-dimensional class, right? Rush in, punch a few survivors, hope for incap? Yeah… no.
When used correctly, the Tank is a game ending class. It is easily possible to disable the entire survivor team when played well, but if played poorly is the worst way to throw away what would otherwise be a good win for the Infected.
The first thing you must understand when playing the tank, is that it is NOT invincible. You will die very quickly if you come up against a team of tier 2 weapon-wielding survivors, even (especially) if you find them in a small space. 4 auto-shotguns will finish you off faster than you can incap a single survivor, so playing the tank can be both tricky at times, and super epic win when your plan works out.
Rules to live by:
1) Hulk SMASH!
Try your very hardest never to attack from the front. Not only does it open you up to the full force of the survivors guns, it is also very predictable – survivors may sit there with a Molotov waiting for you to appear at the door, only to set you on fire and run away (you’ll die after about 40 seconds, even if your health bar says full health) – you won’t be able to catch up because the survivors are slightly faster than you when at green health.
2) Y U thro Molotov? =(
Avoid fire at all costs. If someone throws a Molotov down in front of you, don’t run through it. Wait for it to burn out, or find another route around. It’s much better to start losing control a bit rather than setting yourself on fire and dying without doing significant damage. Bear in mind that the control timer will drop you after 2 minutes of no aggression. That is a long time to find a new route round.
3) Ninja Tanking
Surprise. You might be a giant walking beast of a zombie capable of crushing puny humans with your bare hands, but you have to be able to hit them first. Where you’re spawned is at the behest of the AI director so sometimes you’ll get lucky with this and sometimes not, but try your hardest to surprise the survivors as much as possible. Obviously they’ll be able to hear the music and know you’re about, but it’s still not all that easy to pinpoint a Tank unless he’s right on top of you, especially on the enclosed maps. Wait for a survivor to round a corner towards you and then punch him back – you’ll knock him down, hopefully getting him stuck on zombies and making him easier to incap. If at all possible do this out of the way of the other survivors so you don’t have to deal with their weapons fire. You can also hide behind movable objects like cars and fork lifts, and simply wait for the survivors to get close enough to guarantee a hit. Tanks from above can also be very deadly if used correctly – for example, dropping down the stairwell on No Mercy 4. You can drop down, try to incap one survivor, and then escape back up the lift shaft to the top and ready for your second assault.
4) Out of control (I LOL’d)
Don’t go all gay for the control meter. You have two minutes of absolutely not hitting anyone at all before you get stopped from Tanking. That is a long time. Take your time, observe the surroundings, look for objects which may be useful to you (alarmed cars in particular, as well as fork lifts, cars and other stuff. Find a decent place to ambush the survivors if you can.
5) Tier 2 Weaponry
If the survivors have tier 2 weapons, think very very hard about a head to head fight. You will go down super quick. Your best bet is to cut one of the survivors off from the others, either by hitting it over a ledge or surprising it in a compromising location.
6) Don’t hate, incapacitate!
Work on one survivor at a time, if at all possible. Hitting each of the 4 survivors once each won’t do shit. You need to incap people to actually cause real damage (because incapped people need reviving, and that is a perfect opportunity for the Boomer, Hunter, or coming back as the Tank and incapping another player. If you haven’t hit anyone yet, go for the closest target as long as you’re not taking too much fire, and then work on it once you hit it. If you see someone pull a Molotov, you are well advised to either GTFO or hit the fucker until he’s incapped.
7) Flying Forklifts of Death
Use objects. Your Tank’s Fist of Doom is good, if you can get in range, but that can be very difficult in some situations. Find something big that you can hit – cars, fork lifts and other such items. Run up and smash these items at the survivors, who’ll be incapped instantly and possibly killed when hit. Tanks using flying objects to incap people are possibly the most deadly Tanks you will encounter.
