Frontlines – Fuel Of War

Posted on 8 May 2008 by FoxTwo

I know, old news.

But, I’ve just come to a decision to uninstall it, without even completing it at all. Why?

Well for one thing – it’s too much like Battlefield 2142. The moment I started it up, I had flashbacks of all the times I played the Titan mode on BF2142. Therefore, the easiest way to explain FFOW is – it’s a Battlefield 2142 clone. The single player mode is almost exactly like playing Battlefield with bots.


Official screenshot from Frontlines

The objectives are very clearly marked on your HUD. It doesn’t matter if there are 20 or 100 guys defending the objective. As soon as a guy from your side rushes headlog into the fray and “captures” the objective, suddenly you see the enemies disappearing.

You also don’t have to worry about your own guys getting killed. More friendly units will spawn automatically and replace those who died. The single player mode is basically just you, rushing in while your own guys are suppressing the enemy, and then hunkering down close to the “flag” and capturing it. That is how your push the “frontlines” forward, that is how the game progressed.

Not really my cup of tea.

Well, not for a single-player game anyway. I bought BF2142 knowing full well it’s a multiplayer-only game. I got FFOW thinking there’s a nice single-player campaign in it. Well, the story might be nice, but the execution… well, not that nice.

Because I don’t really like this game, I have left it alone for awhile, languishing while I try out new games. Today, I have decided I no longer wish to even proceed with the game, and thus uninstall it.

That doesn’t mean this game isn’t fun. I’m sure it’s fun, on multiplayer. However, the single-player mode leaves much to be desired. No, I’m not going to play multiplayer on it. I didn’t play multiplayer on COD4 too. Most games I get, are for the single-player component.

I know, I’m slightly eccentric. 🙂

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More Rainbow 6 Vegas 2

Posted on 5 May 2008 by FoxTwo

Eversince Assassin’s Creed, I have noticed that I start to observe how games perform on my PC more often than before. Worse, now I start to nitpick and say “this bit’s too laggy” or “I think I need to unload more stuff from memory”.

Whereas, before, I am just fine with 7 frames per sec, as long as I can still move 🙂

Anyway, here’s another short clip (about 6 mins I think) of a typical game session with Rainbow 6 Vegas 2 on my 5 year old rig.

Now, because I’m already getting pretty much low framerates with modern games, running FRAPS and doing video captures lowered the framerates even more, so what you see in the video is actually slightly more laggy than it normally is.

The one thing that I don’t like about the game lagging is this – when you’re aiming at someone, and he moves, and you try to move your crosshair to follow, and it lags right there, it totally sucks. On my PC, that happens fairly often. Sometimes I get killed due to this kind lag (affetionately known as “lagdeath” in multiplayer speak as well as in MMORPGs), and I have to reload from the previous “checkpoint”.

Also, I don’t really like the checkpoint-save system. Sometimes, some parts of the game is just so tough, it takes you 20 mins or more just to fight through it, then you round a corner and die before you reach the next checkpoint to save.

Which sucks totally.

Trust me.

Yeah I know I could easily download those “trainers” from the Internet, but why? Why play a game if it no longer poses any sort of challenge?

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Battlefield Heroes!

Posted on 3 May 2008 by FoxTwo

Who says Entrecard is useless? *grin*

Well that’s beside the point, but due to Entrecard, I came across this post from Lag-O-Rama, another gaming blog. Intrigued by what I saw, I went to the official website, and poked around a little bit more on my own.

First and foremost, this game is designed by the same people that did Battlefield 2. Thus, they know what they’re doing making a war FPS. Secondly, it’s a little bit of RPG and a little bit of an MMO. You really need to see the video trailers over at Lag-O-Rama.

Ok, if you’re lazy to visit another website just to view the video, here’s the direct link to it.

Another point to note is that this game is FREE. You don’t have to buy it. You download it, and play it for free. What’s the catch? I don’t know yet. I didn’t find any on their website so far. Then again, the game is still currently in beta, so lots of things can change between now, and when it’s finally released in “Summer 2008”.

Thirdly, this game won’t be frustrating for you, because, as the trailer put it (quite humourously I might add), “you won’t keep getting shot by a 15 year old who plays this game all day”. It’s supposed to be casual-player-friendly, ie people of ALL skills can jump right in and play. According to them, the game will “match” you up with people around your own skills, so if you’re a master FPS player, you get to play with other “masters”. If you just discovered FPSes and are enjoying them, Battlefield Heroes won’t frustrate you when you play online.

Last point to note – the graphics are deliberately made to be “cartoonish”. Why? Well making them cartoonish means:

  1. appealing to a wider audience, and certainly across more age groups
  2. lower polygon counts, hence faster performance
  3. lower system requirements to play
  4. … and becoming popular faster

So just HOW cartoonish? Here’s a screenshot from their official website:

As you can see, VERY cartoonish. In fact, people who know me will know that normally, I dislike cartoonish characters in games. When Everquest 2 introduced the “SOGA” models, I chose not to activate them. I want my characters looking heroic, dammit! The female species will find the graphics “cute” on this game, and may even try it! Yes, it’s THAT cute.

This game is supposed to even run on PCs that are as low-spec as 1.0GHz and only have 512MB of RAM. Heck, even my old, old, OLD PC can be used to play this game! It’s a P4 1.7Ghz with 512MB RAM! Oh yeah, with a nVidia GeForce 5700LE card. In fact I think I can play this pretty comfortably on that old conker.

Yes, even after viewing the in-game videos, I still want to give this a go! I actually am looking forward to the release of this!

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