Next Up: Underwater Cyclist Online

So I take a month-long break, then miss a post only two weeks in. Only here at Avert Your Eyes folks, only here. Anyway, as was alluded to last week, this is going to be another Space Cowboy Online post. Take it or leave it - it's all you're getting.

My I-Gear has made its way to the not-so-stately level of 35, something that actually didn't take too long to happen. I've been playing casually at best, with only one long grinding session taking place over the weekend. Weapon drops, at least for me, have been plentiful enough - there's almost always been a new piece of gear a few levels away. Combine that with the skill upgrades, and you've got that whole Diablo II feeling, pushing you to progress.

The main reason this game has got such a hold on me is my recent introduction to the world of Nation Wars. Yes, I've managed to bag a few killmarks (an item that drops when you take down another player's gear), some quite a few levels above my own. It's a great feeling when, after firing off a few Edrills, you manage to take down the enemy gear that almost took you out in one hit. The fact that skill plays such an important part in combat levels the playing field considerably. No longer are you constantly killed by opposing players simply because they log on twice as much in a week as you do.

There, of course, is some bad that's crept up during my playing time. First, it's always annoying when the (much overpowered) enemy decides to invade the area you're currently attempting to level in. All too often will you be happily chasing down mobs when one missile, out of nowhere, turns your gear into a hulking wreck of smoke and metal. The other, far more annoying problem - present in every MMO out there - is the incessant bitching of other players. They get killed, it's your fault - you should have stopped grinding and joined the raid. I've heard this at least 20 times in my time playing, and I'm not exaggerating for effect.

That said, I'm still going to be playing SCO for quite some time, and I'm sure you're going to be hearing about it. Especially if you don't stop grinding and come to Bark City immediately.

Well, I'm Back

After a month long break I return, rested and refreshed, to the world of Avert Your Eyes. I'd been looking at Space Cowboy Online - a MMO/shooter hybrid - for quite some time now, as it seemed the sort of thing that would be right up my ally. This week I decided to take the plunge, and there is definitely a whole lot to like.

After spending more time patching the game client than I had spent downloading the 983MB installer, I finally made it to the character creation screen. The four "gears", as they're called, are SCO's equivalent of other MMO's classes. Only having four choices may seem limiting at first, especially since there is no branching out at later stages in the game, but different choices in equipment and stat point distribution can produce radically different characters. I, playing for the first time, decided to go for an I-Gear. After choosing your gear, you're introduced to the game's control system by a quick succession of tutorials.

After finishing the tutorial, you'll find yourself standing in Bygeniou city. This is where the game actually begins. You could just hit the Take Off button at this point and start taking out mobs left and right, but the game will take the liberty of offering you missions that help you level up a lot more quickly (I hit level 16 in my first session). These missions usually task you with killing a certain amount of a certain type of mob, but every now and then they mix it up by having you find some items laying around a map or (gasp!) fly through a cave.

The real time combat instantly makes the "grinding" inherent in every MMORPG much more enjoyable, simply because it's so fun. Barrel rolling to dodge enemy missiles and trying to get in to position to return a volley of your own is much more enjoyable than watching your character fight slowly, an eye on your skill refresh meter, wondering how it's possible for 15 seconds to last 30 seconds.

Unlike FlyFF (another GPotato game), which is fun but doesn't give you much motivation to level, Space Cowboy remedies the situation by offering up some very interesting PvP. Upon reaching level 11, you're offered the mission "Decision", which requires you to side with one of two warring nations: Bygeniou City United or Anti-National influence United (I picked the latter). This is the basis of the game's focus on large-scale PvP which, though I haven't yet participated, has got me very excited.

I've only seen a small portion of the game so far, so I'm going to wrap it up for this week. I'm sure that, as interested as I am here, I'll be writing about this one again.

The Odds Are Even

Had the Z-Lock Linux port dropped last week, bandwidth issues would not have not been able to stop the admittedly-very-stoppable force that is Avert Your Eyes. Created by Jumpei Isshiki, who you can also thank for Area 2028, Z-Lock is another amazing little shooter that manages to fit in a paltry 6mb archive.

Z-Lock's major gimmick is that the power of your ship's weapons are directly proportional to the number of enemies locked on to your ship at any given time. This serves two major gameplay purposes, the first being that odds that would otherwise be overwhelming are swayed a bit in your favor. The second is more interesting: the level of strategy it adds to the game. While smaller fighter-type ships are numerous, there are also larger, slower ships that take a lot of firepower to bring down. Do you take out the smaller enemies first, for safety's sake, or do you leave them hanging around to boost your firepower?

As I've come to expect from pretty much anything evilmrhenry ports to my operating system of choice, Z-Lock is a visually stunning game. No single element is responsible for this as, taken individually, the components are nothing more than simple geometric shapes. As a whole, however, the graphical elements are far more than the sum of their parts. While not as colorful as Area 2028's, the graphics are still a treat.

While it hasn't supplanted Gunroar as my favorite shoot-em-up, Z-Lock is a strong contender in the field. The sheer fun that occurs when you stop paying attention to other things and let yourself really get in to the game is not something to be missed.

I'll try to be back later on today with another update, but other things need to be taken care of first. If I don't return, there is always next week.

Oops: Part 2

The bandwidth issue I mentioned last week still stands. My remaining bandwidth is barely enough to get to the end of the month, and that's without downloading any large files of any sort. As I watch the floating point number trickle even further down, I realize - there is no way I can do a post this week. So, I'll return next week with either a super feature or a double feature. Either way, I'll do everything in my (extremely limited) power to make up for the two missed posts. See you next week.

Oops

I figured I'd just get this out of the way, rather than wait until next week to explain: there is not going to be a post this week (well, except for this small post which serves to explain that there is no post). I've only got a tiny fraction of my monthly bandwidth allotment remaining, no backlog of games to touch on, and no "special something" - this is, indeed, the fastest route to a no-post. Next week's post is near enough to the end of the month that I'll be in a much better position for downloading, so hold tight.

"I Will Revenge Grownup Lawolf"

Yeah, sorry about that. Once summer arrives it's much, much easier to miss a few weeks worth of posts than it is in the dreary depths of Northeastern mid-winter. Anyway, as I promised you a few weeks back, here are some of my impressions of FlyFF.

First things first - it's an MMORPG. Hence, it's got a lot of the elements that would cause one to describe the game as such, aside from what is clearly pointed out in the first three letters of the genre's quirky name. After you've played one of these types of games, you know pretty well what to expect from the next 15 or so. It's a combat focused MMO, so you're not going to find harvesting, crafting, or any of the trappings of a more complex game here. Luckily, it seems to work for FlyFF, at least in the early stages of the game.

The game's chibi styled characters and generally cartoon-ish look are reminiscent of R.O.S.E Online - something you may or may not find appealing. A less masculine version of myself might call the FlyFF's look charming. I'll just say that I have no problem with the graphics. Much like R.O.S.E, the enemies you find in the game are either cute, disturbing, or both at the same time. If you take a bit too long to think about it, you'll eventually realize that you've just murdered an entire village of serial-killer children. My advice? Just try not to think about it.

I haven't yet run into the "grind" that is the most recognizable trait of most games like these, as my character is only in the low 20s, but I've been assured that it is very much there. Once (or more likely, if) my Magician hits level 60, I'll be able to pick a more advanced job; but beyond that, there isn't much pushing you to level. This is a characteristic of myself I'm sure does not apply to many others, but I really need some motivation beyond "level up to get better gear to level up..." and so on and so forth.

Now, the flying. Yeah, sure, it's fun to an extent, but it serves more as a way to reach far-off places more quickly than it does a fun-dispensing device. This also brings up an interesting point - the economy. My Magician has already obtained the best board (it's like a snowboard, but it can fly!) available in the game, and it was nothing short of very easy to do so. I'm sure that this situation is not exactly what the designers intended. Inflated economies do eventually collapse, and they often tend to take a large section of the player base with them when they disappear.

The final verdict? I'm going to keep playing it here and there, for sure. The combat system is interesting enough (for an MMO, anyway), and the look of the environments is enough to push me to level, simply to be able to explore further, but that can only last so long. Definitely a good enough choice for making a few hours disappear here and there. Days? No.

With A Whimper

For a long time, it seemed like the moment of which we are now standing on the cusp might never come. Now that I'm staring it right in the face, I know that it has been in the back of my mind for quite a while. Ladies and gentlemen, it is with a somewhat heavy heart that I present to you this: the last Anarchy Online post ever.

Simply put, I couldn't do it anymore. When a game starts to feel like you have to play it, it just really isn't a game anymore. At least, not to me. I should have known what I was getting myself in to - I'm not a guild type of guy. I'm aware that the concept of being a loner in the world of MMORPGs might be an alien concept to some, if not many, but that (excuse me for using an awful RPG pun) is just how I "roll".

Just leaving the game is one thing. The manner in which I left, however, is another. Well, I just stopped showing up. At first, I was even trying to trick myself: "Maybe I'll feel like logging on again soon. Maybe this is just a break." I knew that wasn't true. It started slowly enough - first I stopped logging on often, then not at all, then I stopped even bothering to read the organization forums. Then, one day earlier this week, I uninstalled the game. Perhaps not the most tactful way for the second-in-command to leave his organization, I'll admit.

