Icewind Dale II

Developer: Black Isle Studios
Platform: Windows
Release: 2002
Genres: RPG

Icewind Dale II was the last game built with the original Infinity Engine (one of my personal favourite game engines of all time, along with the Ultima VII engine).

Basic Plot

The game is set in the Northern part of Faerûn, focusing on the city of Icewind Dale.

The player party are a group of mercenaries who arrive at the town of Targos to help defends against an assault by goblins. They defend the city and begin an investigation into the Legion of the Chimera; an army of outcast races and religious factions terrorising Northern Faerûn.

Ultimately the player's goal is to resolve the conflict between the Ten Towns and the Legion of the Chimera and bring peace to the North.

Gameplay

Icewind Dale II is a top down role playing adventure game set in the Forgotten Realms universe using a variant of the D&D system.

The player takes control of a party of six characters, all of which are created and customised by the player. This is different to the Baldur's Gate series where (in single player) you created a single character and met additional characters throughout the game who could join you.

Character Creation

Being able to create a completely customised party is both a blessing and a curse. It's great for being able to choose exactly what character classes and stats you'd like each team member to have. When I played Baldur's Gate I sometimes created a multi-player game and copied my save-game file across to single player just so I could have a customised team. 

On the other side of the coin, because your characters are custom made they don't have a back-story linked in with the game world (well not *really*) and they aren't voiced like the party members in Baldur's Gate. To me this was a drastic change in the dynamic of the game; the humour and light-heartedness of Baldur's Gate was gone, instead you felt more alone in the game.

The other big change in the game mechanics since Baldur's Gate was the skill system. Whereas Baldur's Gate handled a lot of skill and stat changes automatically behind the scenes as you levelled up, in Icewind Dale II you had a lot more choices to make when you levelled up. Not only did you allocate stat points and choose skills and spells, but there were also "feats". I personally found this to be a burden I didn't enjoy, I longed for the simplicity of Baldur's Gate.

There were additional options for character creation as well including "sub" races such as Drow if you chose Elf, and sub-classes such as a Priest of Illmater rather than a generic priest.

Fighting a Frost Giant

Positives

Any game that uses the Infinity Engine is fun. The combat and skill progression is satisfying and engaging.

Negatives

The story isn't nearly as strong as it could have been. I've had two big attempts to complete this game and both times I've run out of steam due to the lack of story to carry me through to the end.

The skill system wasn't as satisfying. It wasn't obvious which skills to pick or what the outcome would be down the line, and it added additional complexity where it wasn't required.

A party in town.

Memorable Moments

I've played this game twice and gotten quite far but never managed to get to the end.

Hugo III: Jungle of Doom

Developer: Gray Design Associates
Platform: MS-DOS
Release: 1992
Genres: Adventure, Parser, Text-based

It's been far too long since I've had time to write up on this blog. Life is busy with a baby and a full time job, and on top of that I'm working on a game development project of my own called Broken Planet. Check out our progress on our website:

www.brokenplanet.co.nz

We're also writing tutorials about how to get into game development, especially about how to use the Unreal Development Kit.

Back to the game!

Plot

If you've played the original Hugo's House of Horrors or Hugo II: Whodunnit? you'll be familiar with the format. You play the take the role of the protagonist Hugo, and your objective is to obtain an antidote to save the life of your girlfriend Penelope (who's been bitten by a spider).

Gameplay

All the Hugo games are text based parser adventures. The player experiences the game through a 2D side on view of the character and his surroundings, and the game plays out through a series of "rooms" or areas.

To interact with the environment the player types in commands, for example "Look in draw" or "Pick up hammer". A lot of the commands require carefully examining the scene around you to figure out what to interact with, plus a healthy amount of guesswork.

Positives

Decent story and cohesive world.

In the final game in the trilogy the developer brought in a graphical artist to help with the scenery which was actually the reason it was set in a jungle; the artist (Gary Sirois) was particularly good at drawing vegetation.

An example of Gary Sirois' vegetation artwork.

Negatives

Too hard, frustrating beyond belief in an age where there wasn't internet to use Uncle Google to help you.

Memorable Moments

Trying to work out what to do with a bouillon cube, a term I'd never heard of before. I now know it's just a stock cube... ugh...

Max Payne

Name: Max Payne

Platform: PC

Developer: Remedy Entertainment

Release Year: 2001

Basic Plot

You play as Max Payne, a DEA agent and former NYPD cop with a murdered family that broods over your head. You and your 9mm Beretta start unravelling a drug crime ring that ultimately leads you all the way up to the top.

What's its deal?

A 3^rd person shooter told as a black noir graphic novel with Matrix-style action that put the actual Matrix games to shame. This was THE action game of its time.

Gameplay

The gameplay was kept simple: over the shoulder camera, run around shoot bad guys, collect guns and ammo. The twist was that Max could go into bullet-time. Bullet-time made time slow down Matrix style giving Max the edge in gun battles. This was done so well that during bullet-time you could actually see each individual bullet flying out from the muzzle flashes of guns. The sounds of the action unfolding would be drowned out to distant echos by the thumping of a heartbeat. It was like the opening scene of the Hurt Locker but 10 years earlier. Of course the best use of the bullet-time were Max's 'shoot dodge' moves – Max diving through the air, spitting hot lead in super slow motion. Jizz. Shoot dodge moves made this game. Nothing was quite as satisfying as using a shoot dodge to jump into or out from cover. It made every gun battle in the game seem like a John Woo masterpiece. 

Remedy Entertainment also had the genius idea of adding a 360 degree camera pan (ala the 'Matrix' shot) whenever you paused the game. Hotkey that shit because you were only appreciating half of the game if you didn't regularly pause the action in the middle of a shoot out to take in the view.

With minimal puzzles or sub-quests this game was all about the shoot 'em up in the best possible way and lots of different ways. You ended up with shoot outs in apartment buildings, bars, snowy rooftops, warehouses, ships, mansions, factories, government facilities, skyscrapers and more against enemies that ranged from punk dealers and gangsters all the way through to special forces.

The story was solid. DEA agent investigates drug ring which unravels all the way up (or down) to top level government corruption which also ties in with the murder of his family. Bravo Remedy. But a standing ovation for whoever sacked up during a meeting and said “We're turning all the cut scenes into a black noir graphic novel”. What a gamble that was at the time and what a pay off. The developers nailed the black noir genre and modernised it which fueled the game's gritty, brooding crime underbelly tones. Special mention to the fantastic voice acting too which without, would have made the comic panel cut scenes cross over to cartoon tackiness.

Memorable moments

Replaying the game over and over again on harder difficulties and then replaying the best shoot outs within the game over and over again, pausing several hundred times to take in the 360 camera pan. Shooting your way out of the mansion level was a personal favourite.

Positives

• The action in this game was un-fucking-believable at the time
• This game was more Matrix than the woeful Enter the Matrix game. Even if ETM hadn't been a pile of turds I'm sure Max Payne would still have been better
• Excellent story told through a graphic novel voiced by a Bogart-esqe Max Payne
• Amazing replayability esp when you factor in the countless mods that people made for it on PC
• Good, lengthy game.
• The pause button. I used that button more than a horny 16 year old watching Basic Instinct

Negatives

• the 'dream' levels at the start of each chapter got a bit tiresome
• Everyone who was playing it giving you their 'how multiplayer would work' theory.
• Max's “I'm DEAD!” face looked a bit, um, constipated.

death face

Extra comments

This game was amazing. It was years ahead of its time and took artistic risks that paid off big.

They completely fucked up the movie they made of this game (with Mark Wahlberg). They tried to change the story. JUST USE THE STORY THAT IS ALREADY THERE. Goddammit, the comic panels from the game are LITERALLY THE STORY BOARDS you morons.  

Hugo II, Whodunit?

This was the sequel to the infamous parser based aventure game Hugo's House of Horrors. It wasn't a game I played a lot of, in fact I believe I lasted about 30 minutes before I gave up, but it doesn't matter how big or small the impact on my life, every game must be remembered!

Developer: Gray Design Associates

Platform: MS-DOS

Release: 1991

Genres: Adventure, Parser, Text-based.

Plot

Rather than playing as the protagonist from the original game, Hugo, you play Hugo's girlfriend Penelope (whom your goal is to rescue in the original game).

This time, Penelope must investigate the mysterious murder of Uncle Horace which coincided with the sudden disappearance of Hugo.

Penelope, with what looks like a bird of some kind.

Gameplay

Hugo II, Whodunit? is a text based parser adventure. The game is not purely text based at all, instead the player is able to move the protagonist around the various rooms and areas of the game using keyboard controls. Commands are entered manually to interact with the environment. For example:

"Kick bird"

... might, if you were lucky, interact with the bird in the above screenshot in some way. There were some basic rules about how you entered commands, but sometimes it ended up being a guessing game to figure out what something was called. For example; in Hugo 3: Jungle of Doom there was a part where you had to pick up a bouillon cube, but in New Zealand I'd never heard of that term before, we just call it a stock cube. Needless to say I had to scour the internet using my dial-up speed connection to find the answer.

The game progresses by Penelope solving a variety of puzzles and mini-quests to make her way through the game, unlocking new areas, and ultimately solving the wider story arc.

Looking at this room I'd be trying commands like "open draws", "look on desk", "open door", "sit on chair", that kind of thing.

Positives

Reasonably strong and interesting story.

I like the idea behind the game mechanics - you have to really think as a detective to solve the puzzles. It's tricky going to various areas, and drawing connections between the various objects and environments you find. This was the ancient precursor to what L.A. Noire tried to do.

Negatives

Too hard. There's a fine line between making a challenging game, and making a game where the player has to take wild guesses to progress. The latter isn't something I'm personally interested in.

Memorable Moments

I remember the precise moment when I thought "this is just ridiculously difficult and unsatisfying  I'm not going to torture myself any longer by playing this".

Age of Mythology

I was never terribly excited by the Age of Empires series, and when I first heard about AoM I wasn't convinced, but it turned out to be the primary RTS game  played between StarCraft and Starcraft II, and I had a lot of good times playing this with my friends.

Developer: Ensemble Studios
Platform: PC
Release: 2002
Genres: Real time strategy (RTS), mythological

Plot

The setting was the ancient era, when the empires of Egypt, Greece, and the Norse dominated the planet. The single player campaign had a specific storyline which was extended in the expansions Age of Mythology: The Golden Gift (free to download) and Age of Mythology: The Titans.

The campaign follows the Greek hero Arkantos who begins his journey in the city of Atlantis. He is set the task of returning the favor of the god Poseidon to the Atlantean people. Along with Ajax and Odysseus he is then instructed to aid Agamemnon in the Trojan war, where the infamous Trojan Horse is used to penetrate the city defences.

After several skirmishes against the Trojans, Arkantos takes his fleet to Ioklos to be repaired but on arriving finds the port is under attack. The centaur Chiron takes them north to rescue the prisoners who are being forced to dig a hole to the Underworld by the cyclops warlord Gargarensis.

Arkantos and his men enter the Underworld where Gargarensis is trying to batter down a door. Gargarensis is stopped before the door can be broken down, but the way out is blocked trapping them in the Underworld. The dead aid Arkantos and take him to the temples of the three major gods. There, Arkantos prays to Poseidon asking him to aid in their escape, but is refused. Instead, it is Zeus who listens and helps them escape.

Upon escaping they find themselves in Egypt where they get drawn into another conflict. Set has killed the god Osiris, and is in league with Gargarensis. Amanra, a Nubian mercenary, plans to find the body parts of Osiris to bring him back to life and Arkantos agrees to help her.

Arkantos

While sleeping, Arkantos is met by the god Athena who reveals Gargarensis' plan. He is favored by Poseidon and has been tasked to break the gates of Tartarus to free the Titan Kronos (whom Zeus imprisoned in the past). There are three gates; the one near Ioklos, one in Egypt, and one in the Norse lands.

Arkantos and Amanra are able to find the body parts of Osiris and bring him back to life. In return Osiris destroys Gargarensis' army and Gargarensis flees to the Norse lands.

In the North our heroes are tricked by Loki into bearing the banner of the enemy giant Folstag instead of one to help unify the clans, and the Norse become hostile towards them. They are aided by the Valkyrie Reginleif to find Gargarensis at the Tartarus Gate. On the way they are waylaid by Fire Giants and Chiron sacrifices himself to save them. Finally, Odysseus confronts Gargarensis and executes him.

Arkantos sails back to Atlantis but when he arrives he realises the head of the giant is not Gargarensis at all, as Loki has tricked them once again. Instead, Gargarensis is alive and is in Atlantis opening a final Tartarus Gate. Poseidon has taken control of a statue in the city and is protecting him.

