Podcast EP 31: Danny Peña of Gamertag Radio (Classically Trained)
Added: 24.07.2015 20:23 | 7 views | 0 comments
Danny Peña is the Founder and Host of Gamertag Radio. Gamertag Radio (GTR) is an independent online gaming website dedicated to the gaming community that was founded in 2005, and intended to help to unite all gamers. Every week GTR records and distributes new episodes recapping the news of the past week. GTR was recently announced as an addition to CBS Radios Play.it podcast network.
From:
n4g.com
| I just played Doom and I still haven#39;t recovered. Here#39;s why
Added: 24.07.2015 19:20 | 27 views | 0 comments
You're not ready for Doom. You're really not. This morning I played an hour of back-to-back games in the new demon-bothering shooter's versus multiplayer, and my head still isn't right. It is, however, very happy.
Doom, you see, is intense. It's intense in ways we haven't seen in a mainstream FPS for quite a while. It's not just the aggression, or the speed, or the gibs (though all of those things certainly factor in). It's more than that. It's Doom's cleverness. It's Doom's deceptive, layered complexity. It's the constant, gleefully ferocious back-and-forth between demand and reward. Doom is great. And it's messed me up rather brilliantly. Here's why my head is such a giddy shambles right now.
You'll notice this immediately. Doom is fast. And it's not just about Doomguy's immediate running pace, which is both blistering and relentless (no sprint toggle here: you're either charging forth or you're standing still, in which case you're probably dead). It's about the kind of speed that permeates the whole game.
This isn't Call of Duty fast, where running hard and aiming quick are the be-all and end-all. This is multi-dimensional fast. Speed dictates everything. Your forward momentum, your lateral movement (ducking and weaving is a way of life in Doom, due to the proliferation of dodgeable, physical projectiles and lengthy health bars), your vertical movement, your spur-of-the-moment escapes and rapid, rethought retaliations... Your first few games will be spent recalibrating your brain to operate at a rate of knots in every respect. When you get it though, it could not be more exhilarating.
If you have a storied history in multiplayer shooters, there's another aspect of Doom that's likely to throw you off at first. You see, Doom's persona is a little ambiguous. Yes, the tight, intricate map design - packed as it is with opportunities for creative navigation and clever vertical assaults - is pure Doom. But in other respects? There's a whole lot of Quake here.
There's the quad-damage pick-up. There's the springy, double-jumping focus on bunny hops. There's the splattery crowd-control of the plasma rifle. There's the way any of each match's million and one frantic, cat-and-mouse skirmishes can break into explosive, high-flying madness at the drop of a rocket. Reconciling the two games' traditional elements can take a little while. At times it feels like an airier Doom, at other times a tighter, more restrained Quake. Ultimately though, the two games' conceits do compliment each other, leading to a relentlessly aggressive, but pleasingly focused game. And speaking of focus...
Doom might be all about the carnage, but igniting that destruction effectively requires sharp, thoughtful shooting. With a bit of experience using Doom's weapon-set, it quickly becomes apparent that this is not a game that rewards mindless spamming. Its guns are imposing, but to get the most out of them, you're going to have to fight smart and stay on your toes.
The rocket launcher, for instance, is not the easy harbinger of devastation you might expect. Its splash damage area is deceptively small, demanding fast, precision shots and a whole lot of target-leading. The faster-firing weapons can be painfully weak unless you utilize their more powerful secondary modes (such as the repeater rifle's high impact Magnum rounds), at which point even more methodical precision - and sometimes the reduced view of a scope - comes back into play. Doom's equivalent of a railgun is a classic example: a decent, medium-to-long range weapon as standard, which requires a zoomed charge in order to bring the delicious one-shot action. And at no point will Doom slow down enough to make any of this easy. As such...
If you're fighting at medium to long-range and trying to get by with reaction shots, you're already too late. Fact. With no radar, and an arsenal that favors real, physical, trackable ordnance over point-and-click hitscan firing, Doom's combat is all about thoughtful, preemptive play.
