Muramasa's Coop Trials and Tribulations

[Inaaca]

Maybe you can just keep soldering new attachments onto your laptop until it becomes a giant entangled supercomputer.

[Muramasa]

Or make it shoot exploding paint cans. Which ever comes first.

[Muramasa]

-Counterstrike: Source (with bots)-

I'm sure I've stated before that I wouldn't include games like Counterstrike. Ironic isn't it? In this particular case, 6 of us managed to get online at one time to play a game. A rare sight it was. Unfortunately with a group that large, gaming tastes and moods seem to differ. It's kinda deciding to find a place to eat in a restaurant. Despite the fact that everyone says they really don't care where they eat, that's actually a big fat lie. Only two people actually don't care, the rest actually do care, and more than likely, they don't want to eat at a place you suggest. And just like selecting a place to eat for the group, there are certain games that just should not be recommended. Like Guild Wars. Or Red Lobster: The Game.

One particular problem with a large group is the method of playing. Because we're all freaks and play at 2 in the morning (5 in Kuat time), being at each other's house is certainly not an option, so we rely on online gaming. But that leads to another problem on the techinical side, certain games will only work with certain computers. And to top it off, certain computers are in rather peculiar working conditions, which also exclude certain games because they may not be installed, or are currently running other programs, or are being used by siblings, ect. ect. Not only that, but certain games will just refuse to work for some unexplained reason. Finally, I swear, I have the most online games out of this entire group, because of all the game interchanging I have to do. Certain people only have certain games, so sometimes we gotta get a little mixing and matching going witha big group.

Getting a good online game going with such a large group is tough. When you finally calculate all the factors mentioned above, then we come down to two games: Starcraft and Counter-strike. Two games that almost everyone in the world has. At least all of Korea.

In terms of the online community, I'm sure it ranks 3rd most obnoxious. Second would be Pre-Pay-For-Play Sony Infantry, and 1st being Gunbound. But rather recently, I've been watching my bro play a few times, and he usually frequents servers owned by the [Q] clan. With the microphone chat, they seem like pretty decent folk, as decent as you can get in an online community anyways. Not only that, but Kuat and I have played with bots a few times, and it's pretty fun. I have also been playing alot of "Tactical" Shooting games, so I'm getting more adjusted to the genre.

With practically all of us together, it made for a pretty cool experience. Everyone brought a little something to the table. From what I observed, everyone kinda fell into a bit of a niche, with Musical, Vampy, and Kuat being well rounded assaulters, Vivi sorta in the back for support(while occasionally becoming the pointman), Dex giving us orders and filling any gaps in our roles(he is the offical Shooter guy in your group), and I'm the guy in the back taking pot shots at dudes and saying things to sound all tactical-like.

We played a decent number of rounds against "hard" bots. For the most part, it was rather even. That is to say, we could win enough times to keep on going, but for the most part, the bots usually destroyed us. The one problem with bots is that players usually make mistakes in aiming. It isn't unusual to be sniped from across the map with a pistol. Not only that, but I suspect that at a certain point, bots already know where you are. Still, we did stand a bit of a chance, and well all had fun, so times were good.

In the end, Counterstrike:Source is pretty fun with friends. But then again, I supposed most games would be. Given the nature of the game, we were cooperating pretty well, even with friendly fire mode on. And thank god microphone chat worked for most of us, communication is a bit of a bitch otherwise.

[Muramasa]

-Swat 3: Tactical Game of the Year Edition-

I've been lurking the boards for a while. I haven't really had much to say, let alone write.

I know what you guys are thinking. "Oh boy, another game that Anta and Brian will force us to play." I think after trying to get Googly to run The Hidden: Source, my motivation to get anyone to play a game has been sapped for the rest of the year. His damn laptop practically ate itself trying to run that game. So in this particular case, I'll spare ya'll the usual sales pitch.

Swat 3 was released in November 23, 1999. If the box is any indication, it received alot of high marks for being one of the few games to offer an immersive and real co-op environment. Basically, it was designed to play with buddies on the net. Keep in mind, the only other real option was Sven Co-op, first released around January. We've really only hit a co-op gaming wave just recently, so this was a big thing back then.

