Vast tracts of land.

Hinterland

hin⋅ter⋅land  /ˈhɪntərˌlænd/

–noun

Often, hinterlands. the remote or less developed parts of a country; back country: The hinterlands are usually much more picturesque than the urban areas.

After much prompting by Penny Arcade and RPS, I finally gave Hinterland a look today. Not wanting to give greenbacks to an indie developer I had no prior experience with, I went the demo route. The game tossed me into the untouched wilds with a lone directive: develop a community for your king. Oh, and if you run out of food you and the townsfolk die. The lack of direction is refreshing; no bossy NPCs to walk me through a basic tutorial are to be found in the hinterlands. The developers wisely assume if I'm savy enough to have found their non-retail game in the first place, this likely isn't my first rodeo.

I start out as a Journeyman, the jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none class. The game gives me a town center to begin and a couple of visitors wander up to see what the hell I'm doing out in the sticks. These are folks I need to recruit to grow my burgeoning metropolis. Visitors have requirements to be met before they can be talked into staying: certain buildings need to be present, enough gold to build their shops/homes, and your fame (think of it as your reputation) has to be a certain level or higher. Fame is earned by clearing out goblin encampments in the land around your town or performing similar feats of derring-do to impress the king. Don't die, you automatically lose fame.

After nearly dieing of starvation a few times, I gathered enough gold to talk some farmers into joining my community. The visitors in your town aren't always the ones you need. Some of them are not practical in the early game, or are too far out of reach to absorb into your township. The randomness of it is a nice touch. I had to sift through fortune tellers and wannabe priests to find the people who would keep me from starving. Fortunately, the game allows me to 'dismiss' people I don't need at the moment, hoping a roll of the dice will send someone more useful my way.

As my adventures in the hinterland surrounding my town continued, my pouch began to bulge with unused items drawn from the corpses of my slain foes. Where was my merchant? Who could I sell my ready supply of rusty armaments? Finally, a purveyor of goods happened by. He was costly, but my need was great. I quickly stacked goblin carcasses 5 deep to earn the gold needed to upgrade my poor-man's hostel to a welcoming inn. I was now 1 day removed from the potential vendor's departure and needed more gold to sway him into taking up permanent residence. Dashing across the country, I appropriated more gold and loot from beings of evil disposition. Making it back to town in the nick of time, I gladly paid for the merchant's business and prepared to inundate him with all manner of bedraggled weaponry.

Hinterland is shutting down now.
Thanks for playing.

Touche' Hinterland demo. Touche'.

I am buying this game today, Steam has it for $14.99 as part of their big holiday sale. Greenhouse always has it for $19.95 and is usually the cheaper (if only by $.04) deal. Even if there wasn't a fat discount at Steam, I would buy it there anyway. I have this odd habit of wanting people to see what I'm playing. I've even passed up replaying loved titles from my yesteryear for lack of Xfire support. But that's a discussion for another blog.

Fallout is completed!

After clocking in just shy of 50 hrs, I finally finished up my adventures in the capital wasteland today. I spent a good portion of my time in the beginning just exploring and discovering new places. I took a couple of weeks off when Left 4 Dead was released, but took advantage of the holiday vacation to finish up.

I played through as a goody-two-shoes and am looking forward to another play through as an evil character. For fear of spoiling it, I won't go into detail too much, but I concentrated my efforts in speech and was able to talk my way out of many situations. It will be neat to see how I can approach those same problems with a different moral compass to guide me.

I can heartily recommend Fallout 3 to fans of the series, fans of the Elder Scrolls series, and fans of western RPGs in general.

Left 4 Dead contest!

www.L4Dmaps.net is one of my daily web visits. The site is dedicated to the creation of custom maps for Left 4 Dead. Problem is, the SDK (Source Development Kit) has not been updated yet. While it's possible to make them with a clever workaround...there are some important things missing though.



