The Wolf, the Hunter, and the Soldier

It's true!  Red Bull gives you wings!  And Cyberpowers!

I've heard nothing but good things about Wolfenstein: The New Order since it came out.  From great advertising to reviews with little criticisms on it.  But eventually the hype died out and that's usually the time I get my hands on such gems, because like every joke about Australia, I am a few years behind on "the times".

It was one of my Numerous Birthday presents and I was excited to crack it open, but I did what was sensible and said I would play all the other games that are on my Xbox 360 first so that I may one day put that away and focus on my PS4.

So I played a bunch of Terraria, half heartedly since I want to get it on Playstation now, and unwrapped the Nazi killing Bastard from his airtight plastic cage and entered him into the vague, featureless Brick that is apparently called a Playstation 4.

After the initial hazing normally involved with putting a game into your console these days I was finally thrown into the frying pan, or at least a big plane with a Pom and a bunch of other soldiers headed towards a new enemy: General Deathshead.

He's a creepy bastard.  My first encounter with Herr General had me staring at him through wire glass as he closed the walls in on me and my comrades.  I stared into his unflinching, smiling, scarred face as he watched everyone else panic, not even bothering to help them try and get out of this predicament.

I played on, shooting and slashing up Nazi's between avoiding Panzerhunds and pissing off Cyborgs.  It was a good time.  And the more I went on the more I got into the setting, reading news articles about the fall of Britain, the surrender of the United States, and the treatment of citizens and their 'impurities'.

Then, as I was exploring around the secret headquarters of the Resistance, I found a mattress tucked away in a high corner with a little interactive option saying "Nightmare!"

Lo and Behold, I was transported back to Wolfenstein 3D.  I was still Blazkowicz, pistol detailed as ever, but everything else was exactly as it was back in 1992.  It was fun and it made me think how much the game has changed since when ID software first made it.

And every time I think of ID Software, I think about two other games.  Doom and Quake, their two other flagship games.  I have Doom and Wolfenstein 3D on my Xbox 360 and spent so many hours collecting achievements and completing them as a whole.  Especially Doom since as soon as you finished the game you got the Doomguy outfit for your Xbox Avatar which I have accessorised and kept ever since.

"I STUBBED MY TOE ON THE COFFEE TABLE!"

With all the fun I've had with Classic Doom I cant wait for New Doom (TM) coming from Bethesda who, conveniently, had a hand in Wolfenstein: The New Order, something Im reminded of every time I load the game.  And every video I've watched of New Doom (TM) has been a fantastic and entertaining bloodbath of gunfire, action kills, and frantic running about.  Frankly only one step up from Classic Doom, because they didn't have action kills that involve pushing in Imp eyes until the skull explodes.

But Doom isn't my favourite.  And neither is Wolfenstein.  My favourite is Quake II, and I can't really tell you why.  It could be that I feel like a God running around dodging everything and exploring these long, dirty, rusted, grimy corridors shooting down strange Alien Cyborgs on their home planet.  I worked alone, finding comrades driven to madness from experimentation and torture; discovering strange works of art in grandiose cathedral fortresses; destroying strange machinations determined to do one thing: Kill You.

So I am going to really enjoy Wolfenstein: The New Order because not only is it a fun game, it is a deep game.  You find news articles about how the tide remained in the Nazi's favour and they continued the tidal wave across the world, and then fifteen years on they were settled everywhere with an Iron Grip.

And in knowing that I look forward to the possibility of a New Quake whether it continues the war against the Strogg, throwing you straight back into the midst of it, or just creating a whole new story with you forming an entire new front against this horrific enemy.

Inappropriate Kanye is Inappropriate

Take me down to Cerberon City

#Quake

Quake II is one of my all time favourite games.  I flogged the shit out of the Demo back in the day, wishing I could play it more and finish it properly, but it was a number of years before I could.