You need to predict your opponents' behavior. You need to influence it into advantageous shapes with smart use of weapon switching and spatial control. You're required to understand the many subtle interplays between your weapons' rate (and type) of damage and speed to target, your opponents' probable responses, and your own follow-up options at any given time. In short, if you're not playing with your head two seconds into the future at any given time, you're playing too slowly. And goddamn if that isn't constantly exciting.
Don't go thinking that the intensity of those skirmishes means you're just looking at a few tense flare-ups with plenty of time to recover in between. Doom is relentless. You're never more than ten seconds away from the next scuffle, and even if you manage to stay out of the action for a while, it won't do you any good unless you use that time wisely and bravely.
With no inherent life regen, health and armor pick-ups are your only hope of staying in the fight. They're plentiful, but they're not going to just drop in your lap - you need to seek them out. You're going to have to scavenge. That means build healing break-aways into the entire rhythm and flow of your fighting, often while under fire. And you're never going to know whether a lone-wolf loot run is going to end in your salvation or the exact opposite. When it's the former though, especially with an enemy on your tail, there's no sweeter comeback. As for lone-wolfing it, well...
Yes, Doom looks - and often feels - anarchic, but talking, planning and synergizing with your team is how you're going to stay alive. Given the drawn-out nature of Doom's one-on-one firefights, the numbers game is a big deal. Ideally, you always want at least one buddy on hand to cover angles and call out situations you might not be aware of.
Of course, a fast, creative player can definitely beat stacked odds alone (or at least escape to fight another day), but such situations are certainly best avoided. Especially when the Revenant comes into play...
Every couple of minutes (at least in the single mode shown at Quakecon), a pentagram powerup will drop into the map. Once someone grabs it (following an inevitably intense fight for control of the area), they'll transform into one of Doom's skeletal, rocket-slinging Revenants. They'll do ridiculously overpowered damage. They'll inflict a nasty amount of splash damage. They'll be able to fly. In short, they become a miniboss on the map, fighting on behalf of one team until it either times out or is killed.
The latter is obviously the preferable option, and that's where the real joy of Doom's design comes together. For a team to take down a Revenant quickly, everything previously mentioned has to come together as part of one big, glorious, smoothly cooperative machine. Tight, preemptive play. Smart aggression balanced with canny self-preservation. Insightful understanding of the limitations of attack and defence. A team you can rely on. It's tough. It's grueling. At times it's terrifying. But it's never anything less that triumphant, hilarious, explosive fun. And that, right there, is Doom all over.
From:
www.gamesradar.com
| Podcast EP 31: Danny Peña of Gamertag Radio (Classically Trained)
Added: 24.07.2015 19:19 | 1 views | 0 comments
Danny Peña is the Founder and Host of Gamertag Radio. Gamertag Radio (GTR) is an independent online gaming website dedicated to the gaming community that was founded in 2005, and intended to help to unite all gamers. Every week GTR records and distributes new episodes recapping the news of the past week. GTR was recently announced as an addition to CBS Radios Play.it podcast network.