With no way to stop him by force, Arkantos builds a wonder to Zeus and asks for his blessing. Zeus grants him awesome power which allows him to enter the temple, defeat the aspect of Poseidon and defeat Gargarensis. The temple and the entire city collapse under the ocean, Arkantos is buried along with it.

As reward for his actions Athena brings Arkantos back to life, and makes him a god.

The Norse dragon Nidhogg, summoned by using a mythic age god power (see below).

Gameplay

Age of Mythology is a real time strategy game set in the ancient world, combining the mythology of ancient Greece, Egypt, and Norse mythology.

There were two primary aspects to the game; the single player campaign which contained 32 scenarios, and multiplayer and skirmish games.

The campaign was the most in-depth and the longest campaign from any Age of * games to date, with a rich storyline which contained both a decent plot and good characters. I thoroughly enjoyed the campaign as I felt like I went on a real journey. It was an excellent way to introduce the game mechanics, and I feel with the campaign alone it would have been worth the money I spent on buying the game.

Most of my time playing this game was multiplayer LAN with my best friend Rowan (DRTsorak from Viva la Dirt League).

One of the things that made this game different to StarCraft was the way maps were handled. Maps were not necessarily "static" in design, there was an element of randomisation about them between different games. The number of spawn locations and the amount of resources on any given map depended on the number of players in the game. I quite liked that mechanic in one way; it meant you had a varying game experience with the same "map", but it was also frustrating at times when I wanted the map to be shaped and organised a certain way but I couldn't guarantee that it would turn out that way when we started the game. One specific example of this was spawning locations; in a 2v2 VS the AI sometimes you would not spawn together, but on opposite sides of the map (in contrast to Starcraft II which handles this well). This forced us to re-create and quit games often just to get in a good spawning position.

Unlike Age of Empires the unit composition for each empire was entirely different. The three primary "races" were:

• Greek: Strong and expensive units. Had the most "traditional" game mechanics. Gained favour by villagers praying at temples.
• Egyptian: Weaker but less expensive units, gained favour by building monuments.
• Norse: Powerful forces who gained favour by engaging in warfare.

I really liked this aspect of the game; it meant there were three entirely different styles of play available. I personally loved playing Greek, particularly Hades for a couple of reasons. Firstly, there was a Greek bow unit which could level buildings very quickly... I loved those and would spam them in most games. Additionally, there was a god power which opened up an Underworld Passage. This allowed you to transport units across the map and was ideal for engaging an enemy from behind their defences.

The resources were slightly different from Age of Empires, most notably there is no stone in the game. The resources were:

• Gold; Gathered by mining gold veins or through trading. Trading was done by sending a trade unit from a trade post to any town centre on the map - and could be used to gain infinite resources. Trading was essential in the latter parts of the game when other sources of resources dried up. The Norse had a "dwarf" builder unit who was specialised at mining gold quickly.
• Wood; Gathered by chopping down trees.
• Food; Gathered by killing animals or gathering fruit and vegetables, but farms become a source of infinite food as the game progresses.
• Favour; Used to create mythical units. Each race had their own unique method of obtaining this.

I didn't like the favour generation method of the Greek race; having to use up villagers to get favour seemed like a waste, and I often ended up using mostly non-mythic units.

A Greek army

As I've hinted earlier, there were several categories of units:

• Mortal/normal units; Most units in the game.
• Mythic units; Powerful mythical units which cost favour. For example; Centaurs.
• Heroes; Unique anti-mythic units who were powerful and super efficient at killing mythic units.
• God-power Units; There were various units which were created by casting a "god power" (explained below). In particular the Son of Osiris and the Norse dragon Nidhogg.

Another major layer to the game were the god powers. Just like Age of Empires the tech paths in the game were broken up into ages:

• The Archaic Age
• The Classical Age
• The Heroic Age
• The Mythic Age

Each age unlocked new buildings and units. At the point at which a new age became available the player was given a choice between two minor gods. Depending on their decision, different powers and units were unlocked. This allowed you to modify your strategy mid-game in terms of the tech path you wanted. Each age also unlocked a single god power as well.

