FOG Multi-player Co:op Round Up Finale : PAYDAY: The Heist

*Sort of in a hurry here because I'd like to say my peace while OVERKILL Software is having a Free Weekend and 75% off discount on PAYDAY and it's DLC. Go check it out over at Steam

FOG Multi-player Co:op Round Up Finale : PAYDAY: The Heist

Let me be upfront and clear about something here. My review summary is "Go play PAYDAY right now and add me to Steam." because PAYDAY is great and I will play with you. Now if you're still reading this let me explain why I'm so enthusiastic about this game. Since the films release thousands of people have been asking why won't someone make a game adaptation of HEAT and finally FINAALLY the wonderful people at Overkill have done it with PAYDAY™ The Heist.

PAYDAY™ The Heist is an action filled first person shooter that lets players take on the role of a hardened career criminal executing intense, dynamic heists in constant pursuit of the next “big score”. Load out with an array of weaponry and equipment. Navigate six high-stake heists with three other live or A.I. Co-Op partners in crime.

 PD is a game in which you and 4 others, be it People or AI controlled partners, engage in multi-part heists. To run you through an example the first campaign is a bank heist. You have to enter the bank, disable the security cameras and guards, take and control hostages, enter the vault, get money and get out alive. As we know from both the film Heat and from real life this is difficult if not impossible. That was also just a summary. It's actually even more complicated and while you're doing all that while police, swat and riot teams will at random intervals attempt to lay siege to the bank, arrest the group and free civilians.

I think that's why I like this game so much. It's the most complex FPS to arrive since SWAT and Rainbow 6 which have been all but dead franchises for several years now. You can theoretically play the game with AI but it's next to impossible. It's similar to trying to play a 5v5 counter-strike scrim with all bots on your team. Good Luck..

Your team needs to work together and I mean really together. Both in fighting and in completing objectives. It's very beneficial to have someone act as a team leader. I have to play this roll frequently even as far as to guide new players and keep people on top of their health and ammo. 

It's all worth it when you complete the mission though. I've yet to capture that feeling outside of professional Cpl matches. 

The weapons are all logical stuff no gimmicks. You have three weapon slots for ingame play. A silenced pistol, a rifle and a support weapon. Pistols at the start include a Colt 1911 and a 9mm. Ammo size versus power. Starting rifles include an M4 and a .308. Ammo vs accuracy. It's been a while but I think the primary support weapon is an automatic shotgun. I currently use a silenced UZI. aww yeah.

There's four classes you can choose from for progression purposes however any unlock in a class is usable in all four classes. The classes are Assault, Sharp Shooter, Support and Technician. I won't get into the specifics, you should try these out yourself and see what suits you, but progression is achievement based. Things like kills, recoveries and tool uses gain you achievements, levels which improve things like ammo availability and health, and weapon/tools unlocks.

After purchasing the WolfPack DLC you can setup a total of 9 different heists though any player can join any heist even if they do not own the DLC.

There's a nice variety of heists including a bank robbery, heat street which is a take on the scene from the film HEAT, a prison transport break out and a hospital siege among others.

What's not to like? Honestly I don't know. Go read some of the reviews yourself. I wanted to respond to those, but really couldn't find more than one concrete complaints I could respond to. The one I'll agree with is that there just isn't enough heists. My defense is Call of Duty. $59.99 3 hour, 4 MP map game. Need ah say more? I feel very satisfied paying $29.99 for the full game and DLC though again it's onsale over at Steampowered.com for a mere $7.49 10/19-10/22 and goes on sale pretty regularly.

I'm gonna rate this game an easy 

9/10

The only thing keeping this from being a 10/10 is that I'd like to see more heists and more people playing. I've yet to reach a point where I couldn't find an online game but the pickings can be slim at times. Don't let that hold you back the game is free to play this weekend go try it out. I'll be on in a sec :) 

"Lucius" How is this game not all over the news?

  Something weird just found it's way into my purview.  Lucius. What is this game exactly?

                                                         About the Game

When Lucius was born on the June 6th, 1966, nobody expected him to be anything other than a normal little boy but everything changed on Lucius’ 6th Birthday, when his true calling was revealed to him.Equipped with supernatural powers, take control of Lucius as he begins his blood filled tour of horror through his own house, using Hell’s powers of telekinesis and mind control to orchestrate deadly accidents that will minimize the population of the Dante Manor one by one by one.

  At first I thought it was some sort of adventure game but it's not. it's action game where..you..are..the...anti-christ and your goal is to kill everyone in your household. Why in the heck isn't this all over the news being railed at by religious groups?? Ah well whatever looks damned interesting.