All that said, I feel great. Until now, whenever I was playing something that wasn't AO, it almost felt as if I was "cheating" on AO with the other game. That's no way to spend your gaming time. Now, I can actually enjoy gaming again, and that's no small victory. I'll be honest, I even feel like playing MMOs again. I'm just going to make sure not to get wrapped up in the game, so yes, it's back to being a loner for me.

Speaking of MMORPGs - I downloaded FlyFF (Fly For Fun) the day after I uninstalled AO. I've only made it to level 14, and you don't get to pick a job until level 15, so I haven't really seen much of the game yet. I will, though, and I'll be back with more on that next week.

Again, Not The Food

Sometimes, this project hits its rough spots. One of the problems of having an Open Source gaming focused blog is that, if nothing particularly interesting happens over the course of a week, you're left with no subject material. Two times in two weeks I was struck by this nasty occurrence (insert bitching about your favorite game never being mentioned on this site here) but, luckily, the drought has ended.

I'm consistently impressed with the quality of each Sauerbraten release, and the game is only getting better. The most recent update includes a whole slew of new features, maps, and other various improvements. Nexuiz also had a new release this week, a 2.0 release at that. I'll be honest - I'm becoming less and less optimistic about Nexuiz turning in to a game I'd actually like to play, so much so that I haven't bothered downloading it yet. I may not at all, only time will tell.

Back to Sauerbraten. It looks like Nexuiz won't be able to wave its "prettiest open source game" banner (something I never agreed with, anyway) for much longer. Full screen shader support made it in to the game with this release, allowing light bloom and all that stuff the kids go crazy for these days. It's in its infancy stages right now, but it looks quite good already. Enough about the graphics stuff - moving on.

The "Capture" gameplay type (along with the maps this game type takes place on) is, hands down, my favorite new feature. If you've played any of the "Battlefield *" games, you'll be quite familiar with the mechanics at work here. There are various control points scattered about the maps, and your objective is simple: control more of them than the other team does. The "Capture" maps are generally much larger and sprawling when compared to the deathmatch maps, further adding to the Battlefield-esque feel. Make no mistake though, this is still Sauerbraten - you're not playing this game looking for realism. You're still moving at around the equivalent of 60mph, and it's going to take a hell of a lot more than a few shots to bring you down.

The single player mode of the game has been greatly improved since the last release, feeling a little less Quake and a little more Quake 2. Checkpoints have been introduced at various points throughout the levels, and the general layout and design feels a lot more solid than Cube's singleplayer mode did. The respawn points alone are very handy, given the tendency of some of Sauerbraten's mappers to create brutal single player levels.

That's about it for this week, folks. If you already know and like Sauerbraten, make sure you get the new release. If you aren't familiar with Sauerbraten or Cube at all - download it anyway. I highly doubt that you'll be disappointed.

If Guns Can Roar, Can Lions Shoot?

The "special something" alluded to last week is something I've handily managed to avoid over the course of the days following. Needless to say, but said anyway - that's not something in the cards for today's post.

As someone who keeps as close an eye on the scene as I do, it's nothing other than a damn shame that it's taken me so long to get around to playing Kenta Cho's latest game, Gunroar. It's a mystery to me how one man can consistently create some of the best shooters I've ever encountered, but it's not necessarily one I'd like to see solved. All the Cho trademarks are in place: Abstract blocky yet startlingly beautiful graphics? Check. Crazy music? Check. Frequent boss battles? Check.

While I'm not sure yet if it's going to claim the place of my favorite of the "series", Gunroar is most definitely a strong contender. For the first time in a Kenta Cho game, the element of cover has been introduced in the form of islands scattered about the vertically scrolling levels, complete with emplaced weaponry. This seemingly inconsequential new element gives the shooting a much more tactical feel, as the islands do block shots.

You'll be warned of enemy ships from a distance, as you see their red tracking beams long before you see the ships themselves. Not only is this incredibly handy when the difficulty picks up, it's a nice looking effect as well. In fact, Gunroar may be Kenta Cho's best looking game yet, a fact not to be understated when discussing someone with such an impressive body of work under their belt. Particle effects fill the screen so completely that, at times, you may briefly become confused as to where on the screen your ship is. Luckily, in my time playing, this never became an issue that effected playability.

There are a large number of control schemes available, including gamepad support. The mode I found worked best for me was the "mouse" control scheme, which basically lets you control the game as you would a first person shooter - the WASD keys control movement and the mouse controls aiming.

If you enjoy shooters at all, and have an OpenGL capable videocard, do yourself a favor and download this game. It's only 5.5mb, so even the slowest dialup can fetch this game with ease. If this is your first Kenta Cho shooter, be warned, you'll probably download the rest immediately after trying Gunroar.

Wii-bles Wobble, But They Don't Fall Down

Weeks without posts are starting to become routine around here, but let me assure you, I'm not exactly happy about the current state of affairs. Last week I was still halfheartedly absorbing the E3 coverage, and the only game I'd played all week was the latest alpha of OpenArena, which is in such an alpha state that it didn't really deserve it's own post. Anyway, more on that later.

As I'm sure most folks are aware, Nintendo's Wii had a good time at E3 - enough so that people aren't talking exclusively about the name anymore, but not enough to stop people from dubbing the controller the "Wiimote". I've got to say, over the past week my opinion of the system has shifted from something I was merely keeping an eye on, to something I'm genuinely interested in. If the price point is as low as some people are speculating, I'm even more interested. There's just the one problem, something I was discussing with a friend the other day - I'm not a kid anymore.

When I'm gaming, my primary reason for doing do is to relax. My days of jumping around like someone being stung by bees on the mat that came with the NES Track and Field game are, how do you say, over. I really can't see myself standing ready for battle, sweat on my brow, swinging the controller, shouting "Hyah!", or "Take that!" with each thrust of my pseudo-sword. It's something my neighbors could probably do without as well, especially since I do most of my gaming at night. I suppose we'll see. If the same results can be achieved in a more relaxed fashion, I'll really be inclined to take a look at the system.

I mentioned OpenArena at the top of the post, or rather, I mentioned it's un-postworthy-ness. I suppose, coming from the Linux world, I'm used to the possibility of things labeled alpha being usable. OpenArena is not one of these pieces of software yet. It has a lofty goal for sure - to (as the name implies) implement a completely free (as in freedom) version of Quake 3: Arena. Hey, I'm all for that. But, for now, there's just not a whole lot there. I'm in no way writing the game off, and I'll revisit it again for sure, but there's just not much you can do with the game in it's current state.

Well, that's about all I've got prepared for this week. I've been planning on doing a "special feature" of sorts for the past few months, but it keeps getting sidetracked. Seeing as the loyal people still reading after all the missed posts deserve something special, I'm going to try to pull it together for next week. See, AYE is pretty much a "Oh crap, it's Thursday, what the hell am I going to write about?" thing most of the time, and this is going to take a bit more time than that. Anyway, if it's not up next week, it is on the way, so stay tuned.

Two To The Uh Oh

Once again, apologies are in order due to two weeks of missed posts. Every time update day has come around I've felt like a wet sack of sick - something that doesn't exactly manage to put me in the prime mood for posting. Anyway, enough of that. The linux installer for the 2.0 version of Glest came out on Monday, so I figured I'd give it a whirl and try out the new techs/units.

Although both factions have received some fancy new units and tech upgrades, a lot of the focus seems to have gone towards the Magic faction. It definitely needed it. Previously, Magic was a heck of a lot harder to win a game with than Tech - now it's just somewhat harder. Units still don't seem to stand head to head with the opposite faction's rough equivalents - the new Golems are too slow to be of any use (they're basically defense structures that can move), Drake Riders seem to keel over nearly instantly, and the new Daemons (whatever the hell comes from a Wicker Daemon, I can't remember the name at the moment) don't seem much stronger than their lower-class brethren.

Still, it's the same old Glest we've come to know and love. Maybe a bit too much so, considering this is not a point release upgrade. I'd have loved to see more new maps, maybe a new tileset, and maybe some refinement in the pathfinding code. Hang on a second, what's that other thing? That thing I can hear people screaming off in the distance? Oh yeah. Multiplayer. Actually, I don't give a rat's ass (or any other part of it, for that matter) about multiplayer. Maybe I will when I stop getting my ass handed to me by the (non-Ultra mode) AI.

That handily brings me around to a subject that I've managed to safely avoid over the course of the 2+ years I've been doing AYE - I absolutely suck at real time strategy games. How I still suck at one of my favorite genres is a complete mystery to me. Turn based, that I can handle - I know my way all around Alpha Centauri; Final Fantasy Tactics is like taking candy from a baby; whatever Wesnoth (the AI, not other people) throws at me, I can handle. Change the "T" to an "R", and suddenly I'm curled up in the fetal position on the floor as flames cover the entire viewing area on my monitor, tiny enemy tanks rumbling over the ruins of my base, pissing on my corpse.

I don't know why I continue to take the abuse, but I know that I do. As long as there are games like Glest around to drag me through the dirt - I'll cough it up, wipe the blood from my chin, and grab back on. Keep up the good work, folks.