God powers were unique abilities which could be used one or more times during a game, but once they were used up that was it. They were generally powerful buffs or attacks which could be used to give yourself an edge at a certain moment in the game. Some examples of god powers:

• Lightning bolt; An archaic age god power (Zeus) which could be used to kill a single unit. This was interesting in that it could be used to kill a scout in the early parts of the game, or it could be saved up to wipe out a powerful unit later on.
• Healing spring; a Norse classical age god power which placed a healing spring on the battle field to regenerate all of your biological forces. It was a double edged sword - whoever controlled the ground around it took its power, so if an enemy came and held that spot they could use the healing spring against you.
• Son of Osiris; an Egyptian mythic age power which summoned the Son of Osiris, a powerful unit who could blast a chain lightning arc at enemies. He was immensely powerful and could turn the tide of any battle, but could not be healed.
• Meteor; summoned a metor storm over a certain area of the map doing massive damage to units and buildings alike, although with some randomness to where it hit.

God powers were an awesome mechanic; with careful use they could be made to turn the tide of a game in a moment.

Another interesting mechanic was that the primary building which provided additional supply to your army, the town centre could only be built on certain pre-set locations around the map. This created an element of territory and map control in any game.

Depending on the scenario you were playing victory was obtained by one of multiple ways including destroying all enemy structures or building a wonder and holding it for a certain period of time.

Meteor god power hitting a town centre.

Positives

Diverse and interesting units, the game mechanics overall were rich and interesting. God powers were a lot of fun. Lots of challenge - try taking on an AI at the Titan difficulty.

Fun campaign with a good story and great characters.

Negatives

Something about the flow of the game didn't work as well in player versus player games as StarCraft. I can't describe why, it just wasn't as good.

Randomised maps could be a pain, player spawn position also difficult in multiplayer.

Memorable Moments

We mostly played games against the AI. Our eternal goal was to take on a single AI at the Titan difficulty. Not only did a Titan AI get given a huge boost to economy (they got more resources from every activity) but they were just relentless and smart. We did beat the AI on a few occasions, but it was always a fun challenge.

I played Hades in almost every game... I found some units and god powers I liked, and just ran with it. I loved the Earthquake god power, it was easily the best at taking down enemy buildings. And those crossbowmen who could take down buildings quickly were godly (Gastraphetes).

Space Hulk

The cover art always looked so bad-ass. I love how it looks like he's shooting off to the wall for no apparent reason.

Space Hulk is a video game based on the 1989 board game with the same name developed by Games Workshop. To be brutally honest I didn't play this game much - it was too confusing for my small mind to work out; but when I read the game manual it always made me excited about it again.

Developer: Electronic Arts
Platform: PC (MS-DOS)
Release: 1993
Genres: First person shooter / tactical

Basic Plot

Space Hulk is based on the Warhammer 40,000 universe. The player takes control of a squad of Space Marines as they roam through huge derelict spaceships called "Space Hulks" fighting alien Genestealers as they go.

The rough plot is that these Space Hulks are infested with Genestealers. The ships drift in and out of another dimension called the "warp" and the Genestealers invade any planet that the ship crosses paths with. Sworn to protect humanity, the genetically enhanced Space Marines board these Space Hulks and eradicate all Genestealers on board.

Terminator View Screen

Gameplay

Space Hulk is a first person party-based combat game.

The gameplay is divided into two sections:

• The Terminator View Screen provides a first person view of each of the space marines in your squad.
• The Planning Screen gives you a top down strategic view of the map, and allows you to give orders to your marines from that perspective.

Each map begins with your squad starting at one location. On the map, Genestealers will continually spawn from a set of areas throughout the ship. The objectives for each map are either to eliminate all of the Genestealers on board, or to retrieve an object of some kind.

Although the combat is real time, the player is able to pause the action in order to give orders to their squad whenever they choose (which is similar to the mechanics of Baldur's Gate).

One game mechanic which was purposely implemented was the contrast between the heavy and slow moving Space Marines, and the quick and agile Genestealers. Giving the player's characters such as flaw creates a real tension within the game, and the game has been praised for the atmosphere it helps to provide.

The campaign, which involved a squad of marines investigating an emergency beacon, included 21 missions. There were an additional 30 tutorial and standalone missions to play.

Planning Screen

Positives

I love the Warhammer 40,000 universe and this was a pretty decent attempt at transitioning it into a video game. It had a great atmosphere, 

Negatives

TOO. HARD. If you play modern first person shooters then you may want to re-think whether this game is for you. It had a very basic view screen for each squad, quite small, and movement was limited to 4 directions (you couldn't just "look around"). And you had to keep track of up to 5 different marines at one time!

Memorable Moments

I was about 10 years old when I tried to play this game. Every single time I tried to play my entire squad would be dead before I could work out how to do anything. It was a very tricky game and required a combination of quick reflexes and good strategic thought. I'd be keen to play the board game some time.

Half-Life: Opposing Force

Half-Life: Opposing Force is the second expansion to the original Half-Life. Like Half-Life: Blue Shift it tells the same story from a different perspective, this time from the viewpoint of a US Marine sent in to deal with the incident.

Developer: Gearbox Software & Valve Corporation

Platform: PC

Release Year: 1999

Genres: First person shooter.

Basic Plot

Whereas in the original Half-Life you play from the perspective of a Black Mesa scientist, Gordon Freeman, and in Half-Life: Blue Shift you play from the perspective of a Black Mesa security guard, Barney Calhoun, this time you follow the same events from the perspective of US Marine Adrian Shephard.

The initial objective of the game is to go into Black Mesa and neutralise the entire facility after a scientific mishap opens up a portal to another dimension. This is an interesting perspective, as these same marines are enemies to both the protagonists of the other two games in the trilogy.

Shephard is isolated from the rest of his squad early in the game, and ends up having to work together with survivors in the Black Mesa Research Facility to escape the complex (which is a nice story item; considering he is initially on a mission to kill everyone in the complex and leave no trace of the event).

On his way through the complex he travels to the other dimension, Xen, and finds himself in the middle of a worldwide invasion. The alien Race X invade the complex through the open portal, and indiscriminately eliminate all human and Xen life forms they come across.

He discovers that black operations are planning to set off a tactical nuclear weapon in order to contain the invasion, by eliminating the entire complex. Shephard manages to defeat several black operations personnel and disarm the bomb before it goes off.

In the final boss fight Shephard defeats a gene worm, a massive alien creature which is facilitating the Race X invasion. However, after that success he is captured by the G-Man, who "detains" him for future analysis. Black Mesa goes up in smoke as the nuclear device from earlier is set off.

One of the new weapons, with an NPC allied Us Marine helping you out to the left of the screen.

Gameplay

Half-Life: Opposing Force is a single player first person shooter. It uses the same game engine (GoldSrc) as the original Half-Life game, which in itself is an extension of the Quake game engine.

As with the other games in the "trilogy" (by this I refer to the three original games which tell the story of Half-Life from three different perspectives) there is consistent use of in-game cut scenes to give an almost cinematic feel to the game experience.

Some of the other features which make this game different from the original:

• Some new and upgraded weapons, especially alien weaponry. I found the weapon composition of this expansion the most satisfying out of all three games and got a lot of satisfaction out of trying out each new weapon I came across.
• Throughout the campaign Shephard comes across scattered US Marines who have also become isolated from their squads. These soldiers will follow Shephard and provide assistance (which is a very simple beginnings of the mechanics used in Star Wars: Republic Commando):
• Soldiers provide extra fire power.
• Combat medics provide healing from both the player and other friendly non-player characters.
• Engineers are capable of removing blocked doors and other obstacles.
• Additional enemies are included in the game.
• An extended look at the story of Half-Life with additional back story.

Survival in the game involves a combination of good aiming and dodging (generic first person shooter skills), conservation of ammunition, and puzzle solving. More than anything else the Half-Life games provide you the feeling of being inside a movie.

The gene worm

Positives

Very good story; I really liked getting different perspectives on the same event. It didn't become repetitive, the way they told the story meant it was a new experience each time which built up the gravitas of the story as a whole.

The gameplay was slick and enjoyable moment to moment. There was just the right amount of tension at times, and then areas where danger was temporarily lowered to give the player a moment to catch their breath.

Negatives

For me; there were none. This was my favourite game, I even preferred it to the original Half-Life (I know, heresy!).

Memorable Moments

Crazy alien weapons, wasn't there an alien electric eel gun which could fire electric sparks? I loved the disorientation of travelling to the Xen dimension too. It was just the right amount of it; a fine line which I felt that Crysis tried to ride, but went too far.