Anyway you can pre-order it on steam below

                                                                            Lucius

FOG Multi-player Co:op Round Up Part 2 : Killing Floor

           One part Vodka, One part Sabroso, 2 parts Caramel Macchiato cream, add a dash of Multiplayer aaand...

One

              FOG Multi-player Co:op Round Up Part 2 : Killing Floor

              Coming up... Today I'm gonna talk a little bit about Killing Floor while I'm still reasonably wit-full.

Killing Floor (abbreviated as KF) is a cooperative first-person shooter video game developed and published by Tripwire Interactive. It was first released on May 14, 2009, for Microsoft Windows,^[3] and for Mac OS X on May 5, 2010.^[4] There is going to be a linux release after the release of Steam (software) for linux.

                KF is in the title. It's Co-op Survival horror first person shooting game. You join a game or start one, pick your perk(class) and start shooting anything that moves. Rinse Repeat, nothing more nothing less. Sound familiar? So why are so many people still active on such an old game? Well before I get into the few cons of this game I'll tell you why.

Maps Maps Maps..then more maps.

                Take a stroll over to FPSBanana one such site that hosts maps for download for KF. Quite a few maps right? That's just a few there's hundreds. I'll be honest with you I have no idea how many maps there are, but guess what? You don't have to download any of those it's all automatic.

Once you click the server you want it will load the map automatically and put you in the game whether its in the pre-game lobby or mid battle.

Guns Guns and then more... knives? Wait what is this, a welding torch? 

               So the basic structure of Killing Floor is that you're in waste disposal. Mutant waste disposal. You're dropped in an arena size map and wave after wave of mutants come at you. Standard zombie type mutants. mutants with swords for arms, mutants that are invisible, that scream etc etc etc. In between waves you're allotted some time at a shop that opens randomly around the map. The more kills you have the more cash you have to spend at the shop. On top of these weapons which range from simple pistols to .50 caliber sniper rifles and  fire axes to kitanas you are also equipped with a welder and a medic gun. The welder is for welding shut doors to slowdown or redirect mutants into areas of your choosing. The Medic gun is for healing yourself and others. It's ammo is infinite but requires time to recharge between uses.

Character Progression

                 In Killing Floor you gain levels in each perk the more you equip and utilize their special functions. The Medic class gets XP for everytime you heal your teammates, the sharpshooter for every headshot and so on. With each level reached the respective perk gains bonuses like faster recharge for the medic gun or more damaging headshots. All in All it's not enough alone to keep you playing, but it's a nice touch.

The Bad

             There are unfortunately a few things that keep this game from being stellar. It's old, really old. It was originally a mod for UT2k4 and though Tripwire did a great job of polishing it and modernizing the textures it just kinda feels old. Thankfully the modders putting out all the maps do a great job of making enough maps for the game to always feel fresh, but I do hope they plan to release more graphical updates for the game. In the last year it's really shown it's age. The other problem is the lack of variety in enemies. For most of the waves you fight the same assortment of about 10 enemies. Since the games inception they only appear to have added about 2 enemies though in their defense every holiday they change it up. During Christmas it's all evil Santas and Halloween it'll be something else amusing. I also find sometimes though not very often I'll be unable to load certain maps in a reasonable time or at all. This can get frustrating when you just want to get into a game.

Based on these merits I'm comfortable giving this game an

8/10

               Though I've owned the game for years I still get the urge to play and that's saying something. There's still hundreds of populated servers any time day or night.

               * should be noted the game has a large catalog of character skins for purchase as well as recently released DLC Class characters who have new perks. I haven't gotten around to buying any of it, but after my most recent game I'm getting a little jealous of some of the cooler skins people are showing off. I would recommend waiting for a sale of which they have every month or so and just picking up the whole bundle at a massive discount.

FOG Multi-player Co:op Round Up Part 1 : Left4Dead

               

            I have a section in my Steam Library called "Shootie" where I put all of  my "pick up and play" Multiplayer  Online FPS both Steam and otherwise. This is my go to section for when I need to kill something be it with a friend or a friend that needs killing. I wanna take some time this week to talk about some the popular titles starting with the...

      FOG Multi-player Co:op Round Up Part 1 : Left4Dead                          

                                                   
         First in the list is Left4Dead or L4D*. I'm gonna call it like I see it. L4D is either an Adaption of Zombie Panic or a Blatant Ripoff. I find it odd that the similarities aren't discussed any where but Valve promotes and hosts Zombie Panic on steam so I guess there's no bad feelings. At any rate it's production values alone qualify it as a separate game so I'll move along and dive into L4D.

        L4D is a 4 player vs AI Zombie Shooter in which you and 3 teammates attempt to get from point A to Point B while traversing hordes of zombies and mutated larger special zombies which can do things like spit acid or crush players using their strength and size. Sounds pretty fun and intense right? Not so much. Get used to looking at the world from this position..