Out With The Old... In With The New

Sorry about the missed post last week. A). I was doing some maintenance on my main box, which ran a bit longer than I expected B). I haven't been doing anything gaming-wise besides playing AO over the past two weeks or so. This week, I'd planned on writing up Glest 2.0, but I'm having a fuck of a time getting it to build, so I suppose I'll hold out for the installer. So get ready for yet another of installment of "What's Going On With Anarchy Online". Go ahead and hit the back button on your browser... now.

For a while there, I was starting to think we were dying out. People started to show up less often, then not at all. I hadn't seen our President in weeks. Eventually even my best buddy within the group hightailed it the fuck out of town. Sure, he gave me his gear, but what the hell was I going to do with it alone? I'm a fucking Trader. It seemed that, at this point, all that was left was for someone to come by and hammer a few nails into the top of our collective coffin, make it official. We weren't dying out. We were already dead.

I'd all but given up. Sure, I'd continue to show my polygonal face, it's something I couldn't not do, but I didn't expect much more than that from myself. When I logged in and saw people - people I didn't know, I was pleasantly surprised. When they kept on coming, well fuck, I damn near shed a tear. Our population had more than doubled, literally overnight. And they're still coming.

Of course, there are going to be a few bad eggs when you have such a large volume of people coming in to the organization so quickly. We're going to have to keep an eye out, and it's not going to be fun having to boot people, but it's a necessary evil. Most of the people coming in are great - a lot of them are quite new to the game so they have the eagerness to explore, excitement, and intensity that the few of us who were hanging around had been loosing. It's hard not to get caught up in their enthusiasm, to the point that it's really reignited my love of the game.

That about wraps it up for this week, you brave few who have continued reading up until this point. You deserve something special, but I doubt I'll be the one to deliver said thing. I'm figuring if nothing comes down the pike between now and next week, I'll boot in to "the partition whose name shall not be spoken" and give Glest 2.0 a whirl.

Mix 'Em Together - Then You've Got Something

Well, fuck. The GDC has come and gone, and there's not an awful lot to say. Both keynotes I mentioned being interested in last week turned out to be reiterations of what we already been told so far. All in all, it was a real lackluster year for the GDC. So, forget that - I'm not going to rehash the same info you've been reading all week. Two of my current favorite games in the open source scene - Sauerbraten and GalaxyMage - got updates this week. Read on for details.

The latest release of Sauerbraten has two main features. The first - the addition of the Grenade Launcher - finally has me understanding what the whole "Physics Edition" business was in the last release. Although the projectile it fires doesn't exactly look like you would expect it to, it does act how you would expect it to. It's definitely a fun weapon to play around with, especially bouncing grenades around corners, but I have noticed that, at times, there is quite a distinct "skating on ice" effect when the grenade is moving across the floor. I'm sure this will be taken care of in a future release.

The title of this release is "Shader Edition", which gives you a pretty good idea of what the other major new feature in Sauerbraten is. This one, of course, doesn't have any effects on game balance or anything else besides the visual aspect of the game, so I can't really say I feel too strongly about it. Your weapons, as well as the various powerups and various static meshes peppered throughout the levels are all shiny now - that's it. I've noticed that mesh heavy maps take a performance hit from the new shader effects, so it's something mappers are going to have to take into consideration.

GalaxyMage basically has one major update for this release - Network play. Sadly, this mode isn't fully implemented yet. When selecting multiplayer you get a nice unfriendly screen asking you to input the IP address of the server you want to connect to. I've talked about this before, and my opinion on the matter hasn't changed any since the last time I mentioned it. I have good faith that the GalaxyMage team will pick up the slack and tack on a server browser some time in the near future.

Even if they do, I doubt I'll ever experience GalaxyMage's multiplayer mode. In my eyes, this type of turn-based strategy-RPG gameplay just doesn't seem to work in the online world. I'm sure this is an area where opinion vary wildly, but I just can't see it. At the moment, all the multiplayer mode means to me is that I had to install Twisted.

Well folks, that's it for this week. I've no idea what's coming down the pike for next week, so we'll just see what happens between now and then.

GDC '06 - Part 1

While writing last week's post, I completely forgot that the GDC (Game Developers Conference, for the uninitiated) was going to be happening this week. The aforementioned conference makes up the bulk of this post, but not the entirety. Warning - there are a whole lot of links to Gamasutra, which may require you to register at some point. You can probably use BugMeNot, but honestly I'd deem Gamasutra as a register-worthy site.

First things first. Reaffirming that good things can still happen to good people, Darwinia won the top prize at the Independent Games Festival Awards - something I was hoping would happen. The awards ceremony's bigger, louder brother - the Game Developers Choice Awards, was basically swept by three games. Shadow Of The Colossus was the big winner, an event I have absolutely no problems with. Nintendogs and Guitar Hero were the other big winners, with Psychonauts putting in a small appearance.

On to the GDC. There were two major keynotes at the event yesterday, the first of which was the Sony keynote. Phil Harrison was the main speaker, although there were quite a few others showcasing PS3 demos. Apparently, what was shown was not that different than what we've seen and heard before, but there was a very interesting tidbit thrown out in the Q&A session after the keynote - the PS3 will be region free. Not the system itself, of course, but the software. That's great news already, but it gets me wondering if it will play PS1/PS2 games region-free as well. Not being a mod chip type of fellow, this could finally give me the chance to get my hands on some imports I've always wanted.

The next keynote speaker was Ron Moore (Slashdot link so you can see Cylon misspelled as Pylon), formerly of Star Trek fame, who is now working on Battlestar Galactica. It didn't have an awful lot to with games, from the coverage I've read, but it does give me a long-awaited opportunity to mention who much of a Battlestar Galactica fan I am. The original show I watched for the same reason I watch MacGyver - the cheese factor. The new one is just, well, I don't know what to say except that it's the only show on television I try not to miss an episode of.

That's it for now, but there are two keynotes of interest going on today that I'd like to cover - Satoru Iwata with some info on the Nintendo Revolution (I believe that keynote is going on as I type this) and Will Wright (Spore, man, Spore!), so if I get the chance, I'll be back later today with more on those. Otherwise, you'll get more GDC goodness next week.

Consider This A Stew

Sorry about the missed post last week, this is becoming too frequent. As the title suggests, this is another hodge-podge post, sort of summing up what would've been mentioned last week and this week's happenings all at once.

First off - Final Fantasy XII was finally released yesterday (sorry about the 1up link). Of course, there are still many months to go until the game makes it out of Japan, but we're getting closer. This particular iteration has had more mixed feelings in the previews than any other Final Fantasy game this side of XI. Honestly, the game could score 1/10 ratings across the board and I'd pick it up without a second thought. When you've got the art director from Final Fantasy IX onboard, that's all I need to know.

I suppose that last week's missed post could be considered a blessing in disguise, as all you would have gotten is a short post about Triplex Invaders. Don't get me wrong, Triplex Invaders is an awesome "schmup", but there really isn't enough material there for a whole post. The game looks awesome, think Kenta Cho's shooters, but even more psychedelic. The game plays, well, like a shooter. The controls are tight, enemies are huge, and the explosion effects are satisfying. Throw in the fact that it's written in my language of choice, and you get a big thumbs up from me.

Things start to move faster at this point, so keep up.Sauerbraten has some more servers up now, and I've been playing quite a bit of the game. It's a bit of a shame that some of my favorite maps have yet to show up in a server rotation, but I keep logging on, hoping to see one of them loaded up. I tried to check out Stendhal, something I've been meaning to do for a while. The catch? I figured I'd run it on my old laptop, which apparently is not up to the task. I might have more on that next week, once I try it out on my main machine.


That's pretty much it for this week, loyal readers. With some more time on my hands, hopefully I can have a double feature up next week, but only time will tell. Anarchy Online can be a demanding mistress, for which an unheeded call can be disastrous. If I can break the spell of the siren song, there is hope.

No, Not The Food

Sauerbraten finally popped up on the Linux Game Tome this week, with a release that actually came out late last month. Since it is, after all, the successor to Cube, every release is a reason for me to be excited. The engine has taken shape, so the next few releases should be when it starts to get "really good".

The download is listed as "Physics Edition", and I'll admit, I don't know what that means. At the moment, the gameplay feels nearly identical to that of Cube, but I'll admit I haven't found a multiplayer game going yet, so my speculation is based purely on the single player modes. Speaking of that, the few single player maps included in the package far outclass even the best of Cube's single player maps. It's still pretty much Doom with every dial turned up to 11, but that is hardly a complaint in my book.

Of course, as with it's predecessor, Sauerbraten's main focus is on the multiplayer game. The multiplayer maps (and there are already a ton included) are really impressive. While my two current favorites - "moonlight" and "darkdeath" have already been around for a while, there are plenty of new and impressive maps that have come out since the last release I grabbed. "metl3" has made its way over from Cube, and "roughinery", "serpentine", and "face-classic" have all been ported over from the UT series. "legoland", which is exactly what its name would suggest, is absolutely surreal. There are even a few maps, such as "ladder" and "spiralz" that exist simply as a reference for mappers. If you really want to see how promising the engine is, take a look at the sprawling RPG maps included.