From:
n4g.com
| Card Hunter: Expedition to the Sky Citadel Review
Added: 23.07.2015 23:43 | 49 views | 0 comments
Card Hunter has brought its absorbing mix of Dungeons & Dragons and card gaming to Steam, and just like its free-to-play Flash-based predecessor from 2013, this expanded edition of Blue Manchu’s ode to 80s-era tabletop roleplaying is cute and clever enough to occupy many hours of your free time. Zippy adventures, loads of loot, and devious mechanics prove a real challenge to anybody’s role-playing and tactical skills, while virtual dungeon masters and a keen eye for nostalgia make the game appealing to a wide audience, but particularly to anyone who has ever rolled a 20-sided die. This new edition of Card Hunter is much the same as the one that hit browsers a couple of years ago, albeit with a new sci-fi campaign, new artifacts, and cooperative multiplayer. If you could smash together a deck of Magic: The Gathering cards and some first-edition Advanced D&D books and then unmangle the resulting ball of papery mush and create a playable game out of the wreckage, you’d have Card Hunter. Basics have been freely borrowed from ‘70s- and ‘80s-era D&D in that you start off with a three-member party made up of the usual warriors, mages, and clerics from iconic RPG races, such as humans, elves, and dwarves. Characters earn experience, level up, and equip themselves with the traditional weapons, armor, and various magical goodies in the usual way. Stage an expedition to the Barrier Peaks—er, the Sky Citadel—in Card Hunter’s new campaignAdventures are selected on a world map that gradually opens up based on your level. Make your choice, and you’re off to a three-battle (or so--most modules have trios, but the number varies occasionally) module given an old-fashioned D&D name like “Diamonds of the Kobolds” or “The Sinister Wood.” These names aren’t as cheesy as the real thing, like “The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh,” but they’re close. And the classic pen-and-paper RPG vibe has been preserved. Two dungeon masters named Melvin and Gary serve as a Greek chorus, commenting on both your adventuring and life in general. Characters are cardboard cutouts shoved into plastic stands that boldly slide across maps atop the fake wood of recreation room tables. Erol Otus-ish black-and-white art on module intro screens and an accompanying elaborate title font complete the time warp back to your mom’s kitchen table circa 1984. Old-timers will love these little touches, especially the retro font. That thing is beyond hideous, but it is so evocative of a time and place that I immediately flashed back more than 30 years to the first time I played the classic “Tomb of Horrors” module. Nostalgia may be the cheapest way to hook people on a game, but it is effective when done right. Gameplay has been reworked dramatically from tabletop RPG norms, though. Instead of taking turns to move, roll dice for combat, and so forth, all actions are controlled by playing cards within the turn-based, tiled maps that make up the battle arenas in each module. Character skills and equipped gear provide access to specific cards for attacks, blocks, and spells, so that sword in your studly warrior’s mitts supplies a bunch of different attack cards. The staff toted around by your mage offers up various spells, and the mail worn by your cleric grants cards with armor blocks and healing incantations. Tactical battles involve a lot of serious thinking and planning. You have up to five cards in your hand per round (although this number can vary slightly depending on the special abilities of certain cards), all drawn from the stock provided by the aforementioned hardware. If you want to cast a healing spell, for instance, you have to play a card featuring one of these functions. The same goes if you want to bash an enemy with a club or even move from one space to another on the tile-based maps featured in every module’s set-piece battles. At the end of every round, you discard unplayed cards to get down to a maximum holdover of two, and then you draw new ones to fill out another hand of five. Everything has been cunningly put together. Battles roll out as intricate tactical affairs where every action is loaded with tension. I was reminded of the Gold Box D&D games from the late 80s and early 90s, as Card Hunter maintains a lot of the turn-based anxiety from those classics. Cards add an appreciable new element, however, along with some welcome randomness that forces you to take chances. I constantly asked myself questions. "My warrior has Powerful Hack, Reaching Swing, and Skillful Strike up right now, so do I race once to the breach, dear friends, and go all medieval on these zombies? My mage has Surging Blast and a couple of Big Zap spells