While we all wait for the update, L4DMaps thought it would fun to have a contest. All you have to do is guess the release date for the SDK update. The winner takes home a snazzy poster just like the picture seen to the left.

Click the pic to submit your entry. I guessed January 7th.

How Valve jerk-proofed it

Like a fat kid and cake, I just keep coming back for more Left 4 Dead. Despite previous reports to the contrary, there are decent folks out there...and they play online games! I know anyone who has spent 5 minutes on XBOX live or any populated Counter Strike server will think I'm crazy, but I have yet to have a bad experience playing with random folks online. Granted, the game is more fun with your friends, but it seems to attract a better class of gamer in general. I think a large part of this is because griefers and selfish kids who play online shooters don't last long in Left 4 Dead. The game is a master at punishing those who hail from the "Me" generation. Try to go off by yourself to get more kills? Your a hunter pounce from death. Hoarding up health packs while your team bleeds to death? Once they die there is nobody left to pull that Smoker off you.

Play this game the wrong way and you will be punished again and again. The jerks go back to Counter-Strike or whatever the hell they played before Left 4 Dead. That's the most beautiful thing about what Valve has accomplished: 'jerk-proofing' the game.

Bravo Valve.

de_???

Last week's mapping update was long on detail, but short on gameplay. I've decided to set the detail aside for while and concentrate on getting the map blocked out. As I worked on it, I wanted more and more to make it a bomb defusal map. I have no clue what to name it and am not sure I will stick with the dust 'theme' or not.

Having said that, the map so far is very blocky and very unoptimized. The textures are basic orange and grey developer, nothing fancy. I did use some signs to convey which direction you should go to reach A or B though. I ran bots through it twice today to see how the balance is. Both times the CT got out to an early lead, but T side quickly caught up and made the matches even.

There is nothing to speak of in the way of cover right now. That's something I will add when I tweak the layout after running bots through a few more times. There are a few spots where the sightlines may be a little too sniper friendly and I want to fix these obvious issues before doing any major playtesting.

Ok, enough jibba jabba, here are some pics, click it to view a larger version:

Back to mapping!

My clan recently dropped it's TF2 server, so mapping for the game has lost a bit of appeal. We still have our CSS server though, so when the mapping bug bit me today I decided to take a crack at a CSS map.

What I am planning so far is just a basic death match style map using the dust theme. I may change it to gungame later on.

BCS got it right...almost.

BCS National Championship: Oklahoma #1 vs. Florida #2. Sure, Texas got left out, but blame that on a flawed Big 12 Divisional Champion selection tiebreak, NOT the BCS. This is the game we all deserve to see.
---my pick: Oklahoma keeps it close for awhile, but Florida pulls away in the 2nd half.


Rose Bowl: #5 USC vs. #8 Penn State. Winner of the Pac 10 plays the winner of the Big 10. Easy enough. No complaints on this matchup.
---my pick: Nobody wants to play USC right now. Sorry JoePa.

Orange Bowl: #12 Cincinatti vs. #21 Virginia Tech. Winner of the Big East vs. the winner of the terrible (this year at least) ACC...no complaints here either.
---my pick: Cincinatti wins in a close one.

Fiesta Bowl: #3 Texas vs. #10 Ohio State. I'm sorry, but Ohio State doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence with BCS this year. Boise State is infinitely more deserving AND they are ranked higher in the BCS at #9.
---my pick: Ohio State gets embarrassed on a national stage yet again.

Sugar Bowl: #4 Alabama vs. #6 Utah. Utah deserves a BCS berth, no doubt about it. Too bad they had to run into Bama.
---my pick: Alabama takes out their frustration and wins big. Am I the only one who thinks Bama vs. Texas would be a lot more fun to watch in the Fiesta Bowl. Having said that, Boise State vs. Utah would be enjoyable as well.

Left 4 Dead Reviewed!