The biggest additional improvement over Cube is the absolutely gorgeous lighting/shadow effects. The aforementioned "metl3" looks significantly better than its Cube incarnation as a result. "nmp7" is another map with some brilliant lighting. Some other minor tweaks include better particle effects and it seems that textures can now be "fullbright". Either that or it's just another case of excellent lighting.

Now, I find myself wishing for two things. The first and more easily attainable is for some more servers to pop up. I'm seriously jonesing for some deathmatch action to test out the playability of the new maps. The second is to see some other projects start up using the Sauerbraten engine. As easy as it is to create maps, it would be great to see some mods with altered gameplay come to the scene.

So, come on. Give this baby a download, and we'll get this party started.

Update: I've had a chance to play a bit of Sauerbraten online, and it definitely plays as tight as Cube. I still don't really understand the bit about "Physics Edition" - the only difference I've noticed is that the "bouncing" effect on stairs seemed ramped up a bit. The larger, sprawling maps definitely make the Instagib mode quite a bit more enjoyable since you can have a fun time with more than four players. We still need some more servers online so, if you're that type, fire it up.

I Really Couldn't Think Of A Title

A no post last week was bad enough, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to leave you somewhat hanging again this week, as I'm rather sick. So I don't feel entirely guilty about this, I'll give you a quick rundown of my recent gaming activities, and maybe expand on some later if said expansion is required.

First off, just as I said I would, I gave Nexuiz another look, even if it took me a bit longer than I expected to. Long story short - I still dislike the game as much as the last time I played it. The CTF mode, albeit welcome, didn't do much to mitigate the effects of all the other parts of the game I don't like. By the way, I still don't find the graphics all that special - yes, even for an open source game. When I see the "it looks better than some commercial games!" comments (look at the Tome entry linked above), I can't help but wonder what games these people are playing.

I finally got around to checking out Narcissu, which is one of the most depressing things I've ever encountered. It's very well done, and the translation is solid, but stay away from this one if you're looking for something cheery. That's pretty much all I'm going to say about this one, anything else would be superflous.

I also checked out Outgun, which I suppose could be an alright game. I've only had the chance to play with the (newly introduced) bots, so the verdict is still out on this one, as I'm sure the game is entirely different with a little strategy thrown into the mix.

Well, the post ended up being a bit longer than I thought, but I still owe you folks something special. Check back next week, when I expect to be healthier.

Loki: The God, Not The Publisher

Before we get started, apologies again for the underwhelming start to this season of AYE. Anyway, the Linux version of the Northland demo hit today, and since I'd never managed to get into the beta, I figured I'd give it a try. The game has obviously aged a bit at this point, but I came away from the demo feeling much more impressed with Northland than I had prepared myself for.

The first thing that struck me is that Northland has a lot of charm working in it's favor. From the little bit of music that plays when two of your Vikings get married, to the grunts and other audio cues given when your minions receive an order, the atmosphere of the game is well fleshed out. Graphically the game, while somewhat simplistic, has a very distinct cartoonish look. It's somewhat strange, since at first glance it may cause the game to seem lacking in depth, which is certainly not the case.

Even the amount of depth in managing your villagers, while not readily apparent, is nearly staggering once you move past the beginning stages. A series of tutorials is available to introduce you to the finer points of the game, and that is certainly appreciated, although the tutorials themselves could use some work. At a few points during the tutorial I happened to find situations where a simple mistake such as marrying a citizen to the wrong person, or turning the wrong farmer into a miller, left me unable to continue.

Combat in Northland is much as it is in similar title and honestly, my least favorite part of the game. This is, obviously, a personal preference - I'm the type of gamer who could tinker away with my town indefinitely. The economic simulation adds another interesting layer of depth to the game, and the combat certainly isn't bad, but I found managing the villagers needs and improving my village as a whole the most enjoyable part of the demo.

The game isn't actually available for Linux yet, but according to RuneSoft, it should be out soon enough. There seems to be a lot to do in the demo, especially if you're like and enjoy the village management, or if you're the type who will play through scenarios with different tactics. Definitely one of the more interesting commercial titles for Linux I've tried recently.

I Call It Pulling A Megatokyo

What a way to kick off the new season. I woke up today feeling fine - not so much now. Sorry about the no-post, folks. I'll make it up to you next week.

Level 3

Two days short of two years ago, Avert Your Eyes started off with the same vague ramblings that most sites like this do. I'd never planned on updating with any amount of frequency. In fact, I'll let you all in on a little secret - the only reason AYE updates on Thursdays is that, after a few weeks, I realized all my posts had been on Thursdays and decided it was a fine enough day to update. This week we're taking a look back at the past year, which henceforth shall be known as "The Year With Many Missed Updates".

I ended up writing about the Darwinia demo a mere two weeks after voicing my concerns about Steam. Strange, that - as less than a year later, Darwinia is being distributed through that vile service. That said, it's still great to see such an amazing game finally get some of the spotlight time it deserves. Hopefully it'll get some attention in the independents portion the next time I "cover" the GDC.

I suppose 2005 was a year for firsts as, at the very least, it saw me try my hand at "playing" a creepy visual novel. Another first? Me not liking a space-based game. Another? The complete awesomeness of the Spore video. The year also saw the first time I actually received a rebuttal of sorts from a disgruntled team member. By the way, sorry to say it Nexuiz folks, but your game hasn't gotten any better. I'll be over here playing Warsow while you're working on it. Last, but not least, you can't mention firsts without mentioning NERO.

Before I wrap this up, I'm going to give credit where credit is due and mention some of my favorite games that saw their first releases during AYE's last "season". Some of them I've already mentioned above, such as Darwinia and NERO. Other favorites of mine include Glest, GalaxyMage, and a handful of abstract shooters that finally made their way over to Linux.

Thanks to everybody who's stuck around and kept reading the site through all the missed posts, I'm going to try to make that happen less during the next "season". Although I did complain a little bit, it's been a great 12 months for the scene - let's hope it keeps up the momentum.

Like Mixed Nuts, Only Not

Yeah, yeah - I've been missing for two weeks. I guess that's what happens when I walk the streets with a bag on my head and a sign that says "You don't get this joke". Kudos to you if you did. Anyway, given my recent absence, today's post is going to be a hodge podge of a few different things. On to item the first.

It seems that the team behind a game I've always had quite the soft spot for - UFO: Alien Invasion - has gone MIA. Well, that was actually rather apparent a year ago. Anyway, fear not. It seems some enterprising members of our community have stepped up to pick up the workload. If you read what is currently the top post on the LGT page linked above, it seems their missing a few files, so if you happen to have what they're looking for, help 'em out. Watch out! It's item the second.

GalaxyMage has been rolling along rather steadily, hitting us with a 0.2 release that's huge improvement over what was already a very solid 0.1 release. The new features packed in are surprisingly in abundance. Terrain smoothing, random maps, new character classes, and improved A.I. are just a few. While there's still no apparent mouse control, the keyboard controls are as solid as the last release. Not to mention, they do add to the console feel of the game. I've got to say again that I'm really impressed with how this project is coming along. You knew it had to be coming, didn't you? Item the third.

Things have been damn fun in Anarchy Online lately, and apparently I've made a good name for myself within my organization. Last week I received a promotion to Squad Commander, meaning a whole lot more responsibility for myself. Granted, I've noticed this has caused me to log in quite a few times more because I felt like I should than that I really wanted to play. New responsibilities haven't stopped me from gaining level 80 and a nice shiny Yalmaha, which was actually bought for me by an org-mate who I now owe my soul, ass, and my sole ass. This turn of events effectively locks the door I had left open for myself as an escape route, meaning I'm not going to stop playing AO any time soon.

Well, hopefully this week's installment makes up for the lack of posts over the last two weeks. Anything I've forgotten to mention, I'm sure you've already read somewhere else. Next week is going to be special, as it's A.Y.E's 2nd anniversary post, so make sure to stop by.

The Sequel Will Be Called: UniverseKnight

This week, you get a bit of a break from the deluge of Anarchy Online related posts. That break comes in the form of GalaxyMage, another entry into the ever-growing lineup of Open Source strategy games, but this one's got a twist. GalaxyMage takes the form of a Strategy RPG (although the GM team seems to prefer the term "tactical RPG"), much like Final Fantasy Tactics and mostly everything Nippon Ichi has ever done.

It's no surprise that I downloaded GalaxyMage the minute, no the second, no the very millisecond I saw it pop up on the Tome. Chances are, between the Playstation and GBA versions of Final Fantasy Tactics, I've spent more time playing those games than I have breathing. Really, this is the kind of project I've been waiting for someone to start (and have thought about starting myself) for years. I would have found myself quite inconsolable if, after all these years spent twitching in anticipation, the game was a turd.

Luckily, it's not. GalaxyMage is still in a very early state - the sprite graphics have been taken from Wesnoth and the maps aren't anything that's going to knock you out of your chair - but, it's completely playable. Not that half-assed "Well, it's playable online if you know your friend's IP address" crap either, its got AI. This is a far cry from most of GalaxyMage's Open Source brethren, and earns the game a huge amount of brownie points in my book.

If you've ever played Final Fantasy Tactics, you'll be able to play the game as soon as you find out what key does what. The battle system is nearly identical, of course with the names of skills and such things changed. There seems to be, as far as I can tell, no character advancement system in the game at this point in time, but I'm sure that one is planned.