8) Lumbering beast, but, above all, considerate and friendly
Pay attention. If your team mate has someone constricted or Huntered, don’t be a giant douchebag and hit him. Most likely you will break him free, then be unable to kill him as he runs away (thanking you and laughing to himself). Go after the other survivors, preferably away from the unlucky caught one, and try to stop the other survivors coming to help the victim.
Remember, just ‘cos you’re the Tank doesn’t mean you can stop working as a team. Use the other specials to your advantage. A Tank on its own will fare a lot worse than a tank with 3 specials backing it up. The shear confusion caused by a Tank is usually enough to let a HBunter get the drop on someone. Even if you cannot catch up to someone because their health is green and it’s an open area (Blood Harvest, for example), you should aim to separate one from the group like a sheepdog herding sheep. Once one is separated (and probably laughing, going “Haha, you can’t hit me!“) is when the Hunter pounces him. Then you can turn around and fend off anyone who attempts to heal the incapped and quickly dying survivor. Nobody wants to get close to a Tank.
Similarly, if a Smoker (or Hunter) grabs someone, survivors instinctively turn to try and rescue them. This change of direction, if you’re able to predict it, often results in your ability to catch them up and introduce them to Mr Fist.
On the rescuing incapped survivor front, always keep an eye out for survivors rescuing each other once you’ve incapped them. A standard survivor tactic is for one bloke to lead the Tank astray whilst another rescues the incaps. You can use this to your advantage however, as people generally do not pay attention and just hold X. So incap someone, go after another survivor and then after a few seconds turn on your heels and head back, you will often find someone valiantly trying to rescue the poor guy with the broken legs and they are ripe for a supersized, steroid induced pimp slap.
9) Holy shit! Look at him fly!
The twatting technique. On certain maps, it is possible to cause absolute havoc and instant kill a survivor simply by hitting him/her off a ledge. These include No Mercy 4 and 5, Blood Harvest 1, 3, 4 and parts of 5. Get behind the person, so you’re facing the direction you want to hit them, and then swing. If possible, try and hit them while they’re jumping, and they’ll go fucking flying. Fall damage, if they don’t actually fall ‘out of the map’ as it were, should be substantial depending where you hit them.
10) Incapped by flying boulder? WTF?
Artillery. So you have a tier 2 weapons team, and they’re on a relatively open map (Blood Harvest 3, 4 and 5 or No Mercy 1, last part of 2, 3 and 5), and they’re not actively looking for you. They may be waiting around for the Tank to come to them, possibly scared. This won’t work against an aggressive survivor team, who will simply hunt you down and fuck you, especially because it will be them doing the surprising and not you. Find a large object to hide behind – such as a rock, some dead cows (LOL), a big car or something like that, and then simply throw rocks at them. Try to anticipate movement, or if they’re all standing around waiting for you to come just smack them with a rock, switch position, and then try to get closer to them while they’re busy confused with rocks and stuff so you can own them with fists and then get out again. If your internet connection is good and your motion prediction is on target, you can actually cause some serious damage while not opening yourself up to a lot of incoming fire from tier 2 weapons. Don’t be afraid to try some seriously long range artillery, after all you have 2 minutes to get some decent hits in otherwise. The added bonus of doing this from behind a movable object is that if any of the survivors get balls and come looking for you, you can simply incap them with a flying car. Whatever you do, don’t simply stand there out in the open throwing rocks. This makes you an easy fucking target and you will get toasted before you can do anything.
11) Finale Tanking
If you’re a finale Tank, you’re sometimes limited by what you can do. The finales make it really rather difficult to Tank because they’re both generally large open spaces with not much cover. On No Mercy, you simply want to try your best to knock people off the roof. On Blood Harvest, your best bet is probably to try and catch one in the house while the others go outside. Incap that one and then try to disappear, coming back for them when they try to revive. You can try the artillery tank on this, but in my experience the director spawns you in some really shitty places and that makes it hard to get out of view of a decent human team (which will usually go straight outside after the zombie swarms finish because they know there’s a Tank).