                                    ROFL Rolling on the floor losing.. FOR THE 5TH TIME!! 

         L4D is the equivelent of a 3 year old child whose just eaten a 1lb bag of sugar. It's fitful, it's whiny, there's zero direction. It just runs around in circles screaming at everything.

         You start out making your way through Zombies standing around waiting to attack anything that comes near them then the game uses this thing called the "AI Director" to send waves of Zombies and special mutants to poop on your good time when it feels like you're getting too settled in. This in itself isn't an issue and could fun, the problem is that it doesn't direct fuckle. You just get hit with waves every 30-60 seconds and you spend most of your time under an annoying pile of zombie bodies.

                    Help I'm a worthless teammate whos lagging behind again and I'm too fat to get up!!

          Another thing L4D does wrong is the special mutants. When getting from point A to point B you're constantly hounded by special mutants who rather then provide a decent scare or threat to you just come off as antagonizing and irritating. One jumps on a players back and rides them while making them incapable of defending themselves and forces them to wait for another player to come by and help. The same goes for the Hunter who takes a player to the ground and beats them to death unless a good samaritan comes along to help. This would probably be ok in an arena but remember in L4D you're constantly on the move every 30 seconds or so a player gets jujitsu'd to the ground (there's no avoiding this) and everybody has run back and pick him up. I say everybody because oh wait the Director is in a mood again here's 10k zombies. Rinse repeat every 50ft.

           Oh another jockey humping the back of my head this is so much fun I think I'm gonna shit myself!

                                         
       The straw that broke my back was the community. I spent a few hours trying to get through a few campaigns the other night and it was pure misery. I'm not sure what it is exactly with the community around this game but I could find a group of competent players in my several hours of trying. I ended up completing the L4D1 campaigns by myself with AI because I didn't enjoyed being trolled by my own team. I've yet to finish L4D2 because I can't beat it with AI and can't find anyone worth a shit to play with. Like Call Of Duty L4D is a game that actually seems plagued by it's own fanbase.

       It has it's merits. It's a good looking game. There's a decent variety of guns, firebombs, Zombie attracting pipebombs and the occasional propane tank. There's 20 or so built in campaigns for 4 player vs AI, a Versus mode where players are split between Survivor and Zombies, a gas can collecting mode(joy?) and Survival where you just stay alive as long as possible or until you get bored. There's also custom campaigns you can download if you're patient enough to go work that out.
   
       The truth is though you will get no enjoyment out of this game unless you play with very co-operative friends. You'll find playing with random people online at best a chore and at worst a hazard to your insanity. If I had to speak to Valve directly I'd say

"Please please take out the facehugger zombie crap and add better co-op direction so people don't have to replay a map a hundred times just to hash out their rolls."

For the time being though L4D gets a

4/10  

I actually came into this with the assumption I'd give this game a decent score and a bronze award I spose, but my experience with the game in it's current state was just damning. If you're desperate to kill some zombies and are willing to try a F2P mod there are a couple of interesting alternatives I'd like to suggest.

No More Room In hell and Zombie Panic Source. These aren't exactly going to set your videocard on fire but they make up for it in good friendly communities with people that actually know how to play.

*I'm not gonna refer to L4D and L4D2 as separate entities because they are not. Same deal. They are fairly interchangeable gameplay wise and look nearly identical. If you own one you might as well own the other.

Grimoire : Heralds of the Winged Exemplar

Somebody dropped this in my inbox today and I thought I'd share. Seems to be a pretty impressive classic style First Person RPG similar to Wizardry. They need donations to reach some goals with kickstarter like rewards. It's a bit pricey but I suspect you'll feel better about dropping $50 on this game than you did dropping $60 on MW3.

                 Grimoire : Heralds of the Winged Exemplar

Having self-funded the entire development of the game over the past 17 years out of our own pockets we are now turning to crowdfunding to put the final polish on the game before delivering it to fans worldwide who have been waiting on the game for more than a decade. A pledge to the game will secure you a one-of-a-kind collector's edition of the resulting masterpiece and a guarantee that the completed product will be artistically perfect. Only pledges will get DRM-free copies of Grimoire once it is completed.

Grimoire is a turn-based, 3D, first person perspective roleplaying adventure in 1024x768 256 Color graphics. The 3D step-based engine is pixel perfect and smooth scrolling with zero distortion handcrafted images.

The style of play is very similar to that of CRPGS during the golden age of computer roleplaying before 1992 like Eye of the Beholder, Bane of the Cosmic Forge, Crusaders of the Dark Savant, Might & Magic, The Bard's Tale, Stonekeep and other classic games.

The emphasis in the game is on the story, exploration, discovery, character advancement, puzzle solving, strategic phased combat, treasure hunting, inventory management and interaction with the non-player characters encountered during play.