You'll probably see me writing about this game again - probably more than once. As good as GalaxyMage is in such an early state, it looks like the Wesnoth team may have some competition for the top of the Linux strategy heap on the way.

The Better Team

So, in case you were wondering - Yes, I picked a character. Yes, I'm going to make you wait longer before I tell you, as to build suspense. Yes, this is another post about Anarchy Online. Proceed.

It's the Trader, I picked the Trader. Yeah, I know, what a surprise. I picked the only character I've played in months. Anyway, there are other reasons I decided to stay with my lovable cash-hungry wrangle jockey. In last week's post (referenced above) I mentioned that my character was, how do you say, without an organization. Well, he's alone no more. As of Sunday evening, I'm proud to say I've joined an org - a great bunch of folks they are, too.

The aforementioned organization will, of course, remain nameless. I can say that I've had such a great time since joining, AO has almost become a different game. Pickup teams - although I'm sure I haven't seen the last of them for good - have gone to being my bread and butter to the equivalent of fast food. I haven't yet met a member of the organization who was an asshole - hell, I haven't met a member who I haven't liked immediately, and I'm not the type of person who goes around liking every person they meet. Quite the opposite, in fact.

I was a bit worried at first that joining an organization (or guild, if you'd prefer) might sap into my time for doing things such as blitzing missions, buying new weapons or, um, blitzing missions. Luckily, that hasn't been the case. If I need the time to do something along those lines (and I have needed it, what with installing a whole new set of implants and trying to blitz a new set of armor) it's mine, nobody's going to bother me about it.

One thing I am a bit worried about, a thing that worries me about the entire MMO genre, is that with my newfound organization, I'll lose out on time for playing other games. I'm sure I'll pull through - after all, if pretty much everyone in the world who does a webcomic can get their work done while remaining completely addicted to World Of Warcraft, I'm sure I can find time in my busy schedule for a few more games. See you next week folks.

The Good Team

Before anything else is said, apologies are definitely in order. The circumstances surrounding the absence of the last two weeks' posts (and the lateness of this one) are not something I'm going to get into - it should suffice to say that I'd be very surprised if an army of orcs ever tried to invade my house again. It's a sad occurrence, as this marks AYE's 100th post. To see it delayed is to see my own insides wrapped around themselves in a glistening knot of pain. Anyway, it's yet another AO post.

My Trader has been hanging around the Temple of the Three Winds the last couple of days and, being a Trader, it's not like I can just run in there alone and solo everything. Teaming is a necessity, albeit one that usually comes with more than it's share of pitfalls. Lately, though, I'm starting to wonder if some sort of mystical change is taking place in the world of AO. It's the teams - they've... been good. Not just good enough either, I am proud to say that I've been in some damn good teams this last week.

Pick-up teams, as they're called, are all I've got. My character has no Organization (like a guild or clan in other games, for those of you who don't play AO) and no friends (yeah, I know, go ahead and start sobbing now). Well, that last part isn't entirely true, it's just that I haven't seen anyone on my friends list actually logged on in months. So, while the elite (no, not the l33t) sit back knowing they can team whenever they want it, I have no such luxury. I can only hope that some people around my level feel like teaming, and that they'll invite me to their team.

Most of time, I know what's going to happen before the first mob is targeted. This is ToTW we're talking about, not team missions which have the effect of forcing a little team work, whether you want it or not. No, this is ToTW - even if you're not killed instantly, chances are your teammates will train, kill-steal, and generally be assholes to any team in the vicinity. When you find a team who does none of the above, has people who actually know how to play their classes, and just generally stomps on through any mob they may meet, well, you can see why it brings a tear to my eye.

Next week, depending, we may bear witness to the final showdown between my two characters. At last, both the same level - the decision must be made. Who will level beyond 65? Who will continue the down the noble path laid out at both of their feet? Who will... well, you get the picture. Stay tuned, folks.

The Sweet Smell Of Free

...And we're back. It's been quite a while since an Anarchy Online related post, so that's what this week is going to be all about. Go ahead and groan, I hear you.

So far, I've only gotten my Trader up to level 55. That's not an awful lot, taking into account how many months I've had the character. The other character, my Adventurer, is only level 65. So, we'll knock off ten levels as part of the MMO formula that as levels go up they come slower - and we realize that, were I playing one character, after nearly a year I'd only have a level 110 character in a game where the max is 200(+20 with expansions). What's the point of this, you almost but don't quite ask? Read on, and all will be revealed.

The point I was trying to get to was this: There's quite a few good reasons I don't like the idea of paying monthly fees for a game, and the above paragraph is one of them. In a game where I'll go a month or so without looking at it, I really don't want it eating up my cash just to sit there on my hard drive - ready, shall I ever need it. Nor do I want some sort of 21 day game card solution where every time I let my character sit idle in the game for a second while I hit the bathroom it's costing me money.

I used to look at the AO message boards and, upon seeing the multiple "That's it. I quit!" threads, I'd always think: "Why don't you just stop playing the game for a while?" I could never understand the fanaticism at hand whenever a character class had some changes made: "Play another character, that's what I'd do". I guess you start to look at things a little differently if your character has literally cost you hundreds of dollars to hold on to. Now I'm actually starting to understand a bit.

Hey folks, go ahead and bitch about that new profession nerf - you deserve it, you paid for it. Me? I'll be over here. With my money.

Now With 100% More Seething Fury!

I suppose that today continues the new policy of picking a random game from the front page of The Linux Game Tome when nothing more pressing is at hand. At least that's what it was supposed to be, but I'll get to that... right now.

This week's pick is VDrift, a racing game. Now, I've been known to enjoy a few racing games in my time but, until now, all of my experience with the genre has been on consoles. Why? Quite simply, I don't own a gamepad. I know they're not exactly something hard to find, but since most of the PC games I play are best played with a mouse/keyboard control system, it's never been high on my list of priorities. Somewhat sadly, I never even got the chance to see how the cars would control with a keyboard, as the game (at least the most recent binary version, which is the version I downloaded) is broken.

I'm not even going to mention the various troubles I had even getting the game to run in the first place, aside from mentioning that if you plan to try running the game without installing it first, you'll need some luck. What really got me is this: The game comes with no default controls configured. The first time I tried to actually play the game, I was greeted with an idling but entirely unresponsive vehicle. I figured I'd take a look in the control section of the options menu and figure out what key did what. Much to my surprise, they were all unbound.

It was a pain in the ass, but I'm not so elitist that I can't be bothered to bind my own controls - that is, as long as it's really possible. Every time I tried binding a key to the accelerator, hitting the key would simply floor the pedal. It was quite effective at stalling the vehicle, but nothing more. The brake key did nothing to alleviate the problem, and there was no binding I could find for deceleration. Frustrated, I tried reinstalling the game a few different ways - wiping out any traces left behind (such as ~/.vdrift) each time. No luck. So, long story short: I'm not playing VDrift right now, I haven't yet played it and, as annoyed as I'm feeling right now, I won't ever play it again.

When the game's README file says things about pressing certain keys to do certain things, it can reasonably be expected that these keys will, in fact, do certain things upon being pressed. It's not fucking rocket science to hard-code some default controls. I know how these things are done, and it's absolutely bullshit that the game is downloadable in such a state. Apparently, from the messages listed in VDrift's Tome entry, compiling the game is an exercise in masochism as well.

Sorry, VDrift folks. Maybe instead of having flashy polls on your web site about which car should be included next, or whether car interior details are more important that more cars or tracks, you should be putting in a little time to ensure that the game runs on a system that's not your own.

Update From The Future: Forgot to post, here it is.

Well, I'm Back.

So, first things first, apologies are in order. Due to a seemingly conspiratorial series events including the unexpected longevity of an aforementioned sickness, long-term power outages, and a whole lot of being busy with other things, this site has been update free for two weeks now. For that, I'm sorry. The business mentioned above is largely the culprit for yet another problem - I had absolutely no idea what to write today. So, from now on, a new policy can be considered in effect: Whenever I've got nothing else planned, I'm just going to pluck a random game from the front page of The Linux Game Tome, give it a go, and relate my experiences.

This week's pick was Warsow, another entry into the ever growing pool of multiplayer-focused first person shooters appearing on the Tome. I wasn't expecting much going in, which isn't to say I was expecting to be disappointed. It's just that after a while, all the various deathmatch oriented shooters seem to blend together into one twitching mass, at least to me. In a way, I got what I had been expecting, but I did end up quite pleasantly surprised by what I found.

The first thing you'll notice about Warsow is that it has a whole lot going for itself in the style department. It's a Quake 2 based engine(QFusion I believe it's called), but it's cell-shaded - definitely a first for free FPS games. Most of the other features games like Nexuiz and Alien Arena have been cropping up with, such as light bloom, are also in effect. It's not this that really caught my eye, though - I've seen these effects before. It's the way they're used that really shines. The wdm2 map is one of my favorite deathmatch maps ever - credit definitely goes to the way it plays (we'll get to that in a second), but the look of the level is so unique but, at the same time, cohesive - it's a level of immersion I've rarely felt in a deathmatch situation. Not to mention, light bloom (and related new, shiny effects) look much better in a clean, crisp sci-fi setting than they do elsewhere.