Finally – if you get set on fire and there is no way to cut a survivor off from the group, simply go in and swing as much as you can. 40 seconds is not a long time to deal damage, so every second counts. Get in there as fast as possible (if there’s a quick way to get behind them then maybe use that) and cause some damage, because it’s better to die in a fire having done a little damage than dropping dead because you got set on fire and stood about.
Survivors
Okay, most of it is pretty obvious if you have played Campaign or single player mode. It should be pretty straight forward as most things remain unchanged. Just some quick tips:
- Keep moving, try to complete acts as fast as possible, the more time you spend the more respawns the other team gets meaning more damage inflicted upon you and more chances of a Tank showing up.
- Infected can climb walls, pipes, etc. and see in the dark. Just because you can’t see or reach that does not mean they can’t. Expect trouble from all angles and learn to predict common places for attacks to be sprung.
- Trick them! Special infected are normal players and can be tricked just like you can be, lead them into places where their abilities will be wasted or allow you to kill them easier. When an infected dies that’s at least 20 seconds he is out of the game and 20 seconds of you advancing without him slowing you up. Keep moving and kill them as fast as possible. The faster and more aggressive you play the fewer respawns they get to use against you.
- Try to always have your sound on, the game makes extensive use of sounds and music to give survivors a hint on impending dangers as well as automated status updates from fellow survivors sometimes. Tank approaching? The music will change. Witch in the vicinity, you’ll hear the sobbing and again the music will change. All special infected also have unique sounds so try to keep those ears open as it can give you a vital heads up on what to expect and avoid you getting surprised and making a mistake.
- Melee is good. Awesome, in fact. Don’t be afraid to freely abuse melee. Not only does it break tongues, knock hunters and Boomers back and use no ammo/create no noise, it also does no damage to team mates and is pretty fast. Some servers on PC nowadays have it so that constantly using melee will slow it down (although this can be averted by switching weapons if you so desire) it’s still an incredibly useful ability and a fantatic way to avoid friendly fire incidents in clusterfuck moments like being Boomered in a tight space. You can also reload and melee without any delay or stopping the reload action.
Review – Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Lightsaber Duels
Game: Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Lightsaber Duels- Format: Wii
- Other Formats: None
- Developer: Krome Studios
- Publisher: LucasArts
- Genre: Fighting
When Nintendo first announced that they were making a console powered by waving a TV remote around like an idiot, there was one game that everyone wanted to see. The very concept of the Wii seems perfect for a lightsaber game, right down to the remote speaker for making “vom vomvomvom vom vom vom BZZZT!” noises. Well, two years on, LucasArts have finally remembered that they like money, with the release of Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Lightsaber Duels: Attack of the Colons, but can it possibly live up to the dream?
The basic set up is pretty much what you would expect. Two characters from a selection of ten Clone Wars characters go into an arena and proceed to kill each other with lightsabers and Force powers. For solo players there is a story mode featuring clips from the series, and a challenge mode in which you need to win whilst fulfilling certain objectives (usually use all the combos or finish in under three minutes), but it never really departs much from the main concept.
The most important thing about this game is probably the control system. Sadly, any hopes for full one-to-one movement of your blade are quickly dashed, instead lightsaber attacks are limited to slashes in four directions and a forwards stabbing motion. This does at least mean that the controls are much more reliable than many Wii games; even when making multiple moves in quick succession the game can pick up exactly what each swing is supposed to be and act accordingly, so you’ll never end up losing the game just because the game confused your Ultimate Sith-Killer Combo for the “decapitate self with own lightsaber” command.
There are a few more complications to the fighting system, such as each character having their own Force power and super move, using the Force to throw debris into your opponent’s face, and the ability to parry attacks by holding block and swinging in the opposite direction to your opponent, but overall there is nowhere near as much depth to the combat as something like Soul Calibur.
