Wednesday 29 April 2015

DYING LIGHT ZOMBIE SLAUGHTER

Currently I am in a state of limbo ... and expectation.

To explain this here would go on too long and it is covered .. on my corruption blog.

To cut a long story short I am on the fourth day of the final five days of a long court case I have known the end dates of since Easter Sunday.

This has been dragging on over two years closer to three.

I knew from day one it was ... massive. The defendant, lets say my 'friend', has been transformed from accused to accuser and in a big way. This involves four large public services, corruption and a cover up of the worst kind and front page national tabloid subjects in each case and then some.

So in a limbo then.

I had thought about getting a new game title to fill in the gaps, as the weather has taken a turn for the worst too.

Oops, got held up by a phone-call about more corruption. A lot closer to home this time.

No, so I was wondering what to do to fritter away the time for about a week and I considered getting Elite Dangerous. After all my joystick is gathering up dust and what a sad state of affairs the PC gaming world is when you cannot find a title to use a joystick with? Lol.

Before long the same will be said about my Logitech G27 Racing Wheel! Well unless either Project Cars comes out and is good or that Need For Speed title I was reading about and cannot remember its subtitle name.

Now I kept hearing and reading some very good things about Dying Light.

Now I had initially disliked Dead Island Riptide and stopped playing it for a fair old while before returning to it to look at why I found it so hard. Before long I realised that the standard First Person Shooters had evolved somewhat and way beyond that I last played like the Dooms, Quakes, Return to Castle Wolfensteins and Fears. A hell of a lot!

Suddenly the terms I was reading about 'survival horrors' started to make sense and I started getting the hang of things. I had no idea about the weapon creation aspect of these games and was killed every five minutes trying to run around the place to discover where the guns all were! Lol! Of course those that know these games would realise that my ranges for discovering guns grew bigger and bigger and so dying became more and more frequent.


Before long I realised that using swords and baseball bats were not only the way to go and what you had to do but were a lot more fun too! I had never seen melee combat with a non-projectile weapon done as well as this before! If that was not more than enough to astound me imagine the smile on my face when I got my first long staff (love Wing Chun) and then when I got my first Katana?!

Hilarious laughing ensued and I could not wait to run around the next corner into a sea of zombies!

Then I modded the hell out of several Katanas.

Then it was over.

After playing Skyrim for months on end I was disappointed at how quickly Riptide ended and the size of the maps. 'Imagine that combat system in the next Elder Scrolls?!' was a thought I regularly repeated in my head.

Now being as Dying Light was ... well Dying Light and not Dead Island 2 I was not sure if it would be the same system and in fact did not even read references to Katanas for a fair old while.

Also with this Parkour movement, or free running as its more commonly known as, I was not sure would be done that well. Often new ideas on paper do not translate well to the finished article and not just in gaming either.

So I would often peruse the Steam store and read through some gamers reviews and one thing eventually stood out a mile. You had to hit the 'add more reviews' button under Dying Light several times and still all the reviews were glowing. I was going to say find a negative review but I cannot recall if I found one.

Raves about the bigger maps were aplenty, though now I realise they are way bigger than Riptide but still behind the biggest titles like Skyrim, Fallout and Dragon Age Inquisition.

So I took the plunge and bought it through Steam.

This was also a bit annoying as I am someone who is tactile and I like to have a hard copy and a case sitting on my shelf, even just to pick it up in a few years time and smile over the memories, lol. But a check of Amazon and my local Game store resulted in no hard copies other than the 'Be the Zombie Edition'. Umm...no thanks, lol.

Anyway the game is great, though not perfect.

Annoying trying to climb onto a ridge to get away from a pack of zombies that looks like a hundred others I have been up and unable to and then dying.

Also there was a point when the game, literally, changed dramatically without warning and suddenly I was being ambushed by large groups of the super fast zombies who can dodge your swings. Resulting in dying repeatedly.

Parts of maps are confusing on how to get to some quest points that appeared as if I had to work my way through a sea of zombies in a tunnel to get to it only to get confused on the other side and ... well die repeatedly. I gave up on that three task mission because there seem to be no way to get to it and ... well towns or cities are just not that confusing, especially on foot!

Oh and then there are the on hit kills...something happens suddenly and without any sound your hit from behind by something and your dead. Not even a chance to turn around and see what it was. One hit kills like that are infuriating.

Also the one other thing is the zombies when they grab you...there is a tiny window of your reach, and I am talking about longer reach weapons here, and then being close enough to grab you meaning you have to stab a key other than the three your fingers are on. Stabbing in the dark. Lol. This is obviously one of those console cross over things I wish to god they would leave with the consoles.

Still, once I find a Katana that will cease to be a problem, lol.

Other than those few everything else works very well. Graphics are noticeably better than Riptide but not quite as good as I thought they would be.

Now I did do an earlier video which recorded for a fair old while before I realised the counter had stopped. I then could not find said video and forgot to record any others until last night.

So here are a couple of videos of my in a gas station looking for Bus batteries and dispatching zombies and I think there is a section at night where I wait for morning to get to a supply drop ...

Oh yeah and those ... bloody annoying supply drops. Things are so hectic you fail to notice when they are dropped most of the time. You get half way there taking damage only to see they have been stolen.

Added to this I waited it out at night because one landed nearby.

I got to the building it was on and was the only one there and was walking around the base of the building, turned out to have a quest inside it where you wipeout the zombies, and while figuring out how to get up there that damned message came up 'Airdrop Stolen'?!

Oh? By, WHO?! WILLOW THE WHISP?!

Suddenly my brain now ignores the airdrops because your not racing against the thugs to get to them your racing against an imaginary timer you cannot see. This was not implemented very well.

Techland have continued to improve on their games and even Gunslinger was good, just way too short. But before they reach heights of titles like Dragon Age Inquisition, Skyrim, Fallout and Deus Ex they have to be a bit more focused in implementing some of their ideas.

Maybe the next one may reach gaming nirvana but that focus for me is now on the news that Deus Ex Mankind Divided, follow up to Human Revolution, is on its way. Also I have a funny feeling that in just 6 weeks time we are going to find out that Fallout 4 is also on its way. With this and the possibility that Dead Island 2 has the possibility to exceed Dying Light, only a possibility mind and not one I think it will do but hope it does, it truly is a very good time to be a gamer. Finally we may see that initial Tsunami of next generation games on the titles we have all been waiting for?

However with Techland and Dying Light the sound is one area they need absolutely no help with. Moody, spooky and with a John Carpenter like sound that makes you feel like you in a classic zombie film just like Riptide.



Wednesday 15 April 2015

CD PROJEKT SEE RED

I have just been stumbling around getting through The Witcher 2 as if I ended up buying The Witcher 3 The Wild Hunt I did not want to do this without completing the second one.

Now I am not being funny here but I discovered in The Witcher 2 the worst piece of gaming, coding and design I have ever come across in a computer game. The Witcher 2 does have its good bits but unfortunately has its bad ones too and I wanted to type this out and post it while it was still fresh in my mind.

I have absolutely no clue how in the world they managed to make the mistakes they did and I am at a loss to know why these games have such a following, I really do not. All I can think of is that they are all ten year olds because no one with any intelligence would be raving about these games.

Now the worst game design I ever come across in my life was in The Witcher 2 and it was the fight with the Kayran. Console crap, is all that I can say and if games on consoles have a lot of this sort of shite I would rather be thrown from the Tower Bridge than ever own one.

When I came across that...BOSS fight, I absolutely hate badly designed boss fights but this won a crown way above anything else. Press this at this moment, watch what yourt doing while your being bounced all over the place, then press that and watch what your doing when you involuntarily grab this arm and are now being flung through the air though you did not do this but now your supposed to know that was going to happen then you have to press this and then that at exactly the right times and your supposed to telepathically know this!

Morons!

Jesus Christ people exactly where did you get your ideas about game design?!

I ended up not playing it any more for several months and eventually went back and somehow stumbled through it and to this day I have no fecking idea how I did that. THATS NOT GAMING!

After this I then spent days, real days, going in and out of Flotsam checking every area and must have traversed the entire forest a dozen times, ooh that's fun. "Look for an excuse to travel up the Mystic River, don't forget there might be a second boat" or some vague shite. What the feck?! As it turned out I had not put something in this post box, which incidentally I spent fecking days trying to find...yeah a small box on someone's table next to another that looks just like it, of course it fecking does! God help the postal system in your country maties, its bad enough here and the post boxes are 6 foot tall and bright red! But the game did not explain this, it told me to look for a fecking excuse to...oh you know the rest. Only thing is when I realised that I had to put something in the box I could not highlight the post box at all?! Swear to God! I kept talking to him, standing one side of the table, the other side of the table and all it did was highlight the other effing box. I must have done something obscure because after going in and out of there several times eventually it suddenly asked if I wanted to put the damn book/notes whatever it was, I had forgotten what it was I had been at this for so long, in the box?! What the FECK?!

I thought now that I have managed to do that I will go onto a bigger map than this piddly small one and it will become enjoyable again? Err ... NO!

Next thing I knew cut scene, follow a dwarf, cut scene, some talk with someone, cut scene, fight you have no control over, cut scene (Jesus Christ ENOUGH with the consecutive cut scenes it is amateurish) then I fall with this guy Letho into what looks like a tiny space that two cats could not have a punch up in and before I know it I am hit with a blast.

To cut a long story short no matter what I do I am seriously kicked the shit out of until a dozen times with me dead and his health barely moved I realised that it was very possible that in the same effing game CD Projekt Red, I was seeing red by now let me tell you, had beaten the crown for the worst game design ever with the following and abysmal boss fight with Letho?!?!

A quick look online on my tablet and just like the Kayran fight and the bloody damned post box confusion and not understanding where to go and what to do next there was big issues with the Letho fight.

I watched one guy fight Letho on YouTube who was talking about it being easy...well sorry you idiot it was completely unclear in your video what the feck you were doing and you did not explain yourself.

Eventually one guy stated that you needed to take a few potions ... Golden Oriole and a few others things and I thought, yeah I will try that...

Into the game and the fight ... ooh wait a minute I cannot take those as you have to do this stupid meditation before you drink. If there were Witchers then no owner they are all dead ... dehydration I would wager?! LMAO!

Oh for the love of God man...now I have to go back a saved game, how badly designed and amateurish this is worse than the Kayran and I did not think that was possible?!

Ooh feck!! It saved in a fecking cut scene, are these morons on drugs?! Leave it to play through, maybe there is a section I can them meditate and drink the potions? Oh now it wont let me do that because I am holding Iorveth I think? Oh I will go back to the third from last save then?

Oh, a cut scene! Remain calm!

Fifth save back and YES!!

Quick drink the potions!! Right now follow the Dwarf whose name I have forgotten to Iorveth ... ooh fuck I forgot about this monster crab like thing?!?! Battle over and I have used up half  the time with the three potions...what a waste, I did not need them for this fight I beat it before without any potions! Jesus...where do these people get there game designers from?

Ooh great...now I have to go through all these other cut scenes again.

Fall into the tiny ampitheatre and FIGHT!

Eh?! I just got my arse kicked again?! These potions have done nothing (ooh I forgot I took three more before the fight)! Jesus effing christ, why do people like these games?!

Ooh now thats fair, this guy is super witcher and I am crappy witcher ... hmm must be end of the game boos fight to be this hard?! Ooh I have just noticed that the glowing thing is a force field thats unpenetrable?! Well thats fair?! Wankers! Oh now, will you look at that?! After the force field goes he only needs three seconds before hge can put it back up again?!?!