The first time you boot up L4D you are treated to an introductory cinematic. It likely goes without saying, but watch this movie! It very subtly keys you in on some basic concepts of the game. It’s the equivalent of a training mission in movie-form. Just another example of how well Valve seems to understand all the little things that go into a great gaming experience.

Jump straight into a campaign and you’ll be given the chance to choose between 4 survivors: Bill the Vietnam Vet, Francis the bar fighter, Zoey the horror movie buff, or Louis the IT guy. Aside from appearances, there are no differences between Survivors. You start the campaign in a safe location where you will choose which weapon to equip (shotgun or uzi) and pick up a health pack before beginning your journey.

Teamwork is paramount in this game. You will not have a good experience if everyone tries to lone-wolf their way through a level. In addition to the health pack mentioned above, you can carry a bottle of pain pills for a temporary health boost. You can use these on yourself of course, but often you will find yourself using them and health kits on your teammates, as keeping everyone in the fight is far more important than individual status in the game. Survivors who have their health taken to zero fall down to the ground and must rely on a buddy to help them up. Fortunately, the downed player can still fire a pistol and contribute since their savior will be helpless while reviving anyone. Dead players can be found in closed rooms for a quick respawn, though you start with half health and an uzi. Live together, die alone will be your mantra as you face the mass of undead standing in your way to safety.

continued on www.ozclan.com

Left 4 Dead demo Thursday!

For those who have pre-ordered, Left 4 Dead's demo will be available a week before anyone else. This MIGHT be able to pull me away from Fallout 3 for a night.

Maybe.

- V

Star Wars fans! Watch NOW!

I had to steal this from Jeff Green's blog.

This guy rocks.

-Van

Fallout 3

All free time is now given to Fallout 3.

11 hours into the game and I feel as if I've only scratched the surface.

That's it.

Van out.

Fallout 3, believe the hype.

I started playing Clive Barker's Undying on Saturday morning. Alone in the Dark didn't work out, and I was itching for a scary game. My first impressions of the game are good. The graphics are obviously dated and the controls are a bit different, but the game's story is intriguing and has already provided me some scary moments.

Fallout 3 wasn't scheduled to come until Nov 6th per Amazon's website. I planned to have Undying finished in time to dive right into post-apocalyptic mayhem. So much for plans, Fallout 3 Collector's Edition showed up on my door step Saturday afternoon. I tried to resist, but not really hard...Undying will just have to wait. So, will Resident Evil. Oh, and Advance Wars too. I thought, "Oh, I'll just install it and check out the introduction. Make sure it works well on my system and finish up the games I already started first. Yeah, right.

Fallout 3 has it's talons in me, and I don't want it to let go. I'll give a proper post about my thoughts on the game. Later. I have to go kill some mutant ants now.

Van out.

Doubly Disappointed

After coming off my "gaming-high" with Call of Duty 4, I felt like playing something a bit different. It being Halloween yesterday, I decided on a scary game. I recently picked up Alone in the Dark on PC cheap from GoGamer.com so I thought I would give it a go (would rather play Dead Space, but I'm 4th in line on Goozex). I installed it during Halloween day, preparing to play it Halloween night (as is only proper).

The production values for this game are excellent. I play at a 1680x1050 widescreen resolution and was very impressed by the visuals and effects. Unfortunately, playing with a mouse and keyboard is not optimal. Wait a second, did I say it wasn't optimal? What I meant was unplayable. I understand now why it was $9.90. Surely they are patching it though, right? Wrong. A quick search turns up that the PS3 version will have many of the problems in the PC and 360 versions corrected, even reports of a patch for the 360 to fix these problems...but nothing on a PC patch. The platform made for patching looks to be left out in the cold. Unacceptable. What sucks, is I WANT to play this game so badly. It looks so great on my PC. Oh well, I guess I'll have to look elsewhere for my scare-fix while I wait in line at Goozex for Dead Space.