One feature that comes up a lot is the saber lock system where at seemingly random points in the battle the two combatants will lock blades, trade insults and then set off one of three mini games… or just go straight back into the fight leaving the players wondering what all that was about. The mini games are quite fun actually, but it would be nice if it didn’t feel like the game was deciding whether or not to give you one on the basis of a coin flip.
“Wait, why are we doing this again?”
The actual choice of character to play as makes disappointingly little difference to the actual gameplay, with the main changes being a slightly different combo list and Force power. The real difference is in the voice clips played as the fight goes on. In a nice touch, the speech changes depending on your opponent, so for example Obi-Wan will accuse Count Dooku of betraying the Jedi Order and vow to bring an end to this insignificant rebellion, whereas Obi-Wan versus Anakin sounds more like a friendly sparring match. This helps to give the fights a more cinematic feel and make the sound clips actually make sense in context, but the downside is that by limiting the number of possible lines the chances of repetition inevitably increases.
Lightsaber proliferation reaches dangerous levels – coming in 2010: Star Wars Episode VII: Invasion of the Octopus People
Overall, The Clone Wars is not the lightsaber game you imagined when you first saw the Wii remote, and in all likelihood it was never trying to be. Instead, what we have is a fun, technically competent, but ultimately insubstantial beat-em-up. Star Wars fans will likely get a kick out of it for a while, but after a few days they’ll be back to Smash Bros. Brawl. Now, if LucasArts were to make a sequel using the MotionPlus add-on the idea could finally live up to its potential.
5/10
Review – Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Lightsaber Duels
Game: Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Lightsaber Duels- Format: Wii
- Other Formats: None
- Developer: Krome Studios
- Publisher: LucasArts
- Genre: Fighting
When Nintendo first announced that they were making a console powered by waving a TV remote around like an idiot, there was one game that everyone wanted to see. The very concept of the Wii seems perfect for a lightsaber game, right down to the remote speaker for making “vom vomvomvom vom vom vom BZZZT!” noises. Well, two years on, LucasArts have finally remembered that they like money, with the release of Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Lightsaber Duels: Attack of the Colons, but can it possibly live up to the dream?
The basic set up is pretty much what you would expect. Two characters from a selection of ten Clone Wars characters go into an arena and proceed to kill each other with lightsabers and Force powers. For solo players there is a story mode featuring clips from the series, and a challenge mode in which you need to win whilst fulfilling certain objectives (usually use all the combos or finish in under three minutes), but it never really departs much from the main concept.
The most important thing about this game is probably the control system. Sadly, any hopes for full one-to-one movement of your blade are quickly dashed, instead lightsaber attacks are limited to slashes in four directions and a forwards stabbing motion. This does at least mean that the controls are much more reliable than many Wii games; even when making multiple moves in quick succession the game can pick up exactly what each swing is supposed to be and act accordingly, so you’ll never end up losing the game just because the game confused your Ultimate Sith-Killer Combo for the “decapitate self with own lightsaber” command.
There are a few more complications to the fighting system, such as each character having their own Force power and super move, using the Force to throw debris into your opponent’s face, and the ability to parry attacks by holding block and swinging in the opposite direction to your opponent, but overall there is nowhere near as much depth to the combat as something like Soul Calibur.
One feature that comes up a lot is the saber lock system where at seemingly random points in the battle the two combatants will lock blades, trade insults and then set off one of three mini games… or just go straight back into the fight leaving the players wondering what all that was about. The mini games are quite fun actually, but it would be nice if it didn’t feel like the game was deciding whether or not to give you one on the basis of a coin flip.
“Wait, why are we doing this again?”