When I first started up a local server and took a look around the maps, I wasn't sure if a game with so much style would have any gameplay to go with it. Luckily, it plays just as tight as any of it's peers, even Cube (which is a huge plus in my book). Since I just grabbed it today I've only had an hour or two online with it, but the DM games I took part in (both free for all and team varieties) played smooth and fast. The weapons don't stray from the standard shooter pantheon but they are represented well, and they look and sound great for the most part. Sounds in general are good - the power up and character sounds are especially good, although the rocket launcher sounds lack a little "oomph".

Warsow has definitely got a whole lot of promise. It's only got a small handful of maps, but the gameplay is already solid. Once they've had some more time to add some maps (capture the flag is apparently already supported, just no maps yet), it should be even better. Frankly, it's my favorite of the current multiplayer FPS games floating around.

Sick Day

Sorry, folks, but no post this week. I'm just feeling too ill to produce one. I'll try to make up for it next week with something special.

Who Needs 'Em Anyway?

If you read Slashdot with a fair amount of frequency, or even if you don't, it's safe to assume that you may have stumbled upon this tidbit by this point. For various debatable reasons, Yahoo (a site I'm sure you can find without my linkage) has decided to close off it's chat rooms to anyone under the age of 18. I'm sure you're thinking: what does this have to do with an obscure videogaming website? Well, I'll tell you. Just give me a moment.

The fact is, as someone who hates children, I'm all for this. Not that I'm the sort who frequents chat rooms - in fact, outside of videogames, it's a concept completely outside of my range of vision. What I'm hoping for here is that, eventually, people under the age of 18 will be barred from any sort of online activity. Videogames, message boards, chat rooms: you name it, they're not allowed. Far from a utopian society, but a step in the right direction nonetheless.

We've got enough of a problem already with the above 30 crowd who decide they're going to rekindle the magic of their youth by never capitalizing the letter "I". Cut out the teenagers who think that words can actually be spelled with numbers and I'll be pretty happy. Ban them from voice chat in online games and I will ensure that you will be paid handsomely, even if it's in blood.

To be serious, this whole measure is entirely overboard on Yahoo's part. It would not surprise me in the least if this decision was reversed in a few weeks time: both Yahoo and Eliot Spitzer doing their best to act as if A.) this never happened, and B.) if it did, they were totally cool for doing it, but they didn't so... back to A.

Anyway, next week will be back to normal (ie. something actually about games), so stay tuned.

That Shadow Could Hide A City

Much to my surprise, I received a Shadow Of The Colossus demo disc in the mail this week. I'd been interested in the game ever since I first heard rumors of a sequel to Ico, so I quickly popped the disc in and gave it a whirl.

As soon as you've passed the logo screens, you can see a strong similarity to Ico in terms of art direction. In the world of videogames, the word "cinematic" in thrown around with such frequency that its meaning has effectively become lost in the rubble. Shadow Of The Colossus, alongside its predecessor, is part of a small handful of games that actually deserve the term. The first time you mount your horse and start to travel, you'll be impressed. As soon as you catch a glimpse of one of the game's titular colossi, you'll be picking your jaw up from the floor with your hands.

Similarities to Ico don't end in the art department. The pseudo-sequel inherits Ico's loose, almost floppy feeling control system. This allows more realistic animation of the player character, and it looks damn good doing so, but the controls do take some getting used to. Once you're used to them, they feel like a perfect fit and you'll find yourself wondering how you ever found them clumsy.

The colossi themselves are, by far, the most impressive aspect of the game. Taller than some skycrapers - they are, in effect, giant moving portions of the game world. The sense of scale is simply amazing. Trying to hang on while the colossus at hand is doing its damned best to shake you off is a pretty harrowing experience, especially when you've still got a long way to ascend to its weak spot. Weak spots on the colossi are found by raising your sword to focus the light on the titan. It sounds easy, and most of the time it is, but sometimes it can take a while, and you can't just stand there while a colossus is swinging a hammer the size of a three story office building at you.

Shadow Of The Colossus is really a game that needs to be seen in motion to truly be appreciated. I had seen quite a few screenshots before and, impressive as they were, they didn't hold a candle to seeing the game move. More so, Shadow really needs to be played, not watched, to get the most out of the experience. Try the demo if you can, otherwise just buy the fucking game, I doubt you'll be disappointed.

Anarchy Online: Now With More Green!

Sorry about this one being a day late, my bad. I suppose it's alright, though, seeing as it gave me some time to try out the Anarchy Online 16.0 patch.

This patch has been pretty highly anticipated within the AO community, as it contains quite a few major updates. The one you'll notice right off the bat is that the ground textures have been updated, which gives quite a different look to areas otherwise unchanged. As a side note, this had absolutely no impact performance-wise on my system. If you do find that game running slower than normal, it's possible to set a lower texture quality through the in-game options.

There have been other major changes, most notably the look of the city of Old Athen, which now bears little resemblance to itself a few days ago. The layout of the city has remained the same, for the most part, so it's pretty unlikely that you're going to get lost due to the city's face-lift. If you're the sort of person who constantly gets lost in Old Athen (and they do exist), you're probably not going to notice a difference.

I, as someone who spends a lot of time in Old Athen, think the city's new look is awesome. The buildings are unchanged - still the same drab old Omni architecture - but the remainder of the city now looks like a park. No other city (on Rubi-Ka, anyway, I don't know about the Shadowlands) has as many trees, bushes, and other various forms of foliage. Old Athen has become a much different, much more welcoming sort of place.

Not everywhere has fared so well, even though the changes were merely texture related. Avalon just looks wrong somehow - too green. The texture update had the unintended side effect of making certain places look plain, uninteresting, or both, sort of like an early alpha for an engine where all that's working is the terrain rendering. Luckily, this has only effected a few of the places I've had a chance to look at. Everywhere else looks much improved, especially forested areas.

As for balance changes and life without reclaim terminals, I haven't had any time to see the effects of the new changes. Maybe I'll have more on that next week, maybe it will be something else. It certainly will, however, be back on the regular schedule.

Open Sores: Part 2

So it's that time once again and, true to my word, what was started last week will come to its conclusion one week hence. If you're looking for an introduction, read last week's post (linked above in case you're not reading this on the main page), because I'm just going to get right into it. Proceed.

Grandeur, And The Delusions Thereof

Okay, so this was sort of touched on last week, but in the context of feature creep, not features planned right off the bat. What I'm talking about, if you're curious, is the over-ambition that sends so many new projects swirling down the crapper before the game is even playable. You want proof? Hop on over to the Linux Game Tome and see how many unfinished, never playable MMORPGs you can find before your eyes start to bleed. Sure, it's one of the most often attempted, hardest to create game genres out there - just because it's the best example of feature overloading doesn't mean it's the only one.

Even if you're using a solid pre-built, pre-tested engine and a solid toolset you don't have to develop yourself, building a game is a demanding task. Deciding you're going to build your own engine and spending three weeks working on the particle systems that still don't work isn't going to make this task any easier. Deciding early on that the open source MMORPG you haven't written any code for yet is going to have features that titles with multimillion dollar budgets haven't properly implemented yet isn't going to help either.

Isn't Everybody As Hardcore As Me?

Now this one isn't strictly limited to open source games, as it effects all games out there, but certain open source games certainly should be looking at their shoes and twiddling their thumbs in shame over this one. Game designers often seem to be at war with the people playing the games they create. People don't play games to be punished (at least not most people), they play them to have fun. There's a reason its called a game.

I think the reason that this seems to crop up in open source gaming so much is plain and simple: A.I. code is hard to write. There's a reason so many of the games coming out on the open source scene are strictly multiplayer focused. The problem is that boosting the hit and attack points of every monster and plopping down forty more of them doesn't boost the fun factor by the same amount. Just because you can plow through them all without a scratch doesn't mean that everyone will, or even want to.

Addendum

So that's it for my bitching, for now anyway. Before I wrap this up I'd like to say that for everything that's been said in the last two posts, I have nothing but love for the open source gaming scene. It's grown by leaps and bounds over the years in terms of quality, quantity and creativity and I'm sure it will continue. Thank you for the great games, folks.

Open Sores

This week's post is going to be sort of a full on rant-mode type of thing, so just be aware of what you're in for.

A large portion of Avert Your Eyes is dedicated to open-source gaming and gaming on open-source platforms, so it's obvious that I'm a fan. There are, however, a few things that drive me nuts about the whole open-source gaming scene, and that's the focus of this week's post. Proceed to number one:

If You Don't Like It, Fix It

Anybody who's followed open source gaming for a while has surely run into this one at one time or another. Someone submits a bug report, mentions something they don't like a game, or offers any other form of what could be considered constructive criticism, and is met with the response: It's open source, fix it. Because, you know, everybody in the entire fucking universe is a programmer. Nobody who enjoys gaming could possibly do so without a deep knowledge of how the engine rendering these beautiful scenes works, down to the machine code itself... You know, like how you can't enjoy a cheeseburger without being a butcher. Chop it yourself.

Honestly, I do know how to program - beyond that, I'm a roll-your-own type of guy. The type who runs a backup system he wrote himself, instead of one of the countless backup packages out there, more or less just for the hell of it. That being said, I have little ambition to slop through somebody else's shitty C code to add a feature I'd like to a game I don't care about that much in the first place. Non-programmers are going to hate you for this more than I do. If you want your game to be played by more than a few people, don't ever do this.

You Can't Please All The People All The Time...

...but a lot of open source projects try to. Ambition is a great thing, as long as it's actually within the scope of what you can and can't accomplish. Far too many games have died out when the handful of developers behind them start to become stretched too thin - not only having to accomodate their own feature-creep ideas, but those of the community surrounding the game as well.

It's an easy thing to do, especially if it seems that it's going to bring a more solid user base to a project that's lacking one. One of the problems (among many in this particular case) is that, often, users don't have any idea what kind of effort it would take to implement their ideas, as good as they may be. This, of course, is deliberatly leaving out the shitty, "d00d, w0t dis game n33dz is m0r3 r0ck3ts!! l0lz0rs!" suggestions.

This is starting to run a bit long, it's pushing midnight, and I'd like to get this up while it's still Thursday - so this bit may turn in to a two part kind of thing. I haven't covered all that I'd like to, so unless the Anarchy Online 16.0 patch comes out between then and now and I get sucked up in that, you can expect more. Out.

Zero To Pissed Off In 32 Levels

Well, it would appear that R.O.S.E Online is out of the open beta period. There will be a closed beta during the month of September (which would be the month that today is the first day of) available exclusively (I think) to Fileplanet (doesn't deserve a link) subscribers (ie. not me), which may (or may not) be followed by another open beta. A much more concise way to put it would be that I am not going to play R.O.S.E online any more. Not just because I can't anymore, either.

My feelings towards the game have changed dramatically between last week's post and now. Once you hit somewhere around level 25, leveling up stops being so quick and painless - quite the opposite, in fact. If you're not constantly having your kills stolen (this assumes that you have found something available to kill), you're being gang-raped by 20 of the same cute thing you couldn't find one of 30 seconds ago. I don't think I've died as much in any other MMORPG than I have in R.O.S.E. Hell, I don't think I've died as much in any game than I have in R.O.S.E, ever.

I think I made it to somewhere around level 32 before I decided to stop playing. It was only as was logging into the game yesterday, knowing it would be the subject of today's post, that I found something was wrong. Like I said above, I really found it hard to care. My entire time playing R.O.S.E felt more like I was trying to enjoy the game, rather than actually enjoying it. The whole process was tiring enough that when I started to play Anarchy Online again, it felt simple, familiar, and welcoming. Not that I haven't enjoyed my time with Anarchy Online, nor will I stop playing it any time soon, but when playing AO solo doesn't feel like a grind anymore, you know you've just come out of a bad relationship.

In other news, Cube had another release this week - I'm sticking this in here because there really isn't enough material to deserve it's own post - which, sadly, may be it's last. After this, the team (or just Aardappel, I'm not very familiar with their development practices) will be moving on to Sauerbraten, which could basically be considered the "sequel" to Cube. Anyway, Cube's maybe-last release is a doozie, throwing in new models for items, weapons, and teleporters as well as a bunch of new maps, both singleplayer and multiplayer. One word of caution - if you like (as most people do) to play Cube online, be wary of the new version. Even though it's been out for a few days, every server in my server browser has the nice little message: [different cube protocol]. Oh, one more thing I haven't mentioned - lots of Cube stuff over at Quadropolis.

Fairy Wings: Rent To Own!

After getting my Trader to level 46 in Anarchy Online, I was starting to feel somewhat burned out, so I decided to take a break and play something else. I wasn't exactly sure, then I remembered R.O.S.E Online, which I'd heard about some time ago, although I can't remember where or how. I certainly hadn't expected my break to be in the form of another MMORPG, but there's something about open betas I can't resist.

It did actually end up being a refreshing change of pace, which I really wasn't expecting. R.O.S.E (which stands for Rush On Seven Episodes, it's anybody's guess as to what that means) is much simplified from your usual MMO formula, which results in the game feeling almost like an "arcade style" MMO, as strange as that may sound. Leveling is fairly quick and painless compared to other games, at least during the earlier levels - something I learned quickly as I started playing yesterday and now have a level 23 dealer.

Before moving on to the graphical side of things, a quick warning. This game could be considered by some (ok, most) to be "cute" (complete with buyable fairy wings), and it's something that really can't be denied. It's not really a kiddie type of cute, though - more of an anime cute or, even closer, a 3D take on the look of several classic SNES-era RPGs. In fact, that's exactly what the characters strike me as - grown up sprites. Still big-headed, still goofy-looking, just occupying space in a three dimensional manner. Honestly, I really like the look of the game, especially the different playfields, but it's certainly not suited for everyone.

There are quite a lot of people playing the game, and almost every area I've been too so far has been crowded, especially with player shops. In towns, combined with the graphics, it gives a carnival type of atmosphere more so than any MMO I've played to date. Of course, with the crowding come problems. Kill stealing, scamming, and even exploits are plentiful, even if they are avoidable. This is sort of par for the course with these types of betas, and it's actually a good thing provided it helps the developers fix the flaws.

Exactly how long R.O.S.E is going to be in the open beta phase is a mystery to me, but I'm sure that it's not going to end in the next few weeks. It's still got a very beta-ish feel to it, with some missing or garbled text in places, so I doubt it will be released in it's current state. Nicks in the varnish aside, I've found my (admittedly short) time with it fun, and I'll probably be talking about it again next week after I've had more time to poke around.

By the way, it sure didn't take long for an open source project to show up after the recent release of the Quake 3 source code.

This Has Little To Do WIth Videogames...

I have certain tendencies that make it, how do you say, easy for me to become more than a little bit obsessed with things. Let's say that I come across an author I like, it's never long before I've consumed the vast majority of said author's works and start looking for something new.

This effect isn't limited to novels either - it's happened with quite a few things. I Love Bees stole much more of my time than I am proud to say. Webcomics galore. When I first found Penny Arcade I'd read nearly everything (news posts included) in their archive within a few days. This exact same thing has since happened with Scary Go Round, VG Cats, Spells and Whistles, and Megatokyo. It's just something I do.

The latest target of my mind beams has been Red vs Blue. Yeah, I know, it's been around for quite a while now, and everybody loves it. This is not news to me. Sometimes I'm just slow getting around to checking out things that I've always meant to check out. This is one case in particular that I really wish I'd looked into sooner.

I think it was Monday (yes, as in four days ago) I took a look at my first video - by now, I've watched the entire 3rd season around 5 times. I really had no idea what I was in for. I expected lame ass Halo-related in-jokes and probably nothing else. I'm sure there may be a few (you know, I don't play Halo) in-jokes, as there certainly are quite a few general gaming-related jokes, but I'm sure they won't be lame ass. I didn't really think it was possible for most people to do comic timing well anymore. I don't just mean internet videos either, just comedy in general.

With Season 4 starting at this end of the month, I guess I picked a pretty good time to get into this whole thing. If you haven't already, definitely check this out.

A Salesman

Sorry about the no-post situation last week. Let us just chalk it up to a sick day - fitting, as that's exactly what it was. I'll spare the details, but I was in neither the condition or the mood for an update. Now - fair warning - this post is about to get all Anarchy Online on you so, if you've got a problem with that, come back next week.

It's been a while since I've played AO, so my Trader spent quite a while stagnating at level 21. guess I've been on a roll this week, since I've just made level 36. It took a few runs in the Subway, and quite a few more missions, but the overall process was much quicker than I was expecting it to be. It's also been quite a lucrative week for our heroic salesman. Upon hitting level 25 access is granted to user special Trader-only terminals which pay quite a bit more than your standard shop terminals. Combine that with the tips that accompany the high demand for "Wrangles", as they're called - a line of nano-formulas that boost attack skills and allow better equipment - and cash is quite a bit easier to get than it was for my Adventurer at the same levels.

I've got mixed feelings about the inevitable trip to Temple Of The Three winds coming up soon. The experience isn't bad and some really nice items drop there, but if you don't have a good team the bosses there will send your ass packing back to the (soon to be obsolete) reclaim terminals faster than you can say "run!". The positive side is that when you do go in with a good team (like a take down the final boss with no doctors good team) the rewards are pretty damn sweet.

I'm still not exactly sure which character I'm going to focus on if my Trader gets up to the same level as my Adventurer before I play him again, as they've both got their benefits. Self-equipping weapons far above what others could self equip is awesome (that's the Trader), but so is being able to heal almost as well as a doc and turn into wolves (Adventurer). Ah, well - decisions, decisions.

That's all for this week, gentle reader, and I feel like you're being shorted. After the absence of a post last week a cheesy Anarchy Online cop-out feels a little lacking. Maybe, if you eat all your vegetables this week, next week's post will be really special. Probably not, though.

What About Rome?

At first I told myself that I'd just wait until the Linux version came out, since the words "coming soon" give you a certain expectation of how soon something may be coming. Well, it has been far too long for my tastes, so this week I downloaded the Windows version of NERO and gave it a try.

