Long Time, No See...

I know I've said this before but... we've been up to something. But until then, enjoy:

Neotokyo: Review

Most mod teams these days want everyone to know about an upcoming release; they advertise updates and pictures of models and maps on a nearly daily basis. Meanwhile a few mods seem to keep quiet for months or even years before releasing a handful of screenshots to satiate the wanting masses. This can work both for and against a mod. On one hand you end up creating a high level of excitement for when the mod releases, but on the other hand if the mod does not deliver the creators may end having an angry mob on their hands.

Neotokyo began as a mod for the Unreal 2 Engine. It was built quickly so the team could enter it into the Make Something Unreal Contest. While this early version did receive a small fan following, and you can even see some of the ideas that made it into this newest version, the team decided to go back to the drawing board for the then new Source Engine. So, after over five years of teasing does Studio Radi-8’s masterpiece Neotokyo live up to the hype they’ve built?



For starters, Neotokyo is one of the most polished mods I have ever played. Some mods that began development at the same time that have since been released could stand to have this level of work done on it. I know a lot of care was given to this mod, and countless hours of testing were done, and it shows. The maps are truly a sight to behold, and give the perfect sense of Sci-fi and Anime that the developers were obviously influenced by. Taking place mostly in dojos and cityscapes it’s hard not to get immersed in the game, which is something most modders take for granted when it comes to multi-player.

As for the gameplay itself, it would be easy for an outsider to simply push this off as Counter-strike in the future. While the game is team based, the goal and the balancing are really what make the difference. The current game mode called “capture the ghost” is One-Flag CTF with a twist. The “ghost”, a robotic torso that spawns randomly on the map, can be seen by both teams at all times. When the opposing team picks it up, the beacon for the ghost turns red. Meanwhile the player who picks up the ghost can now see beacons that represent the players of the opposing team and their distance from the player holding the ghost.

At the beginning of each round you choose your class; Recon, Support, or Assault. Recon is a quick class with low armor, Support is slow with high armor, and Assault fits nicely in the middle. The guns in the game are mostly of the automatic variety, and yet the non-automatic guns tend to make their presence known by delivering a powerful punch to your opponent. The better you play the better guns you unlock. Assault and Recon have a Predator like invisible camouflage; also each class has a special vision mode, and grenades that are actually useful.



The game has a strong focus on team work, and for good reason. While you may at first have the urge to run around and be a hero, the guns do enough damage that you’ll soon learn that it is unwise to stand up to more than two people at a time. The game also launched with tons of servers up; probably the most for a non-Steamworks released mod I’ve ever seen, so you’ll never have to be looking for a game. While the balance of the game is nearly flawless, I do feel that the Support class is a bit overpowered, and running into a team made up mostly of them is almost certainly a death warrant. Since you unlock guns by score, it does make it hard to just jump into the middle of an ongoing game when everyone else has better guns than you. Also, with all the time put into the balance and the general look of the game, you would expect the same quality in the animation department. After one uses their knife for the first time you will see that animation is one part of the mod that could use further polish. But once you’re complaining about the quality of the animation you’re soon to realize that you’re probably nit-picking.



Neotokyo accomplishes what it set out to do, and is a great if not essential mod for owners of Half-life 2. With rumors of it coming to Steamworks, new game modes, and 10 maps known to be in testing it’s looking like this game will only get better over the years.

GOG.com

This is just a little shameless plug for a website I've been keeping my eyes on. I was lucky enough to learn about early and able to sign up for the Beta. GOG (which stands for Good Old Games) is an amazing site really. Their goal is to try to get as many, well, good old games on the site as possible. Right now it's mostly filled some classics from Interplay and Codemasters, but that does include the very hard to find Fallout games. And with Fallout 3 on the horizon, I can fully recommend that everyone should play the originals.

It's just like any other website you've bought things from. Make an account, get out your credit/debit card, and spend away. And after you purchase the game, you are not required to download some application like Steam. You simply click on the "My Account" tab on the site, and you'll see something like this:



As you can see, you don't just get a game, you get a multimedia feast. Best of all, it's DRM free. It's yours to backup, delete, re-dowload, everything.

Also, you should check out the forums. The guys who run the website have links to different mods and tweaks for the games they sell. I downloaded a patch to get higher resolutions on the Fallout games, and after having a slow-down problem, it was answered by the community itself.

With games like Grim Fandango, X-wing, and many other older games being whispered about, this is a site that any fan of gaming should keep their eyes on. Now excuse me, I need to finish destroying the entire mutant population...

www.gog.com

1-12-2007

What's special about that date? For me, it was the beginning of something new, but I just didn't know it yet. Let me tell you the set up.

My wonderful girlfriend and I were spending our first Christmas together, and she had decided to get me an iPod. Me being a PC person thought, "What am I going to do with this Mac filth" but I smiled and excepted the gift. I figured I would put one or two songs on there, and that would be it.

Now, I don't know how or when or why or whatever, but at some point I discovered Podcasting. I now subscribe to many different casts, about just about anything you can imagine in geek culture. But there was one podcast that quickly started to shine above the rest.

Games For Windows Radio: aka GFW Radio: aka 97.5 The Brodeo.

That's what January 12th 2007 is all about. It was the first episode I ever listened to. As time went on, you got to know the cast:

Jeff, the fatherly EIC of the magazine.
Shawn, the outspoken intelligent funny guy.
Ryan, the MMORPG playing quiet guy.
Sean, the producer and all around nice guy.
Darren, the tech guy who always had good input.

And for many months, all was well. And then Darren left for PC Magazine, where in all honesty, he is probably better appreciated. Because GFW Radio, and even the magazine, was becoming more about gaming and the life of gamers as much as it was about PC gaming. There really wasn't much room for tech.

It was sad at the time, but we went on, and even got two more cast members:

Anthony: aka Chuff, the young guy
Robert: Freelancer, and a perfect complement to Shawn.

It didn't prepare the listeners and subscribers for what would happen next. Game For Windows magazine was shut down in the prime of its new life. Just as the writers were beginning to understand their place in this big mess of enthusiast gaming press, they were shot down. But it wouldn't be one shot, it would be a boulder crushing everyone in its path. Soon Sean announced he would be leaving for Blizzard. Then the father of GFW, Jeff, announced he would be leaving to work with the Sims teams. And finally today Shawn has told everyone that he is leaving to go to 2K Boston, and that the final episode of GFW would be airing.

This is painful. You see, I'm in school right now, 23 and just starting college. It is almost completely because of GFW Radio. Before then I had no passion, but the guys on that show taught me how to just really embrace gaming, and to see what good crtiquing of games should look like. It showed me that I want to do that at some point in my life. I want to write about, not just games, but the industry. I love everything surrounding the games I play, the circus, the buyouts, the drama. It's interesting, and I want to experience it.

I'm at school now, hoping that someday I can work with Shawn, Jeff, Ryan, etc. It can't happen now, there's no magazine, and 1UPs PC coverage is pathetic. Shawn, Jeff, Darren, and Sean are all gone. It's blow to the morale, my heroes are dead. Maybe that's overlly dramatic. Either way, this is a sad first real post for my own gaming blog, but with death comes life. Here's to The Brodeo.

GFW Radio: 2-16-06 - 9-17-08