Noteworthy Features:

• 600 hours of play possible in a single game
• 244+ Maps in the game to explore!
• Turn-Based strategic combat
• 144 context sensitive magic spells
• 14 races, 15 professions, 50 skills
• 64 intelligent NPCs with 8000+ Words in Vocabulary
• Full Sentence Communication with NPCs
• 240+ monsters each with special powers and defenses
• 1000+ items, Carry Containers, Global Party Inventory
• 30 conditions, from Confusion to Disease & Lycanthropy
• Automapping, Autowalking, Autohealing
• Global Map Atlas With Position Marker
• Quest Journal, Hint Prompting, Help Facility, Mini-Quests
• Complex LockPicking Interfaces for Doors & Chests
• Challenging Puzzles and Rich Interactive Dungeons
• Browsable Character Library for up to 100 characters
• Up to 12 Commented Postage Stamped Savegames
• Multi-themed GUI and customizable screen layouts

                          You can help fund the project here

                                         http://www.indiegogo.com/grimoireforever

Paper Sorcerer Beta release!!

So the Paper Sorcerer Beta was released this week. 

I had a chance to play around with it while stuck at work this morning(by morning I mean maintenance at 3am blegh). I'm pleased to announce I'm very happy with it in it's current form though I'm told it's far from complete. In a nut shell what were looking at here is an FPTRPG(lol) First-person Turn-based Role-playing Game with a pokemon-esque menagerie of monsters replacing party members. If you want the full story head over to the kickstarter and check that out. I can't say with any certainty what the first FPTRPG was but  on a guess I'd say it was Wizardry. My personal jump off was actually Wizardry II : Knight of Diamonds.

I played it on the NES so the graphics weren't quite as dated over the original. I think what ultimately pulls me toward this genre again and again is that it's the ultimate adventure. You really have no clue what you're getting into or where it's going. Every step could be fatal or magical, you never know for sure. 

So far as I can see Jesse as developed his game as a 3 pronged attack and done so with great success. He's hit Wizardry and dungeon crawler fans, Adults who enjoy  menagerie games but who struggle find ones that don't specifically appeal to children and the extremely relevant abstract comic art style that's big now thanks to Mike magnolias work with Hellboy. That's not a discredit to Jesse. He has his own style and it is remarkable.

 Paper sorcerer is benefiting in a way few games do by having an Art Major filling all rolls in the development. What might not be feasible in a 1st Party title has found the perfect home with this small indie project.

Due the NDA associated with being a private backer I can't give you much detail about the game. I can tell you tonight I used one of my summons skills on a guard that sent out the summon cracking against the foe in a splendor that made me want to scream at my LCD Gangnam style. If you would like to see more of that you should head over to Ultra Runaway Games where Jesse has a bit of actual gameplay posted.

Paper Sorcerer: Turn based indie rpg

A member over at Hardforum.com turned me on to Paper Sorcerer: Turn based indie rpg a new classic dungeon crawler RPG being crowd funded on Kickstarter. The concept is quite unique. I'll just let him explain.

Paper Sorcerer is a first-person turn-based RPG with adventure game elements inspired by Wizardry, Dungeons and Dragons, and Shadowgate.

• Play as a renegade sorcerer as he struggles to escape the book prison and regain his powers.
• Escape a magical prison filled with heroes hunting you down at every turn.
• Strategy over grinding battles, with a charge based spell system.
• Create a party of summons to join you as allies in battle.
• Discover open-ended puzzles and solve them with a combinations of spells, items, and your wits.
• Hand-drawn high-resolution sprites inspired by the work of late eighteenth and early nineteenth century illustrators like Aubrey Beardsley and William Bradley.
• DRM-free for PC, Mac, iPhone, iPad, Android, and possibly Xbox Live Indie Arcade and web-browser.
• All-inclusive game, promise to never make you pay for DLC content.

Really couldn't ask for more, but he's also posted some beautiful stills and videos explaining where he's at with the project, what he needs from us, and some sample gameplay/design work.

His art style screams Mike magnolia which caused my wallet to leap out of my pocket and attempt to transverse the internet and enter directly into his pocket. Stupid wallet.


So first here's the good news. His project donations have already reached nearly twice his goal allowing him the ability to up the scope for this game considerably.

Now here's even better news. As of now 7-7-2012 you've still got several days to donate. Some of the things, all aesthetic mind you, may not be available once the project reaches gold status. Signed Boxed copies of the game, posters, etc.

The important thing is that the more donated to the kickstarter means clearer deadlines(currently august), higher production values, and more content. To get the game the minimum is a measly $3 so if you're a fat Old nostalgic gamer like me you need to get your ass over to the kickstarter page and give this guy all your monies.

-Piscian out