It's beyond the scope of this post to try to fully explain what NERO is and what it does. For details, look no further than the above link. For a very brief (and mostly fictional) description, read on. The product of a scrappy rag tag team of computer scientists, all-around general brainiacs (to use the proper term), and a few artists - NERO is the answer to the eternal question: What happens when you take the results of artificial intelligence research, add some figurative dressing in the form of the Torque Engine, and see what type of game comes out of it. It turns out that the answer is "Quite an interesting one".

Gameplay wise, NERO is of the oft overlooked school of "set it up and let it whirl" of games. The first phase is the training mode, in which you're tasked with teaching a group of bots basic tasks - such as navigating around obstacles on the way to the enemy, how much to avoid too much enemy fire, and other basic necessities of a fighting robot's very short life. You don't have direct control, so you can only set which behaviors are rewarded and which are discouraged via the "Smite!" command. Besides placing obstacles to create ever-expanding mazes the only other commands you have available are "Converge", which makes the other bots act more like the selected unit and "Milestone", a command that I'll admit I don't understand yet. It can take quite a while to get your NERO (short for Neuro Evolving Robotic Operatives) performing how you'd like them to but this phase of the game takes an almost god-game approach to the process, making a nice relaxing counterpoint to the next phase.

The battle phase is much more simple compared to the above. You take your hard trained team and throw them into battle, either against another team you (or somebody online - Network play is possible) created, or one of the other pre-trained teams included with the game. From there, interaction is limited to moving the camera around, watching the fight, and moving your team's flag around (it isn't what you think, it's just a way to get slightly better control over your troops, assuming they're trained to follow the flag). This phase is surprisingly intense, especially with a time limit. The intensity wears off after a few rounds against the same team, but the attachment you have to your boys (or your girls, call the robots whatever you want) keeps it interesting.

It goes for all games, but with NERO especially - it's certainly not for everyone. It's a game that requires quite a lot of patience as well as the will to start team after team, creating for each different methods of training. There's even some patience involved in the battle mode, as matches without time limits can often take quite a while. The payoff - watching your well trained team kick some ass - is entirely worth it.

Cue Freaky Zither Music

CodeRED: Alien Arena popped up on The Linux Game Tome this week I didn't really give it a second thought at first. With Thursday looming and nothing more entertaining to write about, I figured I'd give it a go. The idea was sent back to the factory due to a recall when I realized that this game was being brought to us by the fine folks behind Alteria. Yes, that Alteria.

Then again, I figured, there were no other options. On with the show. The download is around 130 megs or so which, while not the most pleasant way to spend an afternoon, is still within the realm of possibility for dialup users. As I prepared to launch the game, the terrors of Alteria were still undulating inside my mind. Lovecraftian visions of bad gameplay and worse voice acting - causing nightmare and reality to exist, to me, as one nauseating... OK, I think you get it.

At least I can say CodeRED: Alien Arena is much better than Alteria. Its sense of style is probably the strongest thing Alien Arena has going for it. There's a sort of colorful cartoony sci-fi look permeating the maps, and the characters follow suit. The sounds follow the same theme, but they're sort of a weak point when it comes to weapons. Some weapon sounds fit well, but the vast majority just don't carry the power or impact you're looking for.

Even though it's main focus is net play, there is a single player mode of sorts where you square off against bots. To Alien Arena's credit, the bots aren't too bad. It's a good thing they're included too, since I had no luck finding a server with more than 2 other players. One issue I have with the single player portion, though, is that you can't pick and choose which maps you want to play, but instead have to complete them in order. It gives more of a campaign feel, but I'd prefer to try out maps whenever I wanted.

You may notice that under the Linux Game Tome entry, there are quite a few people being fairly loud about the fact that the only GPL'd part of Alien Arena is the engine, ie. all the art and maps are not. I felt I'd warn you, in case you're the type of person that takes these issues very seriously. All in all - CodeRED: Alien Arena is no Alteria, but it just didn't really appeal to me. I like it a whole lot more than Nexuiz, but I can say with quite a bit of certainty that I probably won't be playing it much, if at all. Your mileage may vary.

This Should Be A Title, But Isn't...

Sometimes, for reasons entirely unbeknownst to me, I'll go months on end without actually checking out games that I really meant to give a try. Such is the case with Glest, an open source (GPL) 3D real-time strategy game and relative newcomer to the scene. It's been out for a few months now, so I really have no excuse for taking so long to give it a look but, since it had an update this week I realized it's time had come at last.

Let's start at the beginning here. I was in no way prepared for the level of polish I was presented with upon running Glest for the first time. Its menu screens are beautiful, with the camera gracefully navigating fully 3D backgrounds as you make your way through the initial options. In most of the open source games I've seen (a few, like Planeshift, are excused from this discussion) menus are, quite rightfully, more of an afterthought than anything else. After all, what is the point of lovely menu screens when the actual game suffers as a result?

Beyond the main menu, Glest continues to sparkle. Although I haven't yet had a chance to play through them all, the maps I've seen appear to be well crafted, both from the gameplay and aesthetic sides of the fence, although with current lack of multiplayer, I could see certain balance issues popping up in the future. The background music, oft lacking in many open source offerings (for obvious reasons, we're not all composers), fits nicely with the epic nature of a game like this. For the more graphically-oriented among you, there are also some really nice particle effects at work, especially for burning structures, which look awesome.

Gameplay is more or less your standard RTS fare, but I doubt that most people looking to play an RTS will mind this. One area where Glest stumbles is an apparent pothole that most of its open source peers have hit as well: its lack of an in-game tutorial. Granted these aren't the easiest things in the world to build, and I give all due slack in this case, but this is something that could end up driving many a new player away. Any RTS veteran will know from previous experience to start harvesting, building, and cranking out as many units as possible, but this knowledge shouldn't be expected as a prerequisite.

Right now, it's Linux and Windows only, but at one time Glest was a Windows-only project which was quickly ported, so it's fairly safe to say that ports to other platforms aren't out of the question. Give it a try, I'd say it currently outclasses most of it's competition. I know I liked it a lot more than I was fully prepared to.

I've Had It

That's it. From here on out, the only commercial games I'm buying are wacky Japanese RPGs. It's been looming on the horizon for a while, and now it's finally come - games are just getting too "cool" for me.

Take a look at any game related website or magazine, and I'm sure you'll find the words "gritty", "urban", or "starring" in there at least once. As much as the series' merits are touted, the game to blame for the current situation is clearly Grand Theft Auto 3. Its improvements on the previous games in the series can't be denied, but as soon as it was realized to be the cash cow it is now, other companies couldn't help but throw their hats into the proverbial ring.

"Gritty" and "urban" don't really need much elaboration - it seems all gamers want to do these days is commit crime in large cities - be it through street-racing, underground boxing, or all out shooting sprees. "Starring", though, may come off as a little confusing at first - and it works from different angles. The first permutation would be the most direct - people starring in a game like someone would a movie, ala 50 Cent: Bulletproof or Shaq-Fu (if I was drinking milk right now it would have squirted out my nose from typing that). The second is directly related to the Screen Actors Guild demanding that they get a larger cut of the profits from the games they "star" in.

I don't give one crap whether or not the main character in the game I'm playing is voiced by Gary Busey, nor do I want every single game I play to be set in a sprawling city. I don't care about tricking out my "ride", I don't care about hot polygonal girls shaking it for no reason, I don't care about what music is licensed from who, and I really don't give one fuck about actors/athletes/musicians who think that their very presence in a game is enough to drain the masses of all their worldly belongings. I've had enough.

From now on it's quirky music, characters with dangerously large heads and even more dangerously large swords, and unknown voice actors (if there is voice acting at all) who were probably dubbing hentai before they were hired for the game. Be warned, the next time you see me, I may or may not be wearing large purple bunny-ears.

A Rich Tradition

There have been a few notable releases this week, which I'll try to touch on next week. I'll be honest, it's not this week because in the limited amount of game time I've had, it's been spent playing Anarchy Online.

I was pretty busy with a number of other things this week, so my Trader has only leveled up to 21 or 22 (I can't remember) in the two nights I was actually able to play. I've actually been finding good teams this time around, which helps things go quite a bit more quickly leveling-wise. One thing I did not expect was to actually make some in-game friends. The buddy list of my level 65 Adventurer is so empty it's begun to collect cobwebs, but so far I've actually got quite a few on my Trader's list.

You may remember this old post, in which I mention a kind soul who gave my lowly Adventurer a lovely bag of pistols and some (ok, quite a bit more than some) credits, on the condition that I pass them on when I outgrew them. I'd actually outgrown them quite a while ago, but hadn't found the right person to pass them on to.

The other night, I was teaming with some people and everyone save myself and another player logged off. We were in the process of selling our "Ph4t l00t" when he mentioned that his pistols sucked. Having teamed with him, it seemed he was worthy of such a mighty bounty so, a few minutes later, he had a fresh new bag of pistols. Once again, the condition was that he pass them on when they were outgrown.

Hopefully, those pistols will enjoy a long lifetime of being passed from Adventurer to Adventurer, seeing much more of Rubi-Ka than any other weapon could dream. If they end up in the hands of someone who doesn't deserve them, I suspect they will "malfunction", resulting in the wielder wondering where all this blood is coming from, and why he feels so lightheaded.