/UNINSTALL

I logged into Steam last night, looking for a game to play before retiring to bed. I came across a new game called Samantha Swift and the Hidden Rose of Athena. Sounds gay, right? Yeah, it does. Undaunted by assumed gayness I took a look anyway. It looks like a fun little point and click adventure game and it has a free demo, so I thought, "why not?" I downloaded the demo to give it a try. I ended up not trying Sam Swift until this morning, instead trying once more to play the aforementioned unplayable Alone in the Dark last night.

Loading up the game, a splash screen pops up telling me I have 60 minutes available in my demo. That's fine by me, I can't imagine playing a demo for more than an hour anyway. I click on 'PLAY'...the 60 minute timer magically changes to '0' and I'm informed I have ran out of demo time. Sorry Samantha, you had your chance.

/UNINSTALL

Van out.

Just finished:

Why did I wait so long to play this game? Half-Life 2 Episode 2 was my ultimate single-player experience. It held the title for about a year. Shame on me for not playing COD4 sooner. The game does a good job of giving you an incredible amount of variety. I was always doing something new. Whether it be carrying a wounded pilot back to my chopper amid a hale of enemy gunfire, pinpoint bombing human targets from a mile up in a AC-130 Spectre gunship, or crawling between enemy infantry and armor while camouflaged in a sniper ghillie suit, the tasks never seemed repetitive or dull.

The story does not disappoint either. The game jumps between campaigns with the British SAS and United States Marines. The two stories converged fairly quickly and towards the endgame joint operations area carried out between the two forces. You play with the same assortment of troops and the game does a fair job of making me care about the characters I battled alongside. Your comrades are invincible, they can't die from enemy fire (or friendly fire). For me at least, it didn't make them any less my comrade. I still hustled to help any of them out when they called for aid. I honestly teared up twice during the course of playing. That has never happened to me before in a game.

COD4 was a blast to play from start to finish. I never once felt like the game was padded or that I was doing anything that would constitute 'filler'. I completed the game quickly, between 6-7 hours of playtime. Some people might gripe about that, but I would rather be entertained like this for a shorter time than having to drudge through more levels created soley to increase playtime (I'm looking at you Timeshift and Prey). An excellent effort by the developer who has managed to (in my eyes at least) raise the bar on what a single-player FPS experience can be.

I'll be sending this one back to Goozex for trading now, while the point value is still high. However, I have every intention of picking it up again once it comes down in value. This game will have a permanent place in my collection.

p.s. BTW, for those who may be curious about my thoughts on multiplayer...I've heard it's a great online shooter. I just don't have room in my life for another online FPS. Team Fortress 2 and Counter-Strike Source occupy enough of my gaming hours without adding another to the mix. While I type this, I'm looking at the copy of Quake Wars I bought at launch and never played.


Van out.

And now for something completely different

I made the decision to change the focus of my blog. I had intended for this to be a place for me to blog about my forays into game design. I have been rather uninspired to do much level design or construction lately. Like most other hobbies throughout my life, I tend to be cyclical with what I am doing at any given time. I have no doubt that game design will swing back into my current interests, I just have no intention to force the issue right now.

As you can see by looking to your right, I am currently enamored with playing games instead of making them. Call of Duty 4 is taking up most of my PC gaming time. It has the distinction of being the only game to ever bring me to a point where I actually 'teared up' (read: almost cried). I won't spoil the plot, just suffice that COD4 is the bar by which I will judge future FPS experiences.

I'm enjoying Advance Wars: Dual Strike and Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga for my handheld kicks. AW has been a long time coming to completion, I played through a large portion of the game earlier in the year and am just now coming back to it. I've been a fan of turn based strategy starting with Final Fantasy Tactics on the Playstation. AW goes a long way towards scratching that itch. The game is obviously written with the younger crowd in mind, but the gameplay is solid. I just started SS last night before bed, so I don't have much of an opinion at this point. It plays very similar to Mario RPG on the SNES. That's a good thing.

