Posted On Friday, November 20th, 2009 By Jay
L4D2 delivers. Not in the same way that L4D delivers, they are totally divergent experiences of the same universe.
L4D on one hand is an introduction to the cooperative shooter experience known as L4D#. The balancing is great if limited in content. This rifle is my rifle, there are many like it but this is my rifle and I’ll have this one rifle until the finale and if I don’t die, I’ll have this rifle until the final finale. Etc Etc.
That last thought is in high contrast to the pacing and balance of L4D2. Hordes in L4D were overwhelming is scope. The AI director throwing 50-100 infected at the survivors at one time! Different then the various horde structures of L4D2. The AI director is still there. The AI director is still “throwing” hordes but they’ll trickle in gradually. The #s may be the same but I’ll be fighting them longer.
Because the hordes are more spread out, I use more ammunition. Because L4D2 provides other weapon choices more often then an ammo pile I end up switching weapons rather frequently. That is a nice touch.
The levels are arranged differently too. Specifically I find there are fewer long shooting lanes. There’s always Continue Reading
Posted On Monday, September 28th, 2009 By Jay
Continuing with my Things I Like series, I’m going to take this post a little differently. I didn’t like the character introductions on the DAO website. At this point from Bioware, I know that they can write a good story. I know that have some pretty awesome cutscenes. What I want to see is game play footage. And beyond that I want to make sure that the game play footage is worth the 60 bucks I want to give Bioware or will I be waiting for the product to sell for 20 bucks on Steam. Oy!
Here are my reactions:
Does Sex = adult content? Will I have the choice to not mate with the women in my party. Can I just mate with all of them at the same time?
Does blood and violence = adult content?
What kind of moral choices will I be making? *eagerly awaiting the response to this one*
Will it ultimately matter? *damn well better. The choices I made in Mass Effect had little to no effect on the game world.*
Is it a matter of killing or not?
Will the thoughts and feelings of the inhabitants change by way of my actions? Or will NPCs just be missing from the Continue Reading
Posted On Monday, June 1st, 2009 By Jay
The above title may be cryptic to you. If that is the case fear not! click here.
If the above title is not cryptic, this cake isn’t a lie!
Should you be a PC gamer, a steam player and a fan of the above franchise: Rerollmuch is my player name on steam. Look me up, TRR will invite you into a match.
Posted On Friday, May 1st, 2009 By Jay
Great combat in a game is broken into many disparate elements. For the visceral combat line of posts, we’re going to focus on responsive combat. Good combat design breaks down any moment to a series of events. Each event is driven by a rule. Once you have your set of rules, you get to play the Lego bricks game of building combat moves and characters. Let’s talk about animation
Animation Guidelines
Just like any sport, motion and controlling that motion makes or breaks an animation. Weight control, pose, follow apply to the worlds greatest athletes and also to video game avatars. For combat, I like to break my combat animation into 3 parts: Start – Impact – End.
Start
The start animation is the character build up. For WoW, this happens to be the casting animation, for most brawlers this is a low frame count section where the character blends from idle to the initial pose.
IRL, bring your hand over your head and make a fist. You’ve just completed a start animation.
Impact
Impact is my favorite part of the combat animation sequence. It mostly deals with the targets reaction, so we’ll deal with that later. For our purposes, the impact section is the meat that Continue Reading
Posted On Thursday, April 9th, 2009 By Jay
I’ve often wondered about the nature of narrative in a persistent world. In WoW the character is nothing more than a cog. A part of the masses and left to make stories only relevant to the player. Narrative in real life is a very personal experience. We each experience the same story of life from different perspectives. I’m curious sometimes why game developers don’t explore similar concepts from the characters perspective.
Oh, that isn’t to say there aren’t great games with great narratives out there. What I’m referring to is the ability for the player to relate directly to the character. The player doesn’t necessarily have to “experience” the emotional state that the character goes through, that would be silly. I’m talking about creating Tyler Durden moments for the character and similar experiences for the player.
Fulgrim after dealing a life ending blow to his brother Ferrus Manus realized, in horror, what he had become and the root of his evil. The corruption of his spirit by outside forces. His abandonment of his fathers ideals. His epiphany: he betrays those that depend on him for leadership and protection.
Imagine a moment similar for you. A moment of illumination when beliefs, practices, ideas and Continue Reading
