Thursday, July 01, 2004

UT2004 Roundup Part 3: Yeah, I Know What I Said, But...

Last week I decided it would be better if I covered two mods in each post, seeing as it would take a very long time to write up all the mods I want to cover if I only did one a week. Well, that was all well and good until Alien Swarm came along and forced me to stop playing all other mods.

Lately, a lot of games and mods have been throwing the word "tactical" around with the frequency that most people use periods. If there's one mod that can freely toss that word about and be perfectly justified, it's this one. Just the sheer amount of ways there are to deal with almost any situation forces use you to quickly figure out and execute a plan, and when your planning pays off it's a damn good feeling. The A.I. for your squad helps this feeling along immensely, they're no dummies for sure. However, if they're just not doing what you want, feel free to take control of any member of your squad whenever you feel like it. Say you want to clear a room of alien scum. You could shepard your entire squad through one door, let the aliens rush you, and hope that your tightly packed squad doesn't get too hopelessly surrounded. Or you could split your team up, maneuver each half towards two different doors, and take on the aliens from both sides. There are other ways you could attack the situation, but I'll leave that up to you.

Now what I was talking about above is just the single player game, take it online and it's a whole different world. You may no longer be in control of the squad, just a single soldier or medic. You could be the leader of the squad, but that's no A.I. you're ordering around, and they may not think what you say is such a good idea. Who knows, a team mate could think they see something, prematurely freak out, and set the rest of your squad on fire in a matter of seconds. Better hope you have a medic in that situation. This is quite possibly one of the best co-op gameplay experiences I've had in any game, on any platform.

Now, if you haven't seen or heard about Alien Swarm yet, go take a look at a screenshot, I'll wait. Back? OK, so by now you know it's not a first person shooter... If you're still reading, do yourself an enormous favor and pick that shit up, you won't regret it. Probably... I didn't.

No comments: