APB and why noone should play this smear of feces

I made a mistake some days ago. I bought the "GTA MMO" APB (or All Points Bulletin as the game is an acronym for) and received entry to the beta of this "tremendous Multiplayer game". But what seems to be a promise of high tech fun with friends and foes turn out to be a bloated and shitty GTA multiplayer clone. actually, I might go as far to say that this game is THE WORST MMO I have ever laid my hands on. Maybe even one of the worst games I have ever tried.

Why am I being so harsh? well, let me count the ways:

1. The game is bloated. This might be a harsh thing to say, but it is. APB takes at least 8 minutes from the minute I press start, till I can find myself running around the hellish city. 4-5 of those is spent at a loading screen and 2 minutes is spent just waiting for the damn thing to start. This is inexcusable, even for a game in beta (my definition of beta, is a game/program that is not finished, but has a usable engine and gameplay - this has not) and I loathe having to change instance.

2. There is no PVE and the PVP SUCKS!. This game is solely for the pvp audience which might be great for some, but I hate every second of it, just check out one of my former posts. Every mission begins quite calmly but that quickly changes when the criminals (or police depending on your side) joins the fun. It is completely random who gets pitted against you and I have many times experienced a better equipped enemy rushing towards me with an assault rifle (that strangely enough shoots just as accurate as a fucking sniper rifle and does more damage!), That alone makes me want to quit the mission, a feature not implemented in the game which will then lead to you dreading every mission you may have to do and hoping never to encounter an enemy in your mission again. Also, there are no NPC's other than the quest givers and those brainless pedestrians jumping in front of your car. May I ask why?! I can't see the problem in creating PVE missions where there might be some AI enemies coming after you and not having a fucking machine gun trooper storming your raid objective.

3. The other players are assholes. Yes, this is another feature that might be subjective, but still, when another enemy gets on your tail you might (I only think it happens when more than one enemy answers the call of help) be able to call backup. If anyone answers that call, they can help you shoot the opposition. But what happens when you get put together with an ass of a teammate? someone who never even arrives?! You get to fight two enemies at one fucking time, NO. MERCY. THERE!! Oh, and did I already mention that there is no opportunity to quit missions and give up? no quarter there either, my friend, you will have to keep rushing, keep getting killed, keep wasting your expensive ammo and lose prestige + get a dreading "mission lost" screen when the time is over, even though you have done all the other objectives and saved the local ice cream store.

4. The missions are horrendously boring. according to the status screen of the game, I have been playing for about 7 hours and therefore tried quite a bit of missions. But what does that matter if they are all the same? Sure that happens in WoW too (kill this, loot that etc.) But there is just one difference, WoW had a sense of FUCKING PROGRESS! In APB I didn't feel like I saved the city, I just felt like the game developers have thrown a stick that they told me to fetch while people are shooting at me. And when I return the stick? They just throw it again, and again.

There are some "good" things about this game, don't forget that. There is a heap of customisation where everything including clothes, cars (if you don't buy one that the developers are very proud of and don't want to be blemished!) and music(?) can be changed to suit your needs, which is nice. Also, the graphics are bright, modern and shiny. Although, enough to warrant a 6 minute loading time? FUCK NO!

All in all, this game and the developers deserve a big empty void of FAIL. I sincerely hope that "real" critics feel the same and don't get suckered in by RealTime Worlds bright lights like an insect just as I did.

//SKT_THOMAS

My two cents on Splinter Cell: Conviction

I've finished playing through Sam Fishers fall into chaos through his newest game and here are my thoughts on it.

Firstly: THIS IS NOT SPLINTER CELL.

Splinter cell is perhaps the epitome of sneaking games, giving you, not only, a large arsenal of weapons and gadgets with which to slip past your foes, but also challenging you to try and find other methods of liquidation besides plainly shooting. Besides the crappy Double Agent (which I haven't even been able to play) the sneaking has always been priority, failure to swear to the shadows would result in sharp reprimands from your commander and possibly a nuclear war.

This changed in Conviction where you do not even have the possibility of hiding bodies of your (very chatty and very ugly by the way) enemies and your arsenal of ranged combat weaponry is limited to bullets, thereby removing the whole non-lethal part of the game. yes, there is sneaking but it is very hard to do since the developers have jumped on the train of this fashion that is having no GUI, something I really do not understand the taboo of having, which means no real sneak meter (other than the screen turning black and white when you seem to be in shadows although you are in plain sight to the player) and no health bar.

But what this game is, is an incredibly satisfying shooter. Yes, this game is fun, make no mistake of that. Besides becoming more a deliver-your-brain-at-the-entrance shooter this game has not lost all charm and hope. The developers have undoubtedly tried to implement some graphical changes and they are in fact not completely lost on me. It is beautiful, yes, with many of the levels being colourful and with civilians for a change. the effect when you go into hiding does seem slick, especially since some objects, including blood, is still coloured and seem to amplify the atmosphere. your objectives are now displayed via text projected on objects throughout the game which also seem to be the best way to do so instead of outright displaying an objectives screen. Actually, except the blatant changes from the "original formula of Splinter Cell", my only complaint is the new sonar vision gear which seems completely useless compared to our original vision gear (it's even become the friggin' logo of the game people!) and the auto-save system where there is usually too far between checkpoints and a strange way of implementing extra difficulty into a game (I got frustrated having to do the same task over and over because the game didn't feel like saving).

In conclusion: besides changing a fucking perfect game (here I still mean the first three (or at least the first and chaos theory) and not the crappy double agent) this game is still a fun, albeit a bit short, shooting game with beautiful visuals that really is a nice break from the gritty and grey games we see everywhere right now.

/Skt_Thomas

Addendum: I forgot the most awesome thing in the game: YOU SMASH A MANS FACE INTO AN URINAL!

Iron Man 2 motherfuckers!

I watched Iron Man 2 yesterday (well.. actually the day before yesterday now) and it was plainly said awesome (as the title may suggest)

That film confirms my belief that this is how super hero movies should be: movies about SUPER people, people who are above us normal humans. That is why I loathed movies like the Spiderman series, I hate heroes that do nothing but bitch and moan throughout the entire movie, pushing away what we came to see, action and suspense, not some teen-angst chick flick.

Now don't get me wrong, I like super hero movies with good characters, this is why The Dark Knight still stands as one of my favourite movies, Heath Ledger (an actor I never watched before) delivers a performance so great that he holds up the entire movie, even with Christian Bales idiotic voice ruining Batman. But the Iron Man movies are so bad-ass and filled with awe-inspiring effects along with an enjoyable performance by Robert Downey Jr. that I couldn't help leaving the cinema in a better mood, humming that awful Iron Maiden tune.

I know this little place...

Okay, quick post this time as I am sitting in the train.

When I watched an anime one time (I think it was Azumanga Daioh) they mentioned the japanese dish called Bento, basically (or at least the way I understand it) it is their equivalent of our packed lunches, except these looks positively stunning.

Therefore I searched for it on the Internet to gain a bit of info on them, but instead of the expected Wiki page as the first result on Google, I got a danish restaurant called Bento, situated in the area called Vesterbro in the central city. I got courious and went for a visit, expecting at least to soak in the exotic atmosphere available in this part of CPH. But what I got was far beyond that. Being welcomed by smiling staff in a traditional yet stylish environment was just the start.

An even better part of it all was, of course, the food. I was daring and tried their ramen with seafood salad, something I would never dare, or want, to eat in a normal restaurant. Purely friggin' genius it was. and cheap too, 85 dkk (a little more than 10 euro) for a dish too large for me to eat, including a pot of japanese tea.

Conclusively, if you are ever in the vicinity of that restaurant (I will post the adress later) or even just in Copenhagen, go and try it, they really deserve it.

/Skt_Thomas

Get five indie games for the price of... almost nothing!

Check this out!

no, litteraly. I want YOU to go check this out before anything else!

Have you checked it out? huh? okay then..

Let me first say that I LOVE indie games, they do not neccesarily have to be artsy or free, I just like to support anyone so passionate about making games that they do all the work themselves instead of relying on hordes of coders to do the work for them. I will try to bring you the indie games I enjoy the most later but for now, enjoy this extraordinary offer of some of the most famous indie games available.

I cannot describe any of them but I will hopefully be purchasing the games later today, for a nondisclosed price. the price itself is a matter of thought should you choose to act on these offers since they have not given you the chance of paying a fixed price for them. any kind of number between (according to the 1up indie blog) 0,01 dollars and up to the BNP of a minor country. This method of sale has also been used by radiohead for some record I don't know about and they apparently earned quite a bit of dough. So I urge you, for the sake of the developers (what a cliché eh?), to pitch in and dig out your pockets and enjoy these pearls of independent development.

/Skt_Thomas

What i do not understand: Achievements

Since the birth of such gaming leviathans as The Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, a new phenomenon has been born and gained renown across the entire gaming (I hate that word) universe.

I am, for those of you not looking at the title, of course talking about achievements/trophies, little objectives which gives you a score that does...: Absolutely nothing.

And that is what i do not understand, Every computer game platform (both consoles and PC game hubs such as steam) has them, WoW has them, not even City Of Heroes (a game that i cherish highly) can see itself dodging this verbal attack. You get these small, shining, yet unfilling, trophies by completing certain objectives such as killing a certain number of enemies, feats that you normally would do anyways and such render them completely redundant. Others are ridiculous in nature, sometimes requiring you to kill a billion foes, fall from incredible heigths or recite all numbers in the Fibonacci sequence. feats you most likely consider too boring/hard or just a waste of your time, thus rendering these (you guessed it): completely redundant.

But why do people do this? Why do games continuously advertise these achievements as important features in a game? I have no answer to these questions, yet I fear that those who play games across all consoles have been reduced to simple creatures, willing to fullfill any tasks, however droning they may be, just to recieve a little treat in the form of a small picture and a witty text. The industries behind have then gazed upon the skies of the gaming universe and discovered, in the distance, small *pling* noises of hours being spent in vain, just so you can get a neat little background for your gamer tag in Call Of Duty Modern Warfare 2.

Indie game: Alter Ego

When perusing various sites on the web, I came across this fun game called Alter Ego which I find to be, pardon my expression, FRIGGIN' AWESOME!

Now I don't know if it is strictly Indie (nor do I know the exact concept of indie other than it being from an independent developer, hence the name) but I still enjoy it very much. It was apparently a dos game of sorts but has now become entirely browser based with no flashy animations.

The game itself is hard to explain but it plays out like The sims meet a text based adventure. You start as an infant and then play through several situations where you choose the best option. Now not all of them are right and not all of them are entirely bad, instead you have to rely on gut instinct and/or mischievously behaviour (an example would be where you get to uppercut a daycare lady). All options count towards attributes which in turn also affects the outcomes of the options you choose, (e.g. are you strong enough to beat a bully and so forth).

Alter Ego becomes progressively more complex but I won't reveal to much because such a game really has to be experienced personally (a cliché, I know, but it's true) and it even gives you a great opportunity for replay so that you can find out how it might have affected your life to follow the creepy man or take out the ugly girl for the prom.

Play the game at: http://www.playalterego.com/