ready, too, so maybe I should go that route and move him forward? Can he survive out front like that? Or what about my cleric? She’s got two Healing Pulses in her hand, so maybe I should spend a round hanging back and healing. My mage is down to eight hit points, after all." The sheer size of the initial campaign map is so impressive and so loaded with modules that you may never need to spend a cent to get a lot of gaming out of Card Hunter.Class specialties work just as in regular fantasy role-playing. Going for the jugular with wide-open attacks isn’t always smart. Instead, you have to use mages and clerics to pave the way for swordplay. Buffs include blessings to make attacks instant hits and spells to make characters invulnerable, while you can also wear down foes with abracadabra stuff that strips away blocking cards, melts armor, and more. Area spells can also be used to cause cave-ins that hurt enemies and slow down their movement, establish walls of flame, pits of acid, and more. Every battle calls for specific equipment, especially as you move into higher levels. What works with troglodytes, for example, isn’t as good with imps, mutants, or zombies, etc. Tips can be called up if you fail a battle, so it’s generally pretty easy to figure out how to retreat after a loss and adjust your equipped gear to gain access to the cards needed to better handle the monsters currently on offer. Of course, a lot also depends on what those monsters have in their hands. Committing to a rushing attack can be suicidal if the bad guys have the cards that they needed to fend you off. Holding off can also be tough, as you never know when you’re going to draw the right cards. Luck is a big part of every battle. I can’t count the number of times I’ve had my warrior all set to finish off a couple of bad guys only to draw nothing but passive armor and movement cards for a couple of turns until my chance at winning passed me by. Maps also enhance the tactical side of the game. Most battles take place in slightly elaborate settings with corridors, trees, and other obstacles that get in the way of movement and spellcasting. for special bonus 70s-80s nostalgia, the font used in the new Expedition to the Sky Citadel campaign has been borrowed from old Micronauts toy packages.Card Hunter still has a few problems. The biggest issue for me was the size of everything on a high-res monitor. Text is small, and a lot of the screen is wasted by showing a tremendous amount of the table that the game map is supposed to be sitting on. I loved the nostalgic touches like DM Gary’s “Campaign Notes” notepad and the D&D dice sitting nearby, too, but not at the expense of being able to read card descriptions without squinting. I was in the dark a little more often than I should have been, regardless, as some cards do not fully detail what they do. This can be dangerous, as some can be irrevocably activated with a single click. volved combat can turn dreary, especially when mages and clerics are involved. I took on a number of battles that turned into one-on-one scraps between spell-casters where the bad guy would run away and just wait for me to attack. This led to lengthy cat-and-mouse affairs where I would hunker down in a corner and draw cards over and over until I got the healing spells and attacks necessary to charge back into battle. I pulled out a few desperate victories using these cowardly maneuvers, but they were never particularly fulfilling. Sometimes I just gave up the battle and restarted, as this was a more agreeable option than committing to 10 or 15 minutes of playing the waiting game. Some of the new features in this Steam edition of Card Hunter left me a little cold, too. Expedition to the Sky Citadel is an inspired rip-off (complete with another cool retro font, this one clearly inspired by the old Micronauts toys from the 70s and 80s) of the classic AD&D module “Expedition to the Barrier Peaks,” where fantasy heroes explore a crashed spaceship with the guidance of a robot DM. But it’s also incredibly tough, and the pre-rolled party made up so you don’t have to take your own characters to the suggested level 19 before starting it is not good, with an abysmal selection of gear and cards. Buying all new high-level gear for them was the only option to make them playable, but this was unwieldy enough that I went back to the grind with the original campaign. My gripes about Card Hunter are minor in comparison with the admiration that I have for what the game accomplishes when it comes to creating a mood and a challenge equivalent to that offered by both classic D&D and card gaming. Nostalgia, intelligent combat, and a range of tactical depth is hard to find in different games, let alone rolled up into one very catchy, very reasonably priced package.