The actual choice of character to play as makes disappointingly little difference to the actual gameplay, with the main changes being a slightly different combo list and Force power. The real difference is in the voice clips played as the fight goes on. In a nice touch, the speech changes depending on your opponent, so for example Obi-Wan will accuse Count Dooku of betraying the Jedi Order and vow to bring an end to this insignificant rebellion, whereas Obi-Wan versus Anakin sounds more like a friendly sparring match. This helps to give the fights a more cinematic feel and make the sound clips actually make sense in context, but the downside is that by limiting the number of possible lines the chances of repetition inevitably increases.
Lightsaber proliferation reaches dangerous levels – coming in 2010: Star Wars Episode VII: Invasion of the Octopus People
Overall, The Clone Wars is not the lightsaber game you imagined when you first saw the Wii remote, and in all likelihood it was never trying to be. Instead, what we have is a fun, technically competent, but ultimately insubstantial beat-em-up. Star Wars fans will likely get a kick out of it for a while, but after a few days they’ll be back to Smash Bros. Brawl. Now, if LucasArts were to make a sequel using the MotionPlus add-on the idea could finally live up to its potential.
5/10
How To… Not Completely Fail on Left 4 Dead’s Versus Mode – Part I
- Game: Left 4 Dead
- Format: Xbox 360, PC
- Developer: Valve (PC)/Certain Affinity (X360)
- Publisher: Valve
- Genre: 1st Person Shooter
Left 4 Dead is a co-op fan’s dream. Put 4 people together and see if they can co-operate to the end of the level. If they do their own thing and they’ll probably be left for dead (hence the title of the game) by the rest of the team, or, worse they’ll cost your whole team the match by splitting the team up and getting picked off by the horde. Versus mode, however, turns the whole game on its head and puts a team in the blood-soaked shoes of the game’s ‘special infected’ – zombies with special abilities such as super-zombie strength and erm… puking (it may seem absurd, to say the least, but it’s brilliant fun). This mode really punishes you if you fail to pull your weight and it’s very easy to throw away a good win for your team. So I’m here to help and dispense advice that is probably blatantly obvious, but it makes me feel important, though, so here it is anyway. Take note, though, this is a guide purely for the Versus mode. If you need help with the other parts of the game, then go on GameFAQs or something.
Part I – Infected: The Hunter and The Boomer
You should already know how to play as a survivor. The general method of surviving is very much the same against humans as it is against infected, only you’re generally more likely to outsmart humans than you are the AI…
The Hunter
Basic play tips first: the Hunter is the most powerful special infected bar the Tank damage wise, but all it takes is a single melee to remove you, and people being huntered are super obvious. The best way to play as a Hunter is like with any of the other special infected (minus the Tank, of course), which is to try and pick on people away from the group, heavily damaged, not paying attention, etc.
This brings me to another pet hate – this isn’t fucking Frogger. Unless you’re trying to get the survivors to shoot at you (example: a distraction to get the survivors boomered by a teammate would be acceptable), stop jumping horizontally along the ground like a retard and use your surroundings to your advantage. You have walls, ceilings, trees, telephone poles, rocks, silos and thousands of other places from which to pounce from.
Unless the only thing you need to do is incapacitate someone out of view of the other survivors (e.g. if he’s the last one alive and you need him down to win), you should always hit people with a single pounce or a wall pounce, and if you miss, claw survivors not paying attention, or jump the hell out of there and try again.
1) How do I shot pounce?
Now you may be asking why pounces are so important. Well, unless you catch a survivor way off on their own, or the survivors are all vomited on and can’t see shit, it’s very likely you’re gonna be shot/melee’d off after maybe 1 or 2 hits on a pounced survivor. While that was okay when we could play Versus on Expert/Advanced mode, there’s not really much point on normal because you only hit them for ~5-10 damage a hit. By pouncing from a distance, you can actually inflict up to 25 points of instant damage the moment you land a pounce, depending on its length.
This is powerful enough to instantly incapacitate a low-yellow survivor and combined with a couple of claw hits, you can be doing upwards of 40 damage a pounce, which is a serious amount of damage compared to a couple of claw hits for maybe 15.