For the most part, the game kinda plays like Rainbow 6. Except that you're not really supposed to kill anybody. That's the best way I can describe it I guess. Kuat and I did enjoy playing Rainbow 6 together incidentally, so not only did we adapt to the Swat 3 environment, we thrive in it pretty well. As usually, tactical shooting games do have the downsides, usually being obtuse mission objectives and idiot savant AI. Most of the missions usually involve arrest the bad guy, a usually simple matter that's complicated by the fact that A) baddies have God's aim on their side as well as ESP to pinpoint your location and B) Hostages seem prefer the company of the people whose taken them hostage. This is to the point where hostages will run AWAY from you, into rooms that do have baddies.

I know this is about 9 years too late to say this, but Terrorists have officially become the new Nazi. At this point, if we created a random modern day story generator, terrorist would show up as the main antagonist 78% of the time, followed by the Russians.

All ranting and rambling aside, Swat 3 is a pretty fun coop game. Or at least there are worse ways to spend our time. Plus, I've learned some neat things about our SWAT team:

1. Every SWAT member is made of paper. Apparently recruiters are looking for a particular frailty in their team. They're also looking for people who can't sprint.
2. Every person in LA country who is a criminal also uses PCP. This is the most likely explanation for the reason why most criminals can withstand 8 billion shots before going down. Ironically, criminals in the LA area seem to be weak against less lethal bullets. People who live in LA also must have an extra set of lungs that filter foul air, as suspects are able to breath in CS gas just fine dandy for about a year.
3. The Wave is a tool that seems to be on par with The Doctor's sonic screwdriver. It can open anything, disarm any bomb, activate or deactivate mobile surface to air missiles, and can cook a mean omlete. Don't leave home without one of these babies.
4. Everyone gets handcuffed. No one is spared. Man, woman, young, old, suspect, nonsuspect; you WILL get cuffed. The only two people who Kuat and I didn't cuff was a little boy and girl, both who were shot a few minutes earlier. We'll probably find a non-injured child to cuff later.
5. The purpose of the flashbang is to warn the suspect of your incoming approach. It's effect can momentarily blind when it explodes 2 inches away from your eyes, it is suggested that you take a step back to avoid any negative effects.
6. Every suspect in the LA county area seems to be a terrorist with access to high grade explosives. They also seem to be nuclear capable. Why were we in Iran then?
7. Ever watch Lupin the Third? That is an perfect re-enactment of SWAT member tactics.

Overall, SWAT 3 is a good time killer.

[Captain Galaxy]

Terrorists would be randomly generated 78% of the time, yet they are still second to Russians? It's ok, Anta, I wasn't good at math either.

[Muramasa]

Tsk tsk tsk. It's actually a series of probabilities.

In a group of stories that take place in a modern day setting, there may or may not be an antagonist.

When there is an antagonist, this or these antagonist(s) may or may not be (a) douchebag bent on making life harder for other people.

From this number terrorist occur 78% of the time, as opposed to Russians, who come up 13% of the time (therefore, second), as opposed to a Danny Devito or Alan Rickman who fills in that final 9%(thus being third).

[Captain Galaxy]

Slusho said:

Alright, Big Brother, nice little edit there. Change "second to" to "followed." Sometimes your super edit powers scare me.

Sometimes they scare me too.

[Muramasa]

Indeed.

[Captain Galaxy]

Now I forget what I wrote. It doesn't matter though, I LOVE the party.

[Muramasa]

- Audiosurf -

Well, now that the game has been released on steam, there's really no reason fiddle with the convoluted method of playing the beta. Not only that, but I figured it was a great time to add Audiosurf on here anyways.

For those who don't know, Audiosurf is a a puzzle game that takes information from a song, and turns that information into a track of sorts. Much like a lot of puzzle games, the goal is to race down this track while matching like-colored blocks. The ultimate goal is to get the highest score possible. There's also the option to submit your score on an online scoreboard, because getting 8 zillion points on Freebird makes you that much more of a man.

There's a variety of cars to us while racing on track. Particularly of interest is Doublevision, which allows two people (or a person with a cut corpus callosum) to simultaneous collect blocks. The track is usually made up of 3 lanes, and two shoulders. In doublevision's gameplay, the there are 4 tracks and two shoulders, this allows one player to take up the left 3 tracks, and another player to take up the right 3. Cooperation is necessary to create big block combos, especially if the colors cross player sections. I wish I cared enough to draw an image, but just try to imagine it the best you can.

