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Far Cry 3 Hands On Report – Part Two

Far Cry 3 Hands On Report – Part Two

In Part One of my Far Cry 3 hands on report I talked a little bit about climbing a radio tower and assaulting a mercenary outpost with the help of a hang glider and jet ski. The second part of my report picks up after I have ensured the outpost is cleared.

The mission from the notice board asked me to eliminate a mercenary leader in a nearby camp with a melee or knife takedown. So far, while I had tried to assault the outpost quietly I ended up having to go in guns blazing; this mission would be my first chance of trying out some of the stealth mechanics.

Rob Fearon’s New Game ‘Death Ray Manta’ Is Like Geometry Wars Times Forty

Rob Fearon’s New Game ‘Death Ray Manta’ Is Like Geometry Wars Times Forty

If you’ve ever played Geometry Wars you’ll know that it’s fast paced, colourful and addictive. Now imagine that times forty with a side order of crazy and more visual stimulation than you could ever imagine, and you’ll be on roughly the same level as I am right now.

Death Ray Manta, Rob Fearon’s new PC arcade shooter, has you battling through increasingly trying stages with your trusty Manta and its rays of, well… death. The objectives are as follows: take out enemies, collect power ups, survive as long as possible, do not go blind. Often the hardest of those objectives is in fact the last one, as a cacophony of colours frequent every nook and cranny of the screen throughout each stage making it hard for you to concentrate at the best of times.

Carrier Command – Hands On Preview

Carrier Command – Hands On Preview

One of the first games I ever laid my hands on as a child was Rainbird Software’s Carrier Command. It came bundled with our state-of-the-art Atari ST and from the very first time I loaded it up I was hooked. Providing a futuristic naval simulation, it took place in a beautifully rendered 3D environment, in which you commanded a technologically advanced naval carrier in attacks on gorgeous tropical islands.

Ok, perhaps my memories of the original’s graphical prowess might be a little out of touch with reality, but despite its dated looks, much of what made Carrier Command unique stands out even today. A fully open world with hundreds of miles of ocean to explore. Customisable units, open-ended objectives and a challenging AI to defeat. It was up to you to craft your plan of attack, and defeat could easily come to the unprepared.

Richard and Alice – Preview

Richard and Alice – Preview

Games journalists are a funny breed. They spend so much of their time judging and critiquing those lovely little bits of art and code, that the inevitable happens. The thought streaks across the mind, “I could do better”, and sometimes, they do. Richard & Alice is such an attempt, from the journalistic minds of Lewis Denby and Ashton Raze, and is shaping up to be something rather special.

The snow is deep in the future. Set in a world of massive climate-change, R&A is a point-and-click story of a story, told through two sets of prison bars. Ex-military man-of-decency Richard, caged for an undisclosed breach of rules, suddenly finds the opposite cell occupied for the first time in a long time by the mysterious and distant Alice. Caged for murder, what follows is a series of flashbacks into Alice’s past – surviving the eternal winter plaguing the world, the evil and desperation that has become the norm, and protecting her slightly hyperactive 5 year old son from all of the above.

Aliens: Colonial Marines – Multiplayer Hands On

Aliens: Colonial Marines – Multiplayer Hands On

“You’re the marines, the key to survival is to work together.” It sounds simple but when Xenomorphs are leaping all around, composure and teamwork make way for terror and unfortunately damp trousers.

Playing two 6 vs 6 LAN games at Rezzed we demoed the online deathmatch gameplay of Aliens: Colonial Marines. As aliens the games is most similar to a hack-n-slash. The small warehouse we played offered aliens chances to ambush and annihilate individual marines, but the narrow hallways made it easy for the marines to stick together.

Unlike most other online games tactics played as much a deciding factor in which team won as skill. Charging head first into a group of marines will just end in a bunch of smug marines high-fiving each other and acidic blood splattering the walls.

A co-ordinated attack is needed. Either isolating and picking off individual marines or attacking with an all-out assault from all directions. And it really is possible to attack from all directions as the aliens have the ability to cling to walls and ceilings. Dropping down on a marine while decapitating him with your tail is immensely fun as well as a great tactic to terrify the opposition.

Far Cry 3 – Hands On Preview

Far Cry 3 – Hands On Preview

Beginning a demo with a cut-scene of a half naked woman is a risky manoeuvre. It can put people off the game instantly, making people think that it is shallow, attention seeking and even misogynistic. Yet this is how the demo to Far Cry 3 opened, a game which could possibly be the most intelligent and abstract FPSs of the past few years.

The demo was available to play at Rezzed where I got a hands-on preview. The first thing that was noticeable was how beautiful the game looked running on a high-end PC. After the opening cut-scene the demo started out in a thicket of jungle, every leaf on every tree stunningly rendered. A path led to a cliff overlooking the island and the pristine blue sea that surrounded it, showing off the game’s impressive draw distance. On a dock on the island a man was casually tipping corpses into the sea.

After a dive into the lagoon and a brief swim the game really began. The jungle’s thick foliage and the default weapon, the bow and arrow, made stealth the most obvious tactic. Picking off enemies with the bow gave a satisfying sense of power. The tension of being seen while drawing back the string countered by the elation of an enemy dropping to the ground, bolt protruding from his body.

This feeling was somewhat lessened though by the relatively quick drawback speed of the bow and its one hit kill effectiveness, regardless of where you shoot an enemy. However, it’s possible that both these issues were due to the difficulty settings of the demo.

Heaven Is A Highly Defined Half Pipe

Heaven Is A Highly Defined Half Pipe

Microsoft’s Summer of Arcade is nearly upon us and it looks like it’s going to be a cracker this year. What better way to kick it off than with one of my favourite ways of procrastinating and injuring myself as a child, skateboarding. Tony Hawks Pro Skater HD (or THPSHD for short) is not just a run of the mill HD port of the original game but instead is a combination of the best bits of Tony Hawks Pro Skater 1 & 2, which were originally released in 2000 on the N64 and Dreamcast among other consoles. THPSHD will be the first title in the series to be available only as a download.

THPSHD was exclusively announced in 2011 during the Spike VGA‘s. A world premier video showing Tony Hawk skating around the Woodland Hills Warehouse level from the original THPS was shown but since then precious few details have been released on what will actually be included in the game. What we do know from various interviews with Tony himself is a few of the playable characters, playable levels and music available in the game and you’ll be glad to hear that along with a host of new characters and songs Robomodo have included plenty of classic names that players of the originals will remember.

Along with Tony himself other playable characters include Tony’s son Riley Hawk, Chris Cole, Nyjah Huston, Lyn-Z, Rodney Mullen, Andrew Reynolds and Adams Hawkins. Tony also mentioned the possibility of unlockable characters of which I’m hoping Officer Dick, Ollie the magic bum and Spider-man all make an appearance.

Faster Than Light – First Impressions

Faster Than Light – First Impressions

Emily has had a rather bad year. After finding herself stranded on an isolated planet for months, she thought her luck had finally changed when a passing ship came to her rescue. Now that same ship is on fire, oxygen is slowly venting into space via a number of worryingly large cracks in the hull, and the rest of the crew is rather inconveniently dead. All Emily has to do is fix the ship by herself, get the heavily damaged…

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