Additionally, if you pounce a person from an angle, it will generally push them slightly in the same direction you were going – this is really useful if you see a survivor looking over a ledge, cliff, etc. – get them from the ground side of the ledge with a big pounce (for maximum force), and if you get lucky you’ll actually push them off the edge. This not only does fall damage but also extends the length of your pounce, so if it wasn’t a max damage pounce it very well might be by the time you hit the ground.
2) Pouncing for dummies
Use the surroundings to your advantage. Look for high spots and jump in a high arc if possible, since it allows you more time to correct your aim in mid air, and try to go for the most injured survivor if possible. Managing to incap a survivor is possibly the best way to slow a team down, especially if you can get a Boomer to spawn on them while they’re reviving.
You can wall jump all you like, but remember this – the damage you get from a pounce is solely dependent on the distance from the last spot you hit to the survivor – if you wall jump all around a map, land 1m from a survivor then ‘Frogger’ into him you won’t do any damage from the pounce.
In most of the open maps (No Mercy 1, parts of 2 and 3, most of Blood Harvest) you should be looking for pounce spots from the get go and trying to hit 25 pounces as much as possible, unless there is a visibly slow survivor in which case you should force his team to come back for them. Bear in mind that you don’t need huge map sprawling leaps – there’s many more easier and faster to reach places which will give you 25 damage from a pounce, they simply won’t look as awesome
In closed maps, and in areas where you think the extra damage would be useful (the entire subway part of No Mercy 2, for example), another tactic is to set yourself on fire. The reason being that once a flaming hunter has pounced a survivor, you will then deal flame damage too (no extra pounce damage over 25) – it’s very easy to incap a survivor if you time a flamed Hunter pounce well. Examples would be pouncing a just-boomered team if you can pounce the only non-vomited survivor, or pounce the one which would be most difficult to free from a hunter (the others are all dealing with zombies on their own). A couple of seconds of flaming Hunter on a survivor can easily incap them, and isn’t too difficult to pull off if your timing is good.
Being on fire does not increase your claw damage, however the flame damage will up the total pain by almost double, but makes you pretty easy to spot (a flaming jumping zombie), and also (and this is crucial) makes it impossible to double jump – this means no wall jumping, no diagonal/vertical building climbing – only direct pounces. Since the maps where this is most useful are the enclosed ones where fire is readily available, your pounces will generally be short (you’re limited by the ceiling height after all), but you can still do 5-10 damage from a single pounce by making sure you pounce in an arc – over the train carriages and stuff on No Mercy 2 is easily doable with a little practice.
These are my two main points when playing Hunter – try to pounce for maximum damage as much as you can where possible, and when that’s not physically possible because of the map, set yourself on fire using available fire sources, or survivor Molotov, and wreak havoc. Use the confusion caused by Boomers to your advantage, and work on a single survivor if you can until they’re incapped.
3) The fat guy is your best friend
Just-boomered survivors are most susceptible to insane Hunter damage because they lose outlines of their teammates and audible traits of the Hunter pounce are more difficult to pick out, and if a survivor is on his own and struggling with zombies (usually crouched, stationary and meleeing his fucking heart out), pounce the fucker – he’ll be easy to pounce for max damage (because he’s stationary), surrounded by zombies (which take fire before you do), probably won’t be paying attention to his surroundings (mostly top and behind), and once pounced the additional damage from the zombies already there is no laughing matter.
4) Hunter slap
Your claw attack (secondary) does a lot more damage than the smokers’ – 10 a hit AFAIK (I think this is also affected by fire, but fire makes you super visible when going for straight claws), so if you’re struggling for a place to pounce from, another tactic that works relatively well is to attack boomered players with your claws, like a normal zombie – you blend in to the crowd of zombies (don’t forget, you can run through zombies, a survivor cant), approach from the side or back, claw once, run away, attack from a different side.