I spent a good portion of this evening jumping into the Resident Evil remake on Gamecube. The RE series is one which I have struggled to like for a long time. The archaic save system, the limited inventory, all adds up to a lot of frustration for this gamer. Last year I made it a significant distance into the original Playstation RE only to reach a point where I didn't have enough first aid/ammo to make it any further. The GC remakes are much easier on the eyes and have a few changes in place that make it an easier affair to navigate. If only I didn't have to navigate like a tank. So far so good though. If this attempt ends up going bad though, this will be my last effort to play through the series. I'll just jump straight to the better control scheme of RE4 and wash my hands of RE1-3.

Ok, I have a little boy in need of a bath.

V out.

Psychonauts and Goozex

Finally finished it off today. It was an enjoyable game all around. I wish more games had the sense of humor Psychonauts has. Good production values, I really dig the art style. Imaginative gameplay, the game does an excellent job of mixing it up and keeping it fresh. The endgame gets a bit stale gameplay-wise, but that's only because at that point you have learned all of your special moves and tend to stick to what works best for you. The last level was one of those levels that makes you glad when the game is done, a bit too long for my taste. All in all, it's a shame this one didn't do well at retail, I would love to buy a sequel.

I received Call of Duty 4 from Goozex this week. I signed up for the service a long time ago, but only recently had I rediscovered it. For those of you who don't know: all games have a point value, people trade you points for your games you trade those points for games you want...very simple and a good system in place to keep all parties happy. Anyway, I have a lot of old PS2/Gamecube/Xbox/PC/GBA games I don't play anymore (or never opened to begin with). I am looking to start consolidating my collection, only retaining those games which I know for certain I will pick up and play again. Pretty good so far, and I am currently 6th in line to pick up Dead Space for PC, so I'm pretty excited about getting a very new title with my very old games. Not to mention I will save lots of money. This paragraph just reminded me, sometime soon I need to put up pictures of my game collection.

Back to COD4 though, the game is amazing. I likely will avoid the multiplayer (CSS & TF2 are quite enough for my tastes thank you, no room for another at this point), but the single player plays like a dream. I haven't had this much fun with an FPS since Half-Life 2. Very well done storyline and excellent gameplay combine for a great single player experience. Best of all, as soon as I am done with it, I'll drop this bad boy back on Goozex and pick up points while it's still a hot game. I'll probably come back later when the demand and point value has come down since this definetley a game I want in my permanent collection.

What are you playing now?

V out.

Portal

Went on another run through Portal today. Before jumping into the new mod mentioned in my previous blog post, I thought it would help to bone up on my Portal skills. Amazing how much faster I was able to complete it. Played off and on today and finished it in about 2 hours total playtime.

I really love the whole Portal experience. I wish there were more games that delivered so much in such a small package. As I said previously, if you haven't played, go buy it NOW. Also, check out Peggle Deluxe. Picked it up today on Steam for $4.99. Can't beat the price!

Portal Prelude mod sees release!

Been following this one for a little while. It's an unofficial prequel to Portal. I'll be downloading it tomorrow and giving it a try soon. What's that you say? Haven't played Portal? Go buy it NOW. The best 6 hours of gaming you'll have this year.

And then download the free mod. http://www.portalprelude.com/

In today's mail...

Read the first chapter. Looks to be a really good reference for basic stuff. Also includes plenty of goodies on a CD-ROM as well. Picked this up on Amazon "used" for $4.50! "Used" my ass, this book is brand-new! Really looking forward to digging in and checking out the included trial version of Photoshop. I have Photoshop Elements and am anxious to see what differences there are with this version.

By the way, I hate the picture on the cover. You would think the author would have better taste. Ah well, I guess I shouldn't judge a book...well, you know.

Could this be the one?