Jesus, CD Projekt Red must all be on drugs to think this is good game design worthy of releasing?! Ooh is this why it was not on any of the big game client programs of Steam, Origin and UBI Soft? My God if you cannot get on UBI Soft it must be bad? Lol!

Ooh wait a minute if I cantinue to roll around him I can then hit him fro behind and if I keep doing that ... oh now would you look at that?! He is about to cast some power blow thing in the wrong direction and suddenly he is in the right direction and that despite the fact I am doing an extremely fast roll he hits me mid somersault, sends me flying across the room and knocks a shit load of health off me?! Jesus these guys are idiots, they truly are!

Ooh would you look at that?! Just like when Letho is suddenly facing in the right direction to blast me with whatever it is he can do the same with sword strikes and blocks too?!

MORONS!

Oh and each time I get his health down to about 75% he suddenly goes into over drive despite much lower health and therefore energy than when he started and starts coming up with all kinds of tricks and ... oh ... I am dead ... and dead ... and dead again!

That is it!

Despite the fact it was the last game I reinstalled, I wont get into the fact that when reinstalled I had a problem as it was the only game that refused, or turned out did not fecking know, where the saved games were, I am now going to give up on it as its physics is shit, its design is shit, the bosses are really badly designed and the physics...well ... lol. The map is shite,l the HUD is shite the controls to do things are confusing and unclear.

The list of really badly designed things are endless.

A real shame is it has a good look and great characters...but great characters do NOT make a great game I am afraid and that is that ... even if your some idiot fanboy like those that crow on about this CPU or that GPU ... sorry but your clueless about these processors and use facts based on software you do not understand to run something down or talk something up you know nothing about. Lol.

My good God how I groan at some people and there incessant desire to want to be seen or known as an authority or highly intelligent when they are clearly not.

I also wonder if we have too long to go before someone steps in with these games labels and state that enough is enough?!

However the one thing I have noted in life is that they never do until its too late and then go..

"ooh, I am such a wuss...maybe I should take some of your taxes to look like I am looking after your interests and then do nothing while these vampires working for these companies shower me with free stuff and dinners in swanky restaurants where they offer me back-handers?!"

Ooh sorry, I was thinking of several other things I am involved in on another blog several of which get exposed this year, 2015.

No none of that is going on in the gaming industry...or lying, cheating or releasing shit while getting in millions just because they are impatient and are such a big organisation they fully deserve your money and it's there God given right to con you out of it?

No, I have no idea if that is what has been going on and I have no evidence of it and nor have I looked to acquire evidence. Ooh well I did go after something with UBI Soft concerning some design in a game and transactions that seemed to be targetted at children. But I have two dozen battles going on in other areas with around 100GB of evidence including guilty parties, even Doctors who swear hippocratic oaths, admitting to the corruption and falsifying of evidence.

Then there are the court cases...four thus far and one very big one running for three years but really over twenty years about to end this month. before you wonder that is a victory for me too and that is 5 out of 5 and 100%.

Oops I digress!

Yes I could not possibly look into other areas like gaming because of all that and ... err ... wait? Many of my other battles all end in the coming months and in around 4 months time I realise I am going to have very little to do?!

Hmm...well it has all been rather knackering, not here but the MAIN damned blog, and I do need a holiday and maybe when I have had a rest I may just turn to other areas?

After all I have acquired a knack for exposing some pretty awful things, heinous crimes and corruption as well a a few scams with some of the biggest names in the UK and even a few big names across the world.

The funny thing is that if I were to turn to the gaming industry I am dead certain that Electronic Arts, UBI Soft, Steam and whoever else is out there would think themselves so big and me so small that there would be no competition?

Yeeahh only the others thought that ... were BIGGER than you and the end result was ... INEVITABLE!

Lol!

No I wont be buying The Witcher 3. Not after those two boss fights unless I read that there is none of this crap GTEs and cut scenes. I suggest if you want to persist with them you pick up a copy of Dragin Age Inquisition to see how it is done professionally ... and well!