Tags: Gods, Green, Torn, Steve, Mask, Gain, Arts, When, Lucy, Cave, Black, Citadel, Test, Every, There, Time, Hunter, Secret, Staff, Blue, Gameplay, Most, Character, Dragons, Dungeons, Adventures, Soul, Class, Strike
From:
www.gamespot.com
| Card Hunter: Expedition to the Sky Citadel Review
Added: 23.07.2015 23:43 | 13 views | 0 comments
Card Hunter has brought its absorbing mix of Dungeons & Dragons and card gaming to Steam, and just like its free-to-play Flash-based predecessor from 2013, this expanded edition of Blue Manchu’s ode to 80s-era tabletop roleplaying is cute and clever enough to occupy many hours of your free time. Zippy adventures, loads of loot, and devious mechanics prove a real challenge to anybody’s role-playing and tactical skills, while virtual dungeon masters and a keen eye for nostalgia make the game appealing to a wide audience, but particularly to anyone who has ever rolled a 20-sided die. This new edition of Card Hunter is much the same as the one that hit browsers a couple of years ago, albeit with a new sci-fi campaign, new artifacts, and cooperative multiplayer. If you could smash together a deck of Magic: The Gathering cards and some first-edition Advanced D&D books and then unmangle the resulting ball of papery mush and create a playable game out of the wreckage, you’d have Card Hunter. Basics have been freely borrowed from ‘70s- and ‘80s-era D&D in that you start off with a three-member party made up of the usual warriors, mages, and clerics from iconic RPG races, such as humans, elves, and dwarves. Characters earn experience, level up, and equip themselves with the traditional weapons, armor, and various magical goodies in the usual way. Stage an expedition to the Barrier Peaks—er, the Sky Citadel—in Card Hunter’s new campaignAdventures are selected on a world map that gradually opens up based on your level. Make your choice, and you’re off to a three-battle (or so--most modules have trios, but the number varies occasionally) module given an old-fashioned D&D name like “Diamonds of the Kobolds” or “The Sinister Wood.” These names aren’t as cheesy as the real thing, like “The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh,” but they’re close. And the classic pen-and-paper RPG vibe has been preserved. Two dungeon masters named Melvin and Gary serve as a Greek chorus, commenting on both your adventuring and life in general. Characters are cardboard cutouts shoved into plastic stands that boldly slide across maps atop the fake wood of recreation room tables. Erol Otus-ish black-and-white art on module intro screens and an accompanying elaborate title font complete the time warp back to your mom’s kitchen table circa 1984. Old-timers will love these little touches, especially the retro font. That thing is beyond hideous, but it is so evocative of a time and place that I immediately flashed back more than 30 years to the first time I played the classic “Tomb of Horrors” module. Nostalgia may be the cheapest way to hook people on a game, but it is effective when done right. Gameplay has been reworked dramatically from tabletop RPG norms, though. Instead of taking turns to move, roll dice for combat, and so forth, all actions are controlled by playing cards within the turn-based, tiled maps that make up the battle arenas in each module. Character skills and equipped gear provide access to specific cards for attacks, blocks, and spells, so that sword in your studly warrior’s mitts supplies a bunch of different attack cards. The staff toted around by your mage offers up various spells, and the mail worn by your cleric grants cards with armor blocks and healing incantations. Tactical battles involve a lot of serious thinking and planning. You have up to five cards in your hand per round (although this number can vary slightly depending on the special abilities of certain cards), all drawn from the stock provided by the aforementioned hardware. If you want to cast a healing spell, for instance, you have to play a card featuring one of these functions. The same goes if you want to bash an enemy with a club or even move from one space to another on the tile-based maps featured in every module’s set-piece battles. At the end of every round, you discard unplayed cards to get down to a maximum holdover of two, and then you draw new ones to fill out another hand of five. Everything has been cunningly put together. Battles roll out as intricate tactical affairs where every action is loaded with tension. I was reminded of the Gold Box D&D games from the late 80s and early 90s, as Card Hunter maintains a lot of the turn-based anxiety from those classics. Cards add an appreciable new element, however, along with some welcome randomness that forces you to take chances. I constantly asked myself questions. "My warrior has Powerful Hack, Reaching Swing, and Skillful Strike up right now, so do I race once to the breach, dear friends, and go all medieval on these zombies? My mage has Surging Blast and a couple of Big Zap spells ready, too, so maybe I should go that