Now I have it on Steam and I download it occasionally when I want some nostalgia.   I only wish I could play it with it's music because, like some of it's predecessors, it doesn't have any unless you have a disc in. This can easily be solved by mods, of which I haven't gotten around to trying yet, but will next time I install the game.

Recently I had a crack at it's Sequel, Quake 4.  Yes, Four, because the third iteration was taken over by a Multiplayer Arena game that, while cool, was a bit of a disappointment due to the more severe derailment of theme.  Especially since Quake was abut fighting demons in extremely cool gothic settings, then Quake II changed it to fighting Barbaric Cyborgs.

Quake 4 at least brought it back to the theme of fighting Barbaric Cyborgs.  So I decided to give it a crack this year because I have a computer that actually worked and could play this and Doom 3 (though not the BFG Edition, apparently.)

It's a huge leap from the Quake II I remember where occasionally I would double tap the F1 key to get rid of the notification of an updated mission, and push on gibbing anything and everything that plonked itself in front of me, while actually admiring the dirty, rusting militaristic architecture of the levels.

One of my favourite enemies was the Berserker, with a Hammer as one hand and a pointy hunk of metal as the other arm. He would scare the shit out of you as he bolted around corners, chasing you down while you backpedal playing Keepaway.

The New Berserker though is much more... Shocking. He can shoot lightning from his spike, or send a wave from punching the ground and it's very disorienting.  But he still chases you down until you're within boxing range and proceeds to pummel you into paste.

That's what I like about him.  He's simple and aggressive.  Easy to stop too, but that doesn't mean his flavour is any less lacking.

But while the game is fun in it's own right, difficult in dodging all the baddies and their dangerous methods of murder, it didn't quite feel the same as the Quake II I know and love, and I can't quite put my finger on it.  I've been debating over it for months now, wondering whether it's the style that's put me off, or the gameplay though it's not too much different, or just how it's showing it's age now that I've gotten into it almost a decade later, where now games are in a Cinematic Wonderland.

I can't quite put my finger on it.  The closest I can get is that the game is trying too hard to be realistic and it kinda ruins the art style.  Quake II was cartoonish, and was indistinguishable when it came to certain details of the face and such, but the rest was clear and gave you a feel of being in an alien military world.  Everything was efficient and little was done for style.  The Palace was one of the funnest areas I've had the pleasure of roaming around, transitioning between three (or four, i forget) levels trying to find one piece to get into another area and then eventually returning to finish the job.

This didn't offer that.  it was a series of convoluted mazes and corridor encounters between big room boss fights/wave fights.  I like a big dramatic fight with a new powerful enemy, such as the dual spider Strogg in Quake IV, but I couldn't get into much after that.  Even the Makron fight wasn't as terrifying.

I dunno.  If they do a new Quake, I do want them to keep with the Stroggos fight.  That was always fun.  But don't try to get too realistic.  And give me something to really fight for.  Make me want to railgun a Makron through the giant brain.

Speed Gamer

When someone plays a game from scratch, they run through the game rather comfortably. You trundle about firing off your gun at the various enemies that come into your view, and mow through quirky bosses who have this idea that you'll never figure out how to pump enough bullets into them while they do their darndest to shoot you down with nearly no effect in the end.

The other day I read an article about John Romero's upcoming MMO Shooter, where he was getting a bit tired of the Bullet Sponge games. When he mentioned that, the first thing that came to mind was Marcus Fenix actually expanding and then sweating bullets. And it's rather spot on. Halo, Gears of War, Borderlands. All of them are what you would call Bullet Sponge games because you just get hit over and over and over then walk it all off.

I'd been getting bored with my Xbox lately. I had finished Deus Ex Human Revolution again, and while I had fun being stealthy and sneaky, and I really enjoyed that final boss (even though I had powered through it because I was so well upgraded), I didn't have much more to do after that. I tried to play Borderlands for a bit, but lost interest in that again rather quickly. And scanning through my other games, I had nothing else I really wanted to play. Halo, Gears of War, Rainbow Six... I just didn't have any interest in playing them. I had Kingdom for Kieflings and ran through that in about 7 hours gameplay... and that was it. Was rather disappointed that there wasn't anything more to the game than "Build yourself a Town", but I knew that was all it was going to be.