You can easily inflict 30 or 40 damage this way on a boomered target who can’t see shit, and simply pounce away when the zombies are mostly dead.
5) FLYING NINJA SQUIRREL ZOMBIE JESUS DEATH
Air control as a Hunter is super important for hitting targets and GTFOing. If you’re holding down crouch once you’re in the air, stop it. Use crouch to pounce and then let it go once you’re flying. If you hold crouch, you lose a lot of the ability to change your direction in the air, which makes it much harder to hit targets from a long way away.
Note: If you tap crouch just before you land a pounce (or hold it down until you’ve pounced again, doesn’t matter), you can then pounce again straight away to get out of sticky situations. You do not need to have crouch pressed if you want to wall jump – all you need for a wall jump is to be looking a certain angle away from the wall both vertically and horizontally (~10 degrees apparently), and then press the primary attack button.
As for changing direction in mid air – press left and right to move that way, forwards if you need some more range, and hold backwards if you need less range. Bear in mind forwards seems to be less sensitive than the other 3, and backwards seems to be much more sensitive than the rest – you can pretty much stop in mid air and fall directly down.
If you’re trying to curve left or right into someone from a pounce, hold the strafe key in that direction while curling the cross hairs towards them in the same direction. It’s pretty tricky to get the hang of accurately, but is the most important part of hitting big pounces for big damage bar none (along with accurately predicting the movement of survivors, and the range of your pounce). Also, bear in mind that unless you have a really good ping, the survivors are probably a step or two ahead of where you see them. When pouncing from the side or behind, always try to aim slightly ahead of a moving victim to pounce them more accurately. Pouncing someone from behind and hitting them in the back will not force a successful pounce, you have to land on their head or very slightly in front of them. If you feel like you’re bouncing off peoples heads, that generally means that your pounce aim is good but your ping is a bit shitty, so you want to aim further forwards again.
6) I’mma NINJA
While the Hunter’s pounce is by far its most powerful weapon damage wise, there are lots of other ways you can be effective when pounce isn’t an option – Hunters make no noise when not crouching, so use this to your advantage.
I’ve had instances where I’ve hidden in a tree on Blood Harvest 1, waited for the healthy survivors to run by and then incapped the injured survivor with a single claw hit and run off.
The Boomer
Okay, Boomers! These guys often have the shortest life spans but are also fantastic force multipliers when used correctly. The ability to summon 30 regular infected is a incredibly good skill when used right and can open the door for a torrent of buttrape for the unlucky survivors.
1) The Money Shot
First things first, that green bukkake attack takes a damn long time to recharge so use it wisely, it’s likely you’ll only live long enough to use it once before popping so don’t mess up. Boomer bile only attracts infected if it actually hits a survivor and then only 1 swarm per bile attack. Blowing your load on all 4 will not net you 4xs the amount of infected nor will puking on one then exploding on the other 3. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to bile up all 4, you should always be aiming to hit multiple targets, just remember it won’t net you more zombies.
2) IT’S IN MAH EYES!!1!
Boomer bile does a lot more then just attract infected, when you get blasted by the fat man’s goo you’re effectively blind for a few seconds and lose everyone’s outlines. This either means resorting to your weaker melee attack or risk friendly fire incidents. As a boomer you should know this and take advantage of it. See that fresh young noob who has yet to learn what the melee key is (or worse knows it’s there but insists on always using the bloody shotgun)? Try to shoot your load on him and watch as he spins around in a blind panic wasting ammo and shooting his buddies in the face.
Other infected should also use this to their advantage. Smokers and Hunters! If your Boomer friend manages to get 3 guys but not the 4th, go for him. A team where 3 players can’t see shit is gonna have hell of a time trying to dislodge a pinned player – more so if you have 30 regular infected getting in the way and chewing on your face. If a Boomer has managed to get all 4 then Hunters go for the ones surrounded by the most zombies they’ll make a fantastic meatshield while you incap your way to success while Smokers aim for anyone who can be easily separated and make some distance.