route and move him forward? Can he survive out front like that? Or what about my cleric? She’s got two Healing Pulses in her hand, so maybe I should spend a round hanging back and healing. My mage is down to eight hit points, after all." The sheer size of the initial campaign map is so impressive and so loaded with modules that you may never need to spend a cent to get a lot of gaming out of Card Hunter.Class specialties work just as in regular fantasy role-playing. Going for the jugular with wide-open attacks isn’t always smart. Instead, you have to use mages and clerics to pave the way for swordplay. Buffs include blessings to make attacks instant hits and spells to make characters invulnerable, while you can also wear down foes with abracadabra stuff that strips away blocking cards, melts armor, and more. Area spells can also be used to cause cave-ins that hurt enemies and slow down their movement, establish walls of flame, pits of acid, and more. Every battle calls for specific equipment, especially as you move into higher levels. What works with troglodytes, for example, isn’t as good with imps, mutants, or zombies, etc. Tips can be called up if you fail a battle, so it’s generally pretty easy to figure out how to retreat after a loss and adjust your equipped gear to gain access to the cards needed to better handle the monsters currently on offer. Of course, a lot also depends on what those monsters have in their hands. Committing to a rushing attack can be suicidal if the bad guys have the cards that they needed to fend you off. Holding off can also be tough, as you never know when you’re going to draw the right cards. Luck is a big part of every battle. I can’t count the number of times I’ve had my warrior all set to finish off a couple of bad guys only to draw nothing but passive armor and movement cards for a couple of turns until my chance at winning passed me by. Maps also enhance the tactical side of the game. Most battles take place in slightly elaborate settings with corridors, trees, and other obstacles that get in the way of movement and spellcasting. for special bonus 70s-80s nostalgia, the font used in the new Expedition to the Sky Citadel campaign has been borrowed from old Micronauts toy packages.Card Hunter still has a few problems. The biggest issue for me was the size of everything on a high-res monitor. Text is small, and a lot of the screen is wasted by showing a tremendous amount of the table that the game map is supposed to be sitting on. I loved the nostalgic touches like DM Gary’s “Campaign Notes” notepad and the D&D dice sitting nearby, too, but not at the expense of being able to read card descriptions without squinting. I was in the dark a little more often than I should have been, regardless, as some cards do not fully detail what they do. This can be dangerous, as some can be irrevocably activated with a single click. volved combat can turn dreary, especially when mages and clerics are involved. I took on a number of battles that turned into one-on-one scraps between spell-casters where the bad guy would run away and just wait for me to attack. This led to lengthy cat-and-mouse affairs where I would hunker down in a corner and draw cards over and over until I got the healing spells and attacks necessary to charge back into battle. I pulled out a few desperate victories using these cowardly maneuvers, but they were never particularly fulfilling. Sometimes I just gave up the battle and restarted, as this was a more agreeable option than committing to 10 or 15 minutes of playing the waiting game. Some of the new features in this Steam edition of Card Hunter left me a little cold, too. Expedition to the Sky Citadel is an inspired rip-off (complete with another cool retro font, this one clearly inspired by the old Micronauts toys from the 70s and 80s) of the classic AD&D module “Expedition to the Barrier Peaks,” where fantasy heroes explore a crashed spaceship with the guidance of a robot DM. But it’s also incredibly tough, and the pre-rolled party made up so you don’t have to take your own characters to the suggested level 19 before starting it is not good, with an abysmal selection of gear and cards. Buying all new high-level gear for them was the only option to make them playable, but this was unwieldy enough that I went back to the grind with the original campaign. My gripes about Card Hunter are minor in comparison with the admiration that I have for what the game accomplishes when it comes to creating a mood and a challenge equivalent to that offered by both classic D&D and card gaming. Nostalgia, intelligent combat, and a range of tactical depth is hard to find in different games, let alone rolled up into one very catchy, very reasonably priced package.
Tags: Gods, Green, Torn, Steve, Mask, Gain, Arts, When, Lucy, Cave, Black, Citadel, Test, Every, There, Time, Hunter, Secret, Staff, Blue, Gameplay, Most, Character, Dragons, Dungeons, Adventures, Soul, Class, Strike
From:
www.gamespot.com
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