But after loading up my computer, the first in a LONG time, I checked out the games on there. I had quite a few games, most of which came from a pair of game packs that were on discount at the time, namely the ID SUPER PACK, and a special edition Portal 2 pack, which was a number of Indy games that had DLC features based on Portal 2. Because I like both Portal 2 and most ID Software games, I picked them up.

So this left me with a few games that I didn't have before, but also a few games that I DID have before, but had never finished. So I downloaded and installed Quake, from the 1996 era. Now that's an old game, almost 16 years old as I discovered (22 June) and while I have played it several times over, I have never actually sat down and played the full game. So that's what I decided to do.

It was like riding a Fiend again. Though you don't really ride fiends, you just dodge them as best as you can while they jump about like madmen, and if you're lucky and there's two or three of them, they'll start attacking each other. And it wasn't quite the same as riding fiends, because I found out how to turn on the Mouselook, which changed the game significantly for me.

But the overall experience, was running around like crazy trying not to get cut in twain by Death Knights, blown up by Ogres, and electrified by Shamblers. That last one is hard to fucking prevent, too. Bastard usually pops up right behind you while you're on low health, goes "ZAP" and you're done.

But running around and trying NOT to get hit by bullets in a fast paced game really made my head spin when I put Quake down for a bit so I didn't get sick of it (and didn't have fucking nightmares that afternoon) and loaded up Borderlands. And the only thing I realised is that this game, which I had thought was a fast paced game of it's time, heck it even compared the experience to the offspring of Quake and Diablo, felt extremely sluggish. Sure, the guns fired off like mad, the effects were much prettier, but Jesus christ did it take forever to circle-strafe someone. It was a strange experience and I quickly turned back over to the 1996 shooter so I could continue to dodge Shamblers chasing after me, and escape the Vores Fire Pod attacks. (Fucking homing bastards they are)

This hasn't turned me off Borderlands 2, though. I won't be playing Quake forever, I'll be happy just to finish the games two mission packs, and there's no motivation to be perfect or anything. (No Achievements, y'see) Borderlands 2 is also making itself very appealing, aside from the obviously awesome Teaser Trailer.

The developers at various interviews and panels have said various improvements will be in Borderlands 2, such as a greater narrative, more customizable characters and vehicles, more varied weapons, and improved AI and NPC's. On top of that, there's a fifth character Class coming which is particularly exciting, and then there's the prospect of their DLC's, of which will be expansion packs rather than some piss poor overpriced game feature.

But the question still comes up though: What if the game were more like Quake?

Respawning in the Platform Wars

There is a Time and Place for Video Games. But occasionally there's a Video Game that is simply timeless. Games that are just so fun that you would play through them again years down the track.

Take the “ID Super Pack” deal on Steam for example. It has several different games, including respective expansions, which range to about 20 years ago. That's longer than some of my workmates have been alive.

But I found a problem before I clicked on the super-freakin-awesome deal. I don't want to play them on my PC. No, I want to play them on my Console. So that put me in an awkward situation because I really like these games, and some I haven't had the chance to play yet.

I know what it's like to play some of these games on a Console. I already own Doom and Doom II on my Xbox360, and I've had loads of fun playing them. But I always wanted to finish playing Hexen and Heretic, and I adore the first two Quake games.

So would it be too much to ask for a Console port of these games? Probably. I wouldn't imagine it to be easy Porting a game to console, regardless of how similar a Console is to a PC. And the time spent would have to turn a profit in the end. So my optimism of these ports coming to reality isn't very high.

But hey I got my other wish of PSP games playable on the PS3, so why not throw it out there?