3) Think before you spray
There is nothing worse then an idiot Boomer who sprays on a team while they are surrounded by close able doors or otherwise small cramped spaces (the stairwell sections on No Mercy 3 etc.). As a boomer you want to cream ‘em where they are exposed; yes it’s harder to get the jump on an intelligent team but do it right and the swarm you summon is much, much harder to counter as they will be coming from all directions and surround victims. If it looks like they’ll be able to funnel the zombies through a bottleneck (or force them to climb) think twice about committing yourself. If you think you can survive to puke a second time then go for it and let them use up the ammo before attracting a second rabble but otherwise don’t feel ashamed about hiding and letting them get into a more open area.
4) ALLAH AKBAH!
Back when you could commit a suicide at the touch of a button on the PC version it used to be great fun to waddle in and suicide yourself before the survivors could melee you away and let the zombie hordes do the rest. Unfortunately such times are gone but the tactic is still there, when you die you go boom and anything nearby gets slimed in your product, attracting the horde. Boomers have a shitty amount of life and more often than not you’ll get more slimes from dying than actually puking. Most maps are full of drops, vents and all sorts of other places where a Boomer can appear out of no where and get hit by a stray bullet or panicked shotgun wielder (especially on 360 as most people are still too stupid to try and push Boomers back before firing.)
5) Bullet Magnet
People love to kill Boomers, they’re huge, slow sacks of shit that pop like a balloon after just a couple of rounds. Use this to your advantage and stand by things people typically don’t want to shoot at like cars or the Witch. People will fire at you in an attempt to kill you before attracting the horde and normally end up causing even more trouble for themselves. Remember all it takes is one bullet to set them off. You can use this tactic with all infected but Boomers are the best for attracting fire at their bloated arses.
6) Fat man slap
Boomers still posses a melee attack, although it’s pretty useless, not doing much damage and bieing slow to get close enough. That said, if you do get inside explodey range remember to spam secondary and get a couple of extra cheap hits, you’re still stronger than a regular infected.
7) Work as a team, Jackass
Your bile and hordes may be a pain in the arse, but in general your actual damage output is still laughably low, what you do provide better then anyone else however is a massive fucking diversion for your infected buddies to take advantage of. Use your mic and your friends to help you – out it’s a billion times harder to save someone with a screen full of infected in the way (that your team can walk through) than it is to save someone who isn’t. Boomers are also one of the few classes that force a team to split up on their own, no one wants to be biled and people will spread out in every direction to either try and prevent you getting 4 hits from your puke or to avoid the inevitable explosion. A fragmented team of survivors is easier to pin with other infected than one where they’re all in melee range of one another.
8) Check their inventory
Survivors that have a pipe bomb or Molotov will have it holstered on their character and easily visible in spectator mode when you die. Why is this important? Simple, pipe bombs will fuck you up, given a choice between a cummed on survivor and a pipe bomb zombies almost always go for the pipe every fucking time, the picky bastards. If you see someone with a pipe, try to do everything you possibly can to make them use it up before you unleash your puke, it’s not always possible (people are very stingy on where they use their pipe bombs), but if you can make them waste it, then do so. Last thing you want is to spend 20 seconds watching your horde run like idiots after the blinky red thing and get vapourised.
9) Metagaming Arsehole
This will only work on the PC version and then only on poor saps who have shitty connections and computers. If you think (or know) someone to have a computer that is likely to chug at the sight of 30 zombies pouring out of the woodwork then take advantage of this. No one wants their savior to be someone with only 5 frames per sec because half the time it’ll just get you both killed so force this situation where possible.
Next: In Part II, we deal with Smokers and the awesomeness of the Tank. Plus, some tips for surviving against the human-controlled infected in Left 4 Dead‘s Versus mode.
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