Penny Arcade

It is probably clear at this point that we enjoy Bombing Run.

I am happy to say that Bombing Run in the imminent Unreal Tournament 2003 is just as good as I hoped, if not the teeniest bit better.  The CTF and Deathmatch modes might be great, but I’m not the guy to tell you.  I can’t say they’ll get much playtime, demo or retail.  Here’s the basic rundown on how BR works.

Each team starts out an equal distance from a bomb in the middle of an arena.  The object is take this bomb to the opposing team’s goal, where you can either a) fire it through for three points, or b) run it through for seven.  That is the Reader’s Digest version, of course - I didn’t mention that everyone is also trying to kill each other, or that the person with the ball can do absolutely nothing to defend themselves.  It’s very similar to One-Flag CTF from Team Arena fundamentally, I suppose, but the sports trappings add a surprising about of flavor.  Playing in the middle of the night, our own Gabriel suggested that the bomb should explode after being held for ten seconds, to keep the ball moving from player to player.  The alternate fire for the bomb targets a specific teammate for a pass, and is one of the more satisfying things to pull off - we’re of the opinion that this should be highly encouraged, either by the means just described or some other new kind of means we haven’t thought of.  Things can impede the throws, big, you know, Egyptian things can, but there is enough solid auto-aim to manage some fairly spectacular teamwork.  On servers with Low Gravity on, the things you can pull off in this regard are amazing.     

So, it’s very good.  For my part, I wouldn’t mind if they went even farther with the sports motif than they do - goals accompanied by player portraits on marquees for everyone to see, some fancy looking statistics, perhaps the names of those who assisted.  As it stands, you score the goal now and just sort of futz around for awhile.  It couldn’t hurt to maintain the future sports concept throughout, and here’s a genre-appropriate way to handle it.  Not only do I envision myself playing a lot of it, I wouldn’t mind watching it either.  CTF is great, but Bombing Run’s single focus point - the bomb, as opposed to two distant flags - makes it a natural for spectator sport.  Also!  The very, very latest nVidia drivers, the 40.really fucking shitties, are not great for UT2k3.  I left them in, wondering how bad could they actually be, and back-revved to 30.82 just on a whim.  I was shocked by the improvement.

Changing Subjects.

In a bit of strange news, we’ve gotten Battlefield 1942 playable on Gabe’s machine - and without weaves, medications, or costly surgery.  After cleaning three viruses and removing no less than twenty-four separate instances of ad and spyware, miraculously he now has juice to spare.  It runs better than it does on my machine now, which is a much better device than his in every conceivable aspect, I’m not trying to brag here but it’s true, and I find that troubling in the extreme.  I was going to detail why I think people should be able to spawn directly into APCs, using them as mobile forward deployment points, but I’m not sure it’s such a good idea anymore.  Well, I felt very smart for a couple of days at least.

(CW)TB out.

i found the sure way to the ground

I noticed on Evil Avatar an edit for your User.ini to fire Redeemer ammo.  It isn’t the full package, now - you aren’t steering it around - but it’s a big-ass explosion, and the physics of poor bastards caught in its wake are delicious to behold.

(CW)TB

I had some friends over on Saturday to play some games. I had Ikaruga, Raging Bless and Socom all ready to go. It turns out the evening was dominated by the Xbox version of Soccer Slam though. From about six in the evening to almost midnight it was nothing but killer kicks and trips to the soccer shop. I live in an apartment and the chick above me is always complaining that Kara and I are too loud even when we are just sitting on the couch reading. Now Soccer Slam is a game that requires yelling when you’re playing it with friends and I was a little worried about my future in this particular complex. Over shouts of “Fuck you Angus!” and “Suck it Nova!” I tried to caution my friends against being quite so boisterous. In the end we decided that goals would be celebrated with the silent waving of ones hands and curses directed at the opposing team would be kept at a reasonable volume.  It’s no secret that Tycho and I were huge fans of the Gamecube version of SS and the Xbox version has some tweaks and features that make it even better. One of the most frustrating things about the GC version was that Killer Kicks rarely resulted in a goal. We always felt like if you’re actually able to execute one of these Matrix inspired mega kicks you deserve the goddamned point. It seemed that maybe one out of every hundred killer kicks ever actually scored in the GC version. Now on the Xbox these same kicks find the back of the net with satisfying frequency. Visually the game looks pretty much identical. The Xbox version has some fantastic weather effects that I don’t remember being in the Cube version. Maybe I am just spacing out here but I don’t remember snow or rain on the cube. Word is there are also some new hidden teams to unlock. It’s probably not worth buying if you already have the Cube version but Xbox owners should certainly pick this one up.  The single player experience is nothing special but if you get some friends together this game is a fucking blast.  It’s easily one of the best party games on any platform.

It also gave me a chance to try out the new Xbox controller from Gamester called the Phoenix. These are the same cats that put out that fantastic GBA flood light we were raving about a few months back. Their new Xbox controller is another victory for them as far as I am concerned. It’s tiny bit smaller that then even the official type S controller and it has rubber grips and better button placement. The start, select, black and white buttons that are round and small on the type S are now longer and oval shaped to fit your thumb better. It’s a small change but it makes those buttons much easier to activate. I’m not sure if it’s in stores yet but keep an eye out for them if you’re in the market for some extra controllers.

-Gabe out