The great thing about Audiosurf is that it's a pretty good relaxing game when you've got nothing else to do. There's something special about seeing your favorite tracks visualized, which is probably it's real drawing aspect. I would honestly love a game where you did race with other opponents on a visualized music track (lol), but I would recommend this game whether you play it by yourself or with buddy. I mean, it's 10 bucks, and it's relatively different from all the stuff that's currently out. Buy Escape Velocity Nova, and send some money to Pixel while you're at it.

[The Dankness]

I really gotta get audiosurf.

[Muramasa]

Do it man. It's ten bucks anyways, what else wouldja spend it on?

[The Dankness]

mysticmuramasa said:

Do it man. It's ten bucks anyways, what else wouldja spend it on?

Well, I KINDA wanna get that new One Piece game for the Wii. : ((

[You probably can't touch this.]

musicalwarrior said:

I really gotta get audiosurf.

Ha ha, all that prog rock you listen to. "Man, is it me or is this game getting really hard all of the sudden?"

[The Dankness]

googlyminotaur said:

musicalwarrior said:

I really gotta get audiosurf.

Ha ha, all that prog rock you listen to. "Man, is it me or is this game getting really hard all of the sudden?"

Seriously. It's a damn shame the game limits you to ten minutes though. : P

[Muramasa]

-Double Feature: Beautiful Katamari and Eternal Sonata-

Well, this time around I'm two game reviews. A friend of my brother felt the urge to get a Xbox360. He got the pro edition, which came with Marvel Ultimate Alliance and Forza. He also got Beautiful Katamari and Eternal Sonata as well(because he couldn't find Lost Odyssey). We spent a decent night playing the latter two.

Beautiful Katamari is pretty simple to explain. You're a little dude rolling things up into a ball. Easy huh? I wasn't paying attention to the story, but from what I can tell, the King of the Cosmos causes trouble (again) through a friendly game of tennis which creates a black hole that destroys most of the galaxy (again). And once again, The Prince has to fix things by rolling things on Earth into a Katamari. There's not much to say about the game itself, because it really seems like Katamari Damacy all over again, which is excellent, but that's not the point of this mini. Coop play is an exercise in communication. Communication in this case extends to "Go left" "Turn Left" "Strafe Left" in our cases. One kinda annoying thing about the game is that the instruction manual seems a bit hesitant to explain certain coop mode controls. We spent a good ten minutes trying to figure out if it's possible to do a fast turn or a quick roll in the game, because it never really mentions how these functions work in coop. With one player, a person can quick turn by pressing both Analog sticks, but how does it work in two player? We ultimately stopped caring really. The overall game is pretty fun with two people given the need for communication. Unfortunately, we got past only one level because the second level required you to create a two meter ball in 5 minutes despite the fact that every object in the room you're stick in is 20 times larger than your Katamari.

Two of us in this group has played Eternal Sonata before, though, we never had a chance to try out the coop. I wasn't really paying attention to the story in this game either, but I know the basic premise is that Chopin is on his last moments in life, and he's dreaming of a world that kinda borders being kinda cool and shitty at the same time. He's looking for...something, I'm going to guess it's the Eternal Sonata. In any case, the combat system is relatively fun. You have a timer in which you can make moves and position your character, and every battle requires a decent positioning to use your special attacks. You get two types of special attacks in a fight, depending on whether you are in the sun, or standing in the shade. This gives battles a nice element of position jockeying, as certain moves just suck ass (like the every useful taking pictures of your enemies, because taking photographs of your enemies is indefinately more useful than firing your gun at them, Beat, you goddamn idiot). Three players are possible in this game, so in battle, a player controls one of the three party members. Unfortunately, map exploring is still delegated to the first player, so if you have a friend who has a tendency to examine every inane and useless object (I'm looking at you, Vivi), then be prepared to break out a DS and finish a Phoenix Wright case or three. We didn't get that far, but one thing I noticed in the earlier stages is how erratic the difficulty can be. You'll sometimes go through a string of weak enemies who deal zero damage to you only to encounter a boss that cleaves off 500 hit points from your 2000 total. Hopefully, the difficulty becomes more consistent in the future, though I'll have to wait a while before I can play that game again. Overall enjoyable experience, but remember to change the voices to Japanese.