I've always been curious about World of Warcraft. Lord of the Rings Online made me look a little harder. Age of Conan made me consider. Warhammer Online is one cool trailer away from pulling me in. This may finally be the one though. I have avoided MMO's with subscription fees for a long time.

Yeah, you can forget all those games I mentioned before...


October 21st. I am prepared to be blown away, please don't disappoint.

Arena map!

I have temporarily shelved the payload map project I have been working on for the contest. I decided to put some work in on an arena map I sketched out a few weeks ago. My thought process is that the arena map will take much less time while providing me with valuable insight before approaching my payload map. It's loosely based on the alpine lumberyard theme for now. Here is the sketch:


I have the basic layout already blocked out (sorry no pics yet), and have already learned a lot just from that. For one thing, I have a tendency to make things waaaaay too big. My sense of scale definitely needs work. It turns out, the arena map was very forgiving in this regard. Resizing the whole map did not take long at all. I shudder to imagine resizing a huge 4 point payload map.

In football news, both of my fantasy teams look like they should lose, but with a victory for the Vols, the Dolphins (go Pennington!), and the Titans it's been a great football weekend.

C&C3 Tiberium Wars: Defeated!

This makes the very first RTS game I have ever completed a single-player campaign for. I finished up the GDI campaign just prior to posting this blog. I have played many RTS games over the years, but for whatever reason, never finished one until now. I played mostly multiplayer since I purchased C&C3, clocking in about 60 hours between it and the campaign portion.

Next up: a break from RTS' and then I plan to dive into the NOD campaign.

Sunday's work!

Just working on the layout today. Blocked in most of the first half of the map. No details yet.

Motivation!

Outside of completing a minimalist layout for the upcoming payload map competition...I have accomplished exactly nothing in the way of video game design. I haven't picked up any text books, cracked open a level-design program, started up photoshop...zero, zip, zilch. There are those who would say I'm just dreaming if I can self-teach my way into the doors at Valve, Blizzard, EA, or any prominent developer. While it's certainly a long shot, I all but guarantee the nay-sayers are correct by continuing on my current apathetic course.

Having said that, I suppose I should get to work! I leave you with my payload map layout:


I had already begun this layout before the contest was announced. It was intended to be an attack/defend map in the style of dustbowl. The payload map (henceforth known as black canyon) version will require a few changes, the biggest being reduction of points. Black canyon will have 4 cap points, similar to Valve's badwater basin map. The basic idea is players will fight alongside a river leading to red team's dam at the end.

Goodbye for now!

Metallica: The Day That Never Comes

Great new music video from Metallica's new album Death Magnetic.

Metallica - The Day That Never Comes


I just picked up the album earlier this week. Haven't been able to listen to all of it, but I am definitely enjoying it. Much more like the 'old' Metallica. I'll post a better impression once I have properly consumed it all.

I'll be listening to this album a lot while working on my new contest entry. The payload map will be around a dammed river. The final stage will end at the dam itself. Any ideas on names? Here's what I got so far:

pl_river
pl_dam_it
pl_damnation
pl_black_canyon (where the Hoover Dam is located)

My first contest entry

TF2Maps.net recently hosted a mini-mapping contest. The prize: nothing! Not to be deterred by this minor detail I entered. Entrants had to create a prefabricated building that fit in a 1024 x 2048 grid. Your entry could be Red themed or Blu themed. After all entries are received the community will vote for the winner.

The entrants are shown above. The contest is over and the voting is pretty well over. I tried to go off the beaten path with my entry: I designed a gentlemen's club. (That's what I get for asking my clan-mates for ideas). I'm not going to win and I never expected to do, this is the first real work I have ever put out there for public criticism.

I did manage to get one vote from a poor, tasteless soul so I'm pretty pumped despite the fact I'm certain it was a mis-click of the mouse.

Posting this work has given me some needed criticism and instilled me with enough confidence to enter the next contest at TF2Maps.net: creating a one-stage payload map for TF2. Details can be found here.