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Games Entertainment

Gaming Goodness 227

Posted by michael from the itchy-trigger-finger dept.
Let's shoehorn a few gaming submissions together: tabby writes "For those not in the know here's the most amazing game I've played in ages. Its a Half-Life mod called Natural-Selection. Try to imagine CounterStrike + StarCraft. Its essentially a multiplayer First Person Real Time Strategy game." real_b0fh writes "I'm surprised no one mentioned it here yet, but Silicon Ice Development has released the beta 2.6 for their very cool Quake 3 Arena mod Urban Terror. Have played it a bit and it features cool things like better weapon hit model, some anti-cheat features, improved maps and some new nasty bugs. Well worth a try if you are into FPS games." And on the lighter side, LSDsmurf reports that there's a patch for Doom III Alpha. Yes, you read that right.
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Gaming Goodness

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  • Doom II patch (Score:5, Funny)

    by AcquaCow ( 56720 ) <acquacow@nOspAM.hotmail.com> on Sunday November 10, 2002 @08:42PM (#4639531) Homepage
    And on the lighter side, LSDsmurf reports that there's a patch for Doom III Alpha. Yes, you read that right.

    Does this mean that I might actually be able to get positive FPS now?

    -- AcquaCow
    • Hopefully I will actually be able to begin a game now.
      • Hopefully I will actually be able to begin a game now.

        Yeah, it would be great if you could actually play a game that you spent all day downloading on 56k. (even if it is a leaked copy =P)

        -- AcquaCow
        • How about reading the appropriate NFO files.. To load a new game, goto console and type 'map e3\e3_X (Replace X with 1, 2 or 3)
          • I've read them, don't worry, I was more of making the point about the lack of playablity in the leaked version due to the apparent need of a geForce5 to actually get over 50fps...

            -- AcquaCow

      • Re:Doom III patch (Score:5, Informative)

        by killthiskid ( 197397 ) on Sunday November 10, 2002 @09:05PM (#4639643) Homepage Journal

        The patch:

        What's new? :

        • Removed binary for loading intro. To watch video:type: map e3/intro at the console
        • Removed flashlight3.tga and pointed the doomconfig entry to the existing flashlight2 changed flashlight lag so it is more responsive
        • added F5 and F6 keymapping for recordDemo and stoprecording
        • bumped up number of speakers to 6 and enabled stereo. Conflicting stories of whether this works or not.
        • changed r_useNV30 back to 0 since noone should have one of these yet
        • added give_weapon_flare to F12 weapon bind. (Use 0 to pick flares)

        There you have it.

      • I have to wait until they leak a version for the Mac.
    • Gloom is a Quake2 mod available at www.planetgloom.com It is phenomenal, and a truly fast-paced, balanced alien vs human game. All around, much more fun. The game is perfect, and the classes are wonderful. Go there! Natural Selection pales by comparison.
      • You've gotta give NS a break here. Gloom has had years to get balance down pat, NS has had... all of 10 days?

        I've never tried Gloom, however it does look interesting. But, I've got enough games to play at the moment, so Gloom will have to wait.

        Besides, from looking at a few screenshots, Gloom doesn't stand up visually to NS. I know, I know, graphics aren't everything (Look at CS), but it doesn't hurt.

  • Another good game, (Score:4, Informative)

    by dirvish ( 574948 ) <dirvish@ f o undnews.com> on Sunday November 10, 2002 @08:43PM (#4639533) Homepage Journal
    Battlefield 1942 [ea.com].

  • Patch? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by The Pi-Guy ( 529892 ) <joshua+slashdot AT joshuawise DOT com> on Sunday November 10, 2002 @08:44PM (#4639534) Homepage
    I can only think one thing, being the typical paranoid slashdotter... E. T. Phone Home! And then get caught by the cops!

    I think it's just a few "fixes" to make people download it, then it phones home.

    --j

    • Re:Patch? (Score:3, Informative)

      by Jimmy_B ( 129296 )
      <blockquote> I can only think one thing, being the typical paranoid slashdotter... E. T. Phone Home! And then get caught by the cops!
      <BR><BR>
      I think it's just a few "fixes" to make people download it, then it phones home.</blockquote>

      That's because you didn't follow the link and RTFA. This isn't from iD, and all it's changing are config files.

  • Huh? (Score:5, Funny)

    by ar1550 ( 544991 ) on Sunday November 10, 2002 @08:44PM (#4639538)

    Have played it a bit and it features cool things like better weapon hit model, some anti-cheat features, improved maps and some new nasty bugs

    So are these bugs bugs, or are these bugs features?

  • No more unofficial D3 news!!! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by DaHat ( 247651 ) on Sunday November 10, 2002 @08:45PM (#4639540)
    Come on, the first Doom 3 story about it being leaked was fine as a reporting of the news. The story did get a little overboard with publishing links to help people find and use the alpha... but this is just worse, a story not about news but completely about piracy. You should be ashamed!
    • I have to agree with Shacknews on this whole Doom 3 issue. Why are major news sites even talking about it? There has probably been a leak of many of the recent games (hell, I saw two different leaks of UT2K3), and no news site talked about those. Why is Doom 3 different? Sure, it's a very hyped game, but spreading news about the illegal alpha complete with links to download it?