[Muramasa]

-Raiden 3-

Vertical shooters are interesting games for coop. Hypothetically, the increased firepower should decrease the difficulty. In practice, the opposite is true. Most vertical shooters(VS) tend to have two aspects to them (feel free to correct me if you want, MW): bullet dodging and point scoring. Point scoring is the aspect of the shooter in which, of course, one gains points, which is usually through destroying a an enemy. More destroyed enemies result in higher scores, bonus multipliers may affect the score in some way, and weapons and sub weapons provide a means to destroy enemies. On the other end, there is bullet dodging, which forces the player to remain aware of himself and his surroundings. To cut the analysis short and to reach the grand point, vertical shooters tend to throw alot of shit on the screen.

Given this fact, the second player can be more of a distraction really. While any VS never get as bad as mistaking a fellow player for an enemy ship, the resulting extra gunfire in hypnotic. It lulls players into a false sense of security, making them believe that they have more cover fire than they actually have. Not only that, extra gunfire sprites sometimes intermingle with enemies, making it difficult to notice that something is coming at you. And before this sounds like I'm bashing anyone, let me say that I'm okay at Ikaruga, but terrible at this game, so hopefully you can tell who the liability was in this coop run.

Anyways, back to the game. Raiden 3 is the 7th game in the series (according to Wikipedia). If you've played Raiden games, you know what to expect. I haven't played them too extensively before, but there doesn't seem to be very much deviation from the formula, which is a good thing for shooter fans, and Raiden fans in particular.

Coop was a rather iffy for The Dankness and I. While we both tried our best, together we were never able to get past the third level. The game didn't really seem to tough either, but aside from the aforementioned reason, here were some difficulties we faced in two-player mode:

1. Power-ups. No, this wasn't any of that "ya gotta share the pizza" crap. If anything, it seemed like we were too polite to each other. Raiden 3 has a weapon system where, when you destroy the ship carrying a power up, it'll drop the power up. No big deal. If a player dies, he drops his power ups, no big deal. There are 3 weapons to choose from, but the weapon power-up you pick up depends on the color the power-up is at the time, and it changes over time. Picking up a power-up of a different color replaces that weapon. So basically, we sometimes found ourselves in situations where a player dies and leaves a few power-ups scattered about, but they have this terrible tendency to cluster, making it hard to get the color you want without accidentally getting another weapon. Even worse, we sometimes found ourselves getting killed by stray bullets trying to claim or re-claim lost powerups.

2. Speaking power-up dropping, having a power-up of a different color suddenly drop on you is rather disorienting. Most of the time, a player who dies was just trying to avoid a bullet only to land in one infront of another player. And of course, the other player was only trying to dodge to the location that the previous player was heading to, only accidentally pick up every powerup.

3. Bullet blocking, it's actually a cool coop mechanism, but it can get annoying sometimes.

4. Odd necessity for competition. I never fail to die every level, and I still managed to get labeled by the game as the "winner" of the round. Players are competing for ship kills, but what's the point? When two people are playing coop, that shouldn't be a concern in the first place. This really didn't get in our way, but it was kinda annoying in some strange way to me.

We still had fun in the end, though I probably should have opted out of the game sooner to let MW get farther in the game. There are some cool game mechanics, like bullet blocking, because it's really blocking, but more like deflecting shots off a friendly ship. Depending on the weapon you have, a different effect might happen. For example, vulcan cannon will send a stream of power up shots in random directions, while a laser shot will...send a stream of powered up vulcan shots in random directions. Okay, not that different.

All in all, VS are always good sources of coop fun. I tend to complain about everything, but I still think this is a good game to play with a friend. If you want to get a high score though, you're better off playing alone. It's just easier that way.

[The Dankness]

Pretty good review, although alot of your complaints about the coop mode also apply to pretty much every other coop arcade shooter ever made.

Also, I've been playing it a ton on my own. Really, single player is pretty damn hard as well. The farthest I've been able to get on one credit is still like only halfway through level 4. Freakin asteroid field levels. I'm workin on it though.

On a related note, apparently Raiden IV could be on its way to the 360. I'd love to see how that turns out.

[Muramasa]

Yikes, so much for it being the easier of the 3.

[The Dankness]

mysticmuramasa said:

Yikes, so much for it being the easier of the 3.

It is. It's hard, but Raiden I and II are WAY harder.