  • I Know (Score:3, Insightful)

    by strateego ( 598207 ) on Sunday November 10, 2002 @08:45PM (#4639541)
    I know why you never hear about in other Half-Life mods.

    First their are not that many people playing anything but counter strike. If nobody is then no one is going to play by themselves.

    Two People are sheep if everyone was still playing wolfenstein every one would be bragging about it.

    That's my two cents.

    • Re:I Know (Score:1, Interesting)

      by kikensei ( 518689 )
      I'm still playing wolfenstein. IT's my favorite.
      • While Wolfenstien has good single player mode, q3 based games seem to feel the same for multiplayer. Not sure if Doom3 will offer good multiplayer value, but the leaked alpha was not inspiring at all. Also someone needs to come up with some better netcode for Q3 based games, MOHAA is a bandwidth hog taking 2x the bandwidth compared to Wolf.

        Tribes1 and CounterStrike seem to offer some great multiplayer fun, UT2k3 offers lots of eye-candy, but is a little weak on a heavy player map. Thou bombing run is pretty fun.

        I'm still playing CS, with 6x AA and 16X AF, it looks freaking awesome. Too bad trueform doesnt seem to work in CS (1.5 has trueform) Just need some more detailed skins to top it off.

    • Re:I Know (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Spy Hunter ( 317220 )
      The number of people playing Counter-Strike as opposed to other FPSes is truly staggering. Take a look at Gamespy's stats [gamespy.com]. As I post this there are over 100,000 people playing Half-Life mods, and 60,000 of those people are playing Counter-Strike. The next-highest commercial game is Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, with an order of magnitude less players than Half-Life (less than 10,000).

      Natural Selection isn't doing too badly for a new mod with 2700 players online at the moment. However, the ratio of players to servers for Natural Selection is much higher than for other games. This probably has to do with the large amount of processing power a Natural Selection server needs. If NS gets more servers I imagine the number of players will go up as well. It really is a unique game. It encourages teamwork and communication to a degree never before seen in any mod. I think this is its greatest strength. In CS you can play without teamwork but in NS it is really necessary. When teamwork is pretty much forced on people, it actually starts working. Good luck joining a random Counter-Strike server and forming an effective team; in Natural Selection cooperation is the norm and not the exception. Assaulting an alien hive with 3 guys backing you up and your commander watching out for you is a cool experience.

  • New Games (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Tempelherr ( 559964 ) <thunder35&hotmail,com> on Sunday November 10, 2002 @08:46PM (#4639544) Homepage
    Some of these new games coming out are really awesome, but I find myself disappointed in the lack of games that still provide single player action. So many of them are going multiplayer only, and that leaves out a large group of people still stuck in the stone age with mdoems like me. Good thing I've still got Lan parties to fall back on for good entertainment.
    • It's more than under standable that a new game that is devoloped out of half live is going to be a first person multy player game. It is rather easy to modify the main look and feal of most first person games. For example back whene I was in high school I modified the original doom so that it could be used as a musiem in with people could look at the Glories of Rome. On the other hand to take a simple first person shooter and add complex AI's for strat combat including construction, while posible, not extreamly feasable. To bild a game like Warcaft 3, a rather large amount of people are gathered together, on top of that they get rather nice saleries, as far as I can tell Natural Selection has no inc. backing it so the people making it are probably not geting paid for their lovely work.

    • Re:New Games (Score:2, Interesting)

      by re-Verse ( 121709 )
      this is a Troll and should be marked as such. The first 2 games are mods for what is the most popular multiplayer game Ever - and therefore its really quite normal that you see multiplayer mods for such. As far as doom 3 - its a single player game, with a little bit of multiplayer thrown in, but the focus is really going to be single.

      This post is as foolish as saying "imagine a beowolf cluster of these"... yes i know complaining about multiplayer overpowering single player was a really popular thing to say 2 Years Ago, when quake 3 came out, but in the last year a LOT of great single player games have happened.

      This was a tough choice - to mod the 4 down to 3, or to post, hoping people read, agree, and mark down to -1, where it belongs.

    • Re:New Games (Score:4, Informative)

      by Guspaz ( 556486 ) on Sunday November 10, 2002 @11:42PM (#4640236)
      If you are finding that you can't play well with a dialup modem, try buying a hardware 56K modem. At the local store they go for ~70$.

      The benefit of a hardware modem over a winmodem is ping time; pinging 150 to a game server on a hardware 56K modem is not uncommon. If your ISP runs game servers, you may well ping lower than 150 to them.

      Try to stick to games that have good prediction. Half-Life has client-side prediction on all hitscan weapons (Instant-hit weapons. Not sure about projectile), and it's very low-bandwidth and dialup friendly. I've been playing Natural-Selection quite a bit, and due to it's server CPU problem, I regularly play with pings of 250-300 or higher (I'm on DSL), and it's quite playable.

      If you're the type who doesn't let server lists finish pinging, let them. The more servers that get pinged, the better the chance you'll find more low-ping servers. Always re-ping a server manually before you join it to make sure its ping isn't a fluke.

      Gaming on dialup is entirely possible, and it's easy to get very playable conditions going.
    • Just a suggestion and a plug... try older games that are still cool. There are lots of good single player games, you just don't see them because they go under in the hype for the sweeeeet multiplayer games that come out.

      I'm still plugging a bit at "Nocturne." The control is a bit roundabout, but the graphics are very good (considering the game isn't a new-off-the-shelf) and storyline is cool.

      Otherwise, how about an RPG, or a racing game? If you're just talking about FPS games, then you're looking at the wrong genre as most people like to be able to extend their gaming value with multiplayer (long after the single missions grow boring).

      Those who want to play alone should go console, one of the main aspects that made PC's into gaming systems was the superior multiplayer abilities.

  • Gaming mods as part of school curiculum (Score:5, Interesting)

    by zenst ( 558964 ) on Sunday November 10, 2002 @08:47PM (#4639549) Homepage Journal
    Given that school is meant too prepare us for later life and enable us to lead productive and fruitfull lives. When will that start embracing education into gaming mods. Not only would they be touching upon the real world but would also enforce the use of math's, physics, art,creativity, logic, design etc etc as part of the process. I'm sure that alot of mods/maps come from students already who even work in groups, just be a nice fun way to help educate and enforce knowledge though aplication.

  • Balancing Issues in NS (Score:5, Informative)

    by TekReggard ( 552826 ) on Sunday November 10, 2002 @08:47PM (#4639551)
    One of my assosiates in a gaming organization is in on Natural Selection because he helps moderate their forums. Due to this, my team of gamers got a first crack at Beta 1.00 and 1.01b [before it was released no less :)] and are still pointing out something thats obvious. The game needs some major balancing before it reaches its acme, as do most games. At first players complained that Aliens were underpowered and Marines could win the game in just about any situation. Now while the game is a little more even the Aliens are starting to come out a bit more powerful and the marines a bit weaker. The most obvious flaw in this game is that the whole outcome can be determined in the first 5 - 15 minutes of the game. With an average game running anywhere between an hour to four hours this is considerably undesirable. One team knows they're destined for doom hours ahead of their demise.

    Another note is how players constantly claim that aliens can rush marines in the beginning and overpower all their foes easily with the high attack power on the level 1 alien creatures. Well the night before last I displayed what a marine rush and an alien rush can do:

    Aliens Win: ~5 minutes
    Marines Win: ~3 minutes

    I'm pretty sure they didnt make this game to be played in under 10 minutes. So while it does have great prospects and is a considerably nice idea, I would like to see it balanced out before I start calling it the best game ever.
    • You know. I just heard about this mod this morning from my brother. He said the exact same thing about the balancing issues. I just thought it was cool that fun new mods are still coming out for Halflife.

      Any game devs out there? How do you restrict the ability to rush in games like this?

      • Re:Balancing Issues in NS (Score:5, Interesting)

        by TekReggard ( 552826 ) on Sunday November 10, 2002 @09:15PM (#4639681)
        First, I agree on your comment. I find it extremely cool that a game I bought for such a small price has blossomed into dozens upon dozens of good Mods that are completely FREE :)

        In response to the 2nd half though... I am not a game developer but I know my way around the gaming community and I think I can give you a good idea of how it works.

        Natural Selection takes advantage of both FPS [First Person Shooter] and RTS [Real Time Strategy] characteristics. Its in essence a hybrid.

        To start with the marine side, it has a commander who plays the game more like an RTS [top down strategy] where you dont get to control your "units" [the marines / players] directly but you can give them waypoints and stuff to build or use. The players experience the game like a first person shooter and can ask the commander to drop them weapons and armor, or place turrets for them to build.

        The Aliens follow a similar structure except they have no commander. They all have their own resources and have multiple levels of alien evolution. Each type of alien has its own attacks and stats like armor and health.

        A major way to prevent aliens and marines from rushing is to adjust weapon damage, or available resources for either side or even both sides. With lower starting weapon damage rushing wouldnt do much damage. This would be undesirable because you would loose resources and time. It could also prove to be hindering to either side later on where their first level marines or aliens would be nearly useless against higher level creatures or equipment.

        The other way, to adjust starting resources, could determine how quickly either side could build up defenses, evolve, or research better equipment.

        In reality there are many different ways to approach that problem. Its determined more by the problem, the game, and the community that defines the problem.

        • Re:Balancing Issues in NS (Score:5, Interesting)

          by tpv ( 155309 ) on Sunday November 10, 2002 @09:48PM (#4639798) Homepage
          I agree with what you say, but I'd like to make my own comments.

          Th designer need to draw a distinction between a "full frontal assault" (FFA) and a "full frontal assault in the first 5 minutes" (rushing).

          The FFA should be an acceptable tactic. If you're a marine, it is a good strategy to wait until half the alien team is away from their hive, and then go in with guns blazing. It just sucks when you do it in the first 5 minutes, and the game is pretty much decided from that point on.

          So, they key is really to make it relatively easier to defend than attack, during the first few minutes.
          How do you do that? Lots of ways
          e.g. Give the team a useful defensive weapon that has limited lifetime (pehaps a fixed number of proximity mines), so that they can lock down their base for a short period, while they build up.
          Or, make the maps harder to navigate. Have doors that don't open straight away etc. Make it hard to get to the other team in the first 5 minutes.

          Now, I haven't played NS yet, but in general the key really is to make it hard to attack at the very beginning. It's not really about balancing the sides, it's about making sure the game last long enough for the strengths/weakneses of each team to come out.

          • e.g. Give the team a useful defensive weapon that has limited lifetime (pehaps a fixed number of proximity mines), so that they can lock down their base for a short period, while they build up.

            Actually that's already in there. The marines have trip mines that they can place very early in the game for little cost. The alien side has the advantage that they can kill a starting marine in 2 hits so rushing them is usually suicidal. The maps are huge and the marines move slowly, so a dead marine early on has a long way to go in a rush.
    • One team knows they're destined for doom hours ahead of their demise.

      Well now, I wouldn't say that. I've heard stories of drastic comebacks and surprise victories on both sides of the fence. It's really hard to say what in the game is imbalanced right now, because people haven't "settled in" yet. Give it another week or two, and the real glaring imbalances will start to surface.
      • True, I've seen drastic comebacks and sudden victories, but out of 20 games how many fall upon that outcome? I admit you're correct though, the imbalance(s) isnt(/arent) obvious yet and probably wont be for awhile. A week or two isnt going to do it. I've been playing for more than that and some of the "fixes" placed since starting havent even touched on it. So yes, the imbalances will surface, but it might not be so soon.
        • Eh, most games I've joined have been a pitched battle between the two sides, one side makes great advances, then the other side does. It really, really depends on the quality of the marine commander. Having a good commander can make or break a team.

          Also, the aliens really need teamwork to take out human fortifications (damned turrets). Preferably one or two weak Lerks to spray some Umbra, then some combat classes to clean house. I really need to play more marines, though.
    • This is an interesting effect that many of my friends and I found when we play "real" RTS games like Age of Empires/Kings, Empire Earth, etc.

      Wars will rage for many hours. A four-army game of Age of Kings can last for upwards of three. However, the initial minutes of the game are the most crucial. Losing a battle later into the game isn't such a big deal, because you have many more armies still to go. However, in the initial minutes, a single attacker inside the enemny base will set them back greatly, so that while they may last for a long time into the game, they're clearly on the defensive the whole time.

      Perhaps its just a flaw of the genre that needs to be accepted? Or are there workarounds that can "balance" the play so that the beginning counts as much as the middle and endgame?
      • hehe its probably just because so many of the people playing NS right now are greatly more used to First Person Shooters. Its just a common complaint I hear. :) I personally would like to see NS develop both its FPS and RTS sides though. then again why would this be BETA 1.01 if it werent already far into testing ;)
      • I don't think this is particularly unique to RTSes -- you get the same thing in other strategy games like chess, risk, etc..

        Daniel
    • Not sure about the rushing...the team has to be pretty well organized to all rush, and in that case, perhaps they should win.

      Anyway, NS is pretty well balanced at this point. There are some funky flaws where the Fade bile bomb doesn't do as much damage as advertised, and on ns_hera, seige turrets are mysteriously ineffective...but these are minor quirks. On the whole the game is well balanced at this point. Rushing will probably always be a problem in games where you have to start up from scratch.

      I can just see a flood of misinformed slashdotters aware of NS for the whole of 3 minutes flooding the NS forums demanding the game be drastically changed. I don't know why this was posted to slashdot.

  • Warez Patches? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Hays ( 409837 ) on Sunday November 10, 2002 @08:48PM (#4639560)
    John Carmack personally posted on Slashdot to express his frustration with the leak of the Alpha, and Slashdot keeps advertising it and aiding it's distribution anyway? Who cares if it's illegal, it's extremely immoral to continue hyping an effectively stolen piece of software that the authors desperately don't want us to have yet.

    And this is id! They're an unbelievably community minded company and this is how we pay them back?

    • Agree.. but... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Viewsonic ( 584922 ) on Sunday November 10, 2002 @09:43PM (#4639778)
      Even John can't possibly turn down the free promotion Doom is getting from all of this. I mean, christ, it was an Alpha that barely worked, and people were going nutso over it! How many games can do that? And get on CNN, Slashdot, and every major news outlet? None. In the end, someone releasing a "patch" for an Alpha of this game is just HILARIOUS. I suppose what might tick John off more than anything is the fact other devs can get a peek at his brilliance ahead of schedule and figure out what he's doing that they're missing in their own games. Outside of that, I will bet anyone they'll be forking over their hard earned cash for Doom3 and a new vid card sometime early 2003 regardless if they've downloaded this, made a patch, or anything else that happens between now and then.

      • Re:Agree.. but... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by ergo98 ( 9391 ) on Sunday November 10, 2002 @10:12PM (#4639906) Homepage Journal
        Even John can't possibly turn down the free promotion Doom is getting from all of this. I mean, christ, it was an Alpha that barely worked, and people were going nutso over it!

        The reason he gets upset is because of the Duke Nukem syndrome: Duke Nukem was a great game, however they came out with the demo version of it so many months before the actual release that by the time people could buy it, most people were sick of it: The novelty had worn off. Because Q3 brings a lot of graphical "invention" to gaming, if people have seen it for months before the actual game comes out, suddenly it might seem run of the mill instead of special.
  • This sounds more like some simple user-made bug fixes via configs & file alterations than an actual patch that alters any binaries. Anyone know? That link to the patch is getting smacked down.

  • PA's dream come true. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Christopher Thomas ( 11717 ) on Sunday November 10, 2002 @08:55PM (#4639596)
    A first-person Starcraft?

    Someone tell Penny Arcade [penny-arcade.com].
  • You will need to register [k3v.com] if any of you can figure out how to bypass registration, like NYT's website, Please reply

  • Good Gaming Site and Company (Score:3, Informative)

    by TekReggard ( 552826 ) on Sunday November 10, 2002 @09:04PM (#4639639)
    Another note I'd like to make is where you can find a large variety of services for the gaming community. Anything from game reviews to servers for rent. They beta tested BF1942, another game noted on the comments, and AA [America's Army] as well. :) Its a great place to be if you love gaming. www.homelanfed.com thx :)
  • I hope the server lookup screen isn't still broken in urban terror
    • It is. Because of that I've just always played on the same server (VVM [vvm.com]), however as it was down this evening I finally downloaded "The All-Seeing Eye". Very nice server browser.

  • Natural Selection is Fantastic (Score:5, Informative)

    by Rayonic ( 462789 ) on Sunday November 10, 2002 @09:09PM (#4639662) Homepage Journal
    It's easily the best, most innovative online game I've seen in a long time. It's amazing that a independently-developed, free mod for a four year old game can put the likes of UT2003 to shame.

    To those who haven't tried it, it's a game that pits some Zerg-like aliens against a team of space marines in an innovative FPS/RTS hybrid. The humans are led by a single commander (a player voulenteer) with a bird's-eye view of the battlefield. The aliens have no central commander but -- this is neat -- they can "see" their teammates, important waypoints, and any enemies that another team member is seeing right then. (Sort of like an organic built-in radar.)

    Anyhow, anyone who likes action games should try it out. There has been a lack of fast servers out there, so if you've got a decent spare box then set up a dedicated server by all means. Also, there may be some balancing issues so early after release, but honestly it's hard to tell.
    • I've got into it over the past few days and it's clear that the mod is in it's very early stages. It suffers from "deathmatch syndrome" like CS... people don't want to work with the team. But I think that at the moment this is mainly because people don't know what they're doing. I think the future of this mod may be decided in a few weeks - if it's players gel to create a community which realises this is a game which needs teamplay, it has a great deal of potential.
      • It suffers from "deathmatch syndrome" like CS... people don't want to work with the team.

        This "deathmatch syndrome" isn't quite as bad as you make it out to be. After a new game is released, people want to jump in and test the boundaries of what they can and can't do.

        After they find out that they can't charge an enemy base alone, then they decide that maybe a bit of teamwork is in order. Of course, "deathmatch syndrome" doesn't go away if it turns out you can be moderately successful at it, but a game like NS really is stacked against the individual lone-wolf player.
      • The deathmatch syndrome is a curious thing. People don't play in teams... until the other side plays as a team. I play TO:AoT [tactical-ops.to], which is to Unreal Tournament what CS is to Halflife, and I've seen teams made up of weak players take out crews of *great* individual players. All it takes is strategy, teamwork and training (which is actually quite a lot.)
    • I just played it, I thought it was terrible. Can't believe I patched up HL for this. But oh well, there's a new version of Front Line Force coming up, so I guess it's not in vain.

  • Mirrors (Score:5, Informative)

    by RudeDude ( 672 ) on Sunday November 10, 2002 @09:12PM (#4639674) Homepage Journal
    Natural Selection V1 full install [mrhostbot.com] (90MB)
    Natural Selection Server Patch 1.01 [mrhostbot.com] (2.1MB)
    Doom III Alpha Patch [mrhostbot.com] (2MB)
    Urban Terror Beta 2.6 FULL [mrhostbot.com] (239MB ouch!)
    BF 1942 patch [mrhostbot.com] (15MB)

    I may not be able to keep that Urban Terror one up there too long, that's huge!
    Free mirrors provided by Mr HOSTBOT [mrhostbot.com]. From that link you can get a free Gig with a new account.

  • Natural selection is neat (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Bobulusman ( 467474 ) on Sunday November 10, 2002 @09:22PM (#4639702)
    But I've had problems playing it. Due to legal issues, I can't set up my own server on campus, so I must depend on the servers I can find in the game. So far, it seems that most people are just playing small games with their friends that they password protect.

    I like playing as an alien, but it is annoying to try to play by yourself versus several marines. Maybe I'm missing something, but I have not been able to attack a machine gun turret without dieing yet.

    Also, if you are a server: Just becuase your crappy PC can run a CS server doesn't mean it can run a 30 person NS server. The game seems to need a lot more umpf per player. They have already issued a patch for the servers to fix this, but it doesn't help when your computer sucks already.
  • Medal of Honor: Allied Assault Spearhead demo was also released [bluesnews.com] recently. Spearhead is an add-on to MOH:AA [ea.com] and the demo includes two multiplayer maps - Malta (which is exclusive to this demo) and Druckkammern.

    (It's Windows only.)

    Oh, and BTW, could you please stop posting stories about the leaked Doom III alpha? One story about it being leaked was fine but posting about patches? WTF is wrong with you?

    -jfedor

  • useless "patch" (Score:2, Insightful)

    by demmer ( 623592 )
    this this is 2MB.. for what? for a few bytes changed in cfg and map files? useless. should not be on /. anyways, but since it does not do anything "great" it should REALLY not be here.

  • While NS isn't a cstrike killer... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Thomas A. Anderson ( 114614 ) on Sunday November 10, 2002 @09:32PM (#4639737) Homepage
    It is my 2nd favorite Half-Life mod. Is has a level of detail and replayability found in maybe only cstrike and dod (and neither of them are as unique as ns).

    We are playing ns right now in my linux-based gaming center - it's very popular so far.
    • linux-based gaming center

      Is that like a microsoft workstation? :)

      • Funny,

        With Half Life and many of it's mods (especially Counter Strike of course), Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Quake 3, Unreal Tournament (original amd 2003), Sim City 3000, BZFlag, Civilization CTP, Soldier of Fortune, The Sims and (Coming Soon) Neverwinter Nights and Doom 3, my customers seem very happy with the game selection.
        • The internet has these things called "smilies" or "emoticons", see, that stand in for tone of voice when you type messages. For example, :) would mean that the message is intended in a humourous and/or frivolous manner, and is not to be taken seriously. These "emoticons" allow what might otherwise be seen as an insult or slight to be recognised for what they are, thus preventing angry replies and flamewars.

          :)

  • My take on the game after playing it recently: (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bertok ( 226922 ) on Sunday November 10, 2002 @09:34PM (#4639744)
    I have tried a few dozen games of N.S. recently. I even played as a commander a few times. In my opinion, the concept is good, but the game seems incomplete and unbalanced, but I expect that that'll be fixed in upcoming versions. Some impressions:
    • The HUD display of the aliens really helps teamplay. I wonder why other games haven't had the same feature earlier...
    • The game is somewhat unbalanced. In the first few minutes on the smaller maps, aliens have a massive advantage, and can win quickly by rushing the human base.
    • Later in the game, the defensive structures are unbalanced. Human turrets are nearly impossible to kill for the aliens, but the alien structures fall quickly to heavy machine guns or grenade launchers.
    • The commander interface is a good, but they need to improve the mini-map. If it were bigger, more detailed, and showed team requests, it would make the commander's job much easier.
    • The ability of the commander to heal 50% of a soldier's health instantly is too powerful, because it allows the commander to turn a few soldiers into unstoppable juggernauts. It would be better if the health packs only healed a few hit points per second.
    • Neither side has enough weapons and upgrades to make the game interesting in the long run. I'd like to see humans with medic packs and an alien infiltrator class (like the Team Fortress Classic spy class).
    • The jetpack and flight controls don't suit the maps that come with the game. They cause huge bursts of movement that prevent hovering or level flight, and all the maps have ridges and beams everywhere, making the flying classes nearly useless.

    • Re:My take on the game after playing it recently: (Score:4, Informative)

      by alyandon ( 163926 ) on Sunday November 10, 2002 @10:03PM (#4639868) Homepage
      I've been following this mod for over a year now and while your initial impressions might seem valid -- they are really the result of inexperienced teams playing.

      Marine anti-rush build order:

      1 IP
      1 Turret Factory
      A few turrets
      1 armory

      Have one or two marines tops building -- the rest hang around at base ready to shoot anything that enters it.

      Dealing with marine defensive turrets in mid-late game:

      Lerks + Umbra + any melee alien class. Anything inside the umbra cloud will take virtually no damage from machine gun and turret fire.

      Also, unmanaged turret farms are easily taken out by persistantly attacking them with skulks. It may take a while but it is an effective strategy as the commander can't have his marines spread out all over the map defending every resource nozzle + turret farm.

      With the latest patch, taking out the turret becomes easier as you can destroy the turret factory -- which disables all turret guns in the area.

      Flying problems:

      I've found that most maps can be navigated once you become adept at flying (either as a marine or a lerk). It just takes a lot of practice. You are always going to have some small/cramped areas in maps where flying is difficult or impossible.

      Will this game appeal to everyone? Probably not. I can see where it can be quite dull if you are playing on public servers where people are disorganized and refuse to play as a team (ie: everyone on alien going builder class, marines not following commander's orders, etc).
    • The game is somewhat unbalanced. In the first few minutes on the smaller maps, aliens have a massive advantage, and can win quickly by rushing the human base.

      I blame this on inexperienced marine teams. If at least one person is watching every enterance, the aliens don't have a chance of winning with a quick rush. The problem is when the entire marine team has their back turned building something, and no one starts firing until the first guy is already dead.

      Later in the game, the defensive structures are unbalanced. Human turrets are nearly impossible to kill for the aliens, but the alien structures fall quickly to heavy machine guns or grenade launchers.

      As was already said, the lerk is the ultimate anti-turret weapon. With a bit of experience, you'll get rid of them in no time. Three or four alien defense chambers can make any group of chambers nearly impervious to grenade fire, and will only fall to dedicated heavy machine gunning by multiple marines. By that time, hopefully a few aliens are snacking on them from behind.

      The ability of the commander to heal 50% of a soldier's health instantly is too powerful, because it allows the commander to turn a few soldiers into unstoppable juggernauts. It would be better if the health packs only healed a few hit points per second.

      I like your suggestion, but I haven't seen that abused too often. A commander can't continuously heal everyone, and a marine with full life and no armor is dead in 2 bites anyway.

      Neither side has enough weapons and upgrades to make the game interesting in the long run.

      Aliens have 5 classes with 4 weapons each. Marines are a bit more limited, but the whole RTS integration adds more stuff than any other FPS has. Speaking of enough weapons, Counter-Strike has tons of them yet how many people buy anything besides mp5, ak/colt, and the awp? It seems that most people don't care about weapon selection, as long as they like the weapons they have.

      Obviously the game needs more work, but it's extraordinary for a version 1 release.

    • Re:My take on the game after playing it recently: (Score:5, Informative)

      by Soulslayer ( 21435 ) on Monday November 11, 2002 @04:30AM (#4641234) Homepage
      1) Marines get a similar HUD bonus when they advance far enough to get motion tracking.

      2) Rushing works when the Marine side is unprepared and disorganized in the opening moments. Aliens always try to rush with Skulks in the opening minutes and almost always are easily defeated so long as you don't have unskilled morons on the marine side.

      3) Human Turrets are very hard to destory. But you are either playing an unpatched server or haven't read the docs if you think they are hard to disable. All you need to do is take out the Turret factory and all the turrets near-bye will cease to function.

      4) Commander interface has a hotkeys to jump around the map more easily, the problem is that a lot of this is not obvious to newbie commanders. The biggest thing a commander needs is a headset. Communication between commander and troops is vital and with 10 marines yelling at you it is hard to type responses to all of them.

      5) No this is not too powerful at all. It is very easy to take out a marine faster than the commander can select a new health pack and drop it and if the marine manages to last a long while the commander is occupied with that area and ignoring others which are then far more vulnerable.

      6) Medics are not really necessary with the commander and the aliens already have the ability to cloak with an upgrade not to mention the skulk being able to climb walls and cielings to avoid detection. In the middle of a huge battle with turrets everyewhere I managed to sneak my Skulk all the way into the command area and attack and kill a commander and his command station.

      7) There are several levels where flight is crucial and you can effect very very nasty surprises from the rafters of super tall rooms. One alien tactic is to evolve into a Lerk then fly 10 stories up to a vent then evolve into a Fade and bomb any humans that enter the room to death with acid rockets and the like.

      Overall I have found that while there were some minor balance issues with game initially, with the server side patch NS is almost perfect and virtually all the "problems" people list stem from an inability to play the game properly. This is not a deathmatch game. This is not Team Fortress. There is a lot more strategy and tactical prowess need to play NS properly.

  • Left out (Score:2, Insightful)

    by rinkjustice ( 24156 )
    What about cool games that don't require a P4 screamer with a cutting edge video card?
    Any recommendations?

  • Urban Terror mod & Natural Selection (Score:5, Informative)

    by antdude ( 79039 ) on Sunday November 10, 2002 @09:45PM (#4639783) Homepage Journal
    Remember that UT mod can be played under Linux port of Q3A easily. I play it often.

    I love Natural Selection especially marines part (think Aliens movie). :)

  • Snide snipe (Score:4, Informative)

    by MrEd ( 60684 ) <`ten.liamliah' `ta' `godenot'> on Sunday November 10, 2002 @09:47PM (#4639792)
    And yet again I let you guy's down by missing another week for MOTW. Well, I'll have you know I had spent the week desperately trying to get my computer to a useable level after my Audigy Soundcard deleted my hard drive


    Not only does he need Bob the Angry Flower [angryflower.com], his soundcard deleted his hard drive?

    ...

  • Tribes 2 (Score:5, Interesting)

    by nihilogos ( 87025 ) on Sunday November 10, 2002 @09:50PM (#4639805)
    Was a f-cking awesome FPS with RTS components. Playing in a clan battle with organised and practice offense and defense was unbeatable. It wasn't exactly the most technically brilliant engine but it worked well on good enough hardware.

    Unfortunately it is dead, at least in Australia. What killed it was a stupid proliferation of patches and mods. There was the "classic" mod where you ran around aimlessly killing everything - popular with braindead CS players who like to camp somewhere with a sniper rifle and work on their mouse skills. Then there was the latest "patch" which changed the gameplay and also included some bugfixes. The whole community (and servers) split into groups running different and incompatible versions of the game, each of these groups was below critical mass and they all died.

    Mods can really, really suck.

    • Re:Tribes 2 (Score:3, Informative)

      by imr ( 106517 )
      what killed the game was a terrible reputation due to delivering it while unfinished. Then came the patches which either broke gameplay or brought new problems.
      After a while, players quit playing it because they couldnt play it more than one hour before an error, because it was laggy and unplayable with a rtc modem or without a geforce and because gameplay was baaaad.
      I finally bought it after nearly one year of remote deception and at loki's full price. Well, stupid of me. Stupid that i did listen to all this internet crap since the game fps were ok on my tnt2, the latency was playable with rtc modem unlike a quake3 game, and the game is just the best piece of multiplayer that has been put together (except action quake 2, of course). As for the crash, they just didnt exist with the linux version.
      I reinstalled it today after a bit of deception by q3ut2 release, it still is the best game I can play right now. and you can find at least 10 full servers to play it.
  • As long as we are adding games to the list. Metal Gear Solid 2 Substance [konami.com] hit the streets on the 8th. Tribunal [elderscrolls.com] expansion pack for Morrowind is out also. Both are wonderful games.
    • Sure, but does anyone know when the PC version will be out? The Konami site says "TBD" for all of their upcoming PC releases now, however Silent Hill PC used to be marked as "October" and I'm pretty sure Substance at least had a quarter specified.

      Oh well, seeing as how Splinter Cell PC is being released this month (a week after the XBox version) I think I'm going to tell Hideo Kojima where he can stick "Vamp the Castlevania reject" and all the five million senseless, unresolved plot twists of MGS2.

  • ns (Score:2, Insightful)

    by tabby ( 592506 )
    woo-hoo, my first posted story ;-)

    Seriously though I work at a internet/games cafe in Brisbane Australia and there are about 12-15 people that have started playing it there since I put it on a few machines last week. It is still unbalanced and some things don't fit right, but it does suit many different players and styles, and can only get better. I have people playing this that have always hated FPS and only ever played RTS, and they are becoming good FPS players now.
  • one has to wonder how that works, makes my head hurt just thinking about it

  • Battlezone (Score:3, Insightful)

    by nounderscores ( 246517 ) on Sunday November 10, 2002 @11:30PM (#4640197)
    Anybody remember Activision's battlezone and BZ2? That was one of the first RTS/FPS games around, where you could both drive vehicles and then hop out and snipe the pilots out of other vehicles.

    one majorly cool feature of the BZ2 engine was the deformable models and terrain. Some alien units could literally morph from speed to combat mode, and buildings would deform the terrain, digging holes if you wanted to put in a semi-underground command bunker.

    I've always wondered what would happen if somebody resurected the BZ2 engine and made a contemporary Afghanistan mod. all the tools are there. Mines, machine guns, bombers, satchel charges, buildings that can be instructed to build specific configurations of a particular unit, pilotable resource gatherers.... You could even have modular trench systems that the commander could have dug.

    • Re:Battlezone (Score:2, Interesting)

      by AmazingRuss ( 555076 )
      People have been modding the heck out of BZ II...there are at least 3 professional quality mods out there and dozens of lesser ones...including all new models, weapons, and even a couple of races. Anyone who is at all intrested in FPS/RTS hybrids should check it out...Battlezone is the grandaddy of em all. When the game released, it was too much for the hardware of the day, but on modern systems it rocks. Graphics are damn good even by todays standards, it has a lot of depth, and the multiplayer is just plain awesome. The main forum can be found at www.planetbattlezone.com, and copies of the game can be picked up dirt cheap on amazon or bigbox stores.
  • I'm sure someone will correct me, but this is, to my knowledge, the first time someone has combined RTS and FPS styles in this manner - where someone is essentially playing a RTS game and others are playing a FPS game.
    A friend suggesed exactly this idea, only he wanted to put a civilisation-style turn-based layer over the top again. Only, of course, he never actually did anything about it...

  • Want something really original? Try building bridges in Pontifex II [chroniclogic.com]. Works under Windows and Linux now (and I believe they're working on MacOS support).

    (Screenshots, since the official site's screenshots fail to capture what you can do with it: 1 [bridgebuilder-game.com], 2 [bridgebuilder-game.com], 3 [bridgebuilder-game.com].) I've been a fan of the two previous versions (the regrettably non-Linux friendly Bridge Builder [bridgebuilder-game.com] and Pontifex [chroniclogic.com]), and I'm pleased to no end that I can play under Linux. The game is alot of fun, like a really geeky Lego set. You get a large number of materials to work with, iron, steel, heavy steel, cables, suspension cables, and hydralics. The game starts a bit slowly with simple levels (probably to help introduce you), but advances to some real tricky problems. Can I span 800 meters? Can I build a drawbridge that allows two boats to pass side by side? Can I build a 200 meter long bridge with no underwater anchor points using only iron beams (the weakest beams). And once you've successfully completed a level, it's fun to see how low you can drive the price down without dunking the train or cars in the river. Or try something radical like a bridge that swings to the side out of the way of the boat [bridgebuilder-game.com] or other tortured designs [bridgebuilder-game.com]. Or just stick to more conventional designs [bridgebuilder-game.com].

    I purchased Pontifex II and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City on the same day and it's a hard choice for which to play each night.

    The game comes with a level editor and has a healthy community [bridgebuilder-game.com] that discusses designs, runs contests, and develops extra levels.

    I'm glad I purchased a copy and highly recommend it to fans of building